#Utopia Singapore

[lizard-reads-the-world]

Book Review: Sofia and the Utopia Machine (🇸🇬 Singapore)

[image 1: book cover: a light blue silhouette of a girl with a starburst pattern around her. The title text is superimposed on top; image 2: map showing Singapore; image 3: Jewel Changi Airport, Singapore - from a funnel-like glass dome with a grid pattern, a giant waterfall pours into a huge greenhouse space with trees, greenery, and raised walkways - source.]

Sofia and the Utopia Machine

Author: Judith Huang

YA World Challenge book for 🇸🇬 Singapore

Review

I think this is the first sci-fi I've read so far in the challenge. It's not my top genre, and also often takes place in space-y locations, so this is the first book of the genre to fit my list.

Sofia and the Utopia Machine takes place in a futuristic Singapore, where the rich and middle class live in the heights of the city, playing with their hologram worlds, artificial gardens, and other high-tech amenities. Sofia lives with her mother in a modest apartment in the mid-levels.

The Utopia Machine is a top-secret government project - a machine that is able to create a completely new world in another dimension, being developed by the elite as their 'escape pod'. Unbeknownst to teenage Sofia, both her mother and now-missing father were part of the team that created the Utopia Machine. But when she's pulled into the web, she finds herself falling to the lowest slums of Singapore while at the same time a goddess in her own created world.

The book is based partly on the gnostic creation story of Sophia, of which there are many versions. I wasn't aware of this until after reading the book, and now I want to reread it from this perspective! (Ah, what to do, there is too much knowledge to know!)

The narrative alternates between a sci-fi story in a typical futuristic, technology-dependent, class-based society, and a mythological narrative in the new and primitive world of the Utopia Machine. Naïve Sofia is unsure how to deal with the beings of her new universe, much less it's dark side, while in our world she must find her missing father and dodge the big-brother government.

This was a very unique and imaginative story that brings questions about the nature of the world and the nature of divinity. Being written from an omniscient point-of-view, I didn't connect closely with the characters, and the long detours into original myth-like stories might be distracting for some, but overall I think this book is thought-provoking and worth digging a little deeper into.

Other reps: #christian (catholic, gnostic)

Genres: #sci-fi #folklore

★  ★  ★  ★   4 stars

[leahpardo-pa-potato]

Might I kindly introduce you to Singapore? If you traffic drugs? Death penalty. Murder? Death penalty. Rape? They're currently pushing for death penalty.

It's remarkably close to the society you're describing, save that it isn't flawless. And honestly? It makes it work. Goodness knows how many innocents died en route, but it went from a third world country to being one of the richest countries in Asia. And the strangest thing is that most Singaporeans advocate for more death penalty rather than less.

(on the other hand free speech isn't an actual thing there, speaking as somebody who once lived there. Protests have to apply beforehand so they're allowed to protest, and any more than two people getting together can be declared an 'unlawful gathering'. And they only recently repealed the law against gay sex. So do with that what you will.)

Is a society that kills all the people that break its major laws a utopia or a dystopia. The society has a flawless justice system that always gets the person who did the crime 100% of the time, and has not, nor will it ever fail. Please discuss. I will also be surveying other groups and friends.

[varpusvaras]

No but actually, I do have a whole character arc for Jason that actually takes account his Robin run and doesn't just go "and now he's eeeeeevillll", but if I could live in a utopia, I would love to see Jason just not wanting to do anything with Gotham anymore. Absolutely nothing. I have multiple of these au's but I am stating it again. He wants nothing to do with Gotham. He sees that there is a new Robin and thinks that Bruce wants nothing to do with him either. He sees that the Joker is still alive and does not want to be anywhere near him. Talia, being actually a good person and not whatever she was written to be later by whatever racist view in mind, does not want him to be anywhere near the Joker either. Absolutely not. In my utopia, they move to Singapore or something and Jason and Damian go to a nice private school and stay the fuck away from Gotham (because let's be real, I don't think Talia would send Damian to Gotham either if she has any sense, especially with Bruce getting more ruthless).

