Football and Malaysia.

I was initially tempted to write something about Pottermania, but figured that its probably not going to be anything more than a cynical swipe at the wizard. (and 'll end up pissing off more than a good portion of the HP fans out there) So I decided to weigh in instead on something that Malaysians are still smarting about. Our dismal performance at the Asian Cup.

The usual uproar ensued after the Uzbek defeat and to be honest, I'm quite tired of hearing those theories. Everytime we fare badly (which is very often), article after article will be written about what needs to be changed. Yet nothing ever changes.

The decline of Malaysian football is really just a representation of Malaysian sports in general. We have never won an Olympic gold medal. And its quite painfully obvious that the Malaysians who do succeed make it in spite of the system that they have been through. Think Nicol David and Karamjit Singh. Nicol had her parents to drive her against the current of general discouragement from the Malaysian system while Karamjit eventually retired because he couldn't get sponsors despite being a world champion.

Our problems lie in school. Every single one of my friends have an identical physical education experience. PJ time arrives and the boys change, grab a ball and go have a kick about. The girls change (some don't bother) and sit under a tree and chat the half hour away. Ask any one of them about anything beyond a casual muck about on the field and you get a firm no. Studies first.

The problem is that no one even asks the question in the first place. PJK teachers are normally majors is something else and are given PJK to fill their quotas. They couldn't care less about the sporting reputation of the school. They have no ability or interest in training the students in any sport they may have interest in.

Some schools have one, maybe two teachers who take physical education seriously. But these teachers normally give up hope after a while, in the face of parental protest when they approach potential athletes about representing the school. Sports is painfully low on our lists of priorities.

School administration makes things even worse. All that matters to ambitious headmasters is the number of A students they can produce. Its the fastest way to get into the Ministry. So when the Biology teacher asks to take the PJK periods for a few extra classes, there is never any resistance. Physical education is expendable. As is art and craft, but thats another issue altogether.

We suck, and everytime that fact becomes apparent, the finger pointing starts. Maybe its time to start taking an honest look at ourselves and see the answers that are staring us in the face. If we are not willing to pay the price for sporting excellence, then we should stop bitching when we come up short.

We can't blatantly ignore sports development and then expect wonders to happen. Token support doesn't count. Proudly proclaiming that our senior squads will get lots of money when they succeed will only get us so far.

The future of motoring.

Oil prices are high, driving is going to become expensive really soon. Thats what we can safely assume from what has been happening lately. I was just flipping through the Top Gear Malaysia magazine when I saw an article about the Tesla. I heard about it some time ago, and they had managed to build a decent car that runs on electricity. I stopped following the developments, and suddenly I find out that they are going to launch a 30,000 pound sterling family sedan by 2009. And this car is supposed to be able to rival every other car out there on more than the novelty factor.

That in itself is quite an achievement, but when I looked at the stats that the Tesla roadster (the only Tesla available on the market right now) has been posting, I was quite stunned. 0-60 mph in less than 5 seconds, and if you factor in mileage based on the electricity that you derive from burning fossil fuels, you get well over 100miles per gallon. Thats at least double the Toyota Prius. And here's the kicker. A range of 250 miles. In urban driving situations, thats plenty.

But I figuired that the electric car will be less appealing to long distance drivers. After all, charging takes time, and I don't think people want to spend a few hours refeuling. I suddenly remembered something that the real Tesla (as in the inventor) tried to do, and recently has become reality. Wireless power transmission. It might not make it into reality in my lifetime, but I can imagine cars being charged while they are being driven. Imagine that. Infinite range for your car. Of course that would mean having remote charging stations built all along the roads, constantly emmiting energy to the cars that pay for it. Sounds like fantasy, but one can dream.

Plus, Lotus has helped develop what it claims to be a car that can go 350 miles without recharging, and it takes 10 minutes to go from flat to fully charged. Bloody impressive.

People are still debating the fuel that is going to take petrol's place. Some think that hydrogen fuel cells will work. Some like ethanol. My money is firmly on electric cars.

Stubborn.

The monotonous bleeping of medical equipment was the only thing that broke the silence in the room. He lay in his bed, feeling somewhat agitated. He was still in confinement and he didn’t know why. The doctors had very specific orders. Don’t get out of bed.

It all didn’t make any sense to him. He felt fine. There really wasn’t any reason not to move about, and he was bored. A person can only sleep and watch TV for so long. And the longer he spent in bed, the more he thought about the circumstances that brought him to where he was.

Most people didn’t believe it when they were told about what had happened. He was always so careful, and he took so few risks. When he finally did venture out of his little sphere of protection, he paid the price he always feared that he would have to pay.

He half expected himself to regret the decision and cocoon himself again. If you spend your whole life being cautious and the very thing that instinct tells you not to do bites you in the head, then you do have a right to become cynical and unforgiving.

Surprisingly, he didn’t. He didn’t feel sorry, and actually believed himself when he said that the entire ordeal was worth it. But whatever positive thoughts he could glean didn’t make him any less annoyed at being stuck in bed. He checked himself over again. He had done that about a million times already, and he could never see the wound that the doctors said would burst open if he got out of bed. As much as he had faith in modern medicine, he was starting to think that the doctor didn’t really know what he was doing. He had read his fair share of literature on human anatomy, and the doctor’s orders didn’t make any sense to him.

“Fuck it,” he said aloud. He pulled off the sheets that covered him and shuffled to the edge of the bed. It was at that point that he heard the doctor’s deep voice in his head. It was clinical and emotionless as always. “I’ve told you more than once. You are not ready. I spent a lot of time patching you up. I’d hate to go back to square one again.”

“I can’t stay any longer, doc. I’m healed already. I’ll be fine.”

He could almost hear the doctor roll his eyes. “Everybody is a doctor nowadays. To do this is a risk, and to warn you is my job. I have already done that. I wish you good luck.” The voice faded away.

He took a deep breath and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Nothing happened. So far so good. Sliding across the bed sheet, he moved ever so slowly towards the floor. His toes touched the floor. Still nothing happened.

Gaining confidence, he applied his weight onto his foot, fully expecting his legs to be able to support his weight. They did, but he certainly didn’t count on his closed wound across the stomach splitting open.

The pain was back. If he wasn’t already gutted, the pain would have gutted him. He couldn’t quite think of an analogy that would accurately describe the white hot burning on his abdomen. Slowly, he curled himself up into a ball, screaming an agony as the severed muscles contracted. He wanted to die at that point.

Just as he was about to pass out, the door slid open and the doctor entered with the rest of his medical team. The doctor looked at him for two seconds, shook his head and sighed his disapproving sigh. “Bloody idiot. I told him. No one ever listens.”

At the doctor’s signal, the medical team hoisted him back onto the bed and started working on fix him.

Teh SRC

And so the MMU administration saw it fit to charge us more for the library and parking. People got pissed off. The SRC decided to do something about it. The called a president's council and came to the agreement that everyone is pissed off. So they are now signing a petition to get the charges removed or reduced.

This is a story about my confrontation with them. I went to the Voices booth today and I was just sitting around when some SRC dude stood up on the table and started calling ofr people's attention. There was a petition form on the table and a huge white cloth behind them full of signatures. They wanted more support. I walked up to one of them and asked them if they had an official explanation from the library for the increase. They said that the explanation was coming on Monday. So I asked them why they were demanding a reduction when they didn't even know why there is an increase in the first place. They said that they were just doing what the people wanted them to do.

I found it really interesting that none of them considered the concept of credibility. If you get a big petition and submit it without actually stating a reason for the protest besides greed, what do you expect the admin to do? Take you seriously? Money is scarce. Actual grounds for protest will appear if the library does not have a legitimate reason to raise the prices. When it is clearly established that they don't, then you have the ammunition to take the fight to them. Having 1000 signatures on a piece of paper only proves that the move is not popular, it doesn't prove that the move is unjustified.

I tried explaining it to them and they said that I don't understand their position. They need to act because people want them to. Mob mentality. Genius. They said that most people don't think like me. Most people don't think so much. If I had a dollar for every time someone told me that.....

I'm surprised that they even think that it will work at all. They have no legitimate grounds for argument and its not really that difficult to brush them off. Which makes me wonder if they are doing this just to show that they are doing something or if they really want to make a change.

Literary narcism

narcism

1.inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity.

I do have a strange tendency to write posts that are very similar in nature to the posts of the past, and this is one of them. You won't find the old post on this blog. That was deleted some time ago, along with the rest of the blog.

Anyways, this post is about me. Me, the literary narcisist. Yes, I love my own writing, a little too much for comfort. I have this very disturbing tendency to go back to the stuff that I have written and reread them every so often. Not everything I write is considered worthy of a second reading, but the pieces I put effort into seem to draw me back again and again. Its like when you set out to building something and then bask in the glory of its completion.

