Syamsul's Blog

So much stuff to do, so little time

2011-08-15T21:58:00.000-07:00

I'm back vigorously working on my projects at work, and also the little company I setup called Nusantara software. It is truly great experience so far, so it's a waste of time not to share it.

I'm also start working with my dad at home for a few projects that's so slow to start due to my various commitments in life.

I like a bit of commitments and a bit loose time. Commitments make me work, loose time make me relax.

I'm back blogging here

2011-08-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

With numerous issues on my webhosting which i won't discussed here, i've decided to switch back blogging with blogspot.com.

Memory

2009-07-30T20:19:00.001-07:00

My computer has crashed again
The CTRL+ALT+DEL no longer works
The memory has congested
And the memory swap no longer works
And the hard drive is full
The application is now busted
And the reboot button no longer works

My application has crashed again
The mouse pointer no longer hovers
Under the shadow of the "Exit" drop down menu
I see the tiny dots beginning to flow
Like a river that is now refusing to flow
Through a congested traffic, towards the ocean
Like a congested traffic, in a KL road
And there it goes

My brain has crashed again
I've rebooted it every morning
But now it refused function
That's left me with a beautiful smile
In front of the mirror, and I say "Hi"
Today is the day, and tomorrow will no longer be today
For tomorrow my memory has been reloaded
And it works just fine

If tomorrow ever happen, I'm a happy man
For all the memories that have been stored
They are all have been restored
I'm fortunate I have backup files
Permanently stored, inside my mind

Rocks

2009-07-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time
There was a rock
The rock splits into two rocks
One rock is called "A" another is "B"

"A" came up to "B" and told "B" how ugly "B" was
"B" was frustrated with "A" but he didn't tell "A" about that
"B" went off and invented an explosive, which was later known as "MOLOTOV Cocktail".

"B" came back to "A" and plan up some prank for "A".
The prank is, when "A" speaks, "B" stuffed the "MOLOTOV Cocktail" into "A"s mouth
And when that happpen, the Molotov Cocktail is supposed to explode, because "A" itself is a rock.

When it exploded, "A" split into a couple more rocks, which are uglier than "B"
Those are "A"s kids.

"B" rolled back home with an evil smile.

Yasmin Ahmad

2009-07-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

Yasmin Ahmad passed away yesterday evening. It's a great loss to the country's film industry. She's a very talented filmmaker, nobody denies that.

Her film "Sepet" got her all kind of attention. This is where she explored the interracial relations in this country. I like the plot.

My only critic about Yasmin Ahmad's work is, it's becoming too typical that this theme is coming over and over. Looks like trying too hard on it. But then, it could just be her signature, very much like Micheal Bay is an expert in action movie with car-chasing.

I read somewhere on the Net that her works are very much influenced hy the Japanese films. In fact, it's more than that. It's Charlie Chaplin.

Her idea about the world is just like Chaplin - that tragic moment is also comical. Watch her short film here. you'll get the idea.

Today, we lost her.

Al-Fatihah.

Kg Buah Pala

2009-07-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

Today I had the opportunity of going to the famous Kg Buah Pala. It was a smooth bike ride, but it was a good one. I thought it was in Jelutong, but it is in fact somewhere in Gelugor. (behind SK Bukit Gelugor). There was some kind of gathering going outside, but it's peaceful.

We read the news, Chief Minister Guan Eng is making sure that Kg Buah Pala can't be touched by developers (with some few exceptions). So is his decision a good one ? Or a bad one.

First, we know that this is the previous government's (i.e Dr. Tsu Koon's ) idea so Guan Eng is not to be blamed. But that's not enough to be an excuse for the current chief minister to be selected by people to solve "rakyat's" problem.

So that's probably the reason why Guan Eng came up and met Buah Pala resident recently and using his power, cancelling the decision of the previous government.

This is a risk-taking measure, but I think what Guan Eng did is a good first step. But not to be confused with blocking development of Penang.

Penang need to be developed. But we're not Singapore, so we have nothing to rush to build buildings. Penang need to get people interest served, and people's interest is to keep their lifestyle as they are. If you come to Penang, you know what I mean. It's such a pristine place and you'll be amazeed just how much the lifestyle of the people here still being preserved despite the fact that it's a global tech powerhouse. It's an amazing feat, but we can't igonre development. And therefore, Buah Pala case should not be regarded as hindering development. It's just a way to serve rakyat's interest and I think Guan Eng is doing what's expected.

Good damage control there by the way

Wall Hitter

2009-07-22T03:06:00.000-07:00

Wall hitter never fear
What's inside the mind
Because of the mind
It is so beautiful
Wall hitter really doesn't mind

The wall hitter who does his show
Never fear what he likes
He doesn't care what people like
Because they are all alike

Wall hitter hits the wall
But he knows the wall is soft
The wall itself never fear
The fear that never resolve

The wall hitter joins the wall hitters
The more the merrier
They shout and jump in amusement
They do not know what's waiting beneath them
Are holes and a big big sea

The wall hitters, they work so hard
When all finished they all go home
When they reached home they hate it so much
They jump out and off they go

Cowards survive

2009-07-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

I hate to call you a coward Master, but sometimes... cowards survive.

Do some reflection on the words, "Sometimes cowards survive". Yeah, that's the word that the surviving Decepticon uttered before they left Earth after being defeated by Optimus Prime.

"Cowards survive".

That's the suckiest word I've heard this week.

Beware of Lady Drivers

2009-07-16T19:11:00.000-07:00

Today, I almost got hit by a Waja driven by a lady on the way to work. This is not the first time I almost got hit by lady drivers. There's once when I was crossing the road and the car was waiting (it was a zebra crossing). When I was walking in front of the car, suddenly, the car moves!. She almost hit me. I can't remember whether she stopped but that was enough for me think of making sure I run when I saw the lady drivers in front of me when crossing the road.

Today, I was riding my bike to work. It was a slow lazy Friday morning, and I wasn't really focusing on the road. I saw a Waja about to go out from a junction. She's supposed to wait for me to cross. And when I almost approach her car, she drove straight! I screeched my bike and fortunately I could recover my stability although I almost hit her car. She was looking at me and drove off. I was a little bit mad, but if I follow my heart, I will ride past her and ask her to pull over, maybe do some lecture or something like that.

In conclusion, beware of the lady drivers. They might hit you when you slow down.

One day with Internet

2009-06-19T00:15:00.000-07:00

Googly, Swoogly, several times a day
Bubbly, lovely, I love everyday

Privacy, piracy, share with everyone
Tag me, tweets me, do them all at once

Uploading, downloading, we do everyday
Add me, invite me, you've made my day

--syamsulhasran

Isabella

2009-06-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

Lagu "Isabella" merupakan sebuah lagu balada yang di popularkan oleh kumpulan Search. Lagu ini memenangi Juara Lagu '89.

Tapi sejak bila lagu ni boleh jadi lagu dari Indonesia?. Waduh waduh, bapak.

Mungkin sebab filem "Isabella" mengisahkan cinta seorang gadis Indonesia dengan Amy Search. So lagu ni kira popular jugalah di seberang. Pasal tu mungkin ada orang yang ter-"confuse".

Chin Peng

2009-06-15T00:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure where this idea originated, and I've been reading about the suggestion about Chin Peng returning to Malaysia.

Here's my answer:
NO to Chin Peng coming back to Malaysia.

He can be anywhere but Malaysia.

BTW, China is a communist country, so why bother coming back?

Special request

2009-06-11T02:21:00.000-07:00

Special request to you
May we run this independent entity?
So that we could all save humanity
In the name of liberty we all enjoy currently

Special request to you
May we all get in the car?
The car that flies to the faraway star
We put on gasoline, hydrogen into the hybrid engine
So we all go in peace, to a faraway place so serene
That we can hardly catch the glimpse of worrisome faces
That decorate our television screens
We feel so good we won't come back
The chaos city will never welcome back

Special request to you
May you keep this earth free from war?
You and me are all in unity
United as one, we should all be glad
Set our differences aside, do not be sad
Keep your differences in the academic sphere
Because the academic care about logic, prestige, and the whiner
To determine who is the ultimate winner.

Special request to you
Do not cling to the forefathers ideas
Without having to rethink our own agendas
Forget about splitting the world into pieces
So that we all live in peace

--syamsulhasran

Angels and Demons

2009-06-09T16:50:00.000-07:00

Angels and Demons is nothing but a typical Hollywood plot with a little twist at the end. Nothing spectacular about the plot, but of course the movie have upper advantage with Tom Hanks as the hero and Ron Howard as a director.

Ron Howard is the "fire" special effect specialist. You can see throughout the movie that the usage of gory fire burns are amazing. There are a couple of instances where we can see that (you watched the movie already, you should know). I think he likes to use the fire burns from bottom, going up. It's amazing special effect.

Tom Hanks as usual is a great actor, playing an innocent professor who doesn't believe in God (or in the process of believing). I have no comment on his acting. But I think there are a lot of empty slots for him to get more for the movie. There are some silly heroic efforts like scene in the library where he tried to break the glass. I think this can be done better (of course, this is based on Dan Brown's book, but I thought the scene can be much more dramatized).

For Ewan McGregor, you be the judge. I think he played nicely as an innocent, ambitious young man. Also, the hot Italian scientist is a nice addition.

All in all, typical plots with nice effects and strong characters.

Einstein's Ideas and Opinions

2009-06-07T06:48:00.000-07:00

After close a half-year reading, I've finally finished reading a book pack with Albert Einstein's idea (Ideas and Opinion - Albert Einstein).

I'm not a trained Physicists and Mathematicians, but I have a deep interest in understanding how nature works. Einstein repeatedly mention of the importance of "logical simplicity" and threw skepticism on our perception of "truth" in our daily lives.

You'll come across his famous formula:

E = mc²

and you'll wonder how simple this formula, yet how powerful it is.

I found that this is a nice demonstration of what he meant by "logical simplicity". Of course, after a series of mathematical derivations, physics theories, etc.

I want to talk more about it, but I can't blog about it. I need physicists to explain to me the concept of Lorentz transformation and inertial equivalence and of course, the gravity!

One

2009-06-07T00:10:00.000-07:00

So I overheard someone says it:

"I want the colorful rainbow but oh I can't get it
Rainbow was colorful but I hate it
It runs away from me but I want it

So I made my own rainbow from my own mirror
I run through a white light and there spreads many colors
Spreading outward, towards the window
It was so close I try to grasp
The effort is futile, they are just one light"

Many creatures , many forms
Spreading across land and ocean
Many people, many customs
We are all but one

--syamsulhasran

Lawrence of Arabia

2009-05-31T07:48:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching Lawrence of Arabia. Upon further reading, I got reminded what Tolstoy said about history - that history was made up of several different factors, characters, influences, etc that shape the affairs of the present

It's premature to assume that this event is happening because of this so-and-so plan it. You have to watch Lawrence of Arabia and you wonder what would have happened in the Arabia desert today if there's no Lawrence.

While You are at It

2009-05-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

While you are at it
Go over it, Drag it, Finish it

While you are at it
Don't let her passed by with her mysterious smile
Unless if you want to regret when you came back after a while
Coming back empty handed, you should never get it by

While you are at it
Analyze the bug, and don't let it fly
Use your mouse-trap, if your hands are small enough to catch it
And why don't you get a new debugger?

While you are at it
Don't let her passed by with her mysterious smile

--syamsulhasran

Left-hand electric guitar

2009-05-18T18:35:00.000-07:00

I feel like being discriminated when trying to look for a left-handed guitar last weekend. Before I tell the story, here are my previous tricks to playing lefthand:

1. Play the chords upside down (this is the worst thing ever)
2. Switch the strings (the top being the thick E string). This is normal

Since I was playing a "kapok" (for non-Malaysian, "kapok" stands for the acoustic guitar), this is not a problem. But how can I switch the strings for electric guitar? It was a bad idea to switch a brand new guitar. And then you;ll see that the volume will be upside down, etc.

