Fire

Timeless

The sun has started its journey back across the sky, though only two weeks on from the solstice, the change in direction is barely discernible. The cloud was low but the high clouds were lit up long before sunrise. Resonates deep in the collective unconscious this daily renewal.

Colour of a different kind in the splendid Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. The chanting was particularly fine yesterday, if incomprehensible to me. Maybe the better for being just that.



Then a concert of old music from Southern China, in the afternoon - "Soul Journey" was the concert title. More later on this extraordinary music.

From the BTRTS

From an upper level at the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple (henceforth BTRTS as on the website).

No words needed

As the solstice approaches (24th June?) a picture of the rising sun - I never tire of watching it rise. It now must be close to its most westerly position and will soon begin the trek back for the winter solstice. The angular movement seems far more pronounced in Singapore than ever it was in the UK.


Of late I have been preoccupied with renewing my lease (with a 31% increase, so sharply has the price of property risen since I came here two years ago) and my employment pass, so I am set-up for the final year of my contract. Writing has therefore not been as frequent as it might have been.




I have been spending time in the Buddha's Tooth Relic Temple in Chinatown, a very active Pure Land Temple in the heart of a very busy area. Pictures to follow as I get them together. This reclining Bodhisattva I take to be Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara). It is behind glass and in subdued lighting, but the grace and calm come through.

Phoenix Lander

Ten kilometers up and three minutes to landing, the Phoenix lander drifts down to the surface of Mars. This extraordinary photograph was taken by the high-resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Looking at the simulation of the landing I'm even more amazed at the achievement.

3 minutes to landing

The Mars orbiter presumably "knew", if that's the right word, that the landing was successful before we did on earth. It takes 15 minutes for the signal to arrive on our blue planet.

The strangeness of it all should keep us humble - we exist not by right but by accident.

Arvo Pärt

Listening to Litany by Arvo Pärt, based on the 24 prayers of St. John Chrysostom - one for each hour of the day.

Arvo Pärt in Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin, 2008
(from the Wikipedia entry)

"In the Soviet Union once, I spoke with a monk and asked him how, as a composer, one can improve oneself. He answered me by saying that he knew of no solution. I told him that I also wrote prayers, and set prayers and the texts of psalms to music, and that perhaps this would be of help to me as a composer. To this he said, "No, you are wrong. All the prayers have already been written. You don't need to write any more. Everything has been prepared. Now you have to prepare yourself.""

Arvo Pärt

Another Day

I sit in my humid 7th floor eyrie — the air-conditioning is off overnight — and watch the sun appear. It speaks of times we do not remember, nor need not remember. Each day is new.

Then the faint noise of the air moving from the ceiling.

Financial Spin

From today's on-line International Herald Tribune referring to UBS making another 5,500 redundant:-

"The Swiss bank wrote down $19 billion in soured U.S. subprime mortgage securities and other investments in the first quarter, bringing its total write-downs since the beginning of the credit crisis to about $38 billion."

"write-down", "soured", "sub-prime" — splendid euphemisms, unless you're one of the 5,500.

Long-term storage

An archivist will tell you that hand-writing on good acid-free paper stored well could last 500 years. I doubt that my digital records — text, music, images — will last 10 years. I can still read my microscopic handwriting written over 40 years ago, but have lost endless amounts of digital data through software becoming extinct or media changing, or just not having the motivation to move it on.



I'm always on the lookout for a decent pen, and prompted by a Yorkshire man via a Japanese blog, I found these Mitsubishi liquid ink pens in Kinokinuya. Cheap too.

With my Moleskine notebook, I'm set — I'm training myself to live without a computer. It may take a while, but I can try! Then such irrelevant connections need not concern me.

Then and now

The old shop houses in front of high-density public housing.
From Prinsep Street.

The washing poles retain a touch of stubborness - washing is supposed to be hidden as you may see if you look closely. It's not unknown for things to fall from great heights, and from time-to-time there is an advertising campaign to remind people to be careful. The pole is likely more dangerous than the washing.


HDB public housing must rank as one of the successes of Singapore, given the constraints of space, and certainly anyone familiar with high-rise living in Europe cannot but be impressed.

Land prices have increased sharply over the past year, and housing is now as expensive as in any major city. I am currently negotiating a new lease and find rents have increased 30% to 40% in two years. New land has been released for building and some tax incentives for speculators removed, so it is hoped that prices will stabilise.

Londoners, what have you done?

The election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of one of the world's great cities is depressing, but that's democracy. Maybe he'll rise to the challenges ahead. Ken deserved better.

Humid Day Ahead

While you sleep in the UK, the sun rises in Singapore through the City haze - another humid day ahead.

Oil reaches $120 a barrel — chilled air spills from the department stores cooling those passing-by.

Greed

On the screen was a page never seen before when logging into the bank. Wary of phishing I looked carefully, and it seemed to be OK, secure connection, etc. But you never know, and I noticed in the small print the usual rip-off telephone rate should I be unfortunate enough to need to call and listen to the 100 options at 4p a minute. But what really annoyed me was the set-up charge. What on earth do they do — plugs into switchboards?

"Calls from BT landlines will cost a maximum of 4p per minute and a 6p call set-up fee."

I remind myself that this mischief originates, not with some abstraction "the bank", but with an individual. Maybe they brainstorm new ways of ripping-off the customer.

I must be getting old!

Grain shortage?

Today's on-line edition of the International Herald Tribune (IHT) suggests genetically modified crops may get a better press in this time of rising prices, saying:-

Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops.

But The Economist is direct: "The changes reflect changes in demand – not problems of supply such as harvest failure."

Never take what you read at face-value – nothing in this world is simple. Nor are ad hoc solutions sustainable policy.

Hunger

"Last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16%. These were some of the sharpest rises in food prices ever. But this year the speed of change has accelerated. Since January, rice prices have soared 141%, the price of one variety of wheat shot up 25% in one day"

"The changes reflect changes in demand - not problems of supply such as harvest failure. The changes include ...the sudden, voracious appetites of western biofuels programmes, which convert cereals into fuel."

