Poster: Advent of Tyranny featuring NECROTIC CHAOS

I will be playing guitar for NECROTIC CHAOS.

I will see you all metalheads in Penang this Saturday.

Gempabumi bakal melanda kita

Gempabumi metal.

Seperti yang diketahui ramai, inilah peluang untuk mencuri kedua-dua band ini singgah ke Malaysia. Namun ia bergantung kepada masa free band setelah tour di Australia. Mari kita tengok:

Menurut http://www.boltthrower.com/tour/tourdates.php, BOLT THROWER ada masa free selepas tour Australia.

Menurut http://atthegates.se/shows/, AT THE GATES juga ada masa freeselepas tour Australia. Cuma, selepas tour Australia, ada satu minggu je free.

Ini ada kesempatan terbaik bagi promoter Malaysia untuk curi kedua-dua band tersebut. Kenapa curi? Sebabnya, promoter tak perlu bayar tambang mereka dari negara asal mereka. Cuma perlu bayar tambang dari Australia saja. Kan dari Australia ada AirAsia?

Dan sememangnya, itulah peluang yang dicari oleh promoter kita. Bahkan, bukan saja promoter dari Malaysia saja yang mencuri peluang ini. Indonesia, Singapura dan Thailand juga mencuri. Itu tak masuk New Zealand!

Promoter muzik metal dengan track record dan kapasiti untuk berunding dengan band besar ini tak banyak. Yang kita kenal, cuma organizer/promoter Metalcamp. Track record baik kerana mereka sudah bikin Metalcamp setiap tahun. Tahun lepas bersama Municipal Waste, ingat?

Cuma konfliknya ialah ada dua band besar. Nak dibuat dua kali, mungkin kos terlalu tinggi. Risiko juga tinggi. Maka, keputusan menjurus kepada band mana yang lebih besar di Malaysia.

Jika sanggup ambil risiko, sapu kedua-duanya. Soalan berbalik kepada peminat metal tempatan. Anda mahu pergi membeli tiket untuk kedua-dua band ini?

Saya perbetulkan soalan saya. Untuk memeriahkan scene metal tempatan, sanggupkah anda (peminat metal tempatan) mengeluarkan duit untuk menonton kedua-duanya? Itu kena ambil kira tiket sekeping dalam lingkungan RM100.

Ini mungkin menjadi persoalan yang lebih hebat bagi organizer/promoter kerana merekalah yang akan menanggung segala risikonya.

All the best!

Prof. Pessiki lectures 20th May 2015

THE CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT, UTP presents…

Seminar on Self-Centering Low-Damage Seismic Structural Systems and Post-Earthquake Fire Response of Steel Building Structures

Itinerary 20th May 2015 Seminar Room 1, Undercroft

0900-0930: Registration
0930-1030: Lecture 1
1030-1100: Break
1100-1200: Lecture 2

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. Pessiki has conducted research and teaches courses in areas of behavior and design of structures; nondestructive evaluation of materials and structures; fire effects on structures; earthquake engineering; and innovative building materials and systems. Dr. Pessiki has worked on numerous funded research and laboratory experiment projects. His findings have been published in dozens of conference proceedings and journal publications, in addition to book chapters and technical reports.

Dr. Pessiki is a member of the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI), which awarded him the Leslie Martin Award of Merit in 2006. PCI named Pessiki a Fellow and a Distinguished Educator. He is also a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute. Other honors and awards include Lehigh teaching and service recognition as well as Drexel University's Distinguished Alumni Lectureship, a fellowship from the Japan Society for Promotion of Science, honorary membership in the Brazilian Society of Structural Engineers, and a best paper award from ASCE Journal of Architectural Engineering.

Dr. Pessiki has experience at a variety of prestigious schools. He was a visiting professor at Perdue University, post-doctoral associate and research assistant at Cornell University, and visiting assistant professor at Syracuse University. Prior to his career in higher education, Dr. Pessiki worked as a structural engineer for the architectural firm Kling-Lindquist Inc., which has since evolved into Kling Stubbins. He is a member of the American Concrete Institute (ACI), the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society for Engineering Education, the American Society for Nondestructive Testing, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, and The Masonry Society. He is also a member of Tau Beta Pi and Chi Epsilon.

