Category: Uncategorized

Amidst the fiasco that is our MCA EGM today, I went out window shopping for the PS3 slim. I wanted to find out what the current price was for the slim and the prices of games locally. The PS3 slim is currently retailing for RM1399 but those are for import units. Although the Malaysian PS3 has not yet shown its face, that has not stopped the retailers from stocking up and reselling import units. So, I began to wonder if the PS3 units were region locked like the PS2 and the thing is – it is not.

Which bodes well for me because, the games in Malaysia are seriously expensive. They cost between RM129 to RM200++ per game, which is crazy. However, the games are cheaper online and much cheaper used. I browsed through the prices for some games at a popular retailer. Turns out that MGS4 costs only £10 (RM60) pre-owned, which is far more affordable than the exhorbitant prices in Malaysia. I have begun to blame the high prices of media in Malaysia on pirates. The pirates destroy any sort of after-market for games.

I hope that when the PS3 launches, Sony Malaysia would be kind enough to sell it at around RM1099 or RM1199 and not RM1399 for the console and controller. Then, I may actually consider buying the games online. Mirrors Edge is retailing for £7 brand new on Amazon. Then again, a lot depends on what kind of usage I would have for my PS3. It may end up being used more as a HTPC than a gaming console.

Whoah. I just read this article on the Brazilian wandering spider. Turns out that it will give you a massive boner before killing you. According to the wikipedia article:

P. nigriventer venom contains a potent neurotoxin, known as PhTx3, which acts as a broad-spectrum calcium channel blocker that inhibits glutamate release, calcium uptake and also glutamate uptake in neural synapses. At deadly concentrations, this neurotoxin causes loss of muscle control and breathing problems, resulting in paralysis and eventual asphyxiation. In addition, the venom causes intense pain and inflammation following an attack due to an excitatory effect the venom has on the serotonin 5-HT4 receptors of sensory nerves. This sensory nerve stimulation causes a release of neuropeptides such as substance P which triggers inflammation and pain.

Aside from causing intense pain, the venom of the spider can also cause priapism in humans. Erections resulting from the bite are uncomfortable, can last for many hours and can lead to impotence. A component of the venom (Tx2-6) is being studied for use in erectile dysfunction treatments.

The amount of P. nigriventer venom necessary to kill a 20 g mouse has been shown to be only 0.006 mg intravenously and 0.0134 mg subcutaneously as compared to 0.110 mg and 0.2 mg respectively for Latrodectus mactans (Black Widow). This ranks Phoneutria venom among the most deadly found in spiders.

Whoah. Nature is freaky.

I have always had a special interest in Ayu’s songs. I bought her Best 2: Black album a while back but have been tirelessly hunting down the Best 2: White album. Today, I finally found it at a local store during our lunch break. So, I immediately put down the money to buy the album. The thing about this particular album is that it actually comes with two DVDs, one of which, contains an entire concert. Nice!

That’s the thing about these Japanese albums. They tend to be far pricier than the rest of the albums available in Malaysia, but they also come with more value for money. While most music albums would only contain a single music CD, these Japanese albums will usually contain at least a music CD and another video DVD. Now, I wish that there was a wider selection of Japanese and Korean artistes in Malaysia. Our choices here are severely limited to only the major artistes. It makes sense from a business stand-point as this is a rather niche market and the stores cannot be carrying an assortment of random artistes.

Watching the concert is kind of depressing because I am reminded of the fact that such shows would never be allowed in Malaysia. Our so-called ‘conservative’ factions of society would probably protest the entry of liberal acts – all in the name of protecting values and culture. There is nothing wrong with protecting ones values and culture as long as one does not deem to impose those same values and culture on others based on the misconception that those are universal values and cultures. It is this misconception that leads to a lot of misunderstanding between the different factions of our society.

Which brings me to the issue that our government and our people has always hidden behind – the facade that there is anything remotely resembling a universal value system. Instead of understanding, we settled for tolerance. As a result, everyone presumes that each others values are ‘similar’ to their own when in fact, each individual has their own value system. As an example, I can still remember when it was a buzz-phrase to claim that all religions taught one to do good. What everyone left out was that the meaning of ‘good’ is subjective and was different between one religion to another.

Good and evil are not black and white – neither is Ayu!

Long-time readers of my blog will already know my stand on various intellectual-property (IP) matters. However, what utterly confounds me is the practice of privately patenting inventions that are publicly funded. In most rational and civilised countries, publicly funded research would end up being put into the public-domain. However, in other places, researchers that are publicly funded end up owning the inventions and benefits from commercialisation. Personally, I don’t think that this is right for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, there is the ethical issue. It seems particularly unfair to me that the party who funded the research and made the invention possible in the first place is barred from enjoying the benefits. To me, this is quite a serious issue as patents are ultimately exclusionary – the only power that patents have is to block others from exploiting inventions. It seems rather silly that the public is unable to exploit the inventions that are publicly funded.

Secondly, there is the business issue of competition. Nobody will deny that the government has a lot of financial clout. It is part of the job of government, to throw its clout behind things that are seen as of national benefit. So, if the government decided to pump taxpayer money into bio-technology (for example), it would be able to pump in a lot of money, much more than the reach of many private enterprises. As a result, it should be able to achieve more, and if the technology is patented, it will inadvertently drive these private enterprises out of the market. To me, this is unfair competition.

That is why, in most rational and civilised countries, taxpayer funded research should end up in the public-domain, for fair consumption by everyone. If the researchers intend to benefit commercially from their research work, they should not have taken public money in the first place. There are other alternatives for funding, privately, that will cover the cost of doing research. Sometimes, I wonder what goes through the heads of these researchers when taking public money.

As an engineer by training, I have got reuse drummed into my head. In the world of engineering, one is always discouraged from re-inventing the wheel as it is something that has already matured. The main argument for it is both technical and business.

From a technical view, a wheel is already a well established technology or what we term as mature technology. Its characteristics are well understood by everyone and its use is common place. From a business sense, re-inventing something that is already there will incur unnecessary costs and will blow up any business budget. There are rare exceptions when a wheel needs to be re-invented but those are rare by definition.

So, it comes as something really odd to me when I see an entire organisation that seems to be devoted to re-inventing the wheel and calling it our wheel. I blame this on the kampung mentality that encourages us to strive for being kampung champions. In the end, it is still only a wheel. It may be coloured red, white, blue and yellow, but it is still only a wheel.

If we wish to compete on a global stage, we would need to move fast – more so in the technology arena. That is why people rarely re-invent the wheel. The capital outflow cannot be justified. Unless of course, you are not in the business of making a profit of course.

I got the chance to attend an introductory presentation on writing Windows device drivers today. Unfortunately, the person delivering the presentation was a bore. His speech was utterly monotonous and the slides were filled with nothing but boring text. Granted, I am a bit biased when it comes to Windows drivers, but it was still a boring presentation nonetheless.

Technical people should not be allowed to give technical presentations masked as non-technical ones.

A technical presentation should be filled with lots of diagrams, graphs, charts and very few words. Come to think of it, every presentation should be filled with non-words. The worst thing that a presenter can do is to actually read the words off the slides. Maybe we should send him for our presentation/communication skills training. It is at least a non-boring training.

PS: He finally showed a single diagram at the end of the presentation, which was basically worth the entire spoken presentation.

Linked from dilbert.com. I believe that it is allowed under the Terms but IANAL.