bins for thoughts

Say no to Pakatan, because there is a chance ...

2011-01-31T21:17:00.008+08:00

Ini dia Malaysia! No matter how corrupted, we will vote for our government ... because there is a chance ...

There is a chance that BN will stop all the corruption
There is a chance that without UMNO, Malays will lose their place
There is a chance that without MCA, Chinese will lose whatever is left of their rights
There is a chance that PAS will introduce extreme Islamic laws
There is a chance that Pakatan will be unable to govern Malaysia if they reach Putrajaya
There is a chance ...

There is a chance that BN will end the NEP when the Malays are rich enough...
There is a chance that BN will give equality to all Malaysians given long enough time...
There is a chance that if the non-Malays stop learning Chinese, the Malays will accept us better.
And there is a chance that one day they will stop calling us "pendatang"
There is a chance...

There is a chance when ISA will no longer be there, when all of us are equally rich, and where finally there is meritocracy all over.

For 60 years BN has cheated us, but there is a chance they will not do it anymore.
There is a chance, they changed.
There is a chance, they will change.

Because of chance and fear or change, we choose BN.
Because there is a chance things will get better and not worse.

Martin Luther King has a dream. But in Malaysia, we do not dream. Instead, we give chance...

1Malaysia Boleh

Skiing trip in the Alps!!!

2011-01-18T04:10:00.008+08:00

I had one of the most memorable Christmas in 2010. I went to the Alps for a skiing trip.

The trip began in the worst possible manner, with heavy snowfall delaying our train from Cambridge to London. Then the bus that is suppose to bring us from London to the Alps broke down half way through, delaying our journey for a further 8 hours!!

The funny thing is, my friends and I are all nearing the thirties. Whereas 90% of the participants are in their twenties. The first thing we heard when we boarded the bus was, "I was very good in my SPM moral subject one." To which all us reacted in this manner --- > =.= "'

heavy snowfall delayed our train

The bus trip from London to Dover, then boarding the ferry we travel across the English Channel to Calais, and finally from Calais all the way to southern France and then to the alps. This entire trip took exactly 24 arduous hours to complete!

When we arrived. We're dead exhausted. The room wasn't fantastic. But then the food was superb. French cuisine beats English cuisine anytime of the day. And what's more? It's free and buffet style.

breathtaking view of the alps from our room

With the ski googles on, I look like someone from the movie TRON. And also the monkey behind... =.=

there's a shope there call kanabeach. Wonder if there's one called kanasai?

We only started our skiing lessons the next day. On the first day, skiing seems so dangerous because with the ski on, you will slide indefinitely down the slope gaining infinite speed, with no way of stopping it.

first day of skiing lesson

the very scary ski lift

But as we learn how to control the ski, we just realised how fun skiing could be. Ski is sooooooo fun!!! Wheeee!!!!!! 7 days at the Alps passed by very quickly. At the final day, I enjoyed myself a lot by skiing down to the slope at high speed. And that was skiing down on a green slope. I wonder what would it be like in the advance level slope? Perhaps, this will not be my last skiing trip. I would certainly fancy another chance at it before I return to Malaysia...

My name is gaya

Happy New Year 2011

2011-01-02T23:18:00.004+08:00

Last year was an epic failure. Of all the new year resolutions I made here. I only succeeded in completing those which are considered 'entertainment', e.g. playing sc2 and going to europe. This is so embarrassing...

And I started the new year with a ski trip to the Alps and 3 parties in a row...I really should be studying...

2011. This is the year that I must make it. But before I go do that, let's play another round of games on battlenet... (Dang!)

Religion pluralism

2010-12-16T08:23:00.007+08:00

Recently, various Malaysian Islamic Organisations called to reject religious pluralism. That is to say that not all religions are equal - and Islam is the supreme religion.

Some suggested that Muslims should stop attending other religion's celebrations citing that this will threaten Islam as the supreme religion in Malaysia. But is this isolation and narrow-mindedness the threat to Islam or is it the willingness to share each other's joy the threat?

Some even suggested that Islam should stop having inter-faith discussions/forums as these are seen to put Islam on equal ground with other religion on the talking table. So now refusing to talk on equal grounds will make Islam great and supreme? I doubt that is what Prophet Muhammad had in his mind but I'm open to any Muslim reading this blog to correct me...

A lot of these religious scholars, Islam or Christian alike, read too much Quran or Bible that they need some time-off and read "common sense" and "logical thinking" in their spare time instead.

"It's true that in believing one's faith, one has to feel that his/her faith is superior compared to others. But that does not mean that other faiths should not be respected or be given equal treatment under the law. There's a difference between wanting your own faith to be strong, and wanting other faiths to be weak." -sL Dec 2010

Conference in Grenoble and the meeting with Albert Fert

2010-12-05T22:50:00.004+08:00

Are you using a Gigabyte Hardisk? If so, then you must thank this guy - Albert Fert.

I have this honour to meet him in Grenoble France in a conference. He is one of the discoverers of Giant Magneto Resistance (GMR) and the Physics Nobel Laureate 2007. Without GMR, the hardisk we know today would not be able to surpass the Gigabyte limit. In short, GMR is the effect where the resistance of a material changes depending on its magnetization. This effect is important because it allows the hardisk read head to detect minute changes in magnetization, which in turn is the 1 - 0 data bit.

Grenoble seems like a fantastic place. It is known for skiing holidays. The town itself is surrounded by the alps and is beautiful beyond description, but its beauty is difficult to capture on the camera. Perhaps its also the people. The people there are also friendly (unlike the ones I met in Paris). And in this little beautiful town is the home to many of France's advance physics research facility including the ESRF, ILL, nanoscience center and atomic research center to name a few.

The Malay Supremacy and the King

2010-12-03T19:28:00.003+08:00

Malay Supremacy is changing faster than I can write. Just a day after I wrote my post about it here, UMNO & Co. change their views again.

First, they claim there is no such thing as the Malay Supremacy, then they say actually there is and it is enshrined in the constitution, now they say it's actually about the King or our Supreme leader, not about the Malay race. Why is this term so damn confusing?

So Malay Supremacy is now about the special position of the King and not the race. Only the King is special right? No race is special? So does that mean under the King, every Malaysian regardless of the race is equal then? Yay!!! PERKASA then can you stop whining a? Because King is Tuan, and all of us (the rest) - Malay, Chinese, Indian or "lain-lain" underneath the Tuan would be equal la? yes? No a?

Dammit, Malay Supremacy is easy to understand la. But some people just like to beat around the bush. They want everything for themselves - the political power, the economy pie, etc. BUT, they don't want to sound too selfish yea, and that is why the confusion la. Malay Supremacy or Malay privileges or Malay Special Rights or Ketuanan Melayu, whatever you want to call them, they are what they are - ploys to make a particular race better at the expense of others.

Please la, if you have the balls to demand, then have the balls to admit it.

The Malay Supremacy and the status quo

2010-12-02T07:44:00.011+08:00

And suddenly they are claiming that there is no such thing as "Malay Supremacy". Huh? Equality for Malaysians finally? Guess again.

A week ago, Dr. Wan Azizah said that Malaysians should reject "Ketuanan Melayu" (Malay Supremacy) and instead embrace "Ketuanan Rakyat"; and within 24 hours UMNO & Co. lambasted her for politicising the issue. They claim that there was never a need for the Ketuanan Melayu, it never existed and neither did the constitution ever mention this concept. Huh? Huh? They, claim that what was mentioned in the constitution is the Malay Special Privileges, not the Malay Supremacy. Hang on a minute... Wasn't "Ketuanan Melayu" published on Utusan Melayu's headline countless of time and that if any of us - the non-Malay challenges this we shall be skinned alive and fed to the fishes in the South-China Sea?

Oh, now it's more trendy to say "Malay privileges" instead? I don't give a damn what you call it. But, we the non-Malays know what it is. It's the quota you set for our University education, it's the quota you set for our scholarship, it's the discount you give to Malays for purchasing house, it's the promotion that was denied merely because of our skin colour, it's the open tender that could only be given to a particular race, it is the requirement that every listed company has to have a certain amount of the indigenous race; it is the excuse that you make to benefit your cronies, to enrich your own little circle of friends, to build multi-million dollar house in Selangor (read Khir Toyo) or to own a multi-million dollar house in central London (read Taib); and it is also the countless threats of May 13, and "know-your-place" assertion and also the infamous "go back to China/India" insults.

So you claim, that you never wanted to create a Master and Slave relationship between Malaysians, but yet you remind us every other week to be grateful of our "jus soli" citizenship and our "social contract". And at the very instant we try to move our lips to speak out against this policies, we will be punish. I ask you sincerely, if not for the internet, will we ever have the chance to speak? I sincerely ask for your opinion that if this sentence sounds like what a Master would say to the Slave, "Kalau tak suka, keluar Malaysia"? Has the person who uttered such vile statements been reprimanded? No. But if anything would happen to him, I'm betting that he will be transferred to another state - it's currently the most popular "punishment" a racist can get in Malaysia.

But even this is not the latest trend. The latest trend is to say that Malaysia has been in harmony for decades now. So why bring in new terms like the Malay Supremacy into the "game"? Let's maintain the status quo which has made Malaysian happy. Seriously, dude, is Malay Supremacy the status quo which Malaysians have lived upon harmoniously for the past decades, or is it so because certain quarters have been asked to shut up on this issue or face the music? The so-called status quo, I'm guessing, was established in 1969 after the NEP where the so-called wealthier race agreed to compromise to help the weak and the poor, and more importantly to restructure the society's wealth distribution. But let's be frank, are we helping the poor or just helping the Malays? How many national policies are based on income and how many are based on race alone. You know best. Now you can't be doing that forever and claim for status quo, can you? Are the so-called wealthier race forever wealthy and are they suppose to be compromising forever? This is beginning to look like a Master and Slave relationship again!

Silicon Valley comes to Cambridge

2010-11-22T00:05:00.007+08:00

Last Friday, I attended a series of talks by the "big shots" in Silicon Valley. Those who came included CEO of Linkedin , CTO of Facebook, CEO of Mozilla and GM of Google.org. Below are some of the interesting Q&A:

1. How big is big enough for the Venture Capitalists?
Ans: 1 million (CEO of Linkedin)

2. Do you have a balance life?
Ans: That's the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is if we are happy. If we enjoy what we do and believe what we do can change the world, then we'll be happy doing it, even if it is 2am in the middle of the night. (CTO of Facebook)

3. Why do you want to be an entrepreneur?
Ans: Because this world is fucked up so bad. I want to unfuck everything. (CEO of Knewton)

4. Which kinds of employees do you like best?
Ans: I like the kind of people where you told him to do one thing; he goes back think for a while; then comes back and tell you are wrong, and then come up with something better. (CTO of Facebook)

5. What did you do before you become an entrepreneur and how is that helpful?
Ans: I worked with Goldman Sachs, in various management consultant jobs and the banking industry. And they are a waste of my time. (CEO of Knewton)

6. How important is it to create a good environment for the employees?
Ans: We have nurseries, laundries and other services. But we do not like to see them as perks for the employees. These are conveniences such that they have more time to do what is important or interesting to them in life (CTO of Facebook)

7. Why did you like Mozilla/Firefox so much?
Ans: When Jerry Yang (founder of Yahoo!) slammed on the table and points his finger at us, we knew we were doing something right. (CEO of Mozilla)

CTO of Facebook (Mike Schroepfer) at the center

Silicon Valley comes to Cambridge

CEO of Mozilla

GM of Google (Megan Smith) on left

It's difficult being a racist

2010-08-24T19:41:00.004+08:00

I can't believe Dr. M said this - meritocrats are racist? Meritocrats are people who make decisions solely based on results, racist are people who make decisions solely based on race. Now, unless by merit means by exclusion of certain race naturally, meritocrats are not racist!

First Perkasa, then the headmistress in Johor, and now Chedet. Everyone seems to be jumping onto the bandwagon to label others as racist. "You're racist!", "No, if you label me as racist, YOU are the racist!" So is Perkasa being racist? Or are we racist by labeling them as racist? Are the proponents of Malay supremacy racist or are the people against such idea a racist. This is all so confusing.

But look, although I would like to have an equal, meritocracy-based Malaysian society, I can understand why some Malays want to support the NEP and the Malay-Special-Rights policy.

However, there is a difference between wanting your own race to be strong, to wanting other races to get out of the country; there's a difference between wanting Islam to be the official religion, to preventing other religion of their own freedom; there's a difference between wanting people to join Islam because of the faith, to preventing Muslims from leaving the religion by law. You can make A > B by either reducing B or by improving A. So if the Malays want to be A and want A > B , by all means. But do so by improving A, not by killing off B.

Wanting A to be better than B by virtue of all B either dying or leaving the country, is that not racist? If Malaysia really wants to be 1 Malaysia, then the government must give a firm stand on what is true racist and what is not. The government can make us understand why they need NEP so that the economy is "fairer". But do not try to make us understand why asking us to leave is not a racist remark.

What do Cambridge Phd students do when they are stressed?

2010-07-05T04:23:00.008+08:00

Punting...

BBQ...

Formal Halls...

Celebrations...

Support our boat racing team...

Playing Wii?

Bumper Cars (in tuxedo)??

T. Tokieda

2010-07-01T05:25:00.007+08:00

I was on the way to Trinity College when I suddenly paused. "I have tonnes of work waiting for me. Should I really be listening this talk about 'physics of toys'? Anson, did say it is THE lecture to go for..." For a moment I turned my back away from the city, but fortunately I did another U-turn and ended up at Trinity College for the lecture.

It turned out that this one of the best lectures that I have ever been to in University of Cambridge. Not only is Tadashi Tokieda a brilliant mathematician himself, he is also a genius in making what seems complex mathematics into something that everyone could understand.

He never ceases to capture the audience's attention, alternating between good humour and extraordinary mathematics in every moment of his lecture. That is hard to achieve. In one instance, he took a piece of white paper, crumpled it and then stepped on it. Then he unfold it and ask, what did you see? You see lines, random lines. But if you try to draw a crumpled piece of paper by using networks of random lines, you will immediately recognise that the drawing isn't a crumpled piece of paper. This means that there is more than just random lines in a piece of crumpled paper. Did you realise that for each point on the crumpled paper, there can only be an even number of lines coming out from that point? If there are only four lines coming out of a point on that crumpled paper, then did you know that the sum of the opposing sectors are equal? He proved all these without using a single equation. All he had was 3 slides and less than 100 words in the 2-hour lecture. When I have to write what he had actually explain in that lecture, I'm lost for words. So if you find it difficult to understand what I have just told you about crumpled paper, it is my fault, definitely not his.

He went on to talk about negative Poisson ratio and origami and how this revolutionise the way the satellites fold their solar panels. He did all these without using any equations. You get a real sense that what he is talking about is really complex, interesting and cutting edge but yet everyone in the room understood it completely. At the end of the lecture, not only do I feel entertained, but also feel that I have learned so much in just 2 hours.

During the Q&A session, one audience asked, "you said you haven't solve this problem negative Poisson ratio. Why?" He answered, "Because it's hard!" to the laughter of the audience. He went on, "It's hard, but not because of what you think. The difficult thing about research is that unlike in school, you have to formulate the problem which you yourself is going to solve. If the problem is too easy, it becomes uninteresting to the research community. If it becomes too hard to solve, it becomes uninteresting to you. So how should you formulate the problem, set the conditions right so that it can be interesting yet solvable. The common fallacy is that people think research must be important. They are wrong. Research must be interesting."

I'll remember him, T. Tokieda.

With and without love

2010-06-26T23:29:00.001+08:00

St.. Edmund's Mayball

2010-06-23T05:58:00.007+08:00

I'm 30. The party was meant for those below 20.

Nevertheless, I attended this unique event in University of Cambridge called May Ball. It's called 'May' but it's held in June, after the exams. It's a 'Ball' which means you must wear a bow tie, tuxedo and a full set of black tie formal wear otherwise you will be denied entrance, even if you bought the tickets. This was the first ever time I wore a bow tie and a tux.

It started at 9pm. It ended at 6am the next day!

Free flow of drinks (from all kinds of beer and wine), food (burgers, hot dogs, chocolate fondue, etc) and entertainment e.g. Laserquest, movies, magic show, hot air balloon, bumper car!!

I went with a bunch of Malaysian lads - my good friends here in Cambridge University (too bad Fendi wasn't around...)

It was a lot of fun!

Doing things we like and doing things that are important

2010-06-23T05:56:00.005+08:00

It's important to do the things you like, but things we like to do may not necessarily be important.

Do the right thing: Place important things ahead of the things you like to do. It's call responsibility!

Did Idris Jala asked the right question?

2010-06-03T16:58:00.008+08:00

Years of debate training taught me one thing: you can trap your opponents by asking the right question. For example, if I asked, "Would you prefer your country to go bankrupt or for your subsidies to cut?" The reasonable answer is rather obvious for if I said I would rather the country to go bankrupt I will look like a selfish bastard. But this was exactly the question that our minister, Idris Jala and PM, Najib posed to Malaysians a week ago. They asked us to choose between being a selfish bastard or a "noble" countrymen.

But if I rephrase the question into, "Would you rather have your subsidies cut, or to stop the corruption and wasteful government spending in order to save the country from bankrupt?" Then suddenly we are not so sure anymore that refusing subsidies cut is a selfish thing to do.

Any successful businessman will tell you that "you reap profit, not by saving money but by investing it!" What good is it if we are able to save all the money in the world if they are not meant for investing into a better future? Then perhaps this is a good time to reflect on our major government spending spree and see how the ROI (return on investment) looks like. From the Multimedia Super Corridor, Sepang Formula 1 Circuit, Bakun Hyrdo Dam, to the hundreds of low-cost housing development areas...how many of these actually reaped concrete returns to the people of Malaysia? As if to add salt to the wound, recently we purchased state-of-the-art submarines that cannot submerge (and once submerged would never emerged) and 257 armoured vehicles at RM31 million each. What is the ROI for these?

And to my shocking, I stumbled onto a 2005 Nature journal paper titled, "Malaysian biotechnology: The valley of ghost" which claimed that the government had spent USD160 million on building a biotechnology hub in Malaysia but it failed, miserably. Although I understand that the building of this hub is still "work-in-progress", how would any world-class bio-technology researcher want to work in Malaysia after this revelation by Nature, one of the most influential journal paper in the world? What is the ROI for this?

Would the subsidy cut succeed in saving Malaysia from bankruptcy if implemented as a stand-alone policy? The answer is a straight NO. In the recent sub-prime financial crisis, many countries in the west have a bail-out plan, tighten loan requirements and also have the subsidies/welfare cut. But they knew that this was just a temporary mitigation plan. Their long term strategy was to restructure the way banks work. So do we have a similar long term strategy? Or is cutting the subsidies our "long term" strategy?

Let there be no doubt that we, the Malaysians, have been enjoying a whole range of subsidies since we were born. And I totally agree with Idris Jala that Malaysians are one of the most heavily subsidised citizens in the world. But the question that goes begging here would be: where did we go wrong? Was it the 1997 Asian financial crisis? Was it the 2001 burst of the IT bubble? Was it the recent sub-prime financial crisis? Could the government be giving a false impression to us for past decades by keeping the subsidies high, the inflation low and fueling the economy with debts? It is not possible that the years of economic boom under the leadership of Dr. M is just a mirage after all?

BN knows very well that they cannot do a drastic subsidy cut. It will increase the inflation that will kill off the economy and as well as any chance they have in the next general election to re-gain the two-third majority. So they may just keep the subsidies. Here comes the scary part: Would the government continue to drive the economy with the current failed strategy despite knowing that Malaysia will go bankrupt? And mind you that when we say the country goes bankrupt it doesn't mean everyone becomes dirt poor, but only the middle working class like you and me. I personally believe that BN will continue with the "bankrupt strategy" because (1) BN ministers have abundance of wealth far beyond the reach of middle working class like you and me; (2) most of them own a 'backup' property in Australia.

I have absolutely no grudge in paying more taxes and in accepting the reduced subsidies from the government, provided that I know the money that I help saved is well spent. But not only is my confidence in the government policy so lacking, so is the general public's. There is no way a subsidy cut is going to work, not if the government first show their commitment in combating corruption and wasteful spending. And no, I'm not talking about the MACC actions on corruptions amounting to only few thousand ringgits. We wouldn't be bankrupting with that amount of corruption.