Lecture 1: The Evolution of Self-Centering Low-Damage Seismic Structural Systems – Concept, Research and Implementation in Practice

Traditional design of seismic resistant systems for building structures have often relied on structural damage (e.g. yielding of steel, non-linear compression response of concrete, etc.) as the intended response of the structure to limit the increase in lateral force and to dissipate energy. The goal of this traditional design approach was life-safety, i.e. to prevent building collapse. Following this approach, a major seismic event can cause significant damage to the structure. This in turn requires extensive repair, or if the damage is severe enough, for the structure to be demolished. More recently, an alternative design approach has emerged that is intended to provide structures that remain damage free and self-center (i.e. exhibit no residual drift) after the earthquake. This presentation describes this alternative approach, reviews some of the research performed on a variety of structural systems in steel and concrete structures, including the results of recent large-scale tests of cast-in-place concrete walls, and presents examples of the implementation of these self-centering low-damage seismic structural systems in actual building structures.

Lecture 2: Post-earthquake Fire Response of Steel Building Structures –Recent Research at Lehigh University

Current building design practice in the United States uses a combination of active and passive fire protection systems to provide structural fire protection in multistory steel buildings. Active fire protection systems include sprinklers and firefighters. Passive fire protection systems are those built into the building system that do no require specific activation, such as sprayed fire-resistive materials (SFRMs). Sprinklers and other active systems are intended to extinguish a fire or to limit its spread, and SFRM is intended to thermally protect structural steel elements during a fire. Past events have demonstrated that earthquakes can cause fires in buildings, damage active fire protection systems such as sprinklers, and reduce the effectiveness of fire-fighting capabilities. In such an event where the active fire protection systems are compromised by an earthquake, passive systems such as SFRM may remain the only available means to mitigate the effects of the fire on the structural system in a building. However, during an earthquake, the integrity of the SFRM may become compromised because of damage to the underlying steel structure to which the SFRM is bonded. For example, for traditional strong-column weak-beam designs, large deformation demands are place on the beams in the vicinity of the columns, which in turn place large demands on the ability of the SFRM to remain attached to the beams. Gravity load frames undergo the same lateral drift as the lateral force resisting frames, and thus are also susceptible to structural damage and damage the SFRM. This presentation discusses the results of recent experimental and analytical research at Lehigh University on the post-earthquake fire scenario in steel frame building structures.

Pensyarah dan kerja konsultansi

Sekadar hiasan

Saya menerima beberapa undangan kerja konsultansi dari rakan2 industri. Ada yang berkait dengan bidang saya (structural/civil engineering) dan ada juga yang tidak berkaitan. Antara request yang dapat ialah; ada tahu sesiapa yang boleh design sekian sekian? Ada kontek sesiapa yang boleh calculate sekian sekian?

Fenomena ini berlaku sejak dua menjak ini menyebabkan saya terfikir:

1. Industri perlukan engineer bertaraf pensyarah untuk kerja one-off. Kelebihan ini dilihat dari segi kos dan kepakaran yang beri advantage kepada company kecil yang tidak mahukan overhead yang tinggi menampung gaji bulanan professional.

2. Ada pensyarah yang bersedia untuk terima sebab extra income juga pengalaman industri yang berguna untuk karier.

3. Perlunya "a group of like-minded" people bagi pensyarah yang berminat dengan kerja2 begini. Setupnya perlu segera, tak banyak cengkadak dan kurangkan birokrasi. Mungkin saya perlu mulakan konsortium ini untuk mengumpulkan pensyarah seluruh Malaysia.

In the end, everyone is happy. Company happy, pensyarah happy, ekonomi pun happy. Universiti di mana pensyarah ini bekerja ini pun happy sebab pensyarah dapat tambah ilmu praktikal tanpa universiti bayar untuk training pun.

