The crowd at the talk! Empty seat vacated by yours truly to take the photo!
At the Secret Shore of Singapore talk by Ria Tan in the Theatrette of Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve. Look at the crowd! It's amazing. Seats ran out and the stairs are occupied and audience spill out the door!
Also present at the talk is the Masters of Environmental Management class on Environmental Management and Assessment. Dr Chua Ee Kiam, author of the recent book, Singapore's Splendours: Life on the Edge, is also here and will be saying a few words as well as a WWF Representative from Malaysia doing the hawksbill turtle tracking project in Melaka! Apparently, most of the hawksbill turtle in Melaka are tracked to the same place every year - off the Southern Shores of Singapore!
The WWF representative from Melaka, Malaysia sharing exciting news!
Coming up in the next 2 hours is another workshop for nature guides coordinated by Ria and myself and supported by Nparks sungei buloh volunteers as well as the Naked Hermit Crabs. The workshop is open to all nature guides in Singapore regardless of the place they guide at and the groups they guide with. Can't wait for that next.
Just a day after I wrote about the sterilization of my void deck felines, I saw these series of PETA advertisements on ecorazzi.
Image taken from ecorazzi and PETA
Indeed, it is as easy as ABC.
The poster writes:
"Nearly four million dogs and cats are put to death in the U.S. every year because there are not enough good homes. You can help prevent this - always spay or neuter your animals, and if you’re considering adding a dog or cat to your family, please adopt from your local animal shelter."
Read more about PETA's ABC Campaign. One must really applaud PETA's sensational media campaigns. It's everything that we have always talked about when thinking of how to reach the wider audience. Alright, but we're just not quite there yet with splashing paint on fur coats. Or even dressing up as a bear to greet the Queen of England when she visited Singapore.
On the home front, Cat Welfare Society works hard at the TNRM program - that stands for Trap-Neuter-Release-Manage system for "stray" cats. However, does that mean that if you keep cats at home or even a pedigree cat, that means you are excused from neutering your pets?
Recently a friend of mine bought a puppy - a labrador. The cutest girl that I've ever seen. But then when asked if he thought of neutering her, he came up with a blank. Considering that he's a dog trainer / handler with the army, I thought perhaps that he might wish to breed the pedigree but then he said that there are no such plans. That's when I asked him what if there are accidental pregnancies? She is a girl and dogs don't practice contraceptive! I guess I was on the same wavelength as PETA at that moment. Animals need help to practice birth control. Unless you intend to care for your pet and be responsible for its every birth then perhaps this is when you should start thinking about your ABCs.
Read full article here
Cats grow up really fast and in the blink of an eye, a big pawed kitten has turned into a elegant feline within the short span of a year.
Pictured here is the free-roaming void deck feline who belongs to or possibly fed by the Malay family on the ground floor. I'm happy to see that from the signs of her tipped ear, she is now neutered! Her baby photos above were taken around May 6, 2006 and the below photo of her was taken around 1 week ago on 14 September 2007.
I sincerely believe that they are the same cat. The patches of black on the top of her head looks like a perfect match. I wonder if the family has voluntarily brought her to the vet for sterilization or it was done by feeders or volunteers around the area.
There used to be a lot of issues with this cat and her siblings randomly peeing, pooping and dirtying the void deck area, causing a lot of discomfort. I actually blogged about it a year ago! Regardless, there are no longer such problems in my void deck and this could most possibly be thanks to sterilization. The kitties no longer feel the need to mark their territories nor liable to accidental pregnancy resulting in more kittens in the area.
Looking at the kitty and these photos, it almost feels as if I am a proud parent looking at her baby all grown up. I was actually rather worried a while back because I haven't seen her for a long time but I chanced upon her a few days ago. What a relief!
A birthday gift to Team Seagrass from Chee Kong (illustrator) and Monkey (colour and design).
This October would mark the one year anniversary of Team Seagrass which began when Seagrass Watch International first came to Singapore, marking the beginning of the excellent seagrass monitoring project in the shores of Singapore headed by two amazing ladies, Ria Tan and Siti Maryam Yaakub. Of course, without the many volunteers who commit their time and energy to the project, there would be no Team Seagrass!
So this is wishing everybody at Team Seagrass a Happy 1st Birthday and hopefully with many more to come!
You can be part of this amazing and dynamic group, contributing to the long term monitoring and study of the fast disappearing seagrass communities around the world!
Recently, Google launched yet another online desktop publishing application to add to its repertoire at Googles Documents. There has been so much talk about it on twitter but what finally tempted me to try it out for myself is this twit by Social Media guru, Mitch Joel.
"Google Docs Presentation is not PowerPoint. It's just basic text and images. Probably good for on-the-fly stuff, but not for what I do :("
I wanted to know if it was really that bad since I have always had good experience with the applications of Google Documents. Recently, I just got together with 3 other naked hermit crabs to compile a list of environmental issues in Singapore.
Google documents has always been useful during my thesis writing when I took quotes from different books into different documents and tag them for easy search when referring to them later. I also use it for collaborations internationally such as when writing my group agenda with the East Asian Seas youth in Thailand, Japan, China and Vietnam - before I even met them!
I also like the fact that in addition to collaborating, you can also use it to host documents by "publishing" your documents so that anybody in the world can read them but not edit them. You can also invite selected viewers only or invite them as collaborators.
It's always been more of a collaboration tool across space to me than an actual desktop publishing application.
