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I have been gradually building up a collection of Korean film DVDs at home. I have become so used to buying original DVDs while I was in the UK that I have decided to steer clear of pirated products back at home. Korean originals range in price from about RM17 (£2.60) to about RM40 (£6.15). So, they are amongst the more affordable originals and Korean cinema is perfectly watchable.

I watched this film today about a race horse and his jockey. It’s called Lump of Sugar. On the surface, it is just another sad story about horse racing and horse trading. At a slightly deeper level, it is about the relationship and love between a girl and a horse. At an even deeper level, it is about living with humility and dying with dignity. Going further, it is a classic film about love and loss. The story itself was fairly straightforward and predictable throughout. However, as a result of the acting, I was literally driven to tears at the end.

A movie needs to be fairly good to evoke any sort of emotional response from me. Because of the weirdness in how my brain works, most films end up as an exercise in film making for me. When I watch a film, I am constantly analysing it for storyline errors and how the elements were synthesised into the final scene. I don’t do this actively but it is already trained as a natural response from me to any sort of stimuli. I am just weird that way.

I am beginning to learn which Korean film companies produce better films and which ones are sub standard. I am also learning which local distributor tends to bring in the more famous films and which ones bring in the less popular ones. All this will help me in selecting future Korean films to add to my collection. Now, if I could only find a copy of The Classic on the shelf somewhere. That was another film that drove me to tears when I watched it with a housemate of mine several years ago.

Anyway, here is the trailer for a Lump of Sugar (it’s in Korean!):

I thought about writing this entry after replying an earlier comment. I am not a normal person by any measure. Granted, everyone is a unique individual but I am also weird on so many levels all stemming from the way that my brain works. An example of my weirdness is exemplified by the simple request for a spoonful of rice.

I can recall the very event that happened while I was having dinner with a few other friends at a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge. It was the Shanghai Family Restaurant, which is one of the two Chinese restaurants with edible Chinese food in Cambridge. It has the most wonderful of all Chinese dishes in this world on its menu: pig’s leg (or hand – depending on how you look at it).

Anyway, I digress. A few friends and I were happily having dinner when the time came for our second helping of rice. For some reason, probably because the rice bowl was next to me, I was scooping the rice. This was when my friend asked for just a spoonful of rice. I immediately stopped and looked rather stunned and confused because I did not know how much a spoonful of rice was. Eventually, someone else took the spoon out of my hand and did the scooping instead.

I have to reiterate that I was neither pretending nor was I doing it as some sort of ploy. However, I honestly did not know how to scoop a spoonful of rice as I did not know how much rice that entailed. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be exactly a spoonful of rice filled to the top, or an overflowing mountain of rice, or a specific number of grains, weight or volume of rice.

A lot of people do not understand how I could come to think like this. I have to attribute it to the fact that I am used to dealing in the unambiguous world of computer programming and hardware design. In this line of work, everything is meticulously defined and spelled out to the minutest detail. You are unlikely to know how far we’ll actually go to define things, so I will use a well known anecdote to illustrate it.

A computer science professor walks into an introductory programming class with enough material for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He then asked the class for instructions on how to make it. It went as follows:

1. Put the peanut butter on the slice of bread.
   He held the jar over the slice of bread and started to shake the jar.
2. No, you take the knife and use it to spread the peanut jelly.
   He started to grab the knife by the blade end.
3. No, grab the knife by the other end.
   This time he holds the knife correctly.
4. Spread the peanut butter on the slice of bread.
   He starts to put the peanut butter on the edges of the bread.

This went on in minute detail until it dawned on the students that in everyday speech, we leave a lot out assuming that everyone knows what we are talking about. The students got an understanding of how we must communicate with computers.

People in my line, will have little problem with analysis and synthesis because we go through them all the time. For someone like me, who lives and breathes computers, I go through these processes in almost everything, not just when it comes to computer work. So, when I receive a request for a spoonful of rice, it will stump me thoroughly because the term “spoonful” is ill defined.

PS: There is now a “wall” on the right sidebar and you can leave any messages that you feel like shouting out! Of course, leave comments on the relevant blog entries.

Education scholarships. Our government disburses many of them through its many agencies and government linked companies. We are fortunate in that we have one of the most generous national governments, when it comes to educational funding. However, there are many things about these scholarships that trigger an emotional response when people talk about them.

This reminds me of a TehTarik session that we once had where someone, who had clearly a lot of anger for our government, claimed that he was denied a scholarship because the government was ‘racist’ (or something like that). I was rather taken aback that he could claim that in a room full of non-bumi government scholars who have all been given full scholarships by our ‘racist’ government. So, being the tactless person that I am, I asked him why he thought he deserved a scholarship.

He had this bewildered look in his eyes like I was challenging him (okay, so maybe it did sound like a challenge). His answer surprised me as he mentioned that straight A1s is the reason in a room full of top students of all shapes and sizes. Thankfully, a few people then asked him: “so, what?” Then, he started mentioning other things (possibly head prefect or something) in a room full of people who had represented their states and even nation. Now more people asked him again: “so, what?”

