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- outings - Wednesday A quick rundown of the past few days - met paler-than-usual special guest edmond (with an 'o', not the more common variety with a 'u', though he also went, together with two of the other guys honoured by MSN emoticons, and woof) at Junction 8, Bishan. Nursed a cup of Oreo Frappé for hours, along with their free flow of homemade bread. Thursday Watched Angels & Demons at Lot One, Choa Chu Kang. The plot wasn't too much of a surprise, since I had read the book standing in one of the co-ops at NUS some years back (the empty hours between lectures are not always easy to fill). Visited the library before that to grab a few books on Europe (Spain for Dummies, The Rough Guide to Andalucía, Frommer's England 2008 and England (Lonely Planet)). While they made fair reading, the vast proportion of the text isn't quite relevant (we've already found just about all our accomodations, and don't expect to frequent upmarket restaurants or indeed anything that expects more than a modest payment), and I suppose I would be about as well off with the Internet - see a couple really quite comprehensive websites about Venice and Seville, for instance. The major attractions are presumably universally recognized, and what minor details that are omitted probably won't be missed as we're staying for just a few days in each place. Of course, an internet connection can't be taken for granted (almost all hostels promise wifi, but it's apparent from the comments on Hostelworld and similar sites that such promises may be optimistic). Therefore, saving such websites to disk is prudent, and my preferred method is using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro's (free 30 day trial available) built-in create PDF from Web Page function. It takes a root URL (web address), and helpfully crawls through the entire site and saves it as a single PDF document with handy bookmarks. But back to the movie - it begins with some antimatter being stolen, and four Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church being kidnapped, with the culprits (apparently the Illuminati) threatening to kill one of them every hour as revenge for the Church's past killings of scientists and intellectuals (a comprehensive stifling certainly did happen - see White's The Warfare Of Science With Theology, for instance) Bearing in mind that the world of the past was probably less kind than the present (burning at the stake might be par for the course), and harsh measures had to be taken to maintain the authority of the Church (though when petty dictators act in the same way nowadays they would be roundly censured by the United Nations, and possibly invaded if they have oil) - the gist of the problem is the insistence that a particular holy book, being divinely inspired, must hold all the answers. It helps one's authority to claim to know everything, of course - "I don't know" is a not particularly impressive, if rather more honest, answer, for people who have found the perfect (and only) way. Of course, this is a problem, because in actual fact they didn't really know everything, so "facts" had to be cobbled together as they went along. Unfortunately, some of these "facts", or dogma, would probably turn out to be inaccurate upon deeper investigation. The authority now has a dilemma - if they admit that the "facts" in their eternal holy texts were wrong, it naturally calls into question the truth of the rest of their holy texts, since all were taken on much the same "evidence" i.e. faith. Not admitting it, however, becomes more and more difficult and ridiculous as actual evidence mounts. A salient example is Ussher's chronology of the world, which painstakingly computes the date of Creation from dates in the Bible. His method was scientific, his raw data less so, and thus there is a discrepancy with the best modern estimates by oh, some 4.5 billion years. What are believers to make of that? Of course, there is a third way, which is to claim that the holy texts are indeed infallible, but that human interpretation of those texts were misguided (and continue to hold with the greatest conviction the current interpretations). Science of course does not have all the answers either, but it does cheerfully admit ignorance where ignorance exists, and is more than happy to admit mistakes and update its textbooks when contrary evidence is found. Now, I must be careful to state that religion is not always nasty. For every raving fundie, there