World without Borders ...

Stephanie Yap from Straits Times today wrote in the Culture Vulture section "Buying books without Borders", pondering on the evolution/revolution of bookshops in the light of bankruptcies of both the US and Australia Borders companies.

She is able to take it in stride because she buys books from Kinokuniya and BooksActually.  I don't think I've been to the latter, but since it moved to Tiong Bahru near my in-laws, I think I could make a trip down soon.

She also outlined 2 types of shops "serious buyers" go for.  One would be where the buyer has a clear idea of what to get, and the other is where the buyer hopes to find something interesting.

I asked myself - what kind of a book shopper am I?

Well, I do buy books, and I am not partial to either bookshops like Borders or Kinokuniya, or to used book stores, or antiqurian as some tries to pass themselves off.

Given practicalities like budget and space constraints, I cannot afford to buy just any book I fancy.

Most of my purchases are books I read from my childhood days, especially those no longer in print, such as Biggles and Three Investigators.  When I was young, it never occurred to me they might not be available in most bookshops.

Recently, I also bought some Boomkids comics - Walt Disney comics, some translated from Italian - I learned my lesson that these are the type of books that contain interesting stories and will also be likely not commonly available in time.

I even forked out for a new ligne claire style comics Rainbow Orchid. I regretted not buying a first edition of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen just because I thought the bookshop was asking too high for USD 15 back in 2002.

One thing I'm certain is that I'm not going on the eBook bandwagon.  I still want to hold a conventional book and read from paper instead of electronic screen.

I am also thankful that I am instilling in my children a habit and a love for reading.  Even my younger son who cannot read many words enjoy looking through old Sesame Street Dictionary and Encyclopaedia.

Singapore is already experiencing decline in 2nd-hand bookstores.  Perhaps in this decade, it will see a decline in mainstream bookstores too.

But I suspect there could be a revival of independent book retailers.  By then, my family might be more settled (hopefully), I'll have some more personal time to go "treasure hunting".

Yamato Trailer

WOW!

Childhood fantasy come true ...

The uniform seems a little cheesy now ... but heck, as long as the movie is fun ...

Memory is so strange ...

When I was young, I watched a Mandarin-dubbed Japanese anime series whose title I could not recall, but I retained vivid memories of the gist, especially the beginning.

It was set in the late 19th century about a girl who recently lost her father.  The family was apparently en route overland across Europe to the father's hometown.  Her mother was Indian, and they travelled in a caravan.  For livelihood, they had a camera which was a rare instrument at the time, taking and selling photos of people wherever they travel.

Tragically, her mother died along the way too, and the girl made her own way through many hardship to finally reach her grandfather's hometown.  Her grandfather, the Baron, was owner of the main business in town, a cotton factory.

As her father was long estranged from her grandfather before her birth, the girl followed her late mother's advice and avoided directly approaching her grandfather, and instead became a worker in the factory.  As conditions in the workers quarters were appalling, she made a home for herself in an unused cabin.

I never got to watch every episode though, especially the last few.

But it was buried deeply in my memory and surfaced just yesterday.

But memory is indeed strange.  I could have sworn the factory was supposed to be located in Russia.  I googled unsuccessfully for the Anime title with the few key words, but only got the right hit after removing Russia from the key word.

The title of the anime is ペリーヌ物語, Perīnu Monogatari, (The Story of Perrine).  In Mandarin, it was 《佩琳物語》，又譯《小英的故事》.

It was based on the novel En Famille by Hector Malot (1893).  The town where the factory was located was "Maraucourt" (I got it from Gutenberg project http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27690/27690-h/27690-h.htm), which I can't seem to find. It probably refers to Malancourt in Meuse, based on the name and the map produced by a fan below of the route taken by Perrine, which was the name of the girl.

Well, after nearly three decades, I finally got to watch the last few episodes and read the ending of the original novel (translated to English).

Guys wrestling against girls ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110218/ap_on_sp_ot/us_girl_wrestler_default_10

I got no issues sparring against girls in karate, but if I had done wrestling, I'd have opt out too.