Again, Google Presentation did not disappoint me. While I would rely on it for creating a professionally done presentation from scratch, the possibilities are endless with the web 2.0 features that it offers. I must give it credit for having some nice templates that caught my eye but what really impressed me is its "LIVE" presentation capabilities.
Next time, you can give presentations to anybody anywhere around the world by using this free online application that allows you to present your slides easily to others. Yes, there are other softwares out there that already allows you to do so but few are free and accessible just an URL away.
The drawbacks are that there are no audio capabilities so I would not be able to explain my presentation to you verbally. However, Google Presentations combines Google chat so you will be able to "control" the presentation (which means all the audience cannot control the progress of the slides) and speak to your audience via google chat. You will see the list of audience attending via a chat window akin to an internet relay chat window. After you finish your presentation, your audience can even ask you questions and interact with you in the chat function. Best of all, all of this is logged in your gchat conversation log accessible in your gmail account.
Another drawback would be that all users are required to have a google account. None google account holders or those who are not logged in can view the slides but cannot interact with the rest.
Furthermore, for those who love heavy-duty high-resolution graphic-intensive powerpoints, take note! Google Presentations only take uploads of files up to 10MB maximum.
For me, I think I will still make my slides on keynote or microsoft powerpoint but once that is done, the possibilities are endless with Google Presentation. I can already dream of so many things I can do with it. Students who need to rehearse a presentation with their groupmates before the date of presentation? No need to meet! 2359hrs will see your group online, running through the slides together.
Just the other day, I was wondering if there was any way I could upload my presentation on air pollution in Singapore online in an easy way that would not require people to download the entire presentation. Now Google Presentations has solved my problem! It provides a good place to host desktop publications online for free! For trial, I've uploaded my presentation on air pollution for the Environmental Management and Assessment class I'm taking on Google Presentation and invited 5 friends as "audience" to join me.
A publicly published and accessibe google presentation.
There's two ways of accessing the published Google presentations. First is to publish it like other normal google documents which would allow people to see the slide form. The other is to view it as a presentation only which is what I prefer.
After all the excitement, Otterman suggested an group ichat video conference and we ended up diverting our attention to other ways of connectivity but a mass conference is definitely not viable on the poor internet connection on campus and even on singtel. View the graphical evidence here.
Read full article here
15th year into its running in Singapore, the International Coastal Cleanup is held worldwide on this day where people from coastal cities around the world come together to not just remove litter from our shorelines but also to collate and compile the data of what trash is out there. Such data is collected, compiled and sent to the international organizer, Ocean Conservancy who will then forward it to major agencies like United Nations where even UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and used the data in his speeches before. The International Coastal Cleanup started as early as 1986 where the first cleanup was organized by the Ocean Conservancy in Texas, USA.
Despite being a volunteer of the Raffles Museum who is the Singapore coordinator of ICCS, I have never actually participated in ICCS. Subsequently, I always get poked at for not having mucked in the mud or even gotten my hands dirty. Being flooded with work from school and my other ubinactivities, I decided to commit to only being a participant with the NUS contingent this year and leave the organizational work to my dedicated friends and Toddycats counterparts.
Monkey hard at work, analyzing the categories of trash. Photo by Kenneth
Being a participant was very interesting. Sadly I didn't manage to get my hands very dirty because I was the data recorder while the 2 strong guys in my group did the hard work. However, classifying trash is not as easy as I thought! Deciding what category to classify a chair or bucket under can be really agonizing.
Continuing to work in the rain
It started to rain about 30 minutes into our trash elimination exercise. It was disheartening but we put on our poncho and continued working. It was also such great joy for me to see my toddycats friends again whom I hardly get a chance to meet these days.
It was inspiring to see them running around covered in mud and grime. Every one of them from Huaqin, Yueat Tin, Anand and Weisiong who were in the field with the participants to Anand the data manager in the SBWR workroom and even Kenneth the photographer of the day who sacrificed his camera to the rain. I enjoyed seeing their surprised faces when they saw me as they all know I was not involved in ICCS. Even familiar faces from the NUS Campus Sustainability Committee was welcoming. It felt like a reunion of old friends, out in nature, doing something productive. Kudos to everybody who worked hard today!
Kenneth, the official photographer
Best of all, I finally got to witness in person the students from the Singapore American School in action. Their spirit and gungho-ness touched and impressed me. From the youngest kids in grade school who asked for more bags of trash to haul out to the older teenagers who hurl bags and cart wheelbarrows. Compared to them, I should be ashamed of myself! I also finally met Kate who started it all. I asked her about a sea hibiscus leaf she held in her hand and she replied inspirationally that it's to remember what all this is about.
Singapore American School students emerging from the "wild"
"Why all the fuss? Besides being an eyesore, marine litter or debris can suffocate marine organisms, both invertebrate (for example, crabs and worms) and vertebrate (for example, fish, turtles, dugongs) animals and plants. Post-mortems have revealed up to six square metres of plastic in an individual mammal's stomach!
Most of the material in marine debris are plastics, metal and glass, which do not break down quickly, and this trash can pile up for decades and will not be cleared but for concerted human effort. ... The trash load is so high, it prevents the re-growth of plants and colonisation by animals.
Along with the 77 participating countries, we submitted country reports to the Ocean Conservancy, USA, a marine conservation group. With international data sets stretching back 14 years, they are able to make representation to the United Nations about the global problem, and to push for laws and enforcement against dumping trash in the ocean."
