Sybreon Ones Nought

When will it end?

Hopefully never!

Not too shabby! Some good news from The Economist, seems that our Malaysian passport is pretty powerful in that we can enter quite a lot of countries without requiring a visa. Interesting!

I always seem to find quotes from science fiction that seem to apply fully to our situation at home. I have been reading the Dune Chronicles recently and have found the quality of political intrigue second to none (not even to the various sandiwara at home). The politicians can learn a lot of political strategy from Frank Herbert’s writings.

A large populace held in check by a small but powerful force is quite a common situation in our universe. And we know the major conditions wherein this large populace may turn upon its keepers:

1. When they find a leader. This is the most volatile threat to the powerful; they must retain control of leaders.
2. When the populace recognises its chains. Keep the populace blind and unquestioning.
3. When the populace perceives a hope of escape from bondage. They must never even believe that escape is possible!

— Children of Dune.

That sounds very much like a script for our problem. In Malaysia, people are beginning to wake up to its chains thanks largely to the proliferation of the Internet. Also, the opposition governments are beginning to show themselves as a credible alternative. Now, all that we need is a good leader and there will be no turning back as the powerful minority crumbles from within.

I sometimes wish that people who use my processor would notify me when they publish some useful results. I usually end up randomly stumbling over these results when I google for related information. One such result that I just recently uncovered was a benchmark of the AEMB, which would have proved extremely useful.

I have claimed that the AEMB is the world’s fastest and smallest 32-bit multi-threaded RISC processor. Chapter 2 of this thesis put it in terms of real numbers!

First, the author found that in terms of MHz versus LUT (resource consumption), it provided the best performance of the five RISC processor cores compared. Next, the author did some Dhrystone and Fibonacci software benchmarks and found the performance to be good too.

I’m happy that they managed to measure and show that the AEMB is a good processor.

I hope and I pray that we do not embarass ourselves but our government just does not ever fail to do so. I just read an article in TheStar on how the lawyer representing our MACC traded barbs with Dr Pornthip, a world famous pathologist. I can understand the legal tactic of trying to discredit the witness by questioning her credentials but this is just sad.

According to the article:

Abdul Razak also told Dr Pornthip that Mahidol University, from where she graduated, was not recognised in Malaysia.

“But it’s the top five in Asia,” retorted Dr Pornthip, who also told Abdul Razak not to look down on Asians.

At one juncture, Dr Pornthip asked Abdul Razak if he was really a lawyer.

Seeing such a statement made, I really had to go look up the facts. Turns out that Dr Pornthip was not quite accurate. According to the 2010 THE-QS rankings, Mahidol University is ranked #28 in Asia. So, she was wrong in saying that it is the top five in Asia.

However, what is truly sad about this is that according to the government lawyer, our country doesn’t recognise the university while we recognise universities that are ranked further down the ranking such as Universiti Malaya (#42), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (#58), Universiti Sains Malaysia (#69), Universiti Putra Malaysia (#77) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (#82).

The lawyer should not have brought up the issue of university credibility when our own universities are all ranked way below the one Dr Pornthip graduated from. At one time, our government did not even recognise Peking University (#12) and Tsinghua University (#16), the top universities in China. I think that we do recognise some Chinese universities now.

Before we go about attacking the quality and credentials of foreign universities, maybe we should first examine our own quality and credentials. I think that it is fair for Dr Pornthip to have asked Abdul Razak if he was a real lawyer.

Recently, I assisted our audit team to performed a technical audit on a public listed company in Malaysia. While the details of the audit are confidential, I would like to share my experience since this was the first time that I did such an audit before. Needless to say, it was quite interesting.

On our first visit, we got there early and I was promptly introduced to the director and development team as the newest member in our audit team. I said my greetings to everyone and took a seat in the centre of the meeting table since nobody else took it.

Water was then brought in by the tea lady. She brought in a number of glasses and two jugs of water. Unfortunately, we weren’t served the water and since I was rather thirsty, I got up and served everyone a glass of water. My audit team members remarked that I was really sweet in doing so – I was just doing it because the tea-lady placed it all on the table and left.

Since this was my first time exposed to this project, I asked for a quick briefing on the product that they have developed. Before this, I already knew their main objectives but I was still curious as to how they would go about achieving them. As they explained things to me, I began to probe their system and their understanding of the issues involved.

The development team was fairly nice to me and explained things that I had difficulty understanding to me. For example, I couldn’t understand why they had chosen certain cryptographic ciphers and used them in a certain way, which resulted in reduced security. I let them dig their own grave.

In fact, the rest of my audit team remarked that I was extremely nice to them because I did not go on the attack. There was no need to come out guns blazing when they were doing such a good job of cornering themselves. During the product demo, I asked them to run the thing a certain way – and the thing crashed, which demonstrated a lack of robustness.

So, we were quite disappointed that it didn’t work. As the audit team, we try not to fail anyone and personally, I try my best to pass other people. So, we told them to fix things and to arrange for another session. We’ll give them another chance.

On our second meeting, I got to meet the CEO of the company who decided that it was important enough to grace us with his presence. This time around, the tea-lady brought in the water and placed it on the table without serving too. However, the director got up and served me a cup of water instead.

The treatment this time was totally different. It was “Dr. Shawn” this and that from the development team, “Dr.” this and that from the director and “Doc” this and that from the CEO (it got shorter as we went up the hierarchy). However, as the CEO tried to drag some wool over our eyes with his charisma, I was forced to take out my pistols and shoot down some of his points.

In the end, they tried to do a proper demo but even that did not pass satisfactorily. I spoke to the development team and we were all in agreement that the system did not perform as it was supposed to. In fact, their external consultant and team lead privately told me that they would need another few months to finish the product.

After the poor showing, the CEO was visibly furious and started to bark at his people. Our audit team were quite sympathetic with the development team because we knew that they were all going to kena after we left. It is sad, but they were not able to deliver what they promised to.

On a more personal note, I could appreciate the problem that they were trying to solve. In fact, I even told them that there was clear value in certain parts of their product. However, I do not have the confidence that they would be able to solve it since they failed to demonstrate sufficient technical competency. There was also sufficient inconsistency in their speech versus the actual product that they developed to further weaken my confidence.

Anyway, I have a couple more companies to audit after Raya and I am looking forward to more excitement!

Through my limited experience in life, I have come to the conclusion that there are three types of worker types in the human species – people who treat their work as: contract, career or calling. At the risk of making generalisations, these archetypes are something that I can easily categorise people into. It is also fairly easy to detect which category someone falls under.

• Contract types are people who work for a job. They have chosen to trade their labour in exchange for money or other resource. These are people who find jobs and who see it as just something to get done in order to survive. They will often find happiness outside of the work-place, either with family, friends or some extra-curricular activity. These people are workers.
• Career types are people who are out to build. They are interested in building a reputation and a career for themselves in order to increase their value. These are people who will find jobs that are in-line with their long term plans. They will often justify their sacrifices by attributing it to the pursuit of happiness. These people are planners.
• Calling types are people who do what they love. They are the lucky few who are able to turn their passions into money making careers. They are passionate about their work because they see it as something larger than life. They will not be able to survive outside of their comfort area and would take whatever risks necessary for their love. These people are leaders.

That’s what I think anyway.