Say You Want An Evolution

Dinosaurs!

A newly discovered species of pterosaur/pterodactyl has been named Darwinopterus, and appears to be evidence of rapid, modular evolution. [via ScienceDaily] It has the head features of more advanced pterodactyls, and yet a body resembling the more primitive ones. And Dr. Unwin explains all of this much better than I ever could in the article:

‘The geological age of Darwinopterus and bizarre combination of advanced and primitive features reveal a great deal about the evolution of advanced pterosaurs from their primitive ancestors. First, it was quick, with lots of big changes concentrated into a short period of time. Second, whole groups of features (termed modules by the researchers) that form important structures such as the skull, the neck, or the tail, seem to have evolved together. But, as Darwinopterus shows, not all these modules changed at the same time. The head and neck evolved first, followed later by the body, tail, wings and legs. It seems that natural selection was acting on and changing entire modules and not, as would normally be expected, just on single features such as the shape of the snout, or the form of a tooth. This supports the controversial idea of a relatively rapid “modular” form of evolution.’

On a side note, when I was young, I always thought I would do paleontology one day. Or natural history. That was not to be. |:

Vegetarian

On the other hand, a vegetarian spider has been found. First of its kind. [via National Geographic News] It has been named Bagheera kiplingi after the panther in The Jungle Book. Newly discovered species always make me happy. Unless they are subterranean arachnids that have been waiting since the dawn of time to eat our brains and wipe out the earth, of course.

Cards

Yesterday, I took a bunch of photos, five of them, and gave them to five friends. I wrote some stuff on the back, in the way that I always do, and just gave it to them out of the blue. I imagine it must have surprised them, but it was surprising to me too, that I did something so randomly and so whimsically. Maybe it’s the season. There are months of the year where I appear to be more serious and times of the year when I happen to be more quirky, maybe, and this is one of those quirky times.

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In My Life

Washing Machine

Yesterday, I realised that my washing machine is actually the TARDIS in disguise. It’s completely unassuming when you put your clothes in. Then you shut the door and push a few buttons and it starts to swish and churn. Just like any other washing machine, you think. But then it starts to whir and hum and buzz, and soon it’s going hoom-hoom-hoom like it’s the soundtrack of some scientific experiment just about to go awry. And you think to yourself, Where have I heard that noise before?

The answer hits you and you’re just standing there staring at your little piece of Time Lord technology.

Why Are You So Good To Me?

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine offered to do something very nice for me. It was the sort of thing that would make you think, What did I do to deserve this? And it also reminded me that I’m surrounded by such nice people. I have people who are so good to me; and it’s good to be reminded of something like that every once in a while. For a crummy old curmudgeon like me, that counts for a lot. I reckon that if it weren’t for these folks, I think I’d have gone mad by now. Well, I am more than a little crazy to begin with, but… not in that sense.

It also made me think of the old Beatles song, and I’m sure just about everyone knows this, but here goes:

“All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I’ve loved them all”

For some reason. For whatever reason. In My Life is a great song. And Rubber Soul is one of my favourite albums.

And thanks, all you nice people. At the risk of making it all sappy, it’s the stuff like this that make it worthwhile.

Sad, Sad Children

There is a pictures for sad children book. It is here. [via pictures for sad children]

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Some random things.

Now Listening

I got my hands on Muse’s The Resistance. I’ve listened to it about five times. Nothing spectacular, and in fact, far more average than one might expect. I think it’s a bit scattershot, and there’s too much mantra-dropping (“We will be victorious…”) that’ll never be a substitute for good lyrics. There’s also none of the energy or precision of one or two of their earlier albums, so it all seems a little… meh.

That said, Exogenesis, the three part suite at the end of the album is great, and it might be worth the price of admission, though don’t quote me on that.

Mono

Someone with the Beatles Mono Box Set let me listen to Sgt. Pepper’s and I realise the difference with this set of remasters is more significant than I imagined (though less than what would’ve made me go :O ). My own Stereo Box Set is supposed to be on its way (though Amazon is taking longer to process it than I would’ve expected), and I’m looking forward to it more than ever now.

Writers Festival

The Singapore Writers Festival is here again, as Jolie kindly reminded me. I missed out on all the events the last time round, so I’m quite determined to attend two or three things this year. I haven’t made up my mind on what to attend yet, but it’s still a whiles away anyway. Besides, I also need to trick someone to go along with me so that it isn’t all that lonely.

