pencil shavings

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

have you met the mother of virtue?

Do ADSL modems make little beep beep sounds while they are connecting to the internet?

I buckled and got broadband this past weekend, 1500k unlimited, which means that from Friday onwards, I will be tethered to the internet 24-7. Friday! It only kicks in on Friday! I keep trying my luck every evening to see if they've connected me early, but all I've been getting are errors:

Modem connection faulty. Please check your connection.

Username and password is incorrect. Please re-enter and click "Save and Restart".

Please check your calendar. It is only tuesday. Your connection will be activated only on FRIDAY, AFTER 5pm. Thank you.

The mother of virtue is patience.

That last saying was something my older boy cousin wrote in my autograph book when I was 12. Whatever possessed me to get my cousin to sign my pink autograph book I don't know. This was the boy cousin whom I played two-on-one football with in the corridor of my grandparents' flat, the cousin who made me cry when he beat me in chess, the cousin who teased me when I thought the sanitary pad advert on TV was about tissues, the cousin who later told me about how incredibly happy he was about getting married, AND the cousin I accidentally walked into while he and his wife were making love (I didn't see anything).

We go back a long way. You know, now that I'm thinking about it, his cryptic autograph entry may possibly be my only encounter of this obscure saying I've had in my life, ever. But it obviously stood out from the run of the mill roses is red violets are blue something something something and so are you variety that I can quote it to you lock stock and barrel to you sixteen and a half years later. Crud, all this patient living is making me old.

I don't have problems with patience. I am so patient I can compete with a sloth and win. I am so patient that I am contemplating naming my broadband connection Godot. I am so patient that on most days, I can't remember who or what I am waiting for. I am so patient that I can carry on with this train of reasoning forever.

Please excuse me while I go check on my modem again. Thanks.

time for some links!

milktea has published her birthday gallery 2006! and colin has got a compliment!

gwynne posts a picture of her breakfast! did you know that accountants ate pens and a hole puncher for breakfast? neither did i.

jim posts a sweet picture of the 7-layer cookie! it looks like our multi-coloured, multi-layered nonya kueh, just italian. (thanks eatingasia for pic)

i'm into pictures.

smole looks for me

where jim left his heart

tagged jim's heart on flickr

Monday, July 17, 2006

it really is chocolate

where body and heart meet

Wearing a GPS watch makes me smarter. For one, I made the startling realisation during my long run this weekend that I can only be at one place at any single point in time: a precise latitude and longtitude on the map. So figuring out where the body is is as simple as strapping on a watch, but as eric and joan point out, what does that really mean anyway?

Alfian wrote an extraordinary love story between two men titled "This Was Where: Weilong and Derrick: A Topographic Diary" that explores this idea between heart and geographical space. He says:

We are going to make a map of a certain relationship. It will be about the determinism of urban spaces, the inscription of narratives on architectural space, intersections and vanishing points...

I read this a long time ago via Tym's site, and it is a mind-boggling good love story.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

Saturday, July 15, 2006

where my body is

i am here, 1°16'28.92"N, 103°50'9.96"E, at an elevation of 135m above sea level.

Friday, July 14, 2006

After lunch

dark white dark white duck

Breakfast

Teh tarik and thosai. They give me a plastic fork and spoon because i am chinese.

Working

To take this pic, I had to use my toes on the mouse.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

i am singaporean

I am singaporean because I can hear a dripping tap from two rooms away. In fact, if you leave the tap on while you soap, I will not be able to keep myself from reaching over and turning it off, even if I'm in a country that has more than enough water for everyone to take seven baths a day.

I am singaporean because I am a genius at doing multiple choice. If all the choices are in Chinese and I cannot read any of them, I can still whittle it down to the right answer by analysing its "pangs".

I am Singaporean because I carry a bottle of water. And tissues. And an umbrella. And the ubiquitous mobile phone. Not failing to mention that I get my mobile phone stolen once every two years.