I want to buy a new one. The cheapest I can get in Penang is around RM1600 (that is after discount). The brand is Ibanez. I thought I don't need an Ibanez just to play simple chords. I'm not a newbie, but not a pro either. I would say I'm a novice or amateur.

After wandering around Penang with bike with buddy of mine, we really couldn't get a good deal. My budget is just below RM1000.

So I think I have no choice but to go for right-hand and switch it over. Bad bad idea, but I'm desperate. I need to buy amplifier too.

On Sunday, my guitar guru gave me a call and say that they have cheap lefthand guitar at Sg Petani. I thought, well, I can get to Sg. Petani with my Modenas Kristar, no problem. I gave the guy a call and they have it for RM520 !. Wow, I don't know what's the brand but I don't care. Fortunately they have a branch in Jalan Raja Uda (Prai). FYI, they even have Squire (by Fender) for RM900+. The shop has pretty good deal.

No matter, I went there (board the famous Penang ferry) and wandering around a bit finally found their shop. The shop is Fusion Music (or something like that). They're good people. I spend about an hour chatting with the owner, testing several guitars, and finally satisfied.
I thought that since this guy is nice, why not buying the amp from him too (despite the fact that I have to carry it over the ferry with my bike).

Fortunately, it's not raining. The whole process is darn tiring, but I'm satisified. I went to bed with broad smile.

The soul-les machine

2009-05-07T17:22:00.000-07:00

This machine
Costs us dearly
But its soul
Has been thrown to the faraway galaxy

This machine
Paid by taxpayers money
But its body
Has been used unsparingly
By the human operators
Who abuse its loyalty

This machine
Has lost its purposes
The language, the semantic, the syntax
Which form beautiful verses
Left wasted
To spread hoax

This machine
Has lost its soul
Thanks to humans
Who act like a fool
Use it, abuse it, waste it
And have forgotten
On the purpose why it was built

--syamsulhasran

Flood

2009-04-22T03:12:00.000-07:00

When rain comes
Flood comes,
And they all blame the rain, and the people, and the trash that stuck in the drain

They never blame themselves for throwing the very trash everywhere

I saw there's one guy throwing a huge trash bag into a drain from his motorbike.

And they still blame the rain, and the people, and the trash that stuck in the drain

They never blame themselves

Rain

2009-04-20T01:50:00.000-07:00

The clouds are getting darker
The wind is blowing harsher
The leaves and branches are falling over

The nature is telling me,
"it's starting to rain already!"

People around me are rushing
With umbrellas they are getting covered
With the newspapers they spread them over
With the plastic bags, they torn it apart
And the the kids and their parents are splitting apart

The nature is telling me,
"it's starting to rain already!"

The rain pours heavily
I'm wet suddenly
Yet I do not move, but I stare at the sky
To watch the beauty of the clouds when they are passing by
To watch the sun as it appears behind the velvet sky
To feel the rain falling over me like beautiful fairies, they fly
Caressing my face softly
Watering the plants, tirelessly

Yet people are cursing
"Oh why is it raining!"
"This is burdensome, please stop it!"
And they drink the water
And they eat the rice that came out from the paddy fields
And they eat the cabbages, and the nuts, and the sunflower seeds

And suddenly I saw lightning running by
And the storm and the typhoon they all say "Hi!"
And the clouds are slowly gone, and the rain saying goodby
And the rain never comes, after years passed by
And the people around me, they all began thirsty
Their lips are torn apart, and they are all began crying

And the nature is telling them,
"You all deserve to die"

--syamsulhasran

The King and the Servants

2009-04-16T06:07:00.000-07:00

The King once said:

"O Servants
Rejoice!

For all these crops in our vast fields
That we have been planting
That we have been showering
With the fertilizer from the best breed
With the sweat of joy that taste so sweet
With the hard work that caused us to bleed
But what it is to worry because we are all agreed
That we did not commit
The act of greed
But merely because,
This is what we need
For our land, family and friends to meet

With joy that will never depart
Although we are so far apart
In our vast land, but ah, why we take it so hard

Because all these crops in our vast fields
Have all began to produce beautiful shapes of all kinds
Have all began to produce flowers of all colors
Have all began to produce buds, leaves and branches
Have attracted so many bees so they could steal our honey
But we don't mind, because we have so many
Of the flowers that will ever last so long, just like our abundant water-lilies.

As long as all our work are carried over to our young generations
Who are now growing healthy, helping us at the farms with all might and passions
And

All these crops in our vast fields
Now blooming
And producing
As much as we want to be
To be harvested, to be consumed
For all of us, and to grow
Our future generation

And it takes only one generation of ours
To finish all our harvests
That we store in all our silos
So that the future generations
Will turn into poverty
And will never recover
From the past sins of their fathers
Who have forgotten
Of the future of their future generations
To live, to love and to leave
With harmony and peace"

--syamsulhasran

Pendam

2009-04-13T00:10:00.001-07:00

Kusut terurai
Simpul terlerai
Rembesan embun jatuh berderai
Namun hasrat masih terpendam
Di dalam lubuk hati yang paling dalam

Bunga-bunga teratai
Mekar melambai
Kembang kiambang tersenyum riang
Melambai longlai
Di celah keladak kolam
Di dalamnya terpendam
Seribu kenangan silam

Dicelah teratai yang mekar menari
Ada kelibat bayang-bayang yang memendam senyuman
Lirik matanya seakan memberi erti
Kasih abadi
Yang mekar di hati

--syamsulhasran

Why

2009-04-09T05:22:00.000-07:00

Why,
The Plants grow,
The Wind blows,
The Stars move,
The Rain drops,
The Moon shine,
The Sun rise,
And Why?
Because.

Why,
The Animals are there,
The Plants are there,
The Humans are there,
The Buildings are there,
The Books are there,
The Civilizations are there,
And Why?
Because.

Why,
The Knowledge are gone when the Wise men lived past,
As if the Books have never been written that we found them at last,
In the shadow of the young Men who are growing fast,
Yet the young Men diverging in their thinking,
When they thought they are doing the only right thing,
Although what they have been doing,
Are only repeating the same sins
Of the Wise men they have never seen.

And Why?,
Because.

--syamsulhasran

Significance of the recent by-elections

2009-04-08T03:07:00.000-07:00

Two in Perak : Both are won by Pakatan Rakyat

One in Sarawak: Won by BN.

What are the significance of all these??

1. Don't quickly jump to conclusion that support for people by Pakatan Rakyat is the same as March 8 election.

2. This is because, both are won by Pakatan were in Perak, I interpret it as this: Perak people are in a disagreement on sudden change in their state government. But two places can't say all. Unless a state-wide election takes place and the margin goes much higher, only I'm convinced on this theory.

3. The dynamic of the support on the national level towards either BN or Pakatan might change with the recent appointment of Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. But what makes it more important is that the return of Tun Dr. M to UMNO and this can play a significant role in gathering back the support from Malays, which is now split into UMNO,PAS and PKR.

4. The easiest swing is from PKR to UMNO. UMNO, please don't hope much swing from PAS, you cry blood lah.

5. The positive perception as a result of the return of Tun Dr. M to UMNO and endorsement of Datuk Seri Najib can be a big boost to UMNO, but UMNO could now be well fragmanted as a result of its recent elections. For example, there was a question mark on why KJ can get away with "Lembaga Disiplin" and still won the election. This splits Pemuda and therefore, weaken UMNO in general.

6. The media is attacking DSAI head-on as usual. But I saw that it's is too blunt and people don't like it, especially the Malays (we're sensitive people).

7. What could be a weapon (i.e media) could just be a double edge sword for BN. So handle with care.

8. People need to maturely distinguish between a functioning government with political parties. Failure to do this will get our country grinding to a halt.

9. At the end of the day, the average Joe's like you and me need to be asking yourself not to waste too much time on political things after elections - we should get back to work and accept it as a reality.

10. Unless to some people who are no longer in touch with the reality - they tend to ignore these results and therefore continue making mistakes in the long run.

Sekian Terima Kasih

BERKHIDMAT UNTUK NEGARA

Saya yang menjalankan tugas,

--syamsulhasran

Ocean ordeal

2009-04-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

Amidst the storm
All the fish are gone
And all our nets are torn
And all our boats are leaking
And all the children are born
And all the children are crying
We can't feed them
Because, all the fish are gone

Amidst the scare
All the money were robbed
And there comes rain
We curse the rain, but we have nothing to gain
We don't know what's coming
Because, all our money are gone

Wake up in the morning
Get back to sleep.

Stay late at night
Do nothing but thinking

During the day
Day-dreaming
During the night
Still sleeping

Sleeping still
Dreaming
Refusing to deal
With the ocean ordeal

--syamsulhasran

PM baru dan aspirasi rakyat

2009-04-06T03:18:00.001-07:00

Negara Malaysia mendapat Perdana Menteri Baru - Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

Tetapi apa maksudnya?

Maksudnya adalah harapan baru. Adakah saya menaruh harapan yang tinggi?

Sebenarnya, harapan rakyat Malaysia adalah rakyat Malaysia sendiri, bukan sekadar PM, Ahli Parlimen tertentu, atau ADUN.

Saya berharap agar semua rakyat Malaysia bersama-sama menggembleng tenaga untuk memajukan negara tercinta ini

Kita harus bersikap rasional dalam menilai segala tindakan yang dilakukan oleh kerajaan - Persekutuan mahupun Negeri.

Kita harus menilai segala tingkah-laku kerajaan dari segi perlaksanaan harapan rakyat - bukan di kaca mata politik semata-mata.

Politik itu penting - tetapi kemajuan dan keamanan melalui muafakat rakyat lebih penting.

Mengapa kita perlu berpolitik ala-machiavelli seperti segelintir ahli politik kita?

Kita tidak perlu "Realpolitik". Kita tidak perlu rebut kuasa semata-mata mahu kuasa dan kekayaan melalui parti politik. Parti politik adalah wadah perjuangan, bukan jalan singkat untuk jadi kaya-raya untuk bina istana mahligai.

Apa yang kita perlukan adalah kemajuan dan keamanan melalui muafakat.

Kita telah buang banyak masa berpolitik. Sekarang adalah masa untuk bersikap positif dan berkerjasama dengan semua pihak - tidak kira dari fahaman politik apa sekalipun.

Tika

2009-04-03T00:04:00.001-07:00

Tika
Kau seberangi tujuh lautan
Mengejar impian yang maya
Saban hari resah gelisah
Menghitung wang, menghitung harta
Resah dek nafsu yang tiada penyudahnya

Tika
Laungan azan sayup kedengaran
Kau dirikan solat, kau tunaikan zakat
Kaulah yang berdiri megah melaungkan lafaz jihad
Kau sendiri yang menyatakan
Kesungguhanmu untuk bersatu menentang seteru
Kau sendiri yang menyatakan
Bahawa hidup matimu hanyalah untuk-Nya yang Satu

Tetapi tika itu
Dalam sedar, dalam diam
Kaulah yang menjadi seteru
Berselindung di balik jubah dosa
Gelak tawamu sayup kedengaran di balik tabir
Di saat rakan seperjuanganmu melafazkan lafaz Takbir

Tika itu
Kau sendiri harus tahu
Betapa teraniayanya seluruh kalbu
Yang telah kau tipu
Demi mengejar duniamu
Yang realitinya
Tiada ertinya

--syamsulhasran

Web 2.0: the Social Media" phenomena

2009-04-01T23:13:00.001-07:00

A new buzzword: Social Media

Quite old in fact. As old as Web 2.0. In fact, social media is a by-product of Web 2.0.

What's Web 2.0?

Honestly, it's a marketing hype. In reality, it tries to define a changing landscape on how we all communicating via Internet. The poster boys of Web 2.0 are Facebook and Myspace and Twitter.

