dsng.net - the daryl sng blog: December 2004

The earthquake and tsunamis

This entry was time-stamped 31 Dec 2004 to remain at the top of the page until the end of 2004. I have kept the time stamp in order to preserve the permalink URL for anyone linking directly to the post. However, the real time of the last update was at: Sunday, 2 Jan 2005, 2.05am.

Phuket

A terrible, terrible disaster. So many wonderful places wiped out and so many lives lost. (Straits Times report) I'm thankful that those of my loved ones that dive were safely home in Singapore rather than exploring the regional waters. Prayers go out to everyone in the region. I will try to link places to donate any aid here for anyone who stumbles onto this site.

How to donate

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog has an amazingly comprehensive list of links of places to donate, and places to get data. I'm just putting a quick few below. Most of this is Singapore-specific information, but the online donations apply to anyone. The devastation in the region is terrible and total. Please give what you can.

Donating online

EDIT: I have set up a link on my sidebar so that people can donate to the American Red Cross through Amazon.

You can also donate through Oxfam, the Red Cross, World Vision, Mercy Relief, or CARE International. Singaporeans with a DBS bank account can also donate to the Red Cross online.

Donating by mail

The Singapore Red Cross Society is hoping to raise S$1 million for the relief effort. You can mail a cheque to:

"Singapore Red Cross Society"
15 Penang Lane
Singapore 238486

Indicate "Tidal Waves Asia" and your name, address and phone number at the back of the cheque.

Donating by ATM

Donations can be made at DBS, POSB, and OCBC ATMs. For DBS/POSB ATMs, after you enter your PIN, select "iBanking, Cashcard and More Services". After that, select "Credit Card/Bill Payment". Choose "Red Cross Tidal Waves Asia" from the list that appears. When asked for your bill reference, enter your telephone number. Choose the account type you want to make the donation from and enter the donation amount.

Donating by phone

From any phone, you can call 1900 112 1226 and 1900 112 1227 to donate $10 or $50 respectively

Those who wish to donate by SMS can do so in the following ways, depending on your network:

SingTel: SMS *1226 to donate $10, *1227 to donate $50
M1: SMS DONATE to 8880 to donate $10
StarHub: Reply to the StarHub SMS to donate $10

Donating in person: cash and cheques

For those who have cash or cheques to donate in person, you can drop by:

Red Cross House at 15 Penang Lane with cash or a cheque between 9am and 5.30pm (weekdays) or 9am and 12.30pm (Saturdays).
News Centre at 1000 Toa Payoh North, Singapore 318993 between 9am and 6pm daily from 30 Dec 2004 to 7 Jan 2005.

As above, cheques should be made payable to "Singapore Red Cross Society". Please write "Tidal Waves Asia" on the back with your name, address, and contact number.

If you wish to donate specifically to Sri Lanka, cash and cheques (made payable to "Brahm Education Centre Ltd") can also be given to Brahm Education Centre at 9 Geylang Lor 29 #04-02, Singapore 388065, Mon-Fri 10am-5pm and Sat 10am-4pm.

Donating in person: supplies

For those who wish to give in kind, Sri Lankan Airlines is airlifting emergency relief supplies to Sri Lanka daily. They are appealing for:

portable generators

water purification tablets

food staples

intravenous infusions of saline and dextrose

drugs like paracetamol and antibiotics

wound dressing

other necessary relief supplies
EDIT 31 Dec 2004 12.49am: Sri Lanka now says they have enough food and medical supplies, what they now need are essentials such as new clothes for women and children, sanitary wear, women’s underwear, towels and temporary housing material (Lanka Business Online)

The Sri Lankan High Commission in Singapore can handle all public donations. The High Commission is at #13-07/12, Goldhill Plaza, 51 Newton Road, Singapore 308900, and is open from 9 am to 5.15 pm on weekdays.

Donations can also be dropped off at Ananda Travel's branches in the CBD, People's Park, and Woodlands, and at the following IndoChine restaurants: IndoChine Club Street, IndoChine Waterfront at Empress Place, IndoChine Wisma Atria, IndoChine Holland Village, and Forbidden City at Clarke Quay (free finger food to all donors; please donate by 2 Jan 2005).