ICCS is not just about mucking about in the mud or hauling trash. It's not just about picking litter or even recording it. At the end of the day, it's about making a concrete step to actually providing "arms" in the form of scientific data for protecting our environment. Of course by removing all these landmines from the beach and mangroves are also helping the organisms that live in these habitats.
It is also events like these that inspire me and keep me going by looking, knowing and learning about others and what they do, doing it together with them and feeling that we've done something today.
A NUS freshman who was inspired to do something and he did!
A first year student at NUS today who worked together with me told me that he's never been out in a nature area since secondary 2. However, after watching An Inconvenient Truth, he felt inspired to do something and make a difference, a small step in any ways and decided to participate in ICCS to make that first step. I truly admire those who take the first step and actually do something. I think this has been a great first step for him and I hope he feels that way too. And of course I pointed him to WildSingapore.com for more information on how you can learn and get involved!
Update on September 13: It appears the earthquakes and tremors are yet to be over. Latest updates at the bottom of the post.
This is truly a classic case of the beauty of web 2.0 connectivity.
14 minutes ago at around 7.29pm, Otterman posted a vague message on twitter.com:
"So it was tremors, not a giddy spell. Adrian [lekowala] says neighbourhood getting out of flats in Sengkang... he's at ground floor now"
Photo by Lekowala in Sengkang
At 7.35pm, I reread the message and decided to investigate if there was an earthquake and by searching for "tremors singapore" on Google, the 2nd hit was NEA's website on "Latest Regional Earthquakes" which kindly provided me with the information I was looking for.
30 minutes ago at around 7.10pm, a earthquake of magnitude 7.15 on the Richter Scale was measured off the Southwest of Sumatra. The website reports that a "local tsunami may be generated near earthquake source but unlikely to affect Singapore". This really proves that NEA is on top of their updates. I am rather glad of their efficiency.
Location of earthquake at Sumatra in red square. Map from USGS.
However, it must have been rather serious for it to be felt all the way in Sengkang, Singapore. However, while I was happily sitting here in my office in NUS, I felt nothing and am still awaiting confirmation from Otterman if he felt the tremors or was it only Lekowala.
A class in Natural Hazard 2 years ago taught this monkey that our friends in the Eastern Singapore is more likely to feel tremors as the ground they are on are made of sedimentary alluvium material which is less stable than the granite and what not other hardier material that we are seated on.
Unbelieving that nobody else has picked up on this, at 7.44pm, I made a search on Google News and no news agency has picked up this earthquake yet. At 7.49pm, I again searched for news and see that Channelnewsasia has made a "breaking news" entry on their front page stating that a 7.9 earthquake has struck Indonesia. As usual, there are magnitude discrepancy during the first hour of the earthquake hitting. Google has also picked up a one line feed from Associated Press stating that a powerful earthquake has made Jakarta buildings sway. Apparently at 7.41pm, CNA has made a report of Singaporeans feeling tremors but did not mention any details of location, instead providing only background to the earthquake and past events.
I'm still waiting for images to come in and for Lekowala to show some photos or perhaps to blog about the tremors in Singapore!
Updates 7.58pm: Otterman said that he felt tremors not in NUS but at Holland Village. I stick to my original argument that Kent Ridge is on hardier ground, geologically. USGS reports the earthquake to be 7.8 but NEA has yet to make any changes. Subscribe to USGS's earthquake RSS feed from around the world to keep updated on the latest.
Photo uploaded by 9.
8.06pm: Found that at 7.35pm, a friend uploaded the earthquake location map (above) on flickr as well as the breaking news headline on CNN (below). The easy to use photo sharing mechanisms at work! Naturally he also blogged about it. Apparently at 7.14 Singapore time, all hell broke lose on the Hardwarezone Eat Drink Man Woman forum. Cowboybar is no slower with members posting about the tremors at around 7.20pm when a member felt the quake downtown. 5 minutes later, other members reported tremors from Bukit Panjang.
Photo uploaded by 9.
This sharing of information in real time, at different places in Singapore, sharing experiences and checking on friends is absolutely effective. Meanwhile, I am getting in touch with people on instant messaging programs. On the other hand, said friend is waiting for youtube videos of buildings shaking. Is that too optimistic? Depends on how badly it shook I suppose. This is indeed the age of information sharing and high speed connectivity.
Screenshot of Hardwarezone forum reporting on tremors. By Kingmeng
8.06pm: Otterman blogged about the tremors and updating me on MSN. He also blogged about the tremors from the March 2007 earthquake where he likewise did not feel anything on the Ridge. Nonetheless the SCDF Civil Defence handbook gives detailed guidelines on what to do in the event of an earthquake or aftershock tremors.
So far locations where tremors have been reported:
NORTH-NORTHEAST 1) Sengkang 2) Woodlands 3) Serangoon North 4) Hougang 5) Punggol 6) Toa Payoh 7) Khatib 8) Ang Mo Kio 9) Admiralty 10) Anchorvale 11) Yisun 12) Bishan 13) Kovan
SOUTHWEST-CENTRAL 1) Bukit Panjang 2) NUS Bukit Timah Campus 3) Holland Village 4) Raffles Place 5) Bukit Batok 6) Alexandra 7) Tiong Bahru 8) Clementi 9) One Raffles Link 10) Jurong West (selected areas) 11) Chua Chu Kang 12) Yew Tee 13) Boon Lay 14) Harborfront
EAST 1) Aljunied 2) Bendemeer 3) Bugis 4) Marine Parade 5) Bedok Reservoir 6) Tampines (selected areas) 7) Whampao Drive 8) Mountbatten 9) Geylang East 10) Eunos 11) Pasir Ris (selected areas) 12) Little India 13) Kallang
Areas that reported NO tremors: 1) NUS (Kent Ridge) 2) Jurong (selected areas) 3) Tampines (selected areas) 4) Pasir Ris (selected areas)
At 7.25pm, a member on the Hardwarezone EDMW Forum reported "another round" which I am guessing refers to another round of tremors. This meant there were more than one which is really quite interesting. Were this the secondary waves, aftershocks or something else?
