Contradictheory: You Malay one or 1Malaysian?

So that was the original title I had for today's article in The Star. Although I normally give really poor titles and the editors replace them with their own, I thought this one that I had was really on the mark. But I guess it could have been a little incendiary.

It just also upsets me that so much that happens in Parliament that gets attention are people angling for political points and less about the actual job of running the country (which I understand can be pretty tricky in the first place). And what sounds like it matters so much actually doesn't really matter at all.

Yet, I still have faith in the nation. Strange, huh?

Labels: contradictheory, malaysia

In memory of my uncle Shah

My uncle, Shahriza Hussein, passed away on Saturday two weeks ago. It was a tough time for me, and I felt that one of the better things I could do was to write a column about it. It wasn't so much an obituary, as an attempt to make sense of what was running through my head.

I wasn't the only one on cyberspace to have noted his passing:

• Having owned and ran Auto International magazine for so long, and earned plenty of respect for the eloquent and truthful style of editorials, it is not surprising to see an obituary in Motor Trader Magazine.
• He also wrote for the Audiofile section for The Star. Notices appeared in Hi-Fi4Sale.net and Hi-Fi Avenue.
• He had also published a novel, Legacy (published by Editions Didier Millet - you can read an extract here). It was well-received in local reviews such as The Star and the Malay Mail. Sharon Bakar herself had also written on his passing.
• This post reproduces the email his family sent out to all their friends.

As I wrote in the article, funerals are more for living; so was my column for that week. I'm not sure what he himself would have made of all this fuss.

Labels: contradictheory, writing

Contradictheory: Is a tame point better than not making one at all?

Today's column was a bit of a tough one. I wanted to write something about the whole what-do-we-call-our-God debate that is currently gripping the nation's politicians, but people told me not to go there.

So I actually started writing about why there were so many single-person vehicles in KL, and that maybe it was because of the lack of trust, and then that would segue into the doughnut story that the people we should really trust is each other, and not those at the top... but I kind of shunted myself into this article.

At the end of the day, I think I got my point made, even it was a little passive. Maybe that's not all bad, 'cos I don't think Fire-Scorched Molotov is a colour scheme I would pick for my front door.

Labels: contradictheory

Facing up to FaceBook

Last Sunday's article was about the problems of privacy, using Facebook as an example, and trying to highlight our new Data Protection Act. I also quietly inserted a paragraph that noted that Governments were exempt from the Act.

The only reaction on the web that I saw about this was at http://dizzyzizzy.blogspot.com/2010/01/er-facebook-privacy.html, who said that she wanted to share her stuff - that's the point of Facebook. I don't disagree, but I also hope that my real lconcern was clear: that you didn't have full control of your personal data is a problem. So, yes, you can share it with the world if you want to, but you should also be able to take it away at any time too.

Labels: contradictheory, privacy

Response to response to snatch theft article

The article I wrote last Sunday on the lady who ran over the snatch thief looks to have produced a response worthy of unsettled hornets.

Somebody wrote on their blog a scathing reply, with this sentence in the final paragraph: "I don’t get how you can even get your bloody article published."

It was inspiring enough for me to craft a reply.

I was directed to your blog from your email.

I understand your anger against snatch thieves. That, added to the fact that they seem to callously put people's lives in danger just for maybe a hundred Ringgit seems unjust enough that you would want to hurt them grievously - kill them even.

You ask me how I feel if somebody close to me was killed by such a snatch thief.

I would naturally want to grab hold of him, torture him mercilessly, keeping him barely alive so I can inflict the maximum amount of pain. I would do this, knowing that no amount of physical suffering could make up for my emotional loss. Yet, I would endeavour to make him feel fear, perhaps hurting his loved ones too to make him know the gaping maw that lies within me. I would perhaps injure those he cares for until I see the loss in his eyes, and then perhaps go beyond it for good measure. I would show practically no mercy, except for him to contrast his predicament with what the absence of pain for him to really appreciate his condition.

This is why I hope somebody would stop me from doing it. My fear is that if pushed I would do this, and I know right now, right here, that this would put me on the wrong side of civilization that I would like to see the human race to be. Mahatma Gandhi agreed too, when he said "An eye for an eye makes everyone blind".

This is why public vendetta is illegal. This is why we don't let a person in the street take direct and vengeful reaction on those that wrong him. This is why we say, a man is innocent until proven guilty, and that the only killing deemed acceptable is in direct self-defence or as part of a state-sponsored execution.

