The Diamond Age

After watching this commercial from IDEO, about the future of e-books and reader devices, it got me thinking about a previous blog post of mine on social reading – particularly my third idea and Coupland. However, Alice reminds me of something straight out of The Diamond Age, one of my favourite books and features strongly as the main mantra of my company.

I am most excited by Alice and its possibilities for educating our young in a far more immersive environment. Imagine a childrens’ book that encourages a child to learn about the natural environment by actively getting the child to step out of the house and into the real-world. It can use the built-in GPS on the reader to pull in local content for the child so that the book is customised for the local environment.

So, in Malaysia, the book may talk more about rain-forests and may even encourage the child to take a trip to one of our National Parks, where the child will be encouraged to hunt for photos of specific flora/fauna with the built-in camera on the reader. Successfully taking a photo would unlock deliverable gifts/toys and earn the child kudos points at the central repository.

Snazzy!

Nike Free

I have been doing quite a bit of walking/jogging in recent months and have been using an old pair of shoes. However, the old pair was not suited for walking/running and my legs have been hurting after each session. So, I just randomly decided that I needed a new pair of good shoes.

I went to The Gardens Mall and visited various shoe stores there from Adidas to Nike. I tried on various shoes and finally came away with one conclusion – Nike Free. Compared to the other shoes, only the Nike Free shoes felt like I was not wearing any shoes at all; and they were extremely comfortable to boot. So, that’s my big purchase of this week.

Revolting Policies?

Honestly, I just read this article in TheStar today and I was taken aback. It shocked me that one could now be arrested for influencing others to revolt against government policies!

Malaysiakini cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, better known as Zunar, was arrested Friday under the Sedition Act for publishing books considered ‘detrimental to public order’ and that could ‘influence the people to revolt against government policies’.

What shocked me was the fact that we could ‘revolt’ against a policy. How is that even possible? I can understand it if he incited people to revolt against the government, which was perfectly plausible. Numerous revolutions against governments have happened in the past in many countries. However, I am stunned that we can actually revolt against a policy! This is something new that I learned today.

I think that I am kind of interested in the whole idea of revolting against revolting policies. Do two negatives make a positive?

What I am less clear on is what law does this whole ‘revolting against policy’ fall under. I am not a lawyer but I doubt that it would be covered under the Sedition Act. Weird, but stranger things have happened in Boleh-lund.

Can someone spell last throes?

Racist Teachers

There has been calls recently from various political parties for government action against errant teachers who have allegedly uttered racist remarks in schools. While I feel that it is wrong for these teachers, who serve as role-models to our young, to behave in that manner, I do not think that there is anything that the government can do against them.

First and foremost, there are procedures to be followed when initiating any disciplinary action against a government employee. Then, there is the problem with the fact that the teachers have not broken any conceivable law. Finally, there is the problem with precedent that has been set by politicians on both sides of the fence.

It sucks to be a Malaysian but racism is part and parcel of our very existence. We are probably the only country in the world with racial preference enshrined in its Constitution.

Malaysian First?

We, Malaysians, tend to be rather focused on labels – we like to label things. It is so ingrained in our psyche that whenever someone raises an issue, the first thing that we need to do is to label it so that it can be properly categorised and compartmentalised into its proper box. Then, the issue can be bludgeoned to a pulp with the appropriate tool.

A week ago, I had an interview with a sociologist who was conducting some research. I was asked if I thought of myself as a Malaysian instead of a Chinese. I went on record saying that, “No, it depends on how you define Malaysian.” I definitely do not see myself as Malaysian first nor Chinese second. I see myself as myself first and foremost. How could anyone be a Malaysian first and Malay second or a Malaysian first and Chinese second if they are not themselves first?

To explain this, I went on record describing my identity.

My mother tongue is English, which I spoke nothing but, for the first few years of my life. My first books were all English books, and my initial cultural exposure was all western. Then, when I became old enough to have some philosophy and morals imbued into me, I picked up an Indian religion. While I may celebrate Chinese culture on the surface, I have very little appreciation for it and would happily do without most of it if given the chance. I have more Korean, Japanese, English and Malay DVDs and music CDs than Chinese ones. If given a choice between our venerable roti canai, nasi lemak, wanton mee for breakfast, I would choose them in that order exactly. I speak Malay well enough and was actually mistaken as a Malay for my first semester in university.

I found it difficult to say that I am Malaysian first because I do not know what it means to be Malaysian first. I am hoping that someone else might be able to explain it to me.

For now, I would say that I am “me, myself and I” first. Thank you very much!

PS: In all honesty, I would describe myself as Hacker first as I identify better with the Hacker culture than any other culture.

MineCraft Success

The Internet is abuzz with the sensational success story of Minecraft, an independently developed game, that is now raking in US$250k per day. The game is largely the effort of a single developer and the company is pretty much a one-man show. I congratulate the genius behind the game and it breathes life and gives hope to other indie game developers around the world.

At $10 per pop, this developer has cleanly raked in almost US$10 million overnight.

Minecraft is another story on how you can turn problems into opportunities. When they had server problems causing outages, they gave away free copies of the game to everyone who had difficulties playing during the outage. Once the problem was solved, these freebies became converts and paid the ten buck for a license. Read that – he gave stuff away for free during a down-time and this brought in converts once up-time was restored. Brilliant!

However, as good as this story sounds, it reminds me of another adage – overnight success takes years of effort.

Government Business

During the Economic Transformation Programme Open Day held yesterday, one of the key messages sent by the CEOs to our government was – for Government’s role in business to be reduced and for freer competition.

Personally, I can particularly relate to that. In fact, I am so averse to government involvement in business that I have decided to avoid the many government grants that are given out for technology startups. I have also decided to steer clear of the government as much as I can in business. This means avoiding government contracts like the plague. I am crazy like that.

The thing is, I do not see how our present government can reform the business of government to be limited to policy making and regulation, which is what we actually need the government to do instead of actually getting involved in the decision making and operational issues of businesses particularly through its many GLCs. Even if the present opposition takes over the federal government, I do not see the government getting out of business either because the system is already institutionalised and ingrained in our collective psyche that Malaysia Inc is run like that.

Some may ask me why I am so anti government. I am not anti-government. I am merely anti government involvement in business. The reason that I feel this way is that I have personally felt the bite of government involvement in business and I do not want to experience it ever again. I would be very happy if the government, whichever government, decides to just keep its fingers out of business and to instead focus on policy and regulation.

In fact, I would argue that the government should step up regulation – not in the bad way, mind you. Taking the example of the Internet – while I do not think that the government should engage in Internet censorship, I do feel that regulation needs to be stepped up in certain areas such as: policing the collection and transmission of personal information, registration and collection of taxes from internet businesses, and taking cyber-criminals to task.

However, from what I have gathered about the ETP, I believe that it is business as usual for our government. I do not see why the government would happily give away multi-billion dollar cash cows until after they have been milked dry. I will believe our governments’ drive when I actually see it. For now, I will wait and see.