In the past, I thought that it was just me trying to understand myself. I thought that I read my own work because they would help me figure out the motives behind my actions. I'm not so sure now. After reading again, I don't feel pensive and thoughtful. I just feel an immense sense of satisfaction.

I don't spend much time on front of the mirror, and I laugh quietly at those people who do. Which is why I feel that this is distressing enough to write about. Am I turning into something that I would hold in contempt if I were honest with myself?

Would I feel the same way if I weren't born in a country where people have a below average command of english and my writing would bore the pants off everyone who reads it? If english didn't define me in school, would I be in the same situation?

When I do read my own work, I always seemed surprised. At the end, I sometimes ask myself, "Wow. you wrote that?". I impress myself, and the very thought of that scares me.

Is it a bad thing? To me it is. Self obsessed people draw nothing but contempt from me, and if this problem were real, I'd be very uncomfortable with myself. In fact, I already am, and its bloody annoying.

Starcraft.

This is fiction based on the Starcraft world. I realize that I'm interpreting the relationship between two of the most iconic characters in the series, and there are probably some inconsistencies. Forgive me if I pissed you off with this story.

Raynor was quite hesitant in his steps, not knowing what to expect from walking through the dark corridors. Lights were flickering and automated doors were malfunctioning all over the place, closing half way, getting jammed, and then reopening again. The repetitive mechanical grinding of the gears would normally have been annoying, but now Raynor hardly noticed it. He clutched his weapon hard, his palms sweaty inside his combat suit. Never in his life had he ever set foot in a command centre that had been infested before. It looked on the inside exactly as it did on the outside, a seamless transition between metal and carapace noticeable all over the structure. The only difference was that the outside walls did not have the corpses of the command centre crew splattered all over them.

Given a choice, Raynor wouldn’t have gone in at all. Only a mad man would walk into a command centre after a Queen was done with it. But the condition that he suffered was a form of madness, if he were to be perfectly honest with himself. Poets and psychologists alike had likened his state of mind to insanity. The psychologists tended to prefer more clinical assessments of the situation, while the poets reveled in the unpredictability of it all. Ultimately, neither succeeded in completing the task they set out to do.

Raynor panned the light on his combat suit around, scanning the area for threats. The internal security systems on the command centre had been shredded by the Queen, and Raynor wondered if she had installed her own system of spines and needles in place of the machine gun and missile turrets. Apparently, she hadn’t.

Then he saw it. A silhouette of refracted light was standing there, quite motionless. He didn’t wait. A steady stream of gauss rifle bullets streamed out of his weapon. The silhouette wavered for a while, some parts showing the Zerg carapace that lay beneath but a moment later, it dove to the side and disappeared again.

“Not bad, Raynor. I didn’t expect you to be able to see me at all.”

Raynor spun about wildly, desperately following the sound of the voice, trying to find the source. “Well, its you after all. I don’t really need to see you to know that you are around.”

“Aww. That’s so sweet.” The voice was right behind him. Before he could turn, three blades slammed against his back. The impact of the blow knocked him forward, sending him sprawling across the metal floor. A typical marine would have been halved across the waist from that blow, but Raynor’s armour was tougher than usual. Being commander gave you that kind of privilege. His armour might have saved him this time, but Raynor knew that he couldn’t take too many hits. He didn’t have much time. He flipped open the console on his wrist, and pressed the blinking button within. A high pitched wail started screaming out of his wrist getting more piercing with each passing second. Just as the sound was about to leave the human audio frequency, a small shockwave burst from Raynor’s wrist. The electromagnetic pulse swept across the entire floor, blacking out the flickering lights that were not claimed by the Zerg infestation.

Picking himself up, Raynor looked around. His own lights were EMP shielded, so they still worked. She was standing in the middle of the room, a smug smile across her face. “EMP. Very smart, Raynor. Doesn’t change anything though.”

Kerrigan flexed her blades, waving them like a bird of prey stretching her muscles. “It’s a shame that I’m going to have to kill you. I’ve always liked you. There is something quite charming about you mercenary types.”

“Then don’t kill me. Come back with me. The medics on board the St. Claire will sort the infestation out.”

She laughed. It sounded exactly the same as her laugh when she was human. “You’re quite the romantic aren’t you, Raynor. Its done, love. I’m the Queen of Blades now, and I have a whole race worshipping me. If I had known the kind of power that awaited me, I would have given myself up to the Zerg long ago.”

“I don’t believe that. There is still some humanity left in you. I know that.”

Kerrigan rolled her eyes. “I buried the last of my humanity a long time ago Raynor. Being human sucks. Heck, even the sex is better with the Zerg.”

Raynor raised his evebrows, and then furrowed them, trying to imagine Kerrigan mating with any of the Zerg strains.

Kerrigan laughed again. “If you’re wondering, none of the Zerg that you kill have penises. I have my fun with the cerebrates. They might not be able to physically touch me, but when they get into my head, they sure know how to hit the spot.”

Raynor wanted to throw up at that point. But he kept talking. The diversion was working.

Suddenly, he flung a small canister at Kerrigan. It landed at her feet, and before she could respond, it exploded. Her plates of Zerg armour cracked, leaving her exposed to the blast. The force of the blast smashed her frame upwards towards the roof of the command centre. She came crashing back to the ground, bloodied and injured.

Raynor took his chance. In half a moment, he had covered the distance between himself and Kerrigan. He pressed his rifle on her temples and smiled. “Its too bad I have to kill you. I loved you, I think I still do. But what has to be done will be done.” He was about to pull the trigger but she suddenly disappeared. Her cloaking was working again.

Raynor fired anyway, but only hit the floor. She had rolled out of the way.

“Dammit.” Raynor cursed. He retreated, and stood with his back facing the wall. His lights swung wildly from left to right, desperately trying to find Kerrigan. He would never succeed.

He suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his abdomen. He looked down and saw his blood flowing freely, coating the invisible blade that was now buried into this stomach. The blade pulled free, only to come again from the top, piercing his shoulder plate and digging into his flesh. It sheared muscle and bone and finally reached his lungs. Raynor knew then that he was finished.

“You have been watching too many movies, Raynor. You should have killed me when you had the chance. You love drama too much for your own good. I’m sure the pause would have made the memory of killing me so much cooler, but cool only applies in Hollywood love.”

Kerrigan came back into view. Her face was two feet away from his, and for the first time since she was taken by the Zerg, Raynor could look into her eyes. He thought he saw a tear forming, but then he saw her smile. The cynical sneer would be the last thing that he saw before her blades smashed past his helmet glass and stabbed him in the eye.

An article on media censorship and racial relations

This article was sent to me by a friend. I realize that posting it here really is preaching to the choir, but its still a pretty good read.

http://malaysia-today.net/blog2006/reports.php?itemid=5390

Explanation.

Okay. Whatever I ranted about yesterday had been forming for some time now, and perhaps that wasn't the best representation of my thoughts. What I meant to talk about was the mismatch between human indulgence and saving the environment.

The typical human being leaves a pretty big footprint on the planet, and that is making the environment suffer. That fact is a given. But people are now identifying areas where we can cut down on our usage of resources and tax nature a little less. The Star seems to be trying pretty hard with their coverage of celebrity environmental efforts and that 'make a pledge' campaign they have been running. First of all, if you are going to make a pledge to help, make it count. If all you are going to do is promise not to smoke on Sundays, then don't bother. Save that SMS money to pay your future oncologist. Or if you decided to wash your jogging shoes less often. Congratulations. You just announced to the world that you are using one bucket of water less every two weeks. And pledging not to do something that even a retard would know is wrong is not much of a pledge. Promising to switch off the lights when you leave the room and to turn off the tap when you are done in the shower is lame. Quoting Chris Rock, its like being proud that you never went to jail. You're not supposed to. The whole pledge thing is a pretty cool idea seeing that people can pick up ideas from there, but spare us the insignificant glory seekers.

Back to the point. People are willing to do something for the environment, but there comes a point where they draw the line. I suspect this mismatch is going to be a bit of a problem in the future. Point in case. Jeremy Clarkson thinks that global warming is bullshit because he likes cars. If people were less critical about the effects of gas guzzlers like his Gallardo have on the environment, he wouldn't even have an opinion on global warming. Clarkson never claimed to be concerned about the environment. He is quite unapologetic about his love for fast cars with bad mileage, and while that isn't really something to be proud of, at least he isn't hypocritical. What I truly have a problem with is people who preach environmentalism and does little things to prove their commitment, but goes home and has dinner on a dinner table made out of Amazonian hardwood. Now, what Clarkson can do now is look at how the people who are accusing him of clubbing baby seals and point out the stuff that they are doing to damage the environment. Chances are, he'd find a bundle of them to pick on. Maybe they are golfers, or maybe they fly first class all the time.