I am Singaporean because I know the difference between teh, teh-O, teh-C, teh-peng, teh-O-peng, kopi-gao, kopi-siew-tai, kopi-chino, milo-dinosaur, milo-godzilla, ta-chiu; and I have drunk and loved them all.

I am Singaporean because I keep my plastic bags and have never ever bought a trash bag. Oh, and I keep red rubber bands too.

I am Singaporean because I am rich enough to have no want, but poor enough, or screwed enough, not to be able to buy my own place.

I am Singaporean because sometimes when I read mrbrown, it makes me want to laugh and cry.

Technorati tag: iamsingaporean
Meme started here; inspired by this.

More on measuring distance

Remember the botanic loop? If you sign up for a free account at www.motionbased.com, it gives you the option of exporting it out to Google maps, which gives this:

Google gives the furthest distance by far!

The loss of reception at MacRitchie becomes even more apparent when I overlaid it onto Google Earth.

Did you see me swimming through the reservoir at one point? :)

It is obviously cooler and better if motionbased.com had Singapore maps loaded up, but they don't.

Taking stock

You know, I've never been the kind of person who had to work hard to get anywhere. I have an erratic intelligience which sometimes finds itself coinciding with a lucky break, and then I find myself where I am, happily disposed.

Once in Junior College, my buddy (who is now earning big bucks in a government institution) was so worried about me being too distracted by church and friends and yada yada yada that she actually brought it up to the Chinese teacher in front of the entire class once. It was sweet of her but of course at that point of time I thought that I was focusing on the "important things". I probably also thought that it was my God-given right that life should be smooth-sailing and effortless, as it has proven before.

I've ended up in lots of really cool places all by lucky breaks, or in my more religious moments, by "the hand of God", because it would seem miraculous otherwise.

So, I don't know what makes me think that I can buckle down and swim against the flow now, and make something of myself. It makes me very scared to think that I am all alone, and that perhaps this potent coincidence of luck and smarts won't follow me, and I will be so depressed that I will curse the day that I was born.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Mumbai train bombs

My first thought when I heard about the train bombs was: "Oh my goodness, is pop in India right now?" I'm glad to see that she wasn't on that train, and that she is alright. (I think.)

We are so inundated with terrible news that we only "feel" it when it hits close to home: someone we know or somewhere we've been before, and suddenly we think, "It could have been me," as if that makes the tragedy so much worse.

Terrorism really brings out the worst in us.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

A run, distilled

Botanic Loop

Botanic Loop Breadcrumb

The map on top is drawn from an electronic map, while the breadcrumb trail below is generated by the Garmin Forerunner. Using MapEdit, I get a total distance of 7.7km. With the Garmin Forerunner, I get 7.35km. I'm not sure why the graph registers 7.6km instead (see graph below). I assumed it was the "resting distance", but I've noticed a discrepancy even in cases without it.

The Garmin also gives me my pace and the elevation of the route. Check out the pace on the upslope!

Botanic Loop, by Garmin

The four spikes are where I stopped at traffic lights. The Garmin Forerunner was set to autopause at a walking pace (you can configure your walking pace under profile), and autolap at 1km. There is a distance alarm at 5km.

The Garmin works great as long as you can get a signal. If you run under the trees and lose signal, the Forerunner recalculates your distance and average pace when you get back under a clear sky with the assumption that you ran in a straight line.

For example, you can see the stright lines where I lost reception in the breadcrumb of the 5km boardwalk route at MacRitchie (see route below). For some reason I lost reception on the way there but not on the way back.

MacRitchie 5km Boardwalk

Garmin registered 4.49km for that run (4.9km on graph). What's up? The resting distance on that run was 0km too. Hmmm.

The Garmin connects with the computer via the serial port. Although that is a old-fashioned way of connecting, if you're running out of free USB ports like me, it may be a good thing.

Obviously I haven't figured out the Forerunner yet and there are still some things I'm confused about. But I still think it is spiffy that I can wear something on my arm that speaks to satellites in the sky.

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