伟人、改变世界

2010-06-01T17:59:00.004+08:00

最近读到一位辩论“小瓜”的博客，有感而发。（其实，她已经不是小瓜，可是相对我而言，还是。。。嘻嘻）

其实这种想法真的很普遍：想要改变世界，讨厌霸权和不合理的事；但同时又害怕改变世界以及害怕要面对霸权。只要不合理的事还未涉及到我们，或是我们周围的人，我们又何必当改变世界的“先锋队”呢？起码，我并不是狼狈为奸。只要做好我本分，那不就好了吗？何必想要成为伟人？

可是，要成为伟人不是一种选择，是他人给予的肯定。
改变世界。这，是一种选择。

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY...

2010-05-16T04:52:00.005+08:00

WISHING MYSELF A BELATED BIRTHDAY...

thank you for the cake and the dinner...

thank you for the birthday wishes and card...

thank you for the ... game ...

the British general election

2010-05-09T00:25:00.009+08:00

Gordon Brown was caught last week calling a retiree a bigot behind her back. Though the Labour had since lost the GE, it has still garnered quite a lot of votes. It seems like the people of U.K. are more concerned about the policies of the parties, rather than the morals of the party leaders. But how could they believe the policies of a leader who is capable of such backstabs? On that particular day, Gordon Brown was all smiles as he campaigns for Labour Party. He spoke to the woman, held her hand. But after that brief meeting, he forgot to turn the microphone off. So the entire conversation where he call this woman a bigot was recorded. He also said that the meeting was ridiculous. Why would the Brits trust a PM who backstabs?

And after losing more than 90 seats, he is still not surrendering his post as the PM. While I find it hard to believe this is happening in the land of 'gentleman', there is something Malaysians can learn.

The conservatives and the lib dems are talking today for a possible coalition. They accept that since no one has the majority, they would have to form at least a loose coalition and then TABLE A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE in the next parliamentary session in order to remove Gordon Brown from his post. And the Queen of England has cancelled all her appointments while waiting for the outcome of the negotiations before meeting with the leaders of the party. This is what is reported in the news.

Now, wait a minute!!! Isn't this very similar to the Perak 'crisis' a year ago??? But did UMNO table a vote of no confidence? Or was the speaker and Chief Minister forcefully removed from position? Was our 'King' as 'gracious' as the Queen of England? Or did he take things into his own hands and 'sacked' the Chief Minister immmediately?

We inherited the Parliamentary Democracy from England, but we did not inherit their common sense. And now to add further insult to this crooked common sense, Hee Yit Foong was given Datukship (Knighthood, in England). Such a salutation is only given to people who has significant contribution to the society and country. So what does this Datukship acknowledge? That when she jumped ship from DAP to pro-BN it is a SIGNIFICANT contribution towards the country?

Who is the real bigot here?

PR never learns...

2010-04-30T23:30:00.000+08:00

Wtf? Pakatan Rakyat never learns??

Stop blaming the "buy-election", start thinking of how to win a "buy-election" i.e. accept that vote buying happens, but think how PR's gonna outsmart BN in this aspect. Obviously, PR cannot "outbuy" BN.

Next big thing for Pakatan to worry...

2010-04-30T20:58:00.000+08:00

More prediction on Malaysian politics...

When Samy Velu quits MIC, a significant portion of votes will go back to BN. Although this seems impossible now, I'm betting that Najib will force Sammy to quit just a few months prior to the next general election. Pakatan MUST think ahead and counter this threat before it happens!

The love-hate letter to Pakatan Rakyat

2010-04-26T19:48:00.022+08:00

Prologue
"Vote for change", "Give us a chance", "We have changed". Before the 308 political tsunami, I would have not believe these are the words BN is telling us, the rakyat. Yet it is true, these slogans seems synonymous with BN in recent days. But it was Pakatan who had first talk about "change" that helped created the political tsunami in the last general election. BN hijacked Pakatan's idea, disguised it as 1Malaysia and turned it around into a weapon against Pakatan. No doubt that the millions spent on APCO is at work here, and working so well - money well spent!

Pakatan needs to react, especially in the face of the recent defeat at Hulu Selangor. Stop giving excuses. What was so appalling during this by-election was not the "dirty tricks" by BN but that Pakatan seems to be scrambling all over the place trying to react to a well-coordinated attack by BN. Pakatan was throwing arguments all over the place without a central theme. Meanwhile, BN had all their arguments well connected and channelled through the same theme - "we've changed" and "1Malaysia". Pakatan still reacts ONLY as an opposition party and resort to attacking BN on corruption which plays in very well with BN's theme that they are now a "changed person". Furthermore, Pakatan's campaign is lacking in giving rakyat a clear vision of Malaysia under its rule. This is well echoed by my friend, Onion, here which she asks "Where is PR leading us to?". People want Malaysia to be more than just free of corruption, people want a vision for Malaysia!

On the eve of the by-election, I was fueled with this anger that I wanted to write this love-hate letter to PR. How could they have not seen this coming? I wanted to write a hate letter to Pakatan for its growing failure to counter the BN's campaign of "we've changed" and "give us a chance". I wanted to write this letter to Tony Pua of DAP and cc my DAP friends, which include Serdang MP Teo Nie Ching. However, I chickened out the last minute. They are so many brilliant politicians in Pakatan that I refuse to believe that they have not thought of what I wrote below. Still, I'm itching to publish my love-hate letter. So, here it is below, the email that never got out. My love-hate letter to Pakatan Rakyat.

Re: Some suggestions for organising arguments during election campaigns

Dear Tony,

Sorry for the rather lengthy email, but do bear with me.

I am a Pakatan supporter. I am following closely the recent by-election in Hulu Selangor. Since at the moment I am in the UK, I am only following this by-election by comparing news report from thestar.com, Malaysia-today, Malaysiakini, MerdekaReview and MalaysiaInsider. From what I read, I was disappointed by the campaigning efforts done by the Pakatan in this by-election. It wasn't because the lack of organization of talks and banners. That, I believe you'd know much more than me. But the organisation of arguments to counter BN's accusations and campaigning was really mediocre at best. It wasn't because there was a lack of brawn, but I reckon it was the lack of brain. To be more specific, the overall impression of Pakatan in this by-election was that it lacked focus and that every argument Pakatan had thought of, BN was up for it.

I might be a bit naive, and might not have interpreted the actual situation correctly since I'm only following the by-election remotely. But I'd like to present some of my ideas on how Pakatan should "arrange" their arguments in an election campaign, in which if you think what I said is useful then use it. Otherwise, just ignore. After all, I am only trying to help and what I might said might have already been done.

I was trained as a debater for many years and then coached for many more. So what I say here, will definitely resonant with the people which I have put in the cc list (Teo Nie Ching, Serdang MP; Chow Yu Hui, DAP strongman in Bentong; and Snowpiano) whom you know and whom I have worked with countless time over many national and international debate competitions. And as I said, I'm fully aware that the real "war" out there can be vastly different from a debate competition. Still, I think there are similarities. Here, I list down 4 important elements and I hope it could be of use:

1. A central theme
In the weeks before US declared war on Iraq, the American President, Secretary of state and all other members of the White house always begin and end their speech with "let there be no doubt..." to tell the audience there was no doubt about the threat of Iraq's WMD. This is an example of using a central theme. In a debate competition, we speak for almost an hour. In a by-election, the candidates speak for even longer. But the audience have very limited memory. For countless and countless of minutes, the audience will only remember, at most 1-3 sentence. What this 1-3 sentence that the audience take back from the ceramah is important. And if we emphasize too many things, focus will be lost. This 1-3 sentence that will remain in the audience mind long after the ceramah ends is our central theme, this is where arguments stem out from and eventually get channelled back into.

In the recent by-election, Pakatan seems to be saying a lot. Yet, it is difficult to identify what is the point-of-the-day. If I would want to pin-point one, it would be that BN is corrupted. This theme is fine and had work in the past. However, the theme by itself must be able to anticipate and counter whatever BN's rebuttal could be. BN has been saying this for a long time now, "We're changing under the new leadership. We're more open and less corrupted. We're changing." Therefore, by saying that BN is corrupted is only playing into BN's game because they would just say, "yes, maybe we are corrupted in the past, but that is changing under Najib's rule".

Pakatan needs a stronger theme. E.g. "Corruption before, during and after...". This would place Pakatan in a more comfortable position to defend against BN's banner like "Kita mampu berubah" because a lot of the corruption actually happened after Najib took over or when Najib was the M.O.D. Yes, it could be true that even without such a theme, Pakatan would be able to counter BN's call that they have changed. But the essence of the point here is that the audience have short-term memories and cannot remember everything everyone had said. At the end of the day, they just remember the themes from BN and Pakatan. If BN's is "we can change, we have changed", while Pakatan's is "They are corrupted", the audience may be just swayed into giving BN a chance.

Another feature of a good theme is that it must be on the attack, not on the defence. For example, by saying that "Pakatan is for justice" is on the defence. Why? Because this slogan is open for BN MPs to open their salvo and slander all they want during their ceramah to say that Pakatan is not really for justice but are really for ...something else. But if we can have a slogan such as "We vote for more than just money" would then, I believe, put BN on the defence. The former allows ample space for BN to redefine 'justice' into something that fit into their model, whereas in the latter case BN is forced into explaining what they are doing is more than just about money. There's a lot which we could say from this slogan, e.g. "BN is only for money", "development and making ppl rich is important, but not through corrupted means", "money is important, but with BN money is only with the cronies", etc. This slogan would reminiscent with "a corrupted BN" yet at the same time say that Pakatan is also for development, but much more...

With a good central theme and slogan, we could channel all our individual arguments against BN into one unified "big argument". Whether, it is the VK Lingam case, the submarine that doesn't submerge, or PKFZ scandal, etc. Obviously, with more brain-storming, better themes and slogans can emerged. The important thing I want to emphasize here is that there must a be a central theme that links all the smaller issues mentioned in all the ceramahs, otherwise they become lost in a goo of arguments. And that this central theme, must not only be representative of what Pakatan fights for, but must also counter what BN would try to represent.

Lastly, but not the least, themes used by Pakatan had always been about portraying BN as corrupted. But it has never been about the vision of what Malaysia would be with Pakatan's rule. It's time for Pakatan to stop campaigning as merely opposition, but also as a viable government that would bring Malaysia to greater heights. What would Malaysia look like if Pakatan takes over Putrajaya? Obviously, by declaring that it will be a "Fair and Just Malaysia" will not be sufficient. It's a bit too cliche! I admit it's not easy to come out with such a very good slogan and I admit that 1Malaysia is a pretty darn good slogan that connects with every race and every issue that Malaysians face. So Pakatan should think of something better, maybe something like "More than just development for Malaysia" to reiterate that Pakatan will not only bring developement, but much more than that, i.e. for all people and through proper means. My fellow friend, Onion, had write something similar about this here (this last paragraph was added in after the by-election).

2. Do not try to portray Pakatan as perfect angel, and BN as a perfect devil.
Leave some space for both Pakatan and BN. Praise BN occasionally and condemn Pakatan occasionally. It is more convincing playing to be imperfect.

Pakatan always try to be perfect in the eyes of the audience, whereas sometimes it is better just to admit some of the accusations that BN hurled at Pakatan. E.g. Pakatan have disagreements, but at least Pakatan say it out in the open and agree to what we disagree. And yet, Pakatan still have many more in common.

Pakatan may not have made every poor soul in Selangor to be rich in 2 years, so obviously someone may feel that the Selangor govt. had not do anything. But Pakatan govt. is doing that bit by bit in this 2 years. Pakatan had definitely done more to many ppl in the past 2 years than what BN had for 50 years.

BN is not all evil, they did build a few Chinese schools. but they demolished more. BN did help some poor Malays, but help their own cronies even more. For every MYR 1.00 to the poor, MYR1,000,000.00 goes to the crony.

Also praise that not everyone in BN is an evil. There are some good people, but there are too little and insignificant that when it comes to big decision, they don't matter. Conversely, they are still some rotten tomatoes in Pakatan but there are insignificant and when it comes to the big decision, the highest leaders always agree to the right decisions. Besides, these rotten tomatoes are jumping ship to the other side of aisle, rejoining the original rotten tomatoes.

This is a bit like Tai-Chi. You take the negative energy hurled at you by your opponents and turn them around into a positive energy.

3. Help the audience differentiate fact from fiction
Whether or not Malaysia is a Muslim state, is being debated. But BN govt gave away gambling and liquour license is a fact.

Whether Anwar 'liwat' Saiful or not, is still under trial. But Chua Soi Lek's rock hard evidence of affair and oral sex is not even charged.

Tell the audience, maybe there are somethings that cannot be proven at the end of the day even with all the cirumstantial evidence.But those that have been proven with clear cut evidence, all points to BN as being evil, yet nothing has been done. Draw parallels between accusation from BN which in most cases are yet to be proven with the accusation with PR where it has been proven beyond doubt.

Tell the audience it's ok if you do not believe everything I said, but at least there are some evidence that prove BN's corruption are beyond any doubt. Agree with the audience that no matter how much we try to defend Anwar's case, BN will have something new to say. At the end of the day, there may still be some doubts. But Chua Soi Lek 's involvement in an affair and oral sex was proven beyond doubt. Absolutely no room for doubts on that, and yet he was getting off scot free? This is, in a certain degree, playing as I mentioned in (2) i.e. playing to be imperfect.

4. Anticipation
We can never anticipate 100% what BN would say. But we could safely anticipate most of their main arguments. Our campaign must be such that we force BN into a corner, into saying only the things we want and nothing more than that.

We must speak on their behalf before they do. For example, they are likely to attack Pakatan saying that Pakatan is in a mess - each party has different ideology, MPs are leaving and they are bickering in the public. But Pakatan could say that, "yes we have disagreements. but we voice them out in open, and agree to what we disagree. Even so, we have far more agreements than disagreements. This in contrast with a "hand-kissing" Kamalanathan that says "botol" to every single UMNO request. In order to force them into a corner, these "anticipations" have to be said before they actually occured, i.e. Pakatan must be brave enough to say "yes we have disagreements, but ..." before UMNO starts firing at Pakatan saying, "they always have disagreement". It is only through this way that we may force UMNO into a position we want them to.

Conclusion:
To be fair, Pakatan has been doing most of this all this while. But I am not sure whether it is being done in a conscious way or unconscious way. Even so, I think the message can be clearer e.g. there is usually very little emphasis on playing imperfect. (point no.2). If I were the lead campaigner for Pakatan in H.S., I would judge myself whether the rakyat had received the following messages in a very clear and loud manner:

1. Vote for more than just development.

2. 50 years on and every 4 years they still ask for a chance? Why believe when they've been lying for so many years?

3. Support Malay rights - but Malay rights through corruption and dirty means? No thanks.

4. We have disagreements and we believe that this is better than kissing hand and kowtow to the "Big Brother UMNO".

Best regards,
Chin, Shin Liang

I end this post with a powerful speech about 尊严 from DSAI.

Sometimes I hate to be right...

2010-04-25T21:10:00.005+08:00

We've all seen it coming...

Somehow I hope I was wrong...but I wasn't...

Good luck to Malaysians...this will be the beginning of the transformation...it will be gradual, but definite...it's PERKASA land by 2030.

My prediction for Hulu Selangor's by-election...

2010-04-25T03:20:00.003+08:00

My prediction for tomorrow's by-election...

BN will win with more than 1000 votes and tomorrow will mark the beginning of the new kind of 20-year-Mahathirism. Not so bad...if you are a Malay

World Cup - England

2010-04-20T05:31:00.000+08:00

England better win the World Cup this year.

I just supported their cause with this GBP38 T-shirt. >.<
(I think should have chose a better background for this picture... )

Why is UK boring?

2010-04-17T08:34:00.000+08:00

You want to know why UK is boring?

This banner, located at the BIGGEST mall in Cambridge city center says it all...

8pm is considered LATE.

Worst case scenario for love-seeking men

2010-04-17T06:51:00.000+08:00

It took him 2 years to realise that the current one is not the right one.
It took him 5 years to realise that the first one is the right one.
It took him his entire life to realise that all of the above is wrong.

Vote for change?

2010-04-17T05:41:00.011+08:00

At the Tory booth.

I just watched the first ever British live debate among the British PM candidates. It was disappointing. It was nothing like the US Presidential debate.

It was more like a Q&A session. Yet, neither of them answered the question directly, e.g. when asked about how to improve the economy all of them started to take turns in throwing slogans like "fair", "reducing deficit", "cut tax", etc. But why is one better than the other? Why is it fair? How can it be fairer? Why tax cut works better than tax increments? Nothing said.

They kept on harping on what they will do without providing a concrete solution, e.g. on the immigrant issue G. Brown says that he introduced the point system and D. Cameron said that he wants to implement a cap. But the immigrant problem in the UK has, in my humble opinion, very little do with the immigration policy. It has nothing to do with the immigrants. It is because the UK skilled work force is in a decline, the education system is failing and UK is attracting the wrong type of people into the country. There are a lot of capable people, all looking to work in UK but very frequent denied entry. Yet, people who are coming to UK without a degree ended up working in restaurants are in abundant.

I would have expected D. Cameron or N. Clegg to say something like, "I have tried to do this and that to improve economy and reduce crime rate as an MP in the Parliament but many of my attempt failed because of opposition from the Labour Government". But nothing like that happened. There was no spark, no humour, no feud.

When it comes to election, nothing beats Malaysia. Back at home, Hulu Selangor is having an election too. Somehow I have got a bad feeling that the people would vote for "change" (Pakatan held the seat until the death of the MP a month ago) and Pakatan will lose this battle that they could not afford to.

Talking makes Islam less equal?

2010-04-13T06:39:00.006+08:00

"Jangan cabar Islam!"
"Jangan cabar toleransi kami!"
They do not agree to setting up of the inter-faith committee.
They do not believe they need to talk to other religions.
They believe that the way Islam can be great is for the rest to shut up.
They believe that to make the rest to shut up is by making threats.
They believe by talking to other religious leaders, it makes Islam less equal.
They do not believe all religions are meant to be good, and that mankind are equal.
That's who they are.
They call themselves Muslims.

But are they?

If that's what they think Islam is about and they think they are doing Islam a favor, go ahead. Good luck to them during akhirat.

I have not read the Quran and neither do I know too much about Islam. But if Muslims believe that talking to other religious leaders makes Islam less equal, then I'm not a bit interested in this religion.

But this is not Islam. It's Islam in Malaysia.

I'm just glad that the Muslims I know are unlike them. They are the pretenders. But yet, their numbers are significant enough in Malaysia to have a political impact. That's what make me sad.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Written after reading that some Muslims in Malaysia staged a protest against the forming of inter-faith committee and our DPM tried to please these people by saying the inter-faith committee is 'small fry'

How to train your dragon

2010-04-12T18:35:00.016+08:00

Screw "Clash of the titans"! The Kraken took 20 minutes to rise from the sea and took less than minute for Perseus to finish it off. Hades lasted even shorter. If you want a good Greek mythology with action, you'll be better off playing "God of War 3" on PS3. But if you want to enjoy a good movie this summer, go watch "How to train your dragon". This is just one of the animations that made you wonder if actors would be obsolete in the near future.

(the starting soundtrack - 'this is berk')

From the beginning, the music would have captivated you, a hallmark of a very good movie. The movie soundtrack is AWESOME, and I would highly recommend buying it.

The storytelling was also excellent and the script was very well written. There was no moment of lapse.

The animation was very detailed and unlike some of the animations, the fast-moving scenes are well rendered. The emotions of the character were well animated and these was very well complemented by the excellent voice acting.

The casts include voices by Christopher Mintz-Plasse (who also acted as Red Mist in Kick Ass, another highly recommended movie by me!), America Ferrera (Ugly Betty), Gerald Butler (300, Law Abiding Citizen, Gamer, Bounty Hunter) and my favourite Craig Ferguson (from the Late Late Show). But perhaps, the best voice acting goes to the main character in the movie, Jay Baruchel as Hiccup.

Lines like, "You are not my son!" and "I'm proud of you my son!" may sounds too cliche in animations. But with a good build-up of story, good voice acting coupled with good animation, the lines popped up at exactly where they are suppose to be, triggering the emotions of the audience.

Despite the typical brain vs brawn theme (i.e. brain saves the world and gets the girl), this movie turned out to be a lot of fun. It is definitely worth a watch. It is indeed very rare that animations are able to capture human emotions as well as "How to train your dragon". The other animated motion picture that came close was, to my opinion, "Finding Nemo".

At the rate computer graphics and animations are improving, I can see that somewhere in our future, our grandchildren would be saying, "Haha, my grandpa used to watch movies acted by real person! What a joke!?"

