Interesting TV this season

Once upon a time, the TV that we got was completely dependant on what RTM would show us. Great stuff, the days of Combat and Hawaii Five-O. Something to watch over during dinner on a black and white 12" TV screen in the kitchen.

Then came colour and we added on shows such as the A-Team and MacGyver. If you really wanted to watch something, you had to record it, because if you missed it once, you'd miss it. I remember keeping an almost complete collection of Automan.

After that came the era of satellite TV. Now shows were on four or five times a week. It was when you got Friends twice a day, five days a week and Buffy ruled the airwaves. It didn't matter so much that you missed the odd show because you could always catch a repeat. You didn't have to set the video recorder on anymore. And I watched less terresterial TV than ever before.

Now TV watching is reaching another watershed. Three things have led to this: the increase in quality of TV shows, a faster Internet and the proliferation of DVD. I'm watching less and less broadcast TV and more stuff on the computer and other pre-recorded media. And we're talking TV series here, not movies.

As a result there is no better time than now to watch TV. The bulk of what I am going to discuss here is television from America because that's what's most easily available.

• The West Wing (Season 5): This has to be one of the best written shows in the world - until the end of season 4, that is. Aaron Sorkin, who had written all but two episodes up to that point, left the show, along with longtime director Thomas Schlamme. The bad thing about this is that the West Wing isn't what it used to be. The good thing is that watching it now makes you appreciate all the more how good the first four seasons were. Go out and buy DVDs from everything up to that point.
  
• The Shield (Season 1 - AXN, Tuesdays 10pm): Something happened to TV in the last decade. Shows like NYPD Blue that laid the foundation for stories that painted their lead characters off-white, but never has there been a stronger anti-hero than Vic Mackey, the cop who uses the system to his benefit and his alone. It's undeniable that The Shield thrives on the never-ending stories of corruption in the modern-day US police force but it does it with such style and with complete dedication to character-building that you can't help but root for the flawed.
  
• BUffy the Vampire Slayer (Season 7): Sarah Michelle Gellar decided to hang up her stake as the second coolest young adult on TV that also happened to kill the undead and an era came to an end. In the same way that the A-Team and the X-Files defined the 80's and 90's, Buffy and her friends should claim top honours for most influential pop TV of the first decade of the 21st Century. Joss Whedon, weaned on a life of sitcoms and English public schools, produced a scary show that didn't take itself too seriously and brought across important messages about life and death. Somewhere along the way it produced some of the funniest, best-written, best-produced television in recent memory. It's unfortunate that the final season didn't really match up to the best that it had to offer (seasons 2 and 3 in particular) but what it had was still better than most.
  
• Joan of Arcadia (Season 1): The pitch for this show was probably Touched By My So-Called Life. What do you get when an otherwise normal girl starts seeing God and begins talking to him? Well, it's not as bad as it sounds. In fact, it's pretty damn good and probably the most original TV this year. It's that God is unexpectedly hip and humourous that sells the show.
  
• Monk (Season 1, STAR TV, Tuesdays, 9pm): Tony Shalhoub is absolutely brilliant as the obsessive-compulsive detective Monk. It's his eccentricities and the way he sells it that makes this compulsive. And it actually gets better as the season carries on.
  
• Tru Calling (Season 1): OK, I have to be honest up front. If you're not a Eliza Dushku fan (aka the coolest young adult on TV that also happened to kill the undead), there is absolutely no point in watching this show. Don't watch it for the plot, or the dialogue, or anything else. Watch it for Eliza, or else don't watch it at all.
  
• Firefly (Season 1... or should it be "half"): It just goes to show that some people don't know when they have a good thing on their hands. Firefly comes from the pen of the inimitable Joss Whedon. Set upon the space trader Serenity, it follows the adventures of its crew and passengers. Filled with the trademark Whedonesque humour and character-building story arcs, it suffered the ignoble fate of being cancelled by the network even though its fans and critics alike thought the show was more than half good and deserved better. It's now available on DVD but the hope is that a feature film is in the works somewhere.
  

Kakiseni review: Where's the Jazz?

Indeed. Can't agree more.

Farming IC Numbers and the Data Protection Act (or lack thereof)

There has recently been a lot of brouhaha relating to the Government's proposed National Service programme. Although newspapers have in general been supportive of it, Malaysian bloggers have been less so. In fact, I have yet to find a single one who thinks it's a good idea. Now to add more fuel to the fire, they have flagrantly not taken care of peoples' privacy rights.

The murmurs of discontent have been raised yet again and most of the criticism now is squarely targetted against the Government's apparent inability to disseminate this information. I go one step further to say that what they have published is inappropriate.

Instead of me telling you the whole sordid story, let me point you to the running commentary on Alphaque:

Anxious kids wanting to know if they've been selected for brainwashing National Service could use a few ways to find out. They could call a special hotline, send an SMS or do what any other kid of the Internet generation would, use the Khidmat Negara website. However, those who believe in the national ICT aspirations and the Multimedia Super Corridor were deeply disappointed because the website was truly unreachable during the whole period. It keeled over and just died like the dodo.

Alphaque

In order to counter this, somebody mirrored this information on a Ministry of Defence server. Except it wasn't really a mirror. The original website invited people to enter their Identity Card number into a form and a result was returned on that single query only. The new website listed all names by state and initial letter. Well, actually, they also included the IC number next to the names (for example, see http://www.mod.gov.my/senarai_pesertakn/wpkualalumpur/c_klumpur.htm).

I think that this is a Bad Idea. In theory, IC numbers should be private and should not be published willy nilly. What the government has given here is 85,000 IC numbers with names attached to them to anyone who cares to download them. You could argue, "what harm is there in publishing this information?", and I would counter, "what business is it of anyone but myself to give my information away freely?".

This actually all points to a bigger problem - that the Data Protection Act is still not in place. We have been working on this for at least three years now. The last news I had was that the State governments are giving comments on a draft. This was a year ago. The Communications and Multimedia website is not much help regarding the status of this law has some comment about when it will be ready, buried a forum.

Truth is, data protection rights are of little importance to the establishment and without direct orders to the contrary it's unlikely that states (or even federal bodies for that matter) will willingly impose restrictions on themselves on how they can use (and perhaps abuse) personal data. Thus, I envisage that the laws will be broad enough to protect the rights of the establishment to still do whatever they want to with our personal information.

No Gay Elves

In conjunction with The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, we are proud to present our Just Say No to Gay Elves campaign. We call out to all those out there that have had to put up and persist with the drooling over that long silky-haired, soft-voiced, laconicly-soft-voiced, eye-candy-camera-hogging, oh-my-god-how-gay-can-you-get elf that has more than his fair share of screen time in the trilogy.


To this end we now say, "No Gay Elves Here!". We encourage all to paricipate by doing the following:

• Explain to any prospective date (female or otherwise) that it's not all right to develop a crush on a mythological creature with dubious sexual tendencies. If they do not understand, just tell them that Legolas is an anology for evil and was inspired by Adolf Hitler/Genghis Khan/Bill Gates (pick evil character of your choice) - hey, it's a lie, but you got to get them in the right mindset.
  
• Point to them the denials Orlando Bloom has made of being gay, and say that the fellow doth protest too much.
  
• Tell them of the story you heard on the Internet of Orlando Bloom chasing sheep in the highlands of New Zealand. (Another lie, but we're fighting against a greater evil here.)
  
• Be prepared to lean over and cover the eyes of your date during Legolased moments of "Return of the King".
  
• Keep a set of tissues handy to gently wipe off any drool.
  
• Don't be shy to grunt loudly in an orc-like manner anytime Legolas attempts to speak in that soft-fey voice of his.
  

The Phillips Jazz Festival

You know, I'd hate to say "I told you so", but what the heck - I told you so. The Phillips Jazz Festival had invited not one, not two, not three, but four mainstream acts who were more pizzazz than jazz, and the results were disappointing. Instead of taking the opportunity to experiment, the quartet of Camelia, Ning Baizura, Sheila Majid and Anggun mostly stayed within their familiar musical boundaries. Was it enjoyable? Yes. Was it Jazz? Probably not.

This compounded with the fact that I arrived late after deciding to catch some much needed sleep (you wouldn't believe how busy things got in the preceding 24 hours) meant that I missed out on most of the jazz available.

Anyway, highlights of the concert? Krakatoa are pretty cool, Silk have a bunch of manic musicians and of course, Sheila Majid who did a delicious version of Fly Me To The Moon (but honestly, if all she did was walk onto stage and said "Hi" that would have been fine too). All four of the pop girls looking very nice and pretty (/me waves out to Camelia and Sheila).

Low points? Each of Camelia, Ning and Sheila trying only one jazz standard each, and even that in a slightly more poppy vein. Sheila only having 20 minutes to perform in. A crowd touted at 10,000 but in all honesty couldn't have been more than 2,000. Anggun starting off and continuing with what can only be described as hard electronic rock.