Alas it is not so but one can dream

[heavenlyyshecomes]

misc readings pt. 11

tech edition

It's not your fault you're a jerk on twitter, katherine cross, wired

Becoming human again: a reading list for the extremely offline, lisa bubert, longreads

The internet is rotting, jonathan zittrain, the atlantic

ambient cruelty, linda besner, real life magazine

Searching for lost knowledge in the age of intelligent machines, adrienne lafrance, the atlantic

Ghosts of the future: the smart home is a haunted house, julia foote, real life magazine

The internet is flat, charlie warzel, galaxy brain

How TrueCaller built a billion-dollar caller ID data empire in India, rachna khaira, rest of the world

Vivid hues: what does it mean to think of the internet as a color? anna rose kerr, real life magazine

Singapore’s tech-utopia dream is turning into a surveillance state nightmare, peter guest, rest of the world

The $2 per hour workers who made chatgpt safer, time

I cut the 'big five' tech giants from my life. It was hell, kashmir hill, gizmodo

Social media is not self-expression, rob horning, the new inquiry

The narcissism of queer influencer activists, jason okundaye, gawker

On losing perspective, or, why i don't give a fuck about geronimo the alpaca and nor should you, rachel connolly, novara media

The exploited labour behind artificial intelligence, noema

The class politics of the instagram face, grazie sophia christie, tablet

Google, amazon, and meta are making their core products worse on purpose, ed zitron, business insider

All advertising looks the same these days. Blame the moodboard, elizabeth goodspeed, eye on design

Seen by, megan marz, real life

[feministdragon]

"If one looks at the strategies, tactics and technology used in countries like India, Bangladesh, China, Singapore under the guise of ‘family planning’, one cannot help but recognize a virtual trend towards gynocide. Not only have Third World women, particularly in India and Bangladesh, unhesitatingly been used as guinea pigs by the multinational pharmaceutical industries to test dangerous contraceptives and methods, like amniocentesis,2 but contraceptives like Depoprovera, which were banned in the USA because of their carcinogenic qualities, have been massively dumped in many Third World countries.3 The government of Bangladesh was forced not only to allow all kinds of scientific experiments to be carried out on its territory, but also to buy huge amounts of contraceptives from the Western pharmaceutical industry (Minkin, 1979). In all this, some of the scientific lieutenants in the international war against population growth not only advocated compulsory measures, but also the open use and strengthening of patriarchal or sexist attitudes. Already in 1968 William McElroy, in a controversy with Kinglsey Davis who advocated compulsion, said:

‘In most societies male babies are more desirable than females and if the male were the first offspring, the motivation for having additional offspring would be reduced’ (McElroy, 1968, quoted in Mass, 1975: 22).

In 1973, the biologist Postgate goes a step further in deliberately advocating sex selection as a method of population control. Vimal Balasubrahmanyan refers to the Male Utopia thus propagated by people like Postgate:

Postgate argues that birth control ‘does not work’ in the countries that ‘need it most’ and ‘alternative methods of population control such as war, disease, legalised infanticide and euthanasia are rejected as they are not selective, acceptable, quickly effective or permanent enough’. He suggest that ‘breeding male is the only solution which meets all the above criteria’. Countless millions of people would leap at the opportunity to breed male (particularly in the third world) and no compulsion or even propaganda would be needed to encourage its use, only evidence of success by example (Balasubrahmanyan, 1982: 1725).

Meanwhile, with the advance of sex-preselection technology, amniocentesis and the ultrasound scanner, the prospect of ‘breeding male’ has become practice, not only in India but, with even more far-reaching consequences, in China. In India, the practice of aborting female foetuses, after sex determination by amniocentesis, became a public issue only after it became known that some clever doctors in Amritsar had made a flourishing business out of Indian parents’ preference for male offspring. They advertised to do both sex-preselection and abortion of female foetuses. After the protests by many women’s groups in India, the practice will, as Vimal Balasubrahmanyan fears, simply continue in a more discreet way, particularly when ultrasound scanning becomes widely available.

During a visit to India in summer 1984 I learned that sex-preselection and the abortion of female foetuses were already practised by many low caste and poor people in the countryside of Maharashtra.

The case of China is even more horrifying since here the whole mighty state and party apparatus is mobilized to implement the one-child policy which constitutes part of the modernization strategy of China after Mao. ‘Breeding male’ may not be a deliberate strategy of the Chinese government, but is, as Elisabeth Croll and other have shown, the inevitable result of the contradictions between furthering small peasants’ private landownership, the continuation of patrilocal marriage and family patterns, and the one-child policy of the state. Peasants who still largely have to depend on their children for old-age security want sons, since the sons inherit the family plot and remain in the village. Daughters are married to some other family and village, as is the case in India.

Daughters, therefore, are not wanted. This situation is aggravated by the policy of the government to reward those who follow the one-child norm: they get more private land, if they are peasants, and they get more room, more school and health facilities, more modern equipment, if they live in the cities.