It also tries to characterize how we are catching up with everyone using the latest Web technology.

Somebody gave it a name for all these "Facebook-me, and Twits me too" thing, and the name is Social Media.

Big deal?

Yes, but not as big as email. It help us get connected with lost friends and lots of them, but it can't beat two killer apps that we all loved since the stone age of Internet:

1. Email
The real deal is still email. Email is the killer apps of the Internet. It's as old as ARPANET Email and as new as Gmail. It's ubiquitous - home, corporations, shops, etc.

It's the ultimate Web application.

2. Chat
The next big thing after email on the Internet. It's the extension of email. If the email thread is unbearably long, the next logical step is to chat it out. Chat make our life casual and relax. We thus found chatting less during working hour, and more during leisure time with family members, relatives and friends.

Without the ability to send "email" (or message) and "chat", one can hardly claim he is developing a Web 2.0 application and try to label it as "Oh, this is my social media apps", because the apps doesn't pass my Web 1.0 test - email and chat.

In this regard, for me, Twitter is still an old application delivered in a new way:

Short text messages, serve as asynchronous chat, and delivered to the people who subscribe it.

Hence, if someone says that a Twitter-like application is a Web 2.0, for me it's just a hype.

Whatever we have since ARPANet is already complete, except that, our messages are delivered in a new way with the latest technology. Assigning a different name to the platform (i.e World Wide Web), where what we're talking is the "method" of sending the messages, is misleading at best.

This is because the Web is evolving all the time since its inception in the 1990s. So when do we have Web 1.5? Nobody knows.

We're all living in a constant changing of Web technologies. Assigning a few apps to a new buzzword seems unnecessary.

View from the Cockpit

2009-03-31T19:50:00.000-07:00

Flying through the mountain tops
I can see those people are tiny
Breathing in and breathing out
I can see those people around me

Who are flying, behind me?
Can I see those faces, behind me?

Who are flying, in front of me?
Can I see those faces, in front of me?

Wind is cold but I am bold
Flying through the beautiful trees
Heard some noise from mission control
Just ignore them, I am flying

Who are flying, behind me?
Can I see those faces, behind me?

Who are flying, in front of me?
Can I see those faces, in front of me?

--syamsulhasran

Plants/Flowers and Animals of Malaysia

2009-03-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

Some of us didn't realize that we're living on a rich soil, and home to the the densely populated plants/flowers and animals. There are many plants that caught my interests here:

1. Rafflesia - the biggest flower in the world
2. Orchids - unique plants that produce very odd looking but feature rich flowers
3. Teratai (water lily) - one of the most amazing flowers floating on the lake
4. Spices and herbs - countless!

Some of the interesting animals:

1. Orang utan (jungle man) - speak for themselves
2. Harimau kumbang - black panther. Believe me, we have a very special species for that.
3. Tigers
4. Elephants
5. all sorts of monkeys

Some of these animals can frighten populations, but they add richness to our ecosystem. We live on a fertile soil where all sorts of plants and animals can survive, depending on their ability to reach out to their needed resources.

Think about it. Our land is unique.

UMNO: Way to go! (down the drain)

2009-03-27T03:56:00.000-07:00

When good people go, UMNO can let it go
When good people come, UMNO can afford to ignore

When the damage is done, UMNO will dance
When the money is no more, UMNO will jump out of the window

When good people come, UMNO does not welcome
When good people go, UMNO says, "way to go!"

--syamsulhasran

Note: Datuk Shahrir Samad is to resign from his post

Keputusan Pilihanraya UMNO

2009-03-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

This is just a rambling on UMNO election. I don't want to take this seriously (u bet!)

1. I love watching Puteri UMNO cheering like school kids during announcement of the results. Ahh, do we have SMS vote for Exco? Can I participate in the reality show? Wait, who won just now?

2. I'm saddened by Mohd Ali's disqualification. I like him because he did a great job as a Chief Minister of Melaka. Likewise, I would expect him to be a great implementor of big things. He might not be a very smart and cunning politician. Probably has bad PR too but he can do stuff. Who in UMNO can do stuff right now except Datuk Shahrir Samad and him? (of course and few others lah. of course of course). Some people don't like Mohd Ali, but that's alright, they're not from Melaka. Haha!.

3. KJ the smart joker made a very good stand-up comedy. Congrats KJ for this Youth Wing thing. You freaking rocks!. I feel sorry for Datuk Mukhriz. Honestly, I thought Datuk Mukhriz is gonna win so that the remnants of Tun Dr. M's legacy will creep back into UMNO, but looks like it's not gonna happen anytime soon, at least in the Youth wing.
It's a KJ show today! (but I don't think he can beat Jon Stewart. Maybe one day).

4. Datuk Khir Toyo, sorry, there's no more broom for you.

All aboard on UMNO ship!.

So who's the Captain now? Guess.

Everyday

2009-03-24T02:29:00.000-07:00

Everything you say
Next step I should stay

Every single step
Ended up being trapped

Every single way
We keep going astray

Every single day
We are wasting away

Everyday,
We can't just be like this
Everyday, Everyday.

Wasting.
Pondering.
Living.
Staying.

Trailers

2009-03-18T07:57:00.000-07:00

Trailers in movies are like abstracts in papers, we just show the overview so that the audience would want to watch the movie.

Here are some interesting things I would like to point out to designing nice trailers:

1. Introduce the "curious" elements in the movie. How? It depends on the movie. Curious elements can be characters, plots, or the "world" i.e the movie's "feel". What the movie is about? Why are such and such things happen? Why she cries?

2. Make the audience think. Usually, this is the message that you want to tell to the audience. Say you want to go green. You introduce theme of the movie about saving energy. How does the characters carry the mission? What are his obstacles?

3. Introduce "memorable shots" that let users "re-create" the scene even after they watch the trailers. We call it "recreation of motion". This is powerful.

3. Don't show the ending!.

The worst trailer is to show all the main characters, the plot, and how it ends. Why should I go watch it when I already know everything?

Betul tak?

PPSMI

2009-03-17T03:03:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing a lot on why we should or should not abolished PPSMI.

For me, we should abolish it due to :

1. Practical reason - that the Malay kids generally don't know English (and don't speak) English at home. Asking them to interpret Physics and Maths in English is a hindrance to their conceptual understanding at a very early age. This will demoralized students and therefore unnecessarily killed students interests in learning. We need kids to have fun with science and math, not burdening them with scientific English words at early age.

2. Nationalistic reason - that the Malay language is now rapidly diverging from the path of intellectual domains, that the reason we use it is that, to tell stories to kampung folks, to bluff them, to ridicule them, and to poke fun at them.

I really don't get why TAR College can survive as the champion of Chinese language while the Malays are lamenting that we can't get anything out of our own language.

The fact is, we can learn and excel at both language, but not more than two.

The only reason that we should not introduce anymore languages is because they're too many.
We should just use Malay and English, that's it. Much like Canadian use French and English, but we don't have to declare our country to be bi-lingual.

I'm not saying that we should not learn English, in fact, we should also master it. But we make it secondary. Because we have our own language. I thought Dr. M is the one who thought me to "Look East". I'm now looking at Japan.

We pride ourselves to be having a national language, only to have all sorts of ideas to remove it from intellectual domains. It's true that it's hard to translate English to Malay on all scientific terms. The thing is, we don't have to - we should adapt it whenever possible, and use our language in our academic institutions for intellectual discussions as well as everyday conversations.

Another way is to have collaboration with our Indonesian counterpart - the Malay language was used both by Malaysia and Indonesia for this very practical reason that we can use it together. Malaysian alone do not have critical mass to be using Malay language to warrant books translations, etc.

That way, we grow as a nation, with soul.

Kerana , Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa.

Decoupling Theory

2009-03-15T23:26:00.001-07:00

What? Decoupling Theory? Where is this coming from? I've never heard about it before.
So I'm confused when I read the news on Utusan today (Utusan is my primary source of news) that Malaysia is putting its money on this theory.

It's OK to believe on this theory, especially the one that boost the ego of Asian countries. But for what? I don't know much economics, but I know that since David Ricardo's era, we're becoming more and more interdependent. Especially in today's world where we can't ignore what is happening to economic powerhouses (U.S, Japan, Europe, China).

You can convince me that if Cuba or Zimbabwe screwed up their economy, there will be nothing happen in Asia. Or, - Latin America. It won't affect much, and therefore, we're "decoupled" from them.

But if our economic partners are relying heavily on the economic powerhouse i.e US, how can we decouple ourselves from them? Easy example - Singapore. Singapore has been hard hit and have taken measure to prevent recession. Singapore is one of our biggest trading partners. Therefore, can I say I've decoupled myself from the U.S?

The answer is no.

So this "Decoupling Theory" is new, and unproven. In fact, it's an old economics. You can say that China try to "decouple" itself from the world and stay relatively poor until one smart guy called Deng Xiaoping came and open up China.

Our economy are now interdependence. We're relying on specialization to earn comparative advantage.

This is Economics 101.

Tak ku hiraukan

2009-03-14T09:22:00.000-07:00

Kepergianmu diakhiri dengan lambaian
Tapi nafasmu masih kedengaran
Jalan buntu, merasuk rindu
Menyelubungi kalbu, diam membisu

Langkahmu longlai
Tampak yakin, tetapi tidak
Ku mengerti apa yang bergolak
Di dalam benakmu
Tetapi tak ku hiraukan

Aku melangkah ke arah bertentangan
Terasa sepi,
Seperti berdiri seorang diri
Patah kaki bertongkat budi
Hilang budi, tempang naluri

Tak ku hiraukan
Aku berjalan maju ke hadapan
Walau arah bertentangan

Tak ku hiraukan
Aku berjalan tanpa menoleh kiri dan kanan
Walau tak sehaluan

Tak ku hiraukan
Aku menongkah arus deras bertentangan
Walau tiada tongkat budi
Untuk diri ini menagih simpati
Kepada engkau yang telah pergi

Kerana aku tahu,
Bahawa semuanya itu
Tak kau hiraukan

--syamsulhasran

Waves

2009-03-12T23:39:00.000-07:00

Last few days ago, I've searched through a current trend on economic downturns. What is really causing it? I don't really want to believe about this "housing problem" in the US. It's true that that was the major factor. But that's not the whole story.

This economic downturn is the story of the problem of "unlimited human wants and limit".

Simple. If you're given RM1000, with the prospect of getting RM2000, would you go for RM2000? Yes, you would. And what if RM100,000, RM 1 Mil, RM 1 Bil, RM 1 Tril... let's change currency. USD 1 trillion.... it goes on.

That's it, that's it. This is our problem. We can't satisfy ourselves with what we have. We can only realize the limit of how far we could go. But you're actually the one who impose that limit. In reality, your "want" won't be satisfied.

So how do we go around this? We have policies and laws to govern our unlimited wants such that the scarce resources on this planet are accessible to all.

So when we have unlimited wants, we tend to go so far until we hit the limit, and then we back off. After things settle, we go there again - stronger. This in effect creates a "cycle" in our economy - growth and shrink. Hard landing, soft landing. You name it. It's the same thing.

So now, we know why there's an economic cycle?

But can't we have economic "flatness"? Price is stable - everyone is happy.
In ideal world, yes. In reality, no. Our desire fluctuate, often correlated with our limit.

The interesting observation is this: Small particles travel in waves.

Ocean creates waves, Particles travel in waves, Pendulum creates waves (simple harmonic motion). All this, if we plot will create a plotting pattern called "sinusoidal".

Once you have sinusoidal plot, you can use many apparatus and tools and mathematical techniques, and come up with all sorts of theories about life.

Particles, down to atom level, will have electron and proton. This is the determining factor of the behavior that we see, even at the "macro" level.

