Otterman speaks…

…about macs, web2.0, cats, cycling, teaching, natural history and life in Singapore.

Archive for July 23rd, 2008

Changi, Singapore River, Tiger Balm (Garden), colour film footage from 1960

Posted by otterman on 23 July 2008

A post in Tomorrow.sg highlighted this and its quite the find. But no, Tiger Balm is not eaten!

“RAF CHANGI SINGAPORE 1960″ with interesting links to other filmlets from that age.

Posted in life in singapore, movie | Tagged: , , , , , | 4 Comments »

I met a blogger once

Posted by otterman on 23 July 2008

When I first started reading and following blogs, many writers were uncomfortable about revealing their identities, writing semi-privately, and even disguising critical phrases from search engines.

However, if you followed a writer long enough, they’ll slip. Not that readers like me were trying to find them out, but it was hard to prevent the wonderfully effective subconscious from piecing together fragments over time.

One time, I posted a notice in my old blog about an attempt to roundup stray cats. I received a query from a reporter within minutes and realised the reporter was reading my blog. The incident was resolved without a story though but I guess it was just one more fragment.

A year or two later, a reporter I had just filled during an exhibition launch turned away to head for an individual I had pointed out. In that instant, I inadvertently blurted out the name of the blog. A startled grin rewarded me – the timing had been perfect to catch the blogger off guard. It was not my intention to do so. Just that the old subconscious had been putting pieces together – an unaccounted familiarity, style and manner of talking (related to the writing style); all this had been crystalised by the view of that turning angle which must have been used in some image once.

I suppose Singapore being a really miniscule place helped, of course.

I’ve been more conscientious about guarding against fragments since but its really not up to me!

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Xylo paws

Posted by otterman on 23 July 2008

Paw on my arm, he makes his intentions clearly known.

Posted in meow | Tagged: | 1 Comment »

FlickrBooth for immediate PhotoBooth uploads

Posted by otterman on 23 July 2008

Mr Bats likes to interrupt me at the computer – sometimes though, he’ll settle down and groom me. Then try to stick his head into my arm, or nestle in the crook of my arm to grab a nap. I tilted my mac’s screen and used PhotoBooth for these shots (out of range of my table lamp’s sphere hence the graininess). Since I installed Tristan O’Tierney’s FlickrBooth, the photos are uploaded to Flickr immediately with a sequential number.

Photos are tagged with “flickrbooth” so there is a pool of almost 150,000 photos of faces, distortions and a few cats. So a tip if you decide to use flickrbooth and tend to get creative in front of your mac – set the default viewing permissions to private. You can always change that later.

Posted in mac, meow | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Mandai mangroves tomorrow

Posted by otterman on 23 July 2008

Tides okay for a quick recce, 8am – 10am.

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