Thus, those who get most land have least family labour to work on it. This contradiction combined with the compulsory measures of the government, the interplay of incentives and discentives under the total control of the party, and growing neo-patriarchal attitudes and relations put women under pressure from all sides, so much so that female foeticide has risen to alarming dimensions."

This was published in 1986, by the way. And yet it still describes what's happening now to a large degree.

Patriarchy and Capital Accumulation  Maria Mies p.185

[open-hangar]

Open Hangar Episode 0 - Prologue

Intermingling within the cytoplasm of every living cell, there exists the substance that determines the rate at which cells mature, age, and die. For most of mankind’s history, the systems through which this happened was a mystery, unknown and within the realms of mythology. It wasn’t until a laboratory in Singapore discovered this substance and named it: Charged Ionic Nucleotides. The lab’s PR team gave it the much catchier and trademarkable name Chargon.

At first, the world gave it little thought, just considering it another mildly interesting fact taught in middle school. But then, the Indian government made the world-changing discovery of C.I.N. Extraction, in which the chargon within a living cell could be removed with minimal damage to the cellular structure using reversed ion compulsion.

They had removed that which caused the cell to age.

On top of this, the free chargon was an incredible source of energy, many times more efficient than nuclear fission. A single banyan tree could power a major Indian metropolis for well over a year, and with proper care, that same tree would stand for many more years to come. This ground-breaking discovery was freely spread around the world to any nation who had the resources to take advantage of it, ending the energy crisis for 90% of the world in only 2 years and halting the rise of global climate change almost immediately. And for the less-developed nations of the world, the Indian government created the CINE-Daan Project, in which they would stockpile free chargon and chargon extractors within vast catacombs underneath the Himalayan peaks bordering India and China to lease out to nations in Oceania, Africa, and South America. The world was not yet a utopia, but the finish line was in sight.

Until the stockpile, along with most of the Himalayas, went up in cataclysmic flames.

Nobody knows who had done it or why, as anyone involved joined the billions of Indian, Tibetan, Nepalese, and Chinese civilians who were eradicated in a single moment. The best anyone can guess in retrospect is that something had caused the energy in the free chargon to cascade into itself, igniting the energy all in one massive burst. Those who claimed to have seen it and lived long enough to tell anyone else about it said that it looked like a massive, multi-colored flower erupting out of the ground, its petals spreading across the sky. This was the free chargon dispersing into the atmosphere, blanketing the planet and infecting all living beings.

The death of billions in the two most populous countries on Earth sent immediate ripples throughout all of mankind, the world’s collective grief blinding them to the effects of the free chargon in the air. It was Asia who was hit first and hardest, obviously, but Eastern Europe and the Middle East quickly felt it, too. The closer one lived to the blast site, the faster one aged and the faster the wildlife evolved. A newborn in Beijing taking her first steps before the family had finished celebrating the new life, young men in Manila developing rheumatoid arthritis overnight, a town in Laos becoming blanketed in a never-before-seen poisonous lichen.

The entire world had become one giant existential nightmare.

The wealthy, the learned, and the world leaders among the world’s population immediately fled to Brazil once they understood what was happening, hoping that a close antipode of the blast site would give them the most time to determine a solution. One scientist had an idea, and it was the only one considered: use a variation of the CIN Extraction to draw in the free chargon from the air, place it in a suitable vessel, and launch it into space. “How long would it take before the chargon levels returned to normal?” an investor asked. “By my estimates, if hundreds of facilities are built around the world and work in tandem while being run by a skeleton crew of volunteers” the same scientist responded, “at least a couple of centuries.”

The room reportedly erupted in fervor, people with no ideas asking for a better one. The requests went unanswered. “Then it’s clear. We need to leave Earth behind while it’s cleaning up.”

This meeting marked the beginning of the first year of the ADA (After the Day of Abandonment) calendar, in which 80% of the Earth’s population escaped into the stars, abandoning those below to live and die in squalor in the shadows of the Launch Base Zones, massive automated and semi-automated city-sized complexes which slowly absorbed the residual free chargon in the air, compress it, used giant bipedal vehicles known as Lanzers to load it onto pre-programmed rockets, and launch them into space to be collected and stored. Properly, this time, or at least it is understood so.

It’s been about 100 years since then. The free chargon in the Earth’s atmosphere is now estimated to cause all living things to mature and age at a rate about 96% faster than they did before the Himalayan Impact, down 1% since last year. Meanwhile, the Lunarians that had chosen to colonize the Earth’s moon became deathly afraid of Chargon, regularly purging it from their bodies to extend their life, usually around double the length before the Impact.

