Discoveries

Can you believe it?? I went grocery shopping on Sunday evening - 10 years after I first started doing it in college, which stopped when I returned to Singapore.

I was walking around in Cold Storage looking for kiwi fruits, seedless grapes, Hawaii papayas and Ribena, when I chanced upon this! It looked so novel and irresistible that I simply had to buy it to try, see that it's like! And the bottle cap - it's so quirky! I thought they phased these out 20 years ago!! :-)

It's a four-pack. The half empty (full?) bottle on the right was drunk by me (burp!).

Oh, here's a real-life shot of my new phone (needs charging every 2 days!)

Please pardon my dirty desk (if you have not noticed, it's supposed to be white Formica).

Ok, pardon my sleepy head. It's way past my bedtime .... koonzzzzzzzzzzzzzz already!

Shaolin: Temple of Zen The Exhibition

Man! This week is just SOOO filled with activities!

Today, I learned that Shaolin is so much more than just gongfu/kungfu fighting.

We have all been hoodwinked!

• The Shaolin martial arts displays that tourists see are actually performed by secular students of the neighboring schools who have shaved their heads and donned monastery robes.
• Shaolin martial monks NEVER spar amongst themselves
• Each of the monks follow their own training, and have their own speciality

Read the newspaper scan posted below for more information (that is if you read Chinese!).

Dad alerted me to this photo exhibition that was featured on Zaobao on Saturday (24-Nov-2007), held by Justin Guariglia (an Italian-American photographer whose passion for Chinese culture drew him to China to study Chinese and marry a Taiwanese wife) in Singapore.

Visit Justin's website!


Location: PageOne bookstore VivoCity
Date: 24-Nov-2007 to 30-Nov-2007
Time: 10am to 10pm (10:30 on Friday and Saturday)

I'd most likely be going after work - join me!

The following article was quoted from ChannelNewsAsia. For posterity, I've taken the liberty to post the full text here after attributing the source (see the link just now):

Mention Shaolin monks and most would associate it with kung fu fighting.

With Jackie Chan and Jet Li acting as martial arts masters in Hollywood movies, most people including US photographer Justin Guariglia equate kung fu fighting with inflicting physical violence on others.

However, this view changed for Guariglia as he was privileged to be the only photographer to be given total access to the Shaolin monks in the famed Buddhist temple in the central Chinese province of Henan after eight years. Most monks and journalists are not given this opportunity as more often than not, only the commercial aspect of Shaolin monks are presented to the masses. This, Guariglia said is an absolute façade, for most importantly, what happens inside the temple is not explained to the people.

Having earned the trust of the monks of the Shaolin Monastry, the photographer who is also a contributing editor to National Geographic Traveller, published a book with pages of photographs, hoping to provide the true definition of martial arts and enlighten the world of the real and rare view of what takes place inside the famed temple and its occupants.

The Shaolin Monastery was built by the Emperor Hsiao-Wen in 496 CE, and the first abbot of Shaolin was Batuo. Batuo was an Indian monk who travelled from southern India over the himalayas and into the Shaolin Temple which ended up being the birthplace of Zen Buddhism and Kung Fu.

Monks consider kung fu the vehicle for Zen and a form of meditation and not violence. The real Shaolin monks that live in the temple study Zen Buddhism and practice classical Shaolin kung fu forms, which are rarely seen outside the temple. These Shoalin monks practice kung fu not for the sake of fighting but for self cultivation.

These monks have not toured in traveling shows since the 1990s and those who perform in various countries, are actually students whose primary role is to entertain the public. These students are trained in schools outside the Shaolin Temple. None of these schools are officially sanctioned by the temple nor are the students trained in any form of deep inner Zen Buddhism, but instead, are taught wushu, a contemporary form of martial arts.

However, the monks aren’t afraid of this misconception that these students are showcasing to the world as they understand through popular culture that it is the sparring in martial arts that captures and holds the interest of people. Thus, such tours will help to keep the name of Shaolin alive in the minds of people, even if its meaning is not exactly whole and right.

Should you want to learn more about the life of Shaolin monks, a talk and slideshow presentation will be conducted by Guariglia on the 21st of November at 6pm at The Arts House.

S-POP HURRAY!

So excited!