I left early to catch Man Utd's 4-0 mauling of Aston Villa but even that was preferable to Anggun's dismal ending to the festival. Maybe next year, eh?

Carnaval Churrascaria

I have this gastranomic fantasy. You know these buffets you get? I dream of a buffet where all the funny stuff that I don't really eat isn't served (Minestrone Soup, get out of here; Radish Salad, you too). Instead, replace them all with prime cuts of meat. Lots and lots of meat. Better still, make people bring it to the table so all you have to do is to concentrate stuffing your face.

Well, I'm not the only one who thinks this way. The churrascaria originated from Brazil, in particular the pampas of Rio Grande do Sul. There, the lush grass feeds herds of cattle and sheep and the eating is good and plentiful. And as the farms are home to some of the finest livestock in the world, the dinner tables groan with the weight of, well, you guessed it, meat. The basic idea of a churrascaria is that people come to your table and keep carving up the meat until you can take no more.

Sounds good to me, bring it on.

Although the city lights of KL are a long way away from South America, there are not one but two churrascaria here in the Klang Valley. One near my home in Damansara Jaya is Carnaval Churrascaria.(If you're curious, the other is Bom Brazil Churrascaria in Bukit Bintang.)

The place is an unassuming corner lot which doesn't look entirely appealing from the outside. It wouldn't have even attracted me if I didn't know about it. I reckon what they need is an extremely large banner that says ALL THE MEAT YOU CAN EAT. That'll do it for me.

It's not all meat, of course. Technically, if you're a vegetarian, you can gorge out on the salad bar, although it'd be a pretty expensive salad bar at RM45 per head. Lots of lettuce in that.

But the salad is at best, window dressing - at worst, it distracts you from the main event. Spit after spit after spit of meat brought to your table. They actually carve it onto your plate. Meat, juices, blood and all.

The restaurant advertises "Minimum 10 Different Cuts of Meat, Fish and Chicken" and although it may seem churlish, some of these "cuts" include chicken gizzards and hearts. Never mind, there's still plenty to choose from.

Like burnt steak, which tastes as if it has salt rubbed into the outside and grilled on a high heat until it burns. And lamb, succulent and juicy. And chicken which is just well done. And these beef medallions that ooze blood when sliced right onto your plate. And did I mention that it's all you can eat?

There's also dessert - that night we had grilled caramalised pineapple, which is a lot nicer than it sounds.

The only downside is that you have to be brave enough to attract the attention of the waiters, otherwise you risk not having food brought to you. The system used in other churrascarias is that there is a little signboard that's green on one side and red on the other (and, yes, the colours mean "go" and "stop") - it would have been good if a system like that was used here.

All in all, it's acutally an extremely enjoyable experience, and even the price is reasonable - RM45 hardly buys you a good steak these days.

Carnaval Churrascaria
77 Jalan SS 22/19
Damansara Jaya
For reservations call: 019-2111133/012-3383832

Bom Brazil Churrascaria is at 35, Changkat Bukit Bintang 50200.

Human Rights Conference
Did you know that SUHAKAM (Suruhanjaya Hak Asasi Malaysia or the Malaysian Commission for Human Rights) is overseen by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Highly appropriate? Well, the official line is that doing so makes it easier to provide high visibility to foreign parties. I shan't comment too much on how this all fits in with the role of SUHAKAM except that part of it's responsibilities is to highlight and educate Malaysians on their rights.

As part of this outreach, they are currently holding a conference on human rights and the administration of the law. I've joined the motley crew of Government officers and NGOs in this two day workshop.

Mention "human rights" in Malaysia, and you get the comment "we have those things here?". Well, it seems we do. And contrary to popular belief, human rights isn't just the concern of the Government but of all Malaysians. With greater priviliege comes responsibility.

Here are some questions I would like to see answered:

• Does the incorporation of human rights imply a reduction in the Government's efficiency to govern?
  
• Is human rights something that must be present in word and deed but is separated? I.e. that the law and implementation are separate issues?
  
• Is human rights always a result of implementing check and balance or can it exist as an independant virtue?
  

---
The Deputy Prime Minister was meant to give the keynote speech but affairs of the state meant that he had to miss this appointment. The second time, it seems, that the Malaysian head of government was invited by SUHAKAM but was not able to attend.

The speech itself was interesting. Points made were:

• The Government, including law enforcement agencies, supports the law and the Constitution.
  
• Inefficiencies and abuse in any level of the Government are not condoned. The credibility of the Government must be maintained.
  
• Members of the forces are in the frontline defending national safety and they have to work under harsh circumstances.
  
• There exist procedural pitfalls and technicalities.
  
• Any shortcomings must be quickly investigated, action taken and the relevant processes changed as necessary. This includes any constraints that the forces are working under and efficiency must be maintained.
  
  

---
A very interesting talk just now which brought up some food for thought. I am suddenly intrigued with the concept of citizen duty that comes with rights.

It's quite a simple idea on the surface that rights and freedom cannot come without responsibility and duty. The more rights that you are given, the more opportunity you have to abuse them.

Hence there is this concept that a citizen has a duty to be a good citizen. Anybody who doesn't meet hs duty runs the risk of forfeiting his rights. For example, all citizens have a right to live, but there are circumstances under which the state can impose the death penalty.

However, for me, here is the crux: Who determines whether a citizen has been negligent in his duties?

In one sense, the answer is simply "the courts". You may have freedom of speech, but if you have said something libellous, you may be restrained by the courts from repeating this.

This is why we have laws. Laws help the courts implement justice. Law enforcement authorities use the law to help determine if somebody needs to be arrested and brought before the courts. And the laws are made public so that no citizen can claim that they didn't what they did was against the law.

Now, what happens if the Government enacts laws that restrict freedoms, based on the idea that citizens have not been doing or cannot be trusted to do their duty?

I maintain that in the end, it is the Government that determines whether or not citizens have been negligent in their duty. Citizens must put their trust in their government that the people they have elected into office will not abuse this priveliege.

A Thousand Eyes

OK, so Steve Ballmer last month said what he had to say as Microsoft CEO:

"Should there be a reason to believe that code that comes from a variety of people around the world would be higher-quality than from people who do it professionally? Why is its pedigree better than code done in a controlled fashion? I don't get that... The vulnerabilities are there. The fact that someone in China in the middle of the night patched it--there is nothing that says integrity will come out of that process. We have a process that will lead to sustainable level of quality."

And then news has recently broken out that somebody tried to slip in a back-door to Linux.

"If it had gotten out, it could have been really bad, because any Linux kernel that had this in it, anybody who had access to that machine could become root."
- Larry McVoy

Does what happened vindicate Ballmer's statements? Or does it actually break it?

I think that what happened actually lends weight to the Open Source community's idea that a thousand eyes worth of dedicated and skilled programmers may be better than a small group of paid workers.

Admittedly the problem was caught by an electronic eye. A program detected a difference between a version of Linux under development and a version repackaged for use by particular users - they should have been the same, but two lines had been added. A discussion sprang up on the linux-kernel mailing list and it became clear that this was no accidental inclusion, and that somebody had tried to deliberately add a back-door to the kernel.

Hence if somebody hadn't been paranoid enough to assume that somebody may have wanted to compromise the code, this problem wouldn't have been caught.

But let's assume that this had slipped undetected. There would have been a Linux kernel that was open to all that knew the secret. And maybe that Evil Person would have been able to cause serious damage with this exploit. However, the key point is this: as soon as more than a few people knew about this, the problem would have been looked through and fixed, and with something of this magnitude you would have had, well, a thousand eyes looking at it. Turn-around time would have been short.

Now, let's look at the closed-source model. If somebody wants to put an extremely subtle backdoor in the program and it had slipped through, with fewer resources at their disposal, MS would have taken longer to discover and fix the problem.

Let's go one step further. Let's say you suspect that there is a back-door entry in a program. You can actually check the code in an open-source model, but not in a closed-source. I wouldn't know until the program manufacturer themselves came forward with it. And even if they did, you wouldn't be able to fix it yourself.

Admittedly, not everyone's a good enough hacker to fix their own operating system, but it only takes a few to benefit the many.

However, despite all this, I believe that the Microsoft PR machinery will try to turn this to their own advantage. They will point to the fact that anyone can write code for Linux as a disadvantage - who knows what they will put in? An Easter Egg for their girlfriend? Or something more malicious? They'll saw that Open Source is inherently unsafe since any old Joe Programmer could make Evil Changes to the code.

They'll conveniently ignore the fact that the code change happened through a subversion of the normal process and that such a problem could also happen to them. They'll also not admit that if such a thing did happen to them, not a peep would make its way out to the press, so who's to know how many such problems MS have had in the past with this?

But then, money buys PR and the ability to obfuscate the truth.

Searching the Microsoft Way

If you were a company with a variety of interests, and you controlled a search engine, wouldn't you be tempted to tweak the results so that things went your way? Well, some people noticed that searching for Linux on MSN and Google gave vastly different results, and some people dug a little more.

