At least the cat isn’t stressed I got hit by two really tough bouts of the flu in Aug - Sep again, heralded in (I suspect) by the irregular rains of the SW monsoon and the stress of the new term and my usual heav Semester I schedule. Now I hear that the flu season is around the corner. Sheesh. I’ll not mind sitting this one out.        Google 2001 search - web2.0 explodes Updating my NUS ecology blog, I came across Kenneth’s post in which he reports a 2001 Google search result for CIT. The search was resuscitated in celebration of Google’s 10th anniversary with internet archive links to the old webpages. Curious, I did a quick search with my name (it’s called a vanity search) - 2001 versus 2008. 2001 was not a long time ago - I was already immersed in mangroves, cycling in Pulau Ubin, posting to the Habitatnews mailing list, etc. Still there was a big difference - apart from the the 19,000+ increase in results. A whole bunch of web 2.0 sites that have appeared since 2001 - flickr, twitter, jaiku, blogger, technorati, pownce, librarything, bikely, slideshare, plaxo, magnolia, vimeo, scribd, wiki, wordpress! What a big contribution all these sites (and more) have made to my web use. There are other things to look for further some other day. I did have a kick out of seeing an old Habitatnews webpage advert (map and all) for a talk I was giving on the eve of the 2000 National Day - I recall the the audience sat on the carpeted floor of the yet to be assembled Public Gallery. And I remember us all going off to Holland Village later to makan. It was a fun talk that I must give again some day.        California Academy of Sciences opening this weekend CalAcad opens this weekend at the Golden Gate Bridge Park and NYT waxes lyrical over Piano’s architecture Nice to see it all fleshed out after this (from Sep 2005): It’s also the greenest museum around - see the Wired feature in August 2008. New of the opening is well covered of course, but this article highlights some of the challenges of the process that began in 1997. Link: calacademy.org.        International Coastal Cleanup Singapore - locations today About 3,000 of us will be at the shorelines today, all over Singapore - updates later on the News from the ICCS blog. Hope the rain is cooperative today!        Every dog has her day! Sofia rocks! Posted by email from otterman’s posterous Company at the keyboard National Archives Map exhibition @ Leisure Park Kallang, 08-17 Sep 2008 ———- Forwarded message ———-From: Mok Ly YngDate: Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 2:13 AM Hi everyone, The old map of Singapore exhibition entitled 'From Emporium to Singapore City' is back on the road.  The exhition lasts from 08-17 Sep (Wed). The venue is at the Kallang Leisure Park:http://www.leisurepark.com.sg/happenings.html>[8 - 15 Sep National Archive Exibition--should be 17 Sep] Historical air photos (most probably taken by the RAF) have been added this time round.  If you've missed this exhibition a few months ago, this is a good opportunity to take a look at it or snap some photos. FYI, please.  Thank you. Regards, Mok LY Posted by email from otterman’s posterous Asian Geographic Photojournalism competition 2008 Thanks to Kwok Chen Ko for the alert. Posted by email from otterman’s posterous "From your heart to your face…" NUS Symphony Orchestra (http://nusso.org) is getting ready for their concert at 7pm in the plaza of the National Library at Victoria Street. The conductor is taking the violin soloist and the orchestra through their paces and the gathering public is observing them as his exhorations come out through the sound system loud and clear. We’re getting a lovely idea of how they prepare and it sounds good. My fellow Yesterday.sg-er (http://yesterday.sg) Pei Yun suggested we come down just a couple of days ago; Kenneth Pinto will come down too and will be glad he did. See and download the full gallery on posterous Posted by email from otterman’s posterous Postscript - I was so glad to have reached National Library when NUSSO was rehearsing. That was captivating. It was was also nice to see fellow-Friends of Yesterday.sg come down - Kenneth and Chun See. I rated the performance 6 out of 5! I kept my Mac away when NUSSO started their performance. Was great seeing the team at work. ANd from so close, like we were in the orchestra pit. The tension in some players, the relaxed front row. The cymbals and triangle players strike and dampen sounds. The drummers watching the conductor eagle-eyed, ready to jump in at a precise moment. The intensity of the feeling was amplified by the strong wind which blew through the plaza and set the ceiling banners flapping. The enthralled crowd was as quiet as a theatre audience. And when the touching Schindler’s List pieces ended, the crowd was in such silent contemplation, we didn’t provide a sufficiently deserving rousing applause. But we did makee up for it later. I caught the maestro’s eye at the end and I nodded slowly and deliberately to communicate my feelings twice and he responded both times knowingly. He could guess how appreciative the audience was. All that work, bringing the instruments down, setting up and testing sound, for just one hour? A treat indeed! In the midst of a frenetic time, that hour was respite indeed, filled with melodic good news. PY blogged too. Beethoven Symphony No. 7 This has been running in my head again since watching Tarsem’s The Fall: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460791/ I could not find my mp3s, so I went to the web to listen and it’s been playing in the background this morning. I grew up with Karajan so glad YouTube turned up this clip with him at the baton. Hmm..I thought my office mac had all my music, but apparently not. Have to go excavate my box of CDs from home! Posted by email from otterman’s posterous Heritage TV for yesterday.sg My Kaki Wei Chong at NHB and fellow Friend of Yesterday.sg (FOY) emailed to say: 'We are experimenting with introducing a TV element to yesterday.sg to beef up the content of our blog. As such, we recently filmed a trial episode of Heritage TV. The footage is not the typical sleek and polished corporate videos. Do take a look and give us your comments and suggestions! If the reviews are good, we are considering a 12-episode series for next year.' I liked it, snappy 3-min thing, with bystander interviews and  quick blurb about the Singapore Stone. Well done folks! Posted by email from otterman’s posterous