From Peter Kageyama’s For The Love of Cities: “We tend to think of “the city” or “the community” as an entity, a single identifiable construct to which we assign attributes and characteristics much like we would a corporation or an individual… …In asking ourselves how to change a community, we need to remember that any community…
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Misty morning run at the Rail Corridor
Why hello there… it’s been a while. Things have been wacky at work. And only partly in a good way. More on that later. A couple of weeks ago I ran part of the Rail Corridor trail with some friends, just for fun. It’s been some time since the tracks were removed at the end of last…
Untouched primary forests are “irreplaceable”
The Straits Times, Saturday 1 October 2011 UNTOUCHED primary forests are ‘irreplaceable’ when it comes to saving tropical biodiversity, say researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS). Their work with scientists from Australia, Europe and the US analysed studies from around the world, comparing undisturbed forests with those that had been affected by farming,…
Pandas, Chinese environmental awareness and the Singapore conservation story
I took a trip recently to Chengdu and northern Sichuan (more on that some other time), but one highlight was, of course, the pandas. The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, China, is a pretty odd place: part research centre, yes, but also in part a farm. Its panda-husbandry and artificial-insemination techniques are finely…
on the reading list
1. Scientific American, September 2011, special issue on cities. (Look out for the William Gibson essay!) 2. Ultima Thule, by Davis McCombs who is a tremendous poet. Tremendous. Also knows his Kentucky caves inside out. I have nothing but respect for that. 3. Jane Jacobs, The Death & Life of Great American Cities. 4. Jonathan Watts, the Guardian’s…
Conditioning help
Once operant conditioning is in place, and there is no hope of extinction, can it be got rid of? Can anyone point me to studies on this? Tangentially related, how do you stave off Internet procrastination? (That’s the learned behaviour which won’t go extinct, as the reward – interesting things on the Internet! – is…
Return of the Roadster
Tesla sports car returns to electrify roads Importer banks on after-sales service to sell electric speedster, sedan By Grace Chua, The Straits Times, Thursday 21 July MOTORISTS here who want to draw envious stares while feeling environmentally friendly will soon be able to get behind the wheel of the world’s first electric sports car. The…
But who will buy one?
The Tesla Roadster, a 288-horsepower, fully-electric two-seater sports car, is now back in Singapore, as you may have heard. But its price tag starts at $520,000, and with certificate-of-entitlement prices on the rise*, it ain’t getting any cheaper. So who will buy one? I was trying to figure this out the other day. The first niche market…
Money for nothing (sort of)
Why do people spend more to get free things – in this case, a mostly-syrup-and-ice slushy drink that has no nutritional value? What, precisely, is so alluring about freebies? From the story: “Free is magic,” says Barry Schwartz, professor of psychology at Swarthmore College. “If you offer something for free, people will gladly spend money to…
Tide of awareness about the water-energy relationship
Save water by using less electricity Governments recognise that the two are fundamentally linked By Grace Chua, The Straits Times, Saturday, July 9, 2011 ‘Think of water as a fuel… When you fill your car with petrol, you don’t pour some on the ground and then put some in your car. You don’t waste it.’…