Vegans love using the environment as a way to make people go vegetarian. They will point out that their lifestyle is so much better because their carbon footprint is smaller. Right.

I'm all for saving the environment, and I do think that little gestures that will accumulate and make a difference. Just stop taking moral high ground every time you do it and stop picking on little lifestyle changes that some people aren't ready to make. They might be doing something else that you're not that makes them even greener than you are.

Wanna go green? Stop gardening.

This is not a post born out of genuine concern for the environment. This is written because I'm annoyed by this needless chore called gardening. Yes, I'm a town boy. I don't like nature. I like earthworms best when I put them in a petri dish and observe them in a lab. I hate camping and jungle trekking. So sue me.

But seriously, the one thing that a lot of people tend to forget when they make recommendations for being more environmentally friendly is the fact that those perfectly manicured gardens that they keep is a menace to the environment. Yes, as hard as it is to believe, they are. To keep those fragile little plants alive, they are watered daily. Talk about wasting water. Forget about washing your shoes less often or taking shorter baths. Get rid of those bloody potted plants and you would have saved us a whole lot of water. Its particularly bad of you have a lawn, and have sprinklers to keep them alive. If you can plant a tree big enough to sustain itself on rainwater, then by all means, keep it. If not, dump it I say. Then you wouldn't have to have people like me weed or re-pot the damned thing. And don't get me started on the fertilizers and pesticides you need to keep those precious little flowers in bloom.

And while you're at it, you might as well get rid of another major annoyance. Golf courses. Gardens are bad, but golf courses are like cyanide to mother nature. So any rich prick who claims to be green (normally happens after they start some big corporate green campaign), but has a bunch of golf clubs along with a wardrobe full of checkered pants can suck my balls. Seriously, the amount of space that you take up just so you can have a nice way to seal your business deals is ridiculous. (And, yes, you guessed it. I hate golf)

Am I barking up the wrong tree? Maybe. I don't know how much water is used in an average household to water the plants and lawn. Maybe its quite insignificant. But its certainly one of the things that I'm perfectly willing to see being sacrificed to save the environment.

Bad and good news.

I just had a post about how the justice system of any democracy is so easily misinterpreted for whatever the rich and powerful feel like doing. Paris Hilton recently proved my point. She somehow convinced the sheriff in her jail that she had a medical condition and needed to go home. So instead of finishing her jail term, she was placed under house arrest for 40 of the 45 days she needed to be in jail. Evading a jail sentence eh? The sheriff in question is going to be held in contempt of the courts for allowing her to do that. But I suspect that for him its worth it. God only knows how much she paid him to let her go. The rest of the world is understandably outraged at this. What can we do? Best we can hope for is that the judge overseeing the case now will insist that she finishes her full sentence. In jail.

On a less depressing note, we now have a working model of wireless power transmission. Tesla's vision has finally come true. We have had charging pads where users just need to place their device on a pad to charge it without plugging it in. But this time, its power transmission over 2 meters. With an efficiency of 40 percent. Very exiting stuff, I must say.

Both articles are available on BBC. Check them out for more details.

The exorcism.

John pressed the buzzer in front of him and cracked his knuckles. He never really liked making house calls, but they paid well, and he needed the money. As much as he tried to control his spending, the cash never really seems to stay in his wallet for very long. Some indulgence will come along, and he would lose all his will to save. And now he was in debt again, for the umpteenth time in his life. All he wanted to do was get the job over with so that he could pay the bloody loan sharks.

He checked inside his coat, making sure that he had all the standard equipment. When he got the call, it sounded like a simple open and shut case. He would walk in, perform his usual hocus pocus and walk away a thousand dollars richer. Not bad for an hours effort. He just wished more of these cases existed.

John didn’t have particularly strong moral principles. He would have cheated his way out of trouble every time if it weren’t for the fact that he was constantly watched over. The irony of the situation was that most people would consider the forces that act as his conscience to be pagan gods that only cared for themselves. Most people considered his practices to be witchcraft and accused him of being an idol worshipper. He didn’t care. They didn’t know what he did, and they couldn’t even begin to understand the rules that he played by.

The door opened. “Ah, Mr. John, you’re here at last.” John raised his eyebrows. This kid hardly looked like someone who needed an exorcism. He was a picture of health, smiling at John as he held the door open. Normally, his clients would greet him with blood-shot eyes and sweat running down their face. They couldn’t walk properly, and sometimes couldn’t even talk properly. John hated those cases. They took him too long to figure out which method to use. “Something is wrong,” John told himself. He couldn’t possibly have the wrong house. The kid had identified him correctly. A trap, maybe? No. The demons he banished didn’t have a grudge against him. He was just doing his job, and they understood that. It was a kind of professional respect, if you will. Never mind his discomfort. He had a job to do.

John stepped into the house and set his briefcase down. “What seems to be the problem here, sir?” he asked.

“You’re an exorcist. What else would I have called you for?”.

“Well, you don’t look like you need my services. It really doesn’t look like anything is wrong at all”

“I don’t look it, but I feel it. I am being haunted.” His client clutched his chest, slightly to the left where his heart was.

“Okay. Can you tell me more about the nature of your visitations?” asked John.

“It normally comes at night, when I’m in bed. My mind tends to drift off into different directions, but I always see her face.”

“Her face? The demon is female then. Is she attractive?”

“Oh, yes. Very. I sometimes think that I’m in love with her”

John scratched his chin and pondered for a moment. A succubus? In this part of the world? There wasn’t quite enough of believers for them to exist in Asia. The sultry demonic seductress just wasn’t well known enough to exist around here.

What most people normally got wrong was the order in which these supernatural things happen. Conventional wisdom was that we believe in them because they exist, when in actual fact, they exist because we believe. People underestimated the power of their own minds. If no one ever though of the demons, they wouldn’t be around at all, but because people felt so strongly about their existence, they subconsciously willed the demons into being. Succubuses were part of Western folklore, and normally only materialized in the Western world. It didn’t make sense that one of them would be haunting his client.

“Let me take a look,” said John. He walked up to his client and placed his hand on the client’s forehead. Closing his eyes, he tried to feel for pulses of supernatural energy that would help him identify the demon in question. But he felt nothing. Frowning, he pushed even harder, straining hard to pick up some clue. Still nothing.

This didn’t make sense. Even the most elusive of demons couldn’t escape detection from him. Could he have met his match?

Then it dawned onto him. Smiling, he took his hand off his client’s forehead. “There is nothing I can do to help you, sir. Your problems have nothing to do with the supernatural or the netherworld. You don’t need an exorcist. You need a shrink.”

“What? What do you mean I need a shrink? I’m not crazy. I’m possessed.”

“Yes. You are quite possessed. But your kind of possession is quite common. In fact, you’re the first person I know who has called an exorcist to deal with the problem. Most people just kill or harm themselves.”

“I don’t follow,” said the client.

John sighed. “That demon that is haunting you. Is she familiar looking?”

“Yes”

“She is very attractive to you and you are in love with her? Is that correct?”

“Pretty much so. What are you getting at?”

“I suspect you know already. You don’t really want this demon to disappear now, do you? You can try to shoo it away all you want, but until you really find that you do not want her around, she is going to be there. Forever haunting you.”

“There is nothing I can do then? I’m doomed to sleepless nights for the rest of my life?”

“Not really. From experience, these hauntings don’t last forever. It takes a while, but it goes away eventually. Just don’t kill yourself. Its pathetic when that happens. I’m not an expert in the field, so I’ll keep my advice to this and only this. Good day to you sir.”

John walked out of the house, half amused at the whole scenario and half annoyed that he couldn’t charge the sorry sod for his counseling.

Longest post ever.

This is one of those posts that seemed to have point to it when I first start out, but soon start to lose momentum. I decided to finish and publish it anyway. Be nice when commenting.

A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point reached by the genius of the last generation. – Max Gluckman.

I saw this quote in my thermodynamics textbook, and it vaguely reminded me of something that I read about in Jurassic Park about eight years ago. In essence, it was about how dangerous science could be in the wrong hands. To illustrate that point, Ian Malcolm used the analogy of the martial arts. Both are disciplines, but in the martial arts, you don’t become a black belt without first going through the yellow, green, blue and so on. His contention was that masters of those disciplines got through a long learning process that goes beyond understanding the art of combat. When a master has perfected the art of killing with his bare hands, he has the discipline not to.

But scientists didn’t have to do the same. A new researcher now just has to pick off from where the old retired professor left off. And according to Malcolm, those researchers are not very likely to exercise caution when doing their research. To him, it was like putting an AK-47 in a monkey’s hands and then crudely gesturing to it to pull the trigger. At least that is the link that was made.

I was 13 at that time, and I bought it. I was surrounded by news of pollution and the destruction of planet earth by humans, and blaming science for all of that made a whole lot of sense. It is an overly simplistic way of looking at the situation, I know. But it made sense at that time.