And if you’re interested, here’s the festival calendar detailing the events. [via Singapore Writers Festival]

Hartblei

I saw this yesterday and I more or less have no idea what it really is.

“So we decided to build a camera by ourselves. The camera should be completely open for all MF backs on the market and should use a 35mm lens mount as an interface to support all lenses, no matter whether 35 mm or MF. The plan was to give access to extreme wideangles down to fisheyes or superteles and while maintaining a reasonable price offering (i.e. below 5000 € with TTL spot finder plus electric Film-/D-Backslider).”

I think it allows DSLR on the front and medium on the back, but that’s all I got. What do you really do with it? What happens when I combine this with that, et cetera? It’s not all so clear.

Not that I’m buying it, but it’s fairly interesting.

Midterm Plans

Sure, I’ve got a lot to do for the week, but I’m trying not to let them get in the way of meeting up with my friends. I’m sure I need to eat a meal with a group of them, go out and take photos with one of them, go to some interesting place like a museum with another, and watch a movie with one more. That’s at least. Hmm, we can work it out.

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Harmonies From Hell

The Birthday Party

Yesterday, I attended a birthday party of some sort. It was all a quite simple and comfortable affair, though there weren’t really many people around that I actually knew. The highlight for me was the birthday song, which in these events tend to be about a lot of clapping and a bunch of strangers trying to come together to sing a 30-second song in tune. It didn’t quite work, though there did seem to be some conscientious effort on all of our parts to not embarrass ourselves. In the end, it turned out to be some humdrum humming and then some harmonies from hell. Very lovely stuff.

I also realise that when I begin to space out, I tend to slip into this mode where I try to turn everything into a story. I’d always wanted to write a slightly sad (the total darkness sort) or maybe slightly horrific (the nightmarish sort) story about a party of some kind and call it The Birthday Party, although that title has long been taken by the Pinter play, and then I’d have to live with the pressure that I could never ever write anything even remotely as brilliant as that, so I’ve always thought that I’d just forget it.

In any case, happy birthday again to the birthday girl, who it seems is fast catching up with me. We are all old people.

Catch-Up

Speaking of catching up, there’s quite a bit of work that I’ve got to catch up with. I didn’t imagine that I would be this far behind at this stage off the semester (well, it’s not that bad, but I kind of didn’t expect being behind at all), but I’m sure I’ll be able to work it out in the next couple of weeks.

Which is not to say that I’ve been doing nothing all week. I mean, the lab report alone took me twice as long as I thought it would. I did an assignment too, and then whatever time I had between my other commitments were devoted to the project. Brr.

September

But look at time go, with all the speed and swagger of a roadrunner, all the ferocity of a shoryuken. It didn’t seem that long ago when I’d just finished the first draft of Bukit Merah, and it’s been some two or three months since. School plows ahead like a Malmsteen solo and I’m just floating around trying my best to get a firm grasp of everything. It’s really kind of the best I can hope for right now.

But September is a great month. It always is. For instance, this page is going to turn one in September. That’s supposed to make it a good month.

Anyway, I’m determined to see that this week ends spectacularly (in a good way) so, fingers crossed.

Molecular Pictures

And to end off, scientists have imaged a molecule. [via PhysOrg]

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Prawns

District 9

I watched District 9 yesterday. I thought it was quite decent. Reminded me of his old Halo stuff, mostly. It was a competent human drama, and definitely one of the better science fiction movies in recent years. I thought the plot was a little… predictable (I think?), but it was still great to watch. It was otherwise pretty original and a thrilling ride. I think the racism themes run the risk of being interpreted as a tasteless take on the actual issues by the more uptight audiences, but I guess you can’t please everyone.

Friends In Strange Places

While I was doing a lab session on Wednesday afternoon, one of the teaching assistants popped in and borrowed me from my lab officer for a while and I was introduced to three new students who had come in from one of the polytechnics. I had initially thought that I’d done something wrong. And well, I suppose you get to make acquaintances in the strangest fashions.

I knew a couple of other engineering students who came in from polytechnics too, and they sort of struggled a bit initially because it seemed that the syllabus in polytechnic (and maybe the style in which it was taught) didn’t quite tally with the university’s imagination, so they had to pick up on some things themselves. It overall made it it hard to adapt. So I’m hoping that these three new acquaintances don’t have to suffer the same thing, and I’ll try to help them as much as I can.

