Month: June 2008

Another year and another batch passes through, into the real world. This is the batch that I am particularly close to, among the different batches of students here. There are some friends whom I will miss dearly, and some whom I hope never to see again for the rest of my life. Such is the way of things.

I will try my best to keep in touch with at least some of them. There are a few whom I would like to take away as lifelong friends. As I may be going home soon, it should not be too difficult for me to maintain a friendship with the ones who go home, as we will all inevitably end up working in KL. The only way to keep in touch with the ones working elsewhere would be by email/MSN.

To my friends, I would like to see them be the best that they can be and realise their full potentials. It is wonderful to see everyone starting off on their next chapters in life, with so much enthusiasm and drive. I pray that life treats them well and hope that they will breeze through any curve balls that life will inevitably throw their way. I wish that they succeed in finding the happiness in life that so eludes the rest of us.

Well, I hope that I will get my chance to walk through the same doors, one day. But I’ll need to finish writing up my thesis first! It’s so hard to focus on work when there are so many other things happening in and around me at the moment.

I just read that the police are going to arrest Anwar Ibrahim soon. It seems that one of Anwar’s aides has gone missing for the last two days. The aide has now surfaced and filed a police report against Anwar for sodomy (wtf??!!). In addition, Anwar had recently received evidence that implicates the a former IGP of police and a former AG, for fabricating evidence against him during his trial, 10 years ago. This rumour is just too big, fat, and juicy to ignore.

Incidentally, some friends and I were just chatting about this on our way home from dinner. We mentioned that our former PM, had locked Anwar up for good and essentially killed his political career beyond any hope of recovery. That was until our present PM decided to set Anwar free and claim that the charges were false. This let lose an avenging force, which culminated in the severe losses suffered during the last general election.

I have one advice for our present government: Once you let the genie out of the bottle, you cannot put it back in.

Regardless of the truth of the matter, we are most certainly now at political crossroads. Anwar Ibrahim is the main strategist that is pulling the opposition together. As a former DPM, he has dirt on a lot of people and he knows all the tricks that the government has up its sleeve. Now, he claims to have 50 government MPs in his pocket and he plans to use them by September to topple the government and claim the throne of power.

I am hoping that things will turn out for the best, and praying that it does not deteriorate for the worst.

If Anwar had seriously committed the crimes that they claim that he has, I certainly hope that he gets punished for it. However, I also hope that every corrupt politician and police, also get their dues some day. But I am a realist, and I know that the world is not a fair and perfect place. So, it is very likely that the political dullards will get away with things unless something is done to stop them, and stop them for good.

I have no idea what needs to be done though, and although some people are calling for the rakyat to stand up and take to the streets, I am not sure if it would be effective as we have all seen what happened in 1998. But I still think that something needs to be done, less we end up like Zimbabwe.

I like to read TheStar when they report on the silliness of our parliamentarians on both sides of the divide. Recently, there was a minor stunt by our opposition MPs, who have decided to politicise my idea of cycling to work. According to the article:

Four Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) MPs – Tian Chua (Batu), Hee Loy Sian (PJ Selatan), N. Gobalakrishnan (Padang Serai) and Zulkifli Nordin (Kulim Bandar Baru) – cycled to Parliament Monday as a mark of protest against the recent fuel hike.

Tian Chua said move was also to “appeal to the Cabinet Ministers to understand the difficulty in using bicycles or public transport” in the country. “Changing of lifestyles is not as easy as what the Government claims,” he told reporters.

He said that he and the three others had taken about 20 minutes to cycle from Bank Negara to the Dewan Rakyat. “It’s a difficult task because the road transport system here is not designed for bicycle use and cyclists will face problems cruising around town,” he said.

The opposition MPs should not have called it a protest. As protests go, this is a very silly and gimmicky stunt. They used to do really good protests but this is certainly not one. They should have positively spun it as an act of support for the government’s call to ubah gaya hidup (change lifestyles). It can also be spun as being an environmentally friendly move on their part. But no, they had to spin it as a lame attempt at a protest against the price hike. Silly.

Then, we have another MP from the ruling coalition, who calls the stunt, a cheap gimmick that is suitable for kids. He could have come up with something better, and praise the opposition MPs for supporting the government’s position on fuel prices and changing their lifestyle. He could even say that the ruling coalition MPs would lead by example and cycle over short distances. But instead, he claims that he isn’t stupid and he isn’t going to cycle, which implies that only stupid people follow the government’s call of ubah gaya hidup.