are likely a dozen reasonable souls, and in any case belief lies on a full spectrum - or rather, many spectrums. I feel myself justified in this statement as, taking Christianity as an example, the definition of "Who is a Christian?" has a multitude of possible replies, depending on who one asks. Starting with the basics, "accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior" is one measure, and as role models go one could do much worse than Christ. Now we suppose that a convert has accepted with all his heart, but not quite read through the whole Bible (how many can and do, anyway?), and does not know of the less savoury aspects, such as his non-Christian friends burning in hell. Or perhaps he does not, but cannot quite accept it, such that if others ask him of the fate of decent non-Christians, he answers that he sincerely believes that all are saved, not one is left behind, by God's mercy. Is he Christian? If a person believes, but was never baptized, is he Christian? If he does not take part in Mass, is he Christian? If a person does believe that women should have the same rights as men, and his priest or pastor disagrees, citing passages from the eternal Bible, is he a Christian? If a person believes that slavery is unacceptable, while his priest or pastor sends his slave to drive him away, is he a Christian? If a person believes that gays and lesbians were made as such by God and are entitled to their own happiness in this imperfect world, is he a Christian? Are Catholics, Christian? Not to some Protestants and evangelicals, I believe. What about Mormons, Arianists (of whom Issac Newton was one), the Orthodox Church? Was Gandhi one? If the average Christian of today met the average Christian of 500 years ago, what are the chances that the latter would accept the former as Christian? How justifiably sure can one be, in the nitty-gritty specifics of one's faith? Pope John Paul II, a great and humble man, did at least recognize the imperfections of his Church in practice, which is more than I can say for those who insist upon their religion being beyond question or reproach (or just practice it in an exceedingly dumb way). Of course, everyone is entitled to his opinion, and while I may not agree with some views on say, gay marriage, I do acknowledge those with differing views (as say the reigning Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean) to air them in a civil manner. Or to pose for tasteful semi-nude photos, though strictly speaking it went against the pageant rules. But as Miss USA owner Donald Trump affirmed, we are in the twenty-first century, and more importantly the "pictures were lovely". The other major point of interest was the antimatter bomb, which was touted as having a yield the equivalent of five kilotons (or about a third of "Little Boy", the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima. In the movie, with about five minutes before detonation, the Camerlengo takes it up in the air in an helicopter, and skydives out before the customary big explosion; the onlookers on the ground are shown to be blown aside by the blast, but not forcefully enough to cause many deaths. Is this realistic? Well, in the case of Hiroshima, the atomic bomb was detonated about 600m above ground for maximum effect, and completely annihilated an area of about 1.6km radius, and destroyed most buildings for maybe another kilometre or two. Keeping in mind that the antimatter bomb was not quite as powerful, we can ask ourselves how high it was sent - helicopters can surprisingly reach an altitude of around 3 to 6km, and military helicopters can rise at a maximum rate of 500m a minute, though rates of 200m to 300m seem more common, and also the rate slows as the air gets thinner with increasing altitude. Therefore, the helicopter in the movie probably reached like 1.5km in five minutes, and realistically at most about 3km. Would that distance have been sufficient to protect the people on the ground from the force of the explosion? tpk noted that the energy release would be largely in the form of gamma radiation anyway, which isn't good for those who don't want to get cancer - but hey, why spoil an entertaining scene with mere facts? Friday Played badminton for what will be the last time in a month, then popped over to the local POSB branch to update my ATM card from the old grey one to the new Cirrus and Maestro compatible version. Probably won't get my debit card in the mail in time, but it won't matter now. alvin's attempts to