I continued to believe that humans were to be blamed for the destruction of the earth, and that we would ultimately wipe ourselves off this planet.

I believed that, if humans had a purpose, it was the same as the meteor’s. To wipe the slate clean so that the next stage of life may take its place on earth. Life had been reset on Earth a number of times, after all.

That was what I thought of science. Unknowing to the consequences, we have developed technology that we cannot use responsibly. But that’s not the reason for this post. I write this because of the increasing specialization that takes place, not only in science, but everywhere else. Specialization is one of the marks of civilized society, but I really do think that it is taking its toll now.

I was reading the Dilbert blog recently and he was talking about global warming. He said that he was reluctant to write about the matter, seeing that he knew jack shit about it. So he started doing research. And the amount of information that he had to sift through was mind-boggling. Both sides had a story to tell, and both sides chose to tell it in a way that would serve them best (which is obvious). That means using half truths and then telling them as if they meant something. Both sides would use every piece of leverage they could find even if it meant bending the truth. In the end, it makes reading about the subject a pain in the ass. Which is a bit of a problem, since it affects every one of us, and is likely to affect us in this lifetime. There is a lot of money at stake here, and nobody wants to lose out.

If everyone in the world was bothered to research the issue, then this wouldn’t be that big a problem. But the problem now is that a lot of people don’t know that they need to. In the end, if the public were to have to make a decision about global warming, it’s the side with the better PR that is going to win the public vote.

Then there is the courts of law and policy making in governments. Both will have to make decisions about issues that are fundamentally rooted in science, but do not have the knowledge to do so. In the end, they end up relying on expert witnesses and their testimonies, but that might not be enough to get the correct message across. Simplifying scientific ideas into layman’s terms has a dangerous effect of being easily misunderstood and taken out of context. It is my opinion that a president or a jury cannot possibly make an informed decision without first studying the subject extensively. Which in the current world is almost impossible to do, seeing that we have so many disputes to settle, so many decisions to make and so few people who can make them. Expert testimony is all too easily bought or obtained through some shady means. Its just a question of whether or not the stakes are high enough for the respective players to play hard ball.

This ultimately leads to the concept that our legal and administrative systems have their inherent weaknesses. I know that this makes me sound incredibly gullible and naïve, but I had, and probably still have a lot of faith in the laws of the land. I actually believed that the police force would protect me as long as I didn’t break the law. I actually thought that our laws were water tight and would take an effort of monumental proportions to abuse. Apparently, it really isn’t that difficult, no matter which legal system you look at.

This post looks terribly disjointed, but in my head, its all linked. The thought of people misinterpreting science for their own agenda sickens me, but the writing is on the wall. It is really easy to do, given the will and enough resources. And there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. Except bend their own will and resource to combat it when they don’t agree. It ends up becoming a war of attrition in a battle to gain influence. I don’t like the idea that justice sides the one with a lot of money, but apparently, that’s how it works. So excuse me while I get used to this new cynical view of law.

Sued for firing the unproductive.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6682827.stm

Yep, the Americans did it again. Bringing others to court because of your problems seems to be something that is incredibly easy to do in the states isn't it?

I really don't get it. He surfed for porn when he should have been working. Thats a loss of productivity for the company right there. They should have every right to terminate him, especially since he had already been warned not to continue.

Thats before we even consider the fact that he is a Vietnam war veteran that gets over his war trauma by surfing for porn. Apparently, we are supposed to treat his sex addiction just like drug addiction. His argument is that we sympathize with drug addicts but not sex addicts. IBM is supposedly discriminating against sex addicts.

At the end of the article, BBC asked if companies need to be more sympathetic of addicts. Well, thats a very subjective thing isn't it? If there is a genuine desire to quit, then I suppose the company does have a moral obligation to help out. The stigma with addiction is similar to the one attached to AIDS. Addicts are normally blamed for getting addicted in the first place, the same way people think the AIDS victims are getting what they deserve.

But in this case, we don't know if this man advised IBM of his supposed disorder when they first gave him a warning. If he did, then he might have a case. If he didn't then he's just after a quick $5 million and he can go fuck himself.

I feel strange.

I do. I'm never the kind of person who does stuff. By default, I'd do nothing. I'm a sucker for routine and I hate change more than most people do. In short, I'm not a particularly happening kind of person. Which would give some explanation to the reason I'm in the faculty I'm in.

Because of who I am, my schedules are really easy to keep track of. I never need an organizer, because I'd have nothing to write in it. And that would make the organizer that I have a big waste of paper. Or plastic and metal. Or whatever it is that the organizer is made of. But now, I seem to be losing track more often than not. I make plans that clash with other plans, when in the past, I'd say yes to something I wanted to do without hesitation because it was so damned unlikely that it would interfere with anything.

I wouldn't be writing about this if it felt right. And the fact that it doesn't bothers me. Every way I look at it, it looks like something positive. But it doesn't feel right. Maybe its me warning myself that I might be forcing myself to be something I am not. Or it could just be that stubborn streak that refuses to admit that it is wrong.

Is it really a bad thing? I don't know. I'd like to think that it isn't. And by the looks of all the other practitioners, it is quite the opposite of bad.

Oh well. I still have a lot of that lameness bug in me when it comes to any actual work. Now that is one thing I'd be glad to be rid of.

I suck. Yay exams are ovah!

LOL PWNT. (Wilz wuz here)

The follow-up

Apology eh? Not good enough. I just had to write a follow up letter to the editor. Hopefully he doesn't ignore it.

The apology has been made and for those who were outraged by the sexist remarks made by the two MPs in parliament, it might seem like a victory. But is it really? Have things really been set right?

Sadly, no. There are so many things wrong with the apology. First, it took them seven days to make the apology, only to retract it. When the official apology finally came after day nine, half the apology was about alleged opposition provocation. One can't help but to wonder if the MPs really are sorry for saying what they did. If it really was a slip of tongue caused by opposition provocation, then the apology would have come on the very next day. It doesn't a person nine days to figure out that he or she has been blinded by rage and done something wrong. Unless that person actually believes that no wrong has been committed. Watching the whole saga, one cannot help but to get the impression that the apology was somewhat forced and done grudgingly.

The problems don't stop there. The MP from Kinabatangan has a history of making such remarks. This isn't the first time that he has stirred controversy. It is becoming apparent that there is no changing this mindset that such people have. It is bad enough to have sexist MPs in our parliament, but to have MPs who flaunt their sexist views openly and then expect to get away with it is unacceptable in any democracy.

Datuk Sharizat might think that the two MPs have been punished enough due to the media attention that this issue has generated. To me it looks like they got away with it. It is an unequivocal defeat for those who believe in and fight for women's rights.

A call to arms.

This is the mail I sent to the Star, published on Sunday. It was heavily edited, but still published. If you are half as pissed off as I am about this, and can put a coherent sentence together, then write in as well. Even if it doesn't change anything, it helps good Malaysians out there know that they are not alone in their outrage.


To say that I was disappointed with the light slap on the wrist that the backbenchers in parliament got for the sexist remark would be an understatement of monumental proportions. Reading that article disgusted me and made me ashamed of being Malaysian. Many unbelievable things have been said in Parliament, but this one takes the cake for sheer lack of class and dignity. The thought that such people should represent my interests sends shivers down my spine. The fact that the statement was made at all should be bad enough, but to have the complaint dismissed based on technicality makes the whole situation seem like an attempt to sweep the problem under the rug.

The remarks by Datuk Seri Nazri then made it clear that some of our Parliamentarians are clueless about proper conduct. Play of words? An insult is an insult. If the 'play of words' was racist instead of sexist, it would have caused a huge uproar. Why does an insult that is sexist more acceptable than a racist one?

Letting this transgression go is going to set a very dangerous precedence for ignoring gender equality issues in this country. If a wakil rakyat can get away with insulting women that way, then everyone can.

Here we go again.

I don't know how prevalent this view is, but some parents actually want the NS programme to be compulsory only for boys. Right....

I really don't understand this presistent view that girls cannot deal with physical strain. Sure, they can't lift as much, and can't run as fast or far, but that doesn't mean that they cannot attend national service. Malaysian national service has never been about the army. Graduates from the camps are neither capable or expected to serve in the armed forces. Which means that the precious daughters of these parents will never be thrown into a jungle Steyr AUGs strapped onto them facing enemy fire.

Some might argue that a lot of them were brought up in protected environments and are ill-prepared for the rigours of NS. Well, lots of boys are pampered at birth too.

