Mixed-up Wok

... here. Malaysiakini link here.

Food for thought, especially when its competitors all received 3-star rating. ;)

This is certainly very neat. It's a link to a site that showcases future predictions by folks, with two main points:

• Anyone can make a 'claim' i.e. a future event, that he predicts can happen. This 'claim' must be supported by measurable and verifiable ways to prove its realization. For instance I could make a claim that Anwar will be the Malaysian PM within the next 5 years, and this claim will be substantiated by his appointment being reported in at least 3 non-Malaysian newspapers.
  

• You can place 'virtual' money on claims. It should be pointed out that no money actually changes hands, and that a stash of 'virtual money' in the hands of a skilled player is just for bragging rights. :)
  

What I find interesting about the site is the generally high quality of the future predictions being put forth. Some of them are pretty obvious if you think about it, e.g. chip speeds continue to increase etc. Some of them are a sign of the times, e.g. a Chinese moon-landing by 2020. Check them out here.

Disclaimer: I do NOT support, endorse, or encourage gambling in the real world !!!

Take a quick read at Jeff's post, especially the part regarding compensation, and the arguments against it as given by the TNB Chairman. I think this is (pardon me) the biggest pile of poo that can be said on the whole fiasco.

Helloooooo TNB, your accountability and responsibility starts from the point of power generation until final delivery/interconnection with the end-user's home / building. This means that if we look at the big picture - dude, you screwed up big time - the incident happened in YOUR premises in Port Klang. EWCM Dr. Lim, I for one do not care so much about the who or why - the simple fact that it happened under TNB's nose means that it has been negligent in maintaining its equipment, managing its suppliers, training its employees, securing its premises, or various other lapses. What say you?

Dear TNB, you as a corporate entity are the one responsible for the entire fiasco. Blaming it on your employee(s), supplier(s), nature, the law of physics, etc. isn't going to cut it. For crying out loud - MSC companies don't even trust you to deliver un-interrupted power. What does that say about your public image?

if we implement the following idea. Well, a bit of background - this morning I was stuck in a 1 1/2 hour traffic jam. Nothing extraordinary I suppose for a place like KL, but it got me really pissed and wasn't a good way to start the day, not when the usual journey takes 30 minutes tops.

The cause of the traffic jam was a stalled lorry, having blown its rear tyres. It was obstructing the center lane, which left only 2 lanes open for the morning rush hour traffic. Clearly this wasn't enough, which explains the ordeal I had to go through.

This got me into thinking - let's say that there were 10,000 motorists like me, all caught in the traffic jam. Based on my extremely naive un-scientific layman calculations, this simple traffic jam caused the Malaysian economy to suffer at least RM 1,000,000 in productivity losses, not to mention untold damage to the environment. It's a really high price to pay, considering the relative frequency that we encounter such situations.

What can we do to prevent traffic jams? Well I won't absolve our crazy politicians or town planners of the blame - their utter lack of what some people call 'cow sense' caused KL to be the mess that it is today. But then again, private citizens who do not maintain our cars / lorries / trucks in tip-top condition are also to be blamed. How many times have you seen a vehicle so beat up that it's an absolute miracle it is still out there running on public roads? Or the lorries that keep on belching toxic smoke while travelling at way above the legal speed limits?

So I propose the following - the government should pass a ruling that a motorist whose vehicle breaks down on Malaysian highways (including our urbans highways such as the LDP etc.) will be penalised with heavy fines as follows:

1st offence: RM 1,000
2nd offence: RM 2,000
3rd and subsequent offences: RM 3,000 per offence

Before the fine is imposed an independent report of the incident should be produced, with costs being borne by the local council or highway operators. In the event that the incident was due to poor maintenance of the road, then the local council or highway operators will have to pay RM 3,000 to the motorist for repair costs and loss of income, whichever is higher.