The upshot is this: MSN seems to present the user a lot of paid-for-results without making it clear which is which. Google actually had been criticised for this in the past, resulting in the layout now where the paid-for results lie on the right-hand side in small boxes, and the search-engine results take up the main proportion on the left.

The paradox is that while the Internet has made it easy for an individual to have their say, it's also made it easier for large organizations with sway to dominate the landscape with their messages. Just imagine if the integrity of Google as a search engine was compromised and all you saw was one side of the story for an issue like abortion and (most critically) this was done without the user realising it.

I guess the solution for this is the same as with other mass-media outlets: variety. Do try to see as much as you can out there in the Internet. Try not to stick to the same sources, and dip from time to time from competing sites, even if you disagree with them. It's not the technology which stifles, but how we use it.

Osama's Guide to Terrorism

I mean, how cool is The Smoking Gun? Just browse through the website, and one of the things you'll come across are scanned pages of "Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants". This document was seized in a raid and, according to the website, "was placed into evidence last year by prosecutors during the federal trial of four men accused of involvement in the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania" - hence it's now public domain. It's 180 pages long, so I haven't really gotten through it, but I suppose this should represent an invaluable document for today's concerns. What is it that so many people are scared of? What does this hidden enemy think of? What is it they can do? It's all in here.

Security Risks of Monoculture

A take on why it may be bad for all to use the same thing. It's a little like why some suggest bananas are at risk of extinction - there's little variation between them, and they are all succeptable to a single parasite.

I can certainly testify to this. For years - ever since 1997 or so - I've been using Netscape Mail to read and write my emails (current version is Netscape 4.75). I've consistently resisted using Microsoft Outlook, for two reasons: (a) I don't like the look and feel of Outlook (certainly not the ones I tried in 1998 and 2000); and (b) I consider MS Outlook a security risk.

Well, my fears for the latter have certainly been borne out. There have been virus after virus targetted at MS Outlook flaws, especially the one that causes programs to run when you view an email.

However, as far as I know, I've not been infected by a single e-mail borne virus while using Netscape Mail. None of the Microsoft Outlook flaws affect me. I've received many potentially infectious emails (I still receive a few every month) but I do not get infected by them.

I also do not read suspicious looking emails whilst online nor do I open dodgy attachments.

Of course, I am not suggesting that Netscape Mail 4.75 is inherently more secure than Outlook. In fact, I'm quite positive that there may be some sort of vulnerability in there (there's one from 1998 that should have been fixed by ver 4.7), but because so very few people use Netscape Mail, it isn't a popular target for virus writers. I may change my mind once the hordes of people out there read this article and decide to switch to Netscape Mail... ;)

Anyway, if you are looking for Netscape 4.75, I'm not sure you can so easily find the binaries for that anymore, and it has now been superseeded by Mozilla Thunderbird.

Is Wi-Fi Bad for Your Health?

Some parents are suing their children's school because they use Wi-Fi and they don't want their kids to be inundated by evil Wi-Fi rays. Really. Honest.

The Rundown

This review is also posted on epinions.com. Visit it, log in, rate it, make me money.

"Do ya smell what da Rock is cooking?". I looove the over-the-top antics of The Rock (I feel compelled to put a (tm) after the name, just in case you start confusing it with like, a movie starring Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage or maybe a stone at the bottom of your garden, or something). Everytime he says that line, for some reason, I think "Stone Grill Cooking", but that's probably just the anti-WWE fan in me talking.

Anyway, I thought he was more than passable in The Scorpion King (it was fun, over-the-top, exciting) and liked enough of the trailer (it looked fun, over-the-top, exciting) to The Rundown to give it a shot.

The Rock (real name: Dwayne Douglas Johnson) stars as Beck, a "retrieval expert" who, as the opening sequence shows, excels at taking things from people who don't want to give them up in the first place. Despite the violent nature of his job, he's actually a swell guy, who abhors violence as a resort (especially the use of guns) and all he wants to do is to set up a nice little restaurant, maybe ten, twelve tables, and presumably make something that smells good in the kitchen. The only thing that stops him is that he is deep in debt and thus takes less palatable work to work himself out of it. Hey, not my script, you know.

He finally gets given his chance when his boss asks him to fly down to Brazil to retrieve his son, Travis (Seann Willam Scott). If he does this, all debts are wiped out and he can fulfill his culinary dreams.

He flies into the jungle, but as you may expect, the job is not as simple as it seems. The whole area is under the control of Hatcher (Christopher Walken) who runs a massive mining operation in the jungle and considers the local populace to be convenient labour. Hatcher knows about Travis and has let him look on his land for the legendary El Gato Diablo, an incredibly valuable piece of treasure made of gold and goodness-knows. (Incidentally, El Gato Diablo is also slang for crystal methamphetamine, but I don't think that that's relevant to this film.)

Beck also makes the acquaintance of Mariana (played by Rosario Dawson - remember her in Josie and the Pussycats? Nah, neither did I) and Declan the pilot who flies Beck into this god-forsaken place. Declan is played by Ewen Bremner, who I do remember from Trainspotting and who in this film mangles the English language by being a Scotsman who plays an Irishman. Why did he have to be Irish? Because Scots are not happy-go-lucky? A Scotsman would certainly patch up his plane with duct tape.

So, got all that? Beck is the hero, Hatcher is the bad guy, Travis is the buddy rogue with the heart of gold (albeit a clumsy and nerdish rogue), Mariana is the feminine distraction and Declan is the plucky sidekick.

The plot, from now on, can be guessed by anyone who has been raised on Hollywood films: Beck flies in, finds Travis, tries to leave with him, gets stopped by Hatcher and a reluctant Travis, bumps into Mariana who then helps him and Travis find the El Gato Diablo and then altogether they stop Hatcher and his evil mining company ways.

But it's all so fun watching them do this. Really. The fight scenes are great, Christopher predictably hams it up and the banter between Beck and Travis is side-splitting at times. And that's about all you need for a good action film.

It's really good to see that people can still put a lot of thought and care into a film like this. All too often, you might think, "Ah, B-Grade action movie" and leave it at that, but there's still a lot to be done, and this movie does it well. Of course, you could argue that The Rock basically lives an action-movie life both off-set and on, but the guy can act as well. And Christopher Walken: priceless. Give that man a life-time Oscar already.

At the end of the day, when you buy a ticket for a movie like The Rundown, what you expect is action and fun, and this is exactly what you get.

Malaysia breaks the top 100 in the FIFA world rankings

According to the latest FIFA world rankings released earlier this month, Malaysia is now in 99th position. This is better than the 117th position we held last month and much better than the 127th position held a year ago. The last time we were at our current position was in August 1998. (Incidentally, the highest Malaysia has been is 75 waaay back in August 1993 when the rankings were first established. We started sliding then and have never looked back since.)

Yet, we are still some way from being comfortable. We share table positions with Vietnam and Malawi and are still behind such powerhouses as Haiti, Libya and Togo.

No matter, for the first time in nine months, we are ahead of Singapore in the rankings who are currently at 102nd position.

Malaysia Boleh!

From the "Surely this can only be a coincidence" files: The Mid-Valley Megamall branch of Sushi King has just moved from the basement to the third floor. Right next to Pets Wonderland.

How spammers are targeting blogs

It felt like the digital equivalent of flyposting - coming home one day to find your windows covered with posters for dodgy clubs and bands you have never head of.

On the one hand, I completely symphatise and actually would hate to see this website over-run by irrelevant comments. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to immediately restrict who could post comments. Tough one.

Tungsten T3 Review

I've just put up a review of the T3 on epinions.com. Basically, I like it, even if it does suffer a little from featur-itis.

Orang Asli

Well, on the whole it was pretty cool. My mum's shop in Penang (eponymously known as The Bookshop) was hosting a talk on the Orang Asli presented by monsieur H. Berbar. He's a photojournalist and has spent five years on this project, including six months in the jungle, culminating in a coffee table book. Nice to hold, pretty to see, but the version printed for Malaysia has no naked people in it. He actually had to ask the orang asli to put on clothes. They were very confused about it. "It's for the KL people - they can't see nudity."

The Orang Asli are the indigenous people of the land. They exclusively live in Peninsula Malaysia and should not be confused with the Orang Asal who are those from Borneo, Sabah and Sarawak - e.g. Iban and Dayak.

Some Orang Asli have been integrated into modern society, but a number still live in the jungle. Most are nomadic and finding them is a little bit of a hit and miss affair. Berbar had to travel upriver for half a day and then trek through the jungle for a few days more to find some of them. Others are more straight-forward, such as the Meh-Mehri of Kerry Island.

Orang Asli pretty much live off the land, and they view the jungle with respect. Ceremonies are held before anyone leaves the village to go out into the jungle, and there is an idea that spirits of the dead roam out there.

They also believe that spirits are captured by cameras in photographs. Strangely, they believe that the spirit is in the first photograph you take, but not the others. Berbar took polaroids and returned the first one he took back to the subject. That way, they didn't feel as if their spirits were being taken away.