And yet, that anger if left unassuaged will need to find a way to vent itself. If you continue to hate those that you think wronged you, then you will want to take retribution on all those that person represents.

I would like to call you a friend, if only because I think we both understand the pain that a crime can cause beyond its immediate act. If you want to get your MP to campaign for snatch thefts to be classified as attempted murder, that I would support your right to do that too.

But if you want to be part of a group that hunts down and kills a man as he flees, because somebody else on a motorcycle who killed somebody else while snatching their purse, then I apologise: I have to stand opposite you my friend, and stop a criminal act.

Labels: contradictheory

Today and forty years ago

I just noticed today's date. I can't help comparing what happened forty years ago with what is happening now. Despite the media and public outcry over the Menteri-go-round in Perak (The Star's term, not mine), there has been relatively little violence. Yes, people were held under ISA for not apparent good reason, and SUHAKAM has criticised the police presence as being non-neutral and enforcing for only one side, but compared to what happened forty years ago, I think progress has been made.

Is it because both the parties involved have an ethnic mix? If it had to be characterised as a racial issue, it looks like a Malay vs Malay situation, set against the backdrop of the Sultan of Perak as community and political leader. Insofar as public response is concerned, it seems to have crossed all racial barriers: we're tired of this, can we go back to the business of running the country?

It is interesting to note that a lot of the players involved don't seem to understand the difference between standing up for your party and standing up for the rakyat you're meant to represent. I did always think that the State Assembly should have just held votes of no confidence in the Speaker and then-MB, and thus follow the line of public-appointed representatives making decisions at the state level (on behalf of their constituencies).

Obviously politics when mixed with law is not so easy to understand and interpret. To all those who claim that you should let the public decide, I say they did decide last April and all this that is happening now is a direct result of their decision. Who asked them to appoint MPs who would of such dubious character that they could find themselves embroiled in a corruption scandal? But then, who of us really take the time to know who we are voting for beyond their logo and catch-phrases.

Regardless, I reject the idea that just because you have multi-racial politics, you won't have multi-racial political arguments. I think one big difference between now and forty years ago is that we have in fact matured as a nation. I am happy for the courts to make decisions rather than to have Thai-style mob rule - people not getting beaten up should be taken as a positive development. And I am happy to see two sizable confrontational forces in Malaysian politics, because that's what check and balance in a democracy is all about.

Now, if we can just get rid of the hypocrisy and the self-serving attitude of those who should instead be serving us, then we'll be onto a good thing.

Labels: may13, politics

Contradictheory: Malaysian Hollywood?

I surprisingly got a bunch of favourable responses for the last Contradictheory article about how hard writing is. Somebody also emailed me, asking how they could be a writer, and what does it take.

Here is my reply:

Dear Sir,
The "group of writers" that I mentioned are actually the writing staff for Creative Development Unit of Astro. Our sole job is to write scripts for Astro productions (and to make sure that they are good, of course!).

We did have an interview session late last year. I'm afraid it was not as well publicised as it could have been, but we have our quota for this year already. We may hire again, but I cannot guarantee when it will happen.

If you send an email to junior_writer2008@yahoo.com then the person in charge will hopefully put you on the list for future job opportunities.

You asked, "what does it take to be part of the group?". Now, here is roughly what we learnt from the last round of interviews:

1. We asked that everybody who wanted a job to email a sample of their writing. About half failed to do so. We didn't give those people a job.
2. We asked those whose writing we thought showed promised to come to an interview. About 10% of those didn't or couldn't come to see us personally. They didn't get a job with us either.
3. Of those that came for the interview, we asked if they understood scriptwriting jargon like "three-act structure" and "turning point". About a quarter said they did, but they obviously didn't. Some of those insisted they were right in being wrong. They didn't get a job either.
4. About a third of whom remained came in for a second interview. One person told me with the upmost confidence that her rambling sample story (that had no clear point nor a plot that I could describe in less than fifty words) was "post-modern" because it took place in the 24th Century. She didn't get a job with us.
5. Those that survived all this went into a one month training session, where they learnt (or relearnt) how to write, including what phrases like "three-act structure" and "turning point" meant. 40% of those did not manage to submit homework on time regularly. They are not part of our team right now.