Just caught the repeat of S-POP Hurray! on TV just now, and it was great! Brought back so many wonderful memories of songs and singers, both past and present (especially the past). This series of programs aims to showcase the talents of Singapore's Chinese pop industry from the 1980's to the present. Reminds me of all the good times back when I was a kid and teenager (yeah it was that long ago ... )


The TV happened to be on Channel U when I was having a late dinner, and I, seeing that this is a show not to be missed, I immediately started recording with my hard disk recorder (haha, no more fumbling for video tapes along with the cursing and swearing when there is none!). I simply love this gadget!

This 18 installment entertainment series, whose aim is to rejuvenate and encourage the development of the local popular music scene, is a MUST-watch for any fan of local Chinese pop music way back from the xinyao era.

The first 2 installments are 2-hours each presented mini-concert style, so these will be perfect for reminiscing the old, enjoying the current, and previewing the future. I shall continue to record the 2nd installment.

26-Nov-2007: 7pm to 9pm
03-Dec-2007: 7pm to 9pm

The rest of the installments start from 8pm every Monday, till the finale on 23-Mar-2008 (Sunday) where it will be telecast live! from the Singapore Indoor Stadium from 7:30pm. I'll be sure to record that as well!

During this period, there will also be OUTDOOR PERFORMANCES with time and venue to-be-announced! I'll definitely attend if I can make it!

More words are unnecessary - find out all the information you need about the event by visiting the official website linked from the title of this post, or the S-POP logo above.

Now I know what songs I will be singing on my next karaoke outing! :-)

New Mobile - Nokia E65

On the very day that my mobile contract reached 21 months (20-Nov-2007), I headed to the Singtel shop at VivoCity to recontract my mobile plan and get a new handset. As I have been getting quite a number of long incoming calls recently (I expect the trend to continue), I finally decided to switch from my Classic plan (for which I already have the best loyalty price of $21/mth after 7 long years as a customer) to the iOneValue. Darn ... there is no benefit of being loyal these days anymore, be it with an employer, telecoms provider, and sometimes even friends!

Seeing that my broadband subscription has matured as well, I decided to re-contract to a slower 1Mbps plan for $35/mth with one month free subscription instead of taking the free Ethernet ADSL modem/router (I have TOO MANY of these already). Considering the amount of time I spend at home surfing, I really do not need the kind of speeds at 3.5Mbps up and 350kbps down. Paying $10/mth less gives me $120/year that I can use to supplement my health insurance (MediShield/IncomeShield).

Since a few months back, I have already decided on the Nokia E65 over competing choices from Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, Motorola. Reason being it is a capable phone with good enterprise applications and connectivity options, besides being a smart phone which I can write my own applications on (run a web server or something).

My trusty Samsung X210 has served me well for a good part of this year - I have taken good care of it, and it still looks like new. I will still bring it around for a few more weeks as a backup just in case my new phone decides to act up one way or another, like running out of juice. Transferring contacts, fortunately, has been successful, thanks to the ubiquity of CSV export/import capabilities of the phone software among different manufacturers. Outlook/WindowsAddressBook capability is still the 'preferred' way of transferring contacts, but for a hacker like me, plain old CSV still holds a certain charm. My only other gripe is the lack of a good transfer mechanism for SMS messages, so now I have a whole CSV of my old SMS messages in the new phone as a data file. I'd like pointers on transferring SMS messages if there are any.

Since this is my first smart/camera phone, I've had fun taking mug shots of people, associating them with contacts on my phone list, like a child with a new toy. Hee, some things never change.

I am listening to music played (on looping Random Play) on my E65 as I am typing this. I've always wanted to have a all-in-one device that allows me to do everything - phone, camera, storage, music, radio, Internet, PIM, and games - but I fail to realize the catch with these AIO devices - that while they do everything, they do not do everything WELL.

File transfers are slow, even via the USB cable, not to mention the need to install the phone driver on the PC (these can never replace conventional USB thumb drives, so my Cruzer Titanium need not fear being neglected), playing music or games drain the battery pretty quickly (not leaving you much for phone calls), and the picture quality from the camera leaves much to be desired (they are grainy and unfocused). These jack-of-all-trades gadgets are good as backup devices when you do not have your regular camera or MP3 player at hand, but you should get dedicated devices if you want to enjoy the best experience.