Singapore Press Holdings is also collecting emergency supplies. Please bring clothing and blankets and sheets to News Centre, 1000 Toa Payoh North, Singapore 318994, between 9am to 6pm daily until Fri 7 Jan 2005.

The Singapore Buddhist Federation (6586 0250) is also collecting supplies. Please bring all supplies to 88 Recycling Kiosk,Bus Bay, Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery, 88 Bright Hill Road Singapore 574117, from Wed 29 Dec 2004 to 5pm, Sun 9 Jan 2005.

The Tisarana Buddhist Association is also collecting supplies. Please pack them in bags or boxes and label them separately (eg. Food, Blankets, Medicine). Clothes should be separated and labeled MALE, FEMALE, CHILDREN. Boxes are preferred but DO NOT seal. Please bring them to the Tisarana Buddhist Association, 90 Duku Road, off Still Road, from 9am-8pm daily. Last collection: 9 Jan 2005 before 5pm.

The Love & Unity Volunteers Establishment is also collecting supplies. Please bring them to the Love & Unity Volunteers Establishment, 37 Pheng Geck Avenue, Singapore 348232, between 8.30am and 10pm daily. Contact Tommy Yu at 9847 9995 or Raymond Tang at 9733 3276 for more information.

Charity functions

IndoChine is also having a charity night on Thurs, 6 Jan 2005, from 7pm till late at Forbidden City Clarke Quay. All proceeds go to the Singapore Red Cross.

(Some info from TODAYonline and the Red Cross.)

No escaping

Even escapism - i.e. clicking on the "Next Blog" bar and seeing what pops up - brings up sadness these days. Found a blog dedicated to looking for a missing Thai national (Premnet Senthong), and EVERY blog that came up talked about the tsunamis. Very sad.

Landmines in Sri Lanka

This is terrible. Landmines have been washed out of known minefields in Sri Lanka as a consequence of the tsunami. As if there weren't enough to worry about.

I was stunned at 44,000 yesterday. Now it's three times that amount. Complete devastation.

44 000

Everytime I look at the news - and, rightfully, it's all that's in the news - the death toll keeps rising. 44,000 was the last figure I saw. And the poor sanitation and lack of access to medicines will probably keep that count rising further. Between this terrible earthquake and the hurricanes in the Caribbean, it's been an awful year to live in the tropics.

Purifying vodka

How to turn Vladimir into Ketel One, via a Brita filter. Makes sense to me - now to get someone to test if it works.

Calendar days

If you need a 2005 calendar, but are cheap, J-Walk advises that you can use any of the calendars for 1994, 1983, 1977, 1966, 1955, 1949, 1938, 1927, 1921, and 1910... alternatively, you could cancel out the days of the week on your 2003 calendar and rewrite them in the correct order.

Cult of Mac

Ah, this explains some of the traffic I've been getting. A link from the Cult of Mac Blog. Thanks to people who've pointed out that the new 4th generation iPods have changed their font from Chicago to Myriad... the prospect gets more interesting...

Merry Christmas one and all

Merry Christmas! Ding fries are done!

Creative governing

This article from an old issue of the Gazette has been making the rounds: it's on Mayor Antanas Mockus of Bogota and how he turned the city around, partly with the help of mimes. Yup, mimes:

Initially 20 professional mimes shadowed pedestrians who didn't follow crossing rules: A pedestrian running across the road would be tracked by a mime who mocked his every move. Mimes also poked fun at reckless drivers. The program was so popular that another 400 people were trained as mimes.

I must admit, if a mime followed me whenever I did something antisocial, I would stop doing that toot sweet. Mimes are annoying.

Mockus' work is a really interesting example of creative governance, developing "artistically creative strategies that employed the power of individual and community disapproval". And that's the first time I've heard Habermas referenced by an actual official, rather than a college / grad student.

Brand new primate

Hey, they've discovered a new monkey! The Arunachal macaque. Always cool when a large new species is discovered. (From waterbones.)