I think this is a fair arrangement - on one hand, the onus is on motorists to service their car and ensure they are in proper running order to avoid being penalised - heck, I would even say that this may contribute towards reduced road accidents, since the condition of vehicles on the roads will improve tremendously. At the same time there are no additional costs passed to the local council and highway operators since they just have to keep to their normal maintenance schedule.

Or perhaps this is just a stupid idea after all. :)

I've only recently noticed that hardly a day passes by, without a statement from the Prime Minister being reported in mainstream newspapers. I don't have a problem with the PM's statements mind you, but I'm more interested in finding out the reason why he needs to make so many of them. A selection of his more recent statements follows:

PM: All will be consulted on the Ninth Malaysia Plan

Consider customers’ needs, PM tells carmakers

Abdullah: No guarantees

PM: No plans to disarm enforcement officers

Non-stop supply vital

Reduce issuance of logging permits, PM orders states

PM: High capacity early warning centre

Five-year plan to instil good values

What do you notice from the above? The PM makes regular statements in the press covering the whole gamut of current affairs ranging from plans to instill moral values, to controlling issuance of logging permits, setting up early warning centres, arming enforcement officers etc. I'm very very disturbed by all this. Now first of all, I appreciate the fact that the PM's statements help to sell newspapers. Of course if I, as an editor, had the choice between a statement made by the PM and a Deputy Minister on the same topic, I would be inclined to put the PM's statement on the front page. It just sells.

Following that line of thought, I would have my guys (no offense to women intended) stalk the PM, and corner him with questions on current issues, just to get a sound-bite or a statement that I can use. Naturally our PM will oblige, being the nice guy that he is. The whole problem starts when the PM is perceived (by me, but maybe by others too) to dominate the whole media. He appears to be the only Government Minister who has a solution for every single problem facing the Malaysian population today. My question is - what are the rest of the Ministers doing? I choose to believe that we have some intelligent and hard-working people in the Government, so it just seems to me that the PM is stealing the limelight from those Ministers who should be fielding those questions in the first place.

Now that I think about it, I think this has been the trend in Malaysian newspapers as far back as I can remember. I'm really hoping that people will see this is a bad sign. From my experience, if you look at the PM as a CEO, then every statement that he makes (and I'm sure he's not always prepared for all these impromptu interviews) will have to be implemented by his subordinates. I'd rather have the PM decline to comment, and pass the question to the Minister responsible. I want to see our Ministers earning their pay, and becoming more accountable and responsible to all of us - they should be, if they had to come up with the answers AND implement them!. In the meantime the PM should focus on strategic issues, and stay away from issues such as water rate hike, toll rate hike etc.

One day I hope that all the Ministers will realise that in the years to come, they will be remembered not for the number of witty statements they make, nor the number of times they appear in the media, but for the actual application of the work they were supposed to do. I hope I will live to see that day come through.

(Original source: /.)



Here are the never seen before pictures of Bill from 'Teen Beat' magazine back in 1983.



PS: As some people have observed, yes, that's a Mac in the background



WARNING:



Parental discretion advised. ;)

Last night I had a rare chance to watch NCIS on Channel 8. It was an intriguing episode, one that started with this unconscious man tied up in a car, together with a burned out corpse. He woke up, saw the corpse, somehow managed to extricate himself from the car, and ran for dear life. Then we saw a couple of planes dropping their munitions, and some army observers. It turns out that the man is in a live bombing range ! He gets whacked by the bombs, and this is where the NCIS team come in.

Anyway during the show, there was one scene where they were talking about this man's background - how he was a special ops kind of guy, and how he worked on/with Al-Qaeda before. What surprised me was that each time the actors said 'Al-Qaeda', their voices were censored. Not once, but twice (or was it thrice?!)!!! The amusing thing is that the subtitles were not censored in any way, which is how I figured out what was going on.

What in the world is going on? Is Al-Qaeda on a list of words that can't be said on Malaysian tv? Or is it a word that cannot be said in a context that puts it in a bad light? Hmmm.

