Malacca 23-25th December 2011

Dong Zhi (Winter Solstice) 2011

Happy winter solstice everyone!

Start:

Dec 21, '11

Happy winter solstice everyone! Eat more tangyuen please so next year will be sweeter.

Zooniverse - Real Science Online

https://www.zooniverse.org/
Come join in and help the world science community in their projects and experiments. The more people helping, the faster they can sort through and analyse their data!

This is very similar to the BIONC project but these are projects that usually can't be automated and need a human eye/judgement to analyse.

An invitation to ECLIPSE at ONE FULLERTON (Event supported byFullerton Heritage)

Start:	Dec 10, '11 8:00p
Location:	Bay pavement perimeter grounds beside One Fullerton, Singapore

Dear Astronomy Friends,

You are cordially invited to join the lunar eclipse celebrations at ONE FULLERTON (bay area). There will be a total lunar eclipse right here in Singapore and it will occur during the evening of 10th December 2011 (Saturday). Feel free to bring your telescopes, family (young and seniors!), friends, et cetera.

Date | Time : 10 Dec 2011, 8PM onwards

Location: Bay pavement perimeter grounds beside One Fullerton

Looking forward to meeting everyone in the local astronomy community!

Registrations (if you are bringing a telescope) : remuscj@gmail.com


From the Eclipse Crew

The First Emperor Exhibit at the Asians Civilisation Museum, Singapore 16th October 2011

Photo Album 2011-10-17

Nightscape - Marina Bay Singapore

View from the top of Marina Bay Sands

Midnight Pancakes - August 2011

2011 August Road Trip Rations

In no particular order, completely not in sync with the images;

Penang a-pum
Ipoh what-tan-hor
Penang assam laksa
Ipoh Indian rojak
Penang kopi-o
Ipoh kopi-ping
Penang chee-cheong-fun
Ipoh assam laksa
Penang cha-kueh-kak
Ipoh chee-cheong-fun
Penang lor-bak

(missing - I kept forgetting to take pictures before eating)
Penang cha-kueh-teow
Ipoh hor-fun
Penang curry mee
Penang poh-piah

Aphrodite Concert Singapore - Kylie's Locomotion Live 29th June 2011

Al Fahidi Fort, Dubayy, United Arab Emirates

Al Fahidi Fort (Arabic: حصن الفهيدي‎), the original tower built in 1787, is the oldest existing building in Dubai and was originally built to defend the town of Dubai which grew up along the banks of the creek. The fort was expanded over the years, mostly in the 1830s to 1850s under the rule of Late Sheikh Maktoum Bin Buti, to its current form with 3 towers on 3 of its for corners.

Constructed of mortar and coral from the shallow waters of the creek it formed part of a defensive wall around the original town. Parts of the original wall can still be seen in front of the fort, and parts of the wall in the Bastakiya have been excavated for display.

It currently houses the Dubai Museum which opened in 1970.

Baby in Dubayy, United Arab Emirates 14th May - 17th May 2011

Dubai Mall
- Dubai Aquarium
Burj Khalifah
Jumeirah Mosque
Dubai Museum
Dubai Creek & Dinner cruise
Ibn Battuta Mall
Mall of the Emirates & Ski Dubai
Burj Al Arab
Jumeirah Beach
Souk Madinat Jumeirah
Dubai Marina
The Palm & Atlantis Hotel
Casa d'souza
Derrezing in Sohan's Tronmobile
Bastakiya & Camel burgers
Dubai ice rink

Kota Johor Lama (Old Johor Fort), Johor, Malaysia

The Kota Johor Lama was part of a string of defensive fortifications built by the Johor Empire along the Johor river.

Faced with enemies such as the Portuguese and Acheh, the Johor Sultanate built eight forts along the whole length of the Johor river, from Sayong Pinang to Johor Lama and Kota Batu at the river's estuary, more than 50 km downstream.

After the fall of Melaka 1511, the Melaka Sultanate shattered into remnant centers, at Muar, Pagoh, Bentan and at Kampar in Sumatra. When Sultan Mahmud died in Kampar in 1528, his successor Sultan Alauddin set up his administrative centre at Pekan Tua, about 11km upriver from modern Kota Tinggi in Johor and established his first fort known as Kota Kara further downstream on the Johor river.

The Portuguese under Estavao da Gama, with 400 soldiers and 2 large galleons, invaded Johor in June of 1535. From the river, Kota Kara was attacked and bombarded while Portuguese troops, landing a few days later, shelled the fort from a neighbouring hill. These initial attacks were repulsed by the defenders. The Malays, thinking to push the Portuguese out, sallied out of their fortified ramparts to attack the retreating Portuguese. However, what started as a victory, turned into a rout when the Portuguese pushed the Malays back and captured the empty fort, burning it to the ground.

Sultan Alauddin, forced to flee Pekan Tua, set up another fort further upriver at Sayong Pinang, rebuilding Kota Kara when the Portuguese had left.

