Sumptuous Erotica

Erotica #1
Erotica #1 (Photo credit: Tiws)

Disclaimer: Some adult thoughts ahead.

Update: I highlighted some legal issues in my Law blog.

A cross-border international scandal involving a couple of young Malaysians seem to have erupted in our prim and proper neighbour, Singapore.

In it, stars two very young people – Alvin Tan Jye Yee, a Law student in the National University of Singapore, and an ASEAN scholar; Vivian Lee – his girlfriend, a Malaysian. There doesn’t seem to be very much to say about these two, since they are still so young after all.

The scandal involves a couple of single consenting adults having sex, which thankfully nobody is throwing the morality hammer at yet. The issue at hand is that they actually posted their exploits graphically, online, in a public blog, for the view of all and sundry.

Both people have been interviewed and they both defended their right to continue doing whatever it is that they were doing. Twitter is ablaze with various parties commenting on this.

Nobody really cares about what I have to say but I shall say this.

Those people who think that they are wrong to post their sexual exploits on-line, are walking down a very slippery slope. Regardless of whether we think that what they are engaging in is right or wrong, the main issue at hand is why this has turned out to be such a scandal.

The primary issue that I am concerned with is freedom of speech.

I believe that they have every damn right to do whatever they want to do and to even publish it online for the world to see. The key thing here is that they never did force anyone to actually go view it. Nobody can accidentally stumble upon their content either. Therefore, there is no compulsion from their part for anyone to view it.

Also, they have not gone out to offend anybody’s sensitivities. If your sensitivity is offended by viewing such things – who the hell asked you to go view it in the first place? And if you have viewed it and are offended, the only person that you have to blame for it is yourself. If you need to ritually cleanse your eye-balls after that, it’s your own fault.

I don’t see the difference between this form of freedom of expression and another highly controversial form of freedom of expression – political speech. If these two had been blogging as Locke and Demosthenes, we would probably see things differently. However, there is essentially no difference between the two.

What is more private than a person’s innermost thoughts that are published online? That is how the whole blogging trend started – when some people decided to use the web to keep a log or journal of their private lives. This thing is just a natural progression of that trend.

If we think that they should be censured for publishing their private acts publicly, we should also go around censuring anyone else publishing photos of themselves eating dinner (I know that Malaysians love food). Honestly, what someone chooses to shove down their alimentary tract is private too.

How about photos of them sleeping in their beds?

Honestly speaking, these two have brought no greater harm onto our nation or society as a whole that has not already been done by someone else.

If there is one thing that needs to be blamed for this whole issue, I would put the blame squarely on our voyeuristic culture. We have become a voyeuristic society globally. This is what Youtube has done to us across the world. We’re constantly pushing for more interesting content as our attention spans drop to that of a 3-year old’s. It’s our fault that these two decided to feed that demand.

Personally, I do hope that they keep doing what it is that they are doing – as long as they are mature enough to understand that every action has its consequences. They need to know that there are many out there who would not look on their acts as liberally as I do and may choose to act on that. Also, there may be legal consequences of their actions such as public indecency Laws (archaic), etc.

As for the whole legal mess that this creates, I have no idea how anyone is going to solve it. If they broke some S’porean/M’sian Law, can they be successfully prosecuted for either of it? Jurisdiction is going to be a bitch. That’s a question that I leave to the courts to decide.

Related articles

Event: World Robotics Olympiad 2012

I’ll be one of the head judges of the World Robotics Olympiad 2012. The event is hosted by Malaysia this year and will be held from 9-11 November 2012 at Sunway Convention Centre.

I’m quite excited about doing it. The only other international level design competition for school children that I’ve ever judged before this was the F1 in Schools 2011 finals. Avid readers of my blog will know that I have always been involved in other national level competitions.

These out-reach programmes appeal to me, especially if they relate to science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. I particularly like seeing more girls participating as we all know that our professions are woefully deprived of female insight, input and instinct.

There are several categories of competition and the challenges are quite interesting too. I was also involved in the planning stage last year, to select the final theme and challenges that we see today.

Just watching the random Youtube videos of teams from around the world has been very exciting for me. There are some very interesting ideas in some of these robots, particularly when they try to work around the constraints/rules of each competition.