Reading this article, the sheer arrogance and ignorance of the State Government downright stinks. Of course I am assuming that the Chief Minister's remarks are reflective of how the State Government views its responsibility and accountability to the people of Malacca.

Dear Chief Minister, you are accountable to the people of Malacca. The onus (there, I used the word again) is on you to prove that the trip is purposeful and has achieved its objectives, and not mouth standard party lines in reply to criticisms. If you were the CEO of a company, and I was a share holder in your company, what I would demand is that you:

• Make public an audited report of your trip, all expenses paid etc.
• Make public the itenary of the trip, contact persons for each organization visited etc.
  
• Produce a plan showing each stated objective of the trip, and give measurable ways to determine how each objective will be fulfilled in a given timeframe. I don't want you to just drop a vague one-liner such as re-habilitating Malacca's rivers in a similar way as San Antonio's, but dammit, give me a concrete action plan! I want to hear more from you than what I can find out on some tourist web site on the internet!
  
• Explain to me the contribution of your wife and children as part of the official trip - what business have they on a trip that is conducted in your official capacity?
• Explain to me the contribution of each person on the trip - what did each of the 23 persons do, and more importantly - WHY DID YOU NEED 23 PERSONS IN THE FIRST PLACE?!!!
  

And if I deem your explanation unacceptable, you would be fired, plain and simple. I don't care whether you paid for your family's fare, or you included the company's pantry lady etc. To me, if you mixed business with pleasure, or indeed, if you treated the company as your own family-run shop - one in which you have all the benefits of my money yet without the drudgery of accountability and responsibility to me, then you do not deserve to be my CEO.

Dear Minister, I also detect a hint of arrogance and superiority when you said that the DAP can raise questions on the cost of the trip during the next State Assembly sitting. If you have nothing to hide, then just reveal everything to the public - why wait? You stir my imagination with thoughts that such a request by the DAP will be met with a line such as 'not in the public's interests to know' etc. especially since, if I'm not mistaken, the Opposition is in the minority within the State Assembly.

And lastly dear Minister, you can mouth vague things such as your invaluable contribution to the state in drawing health tourists from Indonesia. I concede that the possibility exists that you could have been successful, but without any audited statistics, what you say I can also say, and I don't have to be a Minister to do so.

"Power corrupts - absolute power, corrupts absolutely"

Here we go again, the Royal Malaysian Police have suddenly gone into their occassional frenzy, resulting in moments like this. First of all, I think that their zeal is commendable. Definitely their track record of issuing almost 900,000 summonses over the past 5 years illustrates that they have been on the job and not goofing off at the nearest mamak staff. What bugs me though, is the picture that shows 3 cops handling a single case such as Mr Ong's. This picture raises a lot of thoughts in my mind, such as:

• What makes the cops think that their campaign will make any difference at all to the way Malaysians drive? I would think that if the cops were really serious, they should be consistent in their enforcement of the law, rather than going for such 'mega-collection' exercises.
  
• Why does it take 3 cops to handle Mr Ong's case? How many cops would be involved in this campaign given that there are 900,000 summonses to be served? Well, 3 of them would be very welcomed at the Jalan Kepong / LDP intersection each weekday morning!
  
• Has the police exhausted all means at their disposal to notify all the 'offenders'? The onus is on the police to produce the necessary proof at the point of 'arrest' - otherwise, each 'offender' should be compensated for their loss of income and any other expenses if they are hauled up to the police station.

Another blackout, the 4th major one in the past 10 years. For the sake of my sanity, I just have to shrug this fiasco off as a reflection of the Malaysian system at work. You know, I don't think it's pure coincidence that big Malaysian companies (and here I'm mainly targetting Government Linked Companies although I suppose some private companies are also as guilty) appear to be no better than Government departments with their service delivery. Where do these companies source their leaders from? It seems to me that most of them have this habit of taking on high-ranking Government servants. Now I don't mean to cast any aspersions on the ability of ALL Government servants - certainly those who are qualified would be an asset to any company, but I do wonder sometimes whether such people are chosen based on their qualifications, or rather for their connections to those in power?

