Category: Uncategorized

Honestly, does anyone really care anymore? I was having lunch over the weekend with a bunch of elder men, one of whom actually works for an MCA owned organisation. Obviously, the topic of the MCA ‘crisis’ came up and I think that the general consensus is that MCA is going to be wiped out in the next election.

On my part, I realised that I had stopped caring about what happened to the MCA a long time ago.

The current political sandiwara within the MCA just goes to show how dead they have become to the needs of the people. They are so caught up with their internal in-fighting that they have lost sight of the larger picture. The window of opportunity is gone, where the MCA could have used their status as the ‘sole representative’ of the Chinese community within BN to do more after Gerakan got wiped out. Strong leadership was needed but none was forthcoming.

I ask myself about what would happen at the end of the month – after their new elections. Personally, I feel that regardless of whom gets elected as President, the sandiwara will continue as people jostle for power. The thing is, the pie has gotten smaller but instead of fighting for a larger slice, the MCA is killing each other for scraps. I really have to respect the one who thought up this stratagem. I am sure that there are people watching the fires burning across the river even as we speak.

I think that the Chinese community has largely abandoned the MCA, particularly the young. We all see that a multi-ethnic solution is the only answer to our problems in Malaysia. The only ones who remain glued to the MCA are likely the ones whose livelihoods depend on the gravy train from the MCA. However, when the gravy flow begins to slow, these people will quickly drown.

Personally, I think that the MCA needs to be put to an end. They have done their part in the past and contributed to the growth and stability of our nation. However, they have been unable to adapt to the changing ways and are stuck in the past. They need to go away for a while, and make room for others. If they manage to sort out their problems, they can still be a force to reckon with in the future. But that is just wishful thinking.

As I mentioned earlier, I got appointed as a judge for the Malaysia FLL Open Championship. It is a LEGO robotics competition for kids between ages 9-16 and it is an open championship, meaning that there is only one category of competition and everyone competes for that one category. The overall champions will earn the privilege of representing Malaysia at the international championships in Atlanta as well as KaoHsiung.

The competition was judged in four different areas – presentation, robot design, teamwork and mission. I volunteered for the technical robot design judging and it turned out to be very interesting. I did not see the presentation judging but was told that it was less interesting. However, the mission judging was a blast and I managed to capture a lot of photos of that.

One thing that I observed during the judging was that there is a definite gap between the good schools and the normal schools in our country. Some of the schools that joined the FLL competition were well known to me while others were just regular schools. For the out-standing schools, you could see that they came very well prepared, even for the technical judging. They were clearly presented their robot designs, highlighting the rational behind every design decision and demoed their robots successfully like clockwork.

There was also a marked difference between the presentation styles of national schools versus chinese schools. While they both came well prepared, the national school presentations tended to be a bit more professional and personal while the chinese school presentations were more rigid and drill like. Regardless, I was very impressed with them as it was clear that the students had all put in a lot of effort into preparing for the competition, down to the clothes that they would wear – one team was dressed in Death Note t-shirts!

Although the students worked in groups, the division of labour was largely gender specific. The boys largely worked on the LEGO robots while the girls took care of the presentations. Moreover, the ones in charge of the programming were visibly geeks – they all had that look to them. I think that this was a bit of a shame as I think that the girls have some really good robot designs too, especially those from some of our best girl schools like TKC. I would have liked to see more female participation in the engineering aspects but I guess that the boys would just bully the girls away.

Unfortunately for most of the primary schools, the students were largely out of their league. This was reflected in the overall results with a large number of primary schools in the lower half. Most of the time, the students just stood there unsure of what to do and it was up to us as judges to prod and probe them in order to wean the answers out of them. We tried our best to help them as it was all about good clean fun. As long as the kids had some fun playing with the LEGO robots, it was all good.

That said, I should mention that our overall champion is a primary school – SRJKC Jalan Davidson. They also had the largest number of supporters present including a mascot dressed up as a Knight, a drummer and a bugler in addition to a couple of dozen kids and parents. In addition, the gutsiest school was also another primary school – one from Sri Petaling. They were the only ones to attempt a bridge crossing and they managed to successfully park their robot at the end of the bridge each time. SMKDJ brought along some of their cheer-leaders who danced, did cart-wheels and climbed on top of each other to entertain the crowd.

I was very impressed with the team from SMK Bintulu as their robot exhibited some fairly industrial practices. I asked them who their sponsors were and it turned out that they were sponsored by some mechanical engineering company – which was pretty evident from their robot. They did well too, and became overall runners-up. At least it their trip here was worth it. Personally, I think that I will like to sponsor a team myself, if I ever have the funds to do it. It is good clean fun and it inculcates an interest for engineering in the kids.

In the end, I had a lot of fun and will definitely support the FLL thing again next year. In the mean-time, I have our National Robotics Championships to look forward too.

I was recently asked to talk about my project at work to a bunch of guys who were going to use it. During part of this presentation, I mentioned that we can use a temporary unique identifier to identify something. I suggested using a UUID. Only one of the audience, a certain Dr from a certain national body of higher education, asked me for an example of UUIDs. So, I told him that they are random numbers, usually 128-bits in length.

