Sybreon Ones Nought

It’s that time of the year when you start to hear of all kinds of stories coming out of the National Service (NS) camps. It seems that without fail, every year, our government is running some sort of death camp for the kids in the country. I’m starting to wonder how the heck can this be allowed to continue. Personally, I would put a stop to this NS programme until a better one can be put in place.

The idea behind the programme is a noble one. The government recognises the fact that the younger generation are becoming more polarised than ever. In order to arrest this problem, the government came up with the idea of the NS camps. From it’s wikipedia article, it’s objectives are certainly worthy:

• Develop a young generation who are patriotic and with love for their country
• Enhance unity among the multi-racial communities in the country
• Instill a spirit of caring and volunteerism among society
• Produce an active, intelligent and confident generation
• Develop positive characteristics among the younger generation through good values
• Develop a generation that will always obey the current government

However, from the very onset, this programme was doomed. It was conceived in 2001, pushed through in 2002 and implemented in 2003. For such a large programme, it must have enjoyed the fastest navigation through the intricate workings of our government. I remember thinking at the time, that they have not thought everything through properly and the implementation will be a disaster.

After the pilot programme in 2003, there has been a number of fatalities every year. One may think that there is nothing unusual about fatalities. Obviously, there are also a number of deaths in the national service programmes of other nations. But there is a major difference. Our NS programme is more akin to an extended camping trip than a military training programme for soldiers.

This is made worse by the fact that almost all the deaths are not due to accidents from physical activities of the camp but, rather, caused by illness or some sort of physical ailment or other. In almost all these cases, the poor kids were not sent to the hospital until things were already too late. Personally, this smacks of incompetence and negligence, to me.

If a kid died at a summer camp, due to illness, you can be sure that the camp would have been shut down until further notice. But in the case of the NS camps, they still go on and on, bringing us more interesting deaths each year. The fact that these NS camps are not voluntary, means that the government has to take full responsibility for the deaths and be fully accountable and liable.

However, until today, I have yet to see a single person dragged through court for criminal negligence, which resulted in the death of too many young lives. Such is the core problem of the whole NS programme in Malaysia. Nobody cares enough about it. The government doesn’t care enough about it to run it professionally, the commandants don’t care enough to take responsibility, and the parents do not care enough about it to file criminal charges.

There are obviously bugs in the programme. So, the best thing to do would be to stop running it for a while, and do whatever it takes to iron out all the problems. Until the day that the NS camps have 0 fatalities, I don’t think that the government should be allowed to run these camps for another day. No parent should ever be forced to send their kids away to these camps, without knowing if they will ever see their child alive again.

*** images from scotthong.wordpress.com ***

I was fairly surprised when I went to check my mail at my lab today. I found a package addressed to me and it felt like some DVDs. I scrambled trying to recall if I had ordered anything. I don’t normally have any of my online deliveries set to the lab, because I usually get them delivered to my home address. Plus, it was sent by internal mail and I don’t remember bidding for anything on our internal marketplace except for a Palm. But with all the things that I have to deal with recently, I might have forgotten something.

So, I opened it up to find two Siti Nurhaliza albums! Definitely not something that I had ordered as I would definitely remember it. Woo hoo! Not one but two! The Royal Albert Hall one and one of her newest albums, Transkripsi. Wow! I love it. As I’m writing this entry, I’m busy ripping the contents of the CDs into MP3s so that I can carry it around with me in my Zen.

There was no note or any indication of whom it was from. The only clue that I have is that it was delivered by our internal university messaging service, which is typically only available to the staff and graduate students of the university. Undergraduates don’t normally have access to it. And since it is not easy to buy these albums online, I’m guessing that someone must have brought them over from Malaysia.

But I’m not going to spend too much time trying to work out whom it’s from. Doctor says that I should learn to manage my stress levels and take things easy. So, you know who you are. Thanks for the wonderful gift!

I watched the American Idol finals the other day. It’s been a long while since I’ve watched it because I think it’s not been worth watching for a while now. But my friend introduced me to David Cook the other day, and it changed everything. I was really glad that he won. He brought tears to my eyes. During the finals, this was one of the songs that he sang, and I really liked it a lot.