Joining the legion of zombies

People will sign anything. Heck - do you even know what you're agreeing to when you click "Agree" while installing software?

Happy Festivus!

Happy Festivus! Time for the Airing of the Grievances and the Feats of Strength. You're all disappointments to me!

Tangential links: Fooey to the World - Festivus is Come (from the New York Times)

School of Rock review

I put a belated review of School of Rock up on my arts blog. For those about to rock - we salute you.

Soda pop

Here's a map of America indicating whether people say "pop", "soda", or "Coke" to reference a soft drink. (In Singapore, we say "soft drink". Or at least I do.) I knew "soda" was an East Coast / Left Coast thing, and that "Coke" was a southern thing (its Atlanta origins presumably contributes to some of that), but there're pockets of "soda"-sayers in St Louis and Wisconsin, which intrigues me.

Incidentally, the home page references my old prof and friend Bert Vaux's dialect survey.

Worst Christmas Carol

Why do I keep hearing "Wonderful Christmas Time" (the one that goes "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time") in every shopping centre? Why did Hilary Duff remake what is possibly the worst Paul McCartney song? WHY?

Gamebooks

I admit to being enough of a geek to have played with gamebooks as a cub, so stumbling upon Demian's Gamebook Web Page (thanks, Balderdash) took me back. I played Fighting Fantasy (Spaceship Traveller was the first I owned), all of Grail Quest, Sagas of the Demonspawn, both Horror Classics, and a smattering of Lone Wolf. Such is a geek's education in an all-boys school.

What I didn't know about was Project Aon, which makes the texts of the Lone Wolf books available on line.

New Signature iPods

Since I'm talking about iPods even though I don't own one, I should note that although the U2 iPods have become instantly passe (kind of like trucker hats), you can still get one of these new Apple Signature iPods. Heh.

How to Good-Bye Depression

Via caustic.soda, the funniest book title I've heard all year: How to Good-Bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way? I guess there are positive benefits to being anal-retentive.

Changing the iPod font

Apparently you can hack your iPod and change the font and graphics. At least, that's if I'm reading this Engadget article right - the iPodWizard screenshots seem to imply that it lets you change the fonts. Hmm... time to revisit why I don't own an iPod? Although seems annoying that hacking the iPod would void its warranty.

Another Kim Jong-Il blog

Obey the Dear Leader! Actually, that's the third fake Kim Jong-Il blog I've seen. Why do the faux despots flock to Kim and ignore Saparmurad Niyazov? I mean, Niyazov erects statues of himself that rotate to face the sun and renames the months of the year after himself and his mother. What more does a Turkmen leader need to do to get some attention?

"From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now... 16 years old!" - Woody Allen in Bananas

Grace Chow in the Straits Times

I wrote about Grace Chow and her blog a few weeks back, and the Straits Times had a nice long feature (registration required) on her today - you can see that the number of comments on her blog skyrocketed.

The Institute of Mental Health's chief of general psychiatry, Dr Adrian Wang, said writing a blog could help the terminally ill 'ventilate their emotions'. This can be healthy, he added. 'Using a blog allowed her to reach a large number of people and there may have been a need to think that people will share and understand what you are going through.'

If you haven't read the blog yet, do - it's very moving.

(Incidentally, interesting that in the article the ST used the word "blog" without having to explain what a blog is... the mainstreaming of blog culture in Singapore continues.)

Muzzle Tov!

I like it when dogs are included in cultural rituals - like when they get Christmas presents (yes, I've bought stuff for the dogs already), or when they have bar(k) mitzvahs.

My papers

Testing something out - I figured I wrote all these papers in college that would never see the light of day, so why not put them up on this blog and spark off some ideas? So I've started a papers page where I'll put up some of my previous writing, starting with a paper on Ulysses.

Can't Stop Now

I know Keane are a teenybopper Coldplay, but I can't get these lyrics out of my head:

But I can’t stop now
I've got troubles of my own
Because I'm short on time
I'm lonely and I'm too tired to talk

Can't stop feeling this way sometimes.