If this idea makes it to implementation, I would see it as an insult to women. It is an insult that a lot of women are willing to take to make their lives just a little easier. (fine, in this case, a lot easier). But I have said before, taking this insult would mean that you cannot demand equality anymore. Doing so would make you a hypocrite. If women can be allowed the right to demand their rights, then so too do men. If she has a right to ask for equal pay in the workplace, then pincipally, he has a right to demand that she goes through the same kind of shit that society expects him to go through. Unless it can be proven that women are really incapable of doing the kinds of things that they so conveniently avoid doing, they should be expected to contribute as well.

God dammit

My brain won't stop processing. I'm dead tired, but my head keeps popping thought after thought. Just a few hours ago, I felt the most alive that I have been in a really long time. Maybe the high hasn't died down, or maybe its the thought of Chelsea not winning the bloody premier league title. But I can't sleep. And thats weird for me. That hasn't happened in a long, long time.

I just feel like screaming now. I can't even think properly. I'm not sure if I'm making any sense now. But I'm still thinking. God dammit. I think I feel another identity crisis coming along, and I'm not looking forward to it. Bloody hell. I hate making up my mind. I hate making decisions with any form of finality to it. But I hate being in limbo even more.

Piss.

God damn it.

Its a freakin miracle.

I dunno how it happened, but it did. 4 hours of drilling, screwing and bolt tightening led to the creation of a functional garage door for the Micro-P project that we have to do.

Why is it amazing? Well, because we hardly used the bloody ruler. Which is fucked up when you think about it. Everything was done by visual estimation. And it actually turned out alright.

I was so certain that something was going to go horribly and unrepairably wrong, but it didn't. Whatever little problems we faced, we dealt with fairly easily.

And the bloody contraption was built the very same way I write my essays. I have a general idea about what I want to say, but I never actually plan the whole thing out. I improvise along the way. Except that planning everything on paper is standard procedure for an engineering design process. Obviously, we can't plan for everything, but a certain amount of forethought is normally given. What we did was to come up with a new idea whenever we saw a problem. A problem that would have been avoidable if we had just given it a bit more thought.

Anyway, the thing works fine, so I'm happy. The gears actually meshed, and thats a real relief.

Little green book.

Heh. I found it. I thought I had lost it forever and for a while, I felt a bit annoyed at myself. But then again, I'm not the type who dwells in nostalgia. So I shrugged the loss off. My reliance on sheer neuron power for such tasks will probably take a toll in the future, especially when I'm required to reproduce parts of my life and I have no artifacts to jog the memory or to prove anything I say. But thats a worry for when I'm 60.

Anyways, I found the book. When I first started writing it, I told myself that I'd probably look back at the stuff I wrote and laugh. I was right. Partially. If that book had remained lost for a longer time, and then showed itself, say 5 years from now, my assumption would probably be true. But I guess looking at it now could only result in me smiling a crooked smile and feigning indifference, even if I have no audience. Fooling one's self is a complicated process, and if I can't even fool those around me, then there is no point even trying.

Burning the book is an interesting option, though one that I would probably regret at some point. Plus, its Earth day. No point in any unnecessary burning.

So it remains on the shelf. There is a half-hearted attempt at preventing trespassing, in the form of a written warning on the inside of the cover. That warning is pretty pointless now. The stuff in there will probably make anyone puke after reading 3 lines anyway.

Feminists, may I introduce you to your worst nightmare.

Post deleted due to its potentially contraversial nature. If you really are interested, please contact the blogmaster.

How male or female are you?

Pretty stupid question eh? Male is male, female is female. Even in the mind. Gender differences in the brain are pretty well documented, and while not always true, provide a pretty good basis on which we can make assumptions. But then guys can have female brains, and girls can have male ones. (Oh, I've seen them. Makes very good thought fodder).

So, I was mucking about on BBC when I saw this test to tell you just how male or female you are. I normally don't do these tests, and even if I did do them, I'd be too embarrassed to admit that I did them. But this is BBC. It had to be somewhat credible.

The test itself took something like 20 mins to complete. And I learned that I have a very much male oriented brain. Slightly above average spatial ability, full marks for rotating 3D objects in space, but hopeless with finding words (a bit of a surprise there) and utterly useless when it comes to empathy (fit right into the stereotype).

But the one big surprise was the eye emotion matching test. I scored 9 out of 10. Thats a good deal further away from the average female (who is supposed to be good at this). I can tell what a person is feeling just by reading the eyes.

Seeing these results makes me think that I have the faculties to show empathy. I just don't do it. All this while, I thought I was just mentally handicapped in that area. I wasn't particularly ashamed about being cold and uninvolved. It was just who I was. Sometimes I got to thinking about whether or not caring for others is part of humanity but with examples of perfectly respectable people being just as cold (my own paternal grandmother and Kimi Raikkonen to name two), that problem didn't bother me all that much. I've sometimes wondered if having the principal of one of the most successful private schools in the country as a role model has turned me into what I am. It probably has, but to what extent, I don't know.

As things stand, life seems to be screaming to me that whatever I am right now just will not do. Its telling me "Sure, you'll survive, but you're not going to be happy with mere survival now are you?". Its a raging debate, one that status quo is having a fairly comfortable time with. The only problem now is, there is no end to this, and it doesn't look like the reformists are letting the case go that easily.

Nothing to write about.

Seriously, I can't really find anything that I would be bothered to put on this blog anymore. Heck, I can't even remember the blog post I made. Not to say that nothing happened during my one month hiatus, just nothing worth reporting.

I suppose now that I actually find myself before a computer with the option to post open to me, I'll mention a few things. First up, stress. Assignments galore, and ones that matter too. Not the usual engineering 'here, do this question' token assignments that I normally get. Actual meaty assignments that cannot be copied and must be worked on. Still on the topic of stress, mid-terms. They suck, and getting one a week is annoying. The barrage has stopped, thankfully. (Which is why I am typing this in the first place.)

Now, F1 in Melaka. And Command and Conquer 3. Fun. Nuff said.

Actually, this is like proof that I don't need to write. Writing is not my release. Never really has been. Talking is more of my thing actually, and I think I tend to talk even when no one really cares about what I am saying. I recently had this strange idea about the differences between the 'emo' people and the 'calm' people. Its badly undeveloped and probably already well researched by proper scientists. Then I had this idea about reclassifying marriages since there are so many kinds and so many purposes that go with marriage. (While we are at it, might as well create a distinction in the English language between the many kinds of love that people feel). I guess in the past, those things might have been considered blog material worthy. Not anymore.

Loss of identity, life changing experiences. I suppose those are the only things that will actually make time to blog about. Which brings me to the question of whether or not its loss of identity that caused this indifference to writing. Or am I just indifferent, period?

Relief

Geez.. How I could have completely forgotten that the lab sessions on Wednesday start at 9am is beyond me. But I did. And I thought that I had 10am class on that day. So as I looked at the timetable, I felt like killing myself. Especially since the lecturer who is coordinating the subject has reminded us that we have to make formal application for lab session transfers. I was late, so no such reprive. I could only hope that the other lecturer tasked to teach the subject would be the supervisor today. I think I might have mentioned him in this blog before. L!m is his name.

As luck would have it, he was the lecturer in charge today. Still, I wasn't expecting an easy time. I went up to him, said I was sorry. Before I could go on, he said to replace on Friday. He hardly even blinked. No show of disappoval or displeasure. He just asked me to come another day. Its really quite hard to express the kind of relief I felt when I heard him say that. I really didn' want to get barred from this subject.

So, here is to Dr. Lim. A truly practical man whose priorites lie in getting the job done and not in the bloody anal world of protocols and procedures.

Call me a bitch.

Interestingly enough, this article appeared not long after I saw the book "Are men really necessary". Written by Kate Figes, the article takes a look at how strong, independent women who are not afraid of giving their opinions are considered bitches.

I liked the article, and I think that she is mostly right. As much progress as we have made, women are still expected to be the docile types. I honestly do not think that its the brashness or the opinions that make men (and women alike) label these loud women bitches. Its only when they feel threatened that it happens. Women can say anything and have nothing negative happen to them, as long as they are wrong. But the moment they are right, they start to threaten people who are already very comfortable in their positions, and that will quite easily spark name calling. Its not being sexist. Its survival instinct.

Its not to say that calling talented women bitches can be justified in anyway. I would echo the author's call to continue being outspoken in a heartbeat. Too often, are people who speak their mind considered 'nasty' or 'not nice'. I should know. What I do find interesting is that the author makes a distinction between a good bitch and a bad one. The bad bitch is the manipulative, self serving individuals that tear others down so that they can feel good. The good one speaks her mind and stands up for herself. I don't, however see any link between the two kinds of bitches. Both are described with the same word, but are mutually exclusive. The author says that women have no guidance to change from a weak and bad bitch into a strong and good one. I disagree. There is no transition. A woman can be both, and can be neither. Both those types of characters inspired some kind of anger. It really is no surprise that both are called the same thing. The word bitch is used out of hate, much like the word fuck. And the word fuck is now used to describe so many things, its confusing. But most people who use the word are not referring to sex, although technically, thats what fuck points at.