Wah, I just read something very interesting recently. Goodness knows if they’re true or not but it is quite likely. Here is an email that I took verbatim from another random blog:

Do what you like.

The price of gasoline at the petrol station is set by the Government, not PETRONAS. PETRONAS has done its patriotic duty by paying the dividends, royalties, corporate tax, petroleum tax etc to the Government for YOUR benefit (rakyat lah).

And bear in mind that 30% of its revenue comes from overseas operations, thus bringing in foreign exchange to the country.

OK. Assuming that you buy this idea proposed by whomever it was.

So PETRONAS will have reduced revenues. Bear in mind that the costs of operations are also increasing. So the profits are reduced. Then PETRONAS and other oil companies pay less tax.

Then the Government will have less revenue. (Note: at least 40% of Government revenue for 2007 came from the oil industry). With less revenue, there will be less Government projects (you can then forget about bridges and highways, and rail tracks, and smart schools and not-so-smart universities, and hospitals, etc). So contractors and consultants, and con-sultans and con-cronies will cry and scream. Makan batu lah..

The Government has already announced freezing of recruitment. So, many new graduates will be unemployed. Makan batu lagi. Maggi mee pun tak mampu dah. Later, all sorts of allowances for civil servants will have to be withdrawn. Treasury tak cukup duit.

On top of that the oil industry may have to scale back many of its new investments, totaling about 45 billion ringgit over the next few years. Contractors, service providers, steel fabricators, maritime service providers etc will join the ratapan tangisan – no jobs.

Don’t forget that PETRONAS is sponsoring thousands of students in universities and even high schools – at any one time there are more than 4,500 university students being sponsored by PETRONAS in Malaysian universities and overseas. Also more than 2,000 high school children receive minor scholarships – children of poor families.

Kalau PERTRONAS tak ada duit, kesian lah mereka di atas tu. Shall I ask them to see the proposer of this idea (to boycott PETRONAS) and seek help from them instead?

So, it is to YOUR benefit that you make sure PETRONAS keeps making enough money to support YOUR Government so that your children can continue to go to school without paying for fees and books, and to go to universities at peanuts rates.

CONCLUSION: Help yourself and your family and your country by making sure that PETRONAS keeps making profits. Go to the nearest PETRONAS station and fill up now!! Don’t forget that if you go to non-Petronas station, the profits that these companies get will go their shareholders OVERSEAS.

So, be patriotic. Do your duty. Go to PETRONAS!!

(I hope you guys will help to send this response to as many contacts as possible to counter this subversive proposal).

Rosti B Saruwono – Datuk Dr (VP_Edu/PETH)

Personally, I have no knowledge on the authenticity of this email. I do know Dr Rosti, though not on a personal level. I have no reason to suspect that this email is a fake. As PETRONAS’s VP of Education, he is in charge of the ESU as well as the various PETRONAS owned educational institutions, including a full fledge university. So, he definitely knows PETRONAS hiring policies and has his finger on the wider job market pulse.

If what he says about the government freezing hiring is true, then it will have effect on the overall economy and well being of the country. Our civil service has generally been a sort of last minute employer, putting a large number of people on payroll, in order to help reduce the unemployment rate in Malaysia. Through GLCs like PETRONAS, a similar policy is also practised to an extent.

If the freeze on hiring is because the government wishes to remove the crutches and encourage people to be independent and increase competition, then I think that it is a good move. However, if the hiring freeze is due to a monetary problem, as suggested by the text, then I’m a little worried. This taken with the idea of paying civil servants twice a month, makes the latter more plausible.

This has me very worried.

A government that is behaving as if it’s running out of cash, can be a little worrying. Our government has always been flush with oil money. So, I’m not sure if they would be able to handle the job if the fiscal conditions were tighter than before. If the situation does not improve quickly, I wonder if the government will actually do something unprecedented and start VSS-ing the civil servants.

Scary times indeed, but it’s all starting to make a lot more sense to me.

Why is everything so purple?

I’ve come to think that I lack a major life goal. You know, some sort of grand overarching plan (I’m not greedy enough to make wealth accumulation a goal). I feel like I need some sort of grand design that I can spend the rest of my life building and perfecting. The reason that I’ve been thinking like this is because I think that I need to further develop my existing skills, learn new skills and use them all (otherwise, they tend to atrophy).