From The Economist April 19th 2008, "The new face of hunger"

"The middle classes in poor countries are giving up health care and cutting out meat so they can eat three meals a day. The middling poor, those on $2 a day, are pulling children from school and cutting back on vegetables so they can still afford rice. Those on $1 a day are cutting back on meat, vegetables and one or two meals, so they can afford one bowl. The desperate - those on 50 cents a day - face disaster.

Roughly a billion people live on $1 a day."

The Economist, Leader "The silent tsunami" April 17th 2008

Changing Skies

I have an east-facing office on the 7th floor and can enjoy the beautiful skies that often precede the sunrise. One morning last week there was a striking cloud – maybe from a fire somewhere – back-lit by the rising sun.


Soon the upper winds were spreading it out, and within an hour it was gone.


It's very humid at present with almost daily thunderstorms – often timed for when I want to go home.


An umbrella is pointless against this.

Not a ThinkPad - for once!

My latest "toy" is the Asus eeePC. It's a low cost and lightweight "sub-laptop", with in-built wireless, perfect for travel. What is most striking is the very fast boot time (at least for the Linux version), well under a minute. It has no hard disk, but 4GB of solid-state memory and uses the cards common to cameras for expansion.

Asus eeePC

Cost, about S$600 (c. GBP200).

The New Casinos

Wall Street knows no excess. The International Herald Tribune today reports that:

"Combined, the top 50 hedge fund managers last year earned $29 billion. That figure represents the managers' own pay and excludes the compensation of their employees."

That's $580 million apiece, though some "earned" more, some less. The median earnings for an American family over the same period — $60,500.

Jade Mountains

As it's – unofficially – "Blogger Appreciation Day", I'll thank my good Sangha friend and teacher Rev Master Mugo at Jade Mountains for kicking me back into life – without trying to. That's how it works. Moving Mountains is even better in the new format of Jade Mountains, well laid-out and better spaced. It all works!

"Train as though your hair were on fire", she said.

The Lift

My train tonight stopped just opposite the lift, so in lazy-mode, I got in to go down one level to the concourse. Only it didn't. Two gentle drops of foot or so, and we stopped, looking at little more than eye-level along the platform, to the bemusement of waiting passengers. It was one of those lifts on a hydraulic ram so we were not going to plunge anywhere and we were released after ten minutes.

Lift logic interests me. Our laboratories have three lifts at the end of the building, and from the 7th floor, I have come to realize that getting the first lift down to ground can be a mistake, if one seems likely to follow. The first will make several stops, (maximum number seems to be three), whereas the later lift will go straight to ground. Of course, it's a gamble. There must be a whole arcane science of lift programming. What I need is a code to override all settings, something like Ctrl-Alt-Del, but in numbers — straight down, no stops. Maybe it exists?

View from afar

Can we destroy what sustains us?


Sometimes I think we are sleep-walking into disaster, no-more so than with "global-warming", or "climate-change" as the spin-doctors would have it. I was struck by this picture of the earth and moon taken from by an imaging satellite orbiting Mars that trained a camera on its home planet. Strikingly blue and home to a sometimes destructive species, H. sapiens.

I watched a short video clip of Al Gore talking about the crisis we face. He confronts what could easily become despair and offers everyone a challenge. 15 minutes clip - recommended.

London

I was in London last week for a much-needed few days out of Singapore. London may be scruffy in places, people put their feet on the seats and chewing gum is everywhere, but it is alive. I cannot remember a time when Tottenham Court Road was not being dug up, but that inevitability is my landmark. Likewise the deafening sirens from ambulances or the fire service – just ten minutes walking along Euston Road provided an unmarked police car at speed and an ambulance in quick succession. Unlike Singapore, they don't hang around waiting for the lights to change but push through the congestion on the wrong side of the road if necessary.

Euston Road may be an arterial route but has many treasures, including the British Library, The Wellcome Trust and the splendidly renovated St Pancras Station. The Wellcome Trust is now housed in a modern glass and steel building while the renovated original home houses the Wellcome Collection. I was there one day too early for the current exhibition "Life Before Death", a striking topic for our age of permanent distraction. As Rev. Master Mugo comments at JadeMountains, a must-see meditation.

The Wellcome Collection has links to some of the images as does the Guardian.

Further down, past the British Library, is Barlow's great train shed, St Pancras Station, a wonderful example of restoration and remodeling. The cost must have been eye-watering, but the results are stunning. I traveled to Sheffield during the re-construction and saw at least the top-side of a massive civil engineering project.

And it shows the correct time!

William Henry Barlow must be well-pleased with his great train shed.

Return of the Native

From 5th November New Yorker book review section:

"There are nine personal vehicles per thousand eligible drivers in China and eleven for every thousand Indians, compared with 1,148 for every thousand Americans. ~ Were India and China to increase their rates of car ownership to the point were per-capita oil consumption reached just half of American levels, the two countries would burn through a hundred million additional barrels of oil a day".

Just as oil hits almost $100 a barrel, without seemingly anyone caring too much.

Big Sur

Maybe Mars once looked like this!

From a colleague currently in California.

A Vesak reflection

Vesak commemorates the birth, death and enlightenment of the Buddha, more simply "the Buddha's birthday". It is traditionally celebrated on the first full moon of the fourth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. In 2007, there are full moons on both 1st and 31st May - Malaysia chose the former, Singapore the latter. Today is thus a public holiday in Singapore. A much-needed cool breeze is blowing through the open window after a short afternoon storm.

One of the good acts one can do on this day is to liberate caged birds and animals. A time to reflect on some startling figures:-

"Killing for meat takes place on a scale difficult to comprehend. Britain alone killed 883 million animals for food per annum at the end of the century, made up of 792 million chickens, 35 million turkeys, 18 million ducks, 18.7 million sheep, 16.3 million pigs, around 3 million cattle, 1 million geese, 10,000 derr and 9,000 goats. The United States kills 8 billion chickens a year." In Britain that is about 2 million chickens killed every day.

(Source: The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900. David Edgerton, Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 174).

In related vein, "as we multiply, so do all the things associated with us, including our livestock. At present there are about 1.5 billion cattle and domestic buffalo and about 1.7 billion sheep and goats. With pigs and poultry, they form a critical part of our enormous biological footprint upon this planet." In addition, it is estimated that methane production by ruminants contributes more to global warming than does transportation.