When I was a little boy.
I swore that I would change the world when I grew up.
Nothing else would be enough.

I see it everyday.
We settled for safe.
And lose ourselves along the way.

But if you don’t dream big,
What’s the use in dreaming?
If you don’t have faith,
There’s nothing worth believing.
It takes one hope
To make the stars worth reaching for.
So reach out for something more.

It took a well perfected plan
For me to finally understand
That it’s not me.
Faith is something you can’t see.

I wiped my tears away.
Now its time for a change.
No I can’t waste another day.

‘Cause if you don’t dream big,
What’s the use in dreaming?
If you don’t have faith
There’s nothing worth believing.
It takes one hope
To make the stars worth reaching for.

‘Cause if you don’t have faith,
What’s the use in dreaming?
If you don’t have faith
There’s nothing worth believing.
It takes one hope
To make the stars worth reaching for.
So reach out for something more.

Full lyrics here.

I’ve finished checking the first batch of papers allocated to me which consisted of papers from four courses. I’m starting to get the hang of doing it and yes, I do think that the most efficient method is to check all the scores on the main sheet first, before verifying each paper against it’s score.

The reason is simply one of context switching. With this method, context switching is kept to a minimum. Checking the scores on the main sheet merely involves punching a calculator at lightning speed and looking at the values. Then, the next task of verifying each paper against it’s mark sheet is just a question of looking it up in the table, in sorted order. Then, the last task is to actually verify that each page has been marked and the marks totalled up correctly. I do this while looking up the scores to reduce the amount of manual paper flipping work that I need to do. Optimisation.

Three of the courses went without problems and I could quickly sign off on the papers. One of the courses has quite a large number of errors though. Some of the questions were totalled incorrectly and some pages were not marked. I’ve noted down all the details of the errors on a sheet of paper that I will need to attach to the official marker’s form later. It’s a little unfortunate for the students as in each case, they had been given too many marks and might need to have some of their marks deducted.

So, I’ll need to meet up with the principal assessors to make the corrections. However, that person is away for the whole of next week. So, I can only make the corrections the following week, which is pushing the deadline kind of close.

I have noticed something about marking though. You can tell if a lecturer is dedicated or not, simply by how they mark the papers. Some lecturers are very careful in their marking, with lots of details, while others are just cincai doing it. It really comes through in the marking.

So, next week, I’ll go return this batch of papers and possibly pick up another batch of papers to check. I do the mark checking while watching TV. It also helps me to keep my mind off things.

Good stuff. Lots of popular Malaysian artists in the clip. Watch this, ’nuff said. Spread the word. Kick the racist bastards out of parliament. We are one nation, one people, one love.

PS: You can download the original MP3 and videos from the official website here.

A recent article in the NYTimes is highlighting a crisis happening in Japan. According to the article, Japan is suffering a “flight from science”. It was engineering prowess that lifted the country from it’s postwar defeat but few are interested in entering such professions today.

In actual fact, this is not a problem that is unique to Japan. It is something that is happening everywhere in this world. Even here at Cambridge, a random survey of engineering graduates will find that few end up working in engineering fields while most end up in banking and consulting. Why?

The answer is a very simple one.

Engineers spend many years of our lives working hard and actually learning real skills at university, only to end up in a job that is under paid, under appreciated, working as an expendable component in an over-glorified assembly line, under a boss who knows nothing about solving problems and having them take the credit for the solutions to problems that we come up with.

Hence, such a situation should come as no surprise to anyone at all.

For example, an engineering PhD in the UK, can either get paid £25,000/year for an exciting and challenging engineering job, or get paid £45,000/year for a boring and simple programming job for a financial institution, the choice becomes very simple for most of us. Although most engineers like the challenge of solving real difficult problems, we have to think about things like marriage, kids and a family as well.

Personally, I don’t think that there is a shortage of engineers at all. Most management types think that we are all expendable cogs in the machine anyway. So, economics will dictate the fact that since we can be replaced by any pizza delivery boy with two weeks of training in pressing some buttons in order, we will not get the pay that we deserve.

