A smaller crowd showed up at Hong Lim Park today to protest against the Population White Paper. Depending on which media you listen to, the estimate of the crowd varies between 1000 to 5000. But one thing for sure, the crowd is smaller than the huge turnout 2 1/2 months ago.
Here’s a photo of the crowd at around 6:40pm.
As part of the promotion for the upcoming blockbuster movie, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Paramount Pictures put up a huge glowing Star Trek logo over London using 30 LED-bearing quadrocopter drones. I’m not a Star Trek fan but I will be excited by their clever use of quadrocopter drones.
But here’s the only problem. They did it around Earth Hour. The quadrocopter drones flew into position before the start of Earth Hour and observed Earth Hour by turning off the lights for 1 hour. And to keep sync with Earth Hour’s initiative, the quadrocopters used batteries charged in Austria with green energy from the Austrian renewable energy grid.
Earth Hour is about raising awareness about the need to take action on climate change by encouraging households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour. It is not about adding non-essential lights and turning them off for one hour. This defeats the purpose of Earth Hour. And it’s Earth Hour. It’s a time to raise awareness about climate change, not an upcoming movie which everyone is going to watch eventually.
So thank you Star Trek for using this opportunity to promote your movie. I hope other companies don’t follow your footsteps and try to hijack Earth Hour for their own marketing activities.
Singapore marked Earth Hour last Saturday together with the rest of the world. At 8:30pm, major buildings and skyscrapers switched off all non-essential lights to make a statement that they are concern about the future of planet Earth.
I love the Singapore City skyline. And I feel that it looks better with all the lights switched off. It’s different from other nights.
I always say that Earth Hour is just to drive awareness. Turning off the lights for 1 hour doesn’t do anything. It’s what we do after Earth Hour that matters.
Singapore will be getting a whole set of new design coins by middle this year. This is the third series of coins issued by Monetary Authority of Singapore. The current design was introduced in 1985.
The $1 coin will feature Merlion. Port of Singapore, Changi Airport, Public Housing and Esplanade are featured on the 50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents and 5 cents coin respectively. All the coins will also feature the Lion-head motif. The back of the coins will continue to feature the Singapore Coat of Arms.
I don’t know about you, but I find them ugly. Oh well, it’s going to take a while before I get used to seeing them.
Coin operated machines and those supermarket push trolleys will need to be calibrated to accept both the new and the old coins.
One interesting thing to note. The new $1 coin will retain the octagonal frame design. Urban legends says that the octagon is designed to look like a Chinese Bagua.
There is a news article spreading around the internet saying that the Singapore Government is in talks with Walt Disney to build Disneyland at Marina East.
This is not true.
The article was published in 2006 by Lianhe Zaobao. That was before the 2 integrated resorts were announced. If I’m not mistaken, the plot of land that was intended for Disneyland is now Bay East Garden, part of Gardens By The Bay. I don’t think the Government is going to tear down a newly constructed Garden for Disneyland.
I don’t know who reposted this 7 year old news article. It seems like the first recent post is from ChannelNewsAsia Forum. Whatever it is, I just want to say that Disneyland is not coming to Marina East. I doubt there is any on going discussion between Singapore Government and Walt Disney.