Zoo Done

I finished putting up all my zoo pictures (I went there on June 11), and you’ll find them over at the flickr set. [via Flickr]

Something Random

And I suppose this is sort of random, but look, a Domo bento. [via AnnaTheRed's bento factory]

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Notebooks (And Commencement)

New Beginnings

On Saturday, I retired my old notebook. I hadn’t finished it, but it just felt right to leave it behind and start the new one. So, of course, I started the new one too. I’ve made a few entries since, primarily to do with the incoming project. I had a very good idea of what it was going to be before I started writing Bukit Merah, but it doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Which is good, I guess. I’m trying my best not to dive straight in, because I know that usually ruins the whole thing.

Still, a remarkable flurry of ideas, some old, some new, but mostly new combinations of old ideas. There are… a lot of things to deal with, lots of ideas that seem to go in some place and yet can’t fit anywhere. It isn’t helped by the fact that I’m not adopting my old structure, so I don’t have the big picture to work with in the first place. Still, it’s a problem that I am happy to have. Early days, these.

Funny to think of notebooks and how I used to not know what to do with them. Well, obviously one makes notes with notebooks, but there was a time when I thought I’d get a notebook, open up to a blank page and just not know how to do anything on it, seemingly out of fear of ruining a nice page. Many years and notebooks later, I think I’ve developed some kind of procedure, so I don’t have that sort of fear of the blank page anymore. In fact, I think it’s become central to my whole thinking process. Sometimes, I just can’t piece things together unless I write it down. And other times, I just need a place to put down all the half-ideas buzzing in my brain before they slip away.

In the meantime, though, nice to have a proper notebook with me this time round. I actually put aside a bit of cash to invest in one this time, as you will probably know. Before this, I used free notebooks from CommunicAsia, low-price ring-bound ones from Popular, and spare ones lying around the house. I suppose you could consider it a bit of a luxury, this, kind of pampering myself a tiny bit. Just a tiny bit. Having spent most of my time with those types of notebooks, this Moleskine feels a little… strange in my hands, but hey, it’s a feeling I can get used to.

Congratulations

Jolie’s commencement is tomorrow, if my memory hasn’t evaporated yet, so, congratulations, Jolie!

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Work, Friends

The Fast And The Furious

I’m sure I made mention of this several times already, but I’m sort of approaching the final lap of things for the first draft, so I’ve essentially stepped it up a gear and that has seen the (planned) return of the 80-hour work week. I’m close. I know I am. I’m getting a very clear idea of how this will all end as I go along, and I also have a target length in mind (based on a feeling of how long it ought to be). Everything I do now I do with the intention of contributing to the completion of the project. I don’t want it to expand. I don’t want it to stray. And that, I think, is what the target length is good for.

It’s been a bit taxing, but with the end in sight, it’s not all that bad. I get the feeling that I’m at some tipping point. I can smell completion. The images I’ve been getting have been affirming this gut feeling, and now I want to latch on before it slips away, capitalise on this. It’s a bit like chasing after a football title, when it’s only the middle of the season and you don’t have a substantial lead but your momentum is good and your team looks sharp and you can catch a whiff of the title already. Full speed ahead, full speed ahead.

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that goes, One must hold onto the antlers of the Qilin having scaled its scales. It means that you have to take advantage of the curve the moment you’re on top of it.

Okay, I made that up.

Counterfeit

I have a friend who of late fears neglecting her friends, so she made it a point to put together some package for a bunch of them and had it delivered, recognising that it was a selfish thing to make herself feel better. Funny, I had that feeling about her long ago, that most of my interactions with her seemed to be based significantly in that self-assurance factor. I suppose we all fool ourselves in some ways. Still, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Oh, I imagine it’ll be sorted out. Somehow. Eventually. We live, we learn, we poke around and figure things out. That’s the way it goes.

On The Other Hand

Can I just say that Wednesday was a lovely day for friends? I heard from Li Yue, Gao Jie, Shi Jia and Tammy (in that order), and it is quite great to see that they’re all doing well. I realised too that I don’t have many friends as unrepentantly chatty as I am, but Shi Jia is one of them and now that I know that I can bug her with no sense of shame.

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Friend Boost

Card

I think it must have arrived the day before, but yesterday, my dad checked the mailbox and there was a postcard for me. It was from Chee Gake, who is in the States now. For some reason, looking at the elks on the postcard and the scribbles behind it just made my day. I put it neatly in a corner of the bookshelf where it sits beside an assortment of other things. Thank you, Chee Gake!