I believe that there is definitely a surplus of engineers in this world today. This is partially as a result of the push by various governments. Governments recognise that they need a large number of people with engineering skills. But they may have gone overboard in encouraging and pushing people into the service. As a result, we end up with a large surplus.

So, I’ll wait till the day comes when engineers get paid more than bankers. That will actually be the day when there is a crisis of engineering. Until then, we will just have to find other ways to enjoy both the joys of solving real problems, while making enough money to have a life. The only way for engineers to do this today, is to become entrepreneurs themselves.

Annual scholarship rejection time. This is a drama that our country goes through every year and personally, I’m getting a little sick of it all. There is a problem and the problem needs fixing. Let’s put on my engineering hat and try to figure out what to do with it.

According to TheStar, the PSD DG said:

The most common misunderstanding is that academic excellence will guarantee them scholarship. However, the fact is that many excellent students have to compete for a limited number of scholarships and those awarded will be the ‘cream of the crop

Personally, I have a beef with a lot of people. So, I’m just going to lash out here. If anyone feels offended, please feel free to leave some comments.

• Cream of the Crop.
  What a load of hogwash. With so many 1As being bandied about, it merely dilutes the value of the result. So, there is no possible way of actually telling who are the smart ones and who are the dumb ones. Just because someone gets 20+ 1As does not mean that he/she is actually smarter than someone who only got 8 1As. It just means that he/she had more 1As, that’s all. As a result, scholarships sometimes end up being given in an arbitrary manner, resulting in many unhappy and dissatisfied kids.
• Sad Stories.
  I’m really fed up with the kids who whine about not getting a scholarship to study their dream course overseas. For goodness sake, it’s time to grow up. The world does not revolve around you. Grow a back bone. Yes, it’s an extra hurdle that you’ll need to cross to achieve your dreams. But overcoming it will just make you stronger. The PSD scholarship is only one of the many ways to land your dream career.
• Sad Parents.
  I place quite a bit of blame with the parents. I know that every parent thinks that his/her kid is the sharpest tool in the box and he/she wants to give the kids the best. Since they’re almost 18 anyway, it’s a good time to stop shielding them from the harshness of the world. Let them know that there are lots of other options in life and sometimes, they just need to roll a hard six.

As a possible solution, I would like to propose something to the government. This is an idea that came to me at 2.30am. So, it may need to be fleshed out a little.

Scrap the whole post-SPM scholarship awards craze. There is little value in the diluted result anyway. Instead, force every kid to go onto Matriculation, STPM, A-Levels, IB or equivalent programme, on their own. Then, let them all apply to the universities and courses of their choice. Rich kids can go to private colleges and do their A-Levels while poor kids can go to public schools to do their STPM.

The PSD must release a list of approved universities and courses, based on the country’s needs. The approved universities can just be picked off the THES Top 100 universities or some other ranking. The approved courses will be based on the country’s needs.

Once the students have secured a place with a foreign university, they can then be awarded scholarships. Scholarships can then be allocated on a needs and reward basis. On a rewards basis, anyone who secures a place in the Top 50 university, is automatically given a scholarship. On a needs basis, anyone who secures a place in the Top 100, are given a scholarship, based purely on financial need. Anyone outside the Top 100, can kiss their scholarships goodbye.

You see, in this way, it will help the PSD save a lot of time and money.

• The responsibility of vetting the students will be outsourced to foreign universities. Let the educators decide who is good enough, and not a bunch of bureaucrats. Scholarship interviews can be done away with entirely.
• The students will no longer be subjected to arbitrary criteria. If the students get rejected by the universities, it is less likely that they will whine. This outsources the liability and saves the PSD from having to make “corrections”.
• If the foreign universities decide to offer the students a scholarship or aid, this saves the PSD more time and money again. They won’t need to consider these people anymore and can divert their limited funding elsewhere.

So, what do you think?

UPDATE: Another radical 2.0 idea. Why not let the kids decide among themselves, who deserves the scholarships? Set up a website where the kids can all make their scholarship applications. Then, list out some basic features, such as their results, activities and what nots. Nothing that can be made to identify an individual directly. Then, let the kids and other Malaysians vote on whom they think deserve a scholarship. The top 1000 or something, gets offered a scholarship.