Theory of relativity

2010-04-10T03:57:00.009+08:00

I went back to K.L. for Chinese New Year celebration a few months ago. Over dinner, I was explaining the theory of relativity to my friends and to my utter dismay, I did a terrible job of it. And in the process of doing so, I realised that I did not understand the theory as well as I had hoped. So here I am again, attempting to explain this theory which I failed to do so miserably months ago and I hope this time, I would do a better job.

Motion is relative
We need to first understand that motion is not absolute, but relative. What do we mean by that?

Let me begin by a simple question: If you are standing still, are you moving? This question may sound absurd and to many, the answer is a quick "no". But what if I repeat this question to someone who is observing you from the Sun? The Earth revolves around the Sun, so if you are standing still on Earth, you must be rotating together with Earth about the Sun. So an observer at the Sun will see you as "moving", while an observer on Earth will see you as "standing still".

Let's look at another example. If you are at the train station when a speeding train whizzes past you. To you, it looks rather obvious that the train is moving - moving FORWARD. But to the passenger on the train, it is you who is moving BACKWARD. For the same motion, two different observers see it differently and there is no one single reference frame which we could base all our observations upon and agree! Therefore motion cannot be absolute. It must be relative, i.e. whether an object is moving forward, backward or not moving at all is completely subjective to the observer or the equipments that are measuring it. A motion or measurement of speed has no meaning if we do not attach a point of reference (or observing point) to it!!

Let's say the train is moving at 50 km/h. If the passenger in the train throws an apple vertically into the air, the apple would have landed back onto his hand. But to the person at the train station, it would seem like both the apple and passenger had moved forward in the same speed and thus the apple landed onto the hand of the passenger again when it drops. Now imagine that the passenger now throws the apple in the direction of the moving train at a speed of 10km/h, what would the person at the train station see? He/She would have seen the apple travelling faster than the train! The apple has to be travelling faster than the train in order for the passenger in the train to see the apple going forward. The speed of the apple would SEEM to be travelling at 50+10=60 km/h. In other words, the velocity of the apple is the "sum of the velocity of the train and the velocity of the apple being thrown":

v_sum=v_train + v_apple

v_sum is the velocity of the apple as seen by the person at the train station
v_apple is the velocity of the apple as seen by the passenger on board the train
v_train is the velocity of the train as seen by the person at the train station

If, however, the passenger is now throwing the apple in the backward direction, i.e. in the opposite direction of the travelling train. Then, the person at the train station would see the speed of the apple as "the speed of the train minus the speed of the thrown apple", i.e.

v_sum=v_train - v_apple

Speed of light is constant in vacuum
From the above, it would seem that 'speed' can be added linearly. The above is true for Newtonian physics - physics before theory of relativity. But the observant reader would have noticed that I emphasized the word "seem" to suggest that Newtonian physics is not entirely true, especially when we approach the speed of light. Motion is still relative, but the assumption that "v_sum=v_train + v_apple" no longer holds true! Let us see why.

Center to the theory of relativity is the discovery that the speed of light is constant in vacuum. In the late 19th century, carefully conducted Michelson-Morley experiment had proved this so. But how can this be true, if what we also say that speed can be added linearly, like the apple thrown in the train?

Imagine now that instead of throwing apple, the passenger turns on his/her flashlight and point it in the direction of the moving train. If the observer/person at the train station carries equipment that could measure the speed of light, what would the measurement be? Based on what we have discussed earlier, we would have expect that the speed of light measured by the person at the station is the speed of train plus the speed of light. Just like,

v_sum=v_train + v_apple

with v_apple now representing the speed of light as seen by the passenger.

but if v_apple is the speed of light, then v_sum would have to be greater than the speed of light. But this is NEVER the case! One may argue that perhaps the speed of the train is so small compared to the speed of light that the equipment is not sensitive enough to pick this up. But very careful measurements have been made and every time the speed of light remains constantly the same, whether it is measured by the person at the train station or the passenger in the moving train. This is very peculiar indeed and the assumption that speed can be added linearly must surely be wrong!

The physicists who came upon this experimental result were dumbfounded and they needed to re-visit their fundamental understanding of what 'speed' really means and how measurements are made (did they measure the speed of light wrongly?).

How do we measure distance and time?
There are many ways to measure distance but the basic principles are the same. We measure distance, for example, by using many rods of the same length and lining them up together. If we find the 3 rods lined up exactly along the side of the table, we say that this table is 3-rod long. The common 'rod' that we used is called a meter, so we can claim that the table is 3-meter long. But what if the table is just a little short of the 3 rods? How do we measure the length then? We could, of course, then use shorter rods. That is why we have centimeters, milimeters and inches. They are just 'rods' with different lengths.

Measuring time is a bit more difficult, but again the basic principles are the same. Time can be defined as 'how long it takes for an event to happen'. Now if we can find an event that always take the same amount of time to happen, we can use that as our reference to measure the time for everything else - just like the rod for measuring the distance. The first clock, invented in China, was based on the event of a dripping water. Today, most mechanical clocks measure time based on the event of the ticking of a second.

Special Theory of Relativity: Time and space is relative
From the discussion so far, we know that when we approach the speed of light, things are not always as they seem. For one, speed can no longer be added linearly and that the speed of light is always constant, no matter how you measured it. What does this tell us about time and space?

If the speed of light is always constant, something else must be changing. Speed is defined as the distance travelled divided by the time taken. If speed remains constant, then the distance travelled or the time taken or both must have changed in such a way that the speed of light is always constant. For example, if v = a/b, then x remains constant if a and b increase or decrease by the same amount. It turns out, after some mathematical considerations (called Lorentz transformation), that both the time and distance must have changed. This suggests that not only motion is relative, but time and space must also be relative (note that space is just length in 3-dimension)!

Even without the mathematics, but just logic considerations, we would have came to a similar conclusion. Let's now go back to the example of measuring light speed on the train. The passenger on board the train, travelling at the speed of the train, shines his/her torch light in the direction of the moving train. The person at the station makes a measurement of the speed of the light. According to Newtonian physics, he/she should obtain a speed faster than light in vacuum, but he/she does not. To correct for a smaller value for speed (v = a/b), either the numerator have to be smaller or the denominator have to be bigger or both. The numerator turns out to be the distance (smaller) and the denominator is the time (bigger), and so our measurements for distance and time must have changed accordingly. It must have because space has contracted, and time has dilated (moved slower).

Hence, the theory of relativity predicts that as we approach the light of speed, space contracts and time dilates (move slower), i.e. the measured distance is shorter and the time taken for the measurement is longer (since 'distance' or 'length' in 3-dimension is space).

But the adept reader would have argued that if space contracts for an object that is travelling at the speed of light, would not the rods - which we make measurements with - contract as well. Thus, we would have counted the same amount of rods for the contracted distance. The fallacy of the argument lies in the fact that this reader had failed to see where the measurement is being made. The measurement of the object travelling at the speed of light, is made by the person standing 'still' at the train station, using the rods provided. These rods, are not travelling at the speed of light. They are WITH the person, standing 'still' and therefore do not experience space contraction. So the measurement was made by using rods at still, to measure the distance covered by an object travelling close to the speed of light, which is experiencing space contraction. And the same explanation goes for the time dilation.

We have so far covered the "special" case of theory of relativity. So what this theory say is that not only motion is relative, time and space are also relative. There is no way we can say for absolute, 1 second is 1 second and everyone else agrees. 1 second is different for everyone. 1m is different for everyone. But at speeds much less than light, these differences are OK. There is, however, a bit more to this theory ...

The Twin Paradox
We can claim that A is moving away from B at light speed. But since motion is relative, this is analogous to saying that B is moving away from A at light speed. Remember, the relativity of motion states that there is no way we could know whether A or B is really moving, it only depends on where your reference is.

Consider this: Ali and Wong are twins. One day, Ali sat on an alien spaceship and whizzed off to outer space at light speed. After a certain time Ali came back to Earth, also at light speed, and met his twin brother Wong again. When they compared their watches, they realised that Wong had aged faster than Ali.

Let's consider the problem in detail and see why this is such a tricky problem.

What does Wong see?
1. Ali travelled away at light speed.
2. Since Ali was moving at light speed in relation to Wong, Wong observed that Ali's time ran slower (dilated). (For argument's sake, let's just assume that for every 2 hours that Ali had travelled, Wong observed that it only took 1 hour.)
3. Ali stopped his space ship when Wong's clock recorded 10 hours had passed. Due to time dilation, Ali's clock recorded only 5 hours.
4. Ali now return to Earth and Wong recorded that it took another 10 hours, but again, Ali's clock recorded only 5 hours.
5. In total, Wong waited on Earth for 20 hours, but observed Ali's clock to have only ran for 10 hours.

What does Ali see?
1. Ali travelled away at light speed.
2. Since motion is relative, Ali observed that he was stationary but it was Wong who was travelling away at light speed.
3. Ali stopped his space ship when his clock recorded 5 hours had passed. Due to time dilation, Wong's clock only recorded 2.5 hours. (because to Ali, it was Wong who was travelling at light speed and thus experiencing time dilation)
4. Ali travels back to Earth and recorded that it took him another 5 hours, but again, Wong's clock only recorded 2.5 hours.
5. In total, Wong waited on Earth for 5 hours and Ali travelled for 10 hours.

Herein lies the paradox: Upon returning from his travel, Ali thought Wong was younger but Wong thought Ali was younger. How can they both see each other as being younger than themselves? One of them had to be wrong! Carefully conducted experiments suggest that Ali (who travelled away in light speed and returned) is the one who should be younger. Then, where did our understanding of theory of relativity gone wrong? Surely a theory must be able to explain the results of an experiment!?

The main issue here is that because motion is relative, i.e. we cannot distinguish who is moving or who is at stationary. Ali sees Wong travelling away at light speed, but Wong sees the same of Ali too, just like in the train example above. Therefore, it is perfectly logical (if motion is relative) to claim that either of them had experienced time dilation.

But since experimental results suggest otherwise, there must be something different between Ali and Wong. What is the difference? How can physics distinguish them? Can we distinguish who is the one who is really 'moving away'?

No. We cannot distinguish who is really 'moving away' but they could distinguish who is 'returning'. Now, the adept reader should realised that so far all our attempt to explain theory of relativity has been made on constant speed. No acceleration (change of speed) was involved. If the train moved at constant speed, then neither the passenger nor the people at the station would be able to tell who is moving. But what if the train suddenly brakes? The passenger on board the train would see the people at the station going backward but suddenly losing this speed. The people at the station would see the passenger going forward but suddenly losing this speed too. But the people at the station will not feel the 'force' of the brake, the passenger will!! The passenger will lunge forward as a result of the sudden brake and will have to hold on to something to prevent injury. The people on the station feel nothing at all!

So while we cannot distinguish the two based on speed alone, we can distinguish them based on a change in speed, i.e. acceleration. Acceleration - that was the difference, that was what broke the symmetry between Ali and Wong. As Ali turned his ship around and returned to Earth, he experienced significant acceleration. And it would seem from this case (since Wong aged faster) that the effect of acceleration was to 'distort' Ali's observation on Wong. During the turnaround, Ali's time stood still while Wong's time ran for another 15 hours such that when Ali returned to Earth he recorded 10 hours of travelled time while Wong recorded a total of 20 hours (5 hours for Ali's outgoing and incoming flight + 15 hours of the turnaround). The acceleration had obviously no effect on Wong.

Now, after this 'adjustment', both of them would have agreed that Ali aged slower.

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox)

The above example is a bit extreme, of course. No one could travel at light speed and turnaround at light speed IMMEDIATELY. If the turnaround was not that extreme (but still in the order of light speed) then Ali's time would not have stood still while Wong's time ran for another 15 hours. Instead, Ali's time would just run much slower compared to Wong's time e.g. 1 hour of Ali's time to 15 hours of Wong's time. Therefore, acceleration seems to give similar effect to time (and length) as travelling near the speed of light would. Acceleration would make time run slower and length contracts too. This is the basis for the general theory of relativity!

General Theory of Relativity: Gravity changes time and space

The main difference between the Special Theory of relativity and the General Theory of relativity is the inclusion of the effect of gravity for the latter.

While explaining the twin paradox, I explained that acceleration had a similar effect on time and space (remember that length contraction is equivalent to space contraction). In science, if there is ABSOLUTELY no way to distinguish between two things, then these two things are said to be same. Is there a way to distinguish between the effect of acceleration and a gravity field?

The answer is no. In the twin paradox, Ali made an instantaneous turnaround to return to Earth. During this turnaround, he experience acceleration. The effect of this acceleration is analogous to the effect of gravity. During this turnaround, Ali would be pushed back to his seat just like a gravity field is pulling him. Therefore, if acceleration could cause time dilation and space contraction, so can gravity. They are equivalent.

We can now rephrase what we know about gravity based on our understanding of the twin paradox. The effect of gravity is that time dilates and space contracts for observers close to the gravity field. For the twin paradox, we could have well said that during the turnaround, Ali was close to the gravity field and experience significant time dilation while Wong was sufficiently far enough that he experienced none.

Let's assume that time and space are the two axis of a big fish net. If we place a big object (like a planet) at the center of this fish net, this will create a huge gravity field. If gravity causes time dilation and length contraction, you could imagine that the net has a higher "density" near where the planet is located. The net will look as though it is bent around that region. That is why general theory of relativity says that space-time is warped (bent) by gravity field. Now, if we roll a ball across the net, you could imagine that the ball will initially move in a straight line but then curve inwards as it approaches the bent. This is how general theory of relativity explains the gravity pull!

(source: nrumiano)

(source: http://www.ndsion.com/Siren/archive22/schaag22.html)

And that's all to the theory of relativity! The rest are just maths and more maths. I hope this have helped you to understand the theory better. There is another excellent website on this here.

Blackjack and Marriage

2010-04-09T21:33:00.003+08:00

"Marriage is like playing blackjack. Everyone wants 21. But you could only try to get as close as possible to 21, without busting." -sL

赌博与玩耍

2010-04-06T21:41:00.000+08:00

我爸爸年代：小赌怡情，大赌伤身！

我的年代：小玩（computer games) 怡情，大玩伤身！

Q1 review...

2010-04-05T20:13:00.003+08:00

End of first quarter. Review of my new year's resolution...

Out of 10, I only completed 2 - no. 2 and no. 8;

And if my working rate is like an S-curve, then I should be near the steep curve soon...

Damn...I better buckle up...

Power and responsibility

2010-04-04T20:57:00.002+08:00

"With great power comes great responsibility" - Spiderman
"With no power comes no responsibility" - Kickass

谈大马华教是不是种族主义？

2010-04-02T18:40:00.010+08:00

最近，慕尤丁在国会中说华小和淡小要与国小享有同等的地位是不可能的。这个看法在华社引来了一场小风波。华小是我们的“根”。很多人一听到慕尤丁那番话就会一肚子火，因为这根本就是政府的另一个借口来拒绝对华小的帮忙，甚至成为破坏华小的借口。慕尤丁与巫统政府对华教从来不怀好意，这个众人皆知。但是撇开对慕尤丁的偏见，让我们“华人对华人”探讨一下，华小是否真的应该与国小享有同等的地位呢？

我支持华教，这毋庸置疑。华教的待遇需要改进，这毋庸置疑。对华教的破坏必须停止，这也毋庸置疑。但是，要求华小与国小拥有完全同等地位却是一个不同的问题。

每一个人有学习自己语言的自由，有提倡自己母语教育的自由，但是每一个国家也必须有自己的国语。在大马，它就是马来语。而在华小，它并不是主要教学媒介语。国家也必须有自己一套完整、统一的核心教育内容。用同样的语言学习共同的历史，无疑对国家的认同感和人民的团结是有帮助的（虽然我国现在4分5裂与这无关）。况且，拥有统一性的教育内容，可以让政府更有效地培养出有关国家发展领域的人才。比如，教育是否要着重实用科学、文科、还是金融方面的知识。在韩国，政府早在20年前就制定好方针要他们的教育着重实用科学，而且以生物科技和电子科技为主，所以至今才会有这样的成就。因此，一个国家拥有统一以及“recommended”的学校教育系统和内容是正确的。而在我国，它就是国小。虽然华小的教课书内容与国小相近，但是国小比起华小还是有一点优势的。国小其实也能上中文课。就好像，在华小也能有国文课一样。理论上，两者唯一的不同，就是在教学媒介语，以及学生种族的比例。这个差别虽然不多，但是对国家发展而言是很重要的。可惜，实际上，两者还有更多的差别。其中最明显的，就是华小、淡小经常受到政府的打压，而国小没有。

我支持华教。但你不得不否认，毕业于国小或国中的同学们更能否融入马来西亚的社会。他们有更多不同种族的朋友。

我国政府没有必要打压华小，对华小的待遇也应该更好。这个大家都认同。但是，要把华小的待遇与国小同等化，那只不过是另一种种族主义，那只会把我们化身为巫统的evil twin - 我们同样是种族主义，只是为不同的种族而已。就好像之前我们怎么嘲笑慕尤丁在国会的那段话：“我是马来人优先，但是也支持1Malaysia，这两者没有冲突”；当我们要求各源流学校拥有完全同等的地位的时候，我们也不是一样相信了“3Malaysia”吗？统一的教育，对一个马来西亚来说，无疑是更好的。但是，在统一之中，我们也还能寻求多元性！华小是我们教育系统的一部分，但是它是用来complement我们的教育系统，不能与国小同等起来。在我国的情况而言，国小有着“特别的任务”。

独中呢？华社很支持独中。火箭党也很支持。他们要政府承认统考，要独中得到资金的援助。但是，如果独中的待遇也应该跟其它政府学校一样的话，那么独中还是独中吗？它们，还是“独立”中学吗？它们，还需要董事部吗？华社总不能既要马儿跑又不让吃草！独中的历史教课内容都甚少提到马来西亚。而且教育内容与其它源流学校大有不同。独中，就是名副其实的独立中学。它，与一些国际学校没有差别。不同的地方就在于独中在大马扎根比较久，而且华文是3大民族之一的母语。但是，很多“香蕉”人也是把英文当作是他们的母语了。而且，在马来西亚，英文也算是非常重要的沟通语。那么这些（英文）国际学校，是不是也应该得到政府的援助呢？也许你会说，独中对大马的贡献很多，所以应该得到更多的援助。但是，难道这些国际学校的贡献会少吗？那么，政府是不是也要承认IB (国际学校的“统考”）呢？我很难想象要我国大学以一个完全没有国文，甚少提到马来西亚历史的考试文凭作为录取标准（当然，在政府部门里，我认为统考是可以得到承认的）。如果要独中得到与国中一样的待遇，要统考得到本地大学的承认，那么华社是不是太过注重自己种族的利益呢？华社，也是不是”优先华人“呢？

我认为，华社之所以对华小这么敏感和不满，主要源自于巫统政府多年来对华小的打压和欺骗。他们不但不新建华小，还要想尽办法将我们的华小和独中逐渐逐渐地破坏。想当年，位于八打灵的百乐镇国中（Damansara Jaya) 是一个华文教学非常强的国中。他们的辩论队还比八打灵公教中学来得强。然而，换了一个校长后，百乐镇国中的华文课逐年减少。至今，它已经是一个堂堂正正的 “英文学校”。我们不能说百乐镇退步了，因为在这个校长的带领下，这间国中确实发展得很好。我们只能说，继改制国中还有宏愿学校计划以后，我们又再次被政府欺骗了。

我们不要求华小和独中得到与国小和国中同等的地位。我们不应该，也没有必要这么做。但是，政府更没有必要打压或破坏我们的华教。这不是一个零和的游戏。我们要求更好的待遇，师资分配好一点，金钱分配比3%再好一点。不，是比3%好很多！！但我们从来不要求50-50。我优先国小，但也支持华小。可是，我还是相信“一个马来西亚”。是真正的“一个马来西亚”，不是慕尤丁的那个！

debating with Muhyiddin...

2010-04-01T18:09:00.004+08:00

He says, "I'm a Malay first, " and then only a Malaysian. He says it does not contradict with 1Malaysia. He says there's nothing wrong in fighting for their own race and still believe in 1Malaysia.

So what's wrong with his statement?

There is no contradiction trying to be a Malay and a Malaysian at the same time; or try to fight for both the Malays and Malaysians' welfare at the same time. But that was not what the DAP stalwart, Lim Kit Siang, asked. He asked, which do you place first?

