Sybreon Ones Nought

A friend of mine sent me a link to this article yesterday. This is just tragically funny on so many levels. After reading it, I did not know whether to laugh or cry. So, I decided to laugh it off. Although the article was about South Africa, it touches on so many issues that are close to the heart of almost every Malaysian.

In a landmark ruling the Pretoria High Court accepted the Chinese as a “previously disadvantaged” group. This means that – at least in legal terms – Chinese South Africans will now be included in the definition of black people in legislation covering lucrative black economic empowerment (BEE) deals.

The article says that people of Chinese ethnicity are now legally classified as black in South Africa. I just could not help but laugh when I read about this stupidity. It is informative to know that there are other countries that have legal definitions of race, like the legal definition of “Malay” that we have in the Malaysian Constution, that seems to defy all kinds of logic.

The controversial BEE policy, under which large companies have to surrender a percentage of their equity to black-run entities, is aimed at reversing decades of apartheid bias. It covers Africans, Coloureds (mixed-race people) and Indians but has been criticised widely as a politically correct form of theft by ruling party cronies.

The BEE policy sounds extremely familiar to anyone who is from Malaysia. Malaysia experienced an economic divide along ethnic lines, directly due to the divide-and-conquer policies practised by the British administration. The Malaysian NEP was designed to “redistribute” wealth and reduce the economic divide between the native Malays and the economically more prosperous migrant Chinese. But today, the NEP has been hijacked into a policy that favours the politically connected.

Under white minority rule the Chinese were classified as Coloureds. In a decision that illustrated the difficulty of applying racial segregation Japanese people were given “honorary white” status – partly because they were wealthier and fewer in number than the Chinese

This is just too ridiculous for me to comprehend. That there are other countries practising the same problematic policies that our government implements, provides a sort of ironic comfort. It is nice to know that Malaysia is not alone, in it’s fight to be the “Racist Government” champion. This just reminds me of how silly the concept of “race” is especially when applied to affirmative action.

So, my fellow Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity: “In post-apatheid South Africa, Black is YOU”

I find that the people on all sides of the recent sodomy accusation of Anwar Ibrahim being really silly. Before this, I had thought that only the politicians on the government side were behaving stupidly and exploiting the sodomy allegation to it’s fullest. But now, with the recent surfacing of new medical evidence, even the opposition side is behaving stupidly. The only people who have any sense in their head seem to be the regular rakyat.

The opposition politicians are making a lot of noise, asking for the trumped up charges against Anwar Ibrahim to be dropped and demanding for apologies from the government ministers who have made noises earlier. To me, this is just the regular sandiwara that we’ve seen in Malaysian politics for decades, only much more so now.

I ask myself a simple question: What is the point of demanding for apologies?

I mean, if I was a person who had been wrongfully accused and if I had evidence to back it up, I would be filing criminal charges against my accuser and not calling for apologies from opportunistic politicians. Actually, I shouldn’t even be the one filing criminal charges. I’m fairly sure that there has to be some law somewhere, that makes filing false police reports a crime. Otherwise, we would see people filing police reports for every little thing. I should think that the politicians should be demanding that the AG and police do the right thing, and arrest the person who filed a false police report.

There are no points to be scored from getting an apology. That is just syok sendiri only. The correct thing to do is to demand for the people who filed the false charges, to be brought to justice. Well, one can say that as Anwar has also filed a charge with the ACA that the AG and IGP are involved in planting false evidence against him in the last sodomy trial. But, if the opposition claims to uphold the rule of law, they have to play by the book, regardless of how dirty their competition is.

So, I’m getting rather disgusted with the politics in Malaysia. It sucks.

I have been contemplating on getting some new lenses soon. I have grown to realise that the 18-55mm lens that I am currently using with my camera, is rather limiting. So, I was thinking of either getting a telephoto or a prime lens. However, after checking them out, I think that I’ll get a telephoto lens first, and maybe a prime at a later time.

The telephoto lens that I have decided on getting is the Pentax SMC 50-200mm (f4-5.6) zoom lens. From the different reviews that I have perused, it seems to be a very decent lens. I have also found a site that sells it for under £100 even though the SRP is almost £200. This makes it cheaper than the equivalent third party lens from Sigma, which goes for about £140.

