Sybreon Ones Nought

I think that it is dumb. According to TheStar, our government is considering to limit the number of subjects taken by SPM students to ensure fairer scholarship selection. Although I do not think that the current free-for-all was a good thing to have, I do not agree with this methodology to address the issue of PSD scholarships.

It also raises the issue of fairness. While our DPM said that it was unfair on those who are forced to take less subjects because of economic or administrative reasons. However, the suggested policy would take away the option of taking more subjects from those who may wish to do more. Personally, I like the idea of having the freedom to pick and choose subjects.

However, what the PSD should do is to only consider results from a set number of subjects. This is fair, transparent and simple to do. As a criteria, the PSD should just list down the subjects needed. Having A1s in other subjects can be ignored totally for the purpose of scholarship selection. There is no point adding in an A1 in Science I/II when you’ve already got an A1 in Physics, Chemistry and Biology separately.

If the student wishes to take more subjects in order to pad up their results, they are free to do so as long as they understand that only the results that are requirements will be considered. In fact, the students should only be evaluated based on the pre-requirement subjects. So, the student should not be penalised for getting a bunch of A2s in other non-requirement subjects.

However, it doesn’t surprise me that the government can come up with such dumb solutions to the simplest of problems.

PS: In other news, our PM has said that he intends to dismantle the decades old system of preferment for ethnic Malays. I wonder why it has not been picked up by the local press.

Personally, I am against the idea of the courts being embroiled in the current Silver Sandiwara. I like the idea of having an independent judiciary, one which is equal in power but distinctly separate from the other branches of government. However, we may end up seeing a situation where a 3-men bench got to decide who was the lawful Menteri Besar of Perak.

Whichever way the judges rule, our democracy would have suffered a setback. Whomever they choose to pick as the lawful MB, would circumvent all sorts of procedures. As far as I can tell, the lawful MB is whomever commands the majority of the Assembly and is thus appointed by the Sultan. Unless of course, we get a surprise decision where the judges rule not to rule.

You see, from what I read in a M’kini letter, Article 72 of our Constitution specifically states:

72. (1) The validity of any proceedings in the Legislative Assembly of any State shall not be questioned in any court.

This actually gives the judges a sneaky way out of the situation, by pointing out the fact that the proceedings in the Assembly are not in their purview. So, whether or not an MB commands the majority of the house, is not up to the judiciary to decide. It is entirely up to the Assembly to decide, which was the crux of the whole problem to begin with.

If what is said in this letter is to be believed, the Silver Sandiwara is far from over. According to the letter, the way in which the BN kicked out the previous assembly speaker was not ‘by the book’ and that the present speaker was not even sworn in as a member of the assembly. If any of it is true, it means another major cock-up by the members of the coup.

I think that it is important to follow the Constitution and rules of the house when it comes to these matters. You see, the state government draws its powers and authority from these documents. If these documents are not to be respected, then neither is the state government. Therefore, it is important that everyone plays by the rules, lest the laws of the jungle prevail.

I think that the situation is now so frakked up that there is no easy way out. So, the state can look forward to being so thoroughly screwed up by the politicians up until the next General Election. I pity the people who have to make a living there.

As for the candle light vigils, I understand the need to keep the issue alive so that it simmers and blows up during the next GE. However, I think that the opposition should start looking at doing something else. The only effect that it seems to be having is to get more people arrested. That cannot be a good long-term strategy. Unless of course, it is their objective to get arrested!

http://i398.photobucket.com/flash/player.swf?file=http://vid398.photobucket.com/albums/pp68/caseycarlson/adam-madXXX.flv

It ain’t no secret whom I am rooting for – the one with the guy-liner! Go Glambert!

I think not. Feel free to disagree.

If we assume that it is the PR’s tactic to run a 4-year campaign up until the next General Election, then the move by the BN to not-contest the Penanti by-election makes sense. There is a reason why the campaign period is limited by the election rules. Continually running by-elections is a way to circumvent those rules.