In retrospect, I guess it was harsh to have been taken down like that but he had it coming. Most people think that they deserve a scholarship without asking themselves why. While I may have slighted him personally, he had slighted many others with his allegations. He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who can keep an open mind so I won’t be surprised if he does not speak to me ever again but here is the thing.

Perceptions are flawed as they require us to view things through the lens of our own personal bias. In fact, my own perception is shaped by my personal experiences (i.e. bias). My personal bias has shown me a different facet of our government that most others see. I personally know five Malaysians whom had recently gotten into a PhD programme at Cambridge and tried their hand at applying for Malaysian government sponsorship.

From this group (and my previous experiences of others), I can say that there is no such thing as a sure thing or guarantee of a scholarship. Being a top Cambridge graduate is no guarantee, regardless of whether you are a Malay or not. Being an employee of a government agency is no guarantee, even if it is your turn to go for your PhD studies. Being an existing government scholar and a top student is no guarantee either. All this during a time when the government is trying it’s best to increase the number of PhD in the country.

In the words of a Singaporean mother I once met, you have to be really good to get a Malaysian government scholarship. Personally, I think that you need to be extremely lucky to get a single scholarship and in order to be able to get multiple scholarships, you need to be touched by the gods (especially if you are a non-bumi). There is actually some truth in that and a Malaysian scholarship is just like any other scholarship. Some people get them, while others don’t.

I had recently been contacted by a final year undergraduate at my previous university, where I finished by Bachelor’s degree. He was interested in continuing the work that I did there as an undergraduate and he would appreciate any heads-up that I could give him. He also had little knowledge in the specific area and asked me for recommendations on reading material.

Seeing that it was someone from my alma mater, I decided to be genial and gave the student some pointers. So, I gave him some pointers and some recommendations on what to read it. It is a wonder to me that I can still remember stuff from back then. Actually, I have come to realise the importance of good design, because it helps me to recall how the darn thing works years from now, simply because the design decisions flow beautifully from one to the next.

However, considering the number of years it has been since I had left, there was no possibility that he had ever met me in person. Furthermore, my final year project supervisor is presently furthering his studies in Japan. So, I was rather curious as to how he found out about my project, why he decided to work on it and how he found out my contact information.

This was when he mentioned to me that certain lecturers at the university, spoke fondly of me. He mentioned that one in particular, said that the university was fortunate to have had people like me during its early years. Now, this surprised me thoroughly as I had not parted on the best of terms with the university, but I guess they left out all the juicy bits and focused on my positive contributions.

I can understand why the university may think that it was lucky, that way. There are many of my fellow peers, who are doing all kinds of interesting things in this world. Several of us have furthered our studies to the PhD level at many of the best engineering universities in the world. Many of the rest are scattered around the world working for various multinational corporations. Considering that my graduating class had only about 300+ students across all disciplines, this is quite an achievement.

There is actually a reason for this as the first 3 batches from my alma mater, were almost all (95%) fully funded overseas scholars. We only ended up at the university due to the 1997 Asian economic crisis. One of the steps taken by the government to control the outflow of currency was to cut the scholars going overseas for education. So, our university was filled with students who are generally considered the cream of the country.

However, I cannot attribute our success to merely good students. On top of that, our university had a really ambitious vision and the necessary backing to achieve it. We were lucky enough to have had some really good lecturers teach us from the very first year, a well structured programme designed by the top educators of the world, as well as access to the best equipment that money could buy. There was also a genuine encouragement and push from the university, for the students to excel.

So, this is why I have always contended that my alma mater is the best university in the country (it was in the running for Apex University as well!).

In colloquial terms, my hands are itchy (sau han). The other day, I saw this digital audio player from Samsung, affectionately known as the Yepp. It is a chewing gum stick styled audio player and it comes in a whole range of colours. The model that is being sold in Malaysia is the YP-U3 model and has a number of useful features.

There is nothing wrong with my existing MP3 player from Creative except for one tiny problem. It does not support Ogg playback. In my zealous drive for intellectual property purity, which includes staying away from all dodgy pirated DVD stalls in the pasar malam, I have begun to encode the music CDs that I own, into Ogg-Vorbis files.

So, it is starting to become a chore to encode my music in both, MP3 for my audio player, and Ogg for my computer. It would be so much easier to just do everything in Ogg.

The price of the 4Gb model is RM299 (£49) or thereabouts. It even has an FM radio, which the Creative model lacks. The only thing that is stopping me from outright buying it is the fact that my Zen is still in perfect working condition. The batteries even last for more than 10 hours. So, there is really no reason why it needs to be thrown away.

So, I guess that I will not be buying a new player anytime soon. I should probably wait till the battery life starts to go down to about 6-7 hours. Then, it would be pretty useless for long journeys or long days out. Furthermore, the new version of Amarok still does not support audio players that well yet. So, I should also let that mature first.

I mentioned in my earlier blog that, “most of the IT companies out there are basically con jobs manned by people who do not know very much about computers. Most people in this world think that computers are something simple that even their teenage neighbour can do.” I feel that I should clarify that statement a little more, in case anyone else feels slighted and think that Shawn is so lan si (cocky) and is slapping the whole computer/IT industry.