The Nokia E65 being rated as the most trendy geek gadget in the mobile phone category was one of the strongest affirming reasons for my decision to get it as my next phone. I find that the other phones from Samsung/LG (too flashy without much substance), Sony Ericsson (good features but too proprietary) not really suitable.

Things I like about the E65:

• sleek, fashionable look
• quadband, 3G support for full world-wide usage (yes, I am a traveler!)
  
• built-in wifi
• camera for taking pictures and videos
• able to read PDF and Microsoft Office documents
• good, strong speakers for playing music
• large screen
• gamut of connectivity features, IR, Bluetooth, USB cable
• support for custom applications written in Java MIDP, C++, and Python (my favourite language, yeah! did I mention I wrote applications for the iPAQ and N70)

Some of my other gripes about the E65:

• lack of a thumb-grip for sliding the phone up and down
• holding the phone with one hand tends to have the index finger covering the camera lens
• lack of FM radio
• lack of stereo headset
• poor camera/picture quality, only 2MP, not 3.2MP
• lack of 2nd camera for 3G video calls
• bundled data cable cannot do charging

As I finish this post, my newly charged phone since this last night is just beginning to run out again. I shall keep playing music from the phone till it's drained and stop typing to charge it.

Hmm ... now the N81 looks rather good too, in terms of features, even though it is bulky and heavy, and it costs the same! Sigh, you can never get good enough I guess :). I shall pine for my next ideal phone which has Wifi, 3.5G, Quadband, FM, MP3, 3.2MP, external memory to be had in 12 months time when I am eligible for another handset upgrade! Right now, the only phone that fits is the SE W960i, but too bad it is LATE! Any other good recommendations?

Random Play

I've learnt something new. Random Play suddenly became infamous thanks to FaceBook.

Thinking that the phrase was quite fun, I tried to edit my profile to include that, but try as I might, the option is NOT showing up for me! So off I went to do some research on the Internet. Turns out that FaceBook users who are not part of a college network (i.e. not college students) are not eligible to list their relationship desire to be Anything I Can Get, or Random Play.

Another comment here.

The argument is, imagine you are a working professional in a 'respectable' multi-national company, or you have already climbed the corporate ladder, taking up leadership positions. Your boss, or subordinates, or even head-hunters find at your FaceBook profile and noticing that you are looking for "Random Play", snigger to themselves in amusement and never look at you the same way at the office again. There goes your promotion AND respect.

Actually, Anything I Can Get is fine, though I don't see it as having any specific meaning. Simply "Friendship" is good enough to mean the same thing. Anything I Can Get borders on desperation - let's be temporary friends, or pen-pals, or have a couple of dates without obligations, I just can't stand being alone!

I don't see what's the big deal with Random Play. In fact, I like Random Play. Life would be so boring without it. Random Play is a good thing, and I highly recommend everyone to Random Play. Millions of people around the world are already engaged in it!

Don't believe me? I've got the most trendy company in the world to back me up.

Other uses of Random Play:

• Online Music Website
• Movie
• Pop/Rock/Reggae Music Band

Radin Mas BMW Adventure Trail

Organised by Radin Mas CC

• Date: Sunday, 02 December 2007
• Time: 8.00am – 1.00pm ( ** Reporting Time at 8.00am sharp ** )
• Reporting Venue: (Start / End Point) Radin Mas Community Club
• Participation Fee: $10 per team
  

Come & explore the division on foot, bus or train. Form a team of 4 people* and enjoy a Sunday morning full of fun, joy as well as win yourselves attractive prizes. Why wait? Registration is now open till 26 Nov 2007. Limited places. so submit your application to Radin Mas Community Club soon!

* Bonus point will be given to team consist of family members especially from 3-tier-family.

Registration / Enquiry
Radin Mas Community Club
1 Telok Blangah Crescent
Singapore 098915
Tel: 62735294
Fax: 62730768

GUEST OF HONOUR
Mr Sam Tan Chin Siong
MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC

Leave me a comment for the registration form, or you can pick it up from Radin Mas CC at 1 Telok Blangah Crescent.

Update: Did you know what BMW stands for? Bus, MRT, Walk! This event is the first of a series of adventure trails which might include food, places of interest, etc.

How Much Do Rankings Matter?

In this year's THES-QS World University Rankings 2007 of the world's top 200 universities, there have been several large changes from last year - the different grading criteria leading to the large shifts in positions of several top universities, including our beloved NUS and NTU.