I hope you appreciate that the one thing you need to become a writer in television is dedication to the craft. You must really want to write so badly; so much so that you already have a lot of writing done in your own spare time just because you love it. You must want it so
badly that you even write when you're "not in the mood" to do so.

You must accept that you are probably not yet "there" as a writer, and probably have a long, long way to go. Humility and an awareness of hubris will be your references. You believe that everything you write can still be better. You know this, because when you give your writing
to honest friends to comment on, they tell you the glaring truth that it isn't really great yet.

Lastly, it really helps if you enjoy telling other people stories, and you are not shy in entertaining them. Really makes the work worth doing, I find.

Best of luck, don't stop writing.

Yours sincerely,
Dzof

Labels: contradictheory, writing

Contradictheory: Boycott what?

Last weekend's Contradictheory was one of the tougher ones to write. I wanted to say something about the Israel-Gaza conflict that I didn't think any of the mainstream press were saying (and certainly none of the blogs I read), but how to dip a contradictheory toe into the pool of opinion when almost everybody has painted Israel as the devil?

So I crafted a piece that for once was read by two friends for opinion before I posted it.

So my suggestion is this: Let us focus on the correct ultimate aim. Whatever our religious and cultural differences, peace is always preferable over war. Not only must we metaphorically shake hands and hug our cultural antitheists, but we must also be involved in each other’s interests. A downfall for one hurts the other as well.

For all that worrying I had about being fair to all parties, I think I was perhaps too gentle. I purposely neglected to lambast the short-sightedness of those who thought the boycott of US products would somehow be a solution to the Gaza conflict. I could have said,

"Those who think a simple boycott is all that's needed to affect change and to right an entire country gone wrong are deluding themselves; what is needed is to extend a hand of friendship, instead of waving a clenched fist, because the people driving tanks are following orders from a government who wants votes. And not only that, you're waving your banners from behind a wall of apathy protected by a trench of ignorance."

But I didn't want to upset too many people.

As a result, there was only one letter this week in response. There was no complaint, just a quiet nod of agreement.

No change from my side too, I'm afraid.

Labels: contradictheory, gaza

What happened to drunk malays on film?

Watching Keluarga 69 on Astro Prima, and I see a drunk P. Ramlee walking back to face an upset father at home. It's played to comic effect, but the comedy is more in the argument between father and son, rather than a stumbling drunk not being able to make sense of his situation or environment. In other words, the drinking is bad

Could we do a scene like this these days without a character saying "Astarfirllahulazeem..."? Why has a moral imperative seeped into our entertainment?

I glanced over yesterday's headlines on PAS wanting to establish Hudud laws in Terengganu. Maybe I'm just a middle-class urbanite stuck far away from the realities of Kuala Terengganu, but it smacks of politics of the worst sort - we say what we say because it'll win us support.

Is this what has happened to the Malaysian film industry? When maybe a good story was once enough, now we have to incorporate 'good' values into the scripts. Again, we say what we say because it's what we feel people expect.

I want to say, let's remember the story comes first, and let viewers decide on the morality. So there.

Labels: opinion, tv

Contradictheory: Thoughts not expressed

The original draft for last Sunday's Contradictheory column was much longer than required 900-word limit. This was partly because I wanted to write lots about self-censorship in life in general, but mainly because there's so much of it in the entertainment industry as well.

As it was, they cut out a bit I talked about Ghost. I think it was because of space rather than of anything offensive. The paragraph was this:

Yes, it's a game of guesswork. We generally look at what has previously been allowed as a basis. Once, horror films were taboo but recently things have been different. We even did a whole series about a ghost this year, which we felt was never at any risk of being banned because, (a) Our ghost looked like Naz Rahman, who isn't scary in the least; (b) It wasn't really a horror story about the supernatural, but a love story about two people who can never be with one another.

I think all of the examples come from Popiah Pictures productions. If you want, you can try figure out which came from which. The specifics are not that important, anyway.

Other examples that I could have used, but didn't:

• I was told we were not allowed to show people smoking cigarettes on TV. So, what Ping did was to have somebody hold an unlit cigarette in her hand. He was actually worried it might get cut out.


• I heard a story once about 3R when they were told they could not air an interview because the person was a guy wearing an earring. They could, however, show it when they pixelated out the offending ear. This policy it seems has held up until now, which explains why a participant on Project Runway currently airing on 8TV has fuzzy ears.


• The production company was advised by 8TV that we shouldn't refer to the Datuk as a minister so close to election season.