And A Bit More

Apart from the postcard, I also heard from Tammy and Gao Jie, which too made it all a very happy day, particularly in replying to them. I think because I’m just too chatty by nature.

And on a day-to-day basis, particularly because the holidays this time have been somewhat lonely, talking to Jolie has been great too.

So, yeah, what would you do without friends, you know?

2K

I did slightly over 2000 words yesterday, which is rare when I’m not upset about anything. I suppose it was just one of those unusually productive days. I’m sure today won’t be anywhere near as productive. Still, good to get 2000 down. I’m thinking it’ll be approximately 60,000, though there’s not actual target to reach.

Google Chrome Bento

Anna the Red, if you know, makes very pretty bento boxes. Apparently, someone from Google contacted her to do a Chrome logo bento, so… that’s what she did. And like most of her other stuff, it looks really spiffy.

[via Josh Spear]

Back to work.

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Bad Week

Forecast

This is your weekly week forecast where we forecast the week weekly. All things considered, it looks like a busy and possibly bad week ahead. Let’s go over to the play-by-play breakdown.

Monday will be a long day saddled with worries about all the remaining days of the week. Indeed, it’s just starting and you’re worried about tests and test results, projects and projections. What’s more, today you’ll have a lab session and after the session, you’ll have to take care of the lab report. A great way to start the week!

Tuesday will be the day you remind yourself of how you messed up your math test, and with each passing minute, the knot that is your gut will twist tighter and tighter, until the moment arrives and you look upon the disgusting result in your hands. Then you’ll dust your shoulders, break into a smile and leave it behind you. Hopefully.

Wednesday! Some respite! Except that there’s a project presentation and a test in the next day!

Thursday will be a storm. There will be lightning and rumbles of thunder and the waves will be choppy but you’ll hope you can ride it out as you always do, because the next day is…

Friday. Thank goodness. It’ll be a pretty long day, but you don’t really care, because the weekend is knocking on your door and you just want to say yes.

Then the weekend comes and flies by and it’s time for it to start all over again.

Enjoy the week, dear sir!

…

Ah, nothing like the scent of a new week.

Why? Just… Why?

I sometimes wonder why I’ve been going through law essays like it’s my own work. But then I think that things like that are for people important to me and it all becomes not-so-silly.

Although, I keep thinking, if I mess it up for them, it would really, really make me feel profoundly disgusted with myself.

Book Surveys

Every time I finish a book I have trouble deciding on what to read next. If I’m not struck by a bolt of inspiration quickly enough, I normally survey my friends. This usually consists of giving them a list of candidates (of which they’re mostly not very likely to know) and then asking them to pick whichever appeals to them based on title or author.

There’s usually a winner after a few people (indefinite number of them), but I realise also that I don’t usually read the winning book. Instead I pick something else and leave the winning book for a month down the road, two months, three. I think the polling just helps me figure out which I really want to read next.

Or maybe I’m just not very good at listening to people.

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Wednesday Morning

Saving Mankind

Yesterday, I saw this:

‘In a crowded subway car, I hear a male voice, close to my ear. We’re on an express train somewhere between Grand Central and Union Square, and I worry that I have a situation on my hands. But he isn’t talking to me. He’s reading out loud from “Only You Can Save Mankind,” by Terry Pratchett. His head is a mass of dark, wayward curls, and a young woman leans into him, listening and idly tugging on his Harry Potter-esque scarf. She’s wearing purple leg warmers with oversized yellow buttons down the sides. Between her boots, laced tight with rainbow laces, is an orange bag stuffed with smaller white plastic bags—it looks like a creamsicle. A single, surprised “Oh!” escapes her chapped lips at something he’s read. They aren’t on the subway; they’re in the story, saving mankind. He holds her head against his chest with his gloved hand, and she turns the page for him.’

[via The Book Bench]

Writing Blind

I’m chipping away at a Biomaterials paper which is proving to be a little like eating a tough steak using plastic utensils. I also wrote a little of Bukit Merah. The thing that these two have in common is that I’ve been quite incapable of writing at length. I just do bits and pieces, take my mind off of it and do more bits and pieces.

Getting Better?

Not exactly feeling much better, but at least it’s settled into a form of consistency and I can function at some basic level right now. Been talking to a few people, and no matter how I’ve come across these few days, if you’re reading this (you ought to know who you are), I’ve had a good time talking to you guys.

Right, back to work.

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