And then there is the bit that says 'real women are loud, brave and outspoken'. Bullshit. Real women are no more loud, brave and outspoken than real men are muscular, chivalrous and well hung. Being loud is something that some people are. Some people are just less eager to express opinions. That doesn't make them any less masculine or feminine than other people.

Run.. For what?

He shuffled his feet on the spot. As he looked around, everyone was doing the same.

Everyone.

Familiar faces, and complete strangers, all had a look of intensity. He shrugged and kept shuffling. A few cycles later, he started stretching. He felt a little self-concious in his shorts but he didn't want to show it. There would be no signs of weakness from him.

The air horn went off. It was time. He got down onto the ground and went into position. His fingers were firmly planted on the ground, his legs pushing and straining, willing to be released. The pistol went off, and he ran.

He kicked the ground hard, willing his legs to carry him faster. His breath came in short, ragged breaths, his body producing more lactic acid as time passed. But he ran on. And on.

Then he noticed something. Nobody else was running. Even if they were, they were not running against him. They weren't running against anyone. They ran alone, oblivious to their surroundings. The rest were just ambling along, quite unfazed by the sight of their opponents rapidly reaching the finish line. He looked harder. There was no finish line. The white tape that he saw had disappeared. The red gravel that paved the floor was gone too. And so was the field.

He slapped himself. This couldn't be happening. All his life, he had been running this race. Or rather, he thought he had. But there was no race. There is no competition. There was no one to beat, and there certainly was no champion or gold medal.

He was confused, so he did what he always did. He sat down to think. As hard as it was to accept, he finally came to realize that the race really had been a figment of his imagination.

Now all he had to do was to stop the urge to run. Especially when he saw someone else start.

The illusion that choice equates happiness.

Its one of the more interesting concepts that I have come across when watching videos of really smart people talking. It actually makes a lot of sense.

Naturally, a complete absence of choice is never a good thing. The flavour text on one of the Magic the Gathering cards reads "Options will cost you, but the lack of them will cost you even more." I am in complete agreement. But there really does come a point where we have too much choice.

Choice is viewed like money. The more, the better. It almost seems like we can never have enough choice to work with. The more options we have, the more likely we would be able to get it perfect, right? Maybe. Very smart people have observed that with too much choice, comes paralysis. We don't make a decision because we are afraid of making a wrong one. With so much to choose from, its easier to screw up. I could go on to explain just why this is so, but I won't.

The thing that I really want to talk about is the fact that a lot of Malaysian parents tend to tell their children that they are really lucky. Why? Because they can choose whatever career they want nowadays. Lucky? Its not really that simple.

The fundamental assumption that these parents have is that their children will be free to choose a path that will leave them happy. When you get to do what you like for a living, then you are happy right? As a general rule, I suppose you could say yes. But children are to make that choice at a very specific point in their lives, whether they are ready to do so or not. Some people screw that up. This is where kids nowadays are worse off than their parents.

When their parents ended up doing whatever it is they do, they were forced into that line of work by circumstance. Life screwed them over. Blame your lousy luck and move on. When a kid now ends up in a field that he hates, the only one to blame is himself. And when you start feeling like your life sucks, and its all your fault, its a lot harder to get on with life. A really long line of 'what ifs' will start to appear. What if I had done this instead of that? What if I hadn't been so hasty? These are things that the parents never had to deal with. And most of these parents ended up being fairly well off themselves.

So its true that the millions of courses that are available now are a good thing. But only if you can deal with it. If you can make a choice and never look back, then its fine. But if you are going to live life mired in regret, then you are better off getting someone to tell you what to do for a living.

If women ruled the world.

That’s something that I have always grappled with. I’ve always been curios about what it would be like if most of the world wasn’t patriarchal. What if the situation was reversed?

As a child, I was under the impression that if women ruled the world, we would have many fewer wars. Shooting someone you don’t agree with just seems like such a typically male response to things. Besides, weapon design is just something that guys do. Its not to say that women wouldn’t be able to develop incredibly destructive devices if they wanted to. Its just that the compulsion to destroy and blow things up is not quite wired into them. The same way that women generally don’t see the need to build a machine that can travel at 250 miles an hour. There is a difference between a designer with passion and a designer who is doing his/her job. A man will build a gun with a gleam in his eye. A woman will do it to get a chore out of the way. So, no guns, fewer wars right?

Maybe. Maybe not. Women might have less violent approaches to conflict resolution, but that doesn’t mean that they are any less likely to enter conflict. Differences in opinion will reach boiling point, and how an entire planet of female leaders will respond is something I’ve always wondered about. We can’t take examples of past female nation leaders for two reasons.

The first, is that any female leader who comes into power she already has guns at her disposal, backed by a bunch of testosterone filled male generals. What I am interested in is a world that is matriarchal in nature. A world where the entire cabinet is made out of women, the same way many cabinets in the world now are filled with men. How would they respond to the cultural clashes and religious feuds that are bound to crop up?

The second is that any female leader who has risen up the ranks in the past have done so by emulating their male colleagues. They is something very masculine about them. Margaret Thatcher wasn’t known as the iron lady for no reason. I don’t know Helen Clarke all that well, but judging from the way the Australs debaters spoke about her, I don’t think she is all that different. What I would like to see is a woman in power who deal with a situation like a typical woman would. I’m having a very hard time imagining what that would be like.

There will probably be a lot fewer explosions. Fewer ripped limbs. Fewer dramatic images of mothers grieving in front of rubble left behind after a bombing. But I cannot believe that the absence of bullets will equate to the absence of suffering.

I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say with this post. To be honest, even if I knew the answers to the questions I have asked, it wouldn’t matter, since that world is about as real as a typical Malaysian is punctual. Its just something I think about when I have nothing better to do.

To be or not to be.

Wandering the street, the boy looked lost,
Blank faced, he looked, but didn’t see,
He wandered aimlessly, almost stumbling with every step,
His listless eyes wore no expression, refusing to commit.

The person that he was, the person that he is,
The person that he wants to be, and the person he is going to be,
All stand divided, all mirror images,
Similar on the outside, until you read the eyes.

There is little doubt where the fracture came from,
But the question of why has yet to be answered,
The answer might stare him in his face,
But unless acknowledged, it will not register.

The clarity of the past cannot be regained,
The neatly drawn lines have all but faded,
Black and white have tainted one another,
Pleasant simplicity replaced by gnawing self doubt.

His state might be confusing, but not particularly unpleasant,
But for one like him, it must not last,
The options are open, and he may have to choose,
Or perhaps he could sustain them all after all.

What the !@#$?

Pissed off with no one to blame. That is not a position you want to be in. If you could blame yourself, at least its easier.

Now I'm going to have to figure out how I'm going to survive the next sem. Because I can't prove to my mum how impossible it would be to coordinate 2 schedules and 1 car. Because the online systems are fucked up. Meaning I can't do my brother's bloody schedule for him. Meaning I can't show my mum how ridiculous life is going to be in the next sem.

And the last thing I needed was a reminder of the life that wasn't. But it came anyway. In the most innocent form too. Geez, God. I have to hand it to you. You sure know how to kick a dude in the nuts while he is on the ground. Your timing couldn't have been better. Really.

Right now, all I want to do is shut the bloody world out and sulk. But I can't. And that is annoying. So I applaud You. I'm sure you could do worse, but this sure was quite impressive.

The myogenic little fellow.

He was normally encased in a steel box, with a little slit at the side to see the outside. No one sees inside, and he hardly ever looks out. He didn't think it was worth his time.

So life went on that way until one day when he decided to have one of those rare peeks into the outside. It was then that he saw it. The effect was mild, but it was there. But it wasn't the first time such a thing happened, so he ignored it. For a while.

He was considering a course of action when it disappeared. In a blink, it was gone. But it appeared again. And again. But each time, it showed up in the distance. Deciding that there was nothing that could be done, he kept moving. Just as he had been doing for as long as he could remember.

Then it appeared one day, closer than it had ever been before. Slightly surprised, he watched it for a while. It didn't move. So he shuffled closer to it. Still it remained motionless.

Intrigued, he decided to grab it. The lid of the steel casing creaked and groaned as the force from the outreaching tendril pushed against years of rust. His movements were tentative at first, but as he drew closer, his confidence grew.

The tendril touched it gently, and still it did not fly. It hardly even flinched. The lid opened a little further, and then a bit more as he slowly came out of the only home he ever knew.

He drew it close and examined it, wanting to take in every detail. As he explored the surface, he knew that there was much more to it than what he saw, and he resolved to find out.