Be careful of whose hand you shake, it seems. Taking the hand of a woman is tantamount to taking her to be your wife. Berbar said he shook seven women's hands before discovering this.

Anyway, anything you do in the tribe needs the OK of the chief. You want to marry someone, see the chief. You want to divorce them, see the chief. Go into the jungle, "Yo, chief!". If you want someone to take medicine, you show it first to the chief and then he takes a bit, then everybody else takes a bit, and then you administer the medicine.

Food is what you find. Meat includes snakes, rats and monkeys. Berbar liked snake, I personally would find it an acquired taste. They hunt with blowpipes tipped with poison. One scratch, and you'd be dead within a few minutes. A single dart will take down an elephant.

The innate sense of direction of the orang asli is supreme. If you take one out of his village and leave him somewhere hours away, he will find his way back.

Anyway, the whole afternoon was filled with snippets like this, and I'll be posting a notice up when his book is available. His next project is on Penang island and the Bookshop is meant to have a small cameo role in it.

The E&O Hotel

The E&O hotel is one of the most famous and exclusive places to stay in Penang. It's actually been around for a while, got closed down, and then recently reopened under new management. It's selling points are fine accommodation and luxury service in a colonial-style ambience.

I stayed in the E&O for one night, simply because I could and wanted to see first-hand what it had to offer.

Well, on the surface, what it has to offer was fine furniture, wonderful ambience and large rooms. I think that they're all suites in the E&O, with bathrooms as large as the bedsit I used to have in university (two sinks, if you're counting). The furnishings are splendid - almost makes you want to smuggle out a chair or a writing in your suitcase.

Each guest can also call upon the in-house butler service. I didn't, but (for example) you can instruct them to polish your shoes or iron your shirt.

I have to say that service overall was excellent, with none of that pandering hand-over-your-heart which you see in official hotels (come on, nobody in Malaysia does that to greet one another - it's artificial, it's manufactured, it's a pretense of a non-existant Bangsa Malaysia element).

However, there is a quibble, and it's in the fine detail. Not in the rooms, I must add. The only thing incongruous there is the modern-day 24" TV set with 15 satellite channels. They even have cloth laundry bags, one of which made its way into my luggage.

However, their coffee shop serves its butter in the little plastic containers and its sugar in little paper sachets. And if you're going to charge RM500 a room, I think you can afford to do a little better than that.

I mentioned to Jeep that I thought that including Sheila Majid, Ning Baizura, Camelia and Anggun in the lineup for the next Philips Jazz Festival smacked less of trying to raise the standard and awareness of jazz in the country and more of selling tickets to a wider audience. He agreed with me.

But, I still remain optimistic and look forward to see what they will offer.

The Wedding of Kenzo and Hooi Lin

Okay, I don't normally make a point of mentioning names in this website, but it was their wedding, and it was a grand affair, and since I'm going to say mostly positive things about it, there's no problem mentioning their names. I have never attended a wedding like ths before.

Firstly, a little background: I know Hooi Lin through her involvement with the Bookshop, so we're not complete strangers, but I don't know her so very, very well either. Anyway, I mention this for a reason, and I'll expound a little later.

This wedding has always been planned to be a grand affair. I understand it's been in the works for over a year. The invitation was delivered by hand, and each card inside was hand-tied with a bow. The stamp used was from a limited edition set of roses bought in bulk months before the invitation was handed out. The whole thing spoke of "hey, this is a big deal for me, and it'll be a big thing for you too if you come".

Next, the venue: the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion in Georgetown, Penang, the famous blue house now restored as a hotel. It's famous for its ambience, its beauty and for being a very good example of heritage conservation. They took the whole house up for the weekend.

When you approach the house you can't help but notice that something special is happening that night. The lighting and overall decor on the outside was engaging. Then you step through the front door and - wow - they had an arch of roses in the roofless courtyard with pink fabric all around.

There was the obligatory baby pictures slide show (which to me is as good a reason as any to not have a public wedding). After that there was a very stylish movie that brought together the couple's official wedding pictures which ran while the bride and groom came out under a shower of pink feathers and petals and re-enacted their vows under the rose arch.

Did I mention that Hooi Lin has a penchant for pink?

Then, what is the highlight for most Chinese weddings - the dinner. The courses were served Chinese-style (each dish in turn, one by one), but the dishes were a mix of chinese and malay (for example: satay, jellyfish, ayam percik, kailan with mushroom, sago gula melaka and crispy pancake). I must say the food was uniformly good.

Now, I have to explain something. Hooi Lin knew that I am a big (BIG) Sheila Majid fan, and she tried to seat me at the same table as her, but due to a mix-up with table seatings (nobody's fault, really), that didn't happen. That was unfortunate for me, but the point is that she was thoughtful enough to put me as an 11th person on a table for ten just because she knew that it would mean a lot to me. On a night where she had every right to think of herself and her husband, she took the trouble, despite me not being a very close friend of the family's. That's the kind of person she is.

No matter, the company at the table was good. It included the bridesmaids/maidens (I made the fatal mistake to ask what the difference was), three of Hooi Lin's friends that she made years ago in Japan as part of a student exchange (or something) and Jeep (Jip?), a musical lecturer at USM and all-round good-bloke jazz pianist. Actually, if you get the chance to listen to him, do so, I think he's quite good.

After dinner, there were the obligatory speeches followed by a triplet of songs by Sheila Majid herself, accompanied by her husband Acis on the keyboards (Lagenda, Aku Cinta Padamu and ... an English jazz song whose title I don't know). I thought it was quite... improper to ask her for an encore, seeing that it was somebody else's wedding and all the attention should have been on the bride and groom and not the live entertainment.

Then, more singing, and discoing. Into the wee hours, I understand. Some of the guests were staying there at the hotel itself and I guess they must have been partying all night long since there's no way anybody could have slept through that.

Me? I had chaffeuring duties the next morning, so I spared people the sight of a tubby guy in batik grooving away on the dance floor. Maybe next time.

A really unique experience - as one guest mentioned, "this isn't a wedding, it's a fully-fledged production!". The only major discord was that some people became fairly loud after downing the jars a little too eagerly and - my opinion - if you can't handle yourself after a few drinks, then don't drink.

Johan Ismail

I have just received a telephone call from a friend of mine telling me that Johan Ismail, author of joe-bloggs.com has just passed away last night of a heart attack. Jeff Ooi has a posting on his website about this.

I first got to know Johan when I was with the MDC working on the Smart School and the Cross-Flagship Integration projects. He had been doing a lot of work on Learning Management Systems (culminating in !nk) and I had spent time discussing with him on how something like that would be implemented.

The one thing I remember about him was how dedicated he would be to what he believed in. I had intended to meet up with him again soon after he pointed me to his website. As his website is currently "off-air" I will temporarily disable the link to it in the left-hand column until it gets back up again.

Firdamatic

How cool is this? A form-generated table-less template generator for webpages (especially blogs).

The Page Design Genie

It seems that Xerox are designing a program that will automatically layout your documents for you using "sound design principles" so that it looks good.

Of course, those of us who've used LaTeX as a word-processor know how good that is already at layout. It will even hyphenate words correctly. OK, so it may not be so good with different sized fonts and lots and lots of pictures, but it's been around for ages, and does a really good job as it is.

Anyway, I think it's better at it than MS Office.

Should Microsoft be held liable for bugs in its products?

Just read the Windows and .Net editorial on this topic. It's a good read, and contains some relevant issues.

As tempting as it is for me say, "Go ahead, sue Microsoft for all the money they've got", I personally don't think it's fair to expect a product as complex as MS Windows to be bug-free, but I think it's reasonable to expect them to sell products that work as they advertise it to.

The question is, have Microsoft ever advertised that they will ensure that their system is secure no matter what? No, I don't think so. But I as a consumer would want them to fix bugs as quickly and efficiently as possible. Yet, it's very unlikely that me as an individual would be able to do this. That's why, in a free market, competition is a Good Thing. We can't expect Microsoft to change as long as they don't really care either way, and they don't care because people cannot move over easily to a non-Microsoft product.

Do I sound as if I'm rehashing a Open Source argument? It's not my intention. I have a fantasy, and in this fantasy what we have not alternative Operating Systems, but, if you like, an alternate Windows. Windows from anyone who's Not Microsoft. Some way we can keep the OS without buying it from Microsoft. Okay, so how we do this may not be so easy. It would be nice if someone took the time to build WindowsTwo. Cleanly separating the apps from the OS (as with Java) would be another way. Or we could have WINE that really works.

Anyway, all this is kind of going off the subject. What I'm trying to say is that the problem isn't so much whether MS should be held liable, but that we shouldn't be in a position where going to court against Microsoft is the only way out of it. Yes, I think they should be held liable if they don't keep to their marketing hype, but we should be able to turn around and say "no thank you" if we don't like what they have to offer.