However, Estavao da Gama returned and attacked again with another forced comprising Malay mercenaries and about 400 Portuguese soldiers. Sultan Alauddin was forced to relocated yet again, this time moving his capital to Johor Lama, nearer the river estuary. He built a fort at Kota Batu to guard the river approach to the new capital.

In 1539, Acheh attacked Johor's vassal, Aru, with a fleet of 160 vessels. Mustering a fleet in defence, Johor together with allies from Siak and Perak invaded and recaptured Aru the next year at the battle of Sungai Paneh.

In revenge, in 1564 Acheh attacked Kota Batu and Johor Lama. The fort and town were completely destroyed with its hundreds of cannon and artillery pieces seized together with the Sultan. The Johor Sultan was brought in chains back to Acheh, where he died. The Sultan's son, was installed by the Achinese as Sultan Muzaffah Shah and he rebuilt Kota Batu and built his capital Seluyut, 15km upstream near Kota Tinggi.

Sultan Muzaffah Shah died in 1571 and was succeeded by Sultan Ali Jalla Abdul Jalil Shah II who rebuilt Johor Lama and enlarged Kota Batu, equipping it with hundreds of cannon. Johor Lama quickly became a thriving centre of trade, posing a threat to the Portuguese at Melaka. In 1576, a Portuguese fleet again attacked the fort but were beaten back. They returned 2 years later, in 1578 but were again forced to retreat, unable to beat the fort's defenses.

In 1582, the Achinese who were Johor's overlords, decided that their subject Sultan had grown too powerful and they attacked Kota Batu and Johor Lama. This time however, the Achinese were beaten back, when the Portuguese, playing bothsides, sent ships in its defence.

In 1586 the Sultan repaid the Portuguese with an attack on Melaka with a fleet of 100 vessels. Besieged, the Portuguese counterattacked with a sortie by 100 Portuguese and 600 Malay mercenaries equipped with firearams and routed a besieging 2000-strong Minangkabau force. The Johor fleet led personally by the Sultan, sailed into the harbour and launched a final assault and landed on one-side of the city, while another forced attacked from the the other. However, neither were able to breach Melaka's formidable defensive walls.

Retreating, Johor was pursued by Antonio de Noronha with a fleet of galleons right up to the walls of Kota Batu. Bombarding Kota Batu, the Portuguese landed a force of about 300 men and assaulted it. However, the heavily defended fort easily repulsed the Portuguese forcing them to return to Melaka.

Determined to rid themselves of their rivals, the Portuguese dispatched a much larger fleet from Goa later that year and again beseiged Kota Batu and Johor Lama. On August 15th, 1586 the fort's walls were finally breached. Exacting revenge, the Portuguese ships raided the entire length of the Johor River, destroying and capturing thousands of cannons and artillery pieces. Sultan Ali retreated upstream and built yet another fort at Batu Sawar but this too was quickly attacked by the Portuguese and captured.

This proved to be the effective end to the Johor Empire. Eventhough Sultan Ali rebuilt the fort at Batu Sawar and his son Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah II constructed his own fort across the river from Batu Sawar called Kota Seberang, Johor never recovered and its forts were left neglected in ruins.

Japan Sendai 2011 Earthquake and Tsunami - Before and After Satellite Pictures

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm
from ABC News

Images of the Lunar New Year Xin Mao 4708

JeeYin's First

A big thank you to everyone for making this such a great party for him. He was a little apprehensive at first but was back to his old (if you can consider 1 year as old) self, laughing and smiling especially when he saw the cake. Just didn't think he should have kicked the cake though. Got his brand new shoes splatted with cream, and yes, he finally gets to wear shoes now that he's 1 year old!

I hope everyone had fun and the food was ok. We had a lot of left over food so I was worried everyone would be too full to eat the cake. I didn't relish having to eat leftovers from a 3 kg cake for the next few weeks but thank goodness the cake was almost completely finished! I think the chocolate and lychee double layer combo was a good choice.

We had a lot of leftover party packs for the kids too. Quite a few people were down with the flu and cancelled last minute, and three families didn't turn up too. That meant we had 5 kids fewer than expected so some of the not so young kids in their 30s got party packs. haha

Was definitely good to see some people whom I haven't seen in years turn up. That was definitely a pleasant surprise.

The condo could have done with more chairs but otherwise, its not such a bad place for a party. Nice big and airy hall.

Let's meet up again soon.

... notable events : My old spaceship

Zipping through the asteroid belt, bright splashes of high intensity laser beams flashed past us, drilling holes in the surrounding rock, barely missing our spaceship by mere inches.  Giggling quietly as we flashed past the vaporised rock and dodging tumbling mountains of cratered monoliths, we flew our spaceship faster than we had ever flown before.  My co-pilot (to him, I was the co-pilot as we never agreed on just who was the co-pilot and who the pilot) gripped his joystick tighter, pressing it even deeper into its wooden socket.