Having some grand machine to build, would also give me something to focus on. Thus far, I have been cutting my chops on many little projects. It’s probably about time that I work on something a little bigger, that would benefit more than one (me) person in this world. I have devoted almost 20 years of my life to developing computer software and hardware skills. It’s about time that I did something useful with it.

A friend of mine has very ambitious plans, of the “change the world” variety. Personally, I’m a little more practical. I have a finite amount of resources and I’ll be happy to help on a much smaller scale. However, this would mean that I’ll need to identify an appropriately sized problem to tackle, which is proving to be a problem. So, the strategy that I’m taking, is to let the problem come to me.

Hopefully, the things that come to me will be useful.

This is just the most wonderful invention that I’ve come across in recent years. It’s called the Vilcus plug dactyloadapter and according to the website, it was created to solve the problem: Create an adapter for sticking fingers into electrical sockets.

Well, getting myself electrocuted on purpose isn’t something unknown to me. I have done it several times during my youth and I have lived to tell the tale. What can I say. We’ve all done silly things when we were young. At the very least, I can claim that it was educational.

I have always had a natural curiosity for all kinds of things. Just the other day, there were two big screen televisions and a camera sitting in the room that we used to do mark auditing. Being naturally curious, I walked up to it and toyed around with it. Little did I know that the room had been double booked for a tele-conference session. Since I had messed around with it, the technician wasn’t very happy. When he asked me why I touched it, I gave him the honest answer: it was sitting there (begging to be touched).

Since I was young, I’ve been curious about the nature of electricity. It played a role in every part of my life but I had no idea how it looked or felt like. So, I endeavoured to find out by conducting a series of little experiments, which involved exposing myself to a good jolt of 240V mains electricity. All I can say is that, it did not feel like anything else that I’ve ever felt before in my life.

When anyone asks me why I chose to go into double E engineering, I will relate my youthful indiscretions to them. The typical response that I get is one of shock and surprise. But honestly, I kind of liked it. This device is exactly what I need to get my fix.

I have found out that I am living in the same house as a few ball crashers! I have asked them about their adventures and it all sounds fairly exciting and interesting. This is May Week and there are so many Balls being held at the different colleges. So, it’s the busiest week in the year for the ball crashers.

The first interesting thing that I found out is that there are many groups of ball crashers working during this time of the year. There are some famous crashers that my friends have called the professionals. They are the people who go about crashing as many balls as possible and have all the necessary information to do so.

Information, that is the most important information that one needs to crash a ball. I was surprised to find that there are so many back doors into a ball and that these information were passed down from one generation of ball crashers onto the next. My friends had passed on some information to what they called noob crashers. You can always identify the noob crashers by the fact that they’re dressed in white.

Another tip that my friends told me was not to crash a ball with girls in tow. I can imaging how it might be difficult for a young lady in a beautiful ball dress, to climb over the walls and fences necessary to infiltrate a party. It may also involve trudging through the bushes and trees in order to avoid the ever vigilant guards who are working security on the grounds.

And the guards can get rather sneaky at times. My friends told me that they met a guard last night, who actually turned off his torchlight and tried to catch them in the dark. It was only when they heard the sound of someone moving through the bushes and decided to retreat, that the light came out. Then, my friends ran away as quick as they could.

The only punishment for getting caught crashing a ball is a quick escort off the grounds. This makes the punishment as £0 and the pay off, potentially worth more than a £100 per ball. This is no wonder why the ball crashers actually bother to try. It is a challenge with no risk and a decent pay off of more than £1,000 if they crash as many balls as possible successfully. However, there is a possibility of injury. A friend of mine hurt himself last year, as he was trying to escape from a guard. While running through the bushes, he tripped and fell. As a result, he hurt his leg.

I actually gave my mates a few ideas to crash a ball and they may try it tonight. I even told them that they should actually formalise this activity, have an underground ball crashers society or something. Information is the most important commodity when trying to infiltrate security. Inside information would be even more valuable. If you have a few friends who are on ball committees, the information gleaned there could be invaluable.

My friends said that the knowledge pool is a two-edged sword since the people working security could also use the information to plug the holes. My argument is that this is good. It is just a process of evolution which will result in the ultimate ball crashing strategy coming on top. You will end up seeing more elaborate schemes being hatched to defeat an ever improving security.

Exciting.

PS: According to my friends, Google maps comes in really handy when you need to scout out the location.