Same movies on the return flight, and I did not want to see Up on the tiny screen, had already seen Two Weeks Notice, Serendipity, and Million Dollar Baby, failed to get English subtitles for the Korean movies, and did not feel up to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. So ...

• The Day the Earth Stood Still (5 points)
• The Happening (3 points)

We went to a sushi bar where the plates where RFID-chipped, so that the waitress can just swipe them with a reader to figure out how much we needed to pay. Leave it to the Japanese to incorporate the latest technology into every-day life.

Ever since winning immortality in a bet against the Devil (which of course was a trick and turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing), Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is touring the world with his little theatre troupe. Unfortunately, the style of the performance has not aged very well and it is hard for them to attract an audience. Their fortunes seem to pick up when they find Tony (Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farell), hanging from a bridge with a rope around his neck.

6 points

The problem with watching movies on the plane's onboard entertainment system is that the pilot turns off the screen before landing. On today's flight to Tokyo that cost me the last twenty minutes or so of Crash.

• Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (7 points)
• District 9 (9 points)
• Crash (8 points)

Fortunately, I am staying at Imai-san's place, and his extensive DVD collection did indeed include Crash (which actually he got from me), so I was able to enjoy the conclusion.

There is not a single Singaporean athlete at the Winter Olympics.

Today is the first day of Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year, as it is also called, probably to be more inclusive). While this is not a whole week of public holidays (as it is in Mainland China), it does seem to be the most important holiday of the year here in Singapore, more so than Deepavali, Christmas and the other New Year. It certainly completely eclipses Valentine's Day, especially this year as they fall on the same date.

This year will be the Year of the Tiger.

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I am a card-carrying member of the Free Software Foundation (and that card is bootable), and I am getting a little worried how they spend their resources. Every time Microsoft comes out with a new version of their operating system there is a new campaign against it. Is this really the important battle anymore?

Windows works on hardware that is available in the form of standardized components, which you can combine in many different ways to fit your needs and obtain from many different vendors at competitive pricing. The existence of this ecosystem is to a large part a direct consequence of the success of Microsoft's business model.

If you feel like it, you can replace (or augment) the Windows installation on your computer with an open-source operating system. But even if you don't, you can run (and create) any kind of software you want, open-source or otherwise, on top of either operating system. And you can directly access, copy and modify all of data files that you create with them.

Contrast this to Steve Job's reimagination of the personal computer in the form of the iPad. You can only install application through Apple's App Store, from which the company quite often bans programs for reasons that not everyone agrees with. It is unlikely that iPad users will ever be able to use software written with Flash or Java technology, even though the device is clearly capable of doing so. It seem impossible that another company could offer an improved (or just different) iPad-compatible tablet computer. Content providers will be offering digital downloads of books, magazines, news feeds, just like they already do for music and movies, and this will most probably come with DRM to make it impossible to consume your purchased media on devices made by a competing brand, and in addition potentially reduce the quality of information that will be available free of charge on the open Internet.

I have little doubt that the iPad will be a very successful product, and define a new category, just like the iPhone and the iPod before it. Maybe not in its first iteration, but definitely within the next two years, and especially when it reaches the point where it can operate without the need for a (traditional) PC to sync with. Thus, the iPad will have a much bigger impact on computer users' freedom and ability to control their devices and data than anything Microsoft is doing at this point.

Of course, I'll buy one as soon as it reaches generation three. Let's just stop pointing fingers at Microsoft, and worry about the next wave of scary monopolies (not just Apple, by the way, Google and Facebook also need to be watched).

Update: I just noticed that a section of the FSF's Defective by Design campaign against DRM is indeed aimed at the iBad.

Korean drama fever, which has taken Asia by storm during the last decade, has finally caught up with me. I accidentally started watching Cruel Temptation, and I hate it. Premise and plot are completely ridiculous, and all of the main characters are despicable. Yet, I cannot stop watching. Yesterday's was episode forty-nine, which looked very close to a climactic showdown, but I was shocked to find out that there are another eighty episodes to go. We must make sure to not have a TV in Shanghai.

Other shows I am watching these days are the Simpsons, My Name Is Earl, Cougar Town, and the locally produced Phua Chu Kang, all of them comedies.

Part Nine: The Apple Cutter apportions a healthy snack into eight bite-sized chunks.