LKS did not ask Muhyiddin to choose between the two. He can be both a Malay and a Malaysian; and can fight for the interest of both Malays and Malaysians. The essence of the question is, when these two have a conflicting interest, who would you place first?

Of course, there's nothing wrong in fighting for his own race, but does his race's welfare comes before the general Malaysian? Muhyiddin believes so. And to place one's own race above everything else is, simply said, a racist.

And if this does not contradict with 1Malaysia, then there's only 1 logical explanation left - that 1Malaysia is a one single united Malaysia for Malays.

And since Najib defended Muhyiddin on this statement, he must have believed Muhyiddin's interpretation on 1Malaysia too. Maybe, Najib places Malay first too. But then again, who doesn't in UMNO?

In Cavendish Lab...

2010-03-28T03:27:00.004+08:00

Compared to the good ol' glory days in Maxis, what am I doing here in the University of Cambridge???

Being awake

2010-03-23T07:13:00.000+08:00

"The only way to keep me awake, is for me to get more sleep..." - sL

Natural beauty

2010-03-23T06:11:00.000+08:00

About cosmetics ...

"When it says natural beauty. What it really means is creating beauty that looks natural using unnatural methods." - sL

公开评审与辩论比赛的公正性

2010-03-19T10:09:00.018+08:00

一个辩论比赛要精彩，莫过于几个简单的原素。宣传、赛会的流程、辩题的素质、辩手的素质以及评判的素质。其中，评判的素质对于比赛的公正性扮演着绝对重要的角色。然而，评判的素质往往就是被忽略掉的一个。

在1999年的国际大专辩论赛“足球比赛引进电脑裁判利大于弊”，西安交通大学的主辩这么说过：“公正性是要建立在准确性的基础上的，缺乏准确性，空谈公正，那只能是清水衙门糊涂官。”任何比赛的基本原则就是要公正。而公正是建立在准确性的基础上。但是，在判断一场辩论赛的胜负，如何可以达到“准确性”呢？

辩论比赛，本来就是一场主观的比赛。它是一个"shifting goal posts" 。有些评判的goal posts 很小；有的很大；有的摆在中间；有的摆在角落；有的只有一方的goal posts, 另一方则没有。一百个人的眼中有一百个哈姆莱特；一百个评判就有一百个胜负标准。因此，对于很多主办单位来说，他们是无法控制或改变评判的素质的。

虽然，要求辩论比赛达到100%的公正性是不可能，但是相对的公正性是可以的。比如，辩论比赛的历史发展就促使了以下的几个方法来让比赛变得更公正：

1。一场辩论比赛的决赛一般会有7个或以上的评判；
2。有3轮投票（其中一次包括分数票）；
3。分数票的最高分与最低分去掉；等等。

然而，这是不够的。特别是当两支势力相当的队伍相碰的时候，分数相差不到3分，各有输赢的理由，评判“误判”的可能性会更高。这时，以上的方法皆无法有效地解决这个“准确性”的问题，因此评判的公正性则受到质疑。随着辩论队伍之间的水准差距越来越小，受到质疑的判决就会越来越多。

我个人认为，这10年来华语辩坛的发展速度一日千里。每一支队伍在自由辩论时，不会再有 “冷场”；懂得“追”问题、“逃”问题；懂得设定义、衡量标准和论点架构；大家都会有智囊团和教练团；大家都开始拥有如马大辩论队般的传承与训练系统。每一位上场的辩手都是经过严格的训练而且对于辩论比赛赛制的运用了如指掌。相反的，我并不认为在这10年来，评判的评审水准大有进步。假设辩论的水准可以与评审水准作比较的话，我相信辩手的平均辩论水准已经远远超越评判的平均评审水准。当然，评判们这10年来的知识水平与个人历练是有提升的。但是，评审能力并不只是针对某课题的熟悉程度而更要看评判们对辩论比赛“游戏规则”的了解程度。评判不可能像辩论员或是某些大学的教练一样，每天不断地钻研辩论技巧。因此，有些评判对于比赛胜负的要求就只是在于是否迎合他们本身的想法或口味。

以“国阵比民联更有能力治理好国家”这个辩题为例。如果评判是一个火箭党的老友，他会不会认同国阵这50多年来治理国家的方针呢？实行新经济政策是国家发展的障碍还是“踏脚石”呢？反之，若评判是一位国阵议员的话，他就会斩钉截铁地告诉我们，新经济是我国发展史里最有智慧的政策。

如果正方的辩手在比赛之前就知道火箭党的人来做评判的话，正方的辩手很可能会不谈一些具有争议性的政策如新经济政策。他们很可能会这么说：“在理论上。。。国阵比较多治理国家的经验，只要它们。。。国家就会变得很好”。

如果是国阵的朋友做评判的话，正方则可以放心把新经济政策、“阿拉”字眼风波、内按法令拿出来谈，并且说：“没有了新经济政策我国的贫富悬殊的问题将会导致动乱让发展停滞不前。内按法令是防范措施，只要不被滥用，它能确保国家安全。” 而评判都会在点点头。

明显的，不同的评判会让双方有不同的起跑点。如果哪一方有一个比较 “另类” 观点，那么那一方就必须花更多的口舌来建立他的论点。而这所谓的“另类”是相对评判而言的。

为了公正，评判们不能以己见为判断胜负的基础。可是在辩论比赛里，这是做不到的。比如说，某一辩手说妈妈不是女的。那么评判能不能够以自己的理解为基础而认为这个论点荒谬，所以要扣分呢？可是有些评判会认为如果另一方辩手连一个这么荒谬的论点都无法有效反驳的话，他必须被扣更多的分数。究竟什么时候反驳的责任比较大，什么时候论证的责任比较大呢？结果还是见仁见智！辩论始终还是一个主观的“游戏”。

有鉴于此，评判团不可能有固定不变的评审“方程式”，可是也应该有些基本评审原则，比如：不能以己见作为审判的基础；以论点为首，以发音为次；正方犯上明显的错误，反方没有反驳，评判不能擅自为反方反驳；不能给予“可怜”分；不能因为另一支队伍是卫冕冠军而要求特别苛刻；不能因为一支队伍从初赛到复赛进步特别多而判他获胜。随着辩论的发展，这些原则是可以增减，也可以改善而且必须是与时并进。就好像辩论员一样，评审的水准也可以不断地提升。这个过程必须由观众，辩手和评判一起来做。而要达到这个目的，最好的方法就是公开评审。

这一次（2010年）的马来西亚全国大专辩论赛首次实行了公开评审。我认为这一步走对了。

一般而言，担任评判是没有压力的。因为举办单位给了他们一个这样的权力：评判的决定就是最后的决定。因此，别人或自己都没有必要质疑这个判决。有多少位评判会为自己的决定进行赛后的检讨？会把过去评审的经验累积作为提升自己的动力？唯有通过公开评审，给予评判一定的压力，评判们才有动力去提升自己的评审能力。否则，很多评判会误以为自己在一场辩论比赛里是至高无上，无法动摇的权威。注意，这里指的评审能力不是指针对某个课题的掌握，而是一些评审的技术。比如，是否做到上一段落所说的基本评审原则？是否有能力把双方的论点记录下来？是否在自由辩论掌握到双方的攻击点？做过评判的都知道后面两个是不容易做到的。

一个评判如果多次在公开评审的时候提不出双方的论点，只是说一些客套话，如：“今天的比赛是龙争虎斗，旗鼓相当”；或是也提不出什么很好的胜负理由，如：“正方主辩的咬字很清晰，所以判正方胜利" ；或是完全不听双方的论点，只以自己的观点判胜负，如：“国阵怎么会治理国家？不能啦。。。可惜啊，这个辩题对正方不利，他们不可能胜的。。。所以他们一开始就输了！”（注：我本身遇过这种评判，以上这些理由，非虚构）面对多次在公开评审时作出这样评语的评判，作为主办单位和辩论员的就会知道那些评判以后最好就不要再碰见。作为评判的则可以以此为鉴，提升自己的评审能力。

前年和去年，我带领马来亚大学辩论队到过台湾参加他们的奥瑞港式辩论比赛。他们正是采用公开评审而且哪一支队伍如果认为那个评判不适合，可以在比赛前要求换评判。在台下的每一个评判几乎都是身经百战的。他们的评语甚至还比台上的辩论员更动听，更有说服力。在马来西亚，这次的全国大专辩论比赛应该算是第一次实行公开评审。

公开评审的效果不会在一次的赛会中看得到。但是实行一段时间后，我相信比赛的公正性会随着评审能力的提升而得到改善。这一次全国大专辩论赛不能说完全没有误判的可能性。毕竟，辩论比赛还是主观的比赛。把主观完全去除掉，辩论就不是再叫辩论了。但是，对任何比赛而言，公正性是很重要的。我们必须尽可能达到公正的评审。因此，这次在全国大专比赛实行的公开评审是马来西亚辩坛历史发展的重要里程碑。我深深相信它会让辩论比赛变得更公正，更精彩。我希望马来西亚各各比赛会考虑采用这个方法。

It wasn't because they needed to listen to rakyat

2010-03-17T20:58:00.005+08:00

Oppps, they did it again. Flip-flopping.

This is not the first time that our government had done that - the teaching of science and math in English, the "Allah" issue are just some, and now GST. The government goes in full force and then pulls out full force, completely obeying Netwon's 3rd law of motion.

Chronicle of events:
1. announce that GST shall be implemented
2. Then, announce that GST shall be delayed
3. And finally, announce that rakyat's opinion will be taken into account

Isn't the right order the other way round? I am not an expert on policy-making, but I doubt that the above is the correct order for making a good policy.

I'm not an economist and I would not like to debate about the feasibility of GST here. But I'm flabbergasted by the flip-flopping attitude of the government. What good is the government, other than pulling off public relations stunts like 1Malaysia and the impromptu visit to UKM?

The only reason I can think of why the government would implement a policy in the wrong order, other than incompetence of course, is that because they are testing the water, so to speak. By first announcing it and then observe the reactions. But that is not the way for policy-making at the highest level.

First of all, there is a better way to do this 'survey'. There is no need to test water by creating this first wave of 'fear' and spark needless debates among the public. Most importantly, the implementation of GST must be due to the need of the country, and therefore the test for this policy should be whether it will rake-in more revenue for the government and stimulate economy rather than the rakyat's reaction, for there is no sensible citizen in the world would rejoice when the government implements additional tax.

What further appalled me is that the ruling coalition said that the decision to delay has nothing to do with the opposition. However, from the beginning, this idea was the ruling coalition's and there was no objection whatsoever from anyone on that side of the aisle. The only voice shouting against it came from the opposition. Now that the government had decided to delay the implementation of GST it could only mean two things. Either they did not do their homework, or the opposition did their job. C'mon BN, at least have the balls to admit that!

So it could not have been because BN suddenly realised he needed to listen to rakyat. BN never listened when it comes to ISA, NEP and a multitude of national issues. And if BN did, it would have listened to the rakyat first before announcing the implementation of GST, not the other way round. Or maybe this is just another public relations stunt?

Why I would never need an 'ipad'

2010-02-13T15:47:00.002+08:00

The new ipad is thin, responsive, safe and lasts for hours...

Why use 'whisper' when you have 'ipad'?

The 4 quadrants of BN

2010-02-05T06:11:00.015+08:00

In counter-clockwise starting from the lower-left quadrant:

Abduallah Badawi. He is our former Prime Minister. Can't exactly say he was doing a lot of good. I mean after all, he detained a few people under ISA and did not achieve much in curbing corruption. But I guess we can all agree that he is unconscious most of the time in the Parliament. Besides, although he didn't mean to, his lack of leadership had allow the opposition to an unprecedented win in the last election and give a glimmer hope to equality and democracy.

By stating his intention to stay for another term, Samy Vellu has achieved the Malaysian Guinness Book of Records for the longest serving MP. He thought it was a good deal. But we all know that the longer he decides to stay, the longer the vote from the Indian community will stay away from BN. Again, this enhances the chance for the opposition to win in coming elections and thus he is a major contribution to equality and democracy, in an unconscious way.

Nasir Safar had make headlines recently for his remarks that Indians are beggars and Chinese are prostitutes. I think he sincerely believed in that. He also believe that Malaysia belongs to only the Malays and no one else. And most importantly, like many other members of Parti Cinta Malaysia he believes that what he believes in is noble. These people believe in evil things, without knowing that they are evil.

Ong Tee Keat is evil alright. Look at how he tried to depose CSL (not me, although we have the same initials) and then now Liow Tiong Lai. But he probably isn't the brightest person around. 2 years in helm, MCA has now almost become irrelevant. I seriously do not see why any Chinese would want to vote for MCA these days.

Dr. M is probably the person I respect most. He is cunning, he is intelligent, he can articulate and he is one helluva speaker. For that, how can I not put him at the top of the awareness axis? But despite the development he had brought to Malaysia, I probably do not agree with everything he had done. If we were to list down his faults, from the judiciary crisis to Ops Lalang, etc, it'd probably matched his achievements.

Our current Prime Minister is cunning alright. The Perak coup, liwat version 2, Altantuya, etc, just to name a few examples to show how good he is...unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. I mean, if you go according to the above order what you get is power grab, rape and kill. He's got a hand in all of it. How can he not be on the 'Eastern hemisphere' of the quadrant diagram? But Dr. M came up with liwat version 1. It wasn't very original of him to think of an EXACT excuse to get rid of Anwar. For that, he ranks lower in the 'awareness' scale.

Right at the top-right corner is...ta ta ta ta!! Utusan Melayu!!! I've had enough of this BN-controlled press. They've been fanning racial remarks over and over again like law never existed. Pity, those non-Malay who doesn't read Utusan because you missed the part where they call you pigs, dogs, and cockroaches. Pity, those Malay who can only read Utusan because their brain is probably washed so cleaned that all they can shout is 'Tuan' and 'Melayu'. And also 'social contract'. Even our Prime minister tries to be candid about these issues in public, but noooooo... Utusan Melayu never worries about being candid. And they never worry about being charged in court too.

In the top-left quadrant is someone who is consciously doing good in BN. That person would be.... Errr... would be.... Errr ...

2.4 Potential Difference

2010-01-20T06:02:00.019+08:00

Previous sections:
1. Introduction
2. Electrostatic
2.1 Coulomb's Law
2.2 Gauss's Law of electrostatic
2.3 Electric field in materials

2.4 Potential Difference

Recalling that for electrostatic, the electric field must satisfy the below two equations at all points of space and time.

∇.D=ρ

∇xE=0

In this section, we shall set out to prove the second equation, which reads "the curl of E is equals to zero". As mentioned in section 2.2, the symbol that looks like an inverted triangle, ∇, is called nabla and it is actually a vector (d/dx, d/dy, d/dz). We shall defer the mathematics to later and try first to understand the physical significance of ∇xE=0.

The past few sections described, in general, the behaviour of electrical charges under the influence of an electrical field. Up to this point, we would already know that a positive electrical charge moves along the 'force lines' of an electrical field. The electrical field 'points' from a positive charge, say in point A, towards a negative charge, in point B. This is equivalent in saying that there is a potential difference between point A and B, which moves the electrical charge. Although the word 'potential' is common among science and engineering students, many take this word for granted and do not really understand what it means. Therefore, before going any further, I will attempt to answer the following two fundamental physics questions regarding 'potential'. However, if you are already an adept physics student you can skip this part and go straight to the section on 'potential energy' below.

What is potential (from physics point of view)?

In physics, it is said that energy is conserved. No energy is created or destroyed. It is only changed from one form to another. When you throw a ball towards a wall, it has kinetic energy. When the ball hits the wall and bounces back towards you, portion of the kinetic energy is converted to sound (that is why you will hear a 'thud' when the ball hits the wall); part of the energy is converted to heat due to the friction of the ball with the wall and air (although this is small); and some of the energy is also converted to heat due to atomic collisions within the ball when it deforms as it hits the wall (amount of energy converted here depends on the material of the ball). The total energy of the ball before and after the collision with the wall is exactly the same.

But a peculiar case happens when we lift a heavy object against gravity. Obviously when we lift an object against gravity, we need energy. But if energy is not destroyed nor created, then where does the energy go to? It is not sound or heat or any kind of energy that we can clearly measure. But the energy is clearly not lost because if we now release that object, it picks up speed, gains kinetic energy and thus falls towards the floor. The energy is actually 'stored' within that object and we say that the object has gained potential energy, i.e. potential to do 'work' or release energy.

How does a potential 'do' work?

We can never know the absolute amount of potential energy that an object has, we can only know or measure the difference. For example, when we lift an object a certain distance above the ground, we can only know that this object has gained a certain amount of potential energy, proportional to the distance it has been lifted. But what is the absolute energy it has? How much potential energy does it have in the first place? Is it possible that even before we lift the object, it already has a lot of energy stored in it? We can never know. This is because we cannot measure or observe this 'stored' energy directly. Therefore what is important is the magnitude of the difference of the energy, not the absolute value of it. Because we are only concerned with the difference and not the absolute value, it presents us with a flexibility to define what potential energy is.

If we now reverse the process i.e. we release the object from a certain height and let it fall to the ground. This object will release the 'stored' potential energy, which is equivalent to the difference of potential energy between the height it was released and the ground. In other words, an object will attempt to do work to release the 'stored' energy when there is a potential difference. This difference can be a postive or a negative one, depending whether it is A - B or B - A. It is, however, of no real physical significance whether it is positive or negative. In practice, it is common that we define the value of 'potential' mathematically such that energy is released when the object move from a high potential to a low potential, i.e. when A - B > 0 then energy is released and work is done by the system; but when B - A > 0, work needs to be done on the system instead. (although students should take note that there are special cases where it is defined that energy is released when moving from low potential to high potential, this is only a change of definition and does not affect what we observe in the real world).

A way to imagine this convention is to to take the analogy of river flowing from the mountain tops to the sea. River will always flow (i.e doing work) from a higher place to a lower place (i.e. high potential to low potential). When the surface is flat, the water does not flow (i.e. no potential difference)

Potential Energy

If an electrical charge move from point A to point B under the influence of an electrical field, we could have as well said that this is due to a potential difference between A and B. This potential energy must have been stored when we moved, for example, a positive electrical charge against the electrical field. Just as when we lift a ball off the ground and release it, the ball would fall back to ground; so would the electrical charge if moved against the electrical field and then released, it will move back to its original position.

This stored potential energy due to moving a charge against electrical field can be calculated by using the simple equation:

Energy = Force x Distance.

However, if the force acts along a curved line, then the distance which the force acts may then not be trivial to calculate. We can still do this by assuming that a curved line is formed by a series of small arrows. The smaller the arrows, the closer it matches to the curve. In this way, we can calculate the energy that is stored in an electrical charge by tracing the force, F, along the small arrows. Energy is now equal to force x distance, i.e. F . dx where dx is the length of the very small arrow (Note: both F and dx are vectors. By taking the dot product of F and dx, we find the component of F in the direction of the small arrows.) When dx becomes infinitesimally small, this becomes an integration: ∫ F. dx

but F=qE, therefore

q ∫ E. dx = -Energy (to move from A to B). The negative sign is to indicate that work is done when moving an electrical charge against electrical field. As described above, this is just a convention such that we all agree energy is released when a charge moves from high potential to low potential points.

Energy/q = - ∫ E. dx
V = - ∫ E . dx

Therefore, potential difference is just the energy per charge. Now bringing the dx over the other side of the equation and considering only a small change in potential leads to:

- dV / dx = E

In 3-dimension, d /dx becomes (d/dx, d/dy, d/dz) which is equivalent to ∇. This suggests that E=-∇V, where ∇V is read as grad V.

Now, it can be shown (mathematically) that a charge does not gain any net energy by moving from A to B and then back to A again. E.g. the charge gains energy when moving from A to B and releases this same amount of energy when going back from B to A. We call this a conservative field, i.e. the net energy gain depends solely on the end points (initial and final position). You can take an electrical charge on the planet Earth, take it to the moon and the bring it back to Earth but at 1 cm away from the original position - the net energy that it gains or loses is still due to that 1 cm distance. The fact that you had brought the charge to the moon and back makes no difference at all!

So if we move an electrical charge from A to 'somewhere' and back to exactly A, no net energy is gained (or equivalently, no work is done). Mathematically, we write this as

∫ E. dl =0

where the integration is taken over a closed loop. A loop is like a line where the beginning point is the same as the ending point, therefore there is not net energy gained. From Stoke's theorem we obtain ∫ E. dl = ∫∇xE dl =0, i.e ∇xE = 0, which is what we set out to prove.