Many also reported that they were giddy, nauseous and felt physically sick. Some who evacuated reported seeing police and ambulance in their neighborhood to tend to any potential injured residents. There were reports of pipes being broken, ceilings cracked, water supply turning brown from pipe damages in addition to the usual swaying. Most people straightaway attribute their giddiness to possibly ill health instead of considering the possibility that the ground was shaking. Could this be due to lack of experience with earthquakes in Singapore? Some veterans (who probably live in tremor prone areas) said this was the worst tremor they have felt.
At 8.03pm, Channel news asia reports tsunami warnings being issued from Hong Kong, Malaysia and as far as Sri Lanka. Singaporeans as well should not be complacent as well if we are unlucky, and with the write geometry and strong enough magnitude, we would just see ourselves welcoming a tsunami. For now, I am just glad I am on high ground.
Likewise, Club Snap, a photography forum also has a thread with members reporting on experiencing tremors.
At 9.04pm, USGS website states 113 reports from Singapore of tremors as compared to no more than 20 from Indonesia, the place where it occured! This goes to show the wide gap in internet access within the region. Of course earthquake also means electricity being cut off. News report states that electricity and phones were disconnected due to earthquake.
9.45pm: saw Lekowala's photos of people gathering on the ground floor in Sengkang!
A discussion with my parents earlier reported that residents in the high floors at Teck Whye, Chua Chu Kang while those on the ground floor feels nothing at all. I guess that introduces another variable in the identification of tremor-prone areas. However, I am still assured that I am safe on Kent Ridge. But what if we had higher buildings on NUS, would I feel the shake? Engineering ultimately does determine the stability of buildings. Afterall the Japan Kobe earthquake was major because the buildings were unreinforced and not built to tolerate quakes.
10.03pm: watching Channel 8 10pm news now and it states within 2 hours, there were 3 earthquakes ranging from 6 to 8.0 magnitude. Tsunami alerts went as far as Sri Lanka and Australia but the alert has been called off [CNA].
Mainstream Media has also tapped on to videos taken by residents who called in to alert them of the tremors. No videos can be found on youtube yet. Reporters on TV also recount their own experience of earthquake at Caldecott Hill, in the news studio. Shenton Way Central Business District also saw evacuation.
I'm disappointed that mainstream media got video images before any bloggers did. Perhaps people have yet to upload their images on youtube. However, MSM-facilitated medium, Strait Times' Stomp saw many "readers" contribute their videos. I wonder if potential citizen journalists are lured by the exposure Stomp offers a piece of news and video as compared to one's own blog or youtube.
10.15pm: Found videos on youtube! Ironically, found youtube videos through google video and not directly via youtube's search function. 2 very short videos but here's a really haphazardly filmed one.
10.23pm: In order to explore the extent web 2.0 has been activated and deployed in the tremors, I made a search in various blog aggregators. Technorati finds at least 172 blogs about "september earthquake singapore". Del.icio.us finds none but it could be due to poor search keywords. Likewise digg has yet to find me anything.
Comparatively, citizen journalists are so far "losing out" in terms of video quality. Journalists with ample resources gets tip off from viewers who then visit newsworthy site in the business district and interview those involved while we get shaky videos. Although Stomp does get quite better videos. Is this a hint that perhaps we should maximize the infrastructure and facilities provided for citizen journalists by mainstream media?
10.39: My friend, 9, who is also following the progress of the tremors reporting closely tells me that upon closer filtering of technorati searches, there are only 55 blog posts related to today's tremor event, as opposed to 172 which I reported earlier. However, I think some blogs may be lost accidentally especially since he is searching for mentions of indonesia while I am searching for Singapore events. To add to the count, he has also linked this post.
10.48pm: check Channel News Asia again and saw that they expanded their reporting on Singapore tremors. The magnitude of the earthquake has now been readjusted and confirmed at 8.5!
The kind reporters from CNA also gave a history of earthquakes in the region where Singapore felt tremors.
6 March 2007 - magnitude 6.6 6 March 2007 - magnitude 6.1 18 December 2006 - 29 March 2005 -
According to NEA, at 9.02pm, there was another earthquake in Southern Sumatra of magnitude 5.7. In fact, 10 minutes ago, at 10:40PM there was actually another earthquake at magnitude 6.3! USGS has also adjusted their estimate of the first earthquake to be at 8.2.
A complete list of earthquakes tonight at Indonesia according to USGS: 5.9 2007/09/12 10:40pm SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA 5.3 2007/09/12 09:17pm KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION, INDONESIA 5.7 2007/09/12 09:02pm SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA 5.2 2007/09/12 08:21pm KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION, INDONESIA 8.2 2007/09/12 07:10pm SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
If you find theres a discrepancy in the magnitude of the earthquakes from different sources, that is because of the nature of earthquake magnitude estimation. Adjustments have to be made according to where the seismograph that picked up the earthquake is located [wiki].