The fact of the matter is that any teenager with half a brain can work with computers. In fact, they are starting younger and younger these days. Kids barely old enough to ride a bike are capable of using computers. All the stories of Silicon Valley billionaires who all started dabbling in computers during their teens, reinforces the belief that anyone should be able to get into computers easily. And that is entirely true.

The trouble is that computers have a very low barrier to entry, but they are exceedingly difficult to master. Everyone knows that the world of IT moves so fast that it takes a full time job just to try to keep up with everything. In addition to being fast paced, IT is also broad based. You will hardly be able to find an area that has not been touched by computers and IT in some way. So, there is just a whole lot of stuff out there to learn.

Therefore, it becomes exceedingly difficult for you to find people who are knowledgeable at all the different ares of technology. Most of the knowledge has to be gained through experience and in this sense, the people who only started with computers when they went to study IT at university, are at a distinct disadvantage. These latecomers are trying to step on a moving bullet train and it is definitely not easy.

I personally knew someone my age who started learning programming at the age of 4 (his dad was an engineer). Assuming that he had kept at it, he would have had 20+ years of computer knowledge amassed. Someone like him would have started learning computers during their infancy and boomed with them during his late teens. He would have knowledge in practically all the different areas of computing.

However, people like this are extremely rare and just like all other rare items, very expensive.

So, when I say that most IT companies are con jobs, what I meant is that they are rarely staffed by the rare breeds. Most computer graduates would have had minimal knowledge of computers and would be hard pressed when faced with anything other than the norm. As a result, the products and services delivered are usually lesser than what can potentially be delivered.

No one is to be blamed here. It is merely the nature of the industry to require both depth and breadth.

Some of the dumbest people I know in this world are medical doctors. Regardless of what many people may think, it’s been my personal experience with doctors, that they have a highly misguided sense of superiority, which probably comes from the God complex that one develops after holding the lives of others in their hands everyday.

I have come to this conclusion after peddling my wares, door to door, from one clinic to another in the past. Overall, most of the doctors felt that they knew more about computers than me and usually proceeded to lecture to me about computers. Seeing that I was the poor salesman, I usually refrained from correcting them even though my veins were bursting at their stupidity and illogical thinking.

And most recently, one of my previous clients is deciding to switch over to a different provider of a clinic management system. This system is by a Malaysian multinational company with branches in several countries. How they had gotten so big with their lack of computer knowledge bewilders me but I guess that I can say that it is just another regular con job and the doctors deserve them.

They have recently been in contact with me because they need to convert the data from the old database to their system. It is a standard part of the process as the doctors would need their patients’ historical data. A rotten person might just ignore their requests for help but I am perfectly happy to help, as long as it does not involve too much time on my part.

I was previously told by my ex-client that this new company was able to extract part of the data from the database. My ex-client told me that the company had been given one of the data hard disks to play with and they were able to extract some of the data. This got me very happy as I knew that if they could already do that, it would be easy to help them extract everything else.

But as usual, this is far from the truth. There is no reason for this IT company to lie to me as lying to me would inevitably just create more trouble for them. So, when I got several phone calls from them, and finding out the truth, I ended up being a bit rude in my politest possible way.

First, they asked me if I could dump all the data for them into a useful format that they could then import directly. As this would involve a lot of time consuming work on my part, I was not prepared to do this unless they were prepared to pay for my time. Knowing the price that they were charging my ex-client, I knew that they couldn’t possibly afford me.

So, I told them that I could not extract it, but I could definitely explain it to one of their technical people how to do it and they could do it themselves. All I needed was someone who was familiar with public key encryption (because all the information in the database was encrypted) and SQL (a standard database language). I even told them what database I had used in the system.

Several days later, they told me that they were unable to do it because they had nobody who knew Linux. This resulted in a very polite lecture from me as I asked her to explain to me in what way does the operating system have any bearing on the database or even PKI for that matter. You can mix and match databases and operating systems as they are functioning on a different layer entirely.

Several days later, they called me to say that they could not do it because they were unfamiliar with the database that I was used. This again resulted in a very polite lecture from me as I told them exactly what to download and that they could run it on WindowsXP just as well. I cannot imagine any IT company telling me that they do not know an industry standard database in use since 1986. It is quite unheard of, if you ask me.

Several days later, they called me to say that they were unable to even read the disk as they did not know how to read it. This shocked me because if they were unable to even read the data off the disk, how were they able to tell my ex-client that they could extract some of the data? Well, fair enough if they did not know how to read a simple hard drive and I volunteered to help them pull the data off into an external USB disk for them for free.

Anyway, my point is this. Most of the IT companies out there are basically con jobs manned by people who do not know very much about computers. Most people in this world think that computers are something simple that even their teenage neighbour can do. As a result, there is a big disparity between expectation and delivery but thanks to Microsoft, people have been used to getting shafted with substandard products for decades.

There are some really good people and products out there but you just need to be willing to look for and pay for them. If you pay peanuts, expect monkeys. You deserve what you get. The same goes in every field, including computers and IT.

On another thought, maybe I should get this company to hire me as a consultant but this would mean that I’ll need to be nice to them. Never mind.