Video Of Merlion Struck By Lightning

A strange incident; the Merlion was struck by lightning during a thunderstorm at about 4.30pm yesterday.

Here's my quick reconstruction of what you might have seen if you were there...



I doubt there is any actual video footage of the lightning strike from that sort of distance - for obvious reasons...

Source photo from Yoonie-at-home.


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Mainstream media reports:
- Merlion statue at Singapore River struck by lightning; suffers slight damage (Channelnewsasia)
- Merlion hit by lightning (The Straits Times)

Spectacular videos of lightning
- Lightning But Very Slowly

No Really, I CAN See Through You

Sometimes I wonder if deep sea fish aren't really Aliens from another planet...




Well, at least Macropinna microstoma doesn't have zombie eyes and Giger-esque teeth like the deep sea fish in my profile.

In fact it's rather cute, in a revulsive-ectoplasmic-anime-character-from-hell sorta way.


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- Weird-eyed fish (Pharyngula)

FAMILIAR Part 4: Aligned Resources

One important reason why the Star Wars series of films has such a wide appeal is due to its story structure. George Lucas was inspired by Joseph Campbell's book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and deliberately applied Campbell's ideas into his storyline.

Campbell was studying comparative mythology and wanted to find out if there are common elements between major myths around the world that have lasted for thousands of years. He elucidated a fundamental structure which he called the "monomyth" or "the hero's journey" and summarized it like this:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

The monomyth is divided into three sections - "Departure", "Initiation" and "Return". Each of these sections has a set of characteristic stages, for example "Supernatural Aid" in Departure where the hero encounters an old wizard (Obi-Wan!) who provides him with special tools (Lightsabre!) and advice (Use the Force!) for the adventure ahead.

Only a few world myths contain all these stages, some of them only have a few stages and others have them in a different order. Campbell's monomyth is thus criticized for focusing on the similarities and glossing over the differences between the myths, and scholars have also questioned its usefulness and general validity.

Nonetheless the monomyth has been an influential tool for plot development; aside from Star Wars, popular movies like The Lion King and the Matrix series (possibly the Harry Potter series as well) have story structures that are modelled on the monomyth.

I won't go into further details of the monomyth here, but suffice to say that by using a comparative strategy, Campbell was able to create a common resource out of the dozens of diverse mythologies in the world. He recognized that it is impossible to do this based on any single myth.

Indeed, I would argue that in general single cases only represent data and not knowledge. Outside the context of mythology, even single cases that are firmly rooted in physical evidence cannot really enlighten us about the nature of our Universe; we can only learn about them, not from them.

In other words, they have descriptive but not prescriptive value.

**********

The power of comparative analysis was driven home in my mind very early in my graduate student career by my advisor.

During a genomics lecture he illustrated this by showing a single sequence from one species of animal. For example, here's part of the amino acid sequence of a human gene:

MYNMMETELKPPGPQQTSGGGGGNSTAAAAGGNQKNSPDRVKRPMNAFMVWSRGQRRKMAQEN...

Well, it's a string of letters. You can't learn much just by staring at it.

But when you do an alignment with homologous genes from many other species...






... important features immediately jump out at you.

The yellow blocks represent regions that are completely identical over hundreds of millions of years of evolution - it's a good bet that those regions are functionally crucial. Blue and green blocks are identical only among some species, while white areas exhibit high variability.

Therefore, you can see regions of similarities as well as regions of differences. Regions that are common to mammals, or just to rodents, or unique to one species which may reflect functions that are only relevant to those group of animals.

This is knowledge.

Whether it is science or history, information derived from a single case is only descriptive of the case itself - in order to understand fundamental principles, produce testable predictions or to "give advice" to other people, you must have data from more than one case. With an increasing number of aligned cases comes a more accurate and more refined knowledge of the subject matter.

Hence the "analogy" aspect of FAMILIAR - knowledge obtained by comparing the features of complex systems and aligning them into a structured resource, not only at the same organizational level, but also across organizational levels.

I am aware that argument from analogy is a logical fallacy, but that does not preclude the use of an "analogy machine" like FAMILIAR to start the investigation by generating hypotheses and enabling cross-discipline visualization.

Having a systematic way to align single cases into a common resource allows people to see both the similarities and differences between the cases. Where the cases are too different in key areas to be effectively compared, proposed models can be rejected as uninformative. Where cases have striking similarities over numerous key characteristics, there is compelling support for a fundamental structure among them.

However, human knowledge is wildly varible in format. How is it possible to align diverse forms of knowledge into one common resource?

Stay tuned for the next post on the FAMILIAR Core.