Some look up to the violet night sky in envy, while others look up in righteous fury, and yet more do their best to not think of the lights on the moon at all. All those who look down on their poison home planet, do so in pity.

[arwainian]

Reading This Week 2023 #38

little late getting to sorting thru last week's reading but that's okay it was a big strange week

Finished:

Pedagogies of Crossing : Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred by M. Jacqui Alexander:

Introduction Chapter 2: Imperial Desire/Sexual Utopias: White Gay Capital and Transnational Tourism Chapter 3: Whose New World Order? Teaching for Justice Chapter 6: Remembering This Bridge Called My Back, Remembering Ourselves

Loving Her by Ann Allen Shockley

Started and Finished:

"'Blind' Jews and Blind Christians: The Metaphorics of Marginalization" by Edward Wheatley

Where Research Begins by Thomas S. Mullaney & Christopher Rea

Chapter 1: Questions Chapter 2: What's Your Problem?

"testosterone is for girls, too: in defense of transmasc womanhood & genderfuckery & all the reasons someone might want t" by Tor Lowell (zine)

46 fatt fics for the marathon

Started and Ongoing:

Lighting the Way: An Anthology of Short Plays About the Climate Crisis edited by Chantal Bilodeau & Thomas Peterson, among which I finished:

Ice Flow by Philip Braithwaite Steamy Session in a Singapore Spa by Damon Chua Absolutely Nothing of Any Meaning by Sunny Drake Six Polar Bears Fell Out of the Sky this Morning by Alister Emerson There Goes my Bow Tie with the Storm by Zainabu Jallo The Story of the Bountiful Window and the Last Rope by Vinicius Jatobá Tres Marias: Categories and Luz by Shy Richardson and Karina Yager Bigger Love by Peterson Toscano

The Gospel According to Matthew from The New Oxford Annotated Bible

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher

My Sense of Silence: Memoirs of a Childhood with Deafness by Lennard J. Davis

Ongoing:

Performance by Diana Taylor

[thelasttime]

It’s so clean and green honestly looks like utopia and it’s small enough that a week there you get to do everything both touristy and local exploration and get a good feel of the country, I’d kill to go back

singapore anons can confirm the city is extremely clean

[tim-hoe-wan]

I find it fascinating how political ideologies are placed differently on the political spectrum depending on where you live. Where I live liberals eg are considered more right winged than they are in America. Why do you consider yourself liberal and not socialist or conservative ? If you don’t feel comfortable answering don’t of course I don’t want to be intrusive! I just find it interesting to hear it since I’m not from America and I don’t know any Americans personally. Hope you have a nice day!

Ooh where are you from?

My liberal leaning ideologies is based on the sole fact that I agree with a lot of their ideologies. While not exactly the same, I do have a strong socialist ideology and in an ideal world I might even consider democratic socialism/ethical or liberal socialism as the closest political ideology to a utopia. Anyway I lean liberal since I believe in equal rights, education/health should be a right, public ownership of lands, environmental conservation, among other things liberalism here in America stand for. A lot of the American liberal ideologies I stand for also has socialist tendencies and I vote base on what I believe in to the extent America is willing to provide.

All that said, I'm just past the ideals presented by political and economic theorist and thinking wow this is the answer and it's so simple all along. Reading the works of idk John Stuart Mill, John Locke, Edward Carpenter, Charles Fourier, Thomas Spence they all have theories which are great - in theory. Most of them have theories and philosophies that very clearly shape and impact political landscapes and ideologies of modern politics, but as a whole I find their theories idealistic and impossible. I favor socialism over capitalism, but I also fear an overarching amount of state intervention. But at the same time the most effective, not exactly the most moral however, government I have seen was Singapore which is largely authoritarian. In the end, what's going to work for a country will be shaped by its political, economic, geographical, and anthropological aspects. I can admire the Nordic model all I want but I firmly believe it's not going to work for America due to the factors I have mentioned.