If we assume that this tactic is true, then there are only two ways to tackle the problem – either beat the competition to a pulp or avoid confrontation entirely. In this particular case, there is no way to do the former. So, it would be better to do the latter.

What the BN needs to do now is focus on the war, not individual battles. Of course, all wars are won one battle at a time, but it is also important to pick and choose battles and battlegrounds. I’m not politically knowledgeable enough to know if Penanti is a strategic seat, but it probably isn’t.

BN needs to break the PR momentum of winning by-election victories and cut-off the campaign flow. Instead, they should focus on fixing the problems of the previous administration and doing a good job of things. If they can show that they are able to do things right, they will have a fighting chance in the next GE.

One good thing that the last GE brought about – the political landscape in Malaysia has changed forever. That is a good thing.

Intel is at it again. They are going to copy another thing from AMD and make the Atom more accessible to both hardware vendors and consumers. They are planning to combine the graphics core, memory controller and the Atom core into one. That is just a splendid idea.

AMD has had the same feature with their Geode processor for a long time. Incidentally, the Geode processor is also AMD’s offering at the low-power and low-performance end of the spectrum. It is usually used in embedded applications. Technically, NS did most of the work as AMD bought the entire Geode line off them.

Regardless, it is nice to know that Intel is going to do something to get rid of the 945GC chip once and for all. It must know that there is no point in pairing up a 2W CPU with a 25W north-bridge chip. Marketing can glaze over this fact but the numbers will speak for themselves.

Here is me hoping that Intel will combine it with some decent graphics chip. Then, the platform would make for a very snazzy media machine – great on performance and low on power consumption. Man, with this kind of developments in the industry, I wonder if I’ll ever get my HTPC built!

I should really just stick to the Sempron + NVidia system and wait 3 years before upgrading it to some other platform.

I attended the scholarship forum organised by DAP yesterday, mainly because I am personally interested in education matters and also because I was curious as to what kind of things does DAP have to say about it. They managed to present some data and I actually thought that things weren’t as bad as it may seem.

You see, if we consider only the top 2% of our students as the creme de la creme, that’s about 10,000 people coming out each year. JPA only gives out 2,000 scholarships and that is spread across multiple disciplines and countries. Obviously, many people will just fall through the net. There just isn’t the budget necessary to fund everyone. Personally, I think that we should all be thankful that our government actually bothers to fund anyone at all. There are not many governments that do that.

The DAP worked out the number of places available for non-bumi to be about 1080 places. To me, that is a fair number. Things have changed a lot. In my days, we were competing for double-digit spaces. The trouble is that these places are spread over a wide number of courses and countries. If everyone wants to study medicine in the UK, there aren’t enough places obviously.

An MP mentioned that the interview process was flawed. Students were interviewed in large groups and hardly given any time to speak. I went through those in my day as well. There is nothing wrong with group interviews. It is all about group dynamics. You just need to understand how to make yourself stand out in the ‘right’ way. If you are quietly sitting at the corner waiting for your turn to talk, obviously, you are not going to get anywhere with the interviewer.

Another MP mentioned that considering someone with 12A1 as equal to a 9A1 is not right while considering someone with 12A1 and 1A2 as worse than a 9A1 is wrong. Personally, I beg to differ. I think that having a 9A1 criteria as a clear cut-off point is good. That is a perfectly quantifiable criterion. Considering someone with 1A2 as less than perfect, is also fair to eliminate those who take more subjects as a lottery to simply increase their number of As. You may not agree with the fact that 12A1 + 1A2 is worse than 9A1, but that is a crystal clear criterion. At least it isn’t subjective.

Of course, there was a fair bit of politicking at the event. However, I turned off most of that by merely closing my eyes and taking a break. The speakers spoke for about 2 hours. So, my attention span was dwindling anyway. Luckily, those which had anything to say, got to say it first.

I found it particularly interesting that a politician can make his ‘last point’ extremely lasting.