OK, you'll then argue with me that the law governing particles is different in atomic level. It's true that Newton's Law of motion conflict fundamentally with Quantum Mechanics. But if we zoom in and out, the essence - polarities created tension between two atomic particles, creates these "waves" even down at the field and atom level. The law is different, but the character is the same. This dynamic of particle polarities creates interesting phenomena in nature:

Hot and cold, Black and white, etc. It's basically "Ying and Yang".

My bottom line is this:
Our life work harmoniously with nature in waves.
Life because of "unlimited wants and human limit". Nature because of "ying" and "yang".

Happy Birthday (to me)

2009-03-11T22:07:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to me.

Today is my birthday. I would like to thank Allah for giving me the health and wealth that I need to continue living on this planet.

Next, I would like to thank my family for continuous support.
I pray for peaceful soul of my late mom and continuous health of my dad.

I'm glad that my little sisters are making progress in their lives, two of them got nice jobs (in today's difficult economic times), and one is finishing up her studies. My little brother started his way to become a pilot, and I need to guide him in any possible way. Currently, I'm trying to get everything in order - PC, and some electronics, Add Math and Physics coaching, etc. I try to come home once a month to catch up with them.

My elder siblings are doing fine in their lives. They have families to take care of, and they're also monitoring our "younger" generation. I'm in the middle, so I'm on both sides of hemisphere.

Thanks to all co-workers. I love my job.

To think that one is "older" when it comes to birthday is a misleading concept. We should just view it as our "next" step in life. In reality, we're getting older every picosecond in this world. So birthday is a "macro" view of our life's milestone, and nothing more than that.

Life goes on, and so are yours.

Jerry Maguire

2009-03-04T08:12:00.001-08:00

What's unique about the movie Jerry Maguire?

1. The script
2. The casts
3. The characters

No, that's unique - what's unique? Here:

1. The script.

The story line is normal.

People remember this movie because of the script. If you're not one of those people, then watch it.

Perak - Crossovers should be banned

2009-03-03T09:19:00.000-08:00

The situation that is happening in Perak simply solidify the reality that I'm looking for - that we need to make crossing over of MP (Ahli Parlimen) / ADUN (Ahli Dewan Undangan Negeri) - illegal in this country's democracy.

Here are the reasons:

1. Crossovers making the elected representatives to join the side that may actually against what the people's wish.

2. Because it is potentially against the majority of the people's wish, this is undemocratic

3. Democracy is balancing public accountability and the interest of minority (you can define whatever "democracy" you want, but this is the definition that I settle for).

4. Crossing over could shift the balance that could biased towards majority's interest OR public "unaccountability".

5. Either way, the elected reps betrayed the trust of the people

6. Because the elected representatives betrayed the trust of the people, they're unethical to public. ( Note: This is not to be confused with their private lives i.e Elizabeth Wong can sleep half-naked but she's still accountable to the public so long she doesn't betray the trust of the people who elected her. For me, she did nothing wrong)

7. Because crossovers are unethical, it should be banned.

I can't think of making crossovers an exception unless the Government become ruthless and launch genocides and do some crazy things that the interest of the people need to be protected.
But I don't foresee this happening in our country. We are not like that. History shows that our people are living in harmony and are relatively peaceful.

However, we should have this exception just in case. That's the only exception that we should give, and nothing else.

Unless the government of Perak did crazy things like launching genocides to the people of Taiping for example, we should ban change of government due to crossovers.

Likewise, we should ban change of government of the Member of Parliament crossing overs to change Fed Govt.

We should be consistent in terms of principle. I can't say that it's OK to change Fed Govt via crossovers, but it's wrong to change the State Govt via crossovers. If that's the case, I'm just contradicting myself.

Misteri Gayung yang Hilang

2009-03-02T15:42:00.000-08:00

Terperangkap dalam bayang
Terperangkap dalam angan
Gayung merah menyala
Terperap sepi di dalam baldi
Hilang pergi menghilang diri

Ku mula mencari
Si gayung sepi
Tak mengapa tak mengapa
Gayung hilang bisa diganti
Berus gigi yang hilang bisa dibeli
Sabun yang musnah bisa dicari

Gayung yang hilang muncul semula
Tetapi tidak mengapa
Gayung yang hilang bisa diganti
Hilangnya ia tidak memberi erti
Dalam hidup ini

-- syamsulhasran

Football: the EPL phenomena v. our country's football

2009-03-01T07:40:00.000-08:00

I just came back from the makan stall again and this time, watching Man U. v. Tottenham while eating there. I watch half-way. I came back early because my "nasi goreng + telur mata" set was over and the match bores me.

Oh, why? Wasn't it that Man U. team was supposed to be the greatest on the earth football player team?

Wrong.

They're the most "popular" and the most commercialized football team in the world. They are heavily merchandized, and the players look like super-heroes.
I don't like how Tevez play btw. And I think they suck.

So when the play is boring, I mean it.

I'm not a football fan, so I have nothing to judge compared to you, the "otaku" of EPL. But hey, I don't like EPL, instead, I like Formula 1 better. So it's just that.

The number thing you have to ask yourself is this - do you like EPL, or do you like football?
Do you like EPL just because everyone is watching it, or do you like it because, you do?
I hope you like EPL because you like it, not because for some reason so many people watch it at mamak stall, and therefore, you should too.

I like football but not obsessed with it. I don't play football for centuries now and won't likely to play it anytime soon. The last serious venture into football was playing for my kampung primary school. But that's nothing.

So the number two question that I have is this: if there are so many people genuinely love football in this country (as demonstrated by their overwhelming interest in EPL) , why the heck that I see a lack of interest in Malaysia cup?

Another puzzle, why the Stadium Bandaraya was half empty the last time I went to Penang v. Negeri Sembilan match? Something is definitely wrong, and here's my reasoning:

1. People don't watch Malaysia cup match because the quality is "bad".

2. The quality is bad is because the players are badly trained

3. The players are badly trained because the state has limited funding to train them, and give attractive salaries

4. Players demotivated, and therefore play badly.

5. When the team play badly, people don't want to watch at stadium and say "I better spend my RM10 somewhere else. After all, I can watch EPL at mamak for free (well, a cup of teh tarik will do) and they play much better"

6. When the stadium generates less revenue, state has less funding.

7. The "state-funded" team go for "private-funded" and the Malaysia cup become a mess

8. The 'imported players' later are banned because they can't afford to pay that much.

9. All of the above created "bad Malaysia cup match".

10. The match now become so uncompetitive and "abandoned", even Singapore doesn't want to enter.

Somebody didn't do much thinking eh? I didn't either. It's easy to see that we're not competitive because we're blindfolded by protectionism. We failed to compete. We failed in the global world. The world has moved to become more "flat". Look at Singapore. Who are playing? A lot of their players are foreigners given Singaporean citizenship. Do we need to do that? No no.

All we need is just to devise competitive game plan - salary, more friendly matches, generate interest on Malaysia cup, get best players.

Then the match at Stadium Bandaraya is more rewarding than that EPL in mamak stall.

Sekian

MAJULAH SUKAN UNTUK NEGARA.

Go Broke

2009-02-28T04:37:00.000-08:00

Multiple times and you're not dead
Retards and multitude of stupidity dominating brains
Go broke, go broke, go broke
You shall live in peace

Cards for cash and cash for cards
Go around the globe make the trades
Go broke, go broke, go broke
You shall live in peace

Peace, peace, peace
peace, peace, peace
You shall live in peace

-- syamsulhasran

in the face of chaos

2009-02-27T04:56:00.000-08:00

among the brigands and faulty machines
stood myself with soulless bodies
grappling with joy, yet are we in grieve
they know better, but not me

we march among the faulty smell
wondering and wandering
we march together to heaven or hell
nobody knows what's the ending

good deed, good deed
'tis hard to come by
easy for me to say I did
alas, I'm not that high

--syamsulhasran

Tempias Sang Cakrawala

2009-02-26T04:12:00.000-08:00

Titisan embun entah dari mana
Menghias pagi yang ku idam-idamkan
Setelah sekian lama
Hidup di bumi indah pertiwi
Nian ku nikmati
Tempias Sang Cakrawala

Gerlap gemerlapan
Bintang-bintang yang menerawang
Entah ke mana
Seakan panggil-memanggil
Seakan lambai-melambai
Kepada bumi kepada insan
Yang sedang asyik menikmati
Tempias Sang Cakrawala

Kutitipkan senyuman
Kepada engkau, sayap-sayap malam
Segulung harapan, pekerti insan
Tujulah ke gunung kandung seroja
Agar mereka semua
Bersyukur lewat menikmati
Tempias Sang Cakrawala

-- syamsul hasran.

Apartment - good and bad

2009-02-24T17:05:00.000-08:00

I like living in an apartment. I like it more than living on a landed property.
Here's what I found the good and the bad about living in an apt:

Good:
1. Cheap to rent (or buy)
2. Small and easy to clean up
3. A lot of people to say hi and make friends
4. Living at a higher level is great. The wind is cool

Bad:
1. No land to grow plants.
2. Your car/vehicle is downstairs so you can't see it.
3. Risk to fall over is there. Esp for the height fright freak.
4. Relatively noisier since a lot more people are around.

The biggest problem for me is no (1), I can't grow many plants. My orchid plants are dying and no longer have their beautiful blooming orchids coming out of it easily. I tend to forget to water it and they couldn't get the rain (maybe a little sprinkle but that's it).

This is a bad thing.

Deflating Racism - let's do our part.

2009-02-23T06:20:00.000-08:00

To deflate Racism is to destroy the environment that stimulate racism

I've posted these points on ReCom , but I've extracted only the points:

1. Racism is a subset of "asabiyah" (I forgot what's in English). "Asabiyah" is a human's tendency to get together and group due to something that they share - language, traits, belief, anything.

2. We're all humans, we do possess this "asabiyah".

3. Therefore, we're all racist.

4. Racism cannot be destroyed, however, the degree could be deflated.

5. To deflate racism is to reduce the environment that stimulate racism

6. Malaysian environment stimulate racism. For example, employing same race, NEP, racial politics, establishment of sekolah (jenis) kebangsaan, media prima's TV8 (Chinese) and TV9 (Malay) and etc. These are the element that has racism in them.

7. An effective way to deflate racism is to start from within - Chinese from Chinese, Malay from Malay, Indian from Indian. Very much like how Nelson Mandela destroyed apartheid by favoring none of the skin color, including black. That way he deflate racism among blacks. And not only that, he managed a score of white supporters along the way.

9. For the Chinese, to deflate racism among the Chinese can be effectively achieved from the Chinese themselves.

10. As a corollary, For the Malays, to deflate racism among the Malays can be effectively achieved by the Malays.

At the very least, play our part not to display "For Chinese only", "For Malay only" advertisement. But don't limit yourself unnecessarily. The worst thing is to do nothing.

Let's do our part.

Charlie Wilson's War

2009-02-22T06:52:00.000-08:00

I was eating at the stall down at my apartment, and saw this movie on Astro. It was already in the middle of the story, but I decided to watch it and finish it off.

It was Tom Hanks as "Charlie" and Julia Roberts as "Joanne" so it must be a damn good movie to begin with. And yes, it was telling a history-making story, about the Afghan-Soviet war in the late 1980s.

It shows how the United States was funding the war via CIA. It portrays Charlie's personal war against the Soviets.

Joanna sort of "seduced" him and showed him around, meeting Pakistan's leader, convincing him that he has to go through the process and get the funding to help the Afghan fight back the Soviets invaders.

He did. And he did it in a big way. With initial funding of USD5 mil, it went to more than USD200 mil.

Although the movie portrayed the Afghan war as Charlie's personal war, I don't personally think that it's that simple.

I don't think we should attribute this war to Charlie alone. No doubt he is the main character in the event, but the fact that there was a Cold War could explain much interplay between characters that resulting into the winning of Afghan against the Soviet.