(Source: International Herald Tribune, editorial, Dec 28th 2006)

No easy answers.

Silence

"Came up to the hermitage at 4 a.m. The moon poured down silence over the woods, and the frosty grass sparkled faintly. More than two hours of prayer in firelight. The sun appeared and rose at 6:45. Sweet pungent smell of hickory smoke, and silence, silence."

From the Journals of Thomas Merton, March 27, 1964

Holy Week (2)

Timeless Orthodox Chant.

"The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrystostom"

Holy Week

Continued carnage in Iraq: last week the bombers surpassed themselves, slaughtering over 150 and wounding hundreds more, women and children, in Baghdad's crowded the markets. And in this week's New Yorker, under the heading "Betrayed", a grim reflection on the fate of the Iraqi interpreters and others who work for the Americans. Not good.

Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age,
More fortunate, alas! than we,
Which without hardness will be sage,
And gay without frivolity.
Sons of the world, oh, speed those years;
But, while we wait, allow our tears!

From "The Grande Chartreuse" by Mathew Arnold (1822-1888)

From the wonderful Ionarts' piece called "Into the Great Silence", a review of a film about the Carthusians, which unfortunately does not seem to be available on DVD.

La Grande Chartreuse

On asking for permission to film:

"Since the pace of modern life does not mean much within a cloister, the monks considered the request and ultimately gave their approval -- 16 years later."


That seems about right to me.

New Year

Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year, the year of the Pig, especially propitious because it is the year of the Golden Pig, which occurs every six decades. I had not realised that I was born in the year of the Golden Pig six decades ago.

Almost all shops are closed, which is saying something for Singapore, and the next two days are public holidays. The festivities continue for a further fifteen days.

A Happy New Year to my Sangha friends.

Bracing times again

I am always amused by UK journalists "bracing" you for one calamity or another. Last week the poultry industry was bracing itself for a cull of birds, now according to the BBC,

"England is bracing itself for wintry weather with a blanket of snow forecast to fall across much of the country".

Must be in the training dictionary for young reporters. Drive safely!

Rational ignorance

“The world is large, information about it seems infinite, and even the most capacious minds must stringently limit their acquisition of information to matters that interest them either in the abstract or, more centrally, that they find otherwise useful to have on hand. Beyond this point, information costs are not worth paying, and ignorance is rational."

"Rational ignorance" – my excuse from now on!

From an issue of Critical Review on "The Nature of Belief Systems", (vol 18, no. 1–3, this by P. E. Converse, p. 300, via Shtetl-Optimized.

Bird Flu

Perhaps the problem begins in the Book of Genesis:-

1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

The UK outbreak of the Asian strain of the H5N1 flu virus reminds us, if we need reminding, of how we use living creatures for our ends — food making machines. No doubt we have always used animals for food, but now we can do it on an industrial scale unthinkable to our ancestors. Mr Matthews lost 159,000 turkeys, gassed within hours and "rendered" (what a word). But in commenting on the cost to the £400 million UK market, Charles Bourne, chairman of the NFU's poultry board, revealed that we produce 60 million chickens a week in the UK. (Guardian on-line).

The population of the UK in chickens killed each week.

End of the month

The clock really does tick more quickly as you get older. That the first month of 2007 has already passed I find almost unbelievable. As I get older I know less and less about more and more. Not good.

Robot vision

It affects me in a way I can't quite explain, looking through the eyes of this robot vehicle on Mars, wondering whether there is any sound in the thin atmosphere or do the rocks fall silently into the crater as nightime cooling cracks off another piece? Was there really a time when waves lapped on this far away shore and life was in its oceans? We are part of something very big that touches us but may be outside our understanding in the deepest sense. And that's nothing to do with religion!

Taken by the Opportunity rover on Mars at about midday local solar time on Sol 1071.

On earth "global warming" has been massaged by the spin-doctors into "climate change".

The same but different?

OK, not much of an image - taken through an open window with a compact digital camera - but what I cannot remember is whether the moon is so much on its side in the UK. I think not. That might imply that in, say, New Zealand, it might be a mirror image of what it is in the UK.

Maybe someone could take a look?

Back from the brink.

The Mars Exploration Rover "Opportunity" has been exploring the edge of a large crater "Victoria" on Mars, and is currently looking for a way to enter the crater. This image from the navigation camera was taken recently on Sol (a Martian Day) 1064, after three earth years on Mars.

Sometimes we need to look upwards to get a perspective on our own planet.

The Feta cheese sandwich.

From time-to-time I have dreams that leave me emotionally drained. Such was last night. Consciousness, the fifth skandha (or is it the sixth?).

BBC World Service

I tried the radio built into the iRiver mp3 player, and quickly found the BBC World Service: what a contrast to the "dumbed-down" news on the BBC web-site where, in a week when 70 or more young students were blown up at Mustansiriya University and 200 injured, I was offered day-after-day the mindless irrelevance that is Big Brother.

How teachers and doctors carry on their work in Baghdad is beyond me.

The UN estimates that 35,000 Iraqi civilians met violent deaths in 2006.

New Blogger

I am ambivalent about the new blogger. I have moved over, but have not implemented changes to the template as I don't see them as an improvement, certainly not without time spent recovering what I already have in place. The archive post changes are too computer-like for my taste, though I will have to do something soon as my archive list gets longer and longer. I had thought of moving wholesale to WordPress, which has some real advantages for scientific work, and that remains an option. I shall think more about this as my annual ISP contract comes up for renewal.

I read somewhere an estimate that 11% of the world's computers host 'bots', unseen pieces of software that can be woken up by their unseen masters to route spam or denial of service (DoS) attacks.

Science for communication

Tonight a Japanese colleague flew in, to work with me as a Visiting Professor for three months. This was his first trip outside Japan, and I'm pleased to be the means of achieving that. But, neither of us are sure how we will communicate. As a scientist he reads English with some effort, but speaking English will be tough. My Japanese is equally primitive and most of my lessons are forgotten. But I am saved by two things: first, science is a universal language believe it or not, and second, a very interesting student has joined me for a few months to do his final year project. He speaks some basic Japanese, and is already brushing up what he knows. He is a young man of unusual calm and maturity, most likely acquired (or enhanced) by his love of back-packing alone through SE-Asia. Last year he was in Tibet, well off the beaten trail, seeing one car a day at times, finding accommodation in private dwellings. After his exams and before joining me, he took two weeks in Cambodia and Vietnam. I'm looking forward to this, however it evolves - two very good (in the human sense) people.

