Pretensions attended a public symposium given by various members of MITEI, the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Energy Initiative last Wednesday. MITEI is an interdisciplinary research programme involving 16 faculty members drawn from the various schools of MIT – they have been tasked to see how MIT could best tackle the global energy crisis. MITEI was first announced by current MIT President Susan Hockfield during her inauguration in 2005.

MIT and two universities in Singapore have had an ongoing research collaboration since 1998, the Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) although P gathers that the-powers-that-be have not been wildly impressed with the results thereof. As a student-training collaboration however, it seems to have worked somewhat better. Whatever the rationale behind SMA, it has at least established the presence of the US’s top technological university in the region, and probably helped justify the presence of several top MIT professors in our small island-state for the symposium.

Prof. Ernest Moniz, the Director of MITEI and former US undersecretary of Energy during the Clinton administration gave a clear and concise overview of the rationale for MITEI and its goals. Foreseeing the coming global energy crisis (just keep watching the price of oil), MITEI was developed to partner MIT’s blue-skies research with interested industry partners who might be able to create viable energy-related products.  Of course, there is an overt political agenda to MITEI’s seeming altruism (see the next slide on the right – the speech bubble read “It’s time we end foreign oil dependency!”).

However, Moniz made several good points about the need for capping carbon emissions and that even the much vaunted 550 parts per million target may still be too high. We are talking about a 2-4 degree temperature rise in most scenarios and even the present half-a-degree rise has already had visible impact on most of the world’s climates.

Moniz also worked the audience through the sliding scale of global warming by showing us two roulette wheels. The left wheel would represent the probability of catastrophic 6-8 degrees celsius (in red) warming if the US carried on the way it has. The roulette wheel on the right represents the results of meeting the 550ppm carbon dioxide target – it dramatically lowers the chances of extreme temperature rise.

However the magic 550 cannot be reached only with efficiency gains, it would also require a 40% demand reduction. The US currently emits 25 billion tonnes of CO2 every year. A carbon tax would put pressure on industry to optimise efficiency and might curb demand – Moniz made the point that funding for the innovations required could be recycled into society with no impact on the US GDP. Industry is not the only culprit however, 70% of US electricity goes to supply residential and commercial buildings; a lot also goes to transport.

Hence key technological pathways to respond effectively to the energy crisis would include:

• Alternative transport – fuels & vehicles
• Carbon-free electricity – nuclear, coal, renewables
• Unconventional hydrocarbon supplies
• Research on energy delivery systems and energy storage
• Managing global climate change – mitigation, adaptation and re-engineering

Key MIT academics then stood up to explore each pathway.

Prof. Greg Stephanopoulos spoke about biofuels. Despite a lot of ragging from the audience about sacrificing food for fuel, the professor spoke eloquently about the possibilities of microbial synthesis of ethanol. Basically, yeast already does a great job of synthesizing ethanol for consumption – it’s called beer and all it needs to get started is some sugar. Unfortunately yeast doesn’t have a very high tolerance for the toxic ethanol product, which is why you have to drink a lot of beer to get wasted. Prof. Stephanopoulos is looking at developing microbes that could use agricultural waste, wood chips and stover to produce ethanol and would have a higher tolerance to ethanol than yeast would. He already has a microbe that can accumulate 60g/l of ethanol in about 3 days worth of fermentation.

Dr Tonio Buonassisi spoke about current research on solar energy which has been crippled by its high cost relative to traditional fossil fuel-generated electricity.  Another problem with solar has been its need for a large surface area of solar cells which has meant that it cannot serve the primary energy needs of urban residents. Buonassisi  had calculated that the cost of producing solar cells could be lowered by 20% simply by doubling production. Also Seville’s solar tower (see right), a 300 foot tower surrounded by 624 solar panels has been in operation since 2007, happily powering 60,000 homes in the Spanish town.

Prof. Gerd Ceder spoke about the use of thermoelectrics to power cars and the development of plug-in hybrid vehicles that can choose to take energy from fossil fuels or directly from the grid. His lab uses high-throughput computing methods to screen for useful new materials.