...and so on and so forth.

Labels: contradictheory, writing

I love my meat

Isn't it ironic that after I write about the perils and pleasures of eating irresponsibly, not one, but two, articles appear in my inbox about food?

The first is an article from Salon about why you should eat fat. In an interview with the author of the newly realeased Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes (I especially like the last two words), I found out that recent studies indicate that there may not be a direct link between obesity and heart attacks. It looks like my idea of the quality of your ingredients makes the difference - lamb fat and spinach chappati is fine (recipe here, scroll down almost to the end), vegetable fats are not so healthy after all (see, trans fat).

Exactly the kind of thing I would have loved to include in my article.

The second article was one about how being vegetarian shrinks brains. (It also mentions that being obese has the same negative effect, but they've only seen it demonstrated on women - fingers crossed on that one for guys, then!)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a dinner at Prime tonight...

Labels: contradictheory, food

Contradictheory: Not the wild, wild West

I know these are 'sensitive' times, but it was sheer coincidence that this week's Contradictheory article came out at the same time the arrests rolled in. I couldn't help but notice that the diligent editors at the Star edited my piece by removing the following paragraph:

We shouldn't be shutting down entire websites because of one article on it. Yes, we should charge and arrest somebody because of that article, and make him take it down if he's found guilty, but that one article does not equal the entire server. You don't know what he's going to say in other articles.

I think that it was removed more because the Multimedia and Communications Commission reinstated access to the server, so it was a little out-of-date. In fact, their reasons for doing so are pretty much in line with what I wrote in this piece: in general, you should not be arresting people based on a presumption of what they will do in the future.

It wasn't originally meant to be a piece on the law, more on how you can't depend on technology to uphold civil society. But when I started writing about Article 10 of the Federal Constitution, I started thinking about it more.

I feel that we are still a country finding our way when it comes to interpreting our Federal Constitution with respect to the original framers' intents. The number of amendments since then has just complicated matters.

I believe that the line concerning the Freedom of Speech was originally there to reflect that open debate is important for a democracy. Vox populi, vox dei, as they say. Doesn't matter what they have to say, you should just say it.

Unless, of course, you are libellous or seditious.

Some close to me (well, more than a few) do not like our Sedition Act. I think the issue is with Section 4 that says "does or attempts to do, or makes any preparation to do, or conspires with any person to do". This is very close to Minority Report's arrest by precog.

However, I do think we need to be able to react to situations where people in authority demean or denigrate others by virtue of race and religion, especially when the strong abuse the weak. Thus, sedition laws have a place.

I guess that's what I meant when I said, "laws should be about protecting the weak and giving opportunity to the disenfranchised". Whenever law is used to strengthen the position of those in power, we should monitor it very carefully and use whatever checks and balances we have at our disposal. To me, a law (or use of it) that extends the gap between the haves and have-nots is one that is not well construed or applied.

Labels: contradictheory, malaysia

Get the maths right

I need some help from anyone who knows statistics intimately to help me understand a problem. Something in the papers today just doesn't make sense. In fact, it stinks.

I was reading the NST today when I came across the article about the problems of teaching of Maths and Science in English. There is also a PDF download of the entire study.

That article concludes that teaching Maths in English does not work because a study showed that students were having problems answering questions in English.

Problem is, I don't think the data presented in the article supports this conclusion.

(Unfortunately, the actual data in the newspaper and the one in the website differs. I don't know why that is, you just have to rely on what I present here.)

Nine sample questions were quoted in the article. They were presented to Year 5 students (about 11 years old). Two are of interest:
(From NST, 7 September 2008, page 6)

• Q1. Six pencils cost RM2.40. How much does a pencil cost?
• Malay: 39.6% (427 out of the 1077 Malay students answered correctly)
• Chinese and Indian: 54.7% (197 out of 360 students)
• Orang Asli (aboriginal peoples): 6.5% (7 out of 108 students)
• Total: 40.5% (633 of 1564 students)

• Q9. Farah menjual 8 kotak minuman dengan harga RM5.60. Berapakah harga satu kotak?
• Malay: 37.3% (402 correct)
• Chinese and Indian: 51.9% (187 correct)
• Orang Asli: 13.0% (14 students)
• Total: 38.7% (605 students)

Do you see the problem? The two questions are similar, but fewer students got the answer correct for the BM version. The Bahasa Melayu version. The version that's not in English.