[letadlock]

A Place Further Than the Universe

Within the episode, we are introduced to Mari Tamaki, a second year high school student determined to get the most out of her youth. After years of holding back from starting new clubs, adventures, and opportunities, she decides to embark on a journey to the Antarctic with her new friend Shirase Kobuchizawa, whose mother disappeared on an expedition. Within the pilot episode, it is apparent this story will tackle and build upon the idea of finding purpose in youth. However, in order to fund this trip across the Southern Ocean, the girls need to save up. In the second episode, Mari begins the job search where she meets Hinata Miyake, a sixteen year old girl who dropped out of school and spends her time working at a convenience store and preparing for college entrance exams. In the third episode the three girls meet Yuzuki Shiraishi, an idol whose mother plans to have her work as a reporter at a new job in Antarctica. Intrigued by the opportunity to join her, the three girls try to befriend a lonely Yuzuki and convince her to join them on their trip.

While the show primarily centers around the girls strong-willed intentions to go on this expedition to the Antarctic, an underlying need to make money troubles each of them. Shirase is so preoccupied with her after-school job that she does not make any friends before Mari and is even given the name "Antarctica Girl" by classmates who recognize her hard work. Mari spends her time after school working at the convenience store with Hinata who works there all day since she's not in school, and Yuzuki is too busy working under her mother's management as an idol to make friends. Regardless, the girls are bonded together by the idea of going on this journey to Antarctica together. Despite the long hours working and the obstacles they encountered leading up to the expedition, the idea serves as an escape from the working and moral troubles that plague each of them.

Relating back to our readings, Haber's Anti-Utopia argument is harnessed upon in this show where there really is no escape from capitalism anywhere in the world. When Hinata loses her passport the girls even joke about her working at a convenience store in Singapore. Even after the girls successfully arrive to Antarctica and no longer have to work to save up, they must still work hard on the base to keep it operating. The girls bounce around fulfilling various roles and contributing to the labor it takes to both produce the broadcast and operate the base.

In my own experience I definitely relate to the struggles the girls go through prior to the trip about making money. Outside of school and extracurriculars I would work at Starbucks to save up for a trip to Italy I wanted to go on after I graduated. While I was able to save up enough and had a wonderful time with my friends I eventually had to come back from my vacation and work again to save up for future excursions. A seemingly inescapable cycle of needing money.

Personally, I was happy with the ending of this anime. I thought it was bittersweet how even though Shirase had to come to terms with her mother's death she met friends along the way who were willing to go to go all the way to Antarctica for her. While not an anime I would have normally picked to watch I am satisfied I had the opportunity to.

[lizard-reads-the-world]

🎊 2-Year Anniversary! 🪅

I started the World Challenge around April 2022, so here's my little 2-year celebratory post with a bunch of stats that no one cares about!!

The stats:

Books read: 70

Countries completed: 66

Total pages read: 23,918

Average rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 3.9 stars

Average publication year: 2015

Average page count per book: 341

Native authors: 74%

Queer books: 24%

YA or MG genre: 68%

As you can see from the number above, it can be hard to find queer books for certain countries. I have also somehow managed to generally pick books that I like, as the ratings show!

Top Genres:

Sources:

Total spent: $41.39

Most of the spent is 2 months of Scribd, and some Kindle sale books. The "Other" is, ahem, when there were no affordable options, and thankfully that was low! Otherwise I managed well with libraries and free trials! (all digital)

Time Periods:

I've also spent the majority of time in the modern world.

Keep reading for the full list of books I've read so far:

🇦🇫 Afghanistan - One Half from the East, Nadia Hashimi

🇦🇷 Argentina - Furia, Yamile Saied Méndez

🇦🇺 Australia - Ghost Bird, Lisa Fuller

🇦🇿 Azerbaijan - The Orphan Sky, Ella Leya

🇧🇸 Bahamas - Facing the Sun, Janice Lynn Mathers

🇧🇴 Bolivia - Woven in Moonlight, Isabel Ibañez

🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina - The Cat I Never Named, Amra Sabic-El-Rayess