I’m definitely looking forward to judging the world finals in a few weeks time.

Good luck to all the 300+ participating teams!

Primary Level

Lower Secondary

Upper Secondary

GenII Football

Timelapse: Kuala Lumpur

Cute! I like the way he captured the life too – traffic, car-park, pedestrians, etc. HDR was also done quite well.

DSLR: Pentax K30

PENTAX-K30-IMGP2048
PENTAX-K30-IMGP2048 (Photo credit: HAMACHI!)

A good friend of mine asked me for suggestions about buying a DSLR today and it got me thinking – maybe it’s time that I upgraded mine too! But I needed an excuse. I think that I’ll just use my soon to be released Law exam results as an excuse, regardless of how well or badly I do.

It’s darn sad that I have to invent an excuse to justify buying a new DSLR to myself!

So, I looked up my favourite brand – Pentax – with a simple requirement. I wanted a camera that was water resistant. The reason is because I usually take my camera with me on holidays and I usually spend my time out-doors. So, I’ll need a weather proof camera. It also helps when the cops spray you with water cannons.

The thing that I love about Pentax is the sheer lack of choice.

Turns out that there is exactly one model from Pentax that is weather proof and it comes in three colours – Pentax K30. Nice!

It also comes with an option of a 18-135mm kit lens. Since I already have the 18-55mm and 55-200mm lens, this would be more than suffice. I think that the kit lens would be good enough for general use during holidays – shooting people, scenery and random architecture. I no longer need to fret over which lens to use.

Also, I’ll have the opportunity to use the camera soon as I’ll be travelling to Taiwan, Berlin and Nice in the next few months. All very nice timing.

Now, if the shop will do me a 0% credit-card instalment payment, I’m set!

PS: I need to buy myself a prime lens at some point.

XKCD: Game Theory

Oh man, this thing made me LOL! I ❤ XKCD!

PS: As with all other XKCD comics, you’ve gotta read the sub-text. Click on the image to get the original comic.

Path to Success

I have to say that I totally agree with what the picture says. I often have no idea where I am going to end up at the end of the day. However, that doesn’t keep me from trying hard to point my trajectory upwards. Sometimes, I’m on a roll and sometimes, everything just seems to fall apart.

But I keep trying!

RM40m Donation

International Money Pile in Cash and Coins
International Money Pile in Cash and Coins (Photo credit: epSos.de)

According to an article in TheStar, “the RM40mil given to Sabah Umno was a political donation, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak … adding that the political donation was done in a proper and acceptable manner.”

By all means, clear the CM of corruption charges, but please continue to pursue the money – it’s source and destination.

What I don’t get is how a political donation is being treated as a white-washing of the whole affair. It isn’t. Political donations are a form of corruption, particularly large sums, which is why some countries have a legal limit on political donations.

Instead of stopping investigations of the political donation, the relevant authorities should continue to pursue the money, it’s source and where it goes. If the source of money is illegitimate, or if it has broken some international money laundering laws, then, there is definitely some problem somewhere.

Just because the money isn’t for personal use does not mean that it is clean.

If the source of the money is timber license kick-backs as alleged elsewhere, then it doesn’t matter if that money is being funnelled to the political party to build up its war-chest for the coming GE or whether its for the personal use of any specific person – it is still corruption. The corruption happens when the money is kicked-back, regardless of where the money goes.

What must also be investigated is where that money goes. If the money from the political party funds are being channelled to say, companies owned by the CM and/or his family to ostensibly run campaigns, that’s just a round-a-bout way of doing the corruption – a very thinly veiled way to do it, actually.

Some people were probably getting a little too complacent and bold, drunk with all that power and feeling invincible – until their hands got caught in the proverbial cookie jar. Then, they probably had to give up the cookie to someone else, or risk having their hands chopped off.

Anyone who knows how to move that much cash across borders should know better. Large bribes need to be routed through multiple layers and intermediaries, so that it becomes difficult to trace. Unless of course, the once caught were merely intermediaries.

What irks me is how our government, and the PM, is actually treating this case as closed. The message that they are sending out is how one should go about bribing a politician in Malaysia – via their political party donations instead of directly – a very thinly veiled bribe at that.

At the very least, have the decency to hide the damn money.

Sad.

Related articles