Solar Eclipse From The Moon

This is really cool - a video of the Earth coming between the Sun and the Moon taken by the Kaguya lunar orbiter on 10 Feb 2009.

Check out the spectacular "diamond ring" effect as the Sun is gradually uncovered (by the movement of the spacecraft?).



I struggled for a while on how to title this post correctly, since from the Earth's perspective it was a lunar eclipse, but from the spacecraft's perspective it was a solar eclipse.

Silly me, diamond ring = solar eclipse, why of course.

Pipette tip to Pink Tentacle.


Would you like to know more?
- Solar Eclipse In Singapore

That Will Be 90 Dollars, Please

By now practically everyone in the Singapore blogosphere must have heard of this "unique" incident:

You're a hero

Donor hands over the money to SGH to say thanks to man who saved drowning woman

By Judith Tan

SEVERAL readers of The Straits Times came forward yesterday and offered to pick up the treatment tab for a good Samaritan injured while saving a drowning woman.

More than 10 people offered to reimburse Mr Filip Lou's $90 bill after reading in The Straits Times yesterday that the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) would not waive the charges.

They were beaten to it by an unidentified man, who turned up at the hospital early yesterday morning and handed over cash to cover Mr Lou's bill.

Mr Lou, 34, a Dutch IT executive here for a conference, had jumped into the Singapore River on Monday night to rescue a woman who had fallen into the water.

While pulling her out, he cut his hands and feet on the sharp stone steps along the water's edge. He was brought to the hospital, along with the woman, by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), where his wounds were cleaned and he was given a tetanus shot - and then presented with the bill.

Yesterday, Mr Lou received a call from the hospital, asking him to return to collect his money.

Initially, he thought SGH had gone back on its earlier insistence that he pay the bill.

But when his wife, Ms Theresa Lee, arrived at the hospital to get the cash in the afternoon, she was told what had happened.

Contacted yesterday evening, Mr Lou said he was rendered speechless by the generosity of Singaporeans.

He said he understood SGH's policy, saying that there was a service performed, after all.

But, he added: 'What there should be is a policy looking into treating someone who got hurt trying to save another.

'Mine was a small injury. What if it had been a broken leg or dislocated joint?' he asked.

When contacted yesterday, SGH stood by its decision.

'We maintain our stand that we will not waive fees for medical services rendered,' a spokesman said.

Its stand drew comments from more than 70 people who called or wrote to this newspaper yesterday.

Most were critical, and said Mr Lou's act should be recognised.

Said a former MP for Sembawang GRC, Dr Warren Lee, a paediatrician, 47: 'We as Singaporeans should not hear about such a brave and selfless act without expressing our thanks by at least paying for his medical bill.'

Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner Yeow Boon Kwee, 67, who was among those who wanted to pay the bill, said: 'It's my way of saying sorry, and that we are really not that bad.'

Mr Lou's deed did not go unappreciated, however.

Apart from having his bill picked up, he was also given a Public Spiritedness Award by the SCDF.

He is also the toast of the town, as far as some people are concerned.

The story and photo in The Straits Times yesterday, he said, brought him a lot of attention - 'both wanted and unwanted'.

'After it made the papers, I received a lot of hits on my Facebook account - mostly propositions from women.

'I am indeed flattered. But sorry girls, I am happily married.'

**********

What an elegant case to demonstrate my point about the weakness of a rigid system!

Based on the frenzied commenting rate at the ST forum, I'm pretty sure that the blogosphere must be ablaze with criticisms and insults for the hospital admin.

How come they cannot come up with $90? So kiam siap (stingy) meh? How come no common sense? How come so heartless? How come no GRACIOUS SOCIETY?

Actually, there's no need to generalize so much.

The simple answer is that the rigid organization of an administration also precludes individual initiative.

Rigid systems have stable and predictable behaviour, similar to reliable machines. If all the constituent members are free to exercise their "common sense", then the hierarchical structure would be weakened and its efficiency compromised. Expect to wait long long at the queue while the staff put their duties aside and pass envelope around to collect money to reimburse Mr. Lou.

You can't have it both ways.

The solution can only be supplied from outside the system - in this case an anonymous donor who must have felt very lau kwee (lose face) for Singapore that a life-saving hero ends up getting "fined" for his efforts.

I can assure you that there are people within the hospital admin who also feel very lau kwee, but they also boh bian (no choice).

To use an old Army phrase: This problem is not at "their level".

System says no policy for reimbursing good Samaritan, so no money for you. Any comment please fill up the feedback form. Have a nice day, goodbye.