11.49pm: This will be my last update so to enable me to resume regular programming. The media socialist group has highlighted the following blogsearch engines to find out who has been blogging about the tremors. These include Google Blogsearch and icerocket.com
5.28am: Got an email where Otterman suggested that this might be the first blog post in Singapore about the tremors felt here. The post was made at 7.15pm. At 12.01am I was reporting privately to the media socialist group that tomorrow.sg had yet to pick up on the tremors but at 12.27am, tinkertailortomorrowed this post and I picked it up on tomorrow's twitter feed right now.
Interestingly, the reason why I am awake and updating despite earlier stating that was my last update is because, mostly, of this earthquake. Thanks to the earthquake and updating this blog post, I skipped dinner and ended up with pretty bad gastric pains which is why I am awake at this ungodly hour. Coincidentally, a TODAY reporter friend of mine wrote at 9.32pm about a stomachache and the earthquake on her blog as well. Maybe we do not give MSM enough credit. To be a mainstream media reporter is not all that easy either. Citizen journalists are not committed to cover every story that comes their way while reporters are bound my professionalism, and their job essentially, and have no choice but to. I look forward to reading her article on the earthquake in tomorrow's today's TODAY.
I'm also looking at some of the places that linked me and I am very impressed by what I've found!
Secondly, I found a blog dedicated to the use of technology changes that affect emergency management which I found absolutely interesting. Crisis, emergency, hazard management or whichever name you use, is absolutely pertinent and academically interesting for me. After reading so many posts, I must agree that hazard literacy is not very high in Singapore, probably due to our complacency and lack of exposure to hazards.
6.42am: USGS has yet again updated their earthquake lists. I can only imagine the worst in Indonesia right now. Original quake in Indonesia at 7.10pm now updated to 8.4. I am hoping all these relatively smaller quakes are after shocks. Hoping that my friends in Sumatra are alright. At around 1am, another quake was recorded further East in Indonesia near Dili. Since, no other quakes were recorded from Indonesia. Hopefully this is the end of the quakes for now.
5.3 - 2007/09/13 01:04am KEPULAUAN BARAT DAYA 5.9 - 2007/09/13 12:37am SOUTHERN SUMATRA 5.2 - 2007/09/12 11:35pm SOUTHWEST OF SUMATRA 6.0 - 2007/09/12 10:40pm SOUTHERN SUMATRA 4.9 - 2007/09/12 10:04pm SOUTHERN SUMATRA 5.3 - 2007/09/12 09:17pm KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION 5.7 - 2007/09/12 09:02pm SOUTHERN SUMATRA 5.2 - 2007/09/12 08:21pm KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION 8.4 - 2007/09/12 07:10pm SOUTHERN SUMATRA
13 September 12.07pm: The earthquakes has NOT ended yet! I was round. Shortly after I went back to sleep at 7.50am, tgwttihs said on twitter that she felt tremors and that's probably the 7.8 magnitude earthquake in the same Mentawai region in Indonesia! That happened at 7.49am and 7.50am we felt it in Singapore, give or take a few seconds response time to twitter that fact!
Just 30 minutes ago, annotated budak wrote on twitter that he felt tremors in Ang Mo Kio. Thinking he was joking, I checked the USGS website and saw that at 11.35am, there was yet another 7.1 earthquake!
I begin to see the trend that we feel tremors with earthquakes above magnitude 6.0. Sad to say I slept through it all, otherwise my home is either 1) on resistant geology or 2) my flat is not tall and vulnerable enough. I wonder how soon before Singapore real estate prices will be affected by areas where tremors are more prone.
I've smsed my friend in Sumatra this morning but have yet to hear from her and I'm getting really worried now actually.
7.1 - 2007/09/13 11:35am KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION 5.5 - 2007/09/13 10:51am KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION 5.9 - 2007/09/13 10:30am KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION 5.0 - 2007/09/13 09:55am SOUTHERN SUMATRA 5.2 - 2007/09/13 09:49am KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION 5.2 - 2007/09/13 09:38am KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION 5.8 - 2007/09/13 09:26am KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION 7.8 - 2007/09/12 07:49pm KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION 5.1 - 2007/09/12 07:19am SOUTHWEST OF SUMATRA 5.4 - 2007/09/12 06:17am KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION 5.1 - 2007/09/12 06:02am SOUTHERN SUMATRA 5.3 - 2007/09/13 01:04am KEPULAUAN BARAT DAYA 5.9 - 2007/09/13 12:37am SOUTHERN SUMATRA 5.2 - 2007/09/12 11:35pm SOUTHWEST OF SUMATRA 6.0 - 2007/09/12 10:40pm SOUTHERN SUMATRA 4.9 - 2007/09/12 10:04pm SOUTHERN SUMATRA 5.3 - 2007/09/12 09:17pm KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION 5.7 - 2007/09/12 09:02pm SOUTHERN SUMATRA 5.2 - 2007/09/12 08:21pm KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION 8.4 - 2007/09/12 07:10pm SOUTHERN SUMATRA
This is quite a mystery to me as the bird nest ferns in the faculty of arts and social science in NUS all appear to have been met with a very hungry caterpillar or died off. More than 5 trees with a few ferns on each of these trees appear stricken with this predicament.
How it looks like normally
Could somebody perhaps explain to me or hazard a guess as to what may have caused this? Is this normal? I apologize for the poor photo quality. I will attempt to take more on Monday.