Jedmulbd Txet

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

I'm sure lots of you have seen this. But, as with most people, I couldn't just leave it alone at that. Is it really true and there's research done into it? Are there exceptions? Or is it justs someone's lame joke on the world and spam filters?

I'm always intrigued by things like this that drop unexpectedly into my mail. The first thing that I wonder, "Is it true?". It annoys me that people don't worry about just hitting the "forward" button without first checking the facts. And it's not that difficult to do so.

So is it true? Well, the answer isn't quite as clear as you might think. First stop, the great snopes.com, and they confirmed what I suspected - that it may not have recently come from research from an English University after all. Well, it's not to say that there isn't, but nobody's stood up and raised their hand and said, "it's me!".

In fact, dig a little deeper and you eventually come to a letter sent to New Scientist that shows research in this area has been around since the mid-seventies (link thanks to Matt Davis from the Congnition and Brain Sciences Unit of the University of Cambridge who has a long discussion on this matter).

Even better, Mr. Davis has counter-examples which show what the statement above claims (that it "doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right place") is not always true:

A dootcr has aimttded the magltheuansr of a tageene ceacnr pintaet who deid aetfr a hatospil durg blendur

Do I have too much time on my hands? Probably.

The Rugby World Cup

Ahh... it's only Saturday night, and I have already watched 500+ minutes of rugby this weekend. Yes, you've got it, it's the Rugby World Cup. For me, it ranks below the real World Cup (tm) and the Euro championships for quad-annual sporting events, but I still spend a fair amount of time watching it.

The only problem is that the gulf between good and mediocre teams in rugby is large. None of the last five games have produced surprises. Argentina did the best against Australia, holding the hosts to a 24-8 win. The Pumas played really well, I thought and the aussies need to do much, much better if they want to win the tournament. More back line practice, perhaps?

Next was New Zealand's game against Italy. Now, the Italians have been playing in the Six Nations for a few years now, so the standard of their rugby should be much better, but they still got whipped 70-7. The All Blacks made it look like a practice match, only poor handling in the last third of the field standing between them and a hundred points (as well as RM20 for me). Absolutely phenomenal.

Ireland then stepped out to play Romania. It seems that Ireland are the third best team in the world. I really can't believe they're better than the Aussies, but with Keith Wood and O'Driscoll playing, they can beat any team, I reckon. Anyway, they won 45-17. As a former hooker myself, I was very, very happy when Woodie made a fullback-like angled run to score a try. (A poor combination of "I", "hooker" and "woodie" there, but I'm sure we're all mature enough not to giggle at this. Oh well, ok, giggle a little.)

I thought France against Fiji could be a really close match. Fiji always do well in seven's rugby, so all they had to do was to treat it like a seven's game played by fifteen people. They tried, but their inability to ruck and maul well cost them and they eventually lost 61-18. Some people think rugby's just "pick up the ball and run", but there's an awful lot of skill involved when trying to hold off the combined effort of eight people through your shoulder and neck in the scrum. There was an absolutely amazing try by Rupeni Caucau when he single-handedly ran two-thirds of the pitch to score.

Finally, South Africa met Uruguay. The only way that South Africa could lose this game would be if the bad luck they've been having over the last few months spilled over into tonight in a big way, but fortunately it didn't, and they won convincingly 72-6. Despite the scoreline, I didn't think they played all that convincingly, and I wish them the best of luck against England - they'll need it. Breaking a Will Greenwood tackle will be a little harder than it was against the Uruguayian midfield in this game.

Tomorrow? Wales vs Canada (potentially a close one), Scotland vs Japan and England vs Georgia (100+ points, I think).

Bowling for Columbine

What a great movie. I really like Michael Moore a lot and he's worth listening to, if you bear in mind that he's one point of view.

Bowling for Columbine is Michael Moore's thesis on video of why people in the US tend to be more violent to one another compared to - well - everywhere else, really. He reckons it's because US society as a whole live on the edge in an atmosphere of fear and that people feel that the best way - the only way - to protect themselves is to be very ready to shoot the other person.

The case he builds is a meandering one, a little like he's trying to make up his mind. Several strands come into play: the ease and comfort with which a person can get a gun in America (he opens with a bank that gives away guns when you open a bank account - a pretty outragous alternative to a toaster, if you ask me), the way some Americans feel that toting a gun is a right and an obligation, all the way to this idea that the "American Way of Life" is to bully somebody into submission - Might is Right, you say?

He argues that people get their primary impression of the world around them from TV and newspapers and that the media in turn show what they think will attract the most viewers. Violence is one of these things, it seems. "If it bleeds, it leads," was one comment. And it's all just "entertainment", with a layer of hypocrisy there when Americans excercise their version of moral rights (right to own a gun, right to defend oneself, right to rid the world of tyranny by replacing them with other tyrants).

All the while, there are places where you just have to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of it all. There is a portion where a newscaster easily switches between "concerned reporter at the scene of a shooting" to "concerned reporter at the lack of hairspray" when the camera is switched off. The funniest things are the ones that are true.

He also sometimes gets under some people's skin, on purpose. I don't like this aspect of him so much, when he ambushes unsuspecting targets (actor and NRA spokesman Charlton Heston, for example) who really have no idea what has hit them.

Moore is constantly worried about the state of his country, and continually points fingers at deficiencies, and yet is obviously as patriotic as it comes. He's definitely one of those who believe that it's an obligation to show up our faults to better ourselves.

All in all, it is a worthwhile thing to watch and should definitely be part of any ethics/morals class.

The Philips International Jazz Festival 2003

How cool is this? The next Philips International Jazz Festival is due to take place at Bukit Kiara on 6 December 2003. Ah, I have great memories watching people like Michael Veerapan, Lewis Pragasam and the incomparable Diana Krall at previous festivals, and this time they're only charging RM42 for the event (which is pretty reasonable for 7 hours of music).

This year, I only recognise the household names: Shiela Majid (yay!), Camelia and Ning Baizura, as well as Indonesian singer Anggun. I can't help thinking that the decision to invite so many high-profile pop names to sing jazz is more to attract crowds then to promote innovation and invention in Malaysian jazz (although Shiela Majid does have a "jazzy" background).

Nevertheless, I do look forward to it and hope it's better than my worst fears.

Props for Salon.com

It seems odd that I would praise something that's published by Microsoft, but I've got to say that I think Salon is one of the best online magazines out there. Everything from the diversity of articles they publish, to the fact that they give you an option to access to the whole magazine by either subscribing to them or by watching a little ad. It's like pay TV or free TV, and they let you choose. Brilliant.

They're pretty liberal too and not adverse to a little right-wing bashing from time to time, which fits in nicely with my persona. But the real reason I like it is because, well, the writing's pretty darned good.

What about pro-microsoft stances? Well, in an editorial they admitted that they would be more likely to write a neutral article about Microsoft than an anti-Microsoft one. But, on the whole, I don't see any cloying essays about how Microsoft will save the world, unlike IT magazines that run adverts disguised as articles.

If you've never read it before, give it a shot.

HardTalkin'

I've finally managed to see the interview that Tim Sebastian had with Syed Hamid Albar, the current Malaysian Minister for foreign affairs, on HardTalk (courtesy of Jeff Ooi's link to the RealVideo on BBC). Overall, I thought it was a fair-ish performance, although it would have been far better if Syed Hamid had more prepared for some of the topics. I don't know whether they get a heads-up on what will be discussed, but I would have thought that the ISA would have been an obvious one.

I reproduce below transcripts from two sections on the interview. The first is about the ISA and the second is on refugees being turned back. I actually have lots to say about the ISA section of the interview, but I'll leave the details for another posting. What piqued me were the statements that (a) Cogent evidence is needed before people are held under ISA and that (b) You can only bring people to court for normal crimes - the ISA is for 'other' crimes. You can also add the throwaway comment that "prevention is better than cure" as another one I have something to say about.

Timestamp: 10:25 - 14:26

Tim Sebastian: Your Internal Security Act is singled out for particular attention. The accusation is that it's used as a means of taking out your politcal opponents. How do you reply to that?

Syed Hamid Albar: My response is very simple. People who do not understand Malaysian political system may, you know, just simply criticise us and say it is getting rid of the opponent. We have elections every four or five years and the opposition have won two states in Malaysia. we have-

TS: The opposition has said you've arrested some of their members on the Internal Security Act but you haven't put them on trial.

SHA: We arrested them, the same way with the Patriot Act, the same way that you're dealing with terrorists act, if they support overthrowing of government through illegitimate means or unlawful means, of course we'll arrest them.

TS: Why not bring them to trial, ... (unclear)

SHA: (unclear)... even in the case - prevention is better than cure, you know, we have taken-

TS: The PAS, the islamic opposition party, say that if you have any evidence against their members, bring them to court

SHA: I think it's the same thing now what we have done now, the terrorist activities, what we have focused on, we do not just simply arrest opposition leaders because they are opposition, we can handle them very well, there is no problem on that.