Our angled bow ploughed through the airless void.  The asteroids begin to thin, as did the almost too bright stabs of lasers, still trying to skewer our tiny spacecraft as we pulled clear of the asteroid field.

"There!" I mumbled as loudly as I dared.  "We head for that planet."  I pointed.  A bright blue orb no larger than a ten cent coin could just be seen at the bottom left of our forward screen.  Ten cents was all it took to buy a nice packet of rice or mee, I thought to myself, smacking my lips as I turned to look at the clock on the wall in front of me where Mr. Peter Siew our class teacher stood, monotonously droning on and on about something.  Not long now till I get my packet of mee.

*Bump!

My co-pilot leaned hard against me.  "What?!!?" I whispered fiercely to him.  "I'm diving the spaceship!" he whispered back louder than he probably intended.

"You two.  Keep quiet!" the familiar and hated voice of our nemesis cut across the classroom.  "And straighten your desks!"

"Yes teacher." my co-pilot and I chorused together, pushing our desks back together from the "V" shape they formed, and pulling out our two joysticks that were stuck into nicely chipped holes in the surface of our desks, joysticks that looked very much like boringly mundane pencils, now that the fun was obviously over.

My co-pilot nudged me, and I nudged him back.  Yeah, yeah I know, I nodded  at him.  We still had our plasma bombs made out of hollowed out pieces of blackboard chalk, a small pile of that deadly ordinance sitting in our desk drawers, chalk that had been carefully and lovingly chipped and hollowed into very thin rings so that they shattered very satisfyingly when thrown against a wall, a blackboard... or against a hated teacher's back.

But we were spacepilots and no one ever said spacepilots were dumb.  No, not us.  We could throw our plasma bombs at our nemesis right now for having intruded into our awesome space battle, but that wouldn't be the smart thing to do, not right now at least, not with the whole class staring at us.  Besides, recess was next.  I didn't exactly want to spend recess in detention.  Noooo... I wanted to go to the canteen and spend my ten cents on a packet of mee and then maybe trudge over to the other side of the school field and climb the sheer face of the school mountain until the bell rang for classes to start again.

My co-pilot nudged me again and I nudge him back, hard.  "Stop!" I whispered at him.  I didn't even particularly like him.  We never played together except in class, and only because he was sitting next to me and we both had little other choice if we were to survive the boring class lessons and the even more boring teachers.

I can't remember his name now but I still remember his face, as well as that of my Standard Five class teacher, Mr. Peter Siew.  We really should have been studying hard since it was the year of our country-wide Standard Five assessment exams, the results of which would see our placement into secondary schools but, but... those pesky aliens... the world needed someone to stand up to them and fight back!  Who else could save the world.  Who else would do it but for my co-pilot and I in our slightly beat-up desks angled into a "V" and our pencils struck into carefully chiselled holes in the desk surfaces in order for us to execute those high G turns and fantastical bursts of speed through interstellar space thumbing the pencils' rubber tips to fire our laser beams, zapping aliens as we go.

That was a magical time.  Everything was a game, everything was full of possibilities, everything was just as an imagination away.  Today, as I sit on my sofa with the TV on, watching as my son tries to overturn my telescope, yank down the curtains or eat the remote control, crawling around picking things up to put into his mouth, poking, twisting, yanking, pulling at anything that strikes his fancy, I can't help but think back to my time, when everything was so wonderfully new, a simple pencil could be a laser gun or a spaceship component, a piece of chalk could be crafted into devastatingly deadly bombs to be used against aliens, both real and imagined, a six feet high yellow earth mound on the other side of the school field could be an almost unscalable sheer mountain cliff (well it probably felt that high to an eleven year old kid)...

What would his future be, I wonder.  What are the games he would devise?  Where would his imagination take him?  There is so much beauty in a child's simple games, their wide-eyed wonder at the world around them as possibilities after possibilities open up and yield to their explorations.

Enjoy your childhood my son, they are the most precious of times.

Game: Fascinating (but little known) facts

Let's play another game.

1. Post what you think are fascinating but little known facts here.

2. Put your facts in BOLD and all other text and comments in normal font.  (see 1st example below)  (use < b > Text < / b > to set text to bold)

3. Facts must be something you personally know, and not something random googled from the internet.

4. If you have a few to post, keep it to one fact per post and space out your posts so that we can continue and keep this gaming going with as many people posting interesting facts as possible.

You can comment on the posts of course but the aim is primarily to post facts.

Have fun!

WSJ - Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior & In Defense of the Guilty, Ambivalent, Preoccupied Western Mom

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html#articleTabs%3Darticle


In Defense of the Guilty, Ambivalent, Preoccupied Western Mom
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703333504576080422577800488.html?mod=WSJASIA_newsreel_lifeStyle