Singaporean citizens have to register their race, and this is also indicated on their ID cards (not for foreign residents, we have "nationality" instead). In response to the growing number of mixed marriages, the registration law has been adjusted this year to allow the inclusion of two races, such as Caucasian-Chinese, or Malay-Indian. The two parts must obviously come from the parents, and it is not compulsory to use both: it is possible to use just the father's or (new from this year) the mother's classification. There cannot be more than two, however; a Chinese-Indian's child with a Caucasian-Malay will have to pick two. The registration must be done before the child turns fifteen.

The most prominent example where race plays into Singapore public policy is the allotment of public housing, which includes a quota system to prevent concentrations of ethnic groups in certain areas.

In a speech yesterday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong commented on the debate regarding racial classification that he believes it is necessary to have policies and systems in place to deal with problems arising in a multi-ethnic society. He contrasts it with France, where all French are considered equal and racial classification is illegal. According to the PM, ignoring the existence of ethnic differences has not solved the issues arising from them.

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered --combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

Wow. Do no evil, indeed.

Is this the first major international company to refuse to collaborate with China because of human rights issues? They'll be walking away from a lot of money, which I am afraid other Western companies will be very eager to pick up instead. I also wonder if some shareholders are shameless enough to sue over this. Let's see how this plays out.

(I am worried if I will be able to use any of Google's services from Shanghai later this year)

There is no juice in the fridge.

Buy two packs of herbal tea and get a free oven glove. Top-up your mobile phone, and get free minutes plus a box of Oreos. Send ten SMS a day and get thirty for free. Buy Scott's Emulsion and get a colouring bag. The pack of margerine comes with a butter knife. Pay $12 for a five-year-membership to get a sports bag and a $10 discount for every language course. Spend $20 in a single receipt for a free ride on the toy pony. Spend $30 and enter the Holiday Draw. Pay $1 less for a cinema ticket with your OCBC credit card. Ask for your Citi privileges at the ice cream parlour.

I grew up in Germany with very strict consumer protection laws, which severely limited the more creative marketing activities that retailers would come up with. Probably due to EU pressure, loyalty programmes with point cards have in the mean-time become legal (and we know I love those), but all-year-round sales, buy-three-get-five deals, and crazy bundles are still impossible, I think. I am beginning to understand why.

Buy two packs of juice and get a free towel. Or a ball. Or a tote bag.

There is no juice in the fridge. I live in a shopping mall, but I drink tap water. The last three times I went to the super market, I refused to buy juice because there was no towel to be had.

In the opening scene, legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and his partner, Dr. Watson, help the rather dimwitted Scotland Yard investigators to arrest the serial killer Lord Blackwood. After that, several months pass without a new case, and a depressed and bored Holmes hardly leaves his messy apartments. Worst of all, Watson is planning to move out and get married. But then, Lord Blackwood, who has been hanged for his crimes, appears to have risen from the dead, and taken control of a well-connected secret society. It is up to Holmes and Watson to track him down and dispel his apparent supernatural powers.

Too much action, too big a villain, too much Dan Brown, and too much setup for future sequels, but fortunately, the magical tricks do get explained by the end (I was worried), and the dynamic between the two leads (Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law) keeps the film entertaining.

6 points

James Cameron has reportedly been working on Avatar since 1994, and wanted to start filming directly after finishing Titanic. Unfortunately, he felt that technology needed to catch up with his vision, and production slipped ten years. Even though the story is nothing new ( take your pick of Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves, or Last Samurai), and a bit thin for 162 minutes, the result is spectacular. All the new camera, editing, and CGI technology that Cameron has created for his movie have really paid off. Seasoned critics have compared Avatar to seeing Star Wars for the first time. I am too young to make such comparisons, but it is definitely up there with Jurassic Park. The computer-generated actors in particular are so much more life-like than for example in Beowulf two years ago.

Many of the tools and techniques pioneered by Cameron here will very soon trickle down into other productions and become mainstream, but I remain doubtful about 3D. It is very well done in Avatar, but it still seems to be more of a silly gadget and a desperate marketing ploy. I cannot see it working outside of big action movies, and even there, people will probably soon tire of it. If studios want a more immersive experience, they should look at higher resolution instead. Or invest in better storyboards.