TS: It's a bit of a coincidence though, isn't it, that the ones who are detained-

SHA: You look at Guatanamo Bay question, there is a lot of coincidence there, a lot of denials of human rights. If you look at UK case of arrest of -

TS: We're looking at Malaysia though... (unclear) we raise these questions with Washington, I'm now raising about Malaysia with you.

SHA: What I'm saying is that, sometimes, we tend to look with a jaundiced view, what other countries, without really fully understanding what is happening in the country. What I'm saying is that we can handle our political opposition without difficulty. Whether you agree or disagree that's a different question. But I'm saying that we have no problem about the political process.

TS: Yes, but the fact is a lot of people are locked up, indefinitely, without charge or trial because the Internal Security Act provides for arbitrary arrest and detention without trial for an indefinite period based on the suspicion that one may be likely to commit a crime. Lots of people might be likely to commit a crime, it doesn't mean that they are going to and since when does a civilised country lock up people just becaust they might commit a crime.

SHA: I think this shows that you have not studied nor understand-

TS: This is the Human Rights Watch-

SHA: The Human Rights Watch cannot be gospel in everything that they say. There are a lot of report, a lot of reports on human rights about other countries, but in this particular case, there is just not on mere suspicion, there must be cogent evidence for them to show that they are involved in subversive activities that can threaten the security of the country and we put and place great importance on peace and stability here in Malaysia.

TS: I come back to you to that point, if you have evidence then why not put them before a court?

SHA: No, if they commit the normal crimes, then you can bring them to court. If they've commited, say, our KMM or our group that is called Al-Maunnah involved in overthrowing the government, we charge them in court. But when people do subversive activities then this is the law that we inherited-

TS: So you just detain them indefinitely-

SHA: Not indefinitely, that is not true. There is a two-year period at the initial stage and it is subject to review. And the review is done by very independent people. If they think that within the two years these people can be released, then they can be released.

TS: How-

SHA: THey're very independent, they have nothing to do with the government. Judges, there are judges inside it, there are people who are responsible at looking whether the detention of this person would serve the interests of the country or not.

The other part which I found interesting was on accusations that Malaysia is turning back Indonesian refugees.

Timestamp: 18:37 - 20:52
TS: Why are you turning away refugees, arresting refugees, who are fleeing the violence in Acheh province?

SHA: I'm not aware-

TS: Despite protests from the UNHCR, the refugee agency, why are they being turned away?

SHA: They have not been turned away. For your information, there have not been refugees coming this way.

TS: You say they're not refugees. UNHCR says they are refugees.

SHA: You hold on, if I can explain the situation. What they have done is, we have over 1 million illegal immigrants into this country, people who are, who are working without proper documents. These people, is part of an on-going process of making sure that we arrest illegal people who have no documents, about two hundred of them were arrested in this country without any documents.

TS: Four hundred asylum seekers were-

SHA: Then they are-

TS: Were arrested on their way to the UNHCR office.

SHA: What the UNHCR has done is that they have registered illegal immigrants as refugees. So, we have, we need to investigate whether these people are refugees or these people are illegal immigrants seeking employment in this country

TS: But you are throwing them back before you could investigate (unclear)

SHA: They are still with us under detention, on investigation. We haven't thrown anybody back yet.

TS: Have you arrested them? Why can't (unclear) Why can't you leave it to UNHCR to do it?

SHA: No, no. Because they came as (unclear). If the UNHCR say they are refugees then they have to prove that to us. In this one we have arrested them, then the UNHCR then decided these people are refugees. We do not act in that way. We do not do that. We have to act in accordance with our own law.

TS: There is a right to asylum that is contained in the Universal declaration of Human Rights, isn't there?

SHA: Would you be willing to accept anybody to come to your country? I don't think so. Because in this particular case, they have come in as illegal immigrants, we do not want illegal immigrants in this, in this country. They want to come in through legal means, of course they are most welcome, if we have jobs or employment for them. But not as illegal immigrants, that we will not allow.

Arnold Schwarzen-governor

Ugh. The good people of California have recalled Gary Davis as governor of California and elected former bodybuilder and actor Arnold Schwarzenneggar to take his place. Well, I use the words "elected" and "actor" quite loosely.

Why should I care about what happens half-way round the world? Very little of what he will do as governor will directly affect me (even if California is the world's fifth largest economy). I had no say in the vote and will have no say in trying to remove him.

Instead, I see it as a worrying trend that the cradle of democracy can knowingly elect a man who has no experience whatsoever in government at any level to lead them. I suffix "idiot" everytime I say "George Bush" (idiot) these days, but I would still vote for him over an actor. Who can barely grasp the nuances of the English language. Who, when accused of molesting former workmates said, "I am very sorry", making it sound as if all he was sorry about was getting caught.

I have believed for some time now that the key to a working democracy is for the voters to be educated. I get into little arguments about how on Earth PAS can make some of the policies they do. My answer? You don't like hudud law? Well, they are being tabled by a state government that was voted in by the people. And that's about as fair as you can get.

If we want people to make good choices when electing their government, we have to make sure that they understand enough of the issues being debated and then to make their own decision about it. How many of us really believe this about our voters here in Malaysia?

And here is the crux of it all. I used to believe that it would just be a matter of time. People need to get used to the idea that an opposition isn't inherent evil, but a vital necessary for a healthy democracy, and that the open debate about important issues is what is important.

But now, they have voted Ahrnuld in. A combination of razzle and dazzle has brought in a man who really shouldn't have been taken seriously in the first place. Issues? What issues? I fear anything goes, really.

Fiery Phones

OK, I couldn't just keep this quiet anymore. I am sick and fed-up of people lecturing me to not use my handphone around a petrol station.

It sounds sort of believable. There are news reports of this sort of thing happening. Shell has put up signs discouraging people from smoking, having the car engine running or (you guessed it) using a handphone while filling the car with petrol. Now the Malaysian government is advertising on radio and TV warning people not to use their handphone at petrol stations.

The news report linked above has three cases of when a handphone had caused a fire at a petrol station, so as a risk that has been esablished, it's good to try and reduce that risk. Switch off handphones at petrol stations.

This is all good, I suppose, for the paranoid out there, except for one thing: It seems that there are no - let me repeat this again: no - examples of handphones causing fires in petrol stations. My sources backing this statement are the ever-reliable snopes.com as well as truthorfiction.com.

For some local spin on this, see the National Institute Of Occupational Safety And Health forums.

My take on it? Well, I'll call you up next time I'm refuelling to let you know...

The Coliseum

A couple of friends are honeymooning in KL, and as the local guy they know from UK, I took them out for dinner. Now, when I take visitors from out of town, there's very few places I go; I could take them to Uptown and all that entails, or I take them for Banana Leaf rice with fish head curry or I take them to The Coliseum.

The Coliseum is a KL institution. I remember going to this smoky, colonial-styled restaurant when I was kid. The big appeal was and still is the sizzling steaks. Well, things have changed. They used to put a bib on you and all that, but not any more. They pour the sauce on the hot plates away from the dinner table now. It still doesn't do much to improve air quality, though.

Another thing I like is the old-style bread. We used to be able to buy bread like that in Malaysia, but ever since Gardenia came along with their homogenised loaves, with their perfectly square bread, those have been hard to find.

The other appeal of the Coliseum is that they are probably the only restaurant in KL where the eccentric service is part of the draw. Heck, they've been around since 1921, so personally, I cut them some slack. By "they", I mean the waiters. There are only two types of waiters in the Coliseum: old or temporary. And with age, comes a certain amout of lattitude in service.

For example: I once ordered a steak medium rare and the waiter said, "Are you sure you want this? Medium rare means it's not cooked inside. Don't send it back if you don't like it, okay?".

It's just the way they do things. Some things never change.

Halfway through dinner the waiters cleared up the table next to ours. They took off all the bottles of tomato and worcester sauce and then flipped the tablecloth over so that the used side was now underneath and the clean side above.

Kathy leant forward and whispered to me, "I thought you were joking when you said they did that!".

Smart Cut n' Paste

Did you know that when you select a sentence in Microsoft Word and then cut it into the clipboard, and if there is a trailing space after your selected text, it will also delete that trailing space? It won't delete the space if it's a double-space, but I am in two minds about things like this in MS Word. Is it (a) Incredibly intelligent and convenient for the machine to guess that I wouldn't, couldn't possibly want that extra space and nice of it to delete it for me?; or (b) Another example of borg-like control in the way I write and edit my text?

Is there a way of switching this behaviour off? I don't know for sure, but not as far as I know...

A good friend just pointed out that you can turn it off by "Tools->Options, then select the "Edit" tab and Un-tick "Use smart cut and paste". And then I found this Knowledge Base article.

PM and wife get peace awards

The Inter-religious and International Federation for World Peace has awarded Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his wife Datin Seri Dr Siti Hasmah Mohamed Ali the “Ambassador for Peace” award for their contributions towards world peace and unity.
...
The Asian office of the federation, based in Manila, is a UN-affiliated body.