The case of the gay colonel

A real life murder mystery. Where's Hercule Poirot when you need him?

Homer Simpson and tabbed browsing

So, Homer Simpson uses tabbed browsing. Cool.

The Universal

How important is universality as a constituent of a work's greatness?

I was thinking about this in the context of Russian Ark. I like the film, but you need at least some passing familiarity with Russian history to begin to even try to grapple with its subject matter. The film uses a fair bit of irony, with the irony dependent on knowing events in Russian history subsequent to the times in which the film is set (that whole Great Nicholas Hall scene is a last hurrah of pre-Soviet opulence, for instance). Is it fair to expect this baseline of knowledge? Hmm.

I remember reading Ulysses in college and being told that it was much easier to "get into" the novel if you start from the first Leopold Bloom chapter (4, Calypso), as opposed to the Stephen Daedalus chapters that open the novel, and then work your way back (so you'd read chapters 4 to 6, then head back to 1 to 3). Yet those first 3 chapters are sublime pieces of literature, and once you establish some entry into Joyce's world, the Daedalus chapters are wondrous to read; plunging straight in, though, might be torture.

Similarly, there are many novelists for whom afficionados would say "well, X is their best work, clearly, but you should begin with Y" - implying Y somehow is easier to access, lets you enter the writer's worldview, and generally gives you enough background before you tackle X.

Back to Russian Ark: its aesthetic is very much akin to Tarkovsky's, who people see either as a film genius or cinematic Ambien or both (I recall watching Solaris and thinking, "wow, this is great" and falling asleep minutes later). Clearly there's no way Russan Ark will have universal appeal... and yet there's something that says to me "this film is a fine film". I'm thus inclined to think of universality/specificity as a quality to be measured on a separate axis from greatness: there can be both great and mediocre films and other works of art that demand a lot from the audience, and there can be both great and mediocre works of art that demand very little background knowledge.

Sook Ching massacre site

Also in Chinatown, at the junction of South Bridge Road and Cross St, stands this memorial to the Sook Ching massacre of World War II. It was near here, in 1942, that Japanese soldiers rounded Chinese residents of Singapore up to be shot. (My dad says that "Sook Ching" means "searching for Chinese" in the Hokkien dialect - not sure about that. Edit: this site says it means "purification by purging".)

Ape Shall Never Kill Ape

"Flipped the landscape when Nigo made A Bathing Ape
I got expensive taste (oh, well) guess I better save up (cho takai)"
- "Harajuku Girls", Gwen Stefani (aka "the most extravagant piece of musical Orientalism this side of The Mikado")

A Bathing Ape opens in New York. Some of my friends there will be very, very happy. Just thought it's pretty impressive how Bathing Ape has become such a major street fashion name - even doing designs for Pepsi didn't seem to endanger its street cred:

I want one of these bottles.

Tangential Links: Adam Greenfield on the distinction between style and design, noting that Nigo is more stylist than designer.

They do not know of that of which we speak

Words fail me, too.

Among the many cruel and unexpected ironies of the melting Arctic - and fasten your seat belts, kids, there are plenty more coming! - is the fact that the Inuit people who populate the region are quite literally unable to describe their changing world. As global warming melts the polar ice, plant and animal species advance northward into areas where they have never before been seen. Elk, salmon, barn owl, robin: Many indigenous languages simply lack words for these species. (Link)

Tweaking Google's searches

Given the amount of information in both American and British English on the Net, I wish Google would allow for searches for words spelled in one dialect to include words spelled in another - e.g. a search for "centre" would return both "centre" and "center", and a search for "colour" would return both "color" and "colour".

Got it just don't get it...

I've been thinking recently about something I've written about before: "Hey Ya!" at its heart is a really, really despondent song.

Meanwhile, the lyric in my head's from Franz Ferdinand's "Dark of the Matinee":

Find me and follow me through corridors
Refectories and files you must follow
Leave this academic factory
You will find me in the matinee, the dark of the matinee

And a line apropos of nothing: you can call me sad, I'll call you a cab.