I often feel my posts should end with the sound of a small bell or gong - not for their content, but that it ends a short meditation.

Home or lodgings?

I signed a two year lease when I moved here, after a week of looking, and so far, although big for my needs, the 2nd floor apartment overlooking much greenery and the pool, has served me well. Quiet and pleasant especially when a breeze blows through, and space for guests. It's in a condo(minium) (as the Americans and Singaporeans would say), is well-maintained and is convenient for my work (15 minutes), the MRT (train), and the City (30 minutes). Not bad, as these things go. But my landlord, a doctor, decides to sell and I have an stream of potential buyers which at first I could live with, but after three months it is becoming tiresome.

I don't attach much to the place, but I do value the peace, which seems generally undervalued in Singapore. Something will come up, it always does.

Meister Eckhart on Suzuki's fly.

Shunryu Suzuki's "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind", opens with the memorable line "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few."

Meister Eckhart says:

"Were it the case that a fly had reason and could rationally seek out the eternal abyss of divine being, from which it came forth, we say that God, insofar as he is God, could not fulfill or satisfy the fly. Therefore pray God that we may be free of God."

Reflecting on a post and comments at Moving Mountains today.

USB memory sticks

Sooner or later it was bound to happen! I have lost or mislaid a USB memory stick, which although it contained nothing important, does serve as a reminder that you can lose a lot of data in this way. I always copy from disc to USB, so fortunately no data is irretrievably lost. USB sticks can be encrypted, but there are always more urgent things to do. TrueCrypt may be what I need - it's Open Source too! I read a detailed "how-to" description recently, but where? In a perverse way it is good timing, as I was planning to move a lot onto a large capacity USB memory stick for travelling. So password protection at the very least, and encryption even better!

How complicated we can make our lives. A pen and a notebook used to be enough.

"What are you optimistic about?"

The Edge can be an interesting read, and this year the editor John Brockman poses the question "What are you optimistic about?" It's a challenging question, and pessimist though this blog may cast me at times, I am actually "Dancing in the Water of Life" (the title of vol. 5 of the Journals of Thomas Merton).

I should return to this topic.

It's tough at the top

Corporate greed renumeration: "The good news is that Robert Nardelli, the imperious chief executive who had presided over a difficult, stagnant period for the company, has resigned. The bad news is that he'll be taking $210 million worth of compensation with him, one of the highest severance packages ever, which is saying a lot in this era of runaway executive pay".

As the editorial says, golden handshakes on joining, golden parachutes on being fired, and golden cushions to sit on during your tenure.

It's important not to take this stuff too seriously!

Editorial in IHT, Saturday-Sunday, January 6-7, 2007.

Corn for your SUV.

Under a picture of a combine harvester and clouds of dust "Farmers expect to send half of the bumper crop of corn crop forecast for 2007 to ethanol plants, which are being built at a record rate". Of course it is all about money, "For now, however, in anticipation of high potential returns, ethanol plants that rely on corn are being built by everyone from farmers to Bill Gates of Microsoft to a mix of Wall Street investors".

Source: IHT, Saturday-Sunday January 6-7, 2007

Our planetary footprint

We forget that "as we multiply, so do the things associated with us, including our livestock. At present there are about 1.5 billion cattle and domestic buffalo and about 1.7 billion sheep and goats". It is likely to be even higher for pigs and poultry which are reared more intensively.
The report continues, "Global livestock grazing and feed production use '30 percent of the land surface of the planet'. Livestock – which consume more food than they yield – also compete directly with humans for water. And the drive to expand grazing land destroys more biologically sensitive terrain, rain forests especially, than anything else."
As if that were not enough, "even more striking and alarming, is that livestock are responsible for about 18 percent of the global warming effect, more than transportation's contribution". The principal culprit is methane produced by all ruminants, a more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Source: International Herald Tribune, December 28th, 2006. quoting the "Livestock's Long Shadow" by the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

When least expected..

An extraordinary find, the Nei Xue Tang museum of Buddhist Art, essentially a private collection in a private dwelling (also of great interest). This must be one of the most under-stated gems of Singapore. The effect on entering is tangible.
Sadly no pictures or catalogues, but perhaps the better for that.

Reverend Mugo said it perfectly in a comment on her last post of 2006 "May there be many more years of practice that we can share in together".

Best wishes to the Sangha from Singapore.

Communication recovering

Yesterday's International Herald Tribune had more detail on the disruption, leading with front page headlines "Asia communications in chaos after earthquake jolts Taiwan", "Telecom links: Fragile yet resilient" and "Asia wakes up to a life without modern technology", and pages of detail inside. A map showed dense clustering of fibre-optic cables south of Taiwan routing traffic from all over SE Asia to S. Korea, Japan, and of course the US. Asia's "painful reliance" on the US was noted.

But, I am impressed by how rapidly traffic was rerouted over remaining cables and how fast recovery ships were dispatched to haul damaged cable to the surface for repairs. There can't be that many cable-laying ships lying idle just waiting for such incidents.

It has also been raining, more-or-less continuously: last week was some of the heaviest on record in Singapore causing flooding in low-lying areas. Singapore has an advanced infra-structure and massive storm drains, but many other SE Asian countries have fared badly. As always the poor suffer most.

Communication disrupted

Yesterday's earthquake off Taiwan has disrupted communication over SE Asia. Several undersea cables have been damaged, and repairs could take some weeks. For a while there was limited connection to the outside world, but it is getting better by the hour. I imagine technicians are working round the clock to re-route traffic and stabilise the network. In a way it is good to test systems which were originally designed for resilience in the case of a nuclear attack. Now we take this connectivity for granted and use it as part of our daily lives.

It is two years since the Asian Tsunami that claimed over 250,000 lives.

Rain without end...

It started raining 36 hours ago, and has not stopped since. When I asked how long this might last, "Oh, it should be over by Chinese New Year" was the reply. Chinese New Year is in February! Welcome to the rainy season. At least it is cooler!

Disconnected?