How on Earth can anyone conclude that they have problems when learning in English?

(That aside, they also can't add. 1077+360+108 does not equal 1564 students. I'm sure it's a clerical error, or maybe there's one student who's Lain-Lain.)

More worrying:

• About a quarter of 11-year olds sampled could not calculate 6 x 7.
• Around 2 out of 5 couldn't solve 72 divide by 8.
• Nearly three quarters had problems solving 36.45 divided by 5.

To me, the real problem is that the standard of maths and science in the country is low. Horrendously low. I would hope more than 95% should know their multiplication table by heart by the time they are eleven.

Of course, it's all about the sample selection. And about the control. I don't know enough about these things, so that's why I'm asking for help.

I looked at the school sample in the study. They come from all over Peninsula Malaysia from cities as well as the rural areas. I don't know if the sample taken is 'fair', but it does look comprehensive.

The questions, on the other hand, I have problems with. I focused on the Maths because that's what I have a soft spot for.

• In the example printed in the papers, out of eight questions, four were in English, four were language-neutral and only one was in BM. Surely, you need an equal number of the three categories for it to be a fair comparison?
• In the example printed in the PDF download, the one question in BM was a problem that required two subtractions. The closest English equivalent problem was one that needed one addition, one subtraction, another addition and finally a division. Unsurprisingly, the easier question got more correct answers. The obvious thing to me is to have very similar questions in terms of difficulty, regardless of the language.

This whole thing stinks to me of doing a flawed study with flawed conclusions. I can't see how anyone could take it without huge reservations.
Naturally, I look forward to any comments you might have.

Labels: malaysia

Things I learnt today

Busy, busy, busy day.

• There is a Platu racing series in Thailand. Tough to find information about it, though.
• There is no decent simple image manipulator in Linux like Irfanview for windows. Fortunately we always have Wine.
• There is a ceiling hanging by some splinters in my house. I blame the construction workers next door, they blame the rain. Yes, I suppose, the rain that came in through the open roof they happened to be working on.
• Business Objects Enterprise XI Release 3 runs very poorly on 700MB RAM.
• The Eagle's Nest will be closing in the last week of October, probably.
• There is an amazing crab restaurant in Mumbai and a 5-star steak restaurant in the remote regions of Argentina.

Upgrading to Fedora 9: Fun in a painful sort of way

What do you do on a Sunday when you're being rattled around by a cold? Take a deep breath and upgrade your copy of Linux from Fedora 8 to Fedora 9.

(For the uninitiated, my notebook is a dual-boot, XP and Fedora. I know which one is good for my soul, but practicalities force me to straddle.)

It shouldn't have been that difficult, but the truth is that the proclamations by linux enthusiasts oversell its benefits. This is one thing I don't like about the pro-Linux guys. Oh, Linux is ready for prime-time, they say. Linux is for everyone. All hail the now-full-of-user-friendly-GUIs Linux.

Rubbish. Although I have to admit that once it's set up, it's fine. And you can set it up any way you like. But the road there...

It's like someone promised you a scenic hike through the mountains, and then you found out that actually it was trudge 12-hour through some pretty toughish terrain, and you spent all the time with your head down, slogging away.

Fortunately, the Internet is full of signposts that help guide you (the trick is figuring out which ones are wrongly posted), and yes, the view at the end of it all is pretty good.

I'm going to list the problems I had between installation and the 'final' version. This is so that others have an indication of what to expect. And so I have somewhere to fall back to the next time I have to (re-)install this darned thing...

• I tried using preupgrade to shift from Fedora 8 to 9. In theory, run the program, wait, reboot and voila! In reality, run, wait, reboot, and ... can't log in. With any account.
• It was okay in run level 1, but not in 5. Couldn't figure it, so I reinstalled from zero.
  