At first glance, this seems like an immensely stupid equation because we are calculating the energy to bring a charge from A to B and then back to A again, which is essentially zero. It sure sounds more useful if we are actually calculating the energy from point A to some other point in space. But the purpose of the equation is to help us in characterising electric field in static conditions, it is suppose to give us a set of 'criteria', if you will, to fulfill if the electric field is static and that is exactly what the equation does. The physical meaning of the equation is to say that in the case of electrostatic, the electrical field is conservative - that is the potential difference is independent of path (travelled by the charge) and only depends on the displacement (initial and final position) of the electrical charges. We will see later that this is not always the case. It is useful to note that the statement "Electrical field is conservative" also gives information on how to calculate the potential difference between two points.

So the equations ∇.D=ρ and ∇xE=0, together with the bounday conditions, which we will talk about in the next section, are all the information you need to know about electrostatic field.

Kirchoff's Voltage Law

As a final note, it is important to note that the above relates to Kirchoff's Voltage Law, which states that the voltage drop in a (closed) loop is zero. This is a mathematical consequence of ∫ E. dl = 0. If we have a battery, however, then the electrical field is no longer conservative, the situation is no longer considered as electrostatic and therefore this equation is no longer true in such situations.

辩手，评判们：是谁赢了这场比赛？

2010-01-14T03:50:00.003+08:00

我在辩论界已混了至少15年。虽然，还是有比我更老的前辈，但是我看过的辩论比赛绝对不少，可说是经验不浅。而这么多年来令我最讨厌的就是看到辩论员们辛辛苦苦为一场比赛准备了这么久，却被误判而输。

所以，我恳请大家 -- 所有辩论老前辈，现任以及过去的辩手或是评判帮帮手。帮我看一下这一场“辩论赛”到底是谁胜了？是不是代表Allah专利权的那一方获胜？若是，我 “切”！！！

Principles, not sensitivities!

2010-01-11T21:50:00.006+08:00

The best speech that I have seen so far related to the recent "Allah" ban in Malaysia was not from PKR, DAP or PAS. Surprisingly, it's from an UMNO member. And I'm not being sarcastic.

You can read Tengku Razaleigh's full speech here. The speech was given at the Institute of South East Asia Studies Regional Outlook Forum 2010 at Singapore on Jan 7 2010.

The following are the arguments that I am most impressed with, "...a government whose primary response to a public issue is sunk in the elastic goo of “sensitivities” rather than founded on principle..." and "...It is about doing what is right rather than protecting arbitrary feelings. If feelings diverge from what is right and just, then it’s time to show some leadership."

A leadership that is based on "sensitivities" of a particular group will always flip-flop on his decisions, contradicting constitution and law on the way of doing so. A leader whom is not guided by principles, will allow himself/herself to be led by the nose.

If our PM's leadership was founded on principles rather than to satisfy his need to stay in power or to satisfy the sensitivities of a group of extremists, this is what he would have said,

"I understand that the recent court ruling on the usage of Kalimah "Allah" has caused concerns among various people, Muslims and Christians alike. First of all, I would like to assure everyone that everybody has the freedom and right to practice their own religion. No one should force someone's religion onto another, be it Islam or Christianity.

Any religion, and especially Islam, emphasizes peace and harmony. Muslims are compassionate. And Muslims must more so show this virtue during the time when some of us have a slight disagreement with our Christian brethren. Let us not forget that they are also our fellow countrymen and neighbours, whom we have lived together in harmony for so many years. Everyone deserves compassion and patience from a Muslim, what more if they are our fellow countrymen? Therefore, we must refrain from any violence act and engage in a dialogue to solve our differences, as Nabi Muhammad S.A.W. would have.

The usage of Kalimah "Allah" by non-Muslims though may be an issue, it is neither the most important issue facing Islam today nor is it the most important teaching from the Quran or Bible. There is no point in getting the Kalimah right, but indulging in corruption, ignorance and violence at the same time. It is an issue. I am not saying it isn't. But it is not the most important issue facing the Islam faith or the Muslims of Malaysia right now. I assure you, that we will seek a solution to this, and we shall seek it through inter-faith discussions and forums, not through violence.

The ruling is now under appeal. I urge to let the court process to take place and respect the judge's decision. There is a reason for the court and the law to exist. Although it may not be perfect, we must respect the process and to amend the law through the right process. And that is through the Parliament, not through the streets or violence or by inciting hatred. In this case, as the leader of the majority party in the Parliament, I shall take the lead in proposing an amendment to the relevant laws to rectify the problem. I shall do this, only after in consultation with various parties and after sufficient inter-faith dialogues have been made. Meanwhile, let us be patient and respect the judge's decision.

Therefore, I urge everyone to be calm and patient during this time. Show what real Islam is about. Show what being a Malaysian is about."

This, is what I would said if I am the PM. He should have been neutral. But instead, he chose to blatantly side with the Muslim extremists.

雪州513

2010-01-10T08:00:00.001+08:00

翻看着以前的帖子，我发现我在3个月前早已对上星期在雪州所发生的一连串事件做过类似的推测：

1。在雪州制造骚乱（迷你513）
2。内政部长利用“牛头”事件来合理化这次的示威。

两个，全中！

我进一步推测，近期内警察的调查结果会是：放火烧屋的恶徒，不是回教极端份子，而是一些亲反对党的非回教徒。从而，又再把责任推向给反对党。

希望我的推测是不对的。

Great Britain covered in snow!

2010-01-09T23:12:00.001+08:00

Can you recognise this?
It's Great Britain covered in snow (actual satellite picture).
I'm at the south east corner.
Freeeeeeeeeezing cold...........

Ruin and run...

2010-01-08T21:26:00.018+08:00

Perhaps, there's no one to blame for Malaysia's plight. It's all due to bad pronunciation really:

Najib: Run the country to the best of your ability!

Ministers: Ruin the country!

Najib: No, I said, "Run", not "Ruin"

Ministers: Yeah, ruin! not run.

Najib: Run!

Ministers: Ruin la. I said ruin what.

Najib: Run, Run, Run! I said run the country!

Ministers: Ruin, Ruin Ruin. We'll ruin the country!

Police: I warn you first, you can only have protest. After that, run, or I'll catch you!

Mat Rempit: Ok. After protest, ruin. Find church to ruin. Got it.

Police: No. I said run.

Mat Rempit：Ruin?

Police: Run. R-U-N. Rrrrrrun.

Mat Rempit: I heard you the first time. Ruin.

Police: Run!! I said "run". It's R-U-I-N without the 'I'.

Mat Rempit: I no ruin? how can? then who ruin la?

Police: I said run. If not, I'll put you in lockup.

Mat Rempit: Ok Ok. Flip-flop lagi. I'll ruin. I don't want to stay in the lockup.

Police: No. I meant run. After that, RUN!

Mat Rempit: Ooooh ok. Now I get it, after I ruin, I run. Roger that!

钱不是万恶之源。。。

2010-01-08T20:11:00.011+08:00

它，才是万恶之源。

万恶当然不是指所有的恶，而是指 "数量极多，而且品种繁复的恶行"。我方认为世上穷凶极恶的恶行都来自xxx。

家庭暴力，是为了钱。但，再怎么凶，家庭暴力不是恐怖主义；
恐怖主义，是恶。但，再怎么残忍，恐怖主义不是为了钱；
麻原彰晃，既是恐怖主义也是为了钱。但他不是霸权；

可是xxx，比他们都还恶。
它，聚集了霸权、金钱、以及恐怖主义于一身。
它为了钱和权，无所不做。
它是贪、嗔、痴。
它“异化了人与钱之间的关系”。
它是万恶之首的淫。

可是它不是钱。它来自马来西亚。

A gifted child...

2010-01-07T21:40:00.010+08:00

Son: Dad, I want to quit school.

Me: What?! But why?

Son: School is so boring. They are teaching calculus, which I already knew since I was 6, and they are still learning Newtonian physics. When are they going to start on quantum mechanics?

Me: Yes, you are a gifted child. But do stay in school, dear. If you find the academic side of the school is boring, try joining student organisations, like the Chinese Language Society or debate team.

Son: Like what you did when you attended high school?

Me: Yes. You can learn about people relationship, people management, organisational skills but most of all it is fun! You could also do some charity work in the local community. By helping the poor and the weak, you get to see things from other people's point of view and it will change your life. You could also play some games, mix with people, go after girls, you know, those things that other high school boys do?! (laugh)

Son: But what's the point?

Me: What's the point of going after girls? (*Gasp*)

Son: No, dad. (=.= "') I know about going after girls. I meant, what's the point of learning people skills, etc ...

Me: Great to hear you are interested in girls already (*wink*). Well, there's a lot more to school than just knowledge, you know. And that's certainly true as well when you step into the society to work, which will happen soon enough. To make the right decision, you must learn how to appreciate the people around you, the culture and history. To realise a plan, you must make people to work with you. You don't expect to get everything done by yourself, do you?

Son: Didnt' Einstein developed theory of relativity all by himself?

Me: No. First of all, without Newton and all the subsequent scientist's groundbreaking work in gravity, there would be no theory of relativity. They were the necessary foundation to Einstein's work. Let's not forget that he had to rely on Eddington to verify his theory. And most important of all, Einstein was not just a physicist, he was also actively involved in politics and was influential in both the World War 1 and 2.

Son: Really? I see.

Me: Your knowledge must have a positive impact to yourself, to the people around you and ultimately to humanity, but you would not be able to do that if you do not first appreciate and respect the people around you. What good is knowledge if it doesn't help yourself and those around you?

Son: Does it always come in that order? Self, people around me, and then humanity? Sounds a bit far-fetched don't you think? Humanity, eh?

Me: Your sphere of influence grows in that order - you first influence yourself, the people around you and then, if you are lucky, humanity. But the importance is in the reverse order. Always place others before yourself. You will never know though, that some day you may be some one great and influential. But even if you are not the leader of the world, you are always important to me, to your family and those around you.

Son: Thanks dad.

Me: You are welcome. Remember, stay in school. Spend the extra time with friends and learn more about people, it's much more complex than quantum mechanics and string theory, trust me on it. There's no hurry in learning quantum physics and string theory. You can always accelerate your academic skills after high school when you start your university education. So what do you think? You feel better about school now?

Son: I guess so. I will check out the notice board tomorrow to see if any student project interests me.

Me: Good. Now, go out and play with your friends.

Son: OK. But I think I would go to my room and finish the book "The strange theory of light and matter" by Feynman. I am already at the last chapter. Love you, dad.

Me: Love you too.

Malaysian Job

2010-01-07T19:25:00.000+08:00

It took half a dozen people in "Italian Job" to pull off a 35 million dollar heist;

It took almost a dozen professionals in "Ocean's eleven" to steal millions from casinos;

But all it took was TWO Malaysians to steal 2 multi-million dollar jet engines from a high-security Malaysia Air Force base in the middle of the busy Klang Valley, smuggle it out of the country, and somehow find a buyer for ... jet engines?

Screw Hollywood. The real deal is in Malaysia!

0, 1, 2, smile ...

2010-01-07T10:51:00.009+08:00

Q: How many economists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. If the government would just leave it alone, it would screw itself in.

Q: How many gorillas does it take to screw in a light bulb
A: Only ONE, but it sure takes a shitload of light bulbs!

Q: How many Malaysians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: TWO. One to dismantle it, put it on the forklift, move it to the truck, evade all security personnel, drive the truck all the way to the port, move it into the container, lie to the customs officers, and get the engines offshore. The other just sells them.

Oh wait, I was describing jet engines, not light bulbs...

Allah must be laughing now...

2010-01-06T20:45:00.009+08:00

Allah (whichever God you might refer to) must be laughing so hard now that His teeth is falling off from the sky in the form of meteor showers tonight.

I am pretty sure Allah can understand more than one language, so He must be bemused by the people who are worried that He could not understand you if you do not address Him in the right language. He must be even more bemused that some of His followers actually got confused when a different name is used to call Him.

I am neither Christian nor Muslim, but I am pretty sure that "what is the correct name to call Me" is the last priority for God's teachings. If it isn't, you should reconsider your religion because it sounds too damn easy to go to heaven.

Certain quarters of Christians and Muslims felt insulted. I think Allah aka Tuhan aka God should be the one that feels most insulted because of all His teachings passed down over the centuries, we were most concerned with what to call Him. I am sure this make a heck of a religion.

My mentor in high school once told me this, "There will always be problems in your life. A beggar and a businessman millionaire have the same number of problems. But the level of problems faced by these two people is what distinguished them. One is of higher stature, the other is not..." I cannot help but to think that this applies to religion too.

(in reference to the recent uproar by some Malaysian Muslims against the usage of 'Allah' by Christians to refer to the Christian God)

2.3 Electric field in materials

2010-01-02T00:20:00.003+08:00

Previous sections:
1. Introduction
2. Electrostatic
2.1 Coulomb's Law
2.2 Gauss's Law of electrostatic

2.3 Electric field in materials

So far we have considered the electric field in free space. Obviously, if we now consider the electric field in materials (insulators or conductors), things will be quite different.

In the previous section, we shown that ∇.E=ρ/ε. Let's call this ρ as free charge since it represents the electric charge that is 'free' to move around (note: only free charge contributes to electrical current). Let us now assume that when we apply an electric field to the material, the material will modify the electric field either by strengthening it or weakening it, depending what kind of material it is. Let us represent this effect by introducing an additional charge, called the bound charge, ρ_bound. (These charges are not free and are 'bound' to the material and they cannot freely move about to generate electrical currents.)

One of the ways to imagine bound charge is to consider applying an electric field to a perfect conductor. Assume that the material consists of many electrical dipoles, i.e. opposite charges separated at short distance. (Such dipoles may exist, for example, in molecules with ionic bonding. The electrical field will displace the positive and negative ions slightly to create a dipole.) Now, further assume that these dipoles are not free to move about. They are fixed or bounded to the material. They can only rotate about their axis. What the applied electric field would do to these dipoles is to align them along the electrical field lines with the head of one dipole lining up behind the tail of the other dipole (refer to the diagram below). The result of this 'bound charges' aligning is that the internal electric field cancel each other out (due to the positive and negative charge lying close to each other). This result is important, so remember it: Electrical field inside a perfect conductor is zero. What happens if it is not a perfect conductor? Then, the dipoles cannot align perfectly and the electric fields will attenuate/diminish but it will not be completely cancelled out. You may also ask, what allows us to make such assumption about the electrical dipoles? Nothing, except that experimental results seem to suggest that such assumption is reasonable. As with previous, science is always about suggesting a good assumption to explain the experimental results.

Therefore, in the presence of any material (insulator or conductor), we modify the equation to become ∇.E=(ρ+ρ_bound)/ε to include the bound charges in a material. Having different kinds of charges (bound and free) in the equation is very confusing, this is why in Maxwell's equation all charges always refer to free charges. In order to be consistent with this, we rearrange to 'get rid' of the bound charge in the equation, i.e.

∇.εE - ρ_bound = ρ ;

∇. (εE + P) = ρ ; where ∇.P= - ρ_bound

∇. D = ρ ; where D = εE + P

The polarisation vector P, is the electric dipole moment density. By considering that an electric field causes dipoles to re-arrange in materials, one can calculate that the actual effect an electric field has on a material is to generate a 'surface charge' and a 'volume charge' which is related to P. You can refer to many textbooks on how this is calculated, or you can take my approach, which is just to assume P is a value (like kilograms is for weight) to indicate how much the electric field is affected by the material.

Since the electric dipole is induced by E, we may suspect that P is related to E too, and this is indeed the case. However, the relation may not be a linear one. In most cases we can assume it is linear, i.e. P=kE. But we write P=εχE, where ε=permeability of free space (as usual) and chi, χ=electric susceptibility.

Then D = εE + P = εE + εχE = ε(1+χ)E = ε . ε_r . E ;
where ε_r = (1+χ) is the relative permeability

If ε_r is independent on position, i.e. the same throughout the material, then the material is said to be homogenous. If it is homogeneous, then in general, D = ε . ε_r . E is in matrix form where D and E is a 3 x 1 matrix and (ε . ε_r) is a 3 x 3 matrix. If only the diagonal elements of (ε . ε_r) is non-zero, i.e. the relative permeability is only dependent on the principal (x, y and z) axes, the material is called biaxial, or isotropic:
Dx = ε . ε_r11 . Ex
Dy = ε . ε_r22 . Ey
Dz = ε . ε_r33 . Ez
(where the number indicates the position in the 3 x 3 matrix)

Furthermore, if ε_r11=ε_r22, then the material is said to be uniaxial.

In summary, in the presence of (any) material, the electric field will be different than from the free space and this difference is accounted for by using ε_r, the relative permeability. The equation that relates relative permeability to the electric field, E and displacement field, D is

D = ε . ε_r . E.

But this equation can be confusing sometimes. We can essentially move the relative permeability to other side of the equation and it will now look like this: E = D / (ε . ε_r ). So does the relative permeability serve to modify D or E to account for the presence of a material? If, for example, a dielectric material is placed between two conductor plates (like a capacitor), a constant (electric or displacement?) field will be generated across the dielectric material. What happens at the interface between free space and this dielectric material? Does the displacement field or the electric field change due to the presence of this material? Or both? Although we can use sheer mathematics to find out the answer, it is much more meaningful if we instead rely on our intuition to understand why and which should be the answer. Obviously if both D and E change, and by the same amount, then there is no difference between the two quantity, so this is not allowed. The equation tells us that D and E is related by the permeability, but it does not tell us which is the constant and which is being 'affected' in this case. But if we pay attention to the words I have used so far, I have always said "the materials affect the electric field" and NOT the displacement field. This is a very reasonable statement, since inside a material, especially a conducting one, the charges are BOUNDED, NOT FREE. Displacement field's relation to the charge as indicated by Maxwell's equation ONLY refer to free charges. The free charges, accumulated at the surface of the conductor plates, are constant and therefore D should be constant. The electrical field, on the contrary, is related to the free charge AND the bound charge inside the material. And therefore it is the electric field that will be affected in the presence of a dielectric. (note: there are no free charges INSIDE a conductor but free charges can reside at the SURFACE of a conductor)

In short, the difference between D and E is that "D is the field due to the free charge only" and "E is the field due to both the free and bound charge", the effect of the bound charge is included indirectly through the relative permeability. The quantity D is introduced so that we can make Maxwell's equation look much neater, i.e. always only referring to free charge only. But the usefulness of this displacement field will be more obvious when we disscuss the dynamics of electromagnetism.

Although we have introduced many terms like the polarisation vector, the electric susceptibility, and the relative permeability, it is the relative permeability that is most commonly used to describe the effect of materials on electric field. However, we must always bear in mind that relative permeability is obtained through a series of assumptions. There will be time when we cannot use the relative permeability but instead must use the 'original' equation that contains the polarisation vector or susceptibility, especially for the case of describing in depth behaviour of materials. As a special case, consider a perfect conductor. What is the relative permeability of a perfect conductor? Because D = ε . ε_r . E and E is zero inside a perfect conductor, D will always be zero inside a perfect conductor but this is not true! If we instead use D = εE + P, then when E is zero inside a perfect conductor, D = P. The polarisation vector represents the contribution from the bound charge and thus D is non-zero even in a perfect conductor. Remember, relative permeability is useful because it is a GOOD APPROXIMATION to the 'overall' behaviour of electrostatic systems but it does not work all the time.

New Year Resolution for 2010

2010-01-01T00:00:00.003+08:00

My 10 New Year Resolution for 2010:

1. Publish at least 2 scientific journal papers, with at least 1 in high impacting factor journals.

2. Finish the book on introduction on quantum mechanics and the chapter on density functional theory (this should be easy, since I'm already half-way there!).

3. Finish reading '1434'.

4. Read another (non-academic book).

5. Complete project Ascension (my little project on a motivational and skill course for PhD students)

6. Complete my little online book on EM.

7. Exercise, exercise and exercise - regular exercise per week, i.e. at least 3 times a week.

8. Play Mass Effect 2

9. Purchase original Starcraft 2 DVD. (yeah, noticed the difference with no. 8?)

10. Travel to Europe.

Boxing Day Shopping

2009-12-31T05:52:00.006+08:00

This is what I got for myself during the Boxing Day shopping spree... (except the handbag on the right, of course...)

1. A new pair of shoes, from Clarks. 50% off, nice!

2. New pair of Levi's Jeans. 20% off, sweet!

3. New shirt for the new year!

In fact, my good friends here in Cambridge all bought Levi's Jeans. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present you the Levi's boys!!!

from left to right:
Michael Tan (in his Levi's 501), Shin Liang (Levi's 505), Fendi (Levi's 503), David (Levi's 501)

The End of Days

2009-11-28T01:22:00.000+08:00

Ever since the premiere of 2012, everyone seems to be blogging about the end of days.

