Ryan's World of Nonsense

Myself (left) with a cosplayer (right) Yep. It's true. I went to an anime convention. You can't believe it? Neither do I! Given that I'm a 20-year-old Asian nerd that does engineering in uni, you'd expect me to be familiar with stuffs like that (just like my fellow Hong Kong friends). But no, I have no idea what's the hottest anime on right now, and I still don't understand people's obsession of them anime girls. The last anime I've watched is either One Piece or something to do with Gundams. My dad used to play it on his iPad, and I'd watch along on how Luffy smashes someone's head in or how Gundams are shooting at each other in outer space.  "Gawr Gura", one of the most famous virtual YouTubers In recent years these anime girls and getting more and more popular. One example would be the rise of "VTubers". I've once discussed "VTubers" (Virtual YouTubers, i.e. those anime girls doing livestreams of themselves p...

Class 196s at Shrewsbury Station Last month, I was all the way up in Birmingham to attend an event. I thought this would be a great chance for me to have a look at West Midlands' Civity units.  Now, the West Midlands Railway (WMR)'s Civity units, built by CAF and identified as the Class 196s, are purchased to replace the Class 170s, which used to serve the Wolverhampton–Shrewsbury line. The 196s currently run between Nuneaton and Leamington Spa, Birmingham and Hereford, and Birmingham and Shrewsbury, which is the service that I'll be reviewing in this post.  The last time I was on a Civity unit was all the way back in April 2024, while I was travelling in South Wales. I was onboard a packed class 197 from Cardiff to Swansea. As the train is completely full, there's not much of a chance to do a proper review. But if you're interested in my Wales trip, click here . 196113 at Birmingham New St, plat. 4C Anyway, I made my way to Birmingham New Street Station on a sunny ...

  Texas Instruments CD74HCT7046A Phase-Locked Loop IC Phase-Locked Loops. You probably wouldn't have heard of it unless you're studying electronics (like me) or you're extremely enthusiastic about such topics. It's just one of the many unsung heroes that quietly sat somewhere in your phone or computer, quietly keeping the components within to function properly without you knowing. In this post, I'd like to talk about this special circuit and how it revolutionised FM signal demodulation. But first, let's have a look at what a Phase-Locked Loop is: A Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) is a circuit that synchronises two signals (an input signal and a reference signal) so that the two signals will have the same frequency and phase. (The position of the wave, e.g. If two people are jumping side by side on a trampoline and they both go up and down at exactly the same time, their jumps are in phase (perfectly aligned); If one person is going up while the other is going down, thei...

  Hovertravel Griffon 12000TD "Solent Flyer" Hovercraft Back in December last year, I had the chance to ride on the UK's only commercial hovercraft service that runs between Southsea and Ryde, connecting the Isle of Wight with the mainland. This service, as I'm writing this post, is the only regular scheduled passenger hovercraft service in the UK that operates every single day. It's also the fastest way to get from the Isle of Wight to the mainland, with a crossing time of about 10 minutes. (The Wightlink high-speed catamarans take about 22 minutes from Portsmouth harbour to Ryde Pier Head) The SR-N1 prototype hovercraft. Credit: RAF Museum Now, the concept of hovercrafts is definitely not something new. It came up in the 50s and the first prototype (the SR.N1) took flight on 1959. But if hovercrafts are so much faster than conventional boats, that actually has to wade through waters, why aren't hovercrafts dominating the world of sea transportation?  With th...