TIM started practicing 18-meter recurve target archery with a left-handed bow since 2009, and was ranked third among his teammates in an inter-school target archery competition the following year.
At school, each student uses a unique set of fletching and nocks such that the shooter of every single arrow can be recognized even when they hit the wrong target. In tournaments, the arrows are crested on the shaft to identify the shooter for correct scoring. The bullseye scores the same as the 10 ring, but determines the winner in case of a tie.
It is vital to stretch shoulders, arms, wrist, fingers, and back muscles before shooting, especially after long hours studying and working on coursework projects in front of a computer.
Trivia: his sight pin adjustment matched his GPA.
In a team of 6, TIM developed an archery-themed Xbox Indie game as a coursework project in 2013. With absolutely 0 console development experience, it took them 5 days and 4 nights to implement all features: aerodynamics, collision detection, skinned animation, controller input, tactile feedback, sound effects, particle system, etc.
Without actual tension, the game controller can only provide vibration feedback. The game focuses on field strategy rather than shooting skills.
Delivering the best project in class, the team was nominated for an interview by TVB News "Finance Magazine".
Trivia: to show a handsome pose on TV, Tim used his non-dominant eye with a right-handed bow due to camera angle.
"Like an archer who wounds at random is one who hires a fool or any passer-by." - Proverbs 26:10
"One who hires The Ingenious Man is like an archer who hits the bullseye on first shot." - TIM
ABRSM Piano Grade 8
ABRSM Euphonium Grade 5
ABRSM Trombone Grade 5 with Distinction
Ungraded
"The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang: 'He is good; his love endures forever.' Then the temple of the LORD was filled with the cloud," - 2 Chronicles 5:13
"Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre," - Psalm 150:3
In the beginning of the pandemic, many flights were canceled, leaving behind many expired airline meals. TIM collected some and reheated them at home.
Fresh airline meals expire in 24 hours after preparation for safety reasons, but it is fine to consume them on ground.
"Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything." - Genesis 9:3
"Thank God for the ingredients, thank the cook for cooking." - TIM
The driving test in Taiwan is much stricter than that in Hong Kong, and is getting even stricter to compensate for compromised road designs.
Like becoming a pilot, one must pass a body check for visual acuity, color vision, night vision, field of view, spatial hearing, gripping ability, and functioning limbs, before obtaining a Taiwanese driving license, even for conversion from a recognized foreign license.
Like in a preflight inspection, the examinee must check the surroundings, underside, and tires for foreign object debris or abnormalities explicitly, and then look out for passing vehicles or pedestrians before opening the door to take the driver seat. After adjusting the seat, headrest, and mirrors, the test taker must fasten the seatbelt properly and check instruments explicitly like a pilot does. All procedures are for safety.
In Hong Kong, the engine could already be running with air conditioning to welcome the examiner on a hot summer day, and the test venue may not include both perpendicular and parallel parking slots.
Riding a motorcycle in crowded roads requires good balancing for smooth flow of traffic. To pass the road test, the examinee has to balance through a long narrow beam very slowly with both legs firmly resting throughout.
Mastering throttle control is the foundation to all maneuvers and safety.
"I'm about to gather my people from all the lands where I've driven them in my anger, wrath, and great indignation. I'll bring them back to this place and let them live in safety." - Jeremiah 32:37
TIM achieved band 8.0 (very good user) on IELTS™ Academic.
TIM achieved 990 (gold) on the TOEIC® Listening & Reading Test.
"Now the whole world had one language and a common speech." - Genesis 11:1
It is cost effective to use light sport aircraft in designated airspaces for training ab initio. 👛
It is very affordable for Hong Kong tourists to obtain LSA flight experience and/or formal training as part of a trip to Taiwan. It only takes a type-rated operator license to fly solo in light sport aviation airspaces.
Trivia: TIM started piloting before driving.
💪 Transition from ground effect during takeoff is prominent via Q feel on the simulator control column. The pedals are also quite stiff at high speed.
Trivia: TIM first entered a real Boeing 747-136 flight deck in 2006.
When the first officer performs a takeoff, thrust control is transferred to the captain once takeoff thrust is set. Failing to do so may slightly increases one's heart rate. 💓
While nav data and sceneries are up-to-date, some visual references for special approaches may be missing in the simulator. Nevertheless, a romantic sunset vista can be configured.
🙃 The Texan can withstand up to +4G during a barrel roll, in which the G is always positive.
No fixed base flight simulators can sustain G forces, not even the level D ones. One must fly in real life to experience it.
An instructor license is required to fly with a passenger or student pilot.
"Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." - Isaiah 40:30-31
"May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge." - Ruth 2:12
TIM was involved in building the web browser version of a beauty app when only its Android and iOS versions were available.
Trivia: non-managerial staff of the COSSIP team fully consisted of girls until TIM joined; the director is also called Tim Wong.
Before TIM could join the COSSIP team, he had to implement a data grid widget with sticky headers and frozen columns for a flexible line-of-business app platform.
