Lim Chu Kang matters (Aug 2009)

[1] Lim Chu Kang mangrove cleanup, w/Raffles Museum Toddycats, 8th August 2009: 8am – 12pm [see the 2008 report for an idea. Transport from NUS provided. Sign up here.

[2] The 2009 Dragon Kiln Wood-Firing is here once agan. Join the Thow Kwang Clay Artists during the National Day weekend, 7-9 Aug 2009. See their blog for details. For an idea, read the 2008 blog post by FOY-er Victor Khoo.

[3] Screening of Diminishing Memories I & Diminishing Memories II with 20 min Q & A with the director, Eng Yee Peng. Films are narrated in Mandarin with English subtitles. Sat, 29 Aug 2009: 2-4pm, Celadon Room, NUS Museum. Admission: $8 (public) $6 (NUS staff and students). More details on the NUS Museums/Dept Architecture poster.

Singapore Map exhibition @ NLB, 01 Aug – 31 Oct 2009

Vignettes in Time: Singapore Maps and History through the Centuries1st August – 31st October 2009
Venue: Level 10, Exhibition Area, National Library Building
Organisers: National Library Singapore & Singapore Heritage Society

“This exhibition depicts Singapore as seen through cartographers, geologists, mariners, military generals and town planners. Beginning with the arrival of the British and merchants from the nascent East India Company, to military strategists of Imperial Japan and postwar city planners, Vignettes in Time provides snippets of little-known histories.

Displayed for the first time are many never-before-seen maps from the collections of National Library Singapore and Lim Shao Bin. With over 120 maps on display, this is the single largest showcase of maps in Singapore. Come explore a little-known Singapore through vignettes of the past. This exhibition is curated by Lim Chen Sian. “

Source: NLB

“Hunters and Collectors” @ ACM

Photos on Flickr. We were there until we got kicked out. Verdict: Southeast Asia comes to ACM. A light touch of a heavy subject. Worth a visit.

Admission Charges: $5 (adults) / $2.50 (full-time students / senior citizens). Free admission for children aged 6 and below.

Lab blog

I was experimenting with a blog for the Systematics & Ecology Lab (or Ecolab for short) after years of thinking about it. It’s envisaged as a dump for lab-worthy-only stuff, especially the facetious stuff, which prevents us from drowning out the osts from other labs in The Biodiversity Crew.

The experiment’s conclusion is predictable – it is better to abandon the lab blog for the group blog since our publishing rate is miserable, contributors are few and the facetious stuff would liven up the Biodiversity Crew blog as well. At least one post-doc decided on Singapore after reading that blog!

Meanwhile the site helps accumulate the project and alumni data we were really seeking for the webpage, after which I’ll RapidWeaver the site at a new domain.

NUS’ IVLE page revamped

Japanese Harry Potter fan interviews Daniel, Rupert and Emma

Japanese fan who won a contest to interview Harry Potter cast members
from an applicant field of 10,000!
 
Daniel

Rupert

Emma

Hat tip – Alvin who forwarded the links from Japan Probe.
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=11539
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=11526

Flickery – desktop app for Flickr

Flickery is a new desktop app for Fickr uses. Still it a bit raw but already useful. Flickery is on sale now too, for US$10: see MacUpdate Promo.

Compare maps with iRemember.sg

iRemember.sg provides a mechanism to compare two maps from different years, lovely stuff! The good thing about this is the two maps magnification and location are in sync as you adjust views. I think I’ll include this in an ecology tutorial next semester.

There is lots more on this site at iremember.sg

Free Mac aps you shouldn’t leave home without

Having installed a new hardisk on my 3-year old Mac Book Pro, I am in the process of resinstalling my applications to get going once again.

This is a list of FREE apps that any Macuser would find useful. A Mac out of the box is much less effective without these.

1. Skitch – screen capture which allows you to grab, annotate and store images online, send as a link or attachment. I use this heavily for images for my blog, illustrating maps or instructions and as a rough drawing tool.
2. Jumpcut – multiple clipboard tool, I have it remember my last 50 cuts, can access by hotkey or from menubar. Really useful when you multi-task!
3. Google’s Quick Search Box or QSB – launch your apps, files and do a google search from this window that you can call up from your desktop. I was previously using QuickSilver which is just as effective.
4. Perian – Multiple QT components. It Quicktime cannot play some video file, you probably need this.
5. VLC – plays videos and DVDs that QT might not be able to.
6. PDFlab – split, join, insert pages in a pdf document. So I never have to forward a 30 page pdf when it is only a single page that is relevant;. Small and easy to use; a little buggy at times but a joy to use!

I am sure to append this list in future but this should get you started.

For the complete list of my apps with comments, see: tinyurl.com/ss-macapps.

No more bleached colours

Photo from Bako National Park, Sarawak, 16 June 2009.