Category: Uncategorized

It is always interesting to hear about Malaysian news through foreign news channels. However, it is even more interesting to find it as one of the top stories on Reddit. According to the BBC, “The Islamic authorities have issued a ruling, known as a fatwa, instructing the country’s Muslims to avoid yoga because of its Hindu roots.” Personally, I have nothing against the practice of Yoga nor JAKIM. Further reading on this subject does reveal some truths in what is being said.

According to Wikipedia: Yoga refers to traditional physical and mental disciplines originating in India; to the goal achieved by those disciplines; and to one of the six orthodox (āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy. I think therein lies the problem, which is one of definition. Yoga refers to the exercises, the goal of said exercises and a school of Hinduism.

However, before we begin to criticise the Malaysian religious authorities on their short-sightedness, we should understand a few things. Like Christianity, Islam is an evangelical or prostelysing religion. This means that it spreads by direct marketing. So, it has to brand its competition as sub-par and encourage customers loyalty by tying them down. So, it should come as no surprise that such an action was taken and the reasons should be plenty apparent.

If a religion requires that its followers stick to the one true way without question, the only way to ensure that its followers stick to it is by enforcement as the said religion cannot logically explain things away. So, when something that is foreign and contradictory comes along, said religion would need to brand it as deviant in order to keep its followers away from it. Otherwise, it would risk losing its followers as time passes and it will ultimately vanish as a religion (along with all its accrued benefits).

Personally, I think that the action taken by the religious authorities is not only understandable, but also unavoidable. Everyone should have seen this coming from a mile away. I don’t see it as wrong per se, because from the point-of-view of the religious authorities, their hands are pretty much tied in this matter. Yoga is a religious practice and they cannot possibly issue a fatwa encouraging the deviant practices of false religions.

However, none of this takes the fun out of the statement issued by the chairman of the fatwa council: “There are many other forms of exercise that Muslims can partake especially when the religion promotes healthy living and lifestyle. Performing prayers for example is a good form of exercise.” I just cannot believe that he said that with a straight face. While I do agree that prayers tax the mind and body, it isn’t quite the same thing as doing physical exercises.

The NVIDIA Tesla is a fairly interesting computer from NVIDIA, whom are famous for their graphics chips. The Tesla is a supercomputing workstation that combines a number of graphics chips and a regular processor. The result is a remarkable desktop machine with the total computational power of 933 GFlops at under US$ 10,000.

While the computer is being touted towards the scientific and engineering community who have to deal with complex simulations, the more exciting application for this computer is – games! As a comparison, the PS3’s Cell processor has a computational power of 204 GFlops while the Xbox360’s Xenon processor has a computational power of 115 GFlops. All these Flops are good for graphics, audio and physics processing.

The way that the Tesla is configured, it comes with a quad-core processor from either AMD or Intel, which serves as the main processor, just like the PPE on the Cell. This main processor will be in charge of running the operating system and allocating tasks to each graphical processing unit (GPU), just like the SPE on the Cell. There are up to 4 GPUs in each Tesla with 4Gb of memory each. You can think of it has a more powerful Cell computer.

Considering that it is based on a regular PC design, it should be fairly trivial to create games for the Tesla. If only it did not have the price tag that it has, it could fairly well be the most powerful gaming platform on the planet, but now it will just need to be satisfied with being the most expensive gaming platform on the planet.

I reckon that is why it is being touted as a scientific computing platform. Although there are efforts at bringing scientific computing to the PS3, for example, it is kind of a hack. The gaming consoles were not designed for scientific computing and the people who wish to use them for it will have to jump through a few hoops first. With the Tesla, the platform is ready for them.

Ultimately, this will be a niche product as Joe Blow will not be shedding ten grand for such a rig. Also, the power consumption of such a system is fairly high (at 1.2kW). However, it would still be interesting to see someone hook a bunch of these machines together into a compute farm. It would be interesting to see the Tesla enter the supercomputing Top 500 list.

This Korean film, The Classic, is one of my favourite Korean films. Therefore, I have been looking for it everywhere in Malaysia. However, I have been unable to find it until today. I went to the nearby Carrefour to purchase a new DVD player to replace the busted one at home. Then, I went to one of the little shops outside selling DVDs to see what shows they had and lo and behold, they had a copy of the film.

The first thing that I checked was to make sure that the DVDs had the original seal of authenticity. This entailed checking the front for the hologram sticker and the back for the original certificate of authenticity issued by the board. Satisfied that it had all the marks of originality and it was fully sealed, I picked it up and gave it to the shop attendant who happily gave me a 10% discount off the retail price.

Then, the store attendant asked me if I would like to have it tested. I said yes and he proceeded to rip open the packaging and play the DVD for me. Satisfied with the film, I asked him again, “is this an original DVD?” and he replied that it was. So, he then placed it in a plastic bag and gave it to me. I then paid him the money and left.