After the internship, he implemented more widgets and plenty of ad-hoc solutions.
Before graduation, TIM continued to provide ad-hoc solutions for side projects of the same employer. One of them was actually adopted in his colleague's wedding party. Guests could pick a frame and take a selfie in front of the machine and get a beautiful printout instantly, or scan a code to download the composite.
Before TIM could really join the COSSIP team, he spent 3 weeks in extending a social media platform monitoring system to cover broader sources of voices. After that, external factors still require TIM to patch the system from time to time. It is crucial to accurate inference of critical market insights by the analytics team.
"For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you." - 2 Thessalonians 3:7-8
"Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." - Proverbs 31:9
Rice, oil, and some other food were packed as souvenirs for residents in a slum.
Trivia: the souvenirs were packed in plain black plastic bags reusable as trash bags.
A census was conducted in a slum for a non-profit organization to better serve the locals.
Trivia: mothers in the slum had to breastfeed openly, and many baby boys were fully naked.
HIV-positive kids were taught some English vocabulary through fun activities.
Trivia: "ox" in Khmer (គោ) sounds like "go" and oxen in Cambodia look quite similar to goats.
With Khmer interpreters, TIM was able to teach Cambodian kids to create animations.
Trivia: kids preferred using the tiny trackpad on the laptop rather than the mouse on the floor.
"The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'" - Matthew 25:40
"He will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." - Matthew 25:45-46
For 2 school years, TIM read English story books with Cantonese-speaking primary school students, and made English reading a fun experience for them.
Hong Chi Pinehill No. 2 School is a special school that provides education and accommodation to children with severe intellectual disability aged between 6 and 18.
TIM performed several stage magic tricks to deliver the message of Christmas in the first morning.
The second morning is credit-bearing, and students had to host game booths.
TIM guided some primary school students in a poor district to make good use of technology.
TIM lectured primary school students on why cumulonimbus clouds may cause diversion and disruption in smooth airport operation. Students were then taught to implement procedures for a drone to execute, including response to dynamic inputs while airborne.
Students divided into groups then attempted to program the drone to fly a planned route with the ability to avoid cumulonimbus blocks unpredictably placed by the opponent group.
While all groups were able to make the drone fly a planned route, only few could make it respond to environmental changes in time.
Trivia: the facilitators were IT graduate trainees at a local international airline.
"Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it." - Proverbs 22:6
At the time of filming, TIM also happened to be studying form 5 as the protagonist Desmond Law in the plot. Unlike Desmond, TIM always won a medal in hurdles races at school, although bronze every time.
Trivia: teachers and schoolmates were surprised to see TIM and two others on the big screen, because we were selected by an independent talent agency without informing the school; more classmates visited the cinema later on to count my occurrences.
"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air." - 1 Corinthians 9:24,26
For "Country Park = BBQ site?", TIM and his team won the Distinction Award in Think Again Awards Documentary Making Competition 2008, which is rebranded as ThinkSeries Video Competition in later years.
For "A language you may never learn completely.", TIM and his partner were shortlisted as presentation finalists to compete for the Best Presentation Award, and finally won the Top 2% Distinction Award in ThinkGRE@T Awards Snapshot Competition 2008, which is rebranded as ThinkSeries Snapshot Competition in later years.
Trivia: TIM originally turned down the presentation opportunity due to a biannual concert rehearsal, but managed to rearrange his time.
TIM learned to produce reversal films during his A-Level Chemistry class, although he failed the year-end exam and thus had to drop the subject or repeat the year.
First, the negative image is developed but not fixed. Then, it is bleached and washed. Finally, re-expose the film to light and process it like a normal negative. Anna, the narrator in the documentary, is revealed on the left in the reversal film.
Under exceptional arrangements, TIM was allowed to take A-Level Computer Studies not offered by the school. Now that HKCEE and HKALE are replaced by HKDSE, TIM has become the first and last student entered to A-Level Computer Studies in his school's history.
"Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked." - Luke 6:31-35
ASP.NET Core is a cross-platform .NET framework for building modern cloud-based web applications on Windows, Mac, or Linux.
S2 is a library for spherical geometry that aims to have the same robustness, flexibility, and performance as the very best planar geometry libraries.
"For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope." - Romans 15:4
The team that solved the most number of problems, on which spent the least amount of time, and with the fewest attempts would win. Colored balloons would be raised at each team's desk to indicate the problems they had solved correctly, until the final 30 minutes when the live leaderboard would also stop updating. Since nobody solved all problems by then, it was uncertain who the winner was until the banquet, which used to be buffet style in previous years.
Back to the survey camp, TIM had to analyze field observations (traverse, leveling, radiation) by his groupmates. At the scale of their project, the accumulated error must be within a few millimeters.
To prevent redoing leveling due to erroneous readings on the staff (i.e. scaled rod), TIM requested the observer to take the value at all 3 crosshairs and used his app on location to verify the center value.