Prof. Leslie Norford told us about energy efficient buildings and the combination of traditional knowhow with modern technology. Eg for tropical buildings, large doors and windows combined with thick walls and a central airwell obviate the need for air-conditioning. Germany’s passive houses have special tight construction and a 2-3 times as much insulation as a regular house, resulting in astoundingly low heating costs. A Passivhaus built in Illinois had a US$35 heating bill for the entire month of January!

Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia is currently in the planning stage. It will be the world’s first zero-waste, zero-emissions city. Here is the propaganda, uhm, PR video.

We have a choice, and P for one, hopes that the US and the world choose to invest in the future. Enough time’s been wasted by the Bush administration already – P hopes Obama acts decisively on energy conservation and doesn’t use the economy as the ultimate excuse…

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Pretensions has somewhat neglected this blog for the last few weeks as she was busy with a student concert. Upon viewing the video of her perfomance a couple days ago, she feels that she has improved significantly over the last time but has a long way to go. Pictures may be forthcoming if P gets any!

Anyway, she hopes to return to blogging shortly, but today is the eve of the Chinese New Year so family matters call! P has actually just had her reunion dinner; ‘tho her family tends to have small-scale celebrations rather than the Grand Reunion Dinners that bring together several generations of the family. All the kitschy red decorations are up and house is well, about as clean as it usually gets.

Tomorrow comes the bit that P normally dreads, where P’s mom and dad and P trawl around older relatives houses bearing oranges (symbolic gold). As P is still unmarried, this occasions much tut-tutting among the aunties and discussions over what could be the problem. Unmarried men and women are still considered children in Chinese tradition, so P would be the reluctant recipient of several red packets containing small sums of money. This gets more embarrassing as the years go by, but P hasn’t quite reached the stage of some 50+ year old acquaintances whose married friends keep complaining about the red packets!

2009 is the Year of the Ox (chinese character Niu) in the Chinese Zodiac and is supposed to be a relatively decent year for P’s own birth animal (Rooster). To be more specific, it is an Earth Ox (think 5 elements). Oxen are slow, plodding conventional animals that have to work very hard for their living. Earth lends stability. Most predictions that P has seen say that 2009 will be a long hard grind but ultimately rewarding – freeloaders will not be tolerated ‘though! Simplicity, Patience and Unity of effort is key this year – or so the astrologers say.

Anyway, P would like to wish all readers a very happy Lunar New Year – she will post more interesting stuff soon, she promises!

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1) Desperate Housewives (Buena Vista Games, 2006) – Timed between Seasons 1 and 2 of the series, this game has you playing the role of the new mysterious housewife moving into Wisteria Lane. Beset by the usual dysfunctional family, amnesia and a shady past that comes back to haunt you, you set out to unravel the mysteries that surround you and become prima housewife in the suburb by taking part in a fashion show, sabotaging Edie, beating Bree in a cooking competition and sleeping with all and sundry. The gameplay is basically a dumbed-down version of the Sims 2, but it’s fun with good music and voice talent (Brenda Strong reprises her role as narrator Mary Alice Young and the rest aren’t bad either) and really immerses you in the gossip and melodrama of Wisteria Lane. The game has some technical bugs, especially if it’s not patched, but is generally recommended for fans of the series. Gamespot has reviewed the game more fully here. Someone has also recorded their playing through of the entire first episode here.

2) CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Ubisoft, 2003-2008) – OK, CSI has inspired several video games. There are currently 4 based on the original CSI (Las Vegas) and 1 each for the two spinoffs. P has actually only played 1 game, CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder (2006), although she understands the mechanics are quite similar for all of them. The game was developed by Telltale games who now do the excellent Sam and Max adventures (P strongly recommends them, do try the excellent Abe Lincoln must die! which is available as a free download). Essentially, in this game you join Grissom and the rest of the CSI team as a new recruit and help to solve 6 cases. It’s nice seeing and hearing the 3D avatars of the team, but P felt that it was a little ridiculous that she ended up having to do nearly all of the evidence-collecting and analysis herself – the rest of the team mostly stand around and offer advice. P does understand that the developers want the game to be interactive, but honestly, by the last case, she was desperately wishing she could automatically check the sample against the DNA database… Voice-acting was good, but some of the dialogue took absolutely forever. P should mention that she is not a great fan of the series and bought the game because she likes adventures and problem-solving in general. Still, even diehard fans of the series could probably find better outlets for their passion. Justadventure has a review here (the reviewer liked it more than P did).