What is good about this lens?

It is supposed to produce exceptional images at f/8 throughout the range from 50-200mm. While my 18-55mm was suitable for taking wide-angle landscape shots and portraits, the 50-200mm would be suitable for taking portraits and to zoom in for long distance shots, such as for events and parties where I may not be able to locate myself at the front row (e.g like at some friend’s weddings).

One amazing feature about this particular lens is it’s size. Most telephoto zooms are rather huge, in the range of about 12cm long closed, but this lens is only 8cm long (the image is the lense fully extended), which is the same size as my existing 18-55mm. This means that I can conveniently carry it in my existing small camera bag. This lens would be all I’d need to bring with me for outdoor holiday shots. The 18-55mm is better suited for indoor shots.

And for a prime lens, I am presently considering the 40mm (f2.8) lens, which would be very suitable for low light indoor party shots. The first party lens is only 1.5cm thick, which makes it convenient enough to store in the same small camera bag, right under the camera. However, this lens starts at around £220 and up. So, I will not be able to afford it at this time. I guess that these 3 lenses are all that I’ll need for a while. They would cover the wide-angle through to telephoto zoom range and a prime lens for indoor party shots.

One thing about getting into serious photography is the cost of the lenses. Once I invest in these lenses, I am unlikely to change camera brands for the future. The good thing is that Pentax is one of the only 2 camera manufacturers who have compability in their lenses since 1975. Yes, it is possible to use 30 year old Pentax lenses in my present camera. Presumably, this would stay the same for the next 30 years.

I have been visiting a local kebab shop daily, for the last few weeks. It is the best kebab shop that I have found in Cambridge, so far. Sometimes, I have all my meals there but usually, I just have my dinner from the shop.

I was introduced to the kebab shop by a couple of my housemates. They used to get supper from there every few days. One day, when I was sick and tired of cooking, I decided to just get some unhealthy friend chicken from the shop. And for some reason, they decided to give me an extra piece of chicken just for the heck of it. This persisted through the first four of my visits to the place. I would always order a 2 piece meal and they’ll give me 3 pieces of chicken instead. Nice of them.

These days, I either get a chicken meal or a doner kebab. I like the chili sauce that they have as it reminds me of the kind of chili sauce that they usually serve with chicken rice back home. As I have been to the shop so many times, I now know who is the most generous server. He will happily give me more food than any other server. A doner kebab comes in a piece of pita bread, filled with meat and salad. And the portions are sufficiently large to fill me up.

This afternoon, I discovered the world of salads for lunch. After weeks of having either baked pastries, cold sandwiches or fried hotdogs for lunch, I was in the mood for something different. These days, I have learnt to listen to my body when it comes to food. I’ll let my body decide what it wishes to eat. So, today I decided to give salads a go. It is surprisingly good.

So, I think that I’ll be getting a salad lunch and kebab dinner for the next few weeks.

A bunch of friends and I went to watch the Dark Knight last night. Although I lived closest to the cinema, I ended up arriving the earliest, a full 30 minutes before the show began. The cinema was packed full and we were lucky to get the seats that we managed to get.

Right after they had finished showing the trailers and we were eager to get going with the film, the lights in the cinema came on and the screen turned off. Then, a bunch of red lights turned on as well and a calm voice came over the sound system telling us that an “incident had arisen”, which required us to vacate the whole cinema. So, people began filing out using the nearest emergency exits.

At this point, I thought that the Joker might make an appearance in the cinema. Maybe the cinema had some extra plans to make this movie a memorable experience. We had even seen some of the staff members made up as clowns earlier. So, there was a basis for this thought. Maybe some of the staff would invade at that point and put up an act in front or something.

Then, a member of the cinema staff came in to tell us that it was a false alarm. So, everyone quickly returned to their seats while the staff members went to chase down those who had already left via the emergency exits. We waited for about 10 minutes for them to fill up the cinema again. Then, they restarted the film from where it stopped. And the show began.