Most of them would hope to share the last moment with their love ones.

But that is only possible, if you remain to be the only person who knows about the end of the days.

If everyone else in the world know that the world is coming to an end, law and order would break down.

Pessimist, you may call me. But that's the truth. If the end of world is broadcasted, then raping, killing and looting and all other unimaginable atrocities will be omni present.

Most people do what they do, or do not do what they do not, because of law and moral obligations. But what good is law and moral, if what you strive so hard to protect is coming to an end anyway?

If no matter what you do, the world is going to end, humans are going to be extinct and that you are not going to survive, what would you do?

You would fulfill your lust, your greed and all other desires that you may have but couldn't have because of the social restrictions.

So, if you knew the end of the days is coming, please do not tell. You will only bring the end of the world earlier than what it is suppose to be.

BTN, my experience

2009-11-25T20:55:00.009+08:00

Despite being a Maxis scholar, the scholarship value is most likely NOT enough for my full 3-year PhD course. So, I decided to join UKM, who is willingly to pay whatever difference that I need to complete my PhD. For that I'm indebted to UKM, especially to UKM's VC, Prof Sharifah Hapsah and Head of IMEN, Prof Burhan. Both of them are fantastic individuals.

Contrary to what many people may think, my brief stay in UKM before coming to Cambridge University was actually enlightening. The staff at UKM is incredibly friendly and efficient at their work, much better than my experience as a undergraduate student in UM.

Because I joined UKM, I was required to attend BTN, which has a fairshare of media limelight in recent days. As I was leaving for UK very soon, I have the choice to attend BTN at a later date, butI chose not to do so. I decided to attend this BTN camp in Seremban before I depart for UK because I wanted to see for myself, what is really going on. Before attending BTN, Prof Burhan told me, "just take it like any other course, for the most part it's like national service." I know he was trying to comfort my nerves prior to the camp. Like I said, he's a fantastic individual.

On the first day of the camp, we were told not have any recording devices and were repeatedly told that the content of the camp is under the protection of Official Security Act (OSA). This means that by revealing the content of what is taught in the camp, I am liable to being persecuted by the government. Why is the content protected under OSA when this camp's objectives are to foster nationalism, to foster unity among Malaysians and to teach Malaysian values? OSA is used to protect sensitive contents that could leak out to the public and cause a security threat to the society. How is it possible that leaking information about how to unite Malaysians and how to foster nationalism could be a threat to the security of Malaysia?

The 'trainers' at the BTN had an answer for this. According to him, it was because some elements of the contents of this camp may be manipulated by the opposition to cause stir and affect public confidence.

"Love your country!" I don't see how this sentence could be manipulated to cause stir in anyway possible. Unless, loving your country is not the only thing they teach in the camp.

It's true. By now, most of you would already guess that loving your country is not the only thing they teach in the camp. Though the first few days of the camp was indeed about patriotism and loving your country. During that time, it was very interesting and entertaining. The invited speakers gave talks that are really motivational and for a moment I thought that all the rumours about BTN being a brainwashing camp was just plain rubbish. But I spoke too soon.

Towards the second half of the camp, we entered LDK (Latihan Dalam Kumpulan). The content is a 180 degrees reversal from the earlier part of the camp. The term "social contract" was repeated not less than 1000 times to emphasize that Malays had made a great sacrifice by offering us citizenship during our independence. We were told that opposition and street protest were evil. We were often hinted that the Chinese are 'stronger' and that Malays are 'weaker' therefore Malays need to unite.

I was fortunate to be in group which is more moderate. It'd seem that the organisers knew people like me and my age group that are probably more difficult to be brainwashed were assigned to the same group. So our group only had 'mild' discussions, touching on 'sensitive' issues occasionally but most of the time we were just casually chatting. This was not the case when other groups share their stories with us. According to them, there was a clear brainwash attempt at them to stop supporting the opposition and be wary of the non-Malays.

The good thing is: many other participants that I met in the BTN are actually quite understanding and liberal. They did not agree with all the biased content that was thrown at them. We even joked about how the trainers tried to brainwash them, but they just brushed it aside and say it's plain silly. In them, I can see hope for Malaysia.

The bad thing is: there are people who, for the sake of not failing the camp (because if they do, they will not get the funding from the government to further their study) have resorted to become a complete suck-up to the BN government during discussions, prasing every single thing about the government even when it didn't make sense. For example, there was a discussion about choosing a company to provide consultation. There were 3 choices: 1. Pro government, but incompetent; 2. Pro opposition, competent; 3. International company, very competent. Who would you choose to provide the consultation?

The suck-up defended the 'incompetent' choice from start till end, citing reasons like, "we can train them to be competent (completely ignoring the assumption of the question)" and "government agencies have sensitive documents that cannot be shared with opposition". But they forgot, I'm a debater and I rebutted them all the way until they had nothing to say except repeating, "tak bolehlah, tak boleh, tak boleh, tak betul." To that point, I rest my case.

On the last day of the camp, we had a MCQ test. There were no right or wrong answers. Only stupid answers and the answer that the BN government wants. To pass the test, we had little choice but to choose the 'right' answers, the answers that the government thinks is 'right'.

At this point, there was little doubt in my mind that this BTN camp is indeed a brainwashing camp. But the good thing is, only the trainers are hell-bent on brainwashing. The participants are actually very nice people, in general. I've met a lot of good friends in that camp and I hope we still could get in touch. There are also a lot of very interesting group activities like hiking, aerobics, drama, singing, etc. So it was actually quite fun. To be fair, BTN is only 60% a brainwashing camp. If only the PM department could focus on the other 40%, I would say BTN is definitely an interesting camp to go to.

Why we should vote for Pakatan?

2009-11-23T21:29:00.010+08:00

Pakatan will lose because they are complacent:

They forgot that luck played a great role in the last general election win.
They forgot that people voted against BN, not for Pakatan.
They forgot that people voted against Badawi, not for Anwar.
They forgot that people voted against BN because they were unhappy about the economy recession, not because Malaysia lack democracy or freedom of speech or equality.
They forgot that 40% of Malaysians are not registered voters.
They forgot they only have less than 5 years to prove they are capable governers.
They forgot that BN controls everything.

But yet, please, vote for Pakatan.

The reason is simple, I believe in a bi-partisan political system. I believe competition in Parliament will only bring forth the best for the country and for the people. A monopolistic government is not so different as being rule by a dictator. The problem with dictatorship is that it is reliant on one person. I don't believe in one person. I only believe in a system that works. At one moment, this guy could be doing great, the next moment his successor might undo everything. As I've wrote here, democracy is not the most efficient form of government. But it is the best form of government to ensure sustainable development over the long time.

Maybe we disagree on Ketuanan Melayu. Maybe we disagree on the quota imposed on scholarship and national universities. We also disagree on how we should handle the selling of liquors. But let that be discussed and debated. Let's hope that voices on both sides of the aisle are heard and that a decision is made only after that. Let's not hope that one side is being suppressed and force into a decision without a chance to speak. But that is exactly what is happening now, and exactly what would happen if we have a monopolistic government.

Pakatan may not be flawless. But neither is BN. But as it stands now, BN has all the power to make the decisions - right ones and wrong ones. BN will not listen to Pakatan, no matter how rational or reasonable the suggestions could be, and vice versa. The only way out, is not to find a flawless political party that can satisfy the needs of all races at all time. Instead, it is to find competition. It doesn't matter who the competition is, as long as there is competition. As it stands now, Pakatan is the only choice. So, do not choose Pakatan or BN, choose to have competition, choose to have bi-partisan system in Malaysia.

In less than 2 years since the election, many people (like the Hindraf group) have turned against Pakatan. They claimed that Pakatan is "no different from BN". Pakatan is not short of flaws, but to rank Pakatan no different from BN is probably an overstatement. In terms of fighting corruption, ensuring a more transparent government, implementing fair and just policies, BN has always been lagging behind Pakatan. And in the opposite sense, BN has always been leading in front of Pakatan when it comes to detaining people with no reason, abuse of power and corruption. Even when BN makes the right move, once in a while, it was usually due to the pressure from opposition, e.g. investigating the PKFZ scandal. Do Hindraf and all the people who had once supported Pakatan but is now turning their backs, really think that BN would have a higher chance of implementing a fair and just governance, compared to Pakatan?

I do not believe in people. I believe in the system. I believe that what we need is a bi-partisan system. Doesn't matter to me if BN is doing a great job or if Pakatan is lousy. Creating a bi-partisan political system is the only sustainable system that could ensure the long term developement of the country and long term benefit to the people. A bi-partisan creates competition and competition is what keeps corruption at bay and ensure the best for the rakyat. At the moment, there just isn't sufficient competition. BN still controls everything and if the PM wants, he could just easily brush aside all opposition. This is not what we want.

The fact is simple. We're choosing the lesser of two devils. As it is always the case when it comes to politics. It is the same whether it's between the GOP and the Democrats in the US; or between the Tories and the Labour in the UK; we are always choosing the lesser of two devils. And when it comes to this, it's clear which party is more keen on advocating the devil's deeds.

Love seeking women

2009-11-23T00:34:00.002+08:00

"Women seek love, by first seeking trouble, then seek men to comfort her out of her troubles."
- sl, Nov 2009

Cambridge diary 5: Autumn in Cambridge

2009-11-11T05:07:00.002+08:00

Strictly speaking, it's already winter. As I'm writing this, the weather outside is 4 degrees and it's going to fall to 0 in the next few days.

As I've posted about winter, spring and summer in Cambridge, this post about autumn in Cambridge would probably complete the four seasons. So there you go, some pictures of autumn in Cambridge.

Cambridge diary 4: Summer in Cambridge

2009-11-10T05:23:00.009+08:00

It's waaaaaaaay past summer now in Cambridge. But I realised I haven't post any thing on my blog about summer in cambridge. So here it goes...

Summer is the time for geese to swim

Summer is a time for BBQ

Summer is a time for playing in the field

Summer is a time to lie on the green grass and read your favourite books

Summer is a time when the river Cam is having a traffic congestion

Summer is the time to visit the colleges too

Italy trip

2009-11-10T04:46:00.005+08:00

Dad, Mom and I went to Italy few weeks ago. The trip began in the most horrible way.

1. I lost my passport in the taxi.
2. No one brought a camera.
3. We bought a brand new camera only to find out that the power source/plug in Italy doesn't fit.
4. We came from London where the weather is 17 degrees and touched down in Rome where it was having the same weather in Malaysia.
5. We found out, the hard-way, that Italians don't really queue. Pretty much like Malaysia. (In fact, just drop a Coliseum next to KLCC and I bet we won't notice any difference between Rome and KL)

Funny enough though, bad things started to clear out one by one. The taxi driver returned my passport and we somehow found an 'adapter' that worked with our camera. And it all began after we 'met' the Pope at the Vatican City.

It's hard to believe that a trip that started so badly, turned out to be one of the most memorable one for me. I had a great time. And I think dad and mom had a great time too! (check out my dad's blog post on this). Rome, Venice, Florence and Lake Garda were fantastic and I would like to share some pictures here.

Respecting other people...

2009-11-10T04:45:00.000+08:00

Religion is the worst thing that could happen to you if it doesn't teach you to respect other people's culture and beliefs.

-sl 2009

in pursuit of fame

2009-10-01T18:59:00.004+08:00

You do not pursue fame. It just happens to you.

- sl, Oct 2009

我还记得

2009-09-18T03:38:00.003+08:00

我还记得爸爸在我很小的时候就买第一架电脑给我。

我还记得妈妈在厨房里，一边做菜一边帮我背听写和乘法表。

我还记得爸爸常带我去逛书局买书。

我还记得妈妈假装跟我打架，然后假装打输给我。

我还记得爸爸在晚餐以后用一粒苹果跟我讲解地球是怎么绕着太阳转。

我还记得妈妈叫我坐在爸爸的大腿上，她说我会很快长大然后那时要坐也不能坐了。

我还记得爸爸叫我不要看电视看得太近，因为会伤害眼睛。

我还记得妈妈叫我不要一边吃饭一边看电视，因为对消化不好。

我还记得爸爸跟4岁的我说屁股很肮脏，所以把小便的地方放在大便的地方就会有艾滋病（我问他为什么会有艾滋病，他如是回答而已）。

我还记得妈妈拿着藤鞭说要打我，但其实只是轻轻地动一下。

我还记得爸爸看到我很不高兴的样子在地上打滚，他就挺身出来帮我解决我的问题（我是1994年的班际辩论比赛的筹委会主席-星期一是颁奖典礼，但是我什么奖杯也还没准备。爸爸用他的超能力PR技巧帮我在2天内搞定）

我还记得妈妈在某一年的农历新年假装相信我这样的一个谎话：“喝汽水可以让喉咙痛好一点，因为那个泡泡会‘攻击’那个痛的地方”。

我还记得爸爸用相机帮我拍照时，我需要定型很久。

我还记得妈妈驾车带我到吉隆坡的globe。

我还记得爸爸驾车带我到Terengganu看海龟。

我还记得妈妈每一次假装看不见我在玩电脑。

我还记得爸爸每次带一大箩的榴莲回来家里的客厅，一个个开来吃。

我还记得妈妈强逼我上美容院把我脸上的暗疮除掉。

我还记得爸、妈赞说我一出世，医生不用打我屁股我就会哭，所以我很聪明。

我还记得爸爸妈妈很疼我。
我都还记得。
在我还没忘记之前，我都把它写下来。

Approaching autumn

2009-09-13T09:43:00.003+08:00

Leaves are falling...
Greens are fading...
Autumn is coming...

你是谁？

2009-09-13T09:19:00.003+08:00

最近，常发短讯给在马来西亚的朋友。
得到的回应都是，“who are you?"
他们没有把我的英国电话号码储存起来。
我简单回答，“shin liang”
。。。

然后就再也没有回音了。

我记得大四的时候，雪琴有一次没有回复我的SMS，我就很狠狠地骂了她，说他没礼貌。回想起来有点不好意思。这一点，我有点像我爸 - 我爸也是完全完全不能接受一个人说了“i'll get back to you”而没有"get back to you”的人。这也难怪我在辩论队会被称为“打压”亮或美国亮（注：美国很喜欢打压其他弱小国家，所以打压亮 = 美国亮）。

恩。没事的。他们可能只是很忙。可能没有话题。或是电话费贵。我已经不是打压亮。

4粒鱼蛋讲大马政治。。。

2009-09-08T20:41:00.000+08:00

黄子华栋笃笑里有提过这样的一个例子：

小明在买鱼蛋。老板卑左佢一串，有2粒。但当他转头睇到他旁边的人有4粒，他就很不高兴地向老板话：“点解佢有4粒，我只有2粒？”

老板即刻道歉，并卑佢多两粒鱼蛋。但是小明不要。佢对老板话， “我要你拿走那个人两粒鱼蛋！”。没办法之下，老板跟另外一个人要回2粒鱼蛋。那个人虽然少了2粒鱼蛋，但是他还是很高兴地在品尝他手里仅有的2粒鱼蛋。于是乎，小明又投诉，“点解佢没左两粒鱼蛋还可以这么高兴？但是我甘伤心？唔得老板，你要整佢吃鱼蛋同我一样伤心！甘先至公平！”

其实，要大家高兴，可以大家一起吃4粒。但是，好多人就是宁愿大家吃少D,大家一起痛苦，都不要‘4粒鱼蛋’。马来西亚的政治何尝不是这样？政府宁可大家一起痛苦也不愿大家一起进步。马来人教育水准比较差，政府可以提供更好的条件让他们赶上其他种族。但是政府却选择要剥夺其他种族的教育机会。马来人的经济水准不高，政府可以制造更多机会给他们做生意。但是政府却选择了剥夺其他种族的经济能力。然而，这还是可以理解的。因为，在有限资源的情况下，让别人多一点机会，就等于要剥夺某些人的机会。就好像，如果鱼蛋老板已经没有鱼蛋了，他没有办法给小明多2两粒鱼蛋。要公平，唯一办法就是拿走另一个人的鱼蛋。

但是，如果事隔2代以后，小明的孙子来买鱼蛋时又再次给他碰到那个‘4粒鱼蛋’扑街的孙子，他的反应应该是如何？是不是应该这样：

“哦，我记得你啦。。。好多年前在这个档口，你爷爷买左4粒鱼蛋，但是我爷爷只有2粒，整到我爷爷好不开心。我不理啊，今日你买鱼蛋，你只可以有2粒，而我就有要4粒！唔系嘎话就唔公平！”

这样的要求合理吗？但是，马来西亚现在的状况，不就是这样吗？

Bertolak ansur...

2009-09-08T20:39:00.002+08:00

Mohd Ridhuan Tee...and along with many Malay supremacist always claim that we, as Malaysians, have to bertolak ansur. Most of the time, they claim that they had 'bertolak ansur' and 'bertimbang rasa' so much that they are almost like saints but yet the rest are still just ungrateful. Similarly, 'the rest' i.e. the non-Malays too feel they had 'bertolak ansur'. So, who is right?

First, let's try to understand what bertolak ansur means.

Imagine a working husband and house wife. The husbands work very hard and very often until very late. He expects that when he got home, he would be going back to a loving wife that would smile and hug him. Instead, upon reaching home, his wife would usually show a sour face and was not responsive when he tried to tell her about his work. He cannot take it anymore. He hasn't said anything for years, he had 'bertolak ansur'. But today he cannot take it anymore and so he confronted his wife. "Why you cannot put on a smile? You hate me is it? I work so hard everyday and feel so tired when I reach home. The least I expect is for you to give me a nice warm hug. I have been trying to be nice, kept quiet and tolerating for all this years, why can't you understand?"

But you see, the wife too wasn't very happy. "Why can't you spend more time with me? All I expect is for you to spend at least 3 days a week with me. Sarah's husband spend the entire weekend with her, but all I get is just one lousy day per week. That's all the time you have for me. I am the one who has been tolerating you all this while!", the wife complained.

So who is the one who has been tolerating? Who is the real person who 'bertolak ansur'? The husband expects to be hugged. When he doesn't get that but yet he swallows it and doesn't complain, HE FEELS that he is tolerating. Likewise, the wife expects more time with her husband, when she doesn't get that but doesn't complain, SHE TOO FEELS that she is tolerating.

So the key to toleration or bertolak ansur is this - EXPECTATION. When we fail to live up to the expectation of the others and yet did nothing to show our displeasure openly, we then say we have tolerated. Toleration doesn't indicate understanding. Toleration is the inaction at a particular dissatisfaction. And in theory, if both parties set an unreasonably high expectation, both of them is going to be disappointed and will be in the endless vicious cycle of tolerating each other - tormenting themselves in the process. In the husband and wife's case, one can argue that their expectations are actually reasonable, they only needed better communication.

But what of our Malaysia's politics? Who is tolerating who? What were our expectations?

The Malay supremacist feel that they are the one tolerating because they EXPECT this land to belong to them for eternity. And therefore by allowing your citizenship, they are doing a great favor for the non-Malays, they are tolerating.

The Non-Malays, especially those born in this new generation knew Malaysia first. Not China or India. They were born as Malaysians. Thus they EXPECT that they are just like any other Malaysians, whom deserve to live and work and be granted equal rights - at least in most areas. But as they grew up, they soon realised that unlike their other fellow Malaysians, it is more difficult for them to go into local Uni or to get scholarships, they have to pay extra for houses, work harder for promotions, and have to move their temples far far away. Yet most of them said nothing. They too thought they must have been the one tolerating all the time.

So the question remains, whose EXPECTATION is the more reasonable one? To expect this land to belong solely to a particular race? Or to expect that we are treated equally?

As reference to my previous post here. This may be straight forward if you are seeing purely from a Chinese or Malay or Indian point of view. But not so easy if you look at Malaysia as a whole.

Whatever it is that you have come to conclusion, it is important not to say that the other have not tolerated. Because that is not true. So for a jerk like Mohd Ridhuan Tee, who in my opinion is neither Malay nor Chinese, please don't try to portray your holiness by claiming how much you have tolerated. I had enough of tolerating you!

