Category: Uncategorized

Well, after turning down the previous invite, I got invited again for breakfast with the CEO. I guess that the so-called random selection of people is not so random after all. Instead of having them bug me again, I decided to just go and sit at the back to listen quietly (and near to the food obviously).

Turns out that our CEO is quite an eloquent and charismatic speaker. This is important for a leader. He painted the big picture of where we were, where we are, and where we will be in the future. Listening to him speak, I have to totally agree that he has got the picture right and that it is the correct vision that our nation should be heading towards and that it is also very practical indeed.

However, the problem within our country has never been a lack of vision – but a lack of proper execution.

I was glad that I got to raise a couple of important issues and that I would not had another opportunity to raise. So, I said a few words and let the CEO explain the situation away. At the end of the talk, I honestly felt that it was a positive thing to have attended the talk and had my opportunity to air my piece. Regardless of what happens after this, I will know that I had at least had the opportunity to raise my voice.

I just read it this morning that KTM Komuter, has begun to operate women only coaches on their trains.

WHAT THE FRACK?!

This is a friggin’ slippery slope. I don’t get why there are even people who are supportive of this decision. I had to whack it into the heads of my colleagues that it is a friggin’ slippery slope and remind them that they do not see the big picture. If they did, they would be worried because they would all lose their jobs. My colleagues said that it is just a small thing and I gently reminded them that everything starts as a small thing. Take away an inch at a time and before you know it, your rights have all been taken away, which is the problem with the people in this country.

WHAT THE FRACK HAS KTM BEEN SMOKING?!

I really wonder what problem are they trying to solve and if they think that they would be able to solve it by segregating women from men. This is the lazy man solution. There is nothing that they can do to enforce that policy. If a man chooses to sit in the women’s coach and then refused to budge, that man can delay the entire train unless they either give in to him or forcibly remove him. If they gave in to him, their policy is ruined. If they forcibly removed him, he would have a legal case against KTM because they do not have the legal authority to enforce such a rule.

WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH THE WOMEN IN THIS COUNTRY?!

Some women actually think that having a separate coach is a good idea. That’s just plain and dumb short-sighted thinking. These people are idiots to think that segregating coaches is a good idea. If we start segregating the genders on trains, we can continue to segregate them everywhere – think banks, schools, roads and even jobs. I don’t think that the women would be particularly happy if we kept them all out of consulting positions to protect them from the stares of men and told them all to stay at home and take care of the babies.

People need to learn how to deal with the problems in the real-world. If some idiotic guy gropes you on the train, kick him in the balls. If someone stares at your beautiful body, stare them down.

Contains Nudity
Found this cute little video on the net, might be Dutch – “A story about a boy and his homework, and his attempt to understand girls. This pretty much sums up the relationship between the opposite sexes.”

http://media.noob.us/flashplayer.swf

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-1131687652968702015&hl=en&fs=true

Shocking? Nothing shocks me anymore. This is the kind of reporting that we need in Malaysia instead of all the feel-good shows that we are inundated with on our televisions.

There is another tiny laptop contender that has moved up to the top of the list – the Acer Aspire 1810T. It is the cousin to the Acer Ferrari that I talked about earlier. However, it has a couple of differences – it uses the Intel family of chipsets, it has a HDMI output, and it has a whopping 12-hour battery life!

According to most of the reviews that I have read, the battery life is extremely long even if it may not reach 12-hours. It can easily reach 8-hours on normal usage. According to one site, it is even greener than the average netbook and ultra-portable notebook class machines. This is a wonderful machine to have. Also, it is pretty cheap at only RM1849 in Malaysia.

The only drawbacks when compared to the Acer Ferrarri are: it comes with 2GB of memory but I can install another 2GB memory myself though it may cost a little extra; and it comes with the SU4100 processor that does not support hardware virtualisation. The 1810T is supposed to have a beefier model with a SU7300 processor that supports HVM and that would be a perfect buy for me but that would cost about RM400 more in a couple of months.

That said, even without HVM, it is not a show stopper. I will just have to make do with slower virtual machines, which is fine for development purposes.

PS: It even comes in Olympic Silver – with the Olympics Logo for an additional RM150 only!

I was really surprised when I read this in TheStar today. No, surprise is not the right word – it should be shell-shocked. Honestly, I do not know what our dearest PM did to have deserved such an award. He is not a technology pioneer, nor is he the chief executive of any technology. Granted, he is a chief executive of a country but our technology connectivity is back-water at best.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has been named by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as one of the three eminent personalities who have contributed to the ongoing digital revolution.

He joined chairman and chief executive officer of China Mobile Wang Jianzhou and Robert Kahn, one of the early pioneers of the Internet.

They were awarded the 2010 ITU World Telecommunication and Information Society Award in recognition of their dedication to promoting ICT (information and communications technology) as a means of providing a better life for humanity.

The article goes further to say that, “As part of the New Economic Model for Malaysia, he has placed a high priority on strengthening ICT infrastructure. His administration has supported the ITU in strengthening global cybersecurity through the Impact Centre in Cyberjaya.”

Okay, he got awarded for strengthening ICT infrastructure by setting up a global cyber-security centre. I still do not see how this is big enough to deserve such an award. There are lots of people who have contributed greatly to strengthening ICT infrastructure, greater than what our PM had done, from the guys at Bell Labs to the guys at Xerox Parc. In fact, I would put my money on the fact that our PM did not come up with this idea – it was probably proposed by some low-level functionary at one of our ministries or agencies.

However, one can argue that this is like another Obama – being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize based on expectations rather than achievement. Maybe the ITU feels that the priorities placed by our government on ICT in the NEM is expected to yield good results and strengthen global infrastructure, instead of waiting to see if it actually does do anything useful. Going by how things work in this country, I would hazard that it may not work as advertised.

I think that the ITU has made a mistake or at the very least, been pre-mature on the award. The NEM has not even been completely tabled. Maybe the ITU is hoping that by giving this award, they will force our PM to stick to the promises and not to shift our priorities over to agriculture like our previous PM did. Maybe it is a way to apply psychological pressure. Honestly, I think that they have been duped – they do not understand us enough.

I wonder how both sides are going to spin this bye-election result tomorrow. An upstanding Malay lost to an unknown Indian in a Malay majority constituency. I guess that the political analysts on both sides will be taking out their R calculators and doing deep statistical analyses on the results in the next weeks to figure out how that happened.

Regardless, I think that both sides of the political divide have learned their lessons. I sure hope that they both have. To the losers, there is plenty to learn with regards to operational details and political machinery. To the winners, there is also plenty to learn about how the voting patterns seemed to have moved away from racial lines. Interesting.

I also hope that both sides do not give up the war – the present battle has been both lost and won but the war is still ongoing and the stakes are terribly high.