After getting home, I wanted to play the film in the new DVD player that I had just bought as well. So, I took out the DVD from the plastic bag and immediately noticed something wrong. The cover image on the DVD cover was a different one from the one that I had originally picked. It was still the same film, just a different cover. Also, it had the look of being printed on a high quality colour printer on A4 paper. Furthermore, the authenticity seal and certificate was missing.

Then, looking at the actual DVD disc itself, revealed that it was a DVD-R with a sticker label on it, that was also printed with a high quality colour printer. Man, was I pissed. I had paid for an original DVD but I ended up getting a pirated one instead. So, I immediately drove back to the store and confronted the shop attendant.

I told him that I would like my money back and that he sold me a pirated DVD. He proclaimed innocence and told me that it was not pirated. Then, I took out the DVD and pointed out that it was a DVD-R with a printed sticker cover on it. That was when he realised that I was not going to be cheated. So, he relented and told me that he will give me a refund.

Then, he opened up the cash register to show me that there was no more change in it and the only cash he had was a RM50 note. So, he asked me if I had change for RM50. I was not about to hand over even more money to someone who is a cheat. I had no way to know if this RM50 was a fake note or otherwise. So, I told him to go change it in the bank down stairs.

The shop attendant then left the store and went off somewhere. After waiting for a few minutes, he came back with a bunch of change and refunded me my money. Happy that I had gotten my refund, I decided to leave it at that. I understand that everyone has to make money and some people have to resort to these unscrupulous means to do so, as long as they don’t do it to me.

Anyway, this is a lesson and I have learned from it. I will always triple check my purchases in the future to ensure that the thing that I chose is the actual thing that I received. I hope that this will also serve as a lesson to others on some of the tricks employed by these pirated DVD sellers. They are now masquerading as original DVDs sold at original prices!

As part of my recent adventure into buying cars, I had to take into account the total cost of ownership for each car. This was where I had to make assumptions about the price of fuel. A lot of people kept telling my that Korean cars have bad engines that will makan minyak (eat fuel) as compared to Japanese ones. However, the Japanese ones were also priced slightly higher than Korean cars.

So, as part of my decision making process, I had to make certain assumptions about fuel prices. As global fuel prices have been steadily falling, it dawned on me that pump prices may return to the low values that we once enjoyed. Taking this into account, I ended up with the decision to buy the Hyundai instead of say, the Toyota Vios or Honda City (local cars were definitely out of the picture). If the fuel prices continued to stay low, my purchase would be justified.

However, as I had previously blogged, I am also not quite happy with the way that the government has to artificially depress our economy. One of the ways to allow people to survive with this artificial depression is to keep prices of commodities low, including oil. So, I would also like to see a raise in the oil prices, as long as it is accompanied by a raise in basic wages as well.

(As you can see, I am full of contradictions!)

That is why I am none to happy with the idea mooted by our Minister of Consumer Affairs that a floor price be set for petrol. His argument is that with the lower global fuel prices, our government no longer had to subsidise fuel and should instead, take some profits by enforcing a fixed margin for petrol companies. This idea just makes my head spin. The government intends to fix both the price of oil, and also the profit margins of these companies.

In effect, our government intends to behave like a thug and rape reap all the profits from oil. Unlike monopolies, our government has the force of law behind it. This smells to me like an abuse of power and it stinks. This is akin to a stealth tax as the people will be pouring money into the government coffers whenever they purchase oil at the pump. Let us just call it what it is, a fuel tax.

Man, I finally put a close to my car saga today. I finally agreed to top up an additional RM1.2k but in return, I bargained for an additional year of free service. While it isn’t much, it was a potential way out of the impasse. The only catch is that I have to go to one specific Hyundai service centre for each service. Thankfully, it is one that is situated fairly close to my family’s house. I guess that it is easier that way for everyone.

This morning, I decided to call up another branch to find out the actual price of the car, to see if what they have been telling me is true. So, I randomly called up and spoke to another sales agent (SA). This sales agent was even more creative and actually told me that I could get the car at a price, with no down payment (meaning that she could jig the numbers for me so that I could get a huge loan and basically not pay a sen, or even get a cash advance if I wish to, which is kind of stupid).

However, when I asked her about the price, she quoted me a price that was RM3k more than the one I was previously quoted at. I also asked if there was any discount as I felt that if this new SA could give me a competitive price, I will just switch over to them immediately. However, I was told that there was no discount and this is the best price that she could do for me. So, at least I know that the previous SA was not trying to pull a fast one on me.

Armed with this new information, I looked at it from the point of view that I am actually getting a small discount (RM1.8k) from the previous SA. With this point of view, things began to make a lot more sense. So, I decided to call up the previous SA and close the deal with a caveat of free service. Then, I went over to the showroom before lunch, signed all the necessary documents and wrote a cheque for the down payment.