The way I look at it, there's a simple and quick way to judge how good is an organization's leaders. Just walk into any outlet that they have, e.g. Kedai Tenaga. Do normal things like product inquiries, apply for service, bill payments etc. See how the people there react. Are they courteous? Are they knowledgeable? Do they empathise with the customer? Are they interested in helping the customer? If they are all this, and more, then the leadership should be wonderful. It is quite impossible for leaders to say one thing, do another, and expect the organization to excel. Therefore when there is service excellence from the people at the shop-front, I expect the leadership to possess the same qualities, and then I will know I am in safe hands. I believe that quality leadership will be reflected not in how well the leaders talk, but in how effective they are in communicating their personal values throughout the entire organization.

What has this to do with the blackout fiasco you might ask?

Look at the statements made in the press (source: The Star)

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi:

“I hope TNB will make sure there will be no more blackouts”

Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik:

“Everybody is calling me. Even my wife called me when the lights in the house went off.

I asked her why she was complaining. I said I was with the Prime Minister in Malacca and even he was tolerating the problem.

I said: 'So, what's wrong with you? Just because you are the minister's wife, Datin, you think you are special. Power failure has nothing to do with me. I have no power to stop the power failure',” he told reporters at Tenaga Nasional's head office here yesterday.

He said: “Looklah! There are millions of people in darkness and my wife is calling me to complain. "

What in the world are you guys smoking?

Dear Prime Minister, I hope that you meant that you told TNB not that you hope there would not be able more blackouts, but that there better not be any more blackouts. To be fair, you could have been speaking in BM, or perhaps you were mis-quoted, but to put it into perspective: TNB has failed the nation not once, not twice, but a record 4 times in 10 years! This is not just a major inconvenience to the people, but a disgrace to our nation.

• How can we have the MSC, yet still suffer from nationwide blackouts?
  
• How can we attract businesses to Malaysia, when we cannot guarantee that their business cannot run un-interrupted, much less even talk of compensating them?
  
• What does this say for accountability in our country?

Dear EWC (What a mouthful) Minister, you are wrong to say that the power failure has nothing to do with you. I humbly suggest that your portfolio includes making sure that the people get quality and uninterrupted supplies of energy and water. Making such a statement sends the wrong message to the leadership of those companies, that you are not serious about their accountability to you, do you not agree? How can you even say such things!

Dear PM and EWCM together, you are the leadership of the nation. What you say in public, and how you handle the situation, will reveal your seriousness in leading Malaysia for the next few years. You can have the best policy papers, hire the best foreign consultants, publicise Malaysia in the overseas press to your hearts content - but if you do not have the vision, the confidence, the assertiveness to actually implement policies and crack the whip, then I can only say that Malaysia will continue to decline in competitiveness, until one day when whatever you say will truly not matter any more.

Although I must say I liked Lord of the Rings, I loved Star Wars (Episodes 4 - 6), and I think it deserved to be #1. I assume that their choices were limited to only English movies, and that explains some of the more dubious choices, such as The Fifth Element, Monsters Inc. etc. To each his own. :)

The sweet smell of security vulnerabilities on a Monday morning. ;) To put it into proper perspective, the vulnerabilities (both NNTP and download filename spoofing) are insignificant if the user doesn't click on untrusted links e.g. links provided in emails from people you don't know. Since Firefox users are, by definition, 'enlighted' users, I'm sure this won't be much of an issue. :)

I think it's a given that any moderately sized software system developed today, will incorporate or collaborate with one or more third-party components (third-party in the sense that it is not developed in-house). Each of these components have the potential to introduce security vulnerabilities into the system e.g. this. That's why it's a good practice for us to go through the list of third-party components installed on our machine every once in a while, and check for upgrades. If I'm not mistaken there are products out there that will somewhat automate this tedious process, but then being the geek that I am and since I use a small number of quality software :) I delight in this process. YMMV. ;)