The chief executive of Morgan Stanley, John Mack, will receive "the biggest bonus for the head of a Wall Street firm ever" being awarded "$40 million as the company headed for the best profit in its 71-year history. Mack was granted shares valued at $36.2 million as of Tuesday and about $4 million in options". $57 million in bonuses goes to seven other executives. A well-deserved and generous helping from the ladle.

Police found 55 bodies on the streets of Baghdad on Saturday, 3 American GIs were blown up by a road-side bomb. The UK press no longer mentions this daily slaughter. The BBC has "Leona crowned winner of X factor" as a "top story".

It rained a lot today, and I thought felt how purifying and life-sustaining water is. I have to hold on to some good thoughts.

Sources: International Herald Tribune, Saturday 16th December and Juan Cole, Informed Comment.

A bigger ladle?

Yesterday's International Herald Tribune reports that Goldman Sachs quarterly earnings "left jaws agape on Wall Street". Profits rose 93%, $3.15 billion on revenues of $9.41 billion. That's $9.5 billion profit for the year. Much of this is driven by "building and trading complex derivative products". Of course, they don't actually make anything. Maybe as my friend says, the world is awash with money, some have just worked out how to use a bigger ladle than others.

The air is cool in the morning - it's the rainy season. Flowers on the trees, new growth.

Ecclesiastes

I dipped into Ecclesiastes today, oddly enough for a reason of science, though I confess to often visiting that prophet simply because the words resonate, especially in the King James Version. So today I have been brooding on the following:

Ecclesiates1:18 For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

I've been chewing on this all day. It's nothing to do with mis-use of knowledge, deeper than that.

Noise and the deaf

Being asymmetrically deaf, I have a heightened sensitivity to noise, most likely because I cannot place anything or anyone in the formless noise. Traffic, crowded places, voices all wear me down, but even alone and quiet, my deaf ear has loud tinnitus and my left (and hearing ear), some tinnitus. I am reminded of all this by my upstairs neighbour who every evening drags chairs across the tiled floor, my ceiling. I have been putting off reminding them that their floor is my ceiling. Sometimes thinking about taking an action is out of all proportion to the action! Note to self: just act and let go!

Poh Ern Shih (Temple of Thanksgiving)

I had the privilege of crawling round this temple with the architect Lee Coo one evening while it was under construction, through a kind introduction from Reverend Mugo. Thinking it must be much further on from when I last saw it, I looked up the web site, and yes, an 18-day thanksgiving ceremony is planned very soon as the old ceremony hall is closed and the new one brought into use.

The picture is taken from the Poh Ern Shih website and is copyright Lee Coo Consultant Associates. I recall that light and translucency would play a major part in the design. Time to get out of my routine and get down there.

Mr Lee Coo is the architect for the very fine Hall of No-Form at Kong Meng San Phor Kark See (KMSPK) Monastery.

Offered for the troubled soul of whom Rev. Mugo wrote in today's post and for all those who suffer loneliness and despair.

Hotei

Hotei works his magic.
Many years ago I received a small Hotei from Rev. Mugo: he lost his hands somewhere in my travels but is here in Singapore. His larger intact brother pictured above is in Bright Hill temple. Thanks for your post Rev. Mugo!

Bank robbery

How I love banks and the convoluted language they use to take your money from you. First Direct announced that it will charge £10 a month on current acccounts that are "dormant" to use its terminology. Current accounts are "expensive to administer". Then to add insult to injury, tortured language about needing to concentrate on customers having a "deeper" relationship (read, more credit).

"These changes are designed to encourage people to deepen their relationship with First Direct. I want to focus our efforts on our most important customers: those who use us as their main bank or have a number of products with us."
(Source: Business Guardian 15 Nov 2006)

To avoid the charge you must pay in £1,500 per month.

Since I no longer pay into my UK account each month, my "Always giving you extra" bank has dropped the interest to more-or-less zero on the balance. The idiocy is that should I withdraw the necessary feeder amount each month and promptly pay it back in, all would be well! This is the stupidity we get into when we let computers dominate our lives and remove all decision making from people.

If I didn't like it, I could close my account was the advice from the "banking advisor".

Well, I will do just that.

Maybe there is a more civilised form of banking than this blatant greed.

Updraft

Silent lighting flickering throughout this large storm cloud this evening. I should have tried for a short video clip! Impressive, I hope the aircraft coming into Changi could avoid it.

The Moon of No-Time

Small hand-held camera. We didn't speak for 10 minutes.

Longevity in Japan

I picked up from Living in Japan that there are now over 20,000 people in Japan over 100 years old. In a way it does not surprise me, and the source article by an active 92 year old doctor has advice good for any age and time.

"Living to a Grand Elderness" is how Robert Brady puts it. A nice expression, consonant with what Ronni Bennett at Time Goes By encourages us to write.

In memory of my Uncle Jim who died earlier this year aged 92, active to the end. A great and missed Elder.

Rootkit

Microsoft's monthly software update informed me that my old laptop had a Trojan or "root-kit" and offered some choices. I selected "delete", maybe unwisely as root-kits can be troublesome to remove, hiding and re-creating themselves when you think they are gone. Assuming it was real, how it got there is a mystery, as I verge on neurotic about the internet, and no other scans had shown anything untoward. Proceed with caution.

Good prevails

I keep reminding myself that most people are good, kind and helpful. It comes to mind when a respected blogger gets childish comments, when mail boxes are spammed, and when the news is unremittingly depressing. Then I notice a tree covered in pink blossom (yes, a tree, not a shrub), another tree with clusters of tiny orange flowers growing from the trunk without the distraction of leaves, and my house gecko watching me when I open the door: "foolish man, you thought I had gone?" A dip into two more fine blogs, "Time Goes By" and "Living in Japan" and I know I'm right. People are good. The world is as it is.

Remembrance

Have we become inured to barbarity?

The BBC this morning:

"Mr Abdul Ghani also said that five bodies - all blindfolded and with their legs bound - had been recovered at different locations in eastern Baghdad early on Sunday.

All had been mutilated by torture, he added."

Some 2,800 American service men and women killed since the war began.

A Lancet study puts the lower limit on the number of Iraqis killed at 420,000.

And then there is Darfur.

Brave people.