3) Lost: Via Domus (Ubisoft, 2007) – Given the weirdly disjointed, keep-the-viewer-guessing nature of the Lost TV series, P couldn’t really imagine how this would translate into a video game. Like the Desperate Housewives game, the player is cast as a new amnesiac character, in this case, one Elliot Maslow, photojournalist and Flight 815 passenger. The game seems to take place during season 2, but P noticed a few season 3 characters in the expositions. All the main characters are in place (Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Locke Sayeed etc), and the game does a good job of immersion with mostly decent voice-acting and recognisable locations. The characteristic Lost flashbacks and flashforwards are implemented pretty well in-game, with the protagonist’s disjointed memory represented by ripped photos. The player needs to find the locations and people represented by the photo on the island and take a picture to be transported into a flashback. Some of the other gameplay mechanics were absolutely tedious and frustrating ‘though, especially wandering through the jungle (well, this is why its called Lost!) and fixing fuses (you’ll be able to redo the house wiring by the time you complete the game). Also, when P mentioned mostly decent voice-acting, she wasn’t talking about the guy who voiced Sawyer – she cringed everytime he said anything. P didn’t complete the game, but Lost fanatics might find it worthwhile. Review on Videogamer.com here (Xbox version) and game trailer below.

4) Law and Order (Legacy Interactive, 2003-2005) – Like the CSI series, Law and Order has spawned a whole series of games, 3 based on the original series and 1 from the spinoff Law and Order: Criminal Intent. P has played the third game Law and Order: Justice is Served. Working alongside Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green (voiced by the actual actors in the show), the player has to piece together a case from the clues and then prosecute the criminals in court. The plot is set in the world professional tennis and begins with a murdered Anna Kournikova lookalike on the eve of the US Open. With an engaging plot, good voice-acting and less pixel-hunting than the average detective game, this adventure scores well on P’s list. Interesting, publisher Legacy is making both this game and the first in the series free to play online from their site, ‘though the server always seemed busy when P tried. You can also download a free trial of the game at the same URL here. Recommended.

5) Heroes (??,??) – Now that someone’s saved the cheerleader, who’ll save the game? The Heroes game was originally announced by Ubisoft back in 2007, only to be cancelled in November 2008. Perhaps Ubisoft thought that there might be too much competition in the wannabe superhero market from established MMORPG City of Heroes or the sales figures on the Lost game (above) weren’t good enough. Anyway, P rather hopes a decent publisher sees the potential in the series and realises it in any game made from it!

P has chosen to focus on the more recent TV to game spinoffs, but of course many more have been made. Some, like the Alias game, pretty much sucked for P. However, some of the Star Trek ones have been decent as have one or two of the Simpsons franchise (Hit & Run in particular). ER managed to make saving lives incredibly tedious and P has never played or even seen the Stargate MMORPG. The trailer looks cool ‘though (below).

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Friends and followers of P’s blog might remember that she mentioned that she was singing with the Celebration Chorus on the 30th of November 2008 in this post. It was an all Haydn programme with the Trumpet Concerto followed by Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass.

Well, photos were taken that evening by a professional photographer and have now been posted to Shutterfly. Everything is copyrighted, so P can’t post photos or embed the slideshow, but you can view the photos of the concert here.

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• The great Haydn road trip

Pretensions first blogged about her visit to Penang and tour of the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in her January 2nd post.  Here’s the promised followup.

After leaving the CFT Mansion, P had her hired-for-the-day driver take her to the Pinang Peranakan Mansion, which was also located in Georgetown, but on Church Street (about 15 minutes drive because of the one way systems).

Now faithful followers of P’s blog may remember that she is of Peranakan or Straits-Chinese descent herself and has blogged about the culture a few times in connection with local TV show, Sayang Sayang. Here’s her first post about the show here and her second post, specifically about Peranakan weddings here.