• Of course, I had forgotten to do a backup before this, but fortunately runlevel 1 was accessible. Copied /etc and /home. And next time, I should tar before doing this if I'm going to back up to an NTFS drive...
• To help me keep track of what should be done/not done, I referred to The Perfect Desktop and Fedora Guide. I find that these are pretty good for an adventurous beginner too.
• (BTW, yum-fastestmirror is a good thing to install first off.)
• Tapping the touchpad to click the mouse didn't work. Solution was deceptively easy: Install the latest version of the driver. Allegedly they chose to take out the feature.
• The dreaded WiFi card. I have a Broadcom which is always a tough one to sort out, but surprisingly the instructions at Fedora Guide worked first time.
• There is no sound with YouTube. Hence, 'yum install libflashsupport' comes to the rescue.
• The videos don't work. After playing around, I realised that installing mplayer solved most of them, and the 'Windows' codecs take care of the rest.
• Sound was soft, so you adjust properties from System -> Preferences -> Hardware -> Volume Control.
• Installing vmware is a pain. You can either trust Vmware Server 1.0.6 (which installs well, but I don't like the Server product), or you can try installing VMPlayer - which raises other (thankfully, solvable) problems.
• ADDITION: Forgot about the Windows fonts. Copy fonts into inidividual directories from c:\windows\fonts to /usr/share/fonts, and then run mkfontscale and mkfontdir on those new directories.
  

At the end of the day, I guess everything works, but I can't honestly see a non-technical person solving these problems on their own (so I'm offering myself at RM30 per hour...).

Handbags at twenty paces, aimed at my head

So I get slammed in today's paper for being a mysoginistic chauvinistic pig. And perhaps quite rightly so for a third of them. The original article in Contradictheory was pretty harsh. But I suppose I should try to explain my end of it.

I did get some forewarning of this when a close friend of mine called me up earlier in the week and asked "were you purposely trying to be controversial?". Well, yes I was - I have lately written too many 'feelgood, dogood' articles and it was about time I shook my quilly behind a bit. But judging by the response, I probably crossed a line. Or a raging torrent of river.

Before I begin, I apologise to anybody I offended. It wasn't meant to attack anyone in particular, merely the notion that staying beautiful is a good enough reason to not try and protect yourself. In case the tone of the article wasn't clear, I was NOT seriously suggesting that people carry male escorts with them wherever they go. (Well, for some women, only if the escort is me, and it's not because I want to protect their handbags anyway.)

The intent at the beginning was to say, don't carry handbags which are easily snatched, find other ways to pocket your valuables. But with every single girl that I talked to about this, the conversation always ended at this: it'll make me look ugly. Would every woman in the world who was asked this give the same answer? I doubt it. I have a six foot tall Canadian friend who whacked someone on the head with the attacker's helmet when he tried to rob her bag. And probably because of some Canuckian proverb about something worth doing once is worth doing over and over again with gusto, he probably got hit again. I think she'd say, "I'll take my handbag and my chances, thank you very much". And good for her too.

But, everyone girl I talked to about this in those few days mentioned it. To me, you can't really be that concerned about snatch thefts if "it'll make me look ugly" is your reason to not try something to stop or avoid it. "It's impractical", or "I don't think the risk is worth the hassle", or "I enjoy the practicality a fashionable handbag affords me, and woe betide anybody who tries to come between me and my carrying purse" would all be worthy answers. Yet, I tell you this: put a stop watch in your hand, propose to a woman that they can put their things in their pockets, and you get the 'ugly' word within sixty seconds.

Well, this got me mad when I heard this. It felt like a conversation at cross-purposes. Of course it's possible to go around without a handbag, or at least only a handbag with non-valuables in it. But the impasse at which this notion would not be entertained seemed to be 'bulky pockets'. Vanity is not always a bad thing, but when it pushes practicality aside, I don't like it. I feel the same way about superstition. There may be a place for it, but not at the expense of common sense.

So am I treating women differently from men in this case? Yes. So I am chauvanistic. Do I hate women for it? No, of course not. I get frustrated and think it's silly, though. And I am a pig? I ask you to not consider my shape and size and manners at the dinner table when you ask that, and so, no.

That friend of mine who chided me earlier in the week got it right. Am I suggesting that if you don't want a motorcycle stolen, then you shouldn't drive a motorcycle? Yes, that argument stands. But I think people who have motorcycles don't necessarily have much of a choice in finding something cheap that takes them around town quickly. And the risk of getting a motorcycle stolen, although much higher than handbags, is still low, especially if you take care to lock it up properly.

There is nothing wrong in being defensive in trying to protect your property. You lock your cars and set alarms. You hold your child's hand when crossing the road. You put your valuables somewhere safe and don't carry it around on your shoulder. Makes sense to me.

Labels: contradictheory

Notes on my current status

Just to inform all what's be going on lately...

• I'm currently not in KL, doing training in Kepala Batas, staying in a hotel in Sungai Petani. To say that things are quiet here is not exactly true; the chirping of crickets do constitute noise.