Some things that I thought were interesting about the show. Neither the opening credits nor the end credits mentioned “Batman” anywhere. The opening credits merely showed a DC Comics and Warner Bros intro and the symbol of the Bat. This took all of about 60 seconds and the show started. It was only during the end credits that “The Dark Knight” appeared, as part of a monologue by Jim Gordon.

As for the show, I have to say that I didn’t realise that 3 hours had passed. That is good. It shows that the film kept me at the edge of my seat throughout. Good thing was that the whole cinema was silent as well. Although some friends complained that the first half was a bit slow, I felt that it was important as it had to introduce a whole bunch of new characters and also set the tone of how desperate the situation in Gotham had become.

It is a little unfortunate that Heath Ledger has passed away. His portrayal of The Joker was awesome and I think that anyone else who tries to fill his shoes is just going to suck. I don’t know how anyone could possibly better his performance, which made me feel like slapping him and afraid of him at the same time. I seriously think that they should award him a posthumous Oscar for it. For once, the villain carried the whole show through, instead of the hero. Batman felt like a supporting role, compared to The Joker.

One of the interesting moments in the show was when the Prisoner’s Dilemma made an appearance. That was an interesting 15 minutes of the show. I also loved the way that they portrayed Batman’s fall from grace and it sets the tone for the rest of the franchise. Now everyone can understand why Batman behaves the way that he does, seemingly without morals.

Maggie Gyllenhaal was also a much better Rachel Dawes than Katie Holmes was. Although I had never thought that Maggie was that hot, her first few minutes on screen were very much so.

At one point in the movie, they showed a piece of technology marvel that Fox had used in Hong Kong. And my engineering brain immediately began to think about how I might possibly build such a thing using the technology today. This is one of the reasons that I like the new Batman franchise. All the gadgets and toys used are very “realistic” and can actually be built using standard technology today.

Anyway, I think that I’ve talked enough about Batman. Go watch it! I might go watch it again in a couple of weeks time.

There has been a lot said about Anwar Ibrahim. In 1998, the rumour mill was busy grinding out allegations that he is a puppet of the United States. Some people believed it, some people did not. Although I understood the accuracy of rumours in KL, I also knew that he was being politically ousted at the time. Personally, I gave him the benefit of the doubt as anything can and does happen in politics.

But recent developments have just made it very clear that Anwar Ibrahim is very plausibly, a puppet of the United States. Even if he wasn’t a puppet, he is pretty darn close to one. The moment the recent allegations of sodomy started surfacing, the US has been sending out pretty strongly worded messages (as strongly worded as diplomatic messages can ever be) to our government. To me, this obviously shows that it is in the best interest of the United States to see Anwar out of jail.

But why?

As Anwar is a potential candidate for the position of Prime Minister of Malaysia, this is a more serious issue than his sexual habits. I don’t care whom he screws as long as it is not me. I am not certain if being a vassal state of the US is a good idea or not. It actually depends on what the US actually wants from us if Anwar is put in power. So, I have to put on my thinking cap to see what the US could possibly want with us.

The most obvious answer is oil. Malaysia as a nation, is a very small oil exporter, too small to be part of the OPEC. In fact, we are soon going to be a net importer if current consumption rates continue. However, as a state controlled entity, PETRONAS is another matter entirely. These are the Top 10 of the Top 500 profit making companies in the world:

1. Exxon Mobil
2. Royal Dutch Shell
3. General Electric
4. BP
5. Gazprom
6. HSBC Holdings
7. Chevron
8. Petronas
9. Total
10. J.P Morgan Chase

As you can see from the list, 8 of the top 10 companies are oil & gas, which has seen benefit from the rising global oil prices, which means that the dominant profit will come from the sale and export of oil & gas. But of the 8, only 2 are state controlled companies. So, if the US is able to set up a puppet PM in Malaysia, they would effectively have control of the world’s second largest state run oil & gas company.