Then, he asked me for an example of a 128-bit random number…

I think that I must have given him ‘the look’ as another member of the audience, a certain contractor who works with us, stepped in and mentioned that they need not use UUIDs but can use anything they want including any sort of random number. I looked at him, smiled and said that he was correct.

Seriously, this certain Dr has been giving me a lot of doubts about his credentials recently. However, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt as I did not know his background. He could be a PhD in English Literature for all I know. Even if he was a PhD in IT, it could still be something random like e-commerce instead of something technical like security.

As a result, I decided to check him out using my dear friend, Google. Turns out that he was doing a PhD in computer graphics and such, more than a decade ago. So, this person should have easily understood the meaning of a 128-bit random number and not ask me for examples of what UUIDs are.

So, it makes me wonder what this person is trying to do. He asked me not to be so negative the other day and I corrected him. I am not the one who is negative. I am absolutely positive even if I may be on a short fuse. He can ask me to relax a bit and not so stressed up but I am most certainly not negative.

I guess that he is not an English major after all.

I came out of a 2-hour meeting today, thoroughly exhausted. The reason being that I was doing the talking for most of the two hours non-stop. I was told to give a short half-hour presentation thing, the same one that I have been giving to a number of other groups. It usually involves me talking for about 5-15 minutes and then a short discussion for about 15-30 minutes or so. I have done this a number of times and it is not an issue.

However, I have also done this talk with this group of people for a number of times – each round dragging on longer than the last.This 2-hour meeting must be a record somewhere. Even our CTO commented that their budget meetings dealing with billions, do not take as long as our little problem. The problem is that some people are either too dumb or too lazy to do their work. I sincerely hope that it is the latter.

After about 90 minutes, I was seriously exhausted. So, I told everyone in the room and apologised because I may start blabbering away since my brains were already mush. But the meeting wasn’t a whole waste. I ended up drawing three fairly nice diagrams. I really liked one of them.

I have spent more than 12 years of my life teaching. I have taught all kinds of students including some really bad apples. Many hundreds of students have passed through my hands. However, this is the first time that I have had to face this brand of stupidity.

I have always said – I do not suffer fools.

According to the AP, our government has deferred the implementation of the 4% GST for the moment. I wonder if this is a further indicator that snap elections will be called within the year. By deferring the implementation of the GST, this potential campaign issue will be diffused somewhat. There is nothing specific for the opposition to harp about except to speculate and fear-monger.

Personally, I think that this is another typically Malaysian hair-brained idea spouted by politicians before they had spent any time actually thinking it through. While the GST idea is a good one, it becomes really lame when the government has to compromise on a whole bunch of things and back-track on their original grand plan, one bit at a time.

The GST is a fairer form of tax but it will only work in a country with a healthy economy and sufficiently high income levels. We do not automagically become a high-income economy just by implementing GST. The arrow of causality needs to point the right way. If GST is to be implemented, it needs to be implemented across the board, and not have an exemption list longer than the actual taxed list. Otherwise, everything will just find its way into the exemption list sooner or later.

I am not an economist but I think that it is far more important for our government to work on raising income levels. Our salaries have stagnated for more than a decade even though our currency has been devalued by more than half during the period. We need to work on increasing the economic pie in order to make taxation a useful tool in increasing the state coffers. Otherwise, we are just exsanguinating an already dry husk.

When I start hiring people, I will not pay them our so-called market rates because I think that these rates are unjustified. The cost of living has gone up so much. Even my bowl of pan mee has gone up by 50 sen after Chinese New Year ~ a 10% increase. I subscribe to the Google practice of hiring good people, paying them well and leaving them alone. Then sit back and watch the magic happen.

But I do believe that our GE will be called within the year, plus-minus three months.

I dread this time of the year, when our national secondary school exam results are released. According to TheStar, there are almost 8,000 straight A scorers for SPM this year. Now, I would like to congratulate all these top students but I hope they will stay away from public dramas in the newspapers. To avoid disappointments from scholarship rejections, I have a few tips to offer from someone who has always gotten scholarships that he has applied for.

Firstly, start early. If you have not yet applied for a scholarship – you are already late. You should know that many of the scholarship awarding bodies have already given out their offers to early birds. So, ensure that you make your scholarship applications now before it is too late. The early bird usually gets the worm for a reason.

Secondly, do your homework. There are many scholarship giving bodies in Malaysia. JPA should be your backup and not your only plan. In fact, there are many other more competitive scholarships than JPA by virtue of the amount of money that they give. Do not put all your eggs in one basket. Just like job applications, you have got to throw your applications around.

Thirdly, don’t give up. This is not the end of the world – it is only the beginning of your entire life. You need to tread carefully and do not give up easily. You can still achieve your dreams if you stick to your guns. These days, there are so many options – matriculation, IB, A-levels – besides our venerable STPM. Yes, STPM is always an option assuming that you qualify for it.

So, if you do end up getting a scholarship – congratulations are in order. More so if you end up getting one of our prestigious overseas scholarships. If you fail to get one, don’t fret – look at your other options and move on. There is no need to cry about it in the newspapers.