But as history shows to us, in later years, the kids who survive on the Afghan land are the very people who retaliate back against the U.S. Why?

Or is it? Who's behind this.

Another Charlie?

Suratkhabar Lama!

2009-02-21T17:23:00.000-08:00

"Suratkhabar Lama!"
Memekakkan telinga
Di kala pagi buta
Mengganggu jiran tetangga

"Sao Kao Po Chi!"
Mencari rezeki
Demi sesuap nasi
Gigih memandu lori
Ke sana ke mari

"Paper Lama!"
Sedang ku lena di buai mimpi
Kala terbit mentari
Dan khayalan ku lantas terhenti
Bingkas aku ke kamar mandi

Conspire

2009-02-20T20:02:00.000-08:00

Conspire
Let you go by my side
Don't expect any guide and tide
Just hold it and you know you're right

Desire
Let it go, don't let it loose
For you to lose if you forgot to choose
Which is for you, which is for your mind

Don't mind
Don't mind to choose, don't mind to liberate
Define the limit, set your will free
And you will be free

Life

2009-02-20T01:35:00.001-08:00

Eat,
Work,
Shit,
Sleep,
Pray

And you'll be dead soon

Dumb

2009-02-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

I think I'm dumb
So as you are
Thought we're cool
Don't go to school
We got some coins
Waste them away
We are all dumb
We have a life

Go to the moon
Not coming back
Fly with the broom
Forgot the spell
Found some trees
Don't like the smell
I think I'm dumb
So as you are

Got limbs
Overslept
Big deal
Go on
Faster
Move on
Quickly
Right on.

I think I'm dumb (12x)
So as you are

Change

2009-02-17T07:46:00.000-08:00

There's this saying that the only thing constant is "change" itself.

Sounds cliche, but do you agree?

How about Plank constant? Gravity of 9.81 ms(2) ?. Yes, this might get changed if you're somewhere else in the universe. Time and space are our friends. Wherever, whenever, you'll be experiencing something else.

Since change happens at any point of space and time, change will always occur relatively. And because we're either moving in time or space, or both, change will always happen. Since change will always happen at any point, change itself is the constant.

Then you'll go - "wait a second. This make no sense".
This is like saying changes in, say, variable "x", is itself a constant. But "x" doesn't have any absolute value.! You can't possibly say that it's a constant.

OK, let me tell you this - do you agree that the gravity constant g is only constant on the planet earth? So how can you claim that it is a constant when we can define another g that refers to gravity on the moon? Which has a different value?

The thing is, you can't have a real constant. You can only have a constant relative to some reference point. We don't have any real constant because the universe itself is changing.

To say that the only constant is "change" can be confusing at best, but what essentially the message is that - things around us are changing, whether we ourselves make any effort to change or not.

What's the lesson? Change, or be changed.

Corruption

2009-02-16T07:36:00.000-08:00

When Pak Lah just became our new Prime Minister in 2003, I was out in California. I remember I was watching CNN and saw the ceremony. I even recorded it on my video cam this historical ceremony that marked the end of Tun Mahathir's era as the only Prime Minister that I've ever known since I was a kid.

Until Pak Lah came. And there's a high hope that he's gonna, not corrupt. And not only him, everyone would be. And that he would lead Malaysia into a nation of relatively cleaner country in terms of corruption.

But is he failing? Did he leave a legacy of not being corrupt? What kind of corruption? Money, moral? Health? Economics? Toxic? What?

Before going even further with our discussion with Pak Lah, what's the definition of Corruption? Corruption can be anything you want to define to be that "bad" thing involving money. But if that's your definition, I afraid you're limiting yourself. We should be aware that the word "corrupt" can be associated with anything "bad". So in my simple definition, "corrupt" simply "bad". A "moral corruption" means immoral.

But let's talk about "money corrupt". Do you think Pak Lah fails to lead Malaysia to a cleaner Malaysia in terms of "monetary" corruption? Here's my thought:

1. Malaysia is nowhere near to be less corrupt than during Mahathir's era. I'm lazy to dig the statistic but you should be aware by now.

2. Pak Lah in a way did a good PR on corruption, but not a good job at execution. He tried though.

3. Our political system was designed with a corruption culture.

My point is this: If you want to "benteras" corruption, you have to have "cultural" revolution.
I heard a lot of people that they hate Malaysian attitude, but it's not about attitude, it's about culture.

The culture of bribing is so common that people are expected to do it. Everyone. Businessman, politicians, civil servants, general population.

It's something you can't avoid. If you until now manage to avoid any form of corruption (not even a single sen of "duit kopi") I congratulate you and you should spread this culture to the greater population.

If you have done some form of corruption, however small, you're still corrupt, and that's very culturally Malaysian.

I'm not saying that we're corrupt in every way. But we must destroy this sick culture in our society. It's true that we're not the worst country in terms of Corruption index (or whatever index you read and develop).

But if you want to be a rich and develop country, you have to be not corrupt - it's just as simple as being of opposite "bad".

In other words, be "good". Simple, isn't it? Yet it's hard to do.

Harmonica

2009-02-09T15:49:00.000-08:00

I've bought harmonica last weekend and played simple songs yesterday. Who knows one day I can be as famous as Bob Dylan!.

Apart from that, I was experimenting with the famous "come as you are" riff.

Perak's political turmoil

2009-02-08T08:33:00.000-08:00

There are a couple of things to note in Perak's political turmoil:

A state government was being taken over by BN from Pakatan Rakyat via MP crossover
The Sultan of Perak blessed the took over
The government was formed without a majority
There are a fair many people/rakyat disagree with all the above

I considered the following as "noises" that overshadow the real issue, although it's OK to argue about them (for different reason):

Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim was the one introduced this idea of crossover in this country. People blamed him for originating this issue. If you're the one who feels about that, you should blame Dato' Seri Najib in this case, not DSAI. You're right that DSAI is the one responsible in exposing the loophole, but it is our current government who really use it to take over the Perak's government.
Crossover is considered as immoral in Malaysia (by me, i don't know about you) and therefore, this should be banned (I don't care what other countries system are. I'm just talking about Malaysia). I don't want to argue on how BN was rumored to be "buying" the MPs. That's up to you to dig the news.
The royal family has interest in the BN to become the government. I heard this rumor, but I don't think this is part of the real issue.

Ignore these noises.

There's one significance in this turmoil that has my greatest interest:

The decision of the Sultan was questioned by the rakyat

From these events, here's my thought:

The power of the Ruler depends on the trust and respect from the people being ruled.
People has entrusted the Sultan to make the best decision in the interest of the rakyat, if the government fails to function.

The trust appear to be violated by granting BN to form a government without a majority in the State Assembly.

Since the government that has majority in this country will be of interest of the rakyat, Sultan's "titah" is not in favor of the people i.e people's interest are no longer being secured.

The act of the Sultan to interfere is a blessing, this is because our Federal government did nothing to secure the interest of Rakyat - to uphold the democracy.

However, the result is not what the people seems to be expecting.

Either the Sultan gains trust and respect from the people again by taking appropriate action (according the the interest of the people, which is the legitimate government with majority), or people would later question whether Royal Institution in this country really respect their trust.

The Malay sentiment is being played out by the media to ask the Malays not to question the Sultan no matter what. This I believe could command not small, but a lot of Malays to stick to Your Highness' decision and therefore, could help BN win a great deal of constituency if it happens that there's a statewide election.

I think we Malays forgot our own proverb:

"Raja adil Raja di sembah"
"Raja zalim Raja di sanggah".

If rakyat feels that their trust has been violated, don't you think this very proverb will guide the rakyat what to do?

Another flip side is that - does the Sultan act in the interest of the Malays? I don't have hard evidence so I won't offer any analysis here.

Slumdog Millionaire: The story of time

2009-02-07T05:49:00.000-08:00

Today, I watched Slumdog Millionaire. I watched it on my PC on a newly-bought, cheapest (that I could find) Logitech speaker on my broken-but-recently-fixed Philips monitor. So there's no such thing as cinematic experience. But that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy the movie as a medium of expression.

There are many elements introduced in this movie, some old and some new. The one that interest me the most is the manipulation of "time".

Let's take a look at the plot of the movie:

- Introduction to characters - Jamal, Salim and Lathika.
The movie introduced Jamal first (the opening) and it deliberately confused the audience with the parallel play of two seemingly separate events, but share the same "character" of the situation. Here, it forced us to think that these two parallels are just (1) Jamal's reality and (2) his imagination. But it's not. The two scenes that are interwoven are:

(1) an event in the police station where he was questions and tortured (homocide) and
(2) where he was sitting at the chair as a contestant in "Who wants to be a Millionaire", listening to Kapoor's question "Is this your final answer?" and some such things.

Here, we're forced to think that the event in the police station is an "imaginary" event i.e what's going on inside Jamal's head when answering the questions in the "Who wants to be a Millionaire".

This is the first twist - these two events mentioned above are two separate, real events. (you have to watch the movie all the way to the end to discover this. Otherwise, why should you spend 2 hrs on that, right?).

During the openings, Jamal went over a series of reflections on his childhood days. This thus introduced Salim, his elder brother as his "protector", and Lathika, his childhood lover.

Lost and Found - Search of Latika

Jamal, Salim, Lathika went around drifting away (their parents were killed in a religious clash) and was captured by a children exploiter (later revealed as Maman).

Jamal and Salim managed to escape , but on their way escaping, Salim decided that Lathika is better off in the hands of Maman. (why?). Jamal was mad at Salim.

They drifted around, but managed to make ends meet. After a while, Jamal urged Salim to rescue Lathika together.

OK, in search of Lathika, there are two stages:

First stage - Jamal and Salim went to Maman and rescue Lathika from Maman's headquarter. In this quest - Salim killed Maman (that's when Jamal rememberd and answer who invented revolver). Salim later took Lathika, and forced Jamal to leave. This is a hard blow for Jamal, who expected Salim's trust. After all, Lathika is Jamal's lover.

We're twisted again - Salim betrayed Jamal's trust.

Second stage - took Lathika from Salim. Salim apparently "gave" Lathika to Javed, another big time gangster in Mumbai.
Jamal pretend to be a cook/dishwasher, and ask Lathika to go with him out of Javed's house. Lathika refused.

Reversal of fortune - Jamal, who's a nobody and good for nothing, lost the only thing that he has - his lover Lathika.

Found Lathika, Salim's sacrifice and Jamal won the game

I don't want to elaborate this anymore. The plot is fairly typical in any Hindi movie where someone has to be shot dead to save another person.

If you ask me what's interesting about this movie, it's this - "time". As you can see, if I'm telling their stories, Jamal was actually at 3 places, relative to time:

(1) Sitting on the chair, on his way to win "who wants to be a Millionaire"
(2) At the police station, when was accused to be a cheater after his winning streak (they don't want the contestant to win the game, obviously).
(3) His life story - beginning from his childhood days, all the way to the time when he was sitting on the chair to win the game.

Typical Hollywood movie right? Not quite. The plot is typical, but the interplay of time is quite a character of this movie. It is the one that gave a powerful thrust, or rather - the most confusion to the audience. And the ultimate ending is does he win the game? (well, guess what, a hero has to win it. Otherwise, why should he be one?.)

The story was told in a back-and-forth manner (think of it as parallel processes), but converges at one event. It was a pretty interesting technique. This is a sort of "flashback" kind of movie, except that, the flashback was given a wonderful treatment in the sense that it has substance on the way the hero finishing his quest to become a millionaire to win back Lathika.

I've always amused at the concept of time. It could trick us in many ways.

Gender equality

2009-02-05T17:37:00.000-08:00

I disagree on gender equality in general:

1. Men and Women are physically not the same
2. Nature works harmoniously with Men and Women as they are created.
3. The way the brain works (and everything else) are not the same
4. Analogous to Physics concept, Man is a different "polarity" than Woman.

