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.