get a solar charger didn't come off, though, and the looks on the faces of handphone vendors at the request were uniformly strange. Also, I finally began packing. The good news was that I didn't have to cut anything much, as all the items fitted comfortably into my main backpack, and tipped the scales at just over 6kg - If worst comes to worst, I could probably cram some extra stuff into the daypack to meet Cathay Pacific's 7kg limit (they have a huge list of exemptions), and Ryanair's 10kg all-inclusive limit seems generous enough. Packing lists, such as the one in the book No Picnic on Mount Kenya, have usually drawn me for some reason, and thus it wouldn't be quite right not to reveal my own: BAGGAGE 1 backpack [Water Polo, large] (dark blue/black) 1 daypack [Double M "Originate from Japen" {sic}, small] (black) CLOTHING 7 handkerchiefs 1 jacket [Converse] (dark grey) 1 jacket [Anata] (blue) 1 jeans (blue) [worn on body] 1 long pants (dark green) 1 sandals [Kawasaki, pair] 1 shoes [worn on body] 1 sleeping pants (grey) 4 socks [pairs] (2 green, 2 white) [1 worn on body] 1 spectacles (black) [worn on body] 1 spectacles container (black) 1 sweater [long-sleeved] (orange) 1 swimming goggles [Aquapro] (blue) 1 swimming trunks (black) 4 T-shirts (2 beige, 1 blue, 1 brown) [1 worn on body] 1 towel [small] (blue/white) 2 towels [large] (white/red/blue/yellow, white/green/orange/yellow) 1 trackpants (dark blue) 5 underpants [pairs] DOCUMENTATION 1 ATM card [POSB Cirrus/Maestro] 1 ISIC card 1 passport [Singapore] 1 stack of printouts [identification, reservations, tickets, etc] ELECTRONICS 8 batteries [Energizer, AA size] 1 camera [Canon Powershot A400, with 128MB SD card] 1 digital watch [Casio] (black) 1 handphone [Nokia 3220] 1 netbook [MSI Wind U100 Plus] (black) 1 netbook power adapter 1 optical mouse [MSI, wired] 1 travel adapter (white) 1 USB cable [Nokia CA-42] 1 USB cable [camera] 1 USB thumbdrive [Lagan, 1GB] FIRST AID 10 face masks [pack] 5 Hansaplasts 1 inhaler [Axe Brand] 1 Mopiko [tube] 1 pouch [small] (transparent) 1 thermometer [digital] 10 Buscopan (Hyoscine) [Abdominal pain, tablets] 20 Chloramine [Flu, tablets] 20 Danzan [Antiinflammation (Throat), tablets] 20 Dhamotil [Diarrhoea, tablets] 20 Diclofenac [Fever/Pain, tablets] 10 Fenfedrin [Nasal decongestion, capsules] 18 Merck Ultracarbon (Medicinal charcoal) [Diarrhoea, tablets] 20 Paracetamol (Panadol) [tablets] 10 Veragel-DMS [Peptic Ulcer/Hyperacidity, tablets] TOILETRIES 1 comb (brown) 1 electric shaver [Panasonic, 2AA batteries] (blue) 1 hand towel (white) 1 toiletries pouch (blue/transparent) 1 toothbrush (green) 1 toothpaste [Darlie, normal] MISCELLANEOUS 2 ballpoint pens (blue) 1 coin pouch (dark blue) 1 combination lock [cable] (pink) 1 combination lock (black) 1 combination lock (red) 1 money pouch (black) 1 rubber bands [pack] (red) 1 spectacles cleaner [pack] 1 water bottle [500ml] 1 writing notebook [small] (blue) {Note: Nice try, Mr. Ham} I could probably get by with quite a bit less (indeed, a traveller with enough in his bank account could probably get by with just a credit card and a change of clothes in most civilized areas), but as mentioned the sum total isn't that heavy at all. And before I forget again, Sprocle is a terrific site to while away a couple of hours. Take the Premier League All-Time quiz - I only managed to name 30-odd of the 42 clubs that have once played in the Premier League (and even forgot Middlesbrough!). Or how about their nicknames, or stadium names? If football's not quite your thing, there are many other categories; what's the most popular college major, or the most common murder weapons? This is also the last day of what looks like another unsuccessful virtual $100 Challenge season, but let's finish it for completeness' sake: $50 on Aston Villa to draw Newcastle (at 3.35) - would just be like the Magpies to cheat death $50 on Man Utd to beat Hull City (2.25) - over evens? never thought I would see that, even with a so-called weakened team Next: Ten Thousand Kilometres
lwei said... SEVEN hankerchiefs? for the seven dwarfs ah. and i doubt u really need 2 large towels. one small one would have sufficed, really. they dry fast.
not to mention an additional spare pair of glasses, of which are not easily replaceable when damaged. and u're really gg minimalist for ur month there la. but then tt's why i had like 15kg of luggage for my 2wks in aussie. tripod, dSLr, facial products and many clothes. ha.
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