The second possible answer is for trade and investment. For obvious reasons, our government has not been able to seal a Free Trade Agreement with the US for the last few years. I would think that such an agreement should largely benefit us more than the US, but from the way that the game seems to be panning out, it seems that the benefits flow both ways. Anwar has claimed that he will restructure the NEP based protectionists policies, which is a major sticking point in any form of “free” trade. So, installing him as a puppet, will also smooth that process through.

Please remember that I do not have all the facts and am probably talking straight out of my behind.

So, If Anwar comes to power, will it be a good thing or bad thing for Malaysia to be a vassal state of the US? This is the only important question to answer.

There are potential advantages to being a vassal state of the US in the short to medium term. It can potentially help improve our economy and smooth some other problems. It’s just like having a “taiko” to look after us, but in return, a tithe would have to be paid. However, for the longer term, being under the thumb of another nation is certainly a bad thing, especially for a nation state that may have ambitions of it’s own. So, we may have to sell some of our shares to an external investor in order to gain some positive cash flow before we go under. But we will need to have some sort of plan to buy back those shares again, at a later date, lest we get bought out altogether.

Anyway, this was just some random idea that floated in my head today. I thought that I’d put it out there for you to think about.

I’ve just recently read an article in TheStar about something that is usually bandied about as meritocracy. Then, there has been a recent blog entry that showed the results of the “meritocracy” based university entry system that was imposed several years ago.

meritocracy
n 1: a form of social system in which power goes to those with superior intellects
2: the belief that rulers should be chosen for their superior abilities and not because of their wealth or birth

From the second definition of the word above, the real problems with meritocracy are evident. A person’s intellect/abilities can never be disconnected from the circumstances of their birth or wealth. If one argues that nature (i.e. genes) determines our intellect/abilities, then birth circumstance plays a role. If one argues that nurture (i.e. upbringing) determines it, then wealth will certainly play a role. Therefore, I present that true meritocracy can never exist.

Once we accept the fact that meritocracy does not exist, then we can get that out of the way and think about the real problems in Malaysia. With regards to the Malaysian education context, this term is usually applied to the inequality in scholarship disbursement and university admissions. Our problem is the perceived inequalities that seem to be endemic in the system, due to racial profiling. This has nothing to do with meritocracy at all. It has to do with the concept of fairness, which is an interesting study to economists.

Most people come up with a very simplistic (whilst unfair) solution to the problems. They often call for scholarship disbursements to be given based solely on academic performance and university entrance to be based on only one standardised exam. Both these solutions are thoroughly flawed as it depends on one single thing – an accurate examination system.

Anyone who knows standardised examination systems will see this problem. Every standardised exam is prepared by a team of humans, all of whom are fallible. They are in turn, taken by a large number of fallible humans and marked by a number of equally fallible humans under impossible time constraints. So, if the exam questions, examination and examiners are all fallible, then so are the results.

As the root problem is perceived unfairness, I suggest using technology to solve the problem. None of you should be surprised with this by now!

I suggest that the clearing houses for scholarships and university admissions, set up websites for people to make applications. Provide an interface that will allow the applicants to quickly sort and filter the data by different criteria so that they themselves can see where they stand, as compared to the rest of their cohort. The criteria should not include things like race/gender/religion or any such personal matters. Obviously, any identifiable things should be removed as well, like IC numbers and such.

Then, on one final day/week, allow each applicant to vote for which ranking criteria they think should be used as a measure. The idea of this exercise is to let the students themselves decide on what is “fair” and “meritocratic”. If someone thinks that academic results should be used, then let them vote on that. If someone thinks that some other criteria should be used, then let them vote on that instead. At the end of the day, the computer will tabulate the results and make offers based on the available places and who has “won” the vote.

This is just a rough idea and of course, if it is to be implemented, people with the relevant expertise should design the specific criteria and voting system. I would certainly be interested to see the results of this peer-reviewed scholarship award and admissions process. I wonder if it would change anything at all. In the end, the people who get offers will be the ones deemed to deserve them, by their own peers. There is full transparency involved and everyone should be happy (or not).

PS: We may just discover that the fairest method to use when deciding on making offers, is the venerable Monte Carlo method.

In case nobody got it. I wanted to point out that there is no such thing as meritocracy nor fairness in this world.