• There are advantages too. For example, it only cost me RM5 to watch The Dark Knight. I thought it was good (not great - too long-winded in places) and, yes, Heath Ledger's performance is a standout. It's as much his character as the performance, the only thing is that once he's shocked the beejeebus out of you in the first two acts, he doesn't seem so bad in the third. But, yes, he was great.


• Since we're talking about entertainment, how about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog? During the writer's strike, Buffy-creator Joss Whedon had some spare time on his hands, and decided to write a musical about super-villains who want to rule the world and save the damsel in distress at the same time. If you liked Buffy, then the humour in this one will appeal. The songs are okay too. But what is exciting is that this clearly paves the way to creating and selling content with the Net (with a capital N) as the distribution channel. Yes, because it's Joss, it's comes pre-installed with flashing lights and a huge LOOK AT ME sign, so people were going to notice it even if it came on the back of a donkey in Albania. But it is unsurprisingly good. (Selling stuff on the Internet is the Great bit.)


• I'm doing all this while surfing on Maxis broadband. Guess what? It Works! I borrowed it from a friend because I thought internet access in the boondocks would be hard (I was half-right; WiFi signals are rare, but Internet Cafes are like pokok Semalu around here).

WCIT 2008 live blogging - GAID

GAID: Global forum on acess and connectivity

UN-GAID is a committee of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. They're basically the branch of the UN that looks at the problem of narrowing the digital divide. For them to hold their annual meeting here in Kuala Lumpur is as big a deal really as WCIT, if you're concerned about the digital divide.

Today the youth take the stage. By youth, we mean young, ethusiastic guys under 30 in age.

They're presenting in an inclusive way, asking people to step up and put forward their experiences in involving youth in accessibility programs.

By the way, the sound sucks big time, which is embarrassing for a world-class seminar. It sucked in this hall yesterday too. Kudos to the presenters for just switching the mikes off and projecting thir voices.

A lot of what they're presenting on stage is about making people aware of what they do, and they bring with them a bucket load of enthusiasm. They're certainly not dry, but their pitch sometimes does increase in frequency when it doesn't look like they have the audience's full attention.

GAID is also big on discussions. They have roundtable type conversations, eight people or so, which I think is too many to have a decent back-and-forth conversation. But they do say good things.

Attending and listening to what they were discussing makes me feel that the world is coming to grip with what it means to solve the digital divide problem. The issue of gettig technology in the right places is the least of it. As important are issues of regulation, content and funding. But they have really smart people working on the problem, and that gives me hope.

Labels: wcit2008

WCIT 2008 live blogging - Craig Barret's presentation

I tried to post this live, but my Asus ran out of batteries. I'm posting this again.

I missed the first five minutes or so of this lecture. He's talking about accessibility to school kids with respect to technology. As you might know (or probably not), I am a big fan of improving education through the use of technology. I consider the Smart School project to be my baby, albeit one with many surrogate parents. It was a painful birth, I was elated when it first saw the light of day, but now it's a toddler, I worry at the kind of friends its making - many of them to be unhealthy influences.

He's just making the point that the price of PCs are going down, selling in Jakarta for less than USD200. This, to me, is the sub-RM1000 PC that I've been dreaming of. My ASUS Eee baby is even better, being mobile to boot. Accessibility is a big deal when you're talking about technology, because it is that that gives opportunity. As a nation, we have enough money that we could provide every teacher and student ready access to technology so that they are not wanting. I'm not saying everybody gets a PC, but able to get to it when they need it

But he's missed the cost of maintenance and support. We don't just need affordable technology, but also reliable technology. OLPC is a great example of this. You can drop it, and it's fine. You can wind it up when you have no electricity. I think it also has no movable parts. But he didn't mention it, probably because it doesn't run on Intel chips.

Instead, they have their version of it. It too is rugged, it too is versatile, but it also runs on Intel chips.

Craig Barret however made an important point; that connectivity is issue. Some statistics on connectivity:
5% africa
24% asia
21% middle east
70% US
The real limiting factor is cost.
In the US 100kbps is US 50 cents a month
Africa 80 dollars a month
sub-sahara 250 dollars a month.
In Malaysia, my theoretical 1Mbs is RM77 per month - which isn't cheap when compared to the US.

