Secret Societies

Dan Brown have a lot of knowledge for secret societies. I read about "Priory of Scions" in "Da Vinci Code". I thought it was just an imagination. However, I was suprised to find out that there are so many webpages on Internet it describe about "Priory of Scions". People used to believe that it really existed. For "Illuminati" describes in "Angles and Demons" also by "Dan Brown", I found different stories on Internet. Dan Brown described it as a societies of scientists who hide from churches as they were afraid of accusing "heresy". Galileo was a member of "Illuminati" and it was founded around 13th Century.

"Heresy" is a serious crime in Middle Ages. The churches in Middle Ages try to oppress their rival by accusing as heretics. "Joan of Arc" was accused as a witch and burn at stake. She was declared as a saint only in 1920s.

"Illuminati" that I found on Internet described about different people around 18th Century.

Famous secret societies around the world is "FreeMason". In my countries, people translate it as "Pa-Shuu-Gaung-Phyat". I could not link those two words. FreeMason was found by mason to share their secret in Middle Ages. I found a tonnes of webpages about FreeMason on Internet.

The most interesting discovery I found out about secret societies on Internet is that there were so many secret societies in Singapore previously. But government tried to get rid of it due to security reasons.

Singing Whales

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are the most musical of the mysticete whales. The songs of the humpback were first detected by military arrays in the 60’s. And when scientists dropped their hydrophones into the waters of the breeding grounds, they were instantly intrigued by the deep, haunting sounds of the whales. And indeed, humpbacks truly do sing songs.

The sounds they make are organized into themes, repeated consecutive phrases of music. Individual phrases of the song are usually only last a few seconds and under 1.5 kHz in frequency. The sounds include long groans, low moans, roaring sounds, trills, and chirps. Each song lasts anywhere from 8-16 minutes and the whale may sing for hours on end, repeated the song over and over again. All the whales that share a breeding area sing the same song. That means that the whales in the North Pacific sing a different song than the whales in the North Atlantic. The songs also evolve over time. Individual phrases are dropped, new ones inserted or the sequence of themes is altered slightly. Over time (many years), an entirely new song will come about. How do the changes occur? Scientists do not understand the process completely but believe that it may be forgetfulness or innovation. Then, other whales actively learn from each other, and the changes are passed on through the group (kind like the game "Telephone").

Why do they sing?

Underwater observations of humpbacks have determined that it is only the males that sing. Likewise, the songs are only heard on the breeding grounds. This leads biologists to think the songs are a kind of breeding behaviour. Perhaps the songs are a way to attract females or to mark their territory. It is thought that the way the male sing indicates to a female that he will be a good mate. Although all the males are singing the same song, they are not synchronized. There is random overlap with small variations. Perhaps the whale with the most novel song is a dominant whale. What is most fascinating about the songs of the humpback is that we still do not know how they do it. Whales do not have vocal cords and the long, deep and musical sounds of the humpbacks leave whale biologists mystified. It is most likely that the sounds are produced somewhere in the nasal passages (similar to echolocation sound production), but the process is not fully understood. So, as research continues, the song of the humpback continues to haunt us.

Source: http://oceanlink.island.net/

Tradition or Superstition

Tradition or Superstition

Some of the traditions that we practice unknowingly today was come from superstitious belief from the olden days. Some examples can be found in funeral arrangement. The gun was fired to drive away the evil in the olden days. But, now the gun firing is the tradition of military funeral. Wreath was intended to trap the spirit of dead body in the olden days. Nowadays, sending wreath become tradition and people send wreath as a memory of person who pass away.

Some people believe that the bad luck can be fallen if someone walk under the ladder. In the olden days, the criminals needed to walk under the ladder to go to guillotine before they faced capital punishment.

The other superstition that people believe until now is related to number "13". People thought 13 was an unlucky number because Jesus dined with 13 of his disciples before he was executed. Jesus was executed on Good Friday. So people treated Friday 13 as an unlucky day. Irrational fear of number 13 is called "Triskaidekaphobia" and irrational fear of Friday 13 is called "paraskavedekatriaphobia".

Common superstitious belief are as follows:
- If you blow out all the candles on your birthday cake with the first puff, you will get your wish.
- If a mirror in the house falls and breaks by itself, someone in the house will die soon.
- A dog howling at night when someone in the house is sick is a bad omen.

Pillar of the Earth

I am now reading the history of middle ages. It is quite interesting.

I can recall one of the fictions I read before. It is "Pillar of the Earth" by "Ken Follet". The fiction is based on a family of stonemason wandering across the country to find a job. StoneMason want to build a church as a master mason. He moved from place to place to find a job. Unfortunately, his wife died on the way and he married another woman living in jungle.

There are so many interesting customs of middle ages described in the fiction. Hanging in public, life in the castle, the life of Counts and Knights and the lives of criminals in middle ages.

After I read the history of Middle Ages, I want to read the fiction again.

Digital Freedom

I read some interesting fiction recently. It was "Digital Fortress" by "Dan Brown".
I learnt about Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF) in that book. When I visit to their website, I learnt about Freedom of bloggers.
I read in the news that Chinese government employed so many people to monitor the blogs and forums in China. It is quite annoying move. Why are these people afraid so much?
I think everyone can write what they think on their blog or forum as long as it is not so irresponisble.
By the way, I found some interesting photo in Esplanade. It was an Indian man sleeping on bench in front of the sign "The Speaker Corner", which is situated in Hong Lin Park in between Raffles Place and China Town. The title is "the speaker corner?". The title will describe the motive of photographer clearly. It is something to think about.