🇧🇼 Botswana - Entwined, Cheryl S. Ntumy

🇧🇬 Bulgaria - Wunderkind, Nikolai Grozni

🇨🇦 Canada - This House is Not a Home, Katłıà

🇨🇫 Central African Republic - Beasts of Prey, Ayana Gray*

🇹🇩 Chad - Told by Starlight in Chad, Joseph Brahim Seid

🇨🇳 China - Daughter of the Moon Goddess, Sue Lynn Tan

🇨🇺 Cuba - A Tall Dark Trouble - Vanessa Montalban

🇨🇿 Czech Republic - Torch, Lyn Miller-Lachmann

🇩🇰 Denmark - The Shamer's Daughter, Lene Kaaberbøl

🇪🇪 Estonia - The Man Who Spoke Snakish, Andrus Kivirähk

🇫🇯 Fiji - The Wild Ones, Nafiza Azad

🇫🇷 France - Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow, Faïza Guène

🇬🇪 Georgia - Giorgland Fables, Tamuna Tsertsvadze

🇬🇷 Greece - Threads That Bind, Kika Hatzopoulou

🇬🇱 Greenland - Last Night in Nuuk, Niviaq Korneliussen

🇬🇩 Grenada - Sugar Money, Jane Harris

🇮🇳 India - Lioness of Punjab, Anita Jari Kharbanda

🇮🇩 Indonesia - The Songbird and the Ramubutan Tree - Lucille Abendanon

🇮🇷 Iran - Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi

🇮🇶 Iraq - Yazidi!, Aurélien Ducoudray & Mini Ludvin

🇮🇪 Ireland - All Our Hidden Gifts, Caroline O'Donoghue

🇯🇵 Japan - Lonely Castle in the Mirror, Mizuki Tsujimura

🇯🇴 Jordan - West of the Jordan, Laila Halaby

🇱🇹 Lithuania - Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepatys

🇱🇺 Luxembourg - The Elf of Luxembourg, Tom Weston

🇲🇾 Malaysia - The Weight of Our Sky, Hanna Alkaf

🇲🇹 Malta - The Maltese Dreamer, Catherine Veritas

🇲�� Mexico - Secret of the Moon Conch, David Bowles; Guadalupe García McCall

🇲🇦 Morocco - Thorn, Intisar Khanani*

🇳🇵 Nepal - What Elephants Know - Eric Dinerstein

🇳🇱 Netherlands - On the Edge of Gone, Corrine Duyvis

🇳🇬 Nigeria - An Ordinary Wonder, Buki Papillon

🇲🇰 North Macedonia - A Spare Life, Lidija Dimkovska

🇵🇸 Palestine - Travellers Along the Way, Aminah Mae Safi

🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea - Tales from Faif, Baka Barakove Bina; Emily Sekepe Bina

🇵🇱 Poland - When the Angels Left the Old Country, Sacha Lamb

🇵🇹 Portugal - Mariana, Katherine Vaz

🇵🇷 Puerto Rico - The Wicked Bargain, Gabe Cole Novoa

🇷🇴 Romania - And I Darken, Kiersten White

🇷🇺 Russia - Night Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko

🇷🇼 Rwanda - Our Lady of the Nile, Scholastique Mukasonga

🇱🇨 St. Lucia - 'Til I Find You, Greta Bondieumaitre

🇼🇸 Samoa - Telesā: The Covenant Keeper, Lani Wendt Young

🇸🇲 San Marino - The Gladiator, Harry Turtledove

🇸🇹 São Tomé & Príncipe - The Exiles of Crocodile Island, Henye Meyer

🇬🇧 Scotland - The Library of the Dead, T.L. Huchu

🇸🇳 Senegal - No Heaven for Good Boys, Keisha Bush

🇸🇬 Singapore - Sofia and the Utopia Machine, Judith Huang

🇸🇰 Slovakia - Impossible Escape, Steve Sheinkin

🇱🇰 Sri Lanka - I Am Kavi, Thushanthi Ponweera

🇸🇩 Sudan - Home is Not a Country, Safia Elhillo

🇸🇪 Sweden - The Circle, Sara Elfgren; Mats Strandberg

🇹🇹 Trinidad & Tobago - When the Vibe is Right, Sarah Dass

🇹🇳 Tunisia - Other Names, Other Places, Ola Mustapha

🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates - Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson*

🇺🇸 United States - Elatsoe, Darcie Little Badger

🇻🇪 Venezuela - The Sun and the Void, Gabriela Romero Lacruz

🇾🇪 Yemen - When a Bulbul Sings, Hawaa Ayoub

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe - All That It Ever Meant, Blessing Musariri

*inspired fantasy world

[utopiasingapore]

Categories of Cleanrooms and Basic Necessities of Cleanroom Areas

The expression cleanroom is quite symbolic and easily depicts that the room or the specific area is free from particulate materials, air borne or otherwise, and meant for specific intentions like research, manufacturing, carrying out scientific experiments of very high levels. Although by overview it sounds like all the cleanrooms are the same, they are not. Cleanrooms are of different categories. They are basically categorised in accordance to their utilities and the sectors and industries they are used in. while the cleanroom in case of medical sector is developed and made up in a different way, the non-medical sectors like the electronic industry that manufactures silicon chips and other complex electronic components need to be made up in different ways. While this is one method of classification there are other standards that are included in this process.       