33= 19= National University of SINGAPORE Singapore

69 61= NANYANG Technological University Singapore
73 77 University of ILLINOIS United States

NUS dropped from 19 to 33, and NTU dropped from 61 to 69. UIUC made slight progress from 77 to 73. (Darn! I should have stayed in Singapore instead of freezing my butt off for 3 years.)

Just last year, NUS was proudly embracing the honor of being the top 20 universities in the world. In fact, as of today, the reference to the 2006 rankings is still on its front page!


Then today's print edition (it cannot be found on the web edition) of 早报 quoted NUS President Prof Shih as saying that the reputation and stature of universities are built over tens, even hundreds of years, and should not be change significantly over just one year. He also reportedly said that NUS would not be taking this year's ranking seriously (article to come). This reminds me of Gold 90.5FM's slogan "Hear only the good stuff!" How typically Singaporean to welcome and applaud only glowing praise from others while downplaying negative reports or criticism.

The same 早报 report also stated, however, that the judging criteria have also changed, so the change in rankings should not come as a surprise. Another accusation pointed out the fact that QS is a British company and this year's report had UK universities occupying 3 of the top 5 (up from 2 in 2006). It's also notable that UK's UCL leap-frogged from 25 to 9 while traditional American powerhouses Stanford and UC Berkeley dropped from the top 10 into the 20's.

How reliable are University rankings anyway, and how seriously should we view them? In Singapore pre-tertiary schools (primary, secondary, JC), standardized tests like PSLE, GCE 'O' and GCE 'A' levels can be used for meaningful comparisons. In this respect, the rankings are meaningful and easy to understand.

At the university level, things get more complicated. The lack of standardized examinations and curriculum make for difficult objective comparisons. Rankings can only be based on subjective measures like opinion polls, where people in industry are asked to rate universities, and faculty are asked to rate other institutions. To inject a slight measure of objectivity,

• the percentage of faculty with PhD's,
• the amount (proportion) of money spent on research,
• the number of papers published (the scale of the conferences at which these papers are presented also matter),
• the number of references from papers published by other institutions

are also taken into account. At this level, results can be influenced by manipulation of numbers without much significant real world benefit to improve a university's ranking. For example, more 'popular' or productive research programs can receive more funding and administrative support, never mind if the papers produced are too esoteric, impractical, or too common-place.

Take a look at America's Best Colleges from the US News and World Report, where the methodology is heavily based on opinion polls, where college deans are asked to evaluate other schools on a scale from 1 to 5.

All that said, the usual wisdom applies - rankings should NOT be taken at face value - people should think about what they are looking for in a university, performing independent research to evaluate the schools. This applies to high-school graduates choosing a college, PhD's looking for research/teaching jobs in university, government agencies or venture capitalist evaluating schools for giving grants/funding, companies looking for academic partners for research collaboration, equipment or monetary donations, etc.

It is important to look at the specific area of interest when choosing a school. For example, a university that is ranked 73 (overall) may actually have one of the best engineering programs in the United States, being consistently in the top 5 among Electrical Engineering and Computer Science programs and being one of the feeder schools of fresh engineers to companies like Intel, AMD, HP, Texas Instruments, etc. It may also have one of the best Agricultural or Mass Communications departments. Or a relatively unknown university in California may have one of the most exciting solid state electronics research departments in the world.

Unfortunately, in 'meritocratic' Singapore, (good) rankings matter most, bad rankings are ignored, and objective evaluations fall by the wayside.

Welcome to Singapore!

Update: I just found this report, linked off Wikipedia, by the Shanghai Jiaotong University (上海交通大学) that puts UIUC at #26 in the Top 100 universities in 2007. Check out their ranking methodology. It's interesting why our Singapore institutions did not quote this report at all. NUS and NTU are ranked #110 and #329 respectively. You can download the full list here.

Personality Assessment Quiz

Imagine you are on a trip around the world in a hot air balloon, when suddenly the balloon starts to sink, as if something on board is overweight. Given a choice, which of the following would you jettison?

1. Camera
2. Clock
3. Luggage
4. Lamp
5. Tin cans

Submit your answers! To be announced in the next (few) installments.