Syarat: Kerja hakiki pensyarah di universiti tersebut tak dikacau. Untuk itu pandai2 kena jaga masa dan pengurusan.

Pensyarah yang berminat, boleh email saya. Saya akan mulakan database.

Coffee break at Civil Engineering Dept, UTP

Some time not long ago (it was 2011), the department had scheduled a weekly coffee break and I was the organizer. It ran for a few times before I was the only one left who attended it. Yes, the final session was only me and a cup of hot coffee in the room and I stood diligently for ½ an hour J.  Since nobody was interested, the coffee break session stopped and I took my broken heart away with me.

Anyway, I think, and the department thinks that it is the right time again to start all over. The reasons we are doing this are:

• It is a good culture of the academia (especially western Uni – those who experienced this will understand) to have the session to mingle between the PG students and academics. 
•  Drink tea/coffee, eat cakes (anyone can contribute), celebrate birthdays, newborns, newly married, announcing suprising news (like increased bonus this year) 
•  Have a chat on writings by Stephen Hawking, Al-Ghazali, Karen Armstrong, Ibn Taimiyyah, Luke Skywalker… anything 
•  Etc etc..

And this is informal. No attendance will be taken. No penalty to those who are absent.

So I am keeping the day and time, the same as in 2011 every WEDNESDAY 1010-1040 and the same venue 13-02-09. There are plenty of coffee and (sometimes) biscuits and lollies in the pantry, although you have to line up for the hot water from a small kettle. If you have a class, meeting or any other things, that is too bad but you can always come next week, next month or next semester.

I will shoot an email again on that day to remind. In that email, I will also post some comments on some articles I read that I find interesting. Fortunately, I blogged the emails I wrote in 2011. You can read them at http://krenmaut.blogspot.com/search/label/Coffee%20break

THE DAY OF THE EVENT

 

Assalamuallaikum

Being a bit of a musician myself (previously part-time, now downgraded into a lost cause), musical research will always be an interesting to me to read. Years back, I was very keen to supervise a MSc student to research the underground music movement in Malaysia with Prof Murad Merican.  We even had a candidate ready to register (a school teacher). Unfortunately, it got lost along the way.

Anyway, there was a paper published on musical trend in the USA. Music itself has been debated by philosophers, sociologists, journalists, bloggers and pop stars, unfortunately, not may being explored scientifically. This research, intend to look into the long history of music scientifically. Questions related the increased/decreased of popularity over time, its continuous or rather discontinuity in the evolutionary and when was this happened were tried to be understood. One of the interesting fact of this research was that the tool used to scientifically answer the related questions were previously used in the area of biology/bioinformatics.

The study found that:

1. There are three music revolutions - in 1964 (The Beatles), 1983 (new wave, disco, hardrock) and 1991 (birth of rap). 
2.  Claims that pop music is starting to sound the same, that many has claimed, is refuted. There was no evidence for the progressive homogenization of music in the charts and little sign of diversity cycles within the 50 year time frame of the study. 
3.  Pop music shows a pattern from biological evolution known as punctuated equilibrium, in which periods of gradual change are separated by explosions of complexity (whatever that means!)

Point no 2 is interesting because another study shows that most of us lost interest in new music when we reached the age of 33, simply we thought among others that, new music is getting bland. Although I can fairly say I am not in that category as I am still exploring and listening to new music at the age post-33 :)

The paper can be downloaded for free here http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/5/150081

See you for coffee break!

Day: Every Wednesday (starting 6^th April 2011… revived 12^th May 2015)

Time: 10:10 -10:40am (official time but you can come/leave as you wish in between. Knock every doors, poke all friends)

Venue: 13.02.09

What to do: Bring your own cup of coffee/tea (hot water, coffee and tea available at Level 3 Block 13 pantry)

Coffee break session 13/5/2015. We are going to be great, guys!

• We get to know new students
• We get to discussed about The Beatles and why they are important
• A Palestinian student reported about the current situation in Gaza
• We get to discussed about the importance of reading textbooks and scholarly discussions
• The students get to know that they have to bring their own cup for the coffee/tea for the session :)