London

Flight from Singapore landed at 04:30, the earliest planes are allowed to land at Heathrow. Temperature +1 deg. C. Brrrr. Beautiful clear blue sky, the like of which you will not see in Singapore. Bank and mobile phone company tried to ruin my day, but the Luttrell Psalter in the British Library restored my calm. Now bringing some computers up-to-date then a visit North. A busy week ahead, but glad to be back.

Recalibration

Leaving for London in a few hours: flight time 14 hours 15 minutes.

Mid-term elections

The death toll for US troops in Iraq for the month of October rose to 100. Brave men and women. Today a huge bomb killed 30 poor labourers waiting for work in Sadr City, and wounded over 60. War has rarely been this savage.

I don't think I have ever cared as much about the American mid-term elections as I do now - a desperate hope for change and extrication from a disaster. Time to re-group and re-think under better leaders, for this is a long-term struggle.

The Blind leading the Blind

I've long felt that the market wunderkind with their ever more arcane financial "instruments" run rings around their bosses — to the danger of us all. Unless trading is very simple (and it may be), I cannot understand how a man in his mid-twenties has acquired the experience to see beyond his year-end bonus and take the long view.

It seems my fears are not entirely misplaced.

From the FT (Thursday, 26th Oct.), a letter:-

"Even the Professionals don't know all hedge fund risks".

"...If competent authorities such as Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, tell us that they neither fully understand the new complex products nor have full oversight about the possible domino effects of collapses of larger sizes, how can we then be sure that bigger and more complex collapses can be carried by the regulated part of the market?
...it is questionable that professional and institutional investors know all these risks. Since they do not play with the money only of rich people, but also with the hard-earned money of pensioners and workers, we would be inclined to regulate and monitor these so-called professionals more closely, to prevent them from running after hype, and the super-profits conjured up to them."

Apophasis

Michael Sells in "The Mystical Language of Unsaying" (1994) in the chapter on Meister Eckhart:

Eckhart says, "Were it the case that a fly had reason and could rationally seek out the eternal abyss of divine being, from which it came forth, we say that God, insofar as he is God, could not fulfill or satisfy the fly. Therefore pray God that we may be free of God."

The capitalisation is not accidental. Sells gives the medieval German. I'm drawn back to this again and again.

No wonder Eckhart came close to being burnt: his contemporary, Marguerite Porete, was.

Sells, Michael A. Mystical Languages of Unsaying. (1994), University of Chicago Press

Earned income?

From the FT, Tuesday Oct 24th:

"Four investors, led by Goldman Sachs, stand to make paper profits of $9bn when Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's shares begin trading in Hong Kong and Shanghai on Friday."

Paper profits because they are locked in and cannot sell for 3 years. So that's OK then!

Unbowed

I have just finished reading "Unbowed" a memoir by Wangari Maathai.

"Wangari Maathai is a prophet for our time, and Unbowed is a call to arms for all of us who feel the planet is overwhelmed by careless, corrupt, or violent leadership. I have long suspected that the voice to lead us forward would come out of Africa, and it has — a voice of humor, sense, strength and compassion. Read this book and pass it on."
Alexandra Fuller writing on the inside cover.

In Wangari Maathai's words:

"There are also the millions of Kenyans of tomorrow, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who will either curse us, or feel deeply ashamed at the lack of foresight, at the magnitude of greed, and at the arrogance of those who are promising destruction and want to call it development."

Hope, so needed in the bleak news that is our daily fodder. Women the builders, men the destroyers. The world will change when people change, one by one, and not by G8 summits.

Try to read it.

"Unbowed - a Memoir", by Wangari Maathai, published by Alfred A Knopf, New York, October 2006. (A fittingly beautiful book in design and choice of font, printed on 100% recycled paper)

Stings sings John Downland

Ionarts has a review of a new CD of Sting singing John Dowland. What amused me was the comment:

"One professor substituted a Sting track on his "drop-the-needle" exam, instead of the performance from the anthology he had played in class, but was disappointed that the students did not even notice. It turns out that students in college in 2006 are too young to have a connection to Sting. He is just some old dude singing music by an even older dude".

A "drop-the-needle" exam — this old dude likes that!

The Breaking of the Fast

Tomorrow is a public holiday in Singapore, the Muslim Festival of the Breaking of the Fast or "Eid ul-Fitr" - the end of Ramadan. In Singapore or Malaysia, Eid is also known as Hari Raya Aidilfitri or Hari Raya Puasa.

What is a job worth?

Richard Grasso, the former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, has been ordered by a New York State judge to return up to $100 million of his fiercely contested $140 million payout. Needless to say Mr Grasso will appeal, and is further claiming that he had been "terminated", and thus due another $95 million.

Sounds reasonable to me: it's tough being a pensioner.

Source: International Herald Tribune Oct 21/22 2006

The energy cost of reading this!

It's known that processing information uses energy (well, strictly erasing bits uses energy), and your laptop may well be cooking your knees as you read this. The faster the clock speed, the hotter it gets. The roar of fans and forced air cooling are the first things that hit you when you enter a server room, and so-called "server farms", such as power the Google search engine, have to be located where power is cheap, and the fastest fibre-optic hubs are to hand. Few places meet both needs.

It is said that we have grown so accustomed to instantaneous response that a delay of 1/20 sec is now all we will tolerate. Next time you click, reflect on the extraordinary events that happen more-or-less instantaneously as your request flickers through an undersea cable, is switched, disassembled, routed to several servers, the responses assembled and back it comes.

But it comes at a cost - increasing electrical demand. It is said that "the total of electricity consumed by major search engines in 2006 approaches 5 gigawatts" and that we are on track by the end of the decade to have the global computing machine consuming half of all the world's output of electricity.

Wind turbines are not going to solve this one!

Source: Wired Oct 2006 "Cloudware"

Shakyamuni Buddha

Sotheby's Hong Kong autumn sale includes this beautiful statue of Shakyamuni Buddha. Tibetan in style, it was commissioned by the Ming emperor Yongle in the early 15th Century. Tibetan script prayer rolls are sealed inside the bronze. It last changed hands in France, and it hoped it will attract a Chinese buyer and return home. Bids exceeding $US7.7m (£4.1m) are expected. Prior to auction it had been on show in Shanghai and Beijing.