A generally rich and prominent community in Singapore, Malacca and Penang, produced by intermarriage between local Malays and expatriate Chinese businessmen, Peranakan culture had its heyday in the late 19th century to the beginning of the 20th. The Babas (men) and Nyonyas (women) were fond of ornamentation and used it liberally in their house decorations, furniture, tableware and clothing.

The Pinang Peranakan mansion was actually the home of Kapitan China (Chinese Captain) Chung Keng Kwee. He was not a Baba, but his Chinese courtyard style house is quite typically peranakan in style, ‘though perhaps not in colour (Peranakan houses are usually brightly coloured – see the picture left for some Baba-style shophouses in Singapore). Anyway, the house has now been converted into a museum for Peranakan decorations and objets d’art.

Captain Chung was actually quite an interesting character in himself. He is known as the founder of Taiping, a tin mining town in Malaysia and was the first miner in the region to introduce hydraulic machinery in his mines. His success in business was partially due to his membership in the Hai San, a Penang-based Chinese secret society, but he also did very well in cultivating many of the British colonial masters of Perak. In 1893, the wealthy tin mogul acquired two properties along Church Street, which he demolished. The land was used for building his new home, Hye Kee Chan (Sea Remembrance Store) – that building is now the Pinang Peranakan mansion.

P was quite amazed by the sheer opulence of the house. Here’s a view of the separate Banqueting Hall from the main house. Yes, lot of gold leaf, carved wood, gothic looking chandeliers…. even the lions guarding the door are gold-painted! Note the lovely English floor tiles.

	Main staircase with gilt rondels on the treads. Note the ornate gilded ironwork from Scotland (hence the fleur de lys).
	Support beam ornamented with gilt phoenix.
	Wardrobe detail – every rosewood panel is intricately carved and gilded.
	Edge of small round table.

Even the sinks were flowery pink porcelain with brass decorations below!

Several peranakan costumes were on display (the sarong kebaya), along with several bridal headdresses. Here’s one taken through glass, hence the blurriness at the top. P thinks it look awfully heavy to be wearing on your wedding day!

The only respite from the excessive ornamentation was the kitchen, which appeared homey and comforting by comparison.

Captain Chung also built his family their own private shrine (a bit like a private chapel in the west), where they could worship apart from the peons. Here he is presiding over the ancestral altar.

Temple doors
Gilded roof beams
3D diorama of heaven/hell.

Pretensions has noticed that a few of her Tblog friends have been a little curious about her and what she does for a living. She has decided to tell the community a little more about herself through a few animated Meez.

For those who aren’t familiar with a Meez – it is a 3-D avatar of yourself that can be used to interact with other peoples’ avatars in the Hoods of the Meez community. It’s a bit like playing with a Barbie and you can opt to have it look like yourself (or as much as a computer animation can) or be completely different (aliens, masks etc are all available). The catch is that some options cost coinz, which can be earned by winning Meez games or using real cash. You do get 2500 coinz when you save your first me and there are some free options for makeup, dress and backdrops.

The cool thing about a Meez is that you can export the finished item to your blog or webpage or even directly to Facebook, Myspace etc or even to AIMZ or Photobucket.

Here are Pretension’s Meez. She had 5 empty slots in her album and filled them up with various incarnations.

Here is her blogging incarnation – P is pretty casual when she’s gaming or blogging at home. Do P a favour and click through to the link below if you decide to make a Meez yourself. That way, both of us will get some extra coinz!

I'm pretensions

Make your own 3D me,
and we both get Coinz!

Next is Pretensions at work – the environment should give you some clues as to what she does. She is NOT a librarian ‘though. :-)

Pretensions travels a lot around Asia for work and takes time to go shopping in street markets and get back to nature. Here she is doing both (in front of Mount Fuji, no less).

Finally, P also performs with her choirs and does the odd solo. Here she is in perfoming regalia.

Hope you enjoyed that – P certainly did!

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• EXcuuuuse Meez?!!

If you didn’t catch it live, then here’s a Youtube video of the fireworks at Marina Bay in Singapore on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Happy New Year everyone!

Pretensions took a long weekend a couple weeks before Christmas and flew from Singapore up to the island of Penang in Northwest Malaysia. As her dad originates from Penang, P had visited Penang many times in her childhood (for extended family visits), but the trips got fewer and farther between as she got older. She had been up to the island once for business since then (about 3 years ago), but hadn’t been on a tourist visit for nearly 15 years.

