Monthly Archives: August 2008

A must see – The Fall (2006)

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See IMDB and Amazon (can pre-order) – not the usual studio fare. See the trailer on the official site.

The movie is peppered with amazing natural scenes shot in several countries (see special effects (etc) supervisor Adam Howarth’s photos on Flickr and this fan’s details of the various locations) over four years, piggy backing on the director’s (Tarsem Singh) commercial jobs. Lots of borrowed mythology influence this very touching story inspired by a Bulgarian film from the 80’s and underscored by the heart-wrenching music of Beethoven (Symphony No. 7 in A Major Op 92. Allegretto). Gave me a vibe like Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” did and then there is the cutest possible child actor – who doesn’t even speak English. She rocks the house and might just make you cry. I rated it a “9” on IMDB.

 

Sumatras

life in singapore 2 Comments

Have you noticed frequent short bursts of rain recently in the mornings? Are these “Sumatras”?

 

“Sumatras are line of thunderstorms which usually occur during the Southwest Monsoon season from May to October each year. These squalls develop at night over Sumatra or the Malacca Straits and move east towards Singapore and the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia during the pre-dawn and early morning. They are often characterised by sudden onset of strong gusty surface winds and heavy rain lasting from 1 to 2 hours as they move across the island. Maximum gusts of up to 50 knots have been recorded during the passage of a Sumatra squall.”

– NEA FAQ.

MSN Spam: “I cant upload my pics to msn for some reason!”

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I have been getting random messages to my hotmail’s messenger whilst on Adium X. Then Chen Kee says he got such messages from my account. So I did the following:

  1. Change password on my hotmail account.
  2. Change my privacy level to in Adium X to ‘Allow only contacts on my contact list’ (In Adium X, Privacy Settings is “cmd-option P”)

Thanks to Cormac Moylan’s 16 Aug 2008 post of the same title.

Scheduling site – Doodle still rules the nest

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When is Good

Kevin Lim highlighted a new scheduling website this morning: whenisgood.net.

I took it for a spin to compare it to Doodle and found that whenisgood

  • Does not need registration – same as doodle
  • Email notification also same
  • The setup page for the Scheduler look messy – not good
  • But it is easier to setup with many hourly options (I usually limit to a few with some pre-made phone calls)
  • Attendees need to click to see choice highlighted – ok
  • Scheduler can unclick names (listed by least options) to see if there is a date match – useful for very large meetings – good
  • But I cannot see individual choices easily – bad

So I prefer doodle still:

  • I can eyeball everyone’s choice on list easily, make a phone call to have one person succumb to persuasion
  • I find it easier to setup!
  • I have an account that keeps track of schedules I posted.

Does whenisgood have a niche? It looks like it could be useful for use for very large meetings in an office used to very specifically timed meetings blocks. And for offering many, many choices for a large number of people to chose from.

I’ll keep it in mind for a future meeting though to see if that uncovers more.

Pandan mangroves

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Photos from the recce which was for my ecology and marine biology classes, the International Coastal Cleanup (lots of trash nestled in the forest) and the mudskipper survey. Catching and identifying mudskippers and crabs for me were Theresa, Marcus, Paul and Daniel.

 

It was a safe 30 minute ride from Holland Village. Would have loved to have had my totobobo mask with me as I rode at 9am and the air needed filtering! My replacement’s in the mail though – I just gave Chu Wa my address and he popped it in the mail. Can;t wait to try it out again!

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