Yeah, if the girl was prepared to wrestle, she's prepared to roll with whatever can be reasonably expected from it.

Well, that's her.  Not me ... against a female opponent anyway.

Doesn't matter if she's built like Roseanne Barr or Cindy Crawford (in her heyday).

Is population decline a bad thing for a country? Must greying population necessarily a hazard?

The population of the world is growing at an unmatched pace in history.

Though I believe that the world is still producing enough food and issue is about distribution, I don't think the world can support endless increase of human population.

If seen from a simple matter of physics and chemistry, our bodies are just atoms composed into self-replicating cells, sustained by input of additional materials.

Given finite number of atoms in the world, production of food is simply a matter of converting matter from one form to another, powered by solar energy of course, but overall, there is no real increase in amount of matter (not that significantly, solar energy can theoretically be converted to matter, but most solar energy used go into converting matter from one form to another).

Hence, it is only a matter of time, if human population is to continue to grow, for the Earth to run out of matter to be converted into food.

Of course, if by then humans can colonise other planets in other solar systems, shortage of matter would not be a pressing problem.

Still, it is only practical to acknowledge that at the present, it is wiser for Earth to look forward to declining population.

But declining population is seen as a problem by the governments of developed nations, including Japan and Singapore.  The fear is a greying population will pose a burden on a shrinking base of productive members of the society, or lead to decline in economic competitiveness.

To me, human beings have been progressively equipped to take care of themselves in the old age such that older people rely less on younger people.

Of course, it is a matter of personal responsibility for individuals to keep themselves in good health and have financial security when one's income declines.

Modern workers are far more productive than those in the past, and we do rely on fewer to produce the same amount of goods and services.

Rather than anxiously seeking to maintain population levels by immigration, it might be better to consider how fewer people would allow more living space for the citizens, especially in an already crowded city-state like Singapore.

Even if people earn less nominal income, a better quality of life with the increased living space might be just what would prompt them to have more children.

In all things, there is such a thing as a natural balance, and artificial measures working against natural principles are never effective.

Deliberately adding more foreigners just increases the stress and may put more citizens off having children.

As a migrant myself, I got nothing against migrants themselves - migration is part of natural activity.  But when governments seek to manipulate it for certain ends, the results are often counter-productive.

Project Blue Earth SOS (ProjectBLUE 地球SOS)

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Animation

As many reviewers noted, a bit of the 1996 film "Independence Day", a bit of "Captain Scarlet", and some even suggested Futurama.

The genre is "Retro-Futurism", a new term I came across describing a sort of steampunk in the 20th century.

During the last decade of 20th century, a "G-Reaction" technology was invented and harnessed to be the primary power supply to almost every need, from providing electricity to cities, to powering land, sea and air transport, for both civilian as well as military use.

Mysteriously, several ground-breaking prototypes disappeared in a flash of rainbow coloured lights.

Two young science prodigies stumbled on a plot by strange aliens intending on world domination. When the aliens finally showed their hand, it was also revealed that the Earth government had secretly been taking counter-measures, creating a clandestine strike force to defend Earth.

But the few years of preparation was inadequate for Earth to resist the overwhelming numbers and advanced technology of the aliens.

Their only hope was for the prodigies to decipher the cryptic clues to the origins and true nature of these aliens.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This anime was first released in 6 episodes in 2006.

The artists had great imagination in putting in "old" technology such as propellor blades on planes and trains, as well as rotary dials on telephones in the imagined year 2000.

Still, it would have been more logical though to set the show in the 1950s rather than year 2000.

There were a number of loose ends unaccounted by the end of the show - such as why the aliens chose to project an image of a human female to deliver cryptic messages to the Earthlings, or more specifically, to the two prodigies.

Still, the show did manage to get across the message of universal mankind, as well as consequences of mankind's hubris in pursuit and worshipping of technology.

百家讲坛20101204 -- 太原降将 01