牛头示威事件--民联将军！！

2009-09-07T22:42:00.006+08:00

（若要知道牛头示威详情，请点击这里）

其实，我觉得巫统这步棋很有策略性。民联静静不做事，民联会违背自己对选民的诺言；你大声喊“捉”，他就说你以前叫我不要禁止游行，为何现在却来出尔反尔；你妥协，把印度庙建在附近的另一个地方，极端的游行就会变得越来越普遍；你说他们极端，他就说‘所以嘛，内按法令、煽动法令是有用的’；然后最后王牌就是在雪州制造一个迷你513事件，然后夺权--如Razak usurped Rahman的方法一样--宣布紧急状态，成立中央委员接管雪州。到时又多一个50年的借口让巫统实行‘扶弱政策’。

面对这样极端、无礼的示威，希山首先是维护示威者，然后再改口风。所制造的印象可以是：“他不想的，但是现在非马来人越来越放肆，在他们的要求和压力下，我不得不 ‘屈服’ ”。但也可以是：“你看!我们这个政府还是听取人民的意见的”。

今天，这些示威者正式被起诉了。如果，法官严厉地下判，以后巫统针对任何的大大小小示威就顺理成章，他们会有很强的理由和前例来说--聚会是破坏性的，犯法的，应该被惩罚的。他们还可以加一句，“我们是一视同仁的，因为上次那个牛头示威者，我们也是一样地惩罚。”

掌握了国家各大机关的巫统，在这一步上已经渐渐地将民联推向将军死棋的部位。我不能不说纳吉很‘醒’。我只能期望‘道’可以再高一丈。安华，看你了。

District 9 - The movie.

2009-09-07T22:41:00.003+08:00

Hollywood has been churning out abysmal movies one after another. Harry Potter, Transfomers 2, Terminator 2, etc. It's just more and more computer graphics, with less and less acting and storyline. But 'district 9' is a re-fresher. This is by far the best movie I've ever watched for the past 2 years at least. (although the 'movie' of the cow head protest and Dato Hishamuddin's defence of the 'cow herds' are quite interesting as well)

Although district 9 is produced in Hollywood, I guarantee you it ISN'T THE TYPICAL Hollywood sci-fi action movie. If you like transformers 2, where there's no plot, no story, no acting no nothing, but just loads of computer graphics (CG) and a lots of scenes showing megan fox's 'clashes of peaks' then THIS IS NOT FOR YOU. Go away! Shooo! But instead, if you are looking for a good movie - one with good acting, story line and a good blend of sci fi and action then PLEASE GO AND WATCH DISTRICT 9 NOW!

Don't be fooled by it's abysmal trailer and posters. The producer (Peter Jackson) probably did not have much funds for post-production promotions. Also, many of you, like me, may be put off by the 'cloverfield' or 'blair witch project' type of camera handling in this movie. But please don't, because this will only be a small part of the movie and the camera handling is much better compared to 'blair witch project' that the 'shaking' of the camera was just nice to create the effect of realism, not dizziness.

At the beginning of the movie, many may feel it was a let down because the colour of the movie is slightly 'dull' and not as colourful or vivid as the typical Hollywood movie. It gives the impression that this is a B grade movie. But there is a purpose in that - the director tries to make the movie like a documentary, with key witnesses and analyst recalling the key events that took place during the entire incident. From the animation of the aliens and, later, from the animation of the alien weapons you can see that the movie is capable of making excellent CG.

The story was adapted from a short movie about apartheid in the South Africa. In fact, there was a district 6 during the Apartheid days. And fittingly, this entire movie was shot in Johannesburg. Instead of about the segregation of whites and the blacks, this movie is about the segregation between the human race and the aliens. The aliens are refugees who are severely malnourished when they arrived in Earth. A district was setup for the aliens to camp on our planet and receive aid. But soon, this district was abandoned and turned into a slum. Just like humans, the aliens soon become victims of social problems in the district. But this, is just the beginning of the story...the real story begins when you found out that the aliens were intentionally prohibited from leaving Earth because someone wanted to get hold of their awesome alien weaponry. You will follow the story through a unlikely 'hero', Wikus, who is in charge of evicting the aliens to a new district. (Don't worry so far there's no spoiler. I haven't reveal anything beyond what is shown in the trailers.)

A good movie connects with the audience. In order to do that and to develop the story properly, the movie must lay down the complex background story and the make you understand the main characters of the movie in the shortest time possible. So the first 10 minutes is just the setting of the plot. But the plot slowly unravels in a very nice pace as the movie goes on. Have some patience, and I guarantee you that the movie is worth your time. The events that could be confusing at first, will make sense towards the end.

This is a very good movie, and I highly recommend it. Three thumbs up!

Moooo.....

2009-09-07T15:00:00.001+08:00

The infamous Cow incident.

The mainstream media has but suppressed all information about it, screw thestar and utusan! Spread the news and judge for yourself.

Highlights:

1:54 "Jaga-jaga...Kami cabar...andai awak ingat lihat tumpahan darah"

2:53 (this is heard from the background when the speaker stepped on the cow head) "Yeah...hahaha... (clap clap clap)"

3:12 "Kami pijak kepala lembu ini...hadiah kepada Khalid Ibrahim..." (and then a small kid appeared to be 'fascinated' by all these and joined the crowd in stepping onto the cow's head -- don't blame him, he had plenty of 'role models' there)

5:07 "Ada orang rasa kami biadap...tapi yang bertanggungjawab mengajar kami biadap adalah Khalid Ibrahim..." (WTH??? yeah blame it on the people, that's very mature)

but this is my 'favourite' part la...

5:25 (the journalist asks 'kenapa bawa kepala lembu? apa maksudnya?') "Errrrr..." (obviously taken aback by the question) "Sebenarynya, kepala lembu bukan daripada kami.........kepala lembu daripada individu-individu yang marah....inilah yang kami takut - tindakan daripada segelintir individu yang ekstreme ini (tapi bukan kami la)..."

Eh, kata orang ni kepala lembu daripada individu yang marah, bukan daripadanya. Tapi dia sekarang amat marah and dia pula pijak atas kepala lembu juga. Maka, jangan nafikan lagi, dialah segelintir individu ekstrem yang marah dan menakutkan yang dia sendiri cerita tu!

I'm sure after seeing this, you don't feel very well. It's ok. Our Home Minister, Dato Hishamuddin assures you that everything is fine. Look at the video below, I'm sure you'll feel better after that.

And now, MCMC is asking Malaysiakini to take down these two videos. MCMC says it is inciting hatred. Who is? The video or the people in the video? But hang on, why does Dato Hishamuddin's press conference video clip also considered inciting hatred? Wah MCMC, you berani a, you are saying our Home Minister inciting hatred.

But of course, I don't find anything seditious about this protest. It doesn't create any threat to harmony or unity among races in Malaysia. And I certainly do not feel threaten. And oh btw, Malaysia always have freedom of speech what, so their protest is completely ok. I see now why Dato Hishamuddin sees nothing wrong with it. I too can see like him now...It's like what UMNO says - 1 Malaysia. So let it be and peace shall prevail.

This is exactly why I support Dato Hishamuddin's decision to use the police force to detain peaceful candle light vigils, people wearing black shirt and all other forms of protest by the opposition but instead asked the police to stand aside and allow angry protestors to bring a cow head still freshly dripping with blood. It's got good effect don't you think? And just in case you are wondering, the cow has nothing to do with Hindhusim. It's just purely coincidental that the beheaded animal for effect is a cow and the protestors are protesting about a Hindhu temple, which treats cow as a sacred animal.

And the latest news is: protesters from a candle light vigil were IMMEDIATELY detained and jailed by the police force. So let me see what does this mean: IT IS OK TO BRING BLOODIED COW HEAD TO A PROTEST BUT NOT OK TO BRING CANDLES. I can surely see the threat of the candle bigger than cow head, I mean, you could set KL on fire overnight!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

NOTE1: just in case you don't get it, the last three paragraphs in italics are pure sarcasm.

NOTE2: i'm very very sure that this does NOT reflect the majority of Malays, Muslims or Malaysians. but nevertheless the numbers of such people in Malaysia are significant enough to make a political case.

铁达尼号极限

2009-09-06T05:13:00.000+08:00

完整版，我都睇过不下100次，仍然觉得好笑。绝版啊！经典！

女士们，要投诉男朋友之前，唔该请先睇下以下关于男女爱情嘎片断啦。。。了解一下乜嘢叫作“铁达尼号极限”

I dreamed a dream

2009-09-03T01:18:00.003+08:00

"Now life has killed the dream I dreamed..."

Some can sing it to the perfect tune, but none that I've seen so far, can sing it with such emotions that bring the story to life. The story behind the music, that's what is most important, isn't it?

Merdeka! Merdeka!

2009-08-30T23:16:00.008+08:00

This is the best National Day youtube movie la!
Happy National Day my dear fellow Malaysians!

Another excellent MV on 1 Malaysia...excellent music.
(why all the better MVs on 1 Malaysia are NOT done by governments?)

Compare the above two with this!!!!! (the so-called official video for 1 Malaysia)
5 seconds into the music I 'sien' already...

.....HAPPY MERDEKA!

Letting go

2009-08-29T00:50:00.001+08:00

I can't always be right...let it go

giving directions...

2009-08-26T10:00:00.001+08:00

No offense meant, but I find that in general females are poor in giving directions...

"You go straight, keep on straight, then when you see junction, then you turn la"
"You go straight, then turn at ESSO la..."
"Go to the round-a-bout then just turn..."
"It's near the shop-lots..."
"I can see Tesco opposite me..."
"When you see traffic light, then turn left..."

These are just some of the very misleading and confusing directions. Let me tell you what's wrong with them...

"You go straight, keep on straight, then when you see junction, then you turn la"
- What kind of junction? T-junction? or just a junction to the left? turn which direction? left or right?

"You go straight, then turn at ESSO la..."
- there's more than 500 ESSO stations in Malaysia, turn at which ESSO station? It is not uncommon to have more than one ESSO stations in close proximity to each other

"Go to the round-a-bout then just turn..."
- typical round-a-bouts have 3 exits. Turn out to which exit?

"It's near the shop-lots..."
- Too vague. What you think is near, may not be near for the driver. Besides, shop-lots are usually surrounded by roads, so when you say near it doesn't indicate which road precisely.

"I can see Tesco opposite me..."
- There's nothing opposite you. Only the road can be opposite you if you are driving, unless you are at a T-junction. Although it is not wrong to say some landmarks are opposite you, it doesn't serve any purpose if you cannot identify the landmarks to a particular road. For all you know, you can see KL Twin towers opposite you in roads across Klang, Shah Alam and Sungai Buloh. So what good is it that you tell someone this? Therefore you should only specify landmarks at the two sides of the road that you are currently on.

"When you see traffic light, then turn left..."
- this is very confusing because the driver would need to know to turn BEFORE, AT or AFTER the traffic light.

Below are some tips for giving good directions:

1. It must be unique, i.e. the directions must lead you to the destination no matter which point of reference the driver is looking at.
e.g. if you say "go straight along Jalan Damansara from Victoria Station" there's actually two ways to view this (not unique). If you go from Victoria Station towards HELP institute it is "along Jalan Damansara", but if you go from Victoria Station towards Damansara Utama it is also "along Jalan Damansara". Hence the driver may get confused. The better way to say this is, "If you are along Jalan Damansara and ALSO if Victoria Station is on your left..." then it is unique - you would have to be on the road going towards HELP institute.

2. For a direction to be unique, two points must be speficied (mathematically this is also true, i.e. on a surface, a unique line or direction can only be obtained when at least two points are specified)
e.g. "Turn left at ESSO" can never be unique. Consider that ESSO is on your left when you are driving up a hill. Turning left means you turn towards the ESSO petrol station. If you are now driving down the hill, ESSO will be on your right. So the direction "turn left at ESSO" would actually mean turning AWAY from the petrol station, i.e. going to the right if you are going uphill. So there could be two different situations (not unique) given the same direction.

3. Use landmarks
Landmarks are buildings or icons or billboards that are easily seen by the driver. It is probably the most useful tool in giving directions. But care must be taken in using landmarks:

i. Use landmarks that are uncommon
e.g. if you use ESSO petrol station as landmarks, please do take note that there is possibility that 2 ESSO stations could be in the same vicinity. If you are thinking of using a tree as a landmark, forget it! This is because there's millions of trees in Malaysia. The driver would never be able to guess which tree you are referring to. (No Kelapa Sawit won't do either). Don't even try giving direction by saying "turn left at this big tree". It's a big NO NO!!

ii. Use landmarks that are closest (preferably along the two sides of the road you are currently on). Landmarks that are most visible may not be the best landmarks because it is so visible, i.e. it can be seen by many people at many locations, it doesn't give a unique direction/location of your wherabouts (refer to 1). But sometimes, visible landmarks are useful when you are completely lost. Because this would at least indicate your approximate location.

iii. Remember that landmarks can only ASSIST the driver in finding the destination, it doesn't define the final location completely. Never give directions, using ONLY landmarks. e.g. don't say "my house is next to TESCO. Because there is at least a few rows of shops and houses next to any TESCO."

用有颜色的眼镜，看世界！

2009-08-13T02:55:00.006+08:00

做对的时候，应该鼓励。做错的时候，应该谴责。做朋友是这样。在政治方面，我认为也应该这样。但事实上，在政治上不可能是这样。管你3-7-21，只要你是敌对党，做得对，我闭嘴；做错了，我就会365年咬着你不放。这，就是为什么我会永远关心政治，但永远不会参与政治的原因。我憎恨这种双重标准。

马华对国家发展不完全是没有功劳。翁诗杰也有做对的时候。翁诗杰在面对我国媒体被打压以及马来前锋报煽动种族情绪的报道时“沉默是金”，是应该被严厉地谴责。我也认为，马华在这个课题上，简直是“缩头乌龟”，没得救。但是翁诗杰揭发PKFZ丑闻的处理手法，在我看来，比林冠英处理Kg. Buah Pala 来得更专业。面对过去几届总会长留下来的烂摊子，你如果是他，你会怎么做？有可能做得更好吗？不要忘记，PKFZ与马华以及过去几届的交通部长是息息相关的。他没有办法狠到像反对党要求的那样。在他的情况下，该做的，可以做的，都已经做了。

然而，有眼睛的人都可以看得到，他因为把张庆信的Kuala Dimensi的舞弊行为公告天下而惹来后者的攻击与诬蔑。许多反对党的人看到国阵内讧了，都在那里拍桌叫好，抱着幸灾乐祸，隔岸观火的态度。他们也许在想“这回应该有好戏看咯！”这种反应可以理解。但是，就连反对党的人都应该看得出来，这是张庆信“报复”的方法，其言论的真实性是非常有争议的。正如，翁诗杰自己说的，如果他确实有拿过这笔钱，他何必这么积极调查PKFZ的亏损呢？在PKFZ上，一方是揭发者，另一方是“受害者”。谁是“好人”应该很明显。如果，换作是反对党在面对同样的情况，民联早已经大声放话说有“大阴谋”。

就好像当雪兰莪民联政府因为啤酒时间闹翻时，我们对于国阵的煽风点火，“趁他病，拿他命”的做法感觉到非常不满意。如今，这种“内乱”也发生在国阵。反对党还不是抱着一样的心态吗？千万不要抱着“你做初一，我做十五”，或是“投我一桃，报之以李”的心态。英文一句话说得很好，“two wrongs do not make a right"。

不管你是在朝在野，你都是为人民做事，为国家做事。如果，你认为翁诗杰对于PKFZ的调查是真诚的，有利于为人民与国家讨回公道的。那么，不管你是在朝在野，希望你会支持他，甚至帮忙他解除“障碍”。你可以以“每日3问”的方式继续盘问他，给他更多的意见，甚至谴责他调查行动缓慢。但是当有“坏人”成为障碍时，或是有人“恶人先告状”，或是他被人家暗算时，我们为何不应该“保护”他？难道把PKFZ的丑闻调查得水落石出不是大家想要的吗？

翁诗杰毕竟还是一个人。人，是需要鼓励的。人，应该是仁慈的。站在他的位子，你面对这样的四面楚歌，你不会气馁吗？不要跟我说政治家就是要“食得咸鱼，抵得渴”。我们在这里不就是要创造一个更好的政治环境吗？是谁说干政治，就一定要吃这种“咸鱼”？是不是你也纵容了这种情况呢？

世界不是非黑即白。人，也不是非好即坏。但是，偏偏政治家，就是喜欢这样，一定要用颜色眼镜看世界。只有一种颜色。国阵是这样，民联也是。说到底，支持民联的主要原因，除了是抱着它能带来“公平”的希望，就是希望有两宪制--有竞争才会有进步。至于政治风气，想改？休想！

About overthrowing government, protest and being angry...

2009-08-11T02:07:00.005+08:00

The difference between our PM and Thai's...

And I quote from Kennysia's blog...
"One led angry people to protest and overthrow his previous government. The other overthrew Perak and made people so angry they protested."

The end of knowledge

2009-08-10T06:08:00.003+08:00

Of all the abilities that a man possesses, nothing is more important than the ability to transfer knowledge from a generation to the next. Human's life-span in the early days must have been somewhere between 20 -40 years old. Without the ability to transfer knowledge to our next generation, there would be very little progress in the development of our civilisation.

Through language, we transfer our knowledge in the form of story-telling. This is the earliest method that we use to transfer knowledge. But we all know that this is not a very efficient one because stories that are passed on from generation to generation are very susceptible to errors. After a few generations, the border between facts and fiction blurred, real knowledge became fairy tales.

Then, we developed writing and books. This was an important milestone. Information and knowledge that are contained within books or other form of earlier writings (whether it's on the rocks or tree skins) survived for many generations. Information was passed on accurately, withstood the harshest weather and test of time. Even now, we can still see discoveries of caves with ancient writings that are more than 3000 years old.

About a century ago, camera allowed us to store information and knowledge in the form of a picture. And more recently, the development of optical devices like CD, DVD and magnetic storage devices like MRAM, our thumbdrives and HDDs have revolutionise the way we keep information and thus our ability to transfer knowledge.

Our photos, 1000s of them, are in our camera, memory cards, flickr or thumbdrive and some in our portable HDDs; Our diaries, are on the internet - blogs, homepages, etc - which are stored in the server's HDDs somewhere in the world; Our contacts and addresses and to-do-list are on Excel spreadsheets, notepad, or some other form of electronic application stored in our thumbdrive which we carry with us all the time; Our books are in pdf format, stored in our computers; Our birth certificates and other important documents are scanned into tiff format and stored in HDDs or other magnetic storage devices; Libraries all over the world are turning into an electronic one, e.g. storing older books (that are already crumbling) in the formed of scanned digital copy.

I'm sorry I've written a rather long introduction, but yes, until here, it's only the introduction. Because the important point I want to make is this - are the methods of information/knowledge storage improving? Are CDs, DVDs and e-books better than the plain old paper books? The advantages of digital data storage are obvious. They retain information that doesn't fade with time, e.g. a typical paper book printed in 1990 would probably by now have a few pages that are fading and becoming brittle, but ebook doesn't suffer from this; Digital data are easily transferred from a point to another; They are easily managed because they are composed of a series of 1s and 0s; Their capacity are huge, e.g. a few DVDs the thickness of a regular book could probably fit in all the information contained in a typical school library. It would seem that our methods of storing information are actually better and have improved. So it seems that there are little signs that our capability to store information and knowledge would end.

But here's the catch. Two, in fact. And they go hand-in-hand. Firstly, although the writings on books and rocks may fade over the years, they are still legible after thousands of years. Digital data storage on the other hand stores information in, well, digital format which means that one error (a flipping of 0 to 1 or vice versa) would make the entire data corrupted and completely useless (FYI, I know there is error coding, but it isn't sufficient). Secondly, and more importantly, how long do you think a USB thumbdrive, HDD or CD could retain information?

USB thumbdrive? 1 year. Yes, after 1 year, it will lose some or all the information stored in it. Transistors-based storage devices like USB stores information by storing charge. When they are not in use, some charge will be leaking. Although small in quantity, but over time it could be significant enough to flip the data bit from 1 to 0. That is why, if you read carefully the instructions booklet, they always ask you plug it into a PC at least once a year. This is to restore/recharge the charge.

CD, DVD and other optical disks stores information by having 'dents' that reflects lights differently, thus indicating a 1 or 0. Over time, about 20-30 years, these dents loses their ability to reflect lights properly. Because these things are built with such 'accuracy' and each 'dent' is very small, any slight degradation in the material is sufficient to reflect the light wrongly. Therefore, again, flipping a 1 to 0.

