Sybreon Ones Nought

Hilariously funny.

“…only because you are hot chicks. Nobody else cares about Facebook privacy…”

http://www.babelgum.com/embed/5006088

Not exactly true, but who am I to argue with hot chicks.

I love good science fiction for one thing – it has such a clear view on complex problems. I have often wondered why is it that people were so difficult to work with – spending more time in conflict than constructive endeavours. The answer came in a book, Eon, by Greg Bear. I shall quote a few paragraphs from the book.

There can be more than one ultimately desirable goal, and many equally valid ways to achieve those goals. Unfortunately, there are limited resources, and not everyone can follow the paths they want.

That’s it!

Often, conflicting sides are actually fighting for the same ultimate goal except that they are fighting to assert the appropriate path to take with the limited resources available. If resources were unlimited, everyone would just happily take their own paths of choice and see whether it led them towards the ultimate goal.

I thought about this tonight because I was visiting my belief that all problems of human society can be solved by technology given enough resources. That reminded me about what was said in the book, which I had just finished reading this afternoon. My belief holds true as long as there are enough resources to solve the problem. The trouble is that there rarely is enough time or money to do so.

So, every good engineer must learn how to juggle the limitations imposed by the problem on the solution.

I attended a talk about perspectives on the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP) this evening at UCSI. Met up with some people I’ve not met in 12 years and it was good to touch base with them again. I also got to meet some new people and I hope that I would get to know more interesting people in the future.

One of the themes that came out of the talk was about attracting talent to Malaysia, particularly Malaysian talent who are now contributing their talents to overseas economies, back home to Malaysia. In line with this objective, our government is setting up another GLC to coordinate the effort in attracting these people back – ostensibly called the Talent Corp.

Sigh.

This will be another white elephant unless institutional changes are made first. I liked what KJ had to say about the entrenched system – of stifling freedoms, red-tape walls, and incompetent superiors. It all jived with my personal experiences. TP added that anyone who came home would leave very quickly once they get tired of these issues. That is exactly how I feel as well.

Many friends have advised me to go overseas. I have my reasons for staying and I will try my best to succeed against all odds.

However, I would like to add that the panelists all seemed to miss out on one thing – retaining existing talent. Instead of just focusing on attracting talent back home, we should not miss out the existing people who are being side-lined in our country today – who are suffocating under pressure of inanity. I can definitely relate to that.

Also, I like Fahmi Reza’s dress style – it’s so Retro!

A friend sent me a link to this song today. Just reminds me of how great Jacky Cheung is. Thought I’d share.

The cake scholarship is a lie!

At least that is what our government seems to say. I am just thoroughly confused with the statements from Datuk Seri Nazri Abd Aziz. One day, he says that our government gave out 2,000 scholarships last year and cut it down to 1,500 this year. Today, he says that our government gave out 2,850 scholarships last year. I am thoroughly confused.

How can 2,850 be equated to 2,000 scholarships? Even my lame engineering mind cannot fathom that.

Simple – by inflating the figures in order to justify his stand that, “If based on merit, only a few Bumiputera succeeded in getting the scholarship, thus, next year, Bumiputera students need to study harder.” Unless of course when he said that 1,500 were given this year actually meant that 2,137 scholarships were given out this year!

So, what this article basically claims is that Bumiputera students are unable to compete based on merit alone and that they needed the ethnic scholarships to back up their numbers. Okay, let me try some magical mathematics to see what happens if we take out the ethnic based scholarships.

If we took out 900 (557+343) ethnic based scholarships, we would be left with 1950 scholarships (now, that’s closer to the 2,000 scholarships quoted earlier) given out based on non-ethnic criteria such as merit and social background. Of this, 1050 (150+841+59) were given to Bumiputera while and the balance were given to non-Bumiputera. This means that 54% of the scholarships were given out to Bumiputeras, even without any ethnic criteria!

This is an excellent number! It proves that things can work fine even without the ethnic based criteria.

I would also like to point out the the needs-based scholarships are further evidence that the poor and marginalised are found in every race. From the statistics given there were 991 (150+841) poor and deserving Bumiputera and 675 poor and deserving non-Bumiputera, which is about 60% and 40% respectively.

This is another excellent number! It proves that poor and deserving people come from all ethnic backgrounds equally. Magic!

It’s real. Our PM says that the government will be reducing overseas scholarships for students at the undergraduate level and focus instead of the post-graduate level.

Okay, while I have already commented about this earlier, I forgot to add that there is also another annual drama – the post-STPM drama – where students cry foul over university admissions, where top students are unable to secure places in the courses of their choice, and where the same issues crop up again but at a higher level.

So, by phasing out overseas scholarships, our government is now putting pressure on the local universities to absorb these students. I don’t think that it is a bad idea but I think that admissions policies have got to change as well. Just like the scholarship issue, there has to be more transparency with admissions. Furthermore, universities will need to accept all pre-university qualifications and not just limit themselves to the STPM and/or matriculation.

I think that our education system is quite frakked in this respect.

This is priceless.