However, I agree on equal opportunity. This idea however, transcends gender so I won't be covering here.

My point is that, we should regard gender difference as reality and work harmoniously with nature. Don't deny something real.

Therefore, the people who shouted about "Woman Rights" have to know what they're talking about. If they fight for equal opportunity with regard to gender, I agree on their cause. But if they fight beyond that scope, they're fighting a losing battle.

Valentine's Day is a rip-off

2009-02-04T16:52:00.001-08:00

I have an opinion that I held for a long time, although sometimes I thought I've made some exceptions:

Valentine's Day is a rip-off

Think about this:

1. If you love someone, you should love him/her everyday. There must be something in that someone that you love. If you don't love him/her and you hope something magical will happen during Valentine's Day, think again.

2. You don't need a special day to express the love-feeling thing. You show it any day you want.

3. You are expected to spend a fair amount of money on something both you and your couple probably don't want to (such as, too expensive), but you have to because, guess what, it's a Valentine's Day.

4. Why can't I declare 15th Feb as Syamsul's Day. I mean, who's this "Valentine" guy anyway that we're supposed to celebrate.

5. I don't have much money to spend on a "special" occasion that has nothing to do with me, and my (future) couple. By the way, I'm still single.

6. Valentine's Day is a distorted reality created by capitalism.

OK, these are my reasons. I have nothing to celebrate during Valentine's Day. If the idea of Valentine's Day is to celebrate love, then I hereby declare everyday is a "Valentine's Day". This reduced the significance of Valentine's Day to absolute zero. Which is what it is supposed to be.
It should just vanish from this world.

War and Peace

2009-02-02T21:14:00.001-08:00

I've spent the entire week (I took 1 week leave due to CNY) reading Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace".

I'm having a headache.

After thinking for hours lying on my bed last weekend, I've concluded that the chief thing that I've learned from this book is this:

The highest form of art, is science

This is coming from me. You can quote me on that.

Nirvana's MTV unplugged concert

2009-01-19T21:21:00.000-08:00

I just bought the CD and I'm watching it over and over last weekend.
Great stuff, you can even look at what chords Kurt Cobain was playing.

Except Meat Puppet's songs, I hereby declare my 2009 resolution is to distract myself with Nirvana's songs, playing exactly the same chords (should I work on the same fingering too? After all, I play on the left. Yes, I should) that they play in this CD.

Not too late right? It's still January.

Theory of Relativity

2009-01-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

Theory of Relativity consisted of 2 theories:

Special theory of Relativity
General theory of Relativity

Special Theory of Relativity:
Consists of two principles:
1. The law of physics are relatively the same in uniform motion
2. The speed of light are the same in vacuum for all observers or the source of light

For (1), for the law of physics that is valid for a particular system A, also valid the a system A', which is uniform translatory motion relative to A.

For (2), why we care about the speed of light be the same for everyone?

General Theory of Relativity

In a simple term, general theory of relativity tries to solve the problem of gravitational force.
The Euclidean geometry need to be abandoned in favor of "space curvature". The idea that a "straight line" is a straight line does not apply in general - it could bend somehow.

For example, light rays are curved by the action of gravitational fields.

If that is true, you can imagine a uniformly rotating body that produced a centrifugal force is indeed, the gravitational force.

-- THE ABC'S OF UNIX

2008-12-25T23:42:00.000-08:00

Found this poem amusing, thought to share with you all.

A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and
B is for biff, which reads all your mail.
C is for cc, as hackers recall, while
D is for dd, the command that does all.
E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and
F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees.
G is for grep, a clever detective, while
H is for halt, which may seem defective.
I is for indent, which rarely amuses, and
J is for join, which nobody uses.
K is for kill, which makes you the boss, while
L is for lex, which is missing from DOS.
M is for more, from which less was begot, and
N is for nice, which it really is not.
O is for od, which prints out things nice, while
P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice.
Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable, and
R is for ranlib, for sorting ar table.
S is for spell, which attempts to belittle, while
T is for true, which does very little.
U is for uniq, which is used after sort, and
V is for vi, which is hard to abort.
W is for whoami, which tells you your name, while
X is, well, X, of dubious fame.
Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and
Z is for zcat, which handles compression.

-- THE ABC'S OF UNIX

IJN privatisation is BS

2008-12-22T03:48:00.001-08:00

I saw the trend that our current government is selling every piece of properties that they could sell either through JV, privatization through shady deals,etc.

The latest deal? Privatization of IJN.

First of all, IJN is a world-class, state-owned institution that caters the public. It's a world-class, that's a fact.

The only reason why they want to privatize IJN is that, as usual, someone somewhere in the government will benefit from it.

Once privatized, IJN can be sold to any business entity, and I know who they can sell to: Singaporeans.

Then charge the public ridiculous amount of money and earn huge profits. They don't care about the welfare of the poor. OK, that's unfair. Maybe they do. But company is not a welfare organization!. Shouldn't that the job of the government?

You can argue that the poor should be competitive and go high up social ladder but the fact is, not everyone is lucky, regardless of races.

The Bumis (Malays and aborigins) are relatively luckier due to their special rights, but that doesn't mean that many of them are rich. Many of them are poor, have a lot of kids to feed, lack of education and earning just enough to survive.

If the government does privatized IJN, the impact will be a pain to the poor. I wouldn't want to say only poor - even middle class can't afford thousands of ringgit of heart operations. They go to IJN.

Not all of us are Lim Goh Tong who can go to Mayo Clinic for medical check-up.

So enough ranting -

NO to PRIVATIZATION OF IJN!

If the deals goes through, get yourself an insurance and cover yourself up.
And you know who to vote next election.

Winamp's Signal Processing Studio

2008-12-10T17:46:00.000-08:00

Last Raya Haji break, I was playing around with Winamp with my little brother.
It first started when he asked how his friend could improve the quality of his songs on his Nokia phone.

I told him, you can just play around with the Equalizer (I've never really tried it on Winamp, but I did it on my previous car's stereo).

And guess what, I found a DSP effect studio built into Winamp!.

I told my brother to play around with the number (I myself have slightest idea of the algorithm, but I know roughly because I took a DSP class before).

Download Winamp, go to Options -> Preferences -> Plug-ins -> DSP/Effects

Enjoy!

C++: Pre-increment v. Post-increment

2008-12-04T00:18:00.000-08:00

Point: Favor Pre-increment over post-increment whenever possible.

In C++, pre-increment means “increment this var and give me that incremented var”, whereas post-increment means “give me the var value, and increment the var”. We agree that they behave differently, but somewhat similar (increment the value of a var).

We don’t want to get confused when we use it in this kind of code:

int ch = arr[ i++ ]

int ch = arr[ ++i ]

Both will give different results and therefore, are not similar (why?).
However this doesn’t mean that we have to use pre-increment all the time.

But why we care?

Basically, the idea would be we can save some instructions generated by the compiler by using pre-increment operation.

Pre-increment and post-increment don’t matter much for built-in types like “int”. Most likely, the compiler knows how to optimize it away anyway.

However, it may have some performance impact when we increment an instance of a class that defines the operator “++”. In C++, we call this “operator overloading”. Operator overloading of “++” are being used extensively in STL (standard template library). If you're using STL extensively, you should get the habit of doing pre-increment.

The following shows how it differs:

// preincr. Operator overloading:

class Obj

{

// pre-inc

// “increment this var and give me the incremented var”

Obj & operator++ ()

{

++blah;

return *this;

}

Private:

type blah;

}

//postincrement. Operator overloading:

class Obj

{

// post-increment

// “give me the var value, and increment this var”

Obj & operator++ ()

{

Obj copy (*this) // copy this object

++(*this) ; // call pre-increment operator

return copy; // return the original value being copied

}

Private:

type blah;

}

You can see that above that eventually, post-increment operator would call the pre-increment operator anyway. So there are some extra steps being done here for post-increment. When we compile, this translates into even more instructions need to be executed.

Almost always, you just want to increment the variable and pre-increment does no harm.

Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong is the man

2008-12-03T02:14:00.000-08:00

I just finished up reading the late Lim Goh Tong's book, "My Story" and man, i feel that the guy really rocks.

I think everyone should read his book, and I'm pretty sure you're all inspired by his story. It's a story worth telling to the younger people like me, so that I can be inspired and do something great like what he did. The book is easy reading and it's entertaining too.

Oh by the way, I got to know from his book that it's not his idea to create the casino - it's our first prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman's idea. His idea is just to build a resort up on the hill.

GohTong Jaya is something that Dr M proposed.

Anyway, you should read up the book. (I'm not Lim Goh Tong to tell all the stories)

Philips monitor is a piece of shit

2008-12-02T02:08:00.000-08:00

If you're shopping for a monitor, there's one monitor that you should never ever buy: Philips.

First of all, don't be tempted by the the price. Because you're gonna get what you pay for. Go for something a little more expensive like Samsung or LG or BenQ, aim for a better deal.

The problem with Philips' monitor is not the hardware, but software. Yes my friend, no matter how wonderful your hardware is, if the software is crap, that shiny piece of hardware is a total useless.

Philips has a built-in software in its monitor called "SmartImage". What it does is it tries to calibrate the settings according to the environment you are in. I don't exactly know how it works, but it's basically tries to calibrate a little bit when you watch movies to this "Entertainment" mode,etc. Anyway, the software is really not needed. It's something that they add and you need to live with it.

When you seem to be working on document or spread sheet, it will try to do it's own settings, Lock the IO control and try to be smart.

The problem with their SmartImage software is the opposite - it's the DumbImage. I would also like to call that kind of software as a CrapImage.

When I first encountered the problem, I thought this was an easy fix. So I played a little bit with the Graphics settings, and the monitors appears to be fine.

After a while, it pops up again, do it's own calibration thing, and then locks the control. I can't even turned off the monitor and at that time, I thought this is probably the SmartImage software. I thought it could be removed, but it cannot!. It's embedded into the monitor and there's no way to control it.

So by now, I knew already that the software has a bug that let it run loose on a nasty infinite loop.

I called up a friend who's really good at PC fix, and he recommend me to return the monitor.

I wasn't really given up when I found a way to fool the monitor into thinking that I was doing some settings, and the stupid setting pop-ups (you know, those pop-ups when you try to adjust monitor brightness, Contrast, etc) would only reappear about 1/2 hour later.

Finally, the time has come. When the SmartImage trying to do its own thing, it goes into "Input" selection, and it selects "DVI" as the input. Since I'm using VGA, there's no way I could reset the input back!. And since the monitor controls are locked, there's nothing I can do except staring at the blank monitor looking at the warning that says "Please check your cable connector".

What a piece of shit.

what a geeky video

2008-12-01T16:21:00.000-08:00

I browsed through one of the newsletters that I subscribed, and I found this video:

http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/landing/thank-an-engineer/index.htm

It's from Texas Instruments, what a geeky video.

Negaraku

2008-11-28T00:25:00.000-08:00

We were discussing with some of our friends on the origin of Negaraku, Malaysia's national Anthem.

I pointed out to this excerpts from Wikipedia :

The song was composed by Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780-1857), a French lyricist. It became a popular French melody, and was prominent on the island of Mahé in Seychelles. The song's popularity spread across the Indian Ocean and reached as far as the Malay Archipelago early in the 20th century. An Indonesian Bangsawan made the first debut of the song while performing in Singapore. The melody soon became very popular among the the people and was given the name Terang Bulan(Bright Moon), becoming a Malay 'evergreen'.

While I don't trust all content of the Wikipedia, I know that Negaraku was originated from the song "Terang Bulan". I remember learning it in History lesson in secondary school.

