Medicine, Music, & Musings
Category: trivia
Introduction Many in society repeat ad nauseam how it's a person's personality that truly matters, perhaps in an attempt by their holier-than-thou attitude to demonstrate that they transcend the reality of the 'superficiality' of physical features. What's funny is that it's almost never the people who are conventionally unattractive that say that 'looks don't matter'. … Continue reading 04(14): What objectively determines the physical attractiveness of a man’s face?
Dear 6-year-old Nicholas, I am you from the future, specifically 24-year-old Nic. It must be freaky and overwhelming to receive this letter. In fact, the contents of this letter may be a little challenging to understand at your age, so don’t be afraid to ask Dad and Mom to help explain some of its contents … Continue reading 04(04): A letter to 6-year-old Nic
I need to ensure the question to which I am giving my response is the same as the question that another party might be asking. It is easy to take for granted that both the former and the latter are always equivalent. They are not always the same, given the different lenses through which people … Continue reading 02(05): Are there really different types of intelligence?
Today is March 14, which can be written as 3/14, and these digits correspond to the first 3 digits of the mathematical constant which is defined as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, at least in the decimal system that we human beings have arbitrarily chosen to adopt. π is … Continue reading 02(02): Pi day
My Primary One English teacher was addressed by us students as Mdm Siti. In secondary school, I had a Chemistry teacher who wished to be addressed as Ms Ngo. Then, when I was in Primary Four, I had a teacher who was to be addressed as Mrs Loh. On the other hand, addressing my male … Continue reading 01(21): Ms, Miss, Mrs, and Madam. What’s the difference?
Have you ever wondered how the digits and letters within your NRIC relate to one another? The most recent news shrouding the NRIC concerns the nature of its collection, use, and disclosure. According to a Straits Times article published last August, it will be illegal for organisations to collect, use, or disclose NRIC numbers or … Continue reading 01(19): How to determine the last NRIC letter from the starting letter, and digits
Excuse the pun. I just had to do it. In Singapore, we drive on the left side of the road. As such, people use the right lanes for overtaking, and so, it is natural for expressway exits to branch out from the left-most lane on the highway, so that cars on the right lanes can … Continue reading 01(18): The last right-side expressway exit left in Singapore
As I hopped on to my computer to conduct a search on Google this morning, I noticed that today's doodle featured lanterns. Did you notice that there is a pig in lieu of what would be the second letter 'o'? Hahaha. In Singapore, people are busy with their work and school and oftentimes, if there … Continue reading 01(16): Lantern Festival – the Chinese Valentine’s Day
I used to wonder why the train ride between Caldecott (CC17) and Botanic Gardens (CC19) was unusually long (5-min) while taking the train home from school. I looked at the MRT network map and then realised that there was a skip from CC17 to CC19! Usually, train rides are 2-3 minutes. Sometimes, they can be … Continue reading 01(12): Why isn’t there a CC18 on the Circle Line?
People in their early twenties will remember Disney's High School Musical series. The first of the existing HSM trilogy was released on 20 January 2006 as a Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM). It has been the most successful DCOM yet. Songs from its soundtrack such as 'Breaking Free' and 'We're All In This Together' became … Continue reading 01(11): How this song’s title (‘Everyday’) left me bemused for a long time
As a child, I visited my grandmother weekly and one thing that caught my attention was a calendar with which I was not familiar. Compared to the calendar I was accustomed to, this one had more 'annotations' and peculiar symbols. It looked something like this: This calendar has many names; it is known as the … Continue reading 01(10): Making sense of the Chinese calendar
The tenth and twelfth month in our calendar are October and December respectively. Yet, the prefixes of these months suggest otherwise. Has this ever puzzled you? The prefixes 'oct-' and 'dec-' come derive from Greek and they mean eight and ten respectively. With the prefix 'oct-', you have words such as 'octagon' (an eight-sided polygon), … Continue reading 01(09): On months and seasons
We deal with them all the time. 'Arrghh, I hate Mondays; Monday blues!' is something that is commonly heard. 'Let's have lunch on Saturday'. 'I have dinner with my family on Sunday'. 'I have a dental appointment on Wednesday'. These sentences are not unusual, and we do not give the days' names a second thought … Continue reading 01(08): Days of the week
While learning about watches, I chanced upon the fancy feature of ‘perpetual calendars’. However, before talking about perpetual calendars in watches, I should also discuss annual calendars in watches and watches without either feature. In mechanical/automatic watches without either the annual or perpetual calendar feature, there is a date wheel that adjusts every 24 hours … Continue reading 01(03): Do leap years always occur every four years?
This is something I never noticed until I chanced upon an online article discussing this issue. Upon reading this, my eyes were immediately set upon the dial of my Longines. Indeed, 'IIII' is used instead of 'IV'. I continued reading the article and found it to be intriguing. The link to the article I read … Continue reading 01(02): Why do most timepieces with Roman numerals use ‘IIII’ instead of ‘IV’?
Nicholas Loh 