Most importantly, now is a good time for self-reflection. You need to ask yourselves if you really want to study medicine in the UK. Look within and ask yourself what you would like to do at the end of the day and lay down the path to get there. Success is measured in many ways, including self satisfaction. Sometimes, it is more important to be simply – happy.

I had just read this piece by RPK on local government elections. I have to say that I am in disagreement with him on several matters. I have some really strong views on this matter and I have mentioned it many times on this and the older blog.

Finally, Pakatan Rakyat could not delay any longer. Like it or not they had to announce the implementation of local council elections. But it is not something that Pakatan Rakyat can do on its own. They can’t just hold the elections as if they were holding a car boot sale on Sunday. It involves certain legal matters that need to first be resolved.

This is pure FUD. The so-called legal matters that need to be resolved can most certainly be resolved one way or the other if someone has the will to take the matter up. You see, there are Constitutional provisions that allow for local government elections and there are also Acts that try to suspend it. Therefore, as long as the PR government are too afraid of challenging the matter, they will fall into the trap of playing the game on BN’s terms. That is just pure stupidity.

Let’s take Perak as an example. Say they hold local council elections in Perak, a state under Barisan Nasional control. And, say, Pakatan Rakyat comes in at all or most of the local councils. Can you imagine the headache Barisan Nasional is going to have? The state would move in the opposite direction. Pakatan Rakyat and not Barisan Nasional will be the real power in Perak.

Wrong! If such a scenario happened, the real power in Perak would neither be the BN nor PR. It would be the rakyat of Perak. That is the true reason why both PR and BN are hesitant on running local government elections. They are both afraid of returning power to the people instead of hording it within their corridors. I keep stressing that local government elections are not a privilege to be given to the people but a right that needs to be returned.

If Najib agrees to local council elections he is dead. Barisan Nasional is going to lose control of many states. If Najib does not agree he is also dead. Pakatan Rakyat would have one up on Barisan Nasional because it would appear like Pakatan Rakyat is not only more democratic but more progressive.

This is pure speculation and wishful thinking. In his piece, he both justified the PR’s hesitance by saying that the local elections may sway towards BN and also said that if local elections were to be held, BN would be crushed. I am not sure which way he swings but he really should make up his mind. Personally, I don’t think that BN will be crushed if there are local elections, which is why I don’t understand why these politicians are so guided by fear.

You see, the people are not as dumb as some of us may think. We would be dumb to give either side a clean-sweep in the elections. It is far smarter to play one side off the other – in order to keep the power with the electorate rather than the elected. The rakyat knows this and chances are that if local council elections are held, some will go BN, others will go PR and neither will have a clean sweep of the councils.

That said, I do think that this is long overdue. They should have called for this at the very beginning. There may be another reason to have local government elections now – if they are afraid of losing the state in the next GE. There are lots of rumours that there will be a snap election called soon. If the PR are not confident of their chances, this is a last bet for them to keep a foot in the door, in case they get the boot.

Anyway, I shall reproduce some of my comments to KW Mak in another article.
Credit goes to me for suggesting mid-term local council elections!

---

None of these are show-stoppers. They can definitely be overcome with the right will.

Local elections can and should be held at mid-term. It is a good idea to hold it at mid-term as it can provide a form of feedback and allow the political parties to gauge the response from the people – sort of like a mid-term review. Not holding it in sync with national and state elections is actually a good thing.

As for the voter roll, local elections involve people locally – voter eligibility should be based on resident address, rather than official address (the one held by SPR). Anyone who can produce proof that he/she is resident in the area (e.g. by producing a credit card statement or utility bill) should be eligible to vote in the area.

The cost of the actual election itself is something shouldered by the state government. There is something called ‘cukai pintu‘ and this should be one of the reasons to pay local taxes.

The campaign cost is something that is shouldered by the political parties. That is a problem for the political parties, not relevant to the local council elections. If they are unable to run, they should just stay away from the elections or run leaner campaigns (e.g. by exploiting technology) with less wastage.

If a state government loses control of the local councils, that is a good thing. It is democracy in action. This is the same signal sent when the federal government loses control of the state governments. The government will need to improve itself, otherwise it will lose even more later.

For the candidate, anyone who wishes and is eligible to run should be allowed to run, just like MPs. Whether or not the candidate is clean or corrupt should not be a criterion in running. Let the voters be the judge of who is the best to represent them – that’s the whole point.

With regards to the mechanism, like you suggested, it is possible to do it in various ways – top 20, delineated, or even a la Malaysian Idol knockouts. I don’t see why everyone has to use one specific method since none of the methods are tamper-proof. In fact, it might be better to have different methods used for different council elections – it might make things more difficult to [set up].

As for the issue of the NGOs, there are many mechanisms that can be tested. For example, one could set aside a number of seats for NGOs, which is being done today, and allow them to compete with other candidates running on the NGO ticket for these seats.

As for “why waste money on an exercise that could potentially cripple your ability to run the state?” – it is the peoples’ democratic right that has been taken away. It is not a choice for politicians to restore it.