I'm not making any point here, except, we should think of originality next time. I agree that originality is rare (even Nirvana's song Smells Like a Teen Spirit was inspired by song by The Pixies, "Gigantic"). But the song sounds distinctive enough that we (at least most of the kids grew up in the 90s) know exactly , when we listen to the few chords at the beginning, we know it's Smells Like a Teen Spirit, and nothing else.

Don't believe me? Listen to this orchestra

No more car

2008-11-26T23:51:00.000-08:00

I'm returning my car tonight to the original owner whom I bought the car from. My life becoming more hassle with the big house and car, and I don't really need both of them fancifully. at least at this moment. I'm moving out to smaller room (still looking).

I just need a simple life, family.
And nice music.

What's your dream car?

2008-11-26T00:35:00.000-08:00

This is more like the questions for myself. What's my dream car?

Here's what I want, in order of "affordability"

1. Proton Persona
I want this car. I feel like this is a good buy, although I know that Malaysians have been pretty much being ripped off when it comes to buying cars due to Proton protection mechanism. Still, I think Proton Persona is an affordable luxury. (Luxury you say?? Yes, I mean, at least it's bigger than Kancil!).

2. Proton Perdana
Not much of what I really want, but it's something that I could afford to buy if I have a lot of money (I mean, decently).

3. Volkswagen Jetta
I've been dreaming about this car since I was in college. The built look sturdy, and I was thinking maybe I want to buy it one day.

4. Mercedez Benz (SLK series).
So by now, you know that I'm currently dreaming. It's good to have a dream, as long as you don't become Mat Jenin. I want this car. I hope I can get a better Benz series, but this is a good enough of something to be dreaming about.

I don't particularly passionate about BMW, but it's a nice car.

If I become a millionaire one day, the order of the above list will be reversed

Now, let's get back to reality. I mean, should I buy Modenas Kriss, Yamaha Lagenda or Honda EX5 Dreams?
Yes, it's good to be dreaming. That's what Honda said - the Power of Dreams.

Do nothing

2008-11-25T02:14:00.000-08:00

You know, life is pretty simple if you think about it.

There are two three things we do in this world:

1. Work
2. Play
3. Pray (if you have religion).
4. Nothing.

There are a lot of people already talking about Work, Pray, Play. But who ask themselves when can I do absolutely nothing?

I'm not talking about doing nothing to the extent where you don't even breathe. That just means that might as well be dead.

I'm talking about you just sit on your ass and do nothing.

When?

1. When you're lazy to wake up from your bed on Saturday morning. You feel like listening to the song "I'm Only Sleeping" . You'll do nothing for like a couple of hours.

2. When you come back from work and you don't want to do anything. You just relax at Nasi Kandar, or plucking guitar, or just staring at the wall.

3. On Sunday morning after you are done doing some outstanding 2 weeks laundry, wash car and mop the floor. You want to do absolutely nothing. You sleep until nth hour.

4. When you're stuck working on something at work, and you usually want to relax for a bit, and you look there's no incoming emails and so you just want to relax. I usually read the Edgar Allan Poe's poetry around my cubicles and then just want to do nothing after a while.

5. When you start your car and warm up the engine. You listen to the music, blast loudly, and you want to do absolutely nothing after that.

6. When you're not sleepy, but you're already at home after work and after dinner, but still early to go to bed. Since Astro keep playing the same program over and over, or I don't like any of the programs despite having so many of them, I want to do absolutely nothing. Just go to the room and relax on the lazy chair, and do nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Any other suggestions when can I do nothing, please let me know

What the hell happen in this country?

2008-11-23T23:05:00.000-08:00

I was looking for a cheap room to rent and I was quite shocked on just how people here choose their preference on their roommates. I could understand that the Female want female roommates (also Male, with male, i don't care). But Chinese working/Student and Malay Working student? Who cares?

What, do you care that I don't eat pork and whether I pray or not? You are in your room, and I am in my room. Unless you are concern on me putting on loud music and disturbing you if I pray so loudly (am I? I don't think so). Who cares.

Seriously, do you foresee that we would have something like:

Preference: Bangladeshi, Male. Vietnamese, Male, working

You're Malaysians, and that's all I care. I can even stay with Bangladeshi, who give a shit.

back hurt and Django dev

2008-11-17T01:01:00.000-08:00

My back hurt so badly. I haven't gone to exercise for too long.

The sugar cane plants that I grow at my Teluk Kumbar house are now growing tall, about 5 inches (there are 4 of them) now. This is great.

Last weekend, I got Django web framework running on a user space on a hosted site. It was a bit hassle because I have no admin rights but I got it to run. The way I did is by installing python itself and set the PYTHONPATH into the newly installed version. Django is pretty easy to get it up and running. The next step is to create project.

I've thought a lot these days. Since ReCom lost in AYA dream awards last Nov 9, it got me thinking of many things.

Lear

2008-10-21T02:23:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to finish reading King Lear!.

But I end up working late (by choice, because I like to hang out at Nasi Kandar at night after work).

And plucking my guitar before sleep.

So you tell me if I have time for reading? (this is a really stupid question).

Moving out. (again)

2008-10-20T02:50:00.000-07:00

My housemates and I decided that we need to move out to some place which can easily have Internet access. I'm currently living at the border of Sg. Batu and Teluk Kumbar, on the way to Balik Pulau. It's a nice fishing village, and peaceful too. Our house is next to the beach, and usually, we'll hear some nice sound of wave. I love the place.

The problem is that, it's so hard to ask TM people to fix the phone line there (this is the classic example of a lembab service from TM, TMNet, and whoever TM. Sorry TM people. I think TMNet does suck). We've been trying to get it for close to half-year already! (Don't you just love TMNet?). I hope the Wi-Fi-zation of Penang will solve this monopoly problem soon. Anyway, they (TMNet) don't care. Do they?

Anyway, another reason why we decided to move is that, it's easier to go eat. Currently, the restaurant in front of our place are not really nice (being the Penangite wannabe, we're really particular about food). The next best thing is Cargas Cafe in Bayan Lepas (come to Penang and I'll bring you there. The ayam goreng is quite nice).

Plus, the Maxis line over there is kind of suck too. Anyway, the "other side" of Penang (a.k.a Balik Pulau dan kawasan2 yang sewaktu dengannya) are still under develop.

The absolute real reason why we want to move out is that, our friend who want to stay there decided not to rent there. So since we feel like moving out, so there it is.

Moving to Batu Maung, or around Permatang Damar Laut.
Peace out.

Sketch

2008-10-13T23:46:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I spent some time back sketching some cartoon characters (after a long time, finally have the time).

I'll only post the sketch later.

Perginya Seorang Insan Seni

2008-10-10T05:31:00.000-07:00

Dunia muzik tanahair dikejutkan dengan pemergian Rosli Khamis, atau lebih dikenali sebagai Loloq. Loloq adalah seorang penulis lirik yang terkenal dengan kemampuannya menggunakan ayat ayat yang indah, kadangkala terlalu puitis buat para peminat muzik di Malaysia.

Layar Impian, Aduh Saliha, Apokalips, Berikan Nurbisa...

Lirik-lirik indah ini dizahirkan dengan pemerhatian yang meluas, mempunyai maksud mendalam, dan sememangnya dihargai oleh ramai peminat seni tanah air.

Loloq tetap dikenang. Al-Fatihah

AYA Awards - vote for ReCom.org

2008-10-08T21:57:00.000-07:00

I got a call last Raya holiday from AYA awards people and they asked me a few things about ReCom.org. It turned out that they're shortlisting some websites for some kind of award (that is, AYA)
http://www.ayaawards.com

If you think that ReCom.org has been impacting your life (in a positive way, I hope), you can vote for the website:

To vote for ReCom.Org:

Step 1:
Type: AYA CO 3
Step 2:
Send to: 36828

Note: Each SMS will be charged RM 0.80.
Powered and sponsored by Trio Moble Sdn Bhd

Check out:
http://www.ayaawards.com/conom3.cfm

If you haven't heard of AYA awards before, don't worry about it. I also just recently know about it.

Note that I'm not the only one running ReCom.org. Many volunteers have been spending countless of their precious time to help run the website (especially after I graduated). So if we turn out to win the award, it is the award for everyone who volunteer to run the website. Some of them become my best friends.

Thanks and have fun ReComming.

www.recom.org

Kartini

2008-10-07T02:07:00.000-07:00

Hari raya ini, aku banyak habiskan masa mengemas bilik "setor" untuk dijadikan tempat persinggahan ketika pulang ke kampung. Maklumlah, setiap kali pulang ke kampung, aku akan menumpang di bilik adik aku yang kecil ni. Walaupun ada bilik besar untuk satu family duduk, aku lebih selesa dengan "setting" bilik adik aku. Terasa bujang kalau lepak kat situ. Buat masa ni la. Kalau dah ada family, aku rasa bilik besar lagi bagus.

Sedang aku asyik menyelak barang2 yang hampir luput dalam kenangan kami sekeluarga, aku terjumpa sebuah komik "Kartini" karya saudara Tembakau . Tak sangka pula komik ni masih wujud dalam simpanan di balik buku2 lamaku yang semerbak harum baunya.

Aku berjaya meng"import" kembali komik Kartini ke Penang. Semalam aku telah menghabiskan separuh daripada cerita komik tu sebelum tidur. Aku sengaja tak habiskan komik tu semalam, sebab nak layan lagi hari ni. Saja nak rasa saspens sebab aku dah ingat-ingat lupa apa kesudahannya.

Hari ni, aku cari dalam Google kalau2 ada sambungan komik ini, dan ura-ura menyatakan bahawa Tembakau dah keluarkan "Kartini kembali". Yes. Bagus. Aku akan dapatkannya di pasaran serta-merta.

Aku rasa kena banyak lagi cerita2 begini untuk dijadikan iktibar pada generasi muda akan datang.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

2008-09-26T18:43:00.000-07:00

I would like to wish Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri
Maaf Zahir Batin

Oil price drop 10sen

2008-09-25T03:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, let's rejoice!.

I watched the "60 minutes Bersama Menteri" in RTM, listening Dato' Shahrir Samad explanation with great detail on how he came up with the price drop.

This is a great news. Don't complaint too much on why not dropping more (for now, I mean). Price drop is better than nothing. The economy is going towards recession anyway.

Inflation due to oil price is due to speculation (I want to say, this is an artificial inflation). In a true sense, we're going towards recession.

As a direct impact, I've started carpooling with friends and take more public transport. You should do that too.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

2008-09-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

I spent my whole entire weekend finishing up reading The Making of the Atomic Bomb .

I must say that it is a carefully researched piece. The author (Richard Rhodes) paying attention to such details that make the reading very pleasant and visual reconstruction of the scene clearer.

Note that I didn't understand almost 3/4 of the physics explained (I didn't take many physics courses). But a lot of new things such as Uranium enrichment, fission, nuclear reactor, cyclotron, calutron, racetracks, plutonium etc make me wonder just how much I appreciate nuclear physics.

The atomic bomb dilemma is thus, the advancement of nuclear physics was causing the dropping of two atomic bombs that ended World Word 2. On the one hand, the atomic bomb ends the war, on the other hand, it opens up a new era of possible mass destruction of human being, far beyond what our forefathers have witnessed.

I sincerely hope that there will be no more nuclear arm race, and the world will stay safe as it is now.

C++ joke

2008-09-04T20:52:00.001-07:00

I was browsing emails from one of the mailing lists I subscribed, and I found someone pointed to this hilarious website about a supposedly fake interview with the C++ creator Stroustrup (yes, I have his book on my desk):
C++: Is it really a Cruel Joke?

It's surely meant to be a joke, unless you want to take it seriously.

Stuckflation

2008-09-02T21:52:00.000-07:00

Do you actually believe in "Stagflation" as a natural phenomena in economics?
Or do you think we really can create "stagflation" on a whim?

Here's what I believe - stagflation _mainly_ occurs when there's a concerted effort on price control/manipulation on a particular economy. When there's a global oil crisis, mainly controlled/manipulated at higher level of a common people, we see that price goes up and there's no choice.