The lowest possible SAT score

An old funny bit: Colin Fahey tries to get the absolute lowest possible score on the SATs (you can't leave a lot of questions blank, because blank answers count for more than wrong answers to discourage random guessing). Best part for me was the conclusion:

Several months after getting almost the worst possible raw score on the SAT, I was invited to pursue a Ph.D. in Computer Science at UCI.

I remember always being asked in Singapore "what did you get on the SAT?" when people learnt that I went to the US to study. At first I tried to explain that SAT grades were really not relevant, that just because the Singapore education system was so centred around centralised tests didn't mean you could look for a centralised test in the US system and think it was the main criterion for admission. But it really seemed to boggle a few people's minds that universities could make admission decisions based on school grades and participation in extra-curricular activities while the only nationwide exam counted for not very much. After a while, I just gave up trying and just said "I got enough, thanks".

What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

More on humour: a Dave Eggers-Matt Dellinger conversation on the brilliant humour of Monty Python. Interesting that Hank Azaria and David Cross made the same point - that Monty Python with its numerous references to history and art and so on made it okay to be an erudite comedian. We want... a shubbery!

Well, u-- um, can we come up and have a look?

What Monty Python Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Tangential links: Monty Python and the Holy Grail script.

Why I don't own an iPod

I know I should want an iPod, it's the greatest design since sliced bread, etc. etc., but I really, really don't like the Chicago typeface that it uses. Maybe an iPod Mini, with its more pleasing Espy Sans?

And yes, this is how I make my purchasing decisions. I won't buy things from places that use "shop" as a transitive verb either - as in "shop our store", which I just saw in an e-mail from J. Crew. Ugh.

Labels: fonts, type

Remembering Bhopal

From HERstory, a moving excerpt on the Bhopal tragedy.

The Duravit Design Centre

The new Duravit design centre, designed by Philippe Starck. (He's designing toilet bowls for Duravit... cheap at $2195.) Captions for what those two guys standing in the loo are thinking? "Our career's going down the drain..."

Here's a pic of the entire design centre, from, of all places, the SC Freiburg (that's Sport-Club, i.e. football club) website...

Why SC Freiburg? "Weil der Hornberger Sanitär- und Bäderspezialist engagiert sich seit dieser Saison als einer von vier Premiumsponsoren beim Sport-Club" - because the Hornberg sanitary and bathware specialists are one of the four premium sponsors of the club this season (hey, seems my German hasn't deteriorated that badly). Anyway, I really like the minimal look of the entire building - seems to fit the design ethos of the firm.

Piano's forte

Slate has an article on Renzo Piano, one of my favourite architects, talking about how he's "either the most corporate avant-garde architect in the world or the most avant-garde corporate one" - i.e. he designs buildings that get built. Here's an article I wrote for the Harvard Crimson back in 1998 (that was the year he won the Pritzker - it astounds me that it's been that long) on a speech by Piano.

The Amazon customer service number

If you've ever shopped on Amazon, you'll know one of the most frustrating things is the utter lack of a customer service number on their website. Nothing worse than having some issue with your order, and having to fill out an online form describing your problem instead of talking to someone. Timothy Noah finds the number. 1-800-201-7575.

Trivial Pursuits

Among the trivial facts I learnt today: Bill Cosby helped fund Melvin van Peebles' excellent Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which is perhaps my favourite film title of all time.

That, and Japanese men like fake laps, apparently.

Biscuits

Bought a pack of cheese biscuits for the family dog at bd dun bite, a new stall in the Holland Village hawker centre that sells freshly baked dog biscuits. Kind of like a Singaporean version of Three Dog Bakery, albeit with an unfathomable name. I thought it was quite enterprising that they set up in a hawker centre instead of a presumably more expensive store.

Incidentally, the dog gives the cheese biscuits two paws up.

Edit: talking about Three Dog Bakery reminds me, the band Three Dog Night ("Joy to the World") got its name from the Aborigine practice of sleeping alongside their dogs - especially cold nights were "three dog nights", since it took three dogs to keep warm. (Origins of Band Names)