What a wonderful piece!

From the FT October 7/8 2006.

Note added: it sold for just under $US15 m, acquired by an Asian collector. Another picture is here.

Exuberance

Filing out after morning service at Kong Men San Phor Kark See Monastery
***

Shaded reporting

I read the on-line Guardian with amusement: it is too easy to see why it remains the most popular broadsheet in Universities! I can now only read Simon Hoggart and Polly Toynbee, the rest reminds me too much of academic sandals and corduroy orthodoxy.

Overnight I observed with increasing incredulity how one story evolved. The case of the veil (niqab) now rocking the British nation: first the headline read "teacher wins veil case" (curious I thought as she had lost three of the four actions), then it shifted to "teacher loses veil case" (closer I thought), now it is a sub-story to David Cameron's pronouncements on not making pronouncements, with the lost actions not mentioned at all.

I expect a slant from the Guardian, but the evolution of this short story over 24 hours is closer to taking a position.

Why can we not report those many positive things that happen each day instead of this relentless aggression and cynicism: responsibilities to each other as well as rights, care and compassion that might just lift us a bit?

Some things the Singaporeans have got right.

Customer inertia

Sometime ago I read in the FT that mobile phone companies make about 40% of their profit from customer inertia - in other words customers not knowing that they could be on a cheaper tariff. Sadly I fall into that 40%, but have been rudely awakened by a 50% increase in the monthly charge for a UK phone that has now been switched off for many months! So dear Vodafone, you will now lose me completely.

I thought about getting a mobile phone in Singapore, but the surreal phone shops in the malls don't cater for oldies who just want a prepaid tariff for an existing phone. No video, no camera, no ring tones, no Bluetooth, just a vanilla phone. Chinatown I have been told will hold the answer.

We'll all go VoIP within 18 months anyway - and then their revenue stream (I too know the jargon) will evaporate. I shall shed no tears.

Frozen in Time

When you tire of Wikipedia, try the 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, now free from copyright and available here. I was surprised to see that Building Societies had an entry. Buddhism is less surprising though quite different in style to what one would read today.

I should make it to "C" by next year!

Writing

Robert Brady at PureLandMountain comments on the demise of handwriting. People no longer write, they print - in Block Letters. My 80-year old mother's handwriting is beautiful to the eye (and a joy to read), and I confess to being obsessive about the pen I use. Here technology has made great progress, no more blobs from a ball-point pen, but real ink from a precision made yet disposable gel-ink Pilot HI-TEC.

There's a natural link between the hand and eye, a pace conducive to thinking while the hand does the writing. It's the same with fonts – I get carried away by beautiful fonts, and have even been known to buy a font or two for my laptop from a proper foundry - none of this Microsoft Comic Sans nonsense.

I noticed a shop-assistant writing the day's special deal with a brush pen, quick care-free strokes that looked good. But a Japanese colleague thinks computers will be the death of written Kanji, you forget the strokes and stroke order. I doubt it – once learned never forgotten – but I'm not Japanese.

One of the bigger shocks I faced in University life was marking essays - some handwriting was more-or-less illegible, yet all my wiser colleagues would say was "you get used to it".

I never did.

Deepavali

Singapore's "Little India" celebrates Deepavali (as do my neighbours which prompts this note). Little India is an extraordinary district at any time, traffic chaos, women in traditonal dress, much gold, temples, food - wonderful place!

From the entry in Wikipedia:

"Diwali (also called Deepavali, दिवाली or दीपावली) is a major Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhist festival / celebration. Fireworks are associated with the festival in some regions of India. Known as the "Festival of Lights," it symbolises the victory of good over evil, and lamps are lit as a sign of celebration and hope for mankind. Celebrations focus on lights and lamps, particularly traditional diyas."

Opportunity on Mars

Since coming to Singapore, I had not kept up with the progress of the two Mars' rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, but recently I rediscovered the site that has raw images as they are uploaded each sol (Martian day). Expected to have just a three month mission, the two rovers are now coming up to three years continuous operation, having survived two Martian winters, a drive wheel failing, getting bogged down in soft terrain, and several communication and software glitches. I'm amazed at the skill and resourcefulness of the mission controllers in keeing the small craft alive. There is now little doubt that Mars had plentiful water, if not oceans.



After what seemed like an endless trek across a montonous flat landscape of blowing sand and treacherous drifts, Opportunity has now arrived at the vast crater "Victoria", and with the help of high-resolution images from the newly arrived Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the controllers back on Earth are exploring ways of entering it. The excitement is in the exposed rock strata that should give many clues as to the early history of Mars.

(The lower image is a composite taken through filters that approximate the actual colour. A rover has been added to the image to give a sense of scale - and is mostly likely what a martian would see!)

If we could only think a little more about our insignificance (and paradoxically, our likely uniqueness), then we might be more respectful of each other and of our small blue planet.

Offered for those whose life ends violently.

"OM Retreat"

Kong Men San Phor Kark See Monastery will hold a 100 Million Mani Recitation Retreat led by their Eminences Drubwang Konchok Norbu Rinpoche and Tritsab Gyabra Rinpoche from December 24th to December 31st. Known as the "OM retreat", referring to the recitation of the six syllable "Om Mani Padme Hum", the mantra will be recited 100 million times over the six days. It is described thus:

OM closes the door to the suffering of being reborn in the gods’ realm. The suffering of the gods arises from foreseeing one’s fall from the gods’ realm.
This suffering comes from pride.

MA closes the door to the suffering of being reborn in the warring gods (asuras) realm. The suffering of these asuras is constant fighting.
This suffering comes from jealousy.

NI closes the door to the suffering of being reborn in the human realm. The suffering of humans is birth, sickness, old age, and death.
This suffering comes from desire.

PAD closes the door to the suffering of being reborn in the animal realm. The suffering of animals is stupidity, preying upon one another, being killed by men for meat, skin, etc, and being beasts of burden.
This suffering comes from ignorance.

ME closes the door to the suffering of being reborn in the hungry ghosts’realm. The suffering of hungry ghosts is hunger and thirst.
This suffering comes from greed.

HUM closes the door to the suffering of being reborn in the hell realm. The suffering of the hell is heat and cold.
This suffering comes from anger or hatred.