And when would the stagflation occurs? Stagflation most likely occurs when the price was uncontrolled (such as oil price, but not necessarily the only one) that sparks "cost-push" inflation at the time when we are heading towards recession. Think of cost-push inflation as the sudden rise in ordinary goods without any extra-ordinary increase in demand. Oil is a good example, because somebody can just say that oil is short.

The result would be stagflation. When everyone "stuck" to pay bills and to run errands, I invented a new terms - "stuckflation". (maybe some one else's already did, but I really came up with this myself).

Stagflation can be avoided with careful response with price changes. As we all aware, economics is mainly about price stability. Carefully monitoring the price of basket of goods, and quickly responses to it via monetary policies can save a lot of money.

Of course, this has almost no practical usage for ordinary person like me and you, but it helps to understand when do we need to spend money/buy on what, and when it's better to save for later.

But when you're stuck - do nothing.

Ramadhan

2008-09-01T22:20:00.000-07:00

Saya ingin mengucapkan Selamat Berpuasa dan Selamat Menyambut Bulan Ramadhan yang mulia kepada semua Muslimin dan Muslimat.

Belanjalah berpada-pada di Pasar Ramadhan (saya tahu banyak makanan yang best).

Selamat Hari Merdeka!

2008-08-31T02:02:00.000-07:00

Saya sebagai rakyat Malaysia, merasa bangga dan terharu dengan sambutan Hari Kemerdekaan Kali ke-51. Saya ingin mengucapkan kepada semua rakyat Malaysia:

Selamat Hari Merdeka!

Budget 2009, and me (and maybe you)

2008-08-30T02:08:00.000-07:00

As the child growing up in the 90's, you can't escape the PC + Internet boom - it happens, and your government wants to get involved.

So they set up funding to work on figuring out how to work with this strange machines called personal computers, spend millions (if not billions) of Ringgit from public funds, and try to transform you to some kind of computer whiz.

I'm one of them - and needless to say, the government sadly slowly abandoning the project.
And what are they focusing on now? Agriculture. That's right. Agriculture.

This is something like trying to figure out how to fix the broken PC. When it didn't work, we went home and say - "Kid, enough of these computer stuff, let's just get back to something that we are good at since the beginning of the days - farming"

This is a boo boo. Just look at the Malaysia Budget 2009 (you find the Link that suits your need, either from Utusan, DAP, etc). And see, where do they throw the baby project called "MSC"?
Do they know how much resources that they've spent, and it still doesn't work?

We have so much stuff here in Penang ready to be tapped, but they don't see it!. And always go back to Agriculture, agriculture, etc. What gets into their mind!.

I haven't gone to Arts, yet. Am I demanding too much? We all do as Malaysians. Maybe because of that, the Government never correct. Or are they?

OK, forget it. Why don't we just survive and do our own thing. Let's do some kind of computer stuff at home. Hooked up that damned TM Net Streamyx and enjoy the sluggish Internet at a very expensive rate. Didn't they see this?

Ping pong

2008-08-29T04:31:00.000-07:00

I'm currently catching up with Ping Pong. Next week, I'm joining a little tournament here so I need to practice (it's funny, considering that I haven't been playing much for so long).

No matter, Ping Pong is here. Wanna play ping pong with me? Let me know.

Static in C++

2008-08-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

I think the keyword "static" in C++ is the most confusing. First of all, the behavior is not the same as in C, and within C++, the behavior is different between variable and function.

Generally, we can think of the keyword static to mean to have the variable to be "global" i.e, can be seen/used by any function within the program execution. But this is a limited definition. The static keyword in C/C++ means more than that.

In C:
1. Global entity declared as static is only "global" for that particular file. Other files cannot see that global variable. (Confused?).
The "file" is referred to as "translation unit". It meant to refer to as "statically allocated". Don't get confused. Just think of a file as a "translation unit", and the static variable can be seen only by the functions defined in that file.

In C++, it was fixed by introduction of "namespace".

In C++:
1. static object:
An object defined within a function, and the value persists across lifetime of a program.

2. static member:
A member variable that is associated with the class itself, rather than the object of the class. The idea is to provide a sort of "global" access, but with the object-oriented enforcement. Just think about that - you can use a static member to store some values visible to those who declared the class. Whether you can modify the static member or not, it depends on whether the static member is declared as public or private.

OK, the one that we want to give attention is this - how static members behave?

Static Function:

1. No "this" pointer: Static member has no object attached to it, so you can't access it with "this" pointer.
2. Cannot use virtual andconst with them. I'm not going into this (maybe later).

Static Variable

1. We cannot specified static variable inside body class, except with following keyword const (e.g static const int num = 78;)
2. Static variable must be defined outside the class

By the way, why do you care about keyword static? Ask yourself.

Wall-E and global warming

2008-08-27T21:47:00.001-07:00

Watched the movie Wall-E yesterday (it's Disney's!). Pixar's next rookie (after John Lesseter), Andrew Stanton, is exploring the message of global warming.

In the future, the whole world will be full of garbage. Only robots collecting trashes exist, and occasionally, Earth are swept by some sort of typhoons.

The whole entire population left the earth, to faraway galaxy, boarding a huge spaceship called "Axiom". The whole entire population are at their extreme laziness:

They just sit on a floating chair, and all their foods and their needs are served by robots. They can't even stand up. Their body are fat, and they do nothing except chatting with their friends on the screen of the moving chair. And the chair will move in a specified direction and they don't seem to have control over it. Thus, they just know some part of the ship, and not all (some people don't know where the pool is).

One of the robot called Wall-E still collection garbage. He met "Eva", when Eva was sent by a huge spaceship for a mission - to find life on earth (in this movie's case, a plant).

Wall-E fell in love with Eva, and gave a plant that he found in an old fridge. "Eva" grabbed the plant, put it in her stomach and automatically shut down. Later, "Eva" was grabbed by the spaceship. Wall-E managed to grab the spaceship to follow where Eva goes.

Conflict

Axiom's Captain want to grab the plant and go home, but the Navigator called "Auto" (because it is always in Auto mode), wouldn't allow it because the instruction of the company that run the Axiom spaceship called "Buy and Large", due to high toxic level on Earth (I thought about it again, it's probably an excuse to run his business). By the way, Axiom has been running for 700 years.
With much struggle, Captain finally managed to switch "Auto" to "Manual".

At the same time, Wall-E was thrown back to Earth together with the plant, but saved by Eva.

Together, with the help of the savvy Captain and people on the ship, Eva and Wall-E managed to put the plant on the ship, and Axiom went back to Earth.

End

Wall-E and Eva finally get together on Earth. And the earth population is back and managed to plant the trees.

All .... Night!

2008-08-26T22:36:00.000-07:00

I'm stunned with a very beautiful montage at the end of a film "Dogville" (Nicole Kidman).

And accompanying it is a song by David Bowie's beautiful song - Young Americans.

You should check out the movie, and the song, and the montage at the end.

By the way, Dogville itself is very minimalist and I like that.

Cekal

2008-06-16T21:22:00.001-07:00

Pagi ini, semasa saya di dalam perjalanan ke tempat kerja, Mutiara FM mendendangkan sebuah lagu rock 90an dari XPDC. Lagu ini bertajuk "Cekal". Lirik dan Muziknya amat bagus dan sangat menarik.

Saya ingin berkongsi kan lirik ini bersama pembaca:

:: CEKAL ::

HAYATI INI AKU BENTANG KAN SATU CERITA
KISAH MANUSIA INSAN SEJAGAD PUNYA ALKISAH
PELBAGAI RAGAM KERANA HIDUP PURA-PURA
BAGAIKAN TIADA KETULUSAN KEJARKAN KEMAJUAN

SIAPALAH ANTARA KITA SANGGUP MEMBELA
PERBALAHAN PENIPUAN ATAS KEBENARAN
MEMOHON SIMPATI TAGIH JANJI BUKA KAN MATA HATI
PADA WAJAH-WAJAH SEIRINGAN HALUAN PERJALANAN INI

OH…OH…SUKARNYA AKU MENGERTI
HIDUP PENUH RANJAU DURI
PILU RASA DIHATI

OH…OH…BILAKAH DATANG MENJELMA
PENAWAR KEDAMAIAN INI
PASTI IA MUNCUL KEMBALI

USAH DISANGSI JALAN YANG BAKAL ENGKAU LALUI
MUNGKIN ADA BENARNYA DI SEBALIK KESILAPAN

WALAU ADA SAKI BAKI YANG KURANG SENANG HATI
HARUS DITERUSKAN DENGAN SEMANGAT CEKAL DIHATI

LAGU: IZO XPDC
LIRIK: MAEL XPDC
“TIMUR BARAT”

Dari:
http://www.geocities.com/xpdc00/cekal.html

Last weekend craze

2008-06-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

I'm absolutely tired today. Because last weekend, I was helping out for USA for Students event.

It turned out that I was in charge of lunch distribution, and I thought this was easy stuff. However, there were some miscommunication and the lunch came late.

I spent most of my time apologizing to the volunteers while carrying bags and bags of burgers and fries up and down of the building. I hope the volunteers are not pissed off too much.

After that, I went down to KLCC and went sipping a cup of Starbucks latte with an Indonesian friend I knew from USC time (btw, don't drink Starbucks too much at the time of inflation). He is doing some research in KL and will be working in LA soon. He's a cool dude.

Right after that, I took LRT and met a buddy of mine who lived down at around Kerinchi area and we spent some time discussing about data structure design, coding , etc. He's a really good programmer and I learn a lot from him.

Early morning, I left his place and took a bus to go back Penang. I bought Butterworth ticket because no ticket for Penang (well, they have executive, but I'm not paying for that). I took ferry down to Jetty, and took a bus back. (At this time around, let's try to use public transport more)

Yesterday, I also volunteered in some event here in Penang. So finished about 8pm or so. The event went well, and as usual, you don't get paid to volunteer, but satisfaction. I'm quite satisfied and after spacing out for about an hour or so, I slept.

I think I need to cut down my volunteer work and spend more time with family.

In fact, I'm going home next weekend. I can't wait for that.

Little program that I wrote

2008-06-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

It would be boring to you if I mentioned specifically what I wrote last time.
Anyway, Since I promised to tell you about it, I just wanted to tell you that I was learning python and I was developing a simple data structure to do some mapping stuff. Python is cool because I don't have to worry about installing GCC, resolving some library linking and what not.
With Python, I just need to install the interpreter and bam, I'm on the go.

What is this mapping stuff that I'm writing? I have nothing to show now, so I won't show anything. Everything is not finalized and I'll tell you more when something is working and you can use it for yourself.

What do you do with a PC ?

2008-06-11T05:33:00.001-07:00

OK, pretty straightforward stuff. What do you do with a PC? I mean, without Internet connection.
Haha. I know it. You want to get into Internet, right?

The next best thing is that, you can watch movie.
The next next best thing is that, you can listen to MP3 songs.
What else? Oh, I forgot, playing games!.

What else? You found that, other than those four things (Internet, movies, songs,games) you don't really have much to do with a PC (please don't talk about work, in which case, you'll use Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and etc).

OK, there's another thing, and this is quite particular to those who have nothing to do on the weekend:
Programming.

That's correct. Programming. Basically, to tell the PC to do whatever stuff in it's own language. It's pretty amazing, I mean, some people talk to animals to do what they want to do. Often, you have to force them (like getting cows to go around the field and things like that). The cows probably don't like you if you do that. But PC? PC is actually like a cow too. I mean, in terms of functionality, increasing productivity and stuff like that. If you know what I mean.

Anyway.
I have a wonderful weekend writing some little programs and manage to amuse myself momentarily. It's really great. I'll talk about it later, maybe tomorrow.

I have something to debug, friend. Chow.