"ARCTIC TALE is a story of unsinkable family devotion, unfolding courage and extraordinary survival. It takes audiences of all ages on an epic adventure inside an icy kingdom at the very top of the earth where a polar cub, Nanu and a walrus pup, Seela, are about to tackle the brave new world that confronts them as their ancient ways of survival are about to change"
Date: 11 September 2007 Venue: GV Vivo City Hall 3 Time: 7.00pm
This charity preview of Arctic Tale is organized by the Animal Concerns Research & Education Society (ACRES) in a bid to fundraise for the building of its Wildlife Rescue Centre which is also the first of its kind in Singapore.
The wildlife rescue centre will help save and improve the lives of wild animals that have been smuggled into our country. $575,000 has been raised and another $516,000 is urgently needed to complete the centre. Come watch the charity preview with family and friends! Tickets are at $80, $50, $20 and $10. ACRES urgently needs YOUR help!
Book your tickets now, contact Andrew Tay at: Email: andrew.tay@pacific.net.sg, Hp: 985 62262
Read full article here
Lots of after dark photos of Pulau Ubin recently. For somebody who has never been to Pulau Ubin after 6pm, this is definitely a first for me. I do feel quite bad for dragging my parents to drive 100 of kilometers on a Monday evening (27 Aug 2007) just so we could go to Ubin to see a stage performing to empty audience. It was very sad to see such a lonely sight. But remember never to take the empty seats for granted as some may have been left there for the "good brothers"!
The good news was that we apparently went on the wrong day and the crowd promised for the next day was supposed to be bigger thanks to the auction. But I wouldn't know since nobody I know was free the next day.
More photos on my flickr set and more stories to follow on Ubin Stories.
I must admit in advance that my feedback today came about 15 days too late. When the 7th lunar month swung around 15 days ago, my family noticed that a large number of people in my estate were burning the joss paper on the floor and the grass instead of the usually-provided metal drums that serves as joss paper burners. I should have called the town council as I promised my dad 15 days ago but alas, I hope it is not too late!
We discovered that the phenomenon is due to the fact that after upgrading, the usual ratio of 2 burners to 1 block has now been reduced to something like 1 burner to 3 blocks. As such, many people were met with little choice but to burn as and where they can. [update: a detailed count is needed. I think the problem is one of unequal distribution]
This is seriously bad as I recall that this Chinese New Year, we had to queue up for the miserable 2 or 3 burners in the entire estate and the burners were so filled to the brim that things were spilling out. I guess as people become richer, the things they wish to offer to the gods and to the dead also increases. Naturally, we need more bins.
Today, being the 15th day of the 7th lunar month, is the "peak period" of the hungry ghost festival where chinese people believe the gates of hell are opened and the dead gets to roam the earth for a month. Coinciding with the full month, getai or staged variety shows and traditional chinese opera are performed for the dead as well as banquets, auctions for fundraising, prayers and lots of burning. Although my mom has no idea what is the reason for offerings on the midpoint of the month but there will be yet another offering ritual at the closing of the festival month.
As I was coming to school earlier, I noted that the problem of paper burner shortages has not been solved and 3 freshly burnt patches along the sidewalk was seen. As such, a quick call to the town council had them promising to send people to increase the joss paper supply in my estate! hurray! I hope they will call me back as they promised with update on the status of burner provision soon.
So what is the value of feedback?
Why did I bother recording down such a trivial call of "complaint" to the town council? There are positive feedback and negative feedback. Usually we are familiar with negative feedback, or "complaints". However, we seldom hear of positive feedback or "constructive feedback". Had I called to complain about the users being irresponsible, that would have been rather negative. However, I simply asked for more bins as a constructive solution at possibly, and hopefully, solving the problem.
How does feedback help? Feedback to the right places can mean 1) solving a problem permanently 2) giving support to people fighting for cause 3) express your opinions to decision makers who did not know of such feelings amongst the public before, and 4) propelling change, improvement and progress.
Feedback begins with the littlest things. It could be identifying clogged drains to Otterman's famous example of requesting for speed humps on a road. It is all about getting into the habit of providing constructive feedback. Eventually, when we are in such a habit of offering feedback and comments whenever and wherever needed, we will not even hesitate or procrastinate the phone call or email.
Personally, providing feedback comes as quite a task for me. It is not second nature for me to make feedback. Perhaps you like me feel that having to find that phone number or email address or even composing the email is just too much work, too much hassle. Perhaps you are worried of being a "nuisance" for civil servants.
In answer to that, I must say that feedback can be just a click away via www.cutredtape.gov.sg. If you are unsure of who to call or where to email, just use the form provided on the website.
Like me, because I know the town council is involved, I go directly to their website! In fact, each town council in Singapore now have their respective and individualized website. It's all very "connected".
And sometimes, feedback does not have to go directly to the agencies involved. There are many non-governmental organizations and even individuals who offer you a chance to express your views! For example, the Sentosa Reclamation EIA or the petition to save the Kranji countryside. If you have no idea what to say or how to express your opinions, you could simply say "I agree" or like a petition, sign your name!
There are so many ways we can express feedback and the only thing stopping us is our inertia. Break your inertia today! It took me 15 days to act on an issue I noticed. How long will it take you?
This is my million dollar picture. One of those photos that make me feel so happy and accomplished despite going on a night walk and not seeing anything exciting. In fact, I'm happy to have this photo even if it made me miss the opportunity of seeing a Civet Cat on the Chek Jawa Boardwalk at 10pm at night!