The Star, Malaysia, 19 Sep 2003


This should be good, I guess, exccept for the fact that the Inter-religious and International Federation for World Peace is a front for the Unification Church (aka the Moonies). Its claim of being a UN-affliated body doesn't mean that the UN sanctions the fedaration, and really, I think (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) that any NGO can apply to be a UN-affliated body.

I tried to find out who the other Ambassador's for Peace in the world were, but I couldn't find it on their webpage but there are at least 3,500 Ambassadors for Peace (as of July 2002), so it isn't exactly an elite club.

The PM can even read papers written by fellow ambassadors on their website in the "Ambassador's Jornal" (sic), including one titled "test".

Man City 4-1 Aston Villa

With Olaf Mellberg playing centreback this season, Villa have conceeded 3 goals in about 300 minutes of play. For the other 150 minutes without him, the team have conceeded 6 goals. So it isn't without good reason that I (a) point to Olaf's departure as one reason Villa capitulated so easily in the second half; and (b) worry about the long-term defensive frailties if he's not around for the next few games.

Let me first wax elequently about the first half. Villa played well, Angel and Allback causing more than their fair share of trouble up front, and J'Lloyd Samuel doing a stellar job defending and moving forward to help out where necessary. Manchester's City defence was all over the place, looking like a top-heavy ship caught in a gale. That large gaping hole in midfield caused by McManaman's forages upfield didn't help things. Hendrie made some space, lobbed in a cross, and Angel fooled both Seaman and a linesman unaware of the offside rule to head it in. Score at half time: 1-0 to the Villains.

And then, King Kev weaved his magic wand during half time and everything went to pot. Losing Mellberg to a groin strain just before the interval didn't really help things either. Alpay is still some way off his best and I think he was responsible for at least one goal, as well as the general uneasiness around the penalty box. I think Angel, Allback, Samuel and Hendrie played very well, but the rest need to realise when their backs are against the wall and show the determination to not just lean back and give up.

Anyway, the less said about the second half, the better. The defenders couldn't really be held too accountable for not standing up to the constant battering, and the midfield was a little lost when Man City stepped up a gear. Plenty of congratulations to the City, plenty of time on the training ground please for the Villians.

Man City is turning into a real Kevin Keegan team, who can create chances from almost anywhere, but have centrebacks who get pulled out of positions to cover missing fullbacks. They can be truly scary when the have four or five players running into the penalty box at one time, but they will stay a mid-table team with European pretensions if they can't get their defence sorted out.

As for Villa, we need to show a little more creativity in midfield to go with the hard work, as well as a few more reliable centrebacks. If Mellberg is out for a while, we may have just enough cover in Barry and Alpay, but things may get a little shaky.

Oxford 2 - 0 Southend

With this win, Oxford United is top of Division Three! Well, ok, so it's the third division, and there's still a long way to go if they're going to do their 12,000 seater stadium justice, but hopefully this points to better things.

Here we go, here we go, here we go...

England 2-0 Liechtenstein

I thought Wayne Rooney was Absolutely Amazing in his in-the-hole role, and England thoroughly deserved to win. I am very, very surprised that a guy so young can play so well in that role, because positioning is so important, and you need some experience for that. On the other hand, he's probably been playing football for more than ten years, so who am I to talk?

The only real cause for gripe is that one Birmingham player made the first eleven (Matthew Upson) and not a single Villa player made the squad. Gah.

Cool Websites I Like

So, I was watching TechTV the other day (or what Dinesh calls "MTV for geeks") and they had one of these "Wonderful Websites of the Moment" (Nobody write in and tell me what it's really called. I can't really remember. I don't really care). They were talking about the great imdb.com and then the commentator says something like "...visit this great new website...".

What the h-? IMDB is more than ten years old! It ws one of the first websites I saw that made me think, "Hey, this Internet thing is pretty cool!". I remember wandering around in 1993 when I was still trying to figure out email and Mosaic.

The Internet has thrown out a lot of good things in the last ten years. I'm not just talking about information sites, but websites that provide a service and provide benefit to the community by enabling possibilities. Just because I have time on my hands, here are a list of websites that I thought were pretty cool the first time I saw them, and time proved me right-ish when they made it big (I don't include ones that I like but were already on the radar screen by the time I appreciated them, so sites like Blogger, Yahoo and Google aren't mentioned):

• IMDB.com: The Internet Movie Database. All the films. All the actors. Posters. Images. Trivia. Goofs. Why would you need another website about movies? Thirteen years old and going strong.
  
• Hotmail: I know, I know, I have nothing but bad things to say about Hotmail these days, but when it first came out it was a revelation. It was web-based email. It was free. It was incredible. I didn't have to fight with telnet across continents anymore. I didn't have to battle tmnet's pop server inadequacies. It was cool. Then they sold it.
  
  
  
• Project Gutenburg: Bored? Get a book off Project Gutenburg. This is a depository of text that have gone out of copyright. Roughly speaking, this is any book published before 1925. It's great, you have all the Sherlock Holmes stories and Tarzan, as well as any book that the authors have released (e.g. The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling). The only downside is that thanks to the so-called Mickey Mouse copyright extension act nothing will move out of copyright until after 2019 at the soonest. But enjoy what there is while you can!
  
  
  
• Metacrawler: Just before Google came along, there was metacrawler. It searched search engines and aggregated results. Five search engines were better than one. And it was fast. It eschewed complicated, heavy interfaces in favour of a page with one search box and two links and nothing else. I don't know if they knew about Metacrawler (I can't believe they didn't) but Google picked a lot of this up (including at first using Yahoo as a meta-search engine) and went on to become the goliath it is today. Metacrawler somehow didn't get it and it thought more was better and got less as a result.
  
  
  
• Yahoo!Photos: Before, if you wanted to put pictures on the web, you had to do it all by hand. Edit the pictures. Upload the pictures. Make the thumbnails. Make the directory. And then, Yahoo did something clever: They allowed you to upload pictures directly and they handled all the processing for you. I'm not sure who the first were to do this, but Yahoo did it well. Yahoo was how I could get pictures from my camera to the Internet in extra quick time.
  
• ICQ: ICQ came before Yahoo!Messenger, so it gets the place of honour, although I have by now shifted over to Yahoo as my main message client. Although not strictly a website, this Internet chat client was the Thing I Had Been Waiting For on the net ever since the good old days in University when ytalk kept me in touch with my friends. Even if they were only in the lab next door. Just to show you what an early adopter I was, my number was 4441202, and now numbers reach nine digits. However, it's been so long since I used it that I've either forgotten the password or the account has been disabled.
  
• images.google Now how cool was that when it came out? I could finally search the web for desktop-sized images of Audrey Hepburn. It was incredibly clever at the time, and I still don't see anyone making a better image search engine for the Web. It doesn't always get it completely right, but it needs to only get it right once to be a success.
  
• Babelfish: Named after the fictional species of fish in the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Alta Vista's Babelfish tool does pretty much what it's literary counterpart does: translate foreign languages. Now, you can read my homepage in French (or at least, part of it). Even if it's not perfect, it's free and it's usable.
  

These are all things that are now recognised as cool. There are other websites out there that I think are very cool, but have yet to hit the general consciousness:

• epinions: The website that I believe hinted at the power of blogging before blogger made it big. The consumer review website was so broad that you could write an opinion on just about anything and there would be a category for it to fall under. OK, so there isn't a category called Why-The-War-In-Iraq-Sucks, but you can write a review on War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know. The real power is that readers can rate the articles and those that are valued float to the top, so it is a self-organising hierachy. I know, SlashDot does pretty much the same thing, but this is one I feel I 'discovered' myself.
  
• CafePress: Way back when I was working for MDC, I said that if we really wanted to drive e-commerce in Malaysia, we had to make it easy for people to take it up. What we needed, more than promotion campaigns, was a cookie-cutter method for companies to sell stuff online. This was before CafePress was launched, and it gives the best example I know of making a difficult thing simple. I can now sell a t-shirt online, with my logo on it, in less than five minutes. Really incredible. I really wish the e-perolehan guys would look at this.
  
• Lulu: This site and CafePress should be talked about in the same breath, I guess. While CafePress makes it easy for you to sell physical things like t-shirts and mugs, Lulu focusses on intellectual property such as books, music and photographs. That's right, you can write and sell your book online without looking for a publisher or having to pay somebody up-front. The clever thing that they've done this as a community so that if you're looking for photographs for your book, you can search through other peoples' libraries and then incorporate their images into your work, for an appropriate agreed-upon royalty. You can also collaborate musically with people online. If you should be so interested, you can also buy some of my photos from there (but friends need to only ask and I shall email to them for free!).
  
