Face of Watson

I’m so excited about this competition. I sincerely hope that the episode will be made available on-line really soon. I’d really like to see how Watson performs against the other human contestants. I’m also rooting for it.

Valentine's Trap

According to the BBC, “Malaysia has stepped up a campaign to stop Muslims celebrating Valentine’s Day – labelling it a ‘trap’ that could encourage immoral behaviour.”

On one hand, I think that it is silly to suggest that Valentine’s Day is a western celebration and has Christian connotations. I think that it is silly because it is more a Pagan celebration that got hijacked by Christians than it is an actual Christian celebration.

However, on the other hand, I do agree that V’day is a trap – a commercial one!

Nation of Idiots

What kind of society have we degenerated into when 17-year olds goad others to suicide and then express shock when it actually happens. Idiots!

According to TheStar: “Sally Lee Qian Chun, a Form 5A student, had abruptly walked out during a lesson in the Chemistry lab on the second floor of the three-storey block and gone up to her classroom.”

Meanwhile, it is learnt that Lee had posted several disturbing comments on her Facebook page since Jan 15, saying this would be her last Chinese New Year.

On Friday, the second day of the new year, she posted that she had planned to take her life last month.

On Sunday night, Lee wrote of a failed relationship and broken promises while reiterating her desire to take her life.

However, her shocking remarks only drew taunts and dares from friends telling her to go ahead with her plans to kill herself.

In her last post at 3.45pm Monday, Lee reminded her friends to keep their promises of buying her a teddy-bear and a coffin. She also told them not to miss her when she was gone and to take care of themselves.

While I understand that teenagers will be teenagers, it is a sad reflection on our society when this is the kind of response that we give when someone cries out for help. Instead of sending them for counseling or encouraging them to seek help, we actively taunt and push them over the edge.

I do hope that at least some of them tried their best to help. Otherwise, they really ought to pool their money and buy her the bear and coffin if they do not want to risk breaking a promise and anger a disgruntled spirit.

RIP.

Personal Update

I have not been blogging as much recently because things have been rather busy in my life. It’s not easy to relax when I’m nose high in debt. I like to jokingly tell people that I’ve got the biggest money lender in the country chasing after me.

Anyway, life has been interesting thus far into the new year. The twists and turns of fate are sometimes truly surprising. I would not have been able to predict my present circumstances, a month ago.

However, it is good that life moves interestingly and that I am kept busy – too busy. While I spent my Chinese New Year holidays tapping away on my keyboard at Cameron Highlands Resort, I won’t complain much since this is part of the process of getting to where I need to be.

Unfortunately for me, most of the work that I am doing these days is paper work. However, I do hope to get some technical work started really soon. I have some interesting architecture ideas and would like to kick-start some work as soon as I find the time to get away from the paper work.

Step by step.

Office Plans

I bought more IKEA furniture a couple of weeks ago and moved an LCD-TV into my office. I got some GORM shelves for storage purposes and also some MELTORP tables for the work area. The LCD-TV is being placed in the meeting room in place of a LCD projector. After some consideration, it made more sense to use an LCD-TV that costs the same price as a projector and does not require as much maintenance. I tested it out and the screen size is clear enough for displaying slides that are visible from the back of the room. I will need to make another run to IKEA to get the last bits of furniture but things are falling into place, more or less.

Now, as for the hiring, the intern who was supposed to join me in March has just written to me today to turn me down. The intern gave some lame excuse on how KL is a little too far from Cyberjaya and that the work I am doing is not in-line with the intern’s final year project title. Well, it is entirely up to the intern where to do their internship and I said so myself. Thankfully, I have not bought a new PC for the intern, which I was planning to do right after CNY.

I have another intern who is supposed to join me in May. However, that is months away and I hope that this intern would not FFK me at the last minute. If this intern turns out to be useful, I will probably offer the intern a full-time job and convert that internship period to a probation period. Then, I will hopefully be able to get my first full-time staff.

At the same time, I am now training a student to do some programming work. The student seems quite promising but only time will tell if lack of domain expertise becomes a problem. If this student turns out okay, I will probably hire this student as a intern during summer breaks if this student is interested.

Alan Turing Documentary

Kind of a sad story on the Father of Computing. A non-evil genius who saved countless lives, contributed so much to man-kind and got persecuted in return for his sexual orientation. Committed suicide at the prime of his life. Imagine what the world would be like if he had been alive just that little bit longer.