These were taken yesterday night on the Chek Jawa Boardwalk after a BBQ at house number one which made us all feel the ingenuity and thought of General Surveyor Langdon Williams when he built the house. It was the life. The view of the sea, breeze in the hair, a glass of wine and a good meal at your patio.
After which we walked around the mangrove trying to look for owls and personally it was a wish to meet the banded krait up close and personal in the dark. No such luck for me. Not even a pit viper! Then I started wishing for an encounter with a dugong but other than a creaking pontoon at high tide, we heard no other sounds.
Which of course is a good thing considering we're right in the middle of the lunar 7th month also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival!
Mainstream Media (MSM) and Citizen Journalism have never been happier bedfellows in all the talks I've been to than the talk on Journalism 2.0 by CNN's news anchor Kristie Lu Stout.
Unlike what I've previously speculated, this talk was organized by NUS' Communications and New Media Programme as part of its exposure module, NM1101E, lecture series. You can imagine my surprise when I entered the lecture theatre filled to the brim with fresh undergrads.
Usual talks on the topic of Journalism 2.0 in Singapore have always been a congregation of bloggers and tech geeks littered with familiar faces amongst the crowd. The last of such talks I attended was by the local vlog and social media evangelist, Kevin Lim or more popularly known as theory.isthereason, on "Youtube and Beyond". Most of these talks are usually chaired by citizen journalists or social media advocates. Of course, there were talks by Jennifer Lewis, editor of Straits Times' Stomp.com.sg during Nexus 2007 on crowdsourcing the media.
Apart from the difference in audience, what made Kristie's talk particularly different was her background. Although it would appear that her examples of MSM integration with citizen journalism were very CNN-centric, she did mention other examples like Korea's ohmynews which was said to have influenced the election of the current President of South Korea. She did mention Straits Time's Stomp but personally, Stomp is a far cry from CNN's I-Report which operates on similar principles of engaging citizen journalists to contribute videos, photos and news to CNN. However, I do wonder why CNN credit these I-reporters as "amateurs" rather than I-reporters if they truly wish to integrate the two medium.
A key point which she mentioned was the need for more fact-checking, editorial and rigour in the writings and reporting by citizen journalists. This has always been the achilles' heel of journalism 2.0. She admits too that this requires a lot of resources and that CNN goes through great amount of double-checking and calling on sources which would not usually be available to citizen journalists. However, many journalism 2.0 websites which I admire like Wonkette, Ecorazzi and some Metroblogging cities usually have big team of contributors and resources. Sadly, they also set themselves up to appear as "gossip" sites which may do nothing for their credibility. Others like ohmynews work in an office no different from a traditional newsroom which says a lot on the amount of resources needed for a credible citizen journalism outfit.
Still we should not be disheartened. Kristie predicts that the future of Journalism 2.0 is moving towards greater social consumption of the news where people prefer to discuss with others about the news than to just react to it alone. She also advocates a greater integration between MSM and citizen journalism which in her words would be like a "CNN version of ebay live". An example is the recent CNN Youtube-debate where people film the questions they want to ask USA republican presidential candidates. In turn these questions are directed to the candidates for their response on TV.
I believe Singaporeans have simply not reached that level of online-social activism where they will make video responses to videos on Youtube and our local mainstream media have also not yet embraced all possibilities of citizen journalism in their reporting. Of course, trivial things like waterspouts and fires in shopping centres dominate the videos that eventually get on TV. One thing I cannot deny is that mainstream media still get more reach than online medium. No matter how quickly the internet is expanding throughout Singapore and the world, there are still more people watching television. If the two medium can be effectively combined, we can reach a greater audience with more effective news coverage.
In response to a question from the audience about whether the rise of citizen journalism hints at the weakness of mainstream media, Kristie made a point which I particularly liked.
"Mainstream media thinks of themselves as the watchdogs of industry and government and citizen journalists are in effect the watchdogs of MSM. [It's always good] to keep everyone on their toes."
While I am not able to reproduce every point that Kristie made at her talk, the take home message at the end of the day is the need for further integration between the two. MSM can take citizen journalists to a greater audience while MSM needs the additional inputs to evolve and expand. As citizen journalists, we should look into different ways of harnessing other mediums to broaden our reach.
And of course, to embrace the essence of citizen journalism, this monkey did not fail to report LIVE from the talk via twitter, the latest up and coming web 2.0 tool where you can subscribe updates via phone and RSS feeds.
Related Reads: Here are some websites that were mentioned during Kristie's talk
Spotted on its usual pedestal at the GVN Green House on Pulau Ubin - Monkey turns Shrek ape! Seems like its the trend now to embrace pop culture as the new way of attracting green volunteers *grin*
The Naked Hermit Crabs and SEC's Green Volunteer Network did a joint recce of the Chek Jawa Boardwalk for upcoming guided walks at Chek Jawa on the morning of Saturday 18 August 2007.
A pleasant and cool morning was soon met with dramatic and stormy clouds that soon brought with it a rainstorm that the naked crabs and gvn volunteers waited out together at Ubin's House No. 1.
Meanwhile, it gave the monkey various photo opportunities to present nature in natural grayscale. No colours were tampered with!
Encountered this poster plastered all over NUS recently. It would appear that there is going to be a talk on Journalism in this new connected world of web 2.0.
