Month: June 2010

15 minute HD video smuggled out by one of the passengers on board. You can hear gun-shots going off at several points but there was no general panic. Everything was quite well organised. One of those injured actually looks possibly Malay or Indonesian. Some of those people in the video are most likely dead.

What stood out to me is that there were several languages spoken. I could audibly identify Arabic, French, English and Indonesian (or Malay). I don’t understand how an act of piracy by a state military can possibly be tolerated.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12429821&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

Israeli Attack on the Mavi Marmara, May 31st 2010 // 15 min. from Cultures of Resistance on Vimeo.

The skills you need to acquire to build the infrastructure ten years ahead of the market’s demand for it may have zero intersection with the skills in demand in the commercial world. Not only are you not prepared to be a winner, you may not even be prepared to be basically employable. You leave and start again at the bottom. Worse than the bottom: you may have been trained with habits commercial entities find objectionable (like a visceral unwillingness to push pointers quickly, or a regrettable tendency to fight with the boss before the interview process is even over.) This can be fantastically traumatic.

Damn, that explains a lot.

According to Jeri Ryan:

It’s not a game trailer. Actually was made for the director to sell WB on his vision for a reimagined MK film.

Friggin’ hilarious!

And our annual post-SPM drama continues. A dejected parent wrote a letter to Malaysia-Today to complain about how his/her son was denied a JPA scholarship even with excellent results. I do not want to be a bastard and I know that every parent honestly believes that their child is the greatest. However, after reading the child’s achievement and knowing many JPA scholars in my life, I have to say that I find the child wanting.

Disclaimer: I do not know the actual person and all I know is gleaned from the letter.

The parent should understand that every person who applies for JPA scholarship already has excellent academic results – that is a given. This is primarily due to the fact that there are many thousands of students with top results in our country while there are only about two thousand JPA scholarships distributed across all disciplines and countries. So, something like dentistry would probably not account for very many scholarships.

Therefore, in order for scholarship applications to stand out there has to be something extra about the applicant, other than their excellent academic results. The letter claims that the child won a “VIJAYA SHANKAR PARAMSOTHY” Trophy, which seems to be an internal school award (as opposed to the Fulbright scholarship of the same name). While I do not want to underplay the child’s achievements, I am not certain if this would be something that immediately jumps out at the person reviewing the application.

I do not want to sound condescending but I have had this same conversation with other top scholars before. If you are fighting for a scarce resource, you really need to have something extra to help push you to the top of the pile.

That said, the JPA scholarship is not the be all end all of the child’s life.

Never was much of a fan of Harry Potter – but certainly one of Emma Watson!

Came across this yesterday and I have to say – it’s quite good!

Pada permulaannya, kita tinggal di sebuah negara yang kaya dan aman

Akan tetapi, segelintir orang telah menyalahgunakan sumber alam tanahair ini dan merampas tanah anda

Semua sumber alam telah dirampas oleh kroni-kroni mereka

Ini telah menyebabkan kehidupan anda menjadi semakin susah

Rasuah, penyalahgunaan kuasa, persubahatan kerajaan dan ahli perniagaan

Mereka tidak akan berasa simpati terhadap anda, mereka tidak akan mendengar rayuan anda

Bila menjelang pilihan raya, mereka akan memberi anda sedikit faedah

Bila telah dapat sokongan anda, mereka akan bertindak seperti dahulu dan tidak akan mengenang jasa

Akhirnya, mereka mahu anda menampung kehidupan mewah mereka

Kita boleh membawa perubahan.

Sibu, Jom Ubah!