Ultimately, I hope that this saga ends well. I just want to have a car to go around KL in. Everyone knows that you cannot get around KL much without a car and I am kind of sick and tired of sitting at home for the last few months. From now until I take delivery of the car next week, I will have to pray real hard that my car arrives in one piece, with everything intact. As long as it does, I think that I will be quite happy with it.

Malaysia is actually blessed with one of the most compassionate police forces in the world. While some may deride them as polis raja di Malaysia, they are actually quite fun to deal with in certain situations. Unfortunately, I did not read this article in TheStar until much later but it still does not change some of the examples of their compassion that I wish to highlight here.

1. Our police force is extremely efficient at issuing summons. We can witness this in KL all the time, on every major highway. The police will regularly slow traffic to a halt in order to catch those who flaunt traffic regulations and issue on the spot compounds. Sometimes, they will even conceal themselves behind some bushes, trap us with speed cameras and then mail us our summons using our ever efficient postal service.
2. Although extremely efficient at issuing summons, each summon comes with a fairly long grace period. I had only recently received a summons for a speeding offense that I committed in early 2004, before I started my PhD. In the intervening years, no warrant was ever issued for my arrest. However, I did not want to take any chances and decided to settle the summons before the next Ops Warta, which is when they decide to issue arrest warrants.
3. They always give ample warning and advice before acting. In the case of Ops Warta, the police will go through a house-to-house arrest operation for anyone who still had outstanding summons. But before doing that, the police would issue several calls through the newspapers and advise everyone to settle all outstanding summons to avoid arrest. On their part, it would really simplify the paper work if they didn’t need to get that many arrest warrants signed.
4. Instead of settling summons as they arrive, Malaysians can look forward to the annual clearance season where discounts are given on various offenses. This is like one of those clearance sales when we all go out in droves to shop for the latest bargains. A 50% discount is typically given on regular traffic offenses except those that were committed during a special Ops Sikap during festive seasons.
5. The rest of the time, we Malaysians are blessed with a police force that is open to haggling. Just like everything else in Malaysia, police summons are infinitely haggle-able. Depending on the severity of our cases, we can either haggle directly with the officer at the counter or we may need to speak personally to the sergeant in charge for special cases. After a little rayu, we can usually get a discount.
6. In line with the compassionate image of the police force, if we were to show that we are repeat offenders with a tall stack of summons in our pocket, we are very likely to get a bulk discount. It is fairly common for us Malaysians to collect all the summons that we have incurred in a year and then pack it all to the police station to ask for a merciful discount simply because we would not be able to afford paying them all.

Evidently, we are blessed with a truly compassionate and understanding police force. I doubt that we can find such service and understanding from any other police force in the world. The arm of the law is a long but gentle one. I love our Royal Malaysian Police Force!

I was just wondering about this issue recently. The civil service employs about 2 million people and while I do not have the exact numbers, I have a feeling that there are a significant number of pensioners as well. Unlike the private sector, civil servants are given a lifelong pension. Even after their death, this pension can be collected by their spouse or any child under the age of 18.

As a direct result of this pension scheme, the government has a heavy burden to bear on wages. Therefore, the government is unable to raise the pay of the civil service significantly to meet inflationary rates. As a result, the private sector does not need to pay too much either as long as they pay similar to what the civil service pays. Therefore, the entire remuneration system in the country is kept depressed artificially by the government.

In order to ensure that people are still able to afford a decent life style, they government has to artificially depress the prices of certain commodities by imposing price controls and other subsidies. As a result, Malaysians are actually living an artificial lifestyle that is not sustainable in the long run. Everything is being kept low artificially and this lifestyle bubble that we live in will burst at some point and everyone will suddenly realise that our ringgit savings are worth a lot less than we thought.

We have to find some way of releasing the pressure on this artificial bubble by allowing some level of inflation of good, accompanied by a salary inflation as well. But in order to do this, the government will have to have enough cash to pay its workforce and pensioners as well. Therefore, I jokingly suggested that maybe, it’s time for all the pensioners to just grow old and die (this statement is not meant to be taken seriously).

However, with the increasing quality of health care in the country, plus the fact that it is free for pretty much anyone (especially pensioners), this is unlikely to happen soon. So, instead of hoping for them to expire, we should come up with some other ways to reduce the number of pensioners in the country. One way of doing it is by privatisation of course. Just privatise different departments of the government until there are none left to privatise.

Anyway, this is just a silly blog about a random thought on one way to help increase the basic wages in Malaysia. My parents had a nice laugh about it (and gave me some other ideas) when I threw this idea at them. They are both pensioners by the way. I love my parents. We can talk about death and taxes just like we talk about any other random thing.