I never knew Londoners had such a fettish for things Chink (have a look at China in London). Yesterday at Chinatown, I think I saw more gweilos than Chinese. And not only gweilos, but African Caribbeans and Sikhs, among others. When the gang of us photographers (five photogs, mostly Nikonians, three with D70s and intimidatingly [...]
Posts from ‘January, 2006’
Fly light
I did an essay on optimality in bird migration. On the fuel load, stopovers and predation risk. I read 31 papers, and cited half of them. I was inspired then… to collect all sorts of specialist papers relevant to the local (Singapore) fauna… and come up with some sort of databank or knowledge base, not [...]
"Have you seen the whale?"
On any other day in London, I would have thought the person asking such a question was mad. But the unusual does happen in London from time to time. This weekend, a whale decided to get itself stranded in the River Thames. It was first sighted on Friday, and by Saturday morning it had swam [...]
Bug correcting behaviour practical
These are Oncopeltus fasciatus, distantly related to the Dysdercus species (Cotton stainers) we know so well. Forcing them to turn at a bend imposes a short-lived opposite bias on their subsequent turning, ie. they will compensate and turn in the other direction when they come to the next junction, thus resuming in the original direction. [...]
Heating up
The fan in my laptop broke down.
It’s making all sorts of worrying noise and vibrations, and the keyboard heats up extremely quickly. If I don’t shut down within 30 mins to let it cool down, it gives me the accursed BSOD and comes back with a black screen saying 0003 = Thermal sensor error. [...]
Obligations
There comes a period in life when you start to wonder why you ever did all those things in the first place. Or why I’m still doing them. I thought I was done with being involved in societies and committees and all that. First year come second year come third. I vowed SingSoc was the [...]
Start of term
Things I wanted to do but didn’t in my holidays:
- explore nature areas- meet up with all my friends- visit the Star Wars exhibition- watch a movie – shop around for a new camera backpack – settle MUN stuff – go to the zoo
What I did do was to spend more time out [...]
Dofu
Pic on the left shows her bad eye before the surgery; the second one was taken two days after the surgery – while she was napping under my chair.
Bad eye
Poor Dofu, she’s going for surgery tomorrow. The eye specialist says it’s glaucoma, and she’s totally blind in one eye. Unfortunately, it can develop in less than 24 hours, and it did so, far too quickly. She was so depressed today, so dispirited. Glaucoma causes great discomfort and pain, in dogs, as in humans. It [...]
Shanghai
Despite my Cantonese-Shanghainese roots, I’ve never been to Shanghai before. Until now. My parents have been there a number of times, Jane as well. They tell me that five years ago, the skyscrapers on Pudong weren’t there. That a decade ago, the Bund was already as elegant as it is today. That I wouldn’t have [...]
