Coming Home

Borrowed without permission from author(s).

Will you come back to Malaysia?

That is the question asked of the survey and the answers were fairly interesting. It turns out that unlike what our parent’s generation think, most younger Malaysians would return to Malaysia. The full survey and findings are available on the original author’s site.

In fact, it is extremely important for Malaysians studying and living abroad, to return home to contribute. As one commenter pointed out, those who have been outside, have seen how things can be better and are in the right position to help steer the country towards a better tomorrow. Those who have never left the country, are in a classic katak bawah tempurung situation.

So, the imperative is for Malaysians abroad, to return home and make a difference. Be the change you want to see!

Valueless Lives

Recently, I had the opportunity to witness a motorcyclist and his pillion rider turn the corner at speed, skid and crash in front of my car. On the very same evening, I saw the aftermath of another accident where the unconscious motorcyclist was being carried off the road by members of the public with blood spewing out of his nose. The very next day, I had a motorcyclist and his pillion (both whom do not look like they are old enough to have a motorcycle license) cut into my lane immediately after showing their signal.

These three incidents, within 24 hours, got me thinking, how valueless some lives are. These lives are valueless because their owners themselves do not seem to act in a way which reflects their value.

It is quite common to see young children on motorcycles, without helmets, in the suburbs and quieter parts of the country. In such a situation, the only ones to blame for any accidents, are the parents of the children who allowed their kids to ride their motorcycles illegally. I do not understand how a child’s life could be worth so little to the parents.

Sigh.

Co-Founder Myth

As a friend of mine said, finding a co-founder is more difficult than finding a wife! And I have to concur.

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/swf/player-ec.swf

Remembering Mr Tan Aun Tony

I was surprised this morning with a text message from an old classmate of mine, that our former class-teacher, Mr Tan Aun Tony, had passed away yesterday. This saddened me a bit as I liked him as a teacher. He was also our Physics teacher and he was one of those few teachers who set me on the path to engineering. I have many fond memories of him.

So, I decided to go to Nirvana Memorial Hall this evening and pay my last respects. When I got there, a family ceremony was under way and I decided not to intrude on it. I contributed some white gold on behalf of my sister and myself. Then, I did some transference of merits and left as I was beginning to feel over-whelmed and there was nobody there that I recognised.

He never skipped a class, which was saying something, at my school. He taught us our foundation in Physics and since many of us turned out as bona-fide engineers, he must have done it right. Physics had always been my favourite subject in high school. He was also a wise class teacher who had a way of giving us advice without being strict nor condescending. He was always patient.

Cool dude. Peace.

SABM Dinner Lecture

I attended the recent dinner lecture by Azmi Sharom on Our Constitution and whether it is dead or comatose. It was the first dinner talk that I had ever paid to attend. The food was just average but that was not the reason why most of us were there. The talk itself was extremely entertaining and fairly informative. I learned a lot of new things about Our Constitution that evening.

The message to take away from that evening’s talk was, that we need to retake our country and reaffirm Our Constitution as the supreme law of the land and that we are a land of laws, not madmen. Unfortunately, I think that things will need to get a lot worse first, before they can possibly get better. I am still hopeful that there are a lot of good people within the system, who can and will do the right thing, when the time is right.

Our Constitution is sacred, that is the third line of our national creed – Keluhuran Perlembagaan. It has been raped and plundered for decades and those who are charged to defend it, have given up the ghost. Therefore, it is up to us to defend Our Constitution instead of waiting for others to do our jobs. As someone suggested, we can start by calling it “Our” Constitution and taking ownership of it.

Network Forensics

This got me wondering recently – why do our local experts seem to fail at the most fundamental knowledge? I had the occasion to attend a training on network forensics and by the time we had our first exercise, I had to correct the instructor because he was explaining something fundamentally wrong to the audience. His explanations actually violated the basic rules of networking.

I am not saying that he was stupid. In fact, I gave him a good feedback at the end. I would consider him as someone who actually had practical experience in the field and knows both the technical and non-technical stuff. However, what caught me was that a renowed expert in the field could actually get his fundamentals wrong to the extent that a practitioner like me could spot it immediately.

This was not a case of lack of preparation because after I raised the issue and pointed it out to him, he actually argued it with me and I had to prove that he was wrong. I certainly hope that I do not get caught in such a situation in the future but I have learned from him how to handle such blunders, gracefully.

After the short training, I actually got to learn a few new things, which was good. It was also an interesting training because we got to actually do some network attacks and see the results of other network attacks. We managed to hijack each other’s traffic, learned how to steal accounts and listened in on VoIP conversations. Some of us were tempted to try the techniques over lunch at a public hotspot!

It was quite fun and I may integrate some of that learning into my future projects.

Team Player

I have managed to join and leave a number of project teams this year, outside of work, doing all sorts of random teams. Often, the main reason that I leave the team is because I cannot get along with some of the team-members. Instead of staying and causing problems, I decide to leave. Typically, the problem revolves around the fact that I find some problem with the other team-members who I feel are idiots in my book. This does not necessarily mean that they are mentally challenged, but rather just people whom I cannot reconcile opinions with.

So, I wonder to myself, if this made me a difficult person to work with. If it did, it may cause some problems in the future for my business. I think that if you asked around, many people would say that I am problematic. I sort of agreed with it as well, until I realised something.

I have managed to work on a number of projects with several teams of people recently including, organising a prestige lecture, an annual dinner and a green conference. All these were activities that I was part of, either as organising chairman or treasurer or member. In fact, I have been very actively involved in the IET, which is a professional engineering institution. I have had so much fun working with the rest of the committee that I have decided to run for a second term. If you asked these people if I was a difficult person to work with, I doubt that they would agree.

I think that this probably boils down to personality.

It just so happens that most of the committee members of the institution are professional engineers. Maybe this means that we can understand each other easily and we are able to work on the same wavelength. Therefore, I can easily gel with the rest of the team and get things done. In most of the other teams that I dropped out of, I am probably the only qualified engineer in the team and I find it difficult to understand how other people can think and act the way that they do.

Sigh.

So, I guess this means that I can get along with other engineers but cannot get along with other people in general. Well, this is surely far better than being a difficult person. Good thing is that I would mostly be working with other engineers only, which saves me a whole load of grief.