But it was not to be. Before he knew what was happening, it jumped out of his grasp. It danced about in the air for a while, as if willing him to reach out and grab it. He was about to do that when it suddenly surged forward and planted itself firmly on the lid of the chest. Aided by gravity, the piece of metal came crashing down, sealing the chest, while parts of his body were still outside. His reactions hadn't been fast enough, and the lid caught the aorta, severing it.

He has never known such horror before. He could only watch as his innards came gushing out in a stream. The remaining bit of the aorta that was still attached to him flailed about like a flimsy garden hose. He screamed.

The response was quick enough. Neighbours came quickly and slapped on a clip at the open end, sealing it temporarily. Others cleaned up the mess and tended to the severed tissue.

It would be a while before he would be able to return to duty fully functional, and even if he did, he wouldn't be doing it the same way. But return he will, however long it might take.

New Year Resolutions

I didn't make many in the past, and I don't think I have ever kept one. And that isn't about to change. If I reviewed the year 2006, I think it would easily be the most significant year of my life thus far. And I'd also find that if there is one year that I need to make resolutions for, its 2007.

To be honest, I don't know what I want to change. New perspectives show themselves faster than I can digest them. Too often now, opposing sides present themselves as viable options. Sometimes its a case of what I want to do versus what I need to do to get what I want. Sometimes its a case of suppression of a perfectly natural instinct (in my perspective) to ensure things take a more natural course. And sometimes its swallowing my substantial pride to do something that I want. What do I want to do? Where do I want to stand?

I suppose I'll just have to deal with them as they come. One thing is for sure, I must rein in the past.

Happy New Year, people.

Bloody floods.

I have never actually experienced floods like this before. It could have been much worse, for for sheltered old me, this is the worst I have ever experienced.

Taken near Pokok Mangga. The fence encloses a restaurant. The entire compound was submerged.











This is the back of my house. TNB reserve land, actually. The papaya trees in the pictures are now half dead from suffocation. There were kids paddling about in an inflatable rubber boat the other day. I don't know whats wrong with them. Not only did the place look like a swamp, it smelt like a swamp. I suppose they don't get to use that boat of theirs very often.






And driving through the flood waters, I actually broke my front number plate. The right bracket gave way and I was driving with the plate half hanging down. Occasionally, it would scratch the road and make funny noises. I really thought that my engine had taken a drink and the sound was the groans of my dying engine until I saw a random stranger point at the front of my car as I drove past. I had to remove the number plate and drive without it for a while. Ended up being half an hour late for class.

Well, the worst is over (at least according to the met. services) but I type this looking out at a cloudy sky and predictions of thunderstorms heading my way. Some holiday season this is turning out to be.

Anyway, as out of place as this might seem, here is to a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Understanding...

If I had it my way, this post would be 'bitch, scream, kick, etc'. But I cannot have my way, so I'll take the next best thing.

For some reason, I find this almost unnatural need to want to understand certain things. In the past, when school was much easier, I always made sure I understood whatever it was that I was learning. In university, I cannot be bothered anymore, partly because there is no one to explain it to me, and I don't have to patience to research it on my own and partly because I have tried it before a few times with very discouraging results.

But there are things that can be explained. Things that I cannot understand but can be made to understand easily. But for some reason of another, the explanations are denied to me, either as an act of malice or of cowardice. Or it could be just plain old apathy, which to me is just as bad as malice, because the end result is pretty much the same.

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned in thinking that in civilized society, we have a right to answers. Maybe the desire to leave no room for doubt is just too Utopian and cannot be achieved for the simple reason that some people either refuse to face the facts or can't be bothered to figure out what the facts are. Its quite amazing that it is these same people who say that communication is all important. Maybe to them communication with certain parties is important, but the rest of the people can grapple in the dark all they want. It doesn't matter to them.

I'd like to think of this refusal to clarify as some form of difference or opinion. Just like how different people have different ideas on when flirting starts becoming sexual misconduct, I wish that this can be one of the issues that we can all agree to disagree on. But the idea of not actually offering and seeking closure is just something that I find much too alien to accept.

I would write on, but I think I've written too much already. Too much for my own good anyway.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

I know. I am lame. It took me this long to watch the movie, but I finally did.

I was told that the movie was boring. Was it? No. I liked the movie. Quite a lot actually. For the most part, the movie was like a debate of the 'separation of church and state" issues. Prosecution was arguing based on medicine, the defendants on mysticism. In the movie, the demons are real, making the witch-doctor explanations valid. But it was a court of law, making a decision based on
hocus pocus quite of the question. In that respect, I have no doubts about where I stand. I cannot accept otherwordly explanations being allowed to stand in court. Hopefully I never see a day that a bomoh becomes an expert witness on the stand.

But there was another issue in the movie that I found interesting. I've thought about it a long time ago, but since the movie brought it up, I'll take a look at it.

Should a guilty man who had perfectly good intentions or an alternate explanation to his actions (which cannot be admitted in court) be held responsible for his crimes? The priest had only the best intentions. And his story is as believable as it is real. But none of the jury can write 'not guilty' without insulting the judiciary. A similar case can be found in John Grisham's 'A Time to Kill'. A man whose daughter was brutally raped, attacked the rapists (who were good for nothing scum of society) with a M-16 and killed them. Do we blame him? To let him go would mean being inconsistent, leaving room for future 'abuse' of the system, but many a jury would be tempted to let him get on with his life. Of course in those stories, humanity triumphs and both the convicted people get away.

Question is, can this be allowed to happen? If it happens enough times, we cannot expect people to take the law seriously anymore, now can we? People will start asking 'what justice?'

I still think that the law is the most convenient form of conflict resolution that we have, even if there might be little problems here and there. I don't find 'lawyers go to hell' jokes all that funny. I suppose its a case of 'it might not be perfect, but if we didn't have it, we're all screwed'

Cars.

I am male and I'm studying Mechanical engineering. I must like cars. Thats the general stereotype that goes round, I suppose. I can't say that its very far off the mark. A lot of my classmates do like cars. Not me though, at least not in the way that they do.

I like cars for what they can do, not for what they are. In other words, I'm a driver, not a petrol head. I love driving. Can't say that I'm particularly good at it, but I enjoy it all the same. Driving alone, when I'm in the car, just me, the road and the car has proven to be quite effective at taking the edge off for me. I can't explain it, but I feel at peace when I'm driving like that. There haven't been many times when I needed the roads to keep me sane, but when I did need it, it provided me with a sense of calm. Funny thing is, my love for driving is very strongly attached to my love for manual transmission. Admittedly, if I drove in KL all the time, auto transmission would save my life. But taking traffic jams out of the picture, I really do like having the clutch. It gives driving the feel that it should have.

I like to drive, but the workings of a car do not interest me all that much. I have a rough idea how internal combustion works, but all the stuff that have been developed in the last 10 years baffle me. Active differentials, Continuously Variable Transmission, i-DSI, i-CTDi, VVT-i, VVTL-i, VVTL, VTC, Neo VVL, CVT. I have no idea what any of them do. Neither do I care.

Having said that, I do still find cars exciting to a point. I still see cars as more than a tool to help us get around. I can see myself buying a car the drives properly in the future. (Some might argue that all cars drive properly. What I mean is cars that don't take forever to get to speed and don't feel like they're going to kill you when you corner faster than 40 km/h). Type-R Civics and Golf GTIs come to mind, but thats a fantasy for a later point in my life. I wouldn't mind a Ferrari, but thats getting ahead of myself.

If I do buy a Ferrari, I will drive it. Not store it in the garage to be taken out every so often so that your friends can see how well off you are. Half the ingenuity of the car lies in the fact that you can use it everyday just a easily as any other commercial car. Making a car go fast is one thing. Making it fast and comfortable is a whole different ball game altogether.

If I really went berserk one day, this is the car I'll end up with. In my books now, this is the ultimate escape from reality. If something pisses me off or gets me depressed, driving this is one of the few things in the world that can make things a little less painful. That is of course assuming I don't get killed driving it.

We are boring.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6201292.stm

When we do make the international news, its because of things like this. If its not snake kings dying, its journalists calling us stupid or columnists commenting on racist slurs in our country. A bit depressing, really. You'd think that I'd be used to it by now.

They came back....

I came home today and saw this little book on the dining table. The title read 'Is there a creator?' My interest piqued instantly. The last time I saw something of that sort, Jehovah's witnesses had just visited my house. They had asked me if I believed in God. I told them I didn't know, which was a perfectly honest answer because I really didn't. That probably made their 'convert radar' blink really hard, but I didn't want to talk religion at that point in time. (I was standing on my porch sweeping the floor) So they gave me two booklets as food for thought and said they would be back. I never thought they would come back, but they did. Some people came by today and asked for a Mr. Siew. My mum told them that Mr. Siew is in Indonesia, which is true. How would my mum know that they were looking for me? They left this new booklet and left.