He points out that Malaysia is progressive in Wimax. I agree that it's one of the things it seems we are doing well. My question is usually how do you get the market to understand these different technologies? How do you know it won't be overrun by some new wireless kid on the block? And how will Wimax be rolled out to the rural areas, if there aren't enough customers to justify it?

The example they are suggesting is to involve private sector, and Pakistan is taken as an example.

They have the universal service fund. but the company that distributes it is based on the private sector model. They auction off remote areas, to be funded by the government, and they combine providing access to schools with the communication lines.
Auctioned four different remote areas
Government is bureaucratic.
Board of company is 50-50 govt and private sector.

This talk is pro-private sector, and private sector involvement in public sector projects is something that worries me. "Let the private sector do it," he says, but I think the government needs to keep a very close eye on things. Do you trust people whose bottom line is to make money?

Partnership is great, but it needs to be a balanced. Otherwise these guys will maximise their bottom line at your expense.

He makes the point that relevant content is important. Middle East has almost no websites, for example, despite having 5% of the population. But local content has limited reach, even if it is also more relevant for locals. I'm not completely sold on the idea that it is so crucial, when compared to educating users to be members of the world community (instead of sitting in their own cybersphere).

Tele-health, which gets medical knowledge out to the rural areas. Malaysia was in prime position to implement this, but for some reason it didn't fly as well as it could have. Limited hospitals are connecte to each other in Malaysia, but at (I think) they use the same stadards, so information can be shared by all.

He then presented Grameen, which is an organisation that tries to narrow the gap between the haves and have not. Dr Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work giving microloans to the poor (especially the women) who were otherwise rejected for loans from banks. He then did the same with handphones, leasing them out to the poor, wich they then could pay for because of the increased business they got from being able to use phones to communicate. Based on the success of that work, he now wants to extend it to narrowing the gap with respect to access to ICT.

I like the work being done here very much. This is, in fact, giving opportunity, rather than handouts - something that our Government policies should really look into.

The whole thing was wrapped up with three kids being trotted out to be introduced as students whose lives had been changed through the use of technology.. To be fair, Craig Barrett always pointed out during the presentation that good teachers matter more than technology. But the kids had prepared speeches (which were well done, but stiff), which for me is a glaring example of how prescriptive our education is sometimes. It would have been great if they were more relaxed, as they were nearer the end of the presentation.

As a reward for their efforts, each student got one of theose Intel notebooks. Which was nice of them.

But still I'm not completely cofortable with private sector involvement in schools.

Labels: wcit2008

WCIT 2008 live blogging - PMs Opening Speech

Seeing that I have a Wireless AP here in the hall, I'm going to take advantage to blog direct from the World Congress of IT event being held here in Kuala Lumpur.

Acknowledged as the most prestigious of all IT events, it pulls in the big names in IT. It's a big deal that Malaysia is hosting the event this year, a fact I think lost on the media. Nobody is really that excited about it outside the IT industry, I think. But I may be wrong.

The PM is currently giving the opening keynote speech, but this isn't his first contact with WCIT. He has spent the last few days involved with the International Advisory Panel (IAP), and I would like to think that the things discussed then will trickle through to WCIT. Anyway, this was the question I asked at the press conference, but didn't get much of an answer from the delegates.

One thing that's struck me about this opening ceremony are the number of kids involved. Schoolchildren sang a song (Paul Moss would say "pitchy", but Paula would say "beautiful), and schoolchildren held the PMs hands leading him up to the stage. Not great idea, it looked like a genial grandfather being coddled by his grandchildren, but Pak Lah explained, it was about how the youth of today is leading the generation of their forefarthers into the 21st Century.

Nevertheless, the opening speeches are predictable and pedestrian.

He has just announced the National Broadband iniative to increase broadband penetration to 50% by 2010 from 5% last year. Haven't we been trying to do this for the last five years?

"We are commited to facilitate more home-grown companies to be world-class" or something like that. What I say is, Show us the money. Again, this has been aroud for years, but why is progress slow? Or perhaps it's just deceptively so because the success stories are made by the quiet ones. Not everbody can be like Tony Fernandez.

Wireless KL is also mentioned again. Good concept, let's see the implementation before we applaud.

Aha. He has just mentioned that technology-based application with combined advances in agriculture, etc. can help solve the food crisis. We know what he likes and favours.

He has just announce smartcard technology will be used to control subsidies for petrol for certain segments of society. It sounds like the decision has been made This will be a ground for debate amongst some, I think.

Labels: wcit2008