Anyway, she decided to take this opportunity to view some of the historical bits of Penang, especially the Cheong Fatt Tze (Blue) Mansion and the Penang Peranakan Mansion. First, however, here’s a photo of the view from her hotel room on Gurney Drive, the famous eating and shopping street in Penang. This used to be a decent beachfront 20 years ago, but the Asian tsunami rather put paid to that.

This post is about the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion – the next will cover the Peranakan Mansion.

The Cheong Fatt Tze (CFT) Mansion was named after its owner, a Hakka businessman made good. Mr Cheong Fatt Tze was born in Guangdong in South China in 1840. In 1856, the second opium war caused widespread poverty and suffering among the Cantonese and CFT decided to seek his fortune in Southeast Asia. He became a shopkeeper in Java (Indonesia) and made the wise move of marrying upward and using the resulting wealth to fund his business ventures. He ended up with a vast trading empire, 8 wives, numerous children (only 1 inherited) and mansions in several ports, including Singapore, Penang, Guangdong, Hong Kong etc etc.

He became the consul-general in Singapore and also an important mandarin in the Manchu government in China. Incidentally, he also visited the States on an industrialisation study mission and was awarded a PhD in Law from Hong Kong. Yes, CFT definitely lived in “interesting times”!

The CFT mansion in Penang is a classic Chinese courtyard mansion (built around a central open courtyard), one of only 2 left outside China and definitely the best preserved. It was built between 1896 and 1904 by architects, builders and other craftsmen brought in from China. Sadly, P wasn’t allowed to take photos inside, so the photo on the right of the interior courtyard is from the mansion’s website.

The first thing that struck P about the mansion was its intense blue colour. During her tour of the mansion, the guide explained that this was due to the Indigo dye, which was imported by the British from India and sold widely in their colonies in Southeast Asia. Blue is considered an unlucky colour by the Chinese and would never have been used in China, but the British colonies of Penang and Singapore has fewer choices.

The other thing that P loved about the incredibly ornate exterior was the wonderful coloured mosaics that decorated almost every surface. She was told they were made from Chinese porcelain bowls in different colours that were broken by craftsmen and the shards then stuck together to make creatures and characters from legend. This is the side of the house, click on it to view a larger photo – it has a broken bowl version of a Chinese dragon and phoenix motif but there’s plenty else going on, including crabs and other sea creatures.

This is a closeup of another broken bowl mosaic showing a Chinese Lion and some flowers. There are more fruits and vines below.

This is a closeup of the roof which was lavishly painted and ornamented with more broken bowl mosaics.

The mansion was built explicitly to good fengshui principles. CFT acquired the road leading to the mansion and the servant’s quarters across the road, to ensure that noone would construct a tall building in front of his front door and obstruct his flow of Chi. Even the garden fence was ornamented with a repeated motif of Chinese coins (left) to bring fortune. Every door had Chinese sayings or Chengyu written on them in gold leaf caligraphy to encourage the safety and prosperity of the household. Whatever you may say, it certainly seemed to have done the job for CFT.

P loved the gorgeous lotuses blooming in the garden pond.

Inside the mansion was a real polyglot of material, including Art Nouveau stained glass, Scottish cast iron railings and floor tiles imported from England – all symbolising CFT’s great wealth.

However, the mansion was missing the traditional guardian lions outside the main door. According to our guide, CFT’s youngest son from his favourite wife inherited everything when CFT died. At that time (1916) he was only 2 and he lived for another 80 years with a gaggle of avaricious relatives waiting for his passing so they could profit from the sale of the properties. This was something like 1980 and one particularly greedy great nephew hacked up the stone lions and shipped them off to Australia for auction. He died from a heart attack 3 days later. Violate ancient taboos at your peril!

Incidentally, the CFT mansion is now a very exclusive bed and breakfast (cheapest room about US$121). Here’s a picture of one of the exquisite rooms from the B&B website and you can opt to stay there if you’re not afraid of ghosts! Book early ‘though as P understands that the rooms are very popular!

Stay tuned for Part 2 over the next few days!