Hidden passageways

Got this website off Neil Gaiman's. I wonder how he manages to fulfil so many tasks and still have time to blog daily and get such interesting stuff.
Well interesting concept, nice to have around my house one day.

Night Walk

Friday was a hectic but good day. Had my first game with the B div, good game in all, was very impressed with their drive and desire to win and score. Got scored over many times, good, they were not intimidated by big lumbering defenders. Was also reminded cruelly of my lack of form, the body will not respond to where the mind want it to go. My left knee needs more strengthening, it must last till Rinjani in June. After that we'll see.

Went to meet my fellow NUS coursemates for a night walk after that. I love night walks, you move more slowly through the forest or stream and your eyes only look at where your torchlight lands on and this actually brings to your attention more detail and more beauty. Had a really good walk, saw alot of fascinating animals; long legged spiders, a spider with an unusually green and long abdomen, 2 stick insects, a huntsman spider, 2 long legged centipede, a scorpion feeding on a spider, black eyed litter frog and the best find of all, a slow loris (Nycticebus coucang).
One of my friend was trying to look for flying lemurs amongst the trees when her torch was reflected off 2 huge eyes. It was moving too slowly for a monkey and had eyes too big for a squirrel. "Eh eh mammal mammal! I think it's a loris!", came her urgent whisper. Within moments, 4 beams of torchlight were swinging to and fro amongst the branches, hoping to locate this elusive animal. The excitement was palpable, all of us live for moments like this, hoping to have the briefest contact with what nature has, all creatures big and small. After about 10 minutes of hard searching, our torchlights were reflected off 2 huge globes. From the amount of light reflected and the size of the eyes, this has to be a nocturnal creature with excellent night vision. We followed the creature as it slowly ambled down a brach and lost sight of it when it moved into an area with thick leaves, leaving behind an excited quartet trying their very best to record the moment in their minds.
Did not bring my camera along, which is probably why I could see so many animals (i think i am cursed). Shall post photos when pictures come.

Arunian mosquito repellent

Secretion from the skin of the dump tree frog is shown to be effective in warding off mosquitoes.

Frog key to mosquito repellents from BBC Science.

How far should you dive into the water to evade bullets?

2.5 meters. According to New Scientist

Now if only diving into water evades deadlines...

When my camera is not with me

Committed a cardinal sin today, I went guiding in Ubin with my camera and... no spare batteries. Well no carelessness on my part but the prof leading the students for the guiding session ran out of batteries so I passed mine to him. He has a bigger lens, a sleek mouth watering 300mm, so no question of who should be taking pictures.

We lead the group of undergraduates through the sensory trail. In the early hours of the morning, it was really a pleasant walk and en route there the park ranger, Adam, pointed out a hornbill coming down to feed on figs near the Ubin visitor center. I had to restrain myself from taking my camera out or asking my friends to snap pictures. I had to suppress my natural instincts and use my other senses to register this beautiful encounter. Till now I can still visualise the striking greyish white head and the manner which the bird shook the branches while it moved along to pick up the figs. Moving along the sensory trail I finally saw the Jobs Tears plant, Coix lacryma-jobi (Poaceae). The fruits of the plant are so hardy and woody that they were used as beads in various trinklets. And as we moved along, I saw Coffea robusta (Rubiaceace). The coffee drinker finally gets in touch with the coffee plant.

Towards the end of the trail, along the shore, we saw the beautiful beautiful flame lily, (Gloriosa superba Lind), this amazing flower has bright red petals which points up towards the air (like five firey tongues), leaving a set of 6 anthers pointing laterally like the spokes of a wheel and a stigma at the center. Did I also mention the common changeable lizard (Calotes versicolor)nestled nicely amongst the branches of a plant, with the nice yellow afternoon sun on its face?

Hope my words did justice to the beautiful encounters this morning. Think I should just go back to taking pictures, its much easier that way, you paste the picture in and caption it.

The world today - Edward Wilson

"We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely." - Edward Wilson.

How true.

www.climateprediction.net

Happy Valentine's Day to all. :)

Have not blogged in a while. Kind of lost momentum but will should pick it up soon.

Meanwhile came across this interesting project by BBC. climateprediction.net. Climate prediction is still a vague and imprecise business and this may change with this venture. Home users can now download a simlulator available, set the parameters and let the program run in the background while the computer is switched on.

The project's chief scientist, David Stainforth from Oxford University, commented that this current model (first model was launched 2 years ago) is more accurate as it incorporates a fully dynamic ocean, which is one huge variable in climate prediction.

This is an another example of distributed computing. A more familiar example will be by Seti where several million people downloaded data to sift for evidence of extraterrestrial life.

For a more extensive writeup, read BBC links to huge climate project

Download the software at Climateprediction.net

Liberation

Just had a talk with a close friend of mine. We were in the same situation, juggling with work while trying to complete another project which under normal circumstances, requires a full time effort. She has thought about it and given it up. Ironically, when I heard the news, I felt happiness for her as I know how sweet the breath of freedom must taste in her lungs and how light her soul must be feeling right now. Sometimes freedom comes with a price and one must know when to let go, even at a certain cost to one's pride and resources.

Now there is only myself continuing this struggle. Truth to be said, I am exhausted.

Will I know when to let go? When do one really move on whole heartedly without being burdened and overwhelmed by vestiges of the past?

Well, enough of thinking, time to go back to finish the job. Hopefully by March I will be ready.