Category: Random Musings

Valueless Lives

Recently, I had the opportunity to witness a motorcyclist and his pillion rider turn the corner at speed, skid and crash in front of my car. On the very same evening, I saw the aftermath of another accident where the unconscious motorcyclist was being carried off the road by members of the public with blood spewing out of his nose. The very next day, I had a motorcyclist and his pillion (both whom do not look like they are old enough to have a motorcycle license) cut into my lane immediately after showing their signal.

These three incidents, within 24 hours, got me thinking, how valueless some lives are. These lives are valueless because their owners themselves do not seem to act in a way which reflects their value.

It is quite common to see young children on motorcycles, without helmets, in the suburbs and quieter parts of the country. In such a situation, the only ones to blame for any accidents, are the parents of the children who allowed their kids to ride their motorcycles illegally. I do not understand how a child’s life could be worth so little to the parents.

Sigh.

Co-Founder Myth

As a friend of mine said, finding a co-founder is more difficult than finding a wife! And I have to concur.

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/swf/player-ec.swf

Team Player

I have managed to join and leave a number of project teams this year, outside of work, doing all sorts of random teams. Often, the main reason that I leave the team is because I cannot get along with some of the team-members. Instead of staying and causing problems, I decide to leave. Typically, the problem revolves around the fact that I find some problem with the other team-members who I feel are idiots in my book. This does not necessarily mean that they are mentally challenged, but rather just people whom I cannot reconcile opinions with.

So, I wonder to myself, if this made me a difficult person to work with. If it did, it may cause some problems in the future for my business. I think that if you asked around, many people would say that I am problematic. I sort of agreed with it as well, until I realised something.

I have managed to work on a number of projects with several teams of people recently including, organising a prestige lecture, an annual dinner and a green conference. All these were activities that I was part of, either as organising chairman or treasurer or member. In fact, I have been very actively involved in the IET, which is a professional engineering institution. I have had so much fun working with the rest of the committee that I have decided to run for a second term. If you asked these people if I was a difficult person to work with, I doubt that they would agree.

I think that this probably boils down to personality.

It just so happens that most of the committee members of the institution are professional engineers. Maybe this means that we can understand each other easily and we are able to work on the same wavelength. Therefore, I can easily gel with the rest of the team and get things done. In most of the other teams that I dropped out of, I am probably the only qualified engineer in the team and I find it difficult to understand how other people can think and act the way that they do.

Sigh.

So, I guess this means that I can get along with other engineers but cannot get along with other people in general. Well, this is surely far better than being a difficult person. Good thing is that I would mostly be working with other engineers only, which saves me a whole load of grief.

Free Condoms

I was at the Freedom Film Fest 2010 last weekend and came across a booth, which was advocating HIV/AIDS prevention/awareness programmes. Among the stuff that they were giving away, were free condoms, lube and a small information booklet. I found that quite cute.

Unfortunately, they did not seem to believe me when I mentioned that condoms do not really do much to prevent most STIs although they do play a role in preventing the transmission of HIV/AIDS through one of its vectors – sexual intercourse. Therefore, the use of condoms should be advocated as a form of safer sex and not safe sex, which may yield unexpected results.

Then, when I mentioned that there was medication that one could take for HIV/AIDS, they thought I was out of my mind. They quickly referred to their guide booklet and seemed quite smug in their knowledge that there is no medication for it. Well, while there is still a lot of work needed in the search for a cure, there is already a lot of progress made in controlling the spread of the disease through the use of anti-viral drugs.

The one thing worst than being uninformed is being misinformed. Needless to say, I did not get any free condoms, lube nor guide booklet.

After the event, some friends and I went for some supper outside and to talk-cock. Then, at one point, someone agreed that their idea of an ideal sex-education system in this country is abstinence. I got a little impassioned with this as I have a problem with people who would think that ignorance is bliss, sex is bad, homosexuality is evil.

Beware the person who denies you knowledge, for s/he seeks to dominate you. Good thing I’ll unlikely meet this person ever again.

#1 on Facebook!

Hey, Malaysians are world #1 at something useful for once! According to research done, Malaysians have the largest number of friends on Facebook, and we spent the most time on Facebook! We averaged 233 friends while the Japanese only averaged 29 friends per person. I know of many people who easily have more than 233 FB friends. So, I am not surprised by this result.

What does this say about us as a society?

I think that it is actually quite reflective of ourselves. A friend once told me that in Malaysia, we have about a 2-degree of separation between any two people. After observing for the last few years, I am coming to the same conclusion myself. Now that a study has shown that an average Malaysian has 233 FB friends, it does not surprise me if I what my friend said was true.

It also shows that we have far too much free time on our hands, until we end up doing silly and potentially illegal things on FB. An example is the case of a man who claims that his doctored photographs appear randomly on FB. He has since resorted to making a police report on the issue.

I thought to myself – this is crazy! People really need to learn how to handle these kinds of situations online. It’s like the wild-wild-west online (why do you think it’s called the WWW?). You need to learn how to handle yourself so that things do not go the wrong way; and if they ever do, you need to know how to take care of it as well.

It is quite difficult for Malaysian police to do anything about these sort of things unless the perpetrator is traced and found to be a Malaysian residing in Malaysia. Otherwise, it is nearly impossible to take any sort of legal action as no real harm has been done, except to someone’s online reputation.

Weird and crazy sh*t happens!

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Hacker Culture

I have been giving this some thought recently and I am finding it more difficult to identify myself as a Malaysian or a Chinese. While we are all a hodgepodge of various cultures and influences, I have found that the largest chunk of my life has been greatly influenced by and spent in the Hacker culture. I would advise you to read the Wikipedia article linked as your understanding of the culture may differ significantly from the actual meaning.

While sitting here enjoying my cup of teh tarik in the local Hailam Kopitiam, I ask myself – what am I going to do about this?

I think that I will probably take the first step by accepting the fact that I am a hacker, first and foremost. Of all the cultures that I have imbibed, the hacker culture is the one that I live by in totality. While I may celebrate various national, cultural and religious holidays and feasts, I have generally been an observer rather than a participant in each.

I am an active participant in the hacker culture.

Helping out with voter-registrations for more than a year now, I have come across people with various combinations of race and religion in their ICs, some of it has actually surprised me. I have recently bought the book, Found in Malaysia and come to realise that our identities are far more complex than our government would like us to believe.

I think that if I decided to fill up ‘Hacker’ as my race, my fellows would mistakenly classify me as ‘Hakka’ and plop me into the ‘Chinese’ category regardless.

blink!

Beethoven Virus

I have been watching a Korean Drama series recently – Beethoven Virus. Just like every other Korean Drama, the context of music is largely used as an excuse to stage a coming of age story with a love triangle thrown in the mix. However, with all that music flowing through the show, it struck me that software is very much like music – specifically, the Open Source Software movement.

Sheet music are like code – a set of instructions on what to do and when. In actual fact, it is a lot like code – which controls when certain electrical signals are triggered inside a processor. And the beauty of OSS is that it allows for artistic liberty – different interpretations and even modifications on the original composition. If music was not open, we would be lesser humans today. If software is not open, we will be lesser humans tomorrow.

Now, I have not even gotten to the performers and people who practice the ‘art’. There are so many other parallels that can be drawn there. Maybe it is time that we started to organise ourselves in a similar fashion.

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