Winning first runner-up in the local contest, TIM's team was fully sponsored by the department to enter Asia Chiayi Regional Contest in Taiwan. However, TIM and one of his teammate were in their sandwich year for full-time industrial placement. Even using unpaid leaves for intensive training, they could not beat other opponents.
Nonetheless, the banquet and breakfasts were buffets.
To mitigate illiteracy in mainland China, a professor wanted to establish a Chinese learning system for students with dyslexia and/or dysgraphia. He assigned an assistant to guide TIM and 4 other classmates to create a prototype for a service outsourcing innovation competition at Wuxi. They won a "second prize", and the interview with Xinhua News Agency attracted multiple coverage, e.g. Phoenix TV, CYone, FMCoPRC.
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." - Philippians 2:3-4
"Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'" - Matthew 19:26
There are two major components in a speech recognition system, an acoustic model and a language model. TIM focused on training accurate and efficient Cantonese acoustic models in his final year project, while other research assistants worked on the language model. The ultimate goal was to serve students with dysgraphia, and the short-term goal was to get TIM an A+ grade.
Trivia: TIM picked this topic intending to source a technology for ATC speech recognition, but later learned about CPDLC and ACARS.
Continuing on the results of his final year project, TIM was provided with a team of experts to author a conference paper. Being rejected once, the team did further experiments and refined the thesis. The paper was finally accepted in LREC 2016, before TIM graduated from his bachelor's degree. It is later cited by other papers.
After consulting an education psychologist and some teachers, a prototype was distributed to students with dysgraphia for testing. While that version works standalone, an online version was available for public demo. Multiple acoustic and language models are created to fit various use cases, e.g. academic, court proceedings. They must be able to run in an isolated sandbox due to security reasons.
"His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus, 'but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him." - John 9:2-3
"The glory of young men is their strength, gray hair the splendor of the old." - Proverbs 20:29
"For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." - 1 Timothy 4:8
"In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps." - Proverbs 16:9
"Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans." - Proverbs 16:3
"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, 'This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.'" - Luke 14:28-30
A couple of months before Flight Sim Expo 2018, TIM reached out to an emerging flight simulation network while he was struggling with its competitors. Learning that they had troubles prototyping a demo of radio line-of-sight effects, TIM offered to figure it out with their radio engineer. The missing pieces were then identified, and they managed to start testing the prototype in two weeks.
Expo participants could experience the pioneering technology in person and sign up for early access. Owing to heavy community pressure, a major competitor claimed they had also been working on the very same technology for years and was getting close.
In addition to basic line-of-sight, several other properties of electromagnetic wave propagation also contribute to the attenuation and distortion of radio signal. A major one is diffraction over terrain / water surfaces. Its effect is especially prominent between transceivers in mountainous areas, as well in ground operations at huge aerodromes with many buildings.
Applying the knowledge from his double-degree in computing and geomatics, TIM deployed a terrain model into the system and devised an efficient algorithm to compute the physics simulation.
"May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands." - Psalm 90:17
"Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load." - Galatians 6:4-5
At the age of 9 years, TIM won an English dictionary with his sister in a web design competition by creating a website exploring Stanley, Hong Kong.
Trivia: during the pitch, TIM admitted that they used software of the organizers' competitor to produce some of the assets.
A year before graduating from secondary school, TIM worked with a graphics design alumni of the same age to build a website and content management system for the parent-teacher association of their school. The association then awarded them a scholarship for the cutback on outsourcing, which would otherwise cost at least thrice.
"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." - James 1:17
"Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ." - 1 Peter:10-11
During a lonely two-week quarantine right before Christmas, TIM digitized 3 carols and performed with multiple instances of himself. A different style is adopted in every composition.
Owing to limited resources available in the quarantine hotel room, TIM could only finish editing and publish the first verse of each one by Christmas Eve.
"Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.'" - Luke 2:13
By the concept of Zoë, TIM's team became one of the top 4 professional teams to enter the final round pitches in Cathay Pacific 24-hour Hackathon 2018, first time with non-students.
During the first 12 hours, they had absolutely no feasible idea of what to implement. Even though the organizer arranged several experience days to reveal quite a number of unresolved problems, they also explained why certain solutions would not fit the image of the company. TIM's team then decided to put themselves into the shoes of the travelers instead of service providers, and finally came up with a prototype that impressed the judges.
After the first round of closed presentation, TIM thought it was over and went to enjoy the free buffet, during which he missed a call, with his teammates. Before they could finish, they were called again for pitching as a top 4 finalist in front of everyone.
Welcome by the organizer, TIM was zealous to join again in 2019 and got to visit the heart of Cathay Pacific Catering Services where he learned how existing technology improved the productivity of the company in recent years while many mission critical procedures still relied on error-prone manual handling.
Although TIM had a proof of concept to solve one of the unsolved problems, the actual competition was canceled at last minute due to a last minute political threat. Each candidate was compensated by a short or medium haul round-trip staff ticket in 2020.
"And so you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. Stand firm, and you will win life." - Luke 21:13-15,19
"Stand firm, and you will be Zoë." - TIM
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