The poster reads:
"Thanks to youtube, camera phones, podcasts and blogs - any ordinary person can report the news. Technology has empowered millions of citizen journalists to file scoops, fact check and expose mistakes. But it's also harder to know who and what to believe. Kristie Lu Stout navigates the promise and pitfalls of Journalism 2.0.
Venue: LT11, National University of Singapore Kent Ridge Campus, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Arts Link Street Date: Monday 20 August 2007 Time: 12.00 - 13.30"
I find it interesting that they got somebody from the traditional media to talk about Journalism 2.0 but hopefully it would provide a more objective perspective rather than either evangelist or detractor-mode.
What is more interesting that it is sponsored by Singapore Tourism Board. This could be because of the CNN Future Summit. It's all quite confusing. Future Summit is a television series aired on CNN hosted by Kristie Lu Stout, a CNN anchor based in Hong Kong. Of which, if I am not wrong, some of the Future Summit TV episodes were filmed in Singapore so it would definitely fall under STB premise of promoting Singapore as the backdrop of media programs like attracting movie producers to shoot in Singapore, etc. There is also a Future Summit Student Challenge for students in asia pacific but I think it is over already.
How is this related to Journalism 2.0? The CNN website writes that
"CNN Future Summit brings together some of the brightest minds of our time to see how science and technology are shaping our future. With a landmark television event this June and weekly stories on this site, we're inviting you to take part in an on-going discussion of the technologies and how they'll change our lives."
I guess Web 2.0 is the hot topic now. I will definitely try to attend the talk if I can wake up in time!
In light of my new career as a graduate student, I have started a new blog called "Monkey's Masterful Modulation" which records the joys, perils and challenges of graduate research and teaching.
As many of you may know, I am recently enrolled in the Masters of Social Sciences in Geography at NUS on a research scholarship. Not much different from undergraduate life except I take lesser classes, teach a few and have my own office space.
But most importantly, I share the same campus space and eat the same food. Food which I may add have been sorely lacking since November 2006 when the Arts Canteen "The Deck" was closed for complete overhaul.
Me and my favourite drink stall uncle on the last day of the old Arts Canteen
In fact, during my "last look" at the arts canteen, a chat with my favourite drink stall uncle revealed that the canteen has been flooded during heavy rains thanks to the leaking roof.
My last look at my favorite view from the outdoors deck in the old Arts canteen
"The upgrading and redevelopments work is necessary to meet current National Environment Agency’s (NEA) standards for food outlets. With years of usage and the increasing number of students, there are also problems like leaking roof, poor ventilation and limited power supply capacity in the existing canteen which require enhancement. It is therefore timely now to renovate and improve on the serviceability of The Deck (Arts Canteen)."
So for 1 semester, we had to suffer what we called the Funeral Tentage where a caterer operated the Megabites Cafe. Ironically, as much as we hated it, Megabites now has its own permanent cafe in the Science Faculty. Perhaps compared to the Arts Canteen which has always spoilt us with delicious food, the "Funeral Tentage" became bad in comparison. However, there seems to be no such complaints over at Science except perhaps of cold food but that's another story for another post.
But having been back in school for a week now, I have been dreading going to Engineering and Science, or god forbid the business school, for my meals! As such, a phone call to OED this morning brings good news.
A model of the new canteen, taken from OED website
The canteen will be opened from next Monday, 13 August 2007. I suppose this week has only been 0 week with no classes being conducted so fans of the Arts Canteen can be assured that once classes start, food will be served!
I cannot wait! Thinking of the chinese economic rice stall, ba chor mee (mince pork noodles) and the yong tau foo stall is already making me drool!
But speaking of food, there will always be wastes. Interestingly, in a sojourn at the Engineering Canteen, I came across this poster.
It would appear that NUS is now embarking on food waste recycling which is a fantastic idea! In Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, they already have a strong vermiculture project on campus where earthworms to convert organic waste into fertiliser. In University of California Santa Barbara where I was at, a group from the Isla Vista and UCSB Worm Composting program, works not only within campus but also with the food outlets across town to collect their food wastes and feed it to the worm. In return the fertilizers produced are used to grow food! Talk about a closed cycle.
According to the poster, it seems that NUS, instead of an in-house campus compost, has tied up with IUT Singapore to send the campus food waste to their new Bio-Methanisation Plant in Tuas. Sad to say that this will probably not change the behavior of the students and staff much since the cleaners at the canteen does all the waste separation. But it is a good effort on the university's part to support food waste recycling by simply sending their food waste to IUT.
The IUT website has a comprehensive explanation for what happens during food waste recycling and I believe I might actually have passed by the facility before! In fact, according to IUT, they not only compost for fertilizer but also produce renewable biogas! For energy-strapped Singapore, the promised generation of 6 MW of electrical energy per hour at full capacity is enough to provide for 10,000 households. But this is only at full capacity so we should all send our food wastes to them! This definitely calls for a tour of the plant!
Read full article here
This weblog was created in 2003 and named as such due to my penchant for alliteration, a midnight predecessor and my moniker as the leafmonkey, or monkey to most. MMM chronicles my thoughts and reflections on subjects and news related to environmental issues as well as issues of cultural and natural heritage. Read more in About Me.
Since November 2007, most of the writings on this blog has been dedicated to the syndication of Daily Green Actions from my Leafmonkey Twitter account. However, as of 2008, I shall resolve to resume more original writings. Find out more about my projects.
On 20 November 2007, this blog was listed on Blogger's Blog of Note.
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