• Jabber: This is the open-source version of all those chat protocols you see out there. Back when it first started, having a Jabber client meant you could use that one client to chat to people on Yahoo, ICQ and MSN, but then some companies started to make life difficult. I don't really use a jabber client now because most of my friends don't use it, but I have faith that it being open will mean that things will snowball. Unless, of course, somebody opens up their proprietary protocols.
  
• Wikipedia: Wiki is a tool that enables people who read your webpage to edit it, and Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. How on Earth is this a good idea? Wouldn't it result in chaos? Well, no, it doesn't, although this may have to do more with its obscurity than anything else. The roots of this project is in community sharing and in this case the commodity is knowledge - which pretty much is the whole point of the World Wide Web in the first place. My contribution? The history section on Kuala Lumpur.
  
  
  
• dmoz: aka The Open Directory Project. What's good about Yahoo? Human beings are doing the work of organising the data. What's bad about Yahoo? All of them work for Yahoo. Now you too can implement a web directory under an area that you intimately know and love. dmoz is a work of passion and isn't likely to pay the bills, but at least you get to organise the Internet the way you'd like it. Well, you and 50,000 other people. How successful is it? Well, if you've used Google, you've probably used dmoz, because the Google directory (which is also searched) is dmoz.
  

What do you think? Do I know what I'm talking about? I know I don't, because I didn't think Amazon was going to make it and I was skeptical about how popular Blogger was going to become. But two out of lots ain't bad.

Merdeka!

This is going up a day late, but it's just because I spent last night watching Lara Croft at the Starlight Cinema, which probably ranks as one of the least patriotic things to do on the nation's birthday. In fact, about the only things I did that were Merdeka-like were to watch a bit of the parade on TV, to hang around KLCC awhile and, when conversation laged a little, to pose the question What does being patriotic mean?

My monologue always begins thus: What does it mean to be patriotic? Is it when you wave a flag? Is it when you sing the national anthem? Is it when you follow your leaders and obey the law?

And then we get to this point: Is it possible for two people to have completely opposite opinions and do completely different things and yet both be patriotic? Is it possible to break the law and be patriotic? Is there an absolute?

The answer is obviously Yes, Yes and No. Being patriotic, like most things in life, is a spectrum with no real absolute, which is what makes it so difficult. It's not easy. It's not straight-forward. Why on Earth do people make it out as if it is?

Just to try and raise debate and some hackles, here are ways to break the law and yet be patriotic:

• Pirate software. Or rather, pirate foreign software. Why should we let money leave the country and lower our GDP when we can get this stuff for free? It seems that Malaysia is the fourth most competitive nation (with a population greater than 20 million). I say our 68% piracy rate is responsible for this. Go ahead, be patriotic and visit Sungai Wang.
  
• Throw a Merdeka party. Invite all your friends and dance the night away! Better still, find a public place large enough, like the local padang. Never mind that it'll probably contravenes the Police Act because it's a gathering of more than three people (more than five, and we can refer to the Penal Code as well). Party on, dudes!
  

Starlight Cinema - Pros and Cons

Good things about it:

• It's got a great atmosphere.
  
• Nobody tells you off for bringing food in.
  
• The sound is great if you're sitting in the right place.
  
• You get to feel the grass between your toes.
  
• You're in touch with nature.
  
• It's cool at night.
  
• The program includes Matrix Reloaded, X2 and a Lord of the Rings overkill.
  
• There's plenty of space to sit down.
  
• If you come in after the movie's run for fifteen minutes or so, you can usually just walk right in and people don't bother to check your ticket.
  
• Nice beer girls come up to you and ask you if you would like a drink.
  

Bad things about the Starlight Cinema:

• It's mightily expensive for what it is. (RM10-15 for a ticket, RM100 for a season ticket. If you go to all the shows, it would cost you RM165, but I'm not interested in The Eye, Resident Evil or Final Destination.
  
• You get to know the local mosquitoes a little too well.
  
• You can't see the stars above because of light pollution.
  
• It rains sometimes.
  
• People have no qualms just walking in, standing around and blocking the screen.
  
• It's some way from the parking lot to the cinema.
  
• Life is tough if you have grass allergy.
  
• Not a single Audrey Hepburn or Jodie Foster movie is part of the program.
  
• They still show ads during the interval. And it seems that it doesn't matter if you're a bad parent, as long as you give your kids ice cream.
  
• The nice beer girls never seem to want to join you for a drink.
  

"How crazy would I have to make my signature before someone would actually notice?"

An article on how most people don't pay attention to signatures. I don't think it really applies here in Malaysia - I was even asked to sign again once at a bank.

On the other hand, I'm always being asked for my I.C. number, and that I make mistakes on.

KFC Coleslaw Recipe

Some of you out there may be aware of my "Don't Buy US" stance, particularly with respect to food. I know, I've been watching films and ESPN and listenting to Hitz.fm, but by and large I've been a good boy. For example, I haven't touched anything from Kentucky Fried Chicken for something like six months now. That's mighty impressive.

But I miss their coleslaw.

So, it was with joy when TechTV pointed out this website: Top Secret Recipes.com. It has lots of recipes that you can use to recreate commercial products in your home. And, yes, one of them is KFC coleslaw.

I'll be trying out this recipe tomorrow, in time for the big picnic under the stars to watch E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. And, yes, I recognise the irony that it's a US movie.

"I was ejected from a plane for wearing 'Suspected Terrorist' button"

The title says it all: In the US, you can be thrown off a plane for simply wearing a label that says "suspected terrorist". I know this because it happened to John Gilmore.

I found some debate about it online - on the one hand, he is very clearly pointing out how inadequate the so-called "security" precautions are, on the other hand, he is purposely pushing the boundaries until he gets people wound up - there will always be a point at which he'll succeed.

I actuall sympathise with him and applaud his intentions. I feel the urge to make a Suspected Terrorist line of clothing.

Aston Villa 0 - 0 Liverpool

During football season I spend most of my Saturday and Sunday evening at Syafiz in Desa Hartamas. What's good about it? Dependable mamak food and football shown on a huge screen with a projector. Damn good stuff, if you'll excuse my language.

The match tonight is the one both my friend Adzam and I always look forward to. I'm an Aston Villa fan, he's a Liverpool fan. Both of us have been disappointed with our teams last season, for fairly different reasons. He was unhappy for not making the Champion's League, I was unhappy for not winning enough games. As I said tonight, "It's a reached a point when I don't care how we win, we just need a win".

Well, it wasn't completely satisfactory tonight, but at least it was hopeful. I won't give a blow-by-blow, but it was a closely matched game, with Villa having an upper hand for most of the second half. Mellberg played amazingly well, containing Owen, and Whittingham was impressive when delivering crosses from the left. In fact, the whole team played quite well overall, and except for a few indecisive moments when Mellberg and Sorenson tried their best to lose the game, it was an encouraging performance. Shame Angel doesn't feel confident with his left foot, and tried to round the keeper instead of slamming it home when faced with a one-on-one situation. Villa look really good when the full-backs can make overlapping runs, but they need speedy centrebacks to cover the gaps they leave behind.

Liverpool, on the other hand, must be getting a bit worried. They would have thought of this as a win, but they didn't do enough. Kewell was almost anonymous - he doesn't quite fit in with Liverpool's style of trying to spring the offside trap with Owen. Djiouf was absolutely amazing and really looks like the player he was during the 2002 World Cup.

Youth Smoking Prevention

Ever seen those ads on MTV? You know, the ones where you see these girls hanging out at KLCC, and they use a combination of SMS and new clothes to snag young men? And although all the while you think it's an ad for Maxis or something, what you get in the end is the tagline: "Doesn't smoke"?

Well, I dropped by the website and guess what? It's an ad campaign run by MTV funded by - wait for it - JTI and Philip Morris International. That's right, the guys who bring you Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Camel, Winston, Mild Seven and Salem and who have a combined annual revenue of more than USD100 billion from sales of tobacco-related products are running a campaign to stop young people smoking.

On one hand I would like to applaud this. I think it's highly appropriate that companies that provide cigarettes should also do all they can to ensure that children are not their customers. The phrase is "socially responsible".

On their website, Phillip Morris says, "We ... believe that stopping children from smoking is the right thing to do. In fact, because of the serious health effects of our products, we believe we must stop children from smoking.". Great Stuff.

On the other hand, I find it unlikely that these companies would seriously invest in anything that would significantly impact their bottom line. The statistics are online but are not the easiest in the world to interpret.

What I need to figure out is how much revenue these companies stand to lose if children under 18 stopped smokiing. Not just the immediate loss, but also the future loss since a lot of people who would otherwise begin to smoke before their 18th birthday would not end up being lifelong smokers.

My guess? Somewhere between 10%-20% of their revenue. It's a little bit of a wild stab, based on the survey that says in Malaysia about a quarter of the kids aged 16 smoke.

I think that tobacco companies just do this so that they can point to it and then claim those magic words: "socially responsible". Look at the Philip Morris website. You would think they were actively encouraging people not to smoke. They actually flat-out admit that it's dangerous. Yet they still sell cigarettes.