8 points

India operates at its own pace and I spent many hours on this trip in hotel lobbies and airport lounges. To help pass the time, Martin handed me the novel he was reading, said he was about a third through, would buy himself another copy later and wandered off to the book store. And indeed, it helped pass the time and I finished the book by the time I reached immigration in Mumbai nine hours later.

I usually do not pass judgement on books as I do not feel qualified to comment on literature, but I am sure that if Martin had read on a little further, he would not feel inclined to spend another 95 rupiah.

One night is bookended by the author recounting a night train ride in which a beautiful girl offers to tell him a story about six people in a call centre receiving a phone call from God, but only if he promises to turn the episode into his next book. After the story is finished she also provides an alternative version of how that call might really have happened. That construction reminded me a lot of Yann Martel's Life of Pi, where it is immensely more effective.

The first third of the book introduces the main characters, who in the second third are each faced with very predictable calamities, go on to have their conversation with God to remind them about what is important in life, and finally bring about a happy end that is too infantile even for a novel targeted at young adults, with whom it has apparently struck a chord anyway, as the book made Bhagat the biggest-selling English-language novelist in India's history and has inspired a major Bollywood picture.

On the plus side, I learned a nice MS Word hack.

The night before the wedding, guests gather at the bride's house for hand painting. Women and girls get their palms and fingers covered in intrigate henna patterns, some only on one hand, some on both, some (such as a reluctant Priya) up to their elbows. It takes two hours to dry, so the men have to feed their wives and daughters. I received a little flower (I think) on the back of my left hand as well, and I got to eat cashew nut paste plated with silver.

I am spending Christmas this year in Pune, India. Priya and Martin have invited me (and four hundred other people) to attend their wedding reception here on Sunday. Again, Kai and Cissy are staying back in Singapore.

Pune does have an international airport, but the only two flights are to and from Dubai, and some exclusive business class plane to and from Frankfurt, so that I went to Mumbai first, which is about 170 km away. From Mumbai I took a very short connecting flight, which in hindsight was a mistake, because I spent a lot of time waiting at the airport, both scheduled transfer time and unscheduled flight delay. Bored in Bombay. It would have been much more interesting (and presumably faster and cheaper) to take a train.

Pune is in an interesting time-zone, GMT+5:30. I have never before been to a place where I had to adjust not just the hours, but also the minutes.

As with Jakarta, I have so far only seen more of the airport than I needed to, some scary traffic conditions on the road from there, and the hotel room, which is quite a bit better than the one in Jakarta (most likely because I did not book it myself), except that the Internet is not free and the registration for it via mobile phone (necessary to foil the schemes of terrorists and child pornographers) did not work due to some technical problem, please try again later.

But I also had an excellent dinner with Priya's father and uncle, who came to the airport to pick me up. Delicious South Indian food whose name I immediately forgot, at my request not spicy at all, with naan and lassi.

There are two locks on our mailbox. I have the key to one of them, the mail man can open the other one. This way, it is possible for the Singapore post office to deliver letters even when the slot on the mailbox is closed up, which is what many people do to shut out advertisements. But because Kai greatly enjoys to fish flyers out of our mailbox and dump them into the nearby dust bin, we are open to the world.

I am having Chinese classes on Monday and Wednesday evenings now, and it is tough. Pronunciation is extremely difficult, and that makes everything else challenging as well, from listening comprehension to memorizing vocabulary.

Chinese has more consonants than I am used to, and some of them are very close to each other, making it very hard to tell them apart. Take for example the following three words, which only differ in their consonant (Flash movies taken from the excellent pinyin table over at quickmandarin.com, mouse-over to hear the sound):

Even more tricky are the four tones, a concept that is missing completely in the other languages I know. Depending on how the pitch changes during the syllable, it becomes a different word. Mandarin has four tones, other Chinese dialects have even more (up to nine in Cantonese). Here are the four "ma" again:

Put these two together, and you get twelve very similar syllables with completely different meanings. In fact, since there are so many different sounds, Chinese words are very compact, usually just one or two syllables long. This makes for very short phrases with no redundancy; every syllable counts. In Western languages you can probably skip or mangle half of the sounds and get away with. Not in Chinese.

I often find myself annoyed by something while coding on work projects, and then quickly venting my grievance on the company-internal Skype chat. No reason the whole world should not be able to participate. This will be about Java, and in Japanese.