The last book was about maintaining a happy marriage. Yawn. Give that to me in about 15 years and I might actually read it. Read it now? Never mind. But this new book is interesting enough. I looked through it and didn't really like it. I have not written off creationism, but neither have I concluded that evolution is nonsense. To be honest, I do lean rather heavily towards evolution, but I am open to new ideas. I will not, however pick one side just because it can dig up lots of dirt about the theories that the other side has. Disproving a rival does not prove you right.

I have to admit, I am sorely tempted to start quoting from the booklet and giving my two cents about how some of the logic used is a little dodgy. But I won't. I will however look a little at my own views.

What exactly do I believe? I don't think I believe either side. I'm a fence sitter, waiting for one side to come up with enough evidence to pull me over. The question of where we come from is not quite important enough to me. One line in that book links quite strongly with my previous post about the point to life. It stated that if evolution was true, then there would be no meaning to life. I'd say that much is true. To evolution, we are a coincidence. Life just so happened to appear on our planet and life's only purpose would be the continuation of life. That is what I used the believe. I'm not too sure about that anymore.

As of now, I don't have the answers, so I won't form a belief. It sounds really cowardly, but in this case, I would rather be wishy washy. The last thing I want is to believe in something and then seek to prove it while categorically ignoring all evidence that points otherwise. Human beings have a tendency to do that. It is exactly that tendency that makes being a scientist so very difficult. If you start an experiment with certain results in mind, and look for those results, you are likely to find them. It doesn't prove a theory right, however. Bias is difficult to eliminate.
Thank God I'm not an evolutionary biologist.

Which is it?

The involuntary visits to the stone etchings,
The peals of laughter that echo the caves,
The wafting smells that emerge from hither.
The searing flame that burns inside.

The minutes and hours in contemplation,
The tortured writhing in the middle of the night,
The unlikely fantasies that play in dreams,
The time spent under a blanket, eyes closed but not asleep.

Where do they come from?
The source is unknown and can never be found,
Is it the idea or object that brings forth the trouble?
Is it the concept or prototype that needles the mind?

They say the trickling sand will work its wonders,
That the cycle of hands will mend it all,
But it hasn’t and for good reason,
The missing chapters leave the story untold.

An Eternal Question.

Why am I here? Funny question, really, one that I think about every now and then when I really need a distraction. Or when the need for it comes. My ready answer to this was generally quite pessimistic. There is no reason. I am here because my mum and dad decided that children might be a good idea. So here I am. I can't think of any other reason without delving into the realm of spirituality, which I will not do. This post would be completely pointless if I did that, since I'd have the answers already.

I suppose that question has a very close link to yet another question. What is my purpose in life? Is there a purpose to my life? At some point, I thought of myself as just another parasite on this planet, taking up resources and generally making a mess. But I came to realize that if I kept thinking that way, then I'd really see no point in having life on this planet to begin with. Because if I take the questioning further, I'd start asking if there was a point to life, and I think I'd reach the same conclusion. There is no point to life.

I started asking myself where I get these ideas from and I discovered one thing. There was only one parameter that I worked with in answering these questions. What is the impact that I (or any other variable) would have? Trying to find the point to my existence by seeking my significance to the world can only lead to one thing - The conclusion that in the end, there is no point to anything because you can keep zooming out further and further until the impact became so small, that its negligible. To my family, I am significant. To my friends, less so. To this country, even less. To the world, I might as well not exist. I can't begin to describe how insignificant I would be if you took it to the edge of the universe and looked at me from there. Our solar system is pointless in the eyes of the universe, if you use my analysis. (So is our galaxy for that matter.)

Which led me to wonder if my model is flawed. Or rather, is it something that I want to live by? I don't want the only reason for my continued survival on this world to be the fact that I am too scared to kill myself. With so many people out there with a zest for life, I'd be terribly narcissistic to write them all off as ignorant idiots who don't see the insignificance of their existence.

To change my opinion on something like that is not easy. Its like finding out that you have cancer and then trying to go back to a time when you didn't know. I don't have an alternative answer to that question, and until I do, this twisted view will persist. No one will ever be able to answer that for me. I suppose I'll just have to keep walking until I find that reason.

Nasty Politics.

Bladewing was always going on and on about racial politics. Justice was important to him, and so he saw it fit to scream and kick when he saw an imbalance. Admittedly, his view of the situation was decidedly narrow. He eventually decided that imbalances happen all over the world, and just ranting in frustration isn't going to significantly change anything. (Yes, I know it sounds defeatist, but I decided that there are more mature ways of dealing with his frustrations.)

This blog has been largely devoid of political content. I just didn't feel that it was worth it putting what I thought into this space. All the racist comments that get published in the local dailies were noted, quietly insulted and allowed to pass. Sometimes I talked about it over lunch, but thats as far as I went.

But now I actually find myself being threatened. Racist comments from the recent political gathering has been defended as harmless rethoric. I quote "Reaksi orang Melayu panas tapi terkawal. Panas tak terbakar, Marah tak berkelahi".

Oh really? So all that kissing of the keris and the expectation to use the curved dagger is all harmless pomp as well? Somehow I am skeptical. The party in mention has always been portraying itself as the champion of the moderate Malay. So far, it seems like all they want to do is to gut everyone else who question their "constitutionally enshrined special rights". I feel vulnerable and insecure. Can I be blamed for feeling that way?

When threatened, there are two things that people do. Fight or flight. As of now, the latter seems like the better idea. And its happening already. As this prime minister gives way, as he eventually will, the edoxus will accelerate, and the Malaysia as I love will cease to exist.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Time will tell, but to be honest, I think I'm going to get ready while I wait.

The obsession.

The ironies of life are really quite cruel,
They singe at the soul, and yet remain darkly humourous,
To observe the parallels running in two different lives,
To see and do nothing, for none can be done.

The obsessions run deep, that is plain to see,
Both appear to function, but the signs are everywhere,
A single minded bug that refuses to let go,
In speech, in writing, in choice in life, it manifests.

I knew of my parasite for it is hard to ignore,
But to see it there as well, it’s the funniest thing,
The upturned lip was the first reaction,
What it meant is still rather a mystery.

It could have been an appreciation for twisted divine humour,
Or it could have been hurt, hiding behind a silly façade,
It might have been sadism, for misery loves company,
Or maybe meek surrender to a hopeless cause.

Whatever it was, it needed release,
Hence this prose, this mangled piece of writing,
Hope burns eternal, but I wish it would snuff out,
For your sake and mine, the embers must die.

The Olive Branch

The outposts are new, the timber freshly cut,
Supply wagons arrive still,
Weapons and food, nothing but,
Watchful eyes scan the horizon,
Patrols in armoured skirts walk the hills.

The visit to the Nile yielded nought,
Experated, he returned home,
A war he did not want,
But a war is here, whether he liked it or not.

He had no regrets, no desire to undo,
No change in action would change the reaction,
As much as he regrets being drawn into war,
His conscience is clear, from God he did not fear.

Though antagonized, he will stay his ground,
No javelins have been thrown, no sword yet swung,
And should by miracle, a chance should come,
The olive branch shall be offered, no questions asked.

Photo from a taxi.

I was horsing around with the camera in Jakarta when I took this picture of children begging on the streets. They hang around traffic lights and when it turns red, they go make their rounds. Its actually one of the few times I went around Indonesia in a sedan and not a giant 4X4 jeep, so the children can actually reach the window. Taken during the Hari Raya period too.

And I thought I would fail.

Seriously, I thought I was going to fail Mechanics of Materials. I could barely answer half the paper, and needed the ones I did answer to be free of silly mistakes to pass. That was according to my calculations. But being hopeless in Math as I am, I completely miscalculated. I passed. With a nice grade to boot.

To give you an idea on how convinced I was that I was going to fail, I only had to say this. I knew I had a trip to Indonesia coming up. Land of the Hocus Pocus. I actually considered going to a witchdoctor in Indonesia to make myself pass. Yes, secular old me wanted to use black magic to pass a test. I eventually came to my senses, but I really was scared. (I look back at that time now and I laugh) I was thinking of all the consequences already, having to repeat the subject in the 1st sem next year. 6 subjects in Delta first sem is just not a prospect I relished. Supplementary papers are pretty pointless in Mechanical Engineering subjects. They make sure no one passes. I wouldn't have passed it even if it was a fairly set supp paper anyway. I knew very little about Mechanics of Materials. (Through no fault of my own....... Okay, maybe I was at fault a little, but the lecturer is still bad.) At one point, I think I became resigned to a fate of suffering through a heavy workload next year. I told myself that it wouldn't be too bad.

To make matters worse, engineering results came out a day late. As if the suspense wasn't bad enough, we had people telling us they had their results only to be completely frustrated that we can't see ours.

Well, I passed and thats the important bit. I'm not going to describe my reaction after I got my results. Its quite embarassing really.