Mainly these kinds of cleanrooms are classified as per the regulations and norms set in by the international organization of standardization in order to form and follow the international standards. These standards that are set by the organization are the foundational principles that are followed worldwide. According to the norms set in there are certain standards to be followed while working with chemicals, volatile materials, and sensitive instruments and similar. The standards that are employed in deciding the level of cleanness of the area is done by calculating the amount of particles that are present in one cubic foot of space. The lesser the number of particles present per cubic foot, the higher the level of cleanness. However these particles have to be controlled by different methods in order to attain the desired level of cleanness. Such rooms are classified by the number of particles present in them and are designated as class100, class 1000, class 10000, and so on. Here the particle size is measured in microns and as a common standard the size of the particle must not be bigger than 0.5 microns.     

Based on the level of cleanness the areas are confirmed and declared as most suitable for particular types of activities. In the construction of such cleanrooms, the wall materials are also selected meticulously and taken into consideration accurately. Now since the primary function of a clean room is to constantly filter air in order to avert any possible to damage highly sensitive technologies. Based on the limitations and rules there are special procedures for each of these activities that must be followed in order to prevent contamination. The art of achieving the desired level of cleanness is professionally carried out by experts in the sector. Organizations like utopia, located in Singapore are one of the top rated companies involved in the development of cleanroom , cleanroom installation, maintenance and allied services. 

[kpopchyeah]

Concerts I have been to

List of concerts I have been to, for me to keep track of.

I have stopped writing fanaccs mostly due to not having enough time (adulting sucks) but I still take vids and photos. Let's take a trip down memory lane!

2013

130808 LIVE ON EARTH SINGAPORE

131005 One Great Step in Singapore

2014

141121 kstarfanfest (With soundcheck)

141212 BTS TRB (wich hitouch)

2015

150503 Vixx Utopia

150924 Beast FM

2016

160109 Exoluxion

160627 LOE Awake (with hi touch)

2017

170402 Exordium

2018

180713 One The World

2019

190119 Love Yourself

190406 Seongwu Eternity FM (with hitouch)

2022

220702 NCT IN Singapore Neo: The Link

2023

230421 Red Velvet R to V in Singapore

230514 Born Pink In Singapore

230517 EXO-SC Back to Back in SG

230610 D-Day in bangkok Day 2

230616 Day in Singapore Day 1 (With soundcheck)

230716 Colours of Yongguk (with soundcheck, hi touch and photo op)

[drew-mga2022mi6021]

Research | What is Solarpunk?

Dear Alice - The LINE Animation

First and foremost, in order to build this world, I needed to understand what exactly it was I was using as a base. So I turned to finding as many relevant papers on the subject as I could, barring those that contained repeated ideas from others that I had read. I compiled my results into a document and then made annotations based on my findings. These were the results;

The above research would be split between the world building for my final film and part of my dissertation. There are some annotations made to the notes in bold, which represent my own thoughts and key matters I want to bring to the forefront of this module.

The eagle eyed of you will notice that not all the sources mentioned are strictly academic, some stemming from blog posts and online journal entries. I have included them here simply because in all my research, there is one theme that rings true; no one can agree on what Solarpunk is. This is where we turn to the "origins" of the term Solarpunk, coined first in an online blog called Republic of the Bees (2008), and later popularised by Tumblr user @missolivialouise (2014). The term was inspired by the technology of the Beluga Skysail, a cargo ship that was partially powered by wind (thus proving that the idea of Solarpunk need not be limited to solar power itself, but renewable energy as a whole). The technology was posited as modern in conflation with old-world technology, with the caveat that it would be based upon modern economic issues; thereby distinguishing itself from its more popular cousin Steampunk. Furthermore, in 2014 miss louise goes on to hypothesise a potential Solarpunk future, where children learn technology and gardening, to promote artisanship, and support of small businesses as opposed to big-city capitalism. These were the seeds that the idea of Solarpunk was founded upon.

However, one could dig even deeper, and see that these are not new concepts. As early as 1905, a POC writer by the psedonym of Begum Rokeya went on to write Sultana's Dream, a short story about art, technology and sovereignty, through the lens of feminism at the time.

This proves that the fact of the matter is that Solarpunk has become more than a genre, it's a representation of hope, a political movement, a collection of beliefs and ideals that people hope could save the future. The beauty of Solarpunk is that it's cultural, it's customisable - it can simply be whatever you want it to be. Best of all, it is achievable (more or less).