Weekly Updates

Weekly Reports

Don't you just think writing weekly reports is a drag? It is a necessary evil at work, where doing so maintains your chance of survival in the company, but how about in daily life? If your life is so drab, uneventful and boring, what is there to write about, and what business is it of everyone else in the first place?

Fortunately, this is one of those weeks that comes with some discoveries. I haven't been out in a while, and I think it is time for me to catch up with my surroundings and what's happening around me since I am rather free these few days.

Change is the Only Constant

I would like to continue on my time-capsule theme by sharing these pictures of the construction going on in Orchard Road. If this blog is still around when the buildings are half, and fully complete, then I can further post photos of the same scene at those times. Does anyone know what they are building there?

This is taken at the corner of the junction outside Borders and Orchard Boulevard

This is taken from Paterson Road in-between Orchard Road and Orchard Boulevard outside Borders.

Harris bookstore beside Popular at Orchard MRT is closing. Everything is going for 20% off store-wide. There are still some good books there - grab them while you can. It's rather surprising to see them closing shop, but maybe, just maybe, rents are too high (this is Orchard MRT no doubt), and they are selling mainly mainstream books. It make more economic sense to move the business elsewhere and let more profitable/popular businesses (like Popular?) take over the place.

Hmm ... I am wondering, is the rent there really expensive?? Just beside it, there is a discount fashion and shoe shop with hardly any decoration to speak of (is the money saved from lack of decoration the reason why that shop is able to last for so long while other hippy looking shops like Harris are closing??)

Moving Back in Time?

Saw this article in today's 晚报 (yeah yeah, I read such trash)。

Exorbitant prices of bread and ice-cream at a time when the economy is supposed to be booming.

All of a sudden, prices are escalating like crazy - from oil, to flour, and now ice-cream? I was looking for something to eat on Friday night in Chinatown, and settled for my favourite Pad Thai at the edge of the food street. A simple Pad Thai dish ($8) and a Lemon grass drink ($3) costs $11! The place is one major tourist trap! I let it go because I was glad to be satisfying my craving for my tasty 泰式果条, but this is really ridiculous! I miss the good old days when coffee or tea costed 3 cents and a bowl of noodles went for 5 cents.

我的战利品

今天在逛商场的时候看到了几张光碟，结果忍不住就买了整套《咏春》（2007）（上下集）连续剧。真的不敢相信，我竟然买了谢霆锋演出的作品 （这下糟了，肯定得罪锋锋的粉丝了）。那其实也没什么关系，因为我把它当作买给我老爸看的。

精明的读者们就会发现为什么还有一份《杀破狼》的电影光碟呢? 对了！真聪明！那是因为昨天在电视上看了一遍，而且觉得里面的动作场面蛮精彩的。 这张光碟还是未经删剪的呢！一回家就看了，果然是由一些镜头是电视版所没有的。

由此可以看得出我对武术动作片还挺感兴趣的。我本身也学过一年多的咏春拳， 很惭愧得自己还不能成什么气候。应该开始继续练习啦！

Totally unrelated plug: die die must buy Straits Times on Thursdays, throw away all other sections except Urban (cos my friend is in the editing team).

Reflections

I've been carrying my baby around ever since I got it (because it is so small and light!). Many a time, I come across some nice scenery and had a sudden inspiration to take pictures of these places.

No prizes for guessing where this was taken. This is the night-time version of a similar photo taken a couple of years ago. It's very 'interesting' to compare photos of the same place after some time.

Notice how good the partial reflection is at hiding the photographer (me)? I am nowhere to be found!

Here's another photo log of Tiong Bahru estate, which has recently been featured on the Monday, October 29, 2007 edition of "my paper" (我报) for it's attractive yuppie charm.

TiongBahru	WoBaoTiongBahru

Coincidentally, I snapped the photos the previous Sunday, when I passed by the place on the bus on my way home. I suddenly had an urge to take a few pictures of the place/neighborhood where I spent 2-3 years of my early childhood! A lot has changed - the place I used to stay in has been torn down, with only an open field in its place.

Anyone interested to visit Tiong Bahru for the traditional yummy porridge and yuppie style cafes?

One of the antennas atop Mount Faber has Christmas lights! Here are some shots fo the antenna and my neighborhood from my floor. I encourage you step out to take a look at your surroundings from another angle - gives you new perspectives - this also applies to real life when dealing with people and emotions.