Daily sessions are from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm, and the full sesshin must be attended.

Dharma vessel

The Hall of No Form at Bright Hill. Offered to Reverend Master Mugo in gratitude for her teaching.
*

Does it matter?

I like the idea of having things on which I am working available on-line, with someone else looking after their backup. So, when Google launched GMail, I was an early adopter, and it has become my principal mail account. I like its different organising principles and its accurate spam filter. When they acquired Writely, I quickly adopted that as I did the Spreadsheet. It's convenient to work from a computer anywhere irrespective of it being Microsoft or Linux or Mac. You can even keep Firefox on a memory stick so not even the host browser need be used. Fresh on the heels of their purchase of YouTube, Google today consolidated Writely and the Spreadsheet into "Google Docs". I'm not convinced this is a step forward, partly because I like small and simple applications (unlike Microsoft Office) . But it's free, does what I want, and the collaboration option of Writely is useful - two or more people can work on a document at the same time. You can also write directly to your blog!

But I remind myself that Google is not a charity and has the world's most powerful indexing service that can instantly pull together any number of tiny snippets of information that alone mean nothing but in aggregate may say more about you. Does this matter? I have always worked on the precautionary principle that the internet is not secure, and if you don't want something to be known, don't have it on a networked computer. This includes any computer on broadband.

Perhaps we are still enjoying internet freedom because the media barons have yet to work out how to "monetize" it. They will, so I enjoy it and learn while I can. Then I'll go back to pen and paper and writing letters. The hand and eye better coordinated.

I've added the link "Living in Japan" to the sidebar. Recommended.

Today's anchor point

Presentiment

I am like a flag surrounded by distances.
I sense the winds that are coming, and must live them,
while the things down below don't yet stir:
the doors still close softly, and in the chimneys there's silence;
the windows don't tremble yet, and the dust is still calm.

Then I know the storms already and grow embroiled like the sea.
And spread myself out and plunge deep inside myself
and cast myself off and am entirely alone
in the great storm.

from "The Book of Images"
Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Edward Snow

Nuclear madmen

If, as seems certain, North Korea tested an underground nuclear device, two thoughts cross my mind - three if we include the failure of diplomacy. First, some individuals, companies, nations must have supplied the precision machine tools, the chemical engineering plant, the alloys and stainless steels for processing spent fuel, the electronics, the timing mechanisms, the computer software and hardware, even the tunneling machinery, or second, and this is more worrying, it is really not too difficult to assemble such a nuclear device. The latter has long been rumoured.

One day the earth will shrug off our hubris and the dolphins will inherit this beautiful blue planet again.

Haze-2

Walking down the hill tonight, I noticed a small orange ball in the sky, nothing like the fierce sun that normally cooks me on my short walk to the station. The haze is from the slash and burn fires in Indonesia, and air pollution in Singapore is said to be the worst since 1997.
When you want to feed your family you don't much care about global warming.

"After The Fire"

Last weekend I bought a book of poems "After the Fire" by Boey Kim Cheng, a poet from Singapore, now in Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Still reading it, but very moving and resonant - not the right words, but it will have to do for now.

From "Bear":

...

I remember my childhood bear;
it was coarser fur, but like hers
and most other bears, China-made.
My father won it shooting bottles
at a booth in Great or Happy World,
those fairs of dizzy rides and shows
that lasted the whole of your childhood
and have exited into the country's past.
I sat it, walked it, bedded and hugged
it like a raft in the stormy winds
of my parents' quarrels. When
my father left, Bear held faint promise
that he would come back,
and be sensible like Bear.
...

"After the Fire" by Boey Kim Cheng, New and Selected Poems, published by Firstfruits Publications, Singapore, ISBN 981-05-5873-2

Loss

Blessed with long life, one-by-one you lose your friends and the familiar world dissolves before your eyes: you say nothing, that is the way of your generation, but the pain is there. I know it and for all my worldly skill, feel powerless before it. Sometimes I think all the ancestors are there to care for you, other times I think there is nothing. It makes no difference what I think. May the compassion of the Bodhisattva enfold you both.

Haze

I thought it was my eyes, but the haze over Singapore and the Malayan Peninsula is real. It's from forest fires in Southern Sumatra!
Source: Channel News Asia.

The wisdom of the taxi driver

Coming home in a taxi I had to tell the driver I was deaf as, from his puzzled expression in the rear-view mirror, my guessed responses to his conversation were obviously off the mark. Then I noticed his hearing aid so he shouted more and I improved my guessing, and we had a fine conversation about deafness for the rest of the journey. Like mine, his appears to be familial. I gave up with the hearing aid fearing the sharp cracks and distorted racket more, but he assures me things have got better with digital technology. But it's becoming a serious handicap to my work, even talking in small groups, so I need to do something.

Sometimes you get help in strange ways. Thanks.

Gozen cereal

When you look at organic food, and put it back on the shelf as too expensive, console yourself with the thought that 40 - 60 percent of all the nitrogen in your body comes from ammonia synthesised by the Haber Bosch industrial process. Well over 160 million tonnes per year are produced, largely for fertiliser. Paying a premium price for the other 60 - 40% of your nitrogen seems rather pointless.

But the freedom to be irrational is an important freedom.

House friend

I share my place with a few insects, the thankfully rare cockroach, and my friend the gecko who lives behind one of the air conditioning units. They are considered welcome guests as they eat insects, and as it is a time of year when getting bitten by mosquitoes and ticks is a daily hazard, my friend is most welcome to stay. They talk too!

Last week I interrupted a trail of small ants marching upwards on an outside wall of the small services balcony. Where they were going was ant business, but they had come two floors with twelve more to go.

So far no parquet-floor eating termites.

I think my body clock is missing autumn: I need to make a trip to Europe.

Krill

The waters of the Antarctic oceans may be cold but teem with life. Among this abundance is the tiny Antarctic Krill part of a complex and self-sustaining ecosystem. Of course we can't just leave it alone! The International Herald Tribune (Sept. 16th - 17th) informs me that a new type of factory ship using powerful pumps will harvest up to 120,000 metric tonnes of krill per year: two such monsters will take the current annual catch of all krill fishing. And for what? To feed factory farmed salmon.

We are a frightening species.