So the question of "What is Solarpunk" really morphs into "What is Solarpunk in the context of Sri Lanka? What is Solarpunk to me?" In his paper, Reina-Rozo (2021) raises the very same question about his home turf of South America. There are a few key ideas that could be extrapolated from above. Essentially; renewable energy (not limited to Solar Power), greater city infrastructure, empowerment of people of colour (Rokeya, 1905; Johnson, 2020), social justice, technology in harmony with nature, collaboration and community, and the world as a character itself (Stokka, 2021).

Applying this logic to my film, we see that it does not entirely fit. It does not truly represent the values of a Solarpunk world. This is where I sought out criticisms of the genre. In essence, the idea of a realistic Solarpunk future is dependent on a fossil fuel present, and a socially just future hinges on the idea of a neo-colonial, capitalist present i.e. these utopias are dependent on the industrial cycle of production. In order for these ideas to be truly idyllic, we must sprinkle a touch of fantasy (Williams, 2019). I am reminded of cities like Singapore and Sydney on studying his paper, therefore the next thing I should research should be "idealised" city infrastructures, in order to get a better idea on how to structure my world.

Ultimately, the story of my animation is one of hope, of change and of growth beyond toxic cycles. The double edged sword that hard work represents. Solarpunk worlds more often than not reflect the nature of the character, and so too shall I do the same here. My main character is on a trajectory of growth in this film; similarly the world would be on a trajectory of growth as well, moving towards a utopian future, a just-beyond-the-horizon ideal that my protagonist - and subsequently, the viewer - can almost reach out and grab.

References

Jewels, L. of M. and (2014). Land of Masks and Jewels - Here’s a thing I’ve had around in my head for a... [online] Land of Masks and Jewels. Available at: https://missolivialouise.tumblr.com/post/94374063675/heres-a-thing-ive-had-around-in-my-head-for-a. Johnson, I. (2020). ‘Solarpunk’ & the Pedagogical Value of Utopia. [online] The Journal of Sustainability Education. Available at: https://www.susted.com/wordpress/content/solarpunk-the-pedagogical-value-of-utopia_2020_05/. Reina-Rozo, J.D. (2021). Art, Energy and Technology: the Solarpunk Movement. International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace, 8(1), pp.55–68. doi:https://doi.org/10.24908/ijesjp.v8i1.14292. Republic of the Bees. (2008). From Steampunk to Solarpunk. [online] Available at: https://republicofthebees.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/from-steampunk-to-solarpunk/. Rokeya, B. (1905). Sultana’s Dream. Madras: The Indian Ladies’ Magazine. Stokka, K. (2021). Investigating the societies and environments of the solarpunk genre. [online] hvlopen.brage.unit.no. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2767683 [Accessed 26 Jan. 2024]. Williams, R. (2019). ‘This Shining Confluence of Magic and Technology’: Solarpunk, Energy Imaginaries, and the Infrastructures of Solarity. Open Library of Humanities, 5(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.329.

[experion]

Step into the realm of opulent living with Experion Developers

In the midst of the current real estate surge and the flourishing Gurgaon market, properties in the area have become a coveted investment option. As a leading real estate player in Gurgaon, Experion Developers, a wholly owned subsidiary of Experion Holdings Pte. Ltd., Singapore boasts a collection of upscale spaces. Our residential portfolio in the NCR encompasses two distinguished projects, namely Windchants and Heartsong. Both contain a plethora of premium ready-to-move-in flats in Gurgaon.

Situated in Sector 108, on the Dwarka Expressway, Heartsong offers 2, 3, and 4 BHK apartments along with luxurious flats and penthouses, set within a community featuring a fully air-conditioned gym, squash court, basketball court, spa, skating rink, pools, and more. It truly epitomizes an urban utopia with the premium clubhouse ‘Chorus’.

Windchants, located in Sector 112, promises an elevated living experience with its apartments, duplex villaments, and villas. These globally acclaimed premium condominium developments have already become home to over 400 families. The architecture is not only energy-efficient but also boasts one of Asia's largest residential skywalks, providing unparalleled views. Boasting amenities that are hard to find elsewhere in the NCR, Windchants features a biodiversity pond, poolside Jacuzzis, meticulously landscaped gardens, and 2,50,000 square feet of activity spaces to promote community well-being. It even houses its own spice gardens, ensuring a fresh supply of local produce.

With a diverse range of styles and locations, Experion offers something for everyone. If you are considering purchasing property in Gurgaon, choosing Experion is undeniably a wise decision.