Magnetic storage devices (like our HDD) stores information on magnetic particles that have tiny magnets pointing in either two directions, thus indicating 1 or 0. But over the years, heat will cause these tiny magnets to slowly rotate and point in a random direction. After about 100 years, the magnets will be sufficiently random that our magnet heads would not be able to determine if it was a 1 or 0. Our digital data is once again, lost.

In fact, I've just read a journal paper that did a study on the reliability and the life-span of our modern information storage devices. The outcome of the study is that most of our so-called advanced storage devices will not last up to a century. Therefore, it advices that these devices need to be periodically 'updated' or 're-backup'.

But what if there is a war. A terrible war. World war 3, perhaps, that was fortunately not to wipe-off the human race but did a terrible damage to countries all over the world. Would the backup and update happen? It has happened in our history, war-torn countries have their libraries burnt. But some surviving books and cave-writing or other forms of 'older' information storage devices was buried under the sands and rocks, waiting to be discovered by archaeologist many many years later. But is this possible with our USB thumbdrive, CD, DVD and HDD? I'm afraid not.

Our reliance on these so-called modern technology would one day spell the end of our knowledge. All will be lost. All the archaeologist could find are rubbles, pieces of broken CDs and thumbdrives, where all the information about our once glorious civilisation will all be gone.

Of course, this may not happen. If we are able to avert a worldwide massive war or if we invent a 'better' device. But I doubt the former will happen. And seeing the trend of current technology and engineering to prefer simple, easy devices with little long-sightedness, I doubt the latter will happen too. Think about it, we always design, develop and engineer products so that they are fancy, sellable, funky, fast, easy and lasts long enough until the next product is out - which is approximately 3 years or even shorter for some devices. My first PC lasted me 10 years. My last PC lasted only 2 years; The camera my dad bought when I was still a kid lasted 10 years, my last digital camera lasted 3 years before becoming obsolete.

Yes, the end of knowledge will be here. Pray that it will not happen in our generation. Or the next.

wrecked phone, new phone...

2009-08-06T01:35:00.001+08:00

I sent my phone for repair due to a faulty keypad.

They returned me a brand new phone.

0_0

Getting sick in the UK

2009-07-29T19:38:00.004+08:00

I once told my friend that even if you have money, you can die of hunger in the UK, this is because the shops here close as early as 3.30pm during the weekends and during X'mas, there would even be no shops opened for two entire days. So if you forgot to stock up food, you won't be able to find any and will just have to starve to death. It's just as barren as Africa during these times.

Now, I've found out that even if you have a clinic right in front of your house, you could still die of minor ailment in the UK.

Yes, I've been sick for the past 3 days - fever and sore throat. It is only after three days that I've decided to see doctor. In Malaysia, most people would have already called me nuts. In fact, if I'm working, I can't afford to just rest my way to health again like this. But it's different here. Clinics don't admit patients with 'minor ailments' (so sombong!?).

I went to the clinic today, saying that I have this symptoms for days. The receptionist replied, "Ok, the next appointment is Tuesday". "But today is Wednesday," I said. "Oh? I meant next week Tuesday, you can come to see the doctor then. Unless....it's urgent." WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fine. I try to push my luck.

"But my throat hurts really bad, even when I swallow and when I touch my neck I think I can feel the inflammation. So is it urgent?"

"For minor ailments please see the pharmacist" WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so I went to see the pharmacist. He thinks I've got throat infection but he cannot give me antibiotics unless prescribed by a doctor. (So you are asking me to see a doctor?) I feel like I'm being push around, for something as simple as mild fever and sorethroat. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then I said, "Just to be sure, how do I know if this isn't swine flu?". "Well, if your temperature is not constantly above 38 degrees, is likely that it isn't swine flu." "Ok, give me a thermometer then," I said. "But we've run out of stock for thermometer and the queue for the stock is very long. I think it is very difficult to find any thermometer because they are all probably sold out."

So I'm screwed!

I have sorethroat but no access to antibiotics and have no way to check if I have a swine flu or if my condition is critical until I see the doctor which is, oh btw, one week from now! WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are the profession of a medical doctor here in UK a protected species? C'mon, you should work like the GPs do in Malaysia! So for those of you who think that grass is always greener on the other side - think again. Malaysia ain't that bad. We may not have the best equipments, but we dedicated medical staff.

On a separate note, it's a good way how in the UK they distribute the workload between a GP and a pharmacist. My friend Tey Xin Yi would be proud. She is a pharmacist and she once told me that there's a constant 'struggle' between the GPs and pharmacist - in Malaysia GPs do everything from diagnosing to prescription of medicine. Pharmacist is only a sales girl/man at the counter selling drugs. Xin Yi always said that she felt pharmacist should be given a bigger role. Well, come to UK then.

A tribute to Yasmin Ahmad...R.I.P.

2009-07-26T02:48:00.011+08:00

I can't believe this!! Just a few hours ago, Yasmin Ahmad has passed away.

I grew up watching her ads. And they have touched me, taught me and entertained me countless of times. I've used her ads for my one of my post here. The ads always convey a simple philosophical point, but yet these philosophies are so simple that they often slips our mind amidst our busy modern life pursuing money and fame. Her ads, especially during CNY and Hari Raya, have never failed to get us in the mood and give us a good laugh.

And her movies - Sepet and Gubra have no doubt brought many different races in Malaysia together.

She has done more to the unity of Malaysia than our UMNO govt. and it is a great loss to Malaysia that she has passed away. Let's pay tribute to a great Malaysian.

Below here are some of the ads directed by her.

Funeral - Ironically, I think this is the best ad she has made, which is also hyperlinked above. Must see!

Merdeka Sunat - Who can forget this Sunat ad? For those who doesn't know what 'sunat' means, it means circumcision!! I love the last part, "Ada kasi balik a?" "Eh boleh tengok a?" "Aku sepak a..."

How do you spell dinosaur? - "Race? What is race? race car ah?". Kids know no race. Well said!

CNY Old folk's home - This has to be one of the best CNY ads I've ever seen. For those of you who are busy out there pursuing your dreams, don't forget your parents back at home!

CNY ad - The last scene reminds me of the good old days when my dad would brought 'tonnes' of durians back from Terengganu and we will open it one by one in our living hall. We will try to locate the position to split open these thorny fruits. Not only does it taste good, it was fun too. These days, durians are sold in packages - where's the fun in it?

Iklan Raya - it reminded me. when i was still young, watching a movie, i would always ask my parents 100000 times why this character this and why that character that and is he still alive and why did he died, etc. Now that i've grown up, I sometimes lose that patience when my parents ask me the EXACT same question.

R.I.P. Yasmin Ahmad.

My new room...

2009-07-26T02:27:00.002+08:00

I wrote about how I "adore" my previous room - it's small, next to the dirty kitchen, dirty bathrooms, etc...

I've since moved into my new room. Having lived in hell, anything is better. But this new room, is waaaaay better. It's like I'm living in a single bedroom hotel, with en-suite bathroom.

The bathroom is nice.

I've got a nice view.

Plenty of space to walk around. Plenty of cabinet space.

Large study table (this is super duper important for PhD students okay?!)

Clean and hi-tech-looking kitchen.

And omg....my own fridge and cabinet in the kitchen!

Things we cannot agree to disagree...

2009-07-24T02:55:00.006+08:00

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There are no 'if's in history. But there's no point of studying history if we do not put 'if's into the events that transpired in our history.

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Imagine, if today in North America there exist the Federation States of the Red Indian (much like the Federeation States of Malay) instead of United States of America. If the real 'king of the soil' (bumiputera) of the North America is given a choice between establishing their own federation states and the united states of 'foreigners', what would they choose?

Would the Red Indians, the real natives of the North American soil, choose U.S.A.? After all, the 'foreigners' had brought technology and wealth to the land and it has proven to be one of the most successful countries in recent history. Or would the natives rather remain backward and poor than to have a forward, developed country that is not their own?

It is pretty clear that culturally, economically and politically U.S. of A. is an extension of Europe. There's little Red Indian identity left in the land of U.S.A. And therefore, I would bet that if given a choice, the Red Indians would have chosen the latter.

This, is exactly the same question that is facing the bumiputeras in Malaysia. They would rather Malaysia develop slower than to have a fast-developing Malaysia which has lost all the identities of a Malay land. However, it is extremely arguable if the non-Malays in Malaysia are at the same level of threat to the Malays like the European explorers were to the Red Indians.

Regardless, the Malays would of course want to retain the Malay identity on this land; while the non-Malays would want equality. The Malays would fear that by granting complete equality, the Malay identify may all be lost. This is also what Tun Dr. M was trying to say on his blog (here, which I replied here). I believe there are things where we can all agree to disagree. This is one of them, as it is only natural for one to fight for his/her own ethnicity, just as I would for mine. But there are things which we cannot and should never disagree on. Corruption is one. Murder is another.

Although I cannot agree with Ketuanan Melayu, I can understand why some would advocate it. But I will never agree and never forgive people who agrees to violence, murder, corruption and other evil means to achieve this end.

For the Malaysians out there. I beg you. You can differ with me, you can differ with the stance of PKR and DAP on NEP, on the allocation of funds to Chinese schools, on the teaching medium in government schools, on the application of syariah laws. But please, please, do not differ with me in saying no to corruption, murder and abuse of power. And for that, it is rather obvious that UMNO is manipulating the media, MACC, the police and the jurisdiction. It is obvious that the most severe corruption is happening in UMNO everyday. Take part in the elections and observe the UMNO election engines during this period, and I'm sure you'll know what I mean. Ask your friends who are working in the (non-UMNO controlled) media if they receive 'instructions' on what to report and what not to. Take the implementation of ISA as another example. Advocates of this draconian law always argue that such law is useful in extreme situations, such as in the capturing of terrorist. They would then say that after 911, U.S.A's Patriot Act is not any different from our ISA. But how many times have ISA been invoked to capture REAL terrorist? So some would then argue that the law itself is 'useful', but it is the abuse of the law that is causing the trouble. Since nothing is perfect and everything is subjected to abuse, ISA is OK, so they claimed. I've written something about this here, and I reiterate that if a law is susceptible to abuse then it should be amended or abolished. Since by definition, ISA will lack transparency, accountability and methods for check-and-balance, it is by definition impossible to be amended. Therefore the only way is to abolish it. The refusal for UMNO to abolish this law and their constant use of this law for their own political benefit is the most glaring proof of corruption within the organisation.

There are of course excellent individuals in UMNO, which I know them and respect them personally. But the core of the organisation is rotten and corrupted. UMNO, in trying to fight for the Malay's cause, which in itself is noble, but sadly has resorted to abuse of power and corruption. Former happened because they fear that if they lose power, they will no longer be able to continue their fight. The latter is simply due to greed. While we can all disagree on issues such as whether Malaysia truly belongs to all Malaysians or should the Malay be the Master of the land (Ketuanan Melayu), we should all say no to corruption, murder and abuse of power. They should NOT and NEVER be used to achieve such ends, no matter how noble the ends could be.

And so, in view of the recent death of Teoh Boon Hock, I urge UMNO to stop politicizing it. For once, do the right thing.

put yourself in that shoe

2009-07-22T18:30:00.004+08:00

I read about Tun Dr. M's latest blog post way before any press reported about it. The post began with someone asking him how he would feel if he were non-Malay living under the 'discriminative' policies of Malaysia. Tun, however, answered how the Malay would have feel if there were no such policies. Clever spin.

He indicated clearly that Malay is the Tuan of the country and that NEP should be supported. I do not disagree too much with him on this matter...however...this is the comment I left on his blog (I thought I was the first to comment)

*******************************************************************

You are avoiding the question. The question was, how would you feel if you were put into the non-Malay's shoes. But you answered, how WE SHOULD FEEL if we were put into Malay's shoes.

I agree that social engineering is required. but...

1. We, the non-Malays, hope that the Malays (or more precisely the UMNO govt.) can show some compassion and understanding that those non-Malays like me have to endure sufferings too. Especially since we are born way way after independence, we were born into this world knowing only one thing - we are Malaysians but told that we are not-so-Malaysians along the way as we grow. But the govt. has never show such understanding, only threats and constant reminders of Mei 13.

2. There has to be a limit to this social engineering. There should be a time where help is given to those who need it regardless of race. if it is malay who sought help, so be it. But please render help to the poor chinese too. IT IS NOT TRUE that Chinese lives in big bungalow houses whereas Malay lives in setinggan. I'll admit, that the chinese middle-class may still be 'richer', but the Malay elites who own big enterprises, big houses and big cars in this new decade definitely outnumbers the non-Malays.

3. It is also not true that Bahasa Cina dan Bahasa Tamil 'dibenarkan' sebagai bahasa pengantar di sekolah bantuan kerajaan. Kerajaan has always wanted to shut them up, if not for the constant 'fight' that we put up over the past decades against the education ministry. Lin Lian Yu, a chinese educationist, has his citizenship revoked for this. Why has it been revoked jika ia dibenarkan?

4. Fair and same is different. But I would like hear how you differentiate it. In Malaysia's situation, it's definitely not 'same', but your article here implied that it is 'fair'. Why so? Because it helps the 'original' tuan?

Finally, saya tidak akan cap Tun racist because I have a lot of respect for you. Your intelligence and charisma is second to none in the world, let there be no doubt on that. Just like how you cleverly spun this question from 'how you feel if you are a non-Malay' to 'how we should feel if we are Malay’.

Please answer the question.

In remembrance ...

2009-07-20T00:37:00.007+08:00

This movie clip was taken from my friend, Serdang's MP, Teo Nie Ching's website. I was also reading Earn Yee's blog at the same time. Coincidentally, with the 'amazing grace' music as background, the feel was right - and I highly recommend playing both together. (not withstanding with a flurry of my own personal frustrations in recent days, this has added to my own sorrowness).

I respect that Teoh Boon Hock was not a christian. Neither am I. But Amazing Grace has nothing to with religion. To me, this is in remembrance of the utter injustice we Malaysians suffered. Let us not forget.

dead men tell no tales

2009-07-18T16:16:00.006+08:00

It's a classic.

First, a Mongolian girl (she-who-must-not-be-named) was found dead. The conspiracy theory goes that she was killed by a 'high' ranking politician in Malaysia. In case if you are wondering how high? It's very high, way way way high up, like at the tip of the pyramid.

Then, a video clip shows that a 'prominent' lawyer was 'choosing' our Chief Judge. Correct, correct, correct!! You did not hear me wrong, a lawyer is choosing the Chief Judge. Although the video clip may not be sufficient evidence to convict him of criminal judges, but in the eyes of the plain people, it has tell us enough.

Later, Kugan was found dead under the police custody, which the investigations, btw, takes like 4ever to complete. Maybe Kugan was a crook (I dunno), but even a crook do not deserve to be tortured. Furthermore, until one is proven guilty in the court, no one should claim that he is a crook.

Now, Teoh Boon Hock is dead. He was found lying next to the building where the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) was 'interrogating' him.

Peculiar indeed. More so if you consider that this poor chap is about to get married the next day. Would he have jumped? Not a chance.

There's only 2 possibility, murder or accident. For a person like him to 'accidentally' fall to his death (not from a balcony but) from a window in the office building is very unlikely. If he tripped over and fell, it would have because he was too tired from the interrogations which lasted for at least 9 hours until 3 a.m. in the morning, which in this case MACC has to be accountable.

The other possibility would be murder, in which case, it is rather obvious who had done the 'job'. MACC would have to be accountable too!

We could try to estimate, from the extent of the bone fracture, the impact of the fall and hence deduce how high he fell from. Project this directly upwards from the place he died, this could indicate to us which window he fell from. If he was murdered, it is very likely that this window will belong to one of the interrogating rooms.

Now, this would make an excellent blockbuster Hollywood movie. Like an excellent storyline for the upcoming blockbuster Sherlock Holmes by Robert Downey Junior. If, that is if, this is only just a 'movie'.

The problem is, THIS ISN'T A MOVIE. This makes it utterly tragic.

The kicker is, that if you follow through the 4 incidents I listed above, you suddenly find that there's no place in Malaysia that we can go to for justice that we can all believe in. The police, the anti-graft body, the judiciary system, and the (err-humm...you know who) are all tainted.

Granted, that maybe some of these allegations may not be true. But given a series of incidents like that, in that order, it is very difficult for me not to believe that at least one of the 4 incidents are true.

Moving into new room...

2009-07-06T09:41:00.007+08:00

Ever since I moved into this room of mine in Cambridge, I've not stop complaining. It has been miserable.

Small room with hefty rent is one thing. Ant infestation is one thing. Dirty kitchen is one thing. There's just too many things that isn't right in this room.

The fengshui here must be horrendous.

Since this is my last day here, let me show you why...

the wall of next to my bed... a brick jutting out - looks like prison cell to me. At the other end, there's a nail jutting out, but the maintenance guy plaster it over with some tapes.

Kitchen floor. And if you see clearly, there's actually swarm of ants moving around picking up the bread crumbs left over by my house mate.

'

Wah so clean! I see already also feel like cooking in the kitchen lorrr...

And do let me remind you that these are all the work of ONE person (not me!). And it was much worse few weeks ago when this Chinese (from China), who loves to cook but never cleans, was still around. FYI, I always clean my dishes here.

Good news is: I'm moving to my new room tomorrow (6 July). It's at the new building and it's the place where everyone in my college craves to go to, albeit with a even more expensive rent. But I can't help it, this room is a torture room -- I gotta move out.

Reaching stalemate...

2009-06-28T05:05:00.003+08:00

Stalemate in PhD. Need to remind myself:

I'm an engineer, therefore...
Focus on extension of existing theories, not on new theories.
Work on applications of theories, not theory of applications.

Geniuses don't try.

2009-06-27T01:09:00.003+08:00

Geniuses don't try. They just do.
If you are trying, you are not a genius.

That's why I am never one - I try too hard.

baby frog...

2009-06-26T01:16:00.003+08:00

Today, on my way to the research center, two very worried old lady approached me and asked, "Sorry, could you please help us?"

"Yeah, sure, how can I help?" I said in my Malaysian accent.

"You see, there's a baby frog on the floor and we are afraid someone may step on it. Could you please help to move it over to the bush? Just over to the bush would be fine."

Baby frog?!?!! Malaysians wouldn't be bother if there is 3-year old kid on the floor let alone a baby frog. But, ah, what the heck I thought. And so I decided to help relocate that poor frog to the bushes.

Recalling the Nat Geo programs that I watched, I suspect some toads are poisonous (heck, I don't even know if it's a baby frog or toad despite all the Nat Geo). "Is it poisonous?" I asked.

"No."

Just when I reached out my hand to pick up the frog, she added, "I don't think so."

Great. What is done is done. I picked it up, moved it to the bushes, got my "thank you" and went straight to the bathroom to wash my hands.

What a strange encounter...

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If my mom reads this, she's gonna freak out.

The legend of the falls

2009-06-03T11:44:00.005+08:00

I have watched a lot of movies. Recently, I watched this classic again. It is one of those movies which I have watched countless times and still find it touching and captivating. I highly recommend it.

This movie easily ranks as one of the top, together with Shawshank Redemption. It is called "The legend of the falls".

A good movie is where the director makes every scene counts and every word spoken counts. This movie is a good movie.

I love good developed stories and character. Brotherhood, heroism, family, love and action. It has all of them. In a way, this movie reflects what would truly touch me as a person. This movie is a very 'guy' movie (there are too many 'girl' movies out there now anyway, e.g. high school musical, etc, always emphasizing the love in a 'girl' way). But it shouldn't put off the girls, as high school musical did not put off the guys. In fact, it is love as it is - in a very real way, and seeing it from a guy's point of view.

I love good developed character. To fall in love with a movie's character is not easy. The movie builds up the relationship of the three brothers with their father, and how happy their family is at an isolated ranch. Until it was tore apart by war, betrayal and love. But it was because the setting up of the heart-warming family during the early part of the movie, that made breaking up of the family in the later part of the movie seems so touching and real.

The father of the family loves his three sons very much. Yet, he's fierce and show little emotion at the same time. How the brothers and and father spoke so little, and yet show so much affection and respect for each other, especially towards the end of the movie, is exactly how love is shown in a guy way (If it were left to the director of high school musical, they would be hugging and jumping around).

Despite attaching so much male chauvinism to this movie, I would like to emphasize that this movie is not reserved for guys only. There's an excellent story-line and Brad Pitt. The movie is also a bit lengthy. But have a little patience, I'm confident it is well worth your time to watch this movie.

My views on the Perak 'crisis'.

2009-05-27T14:02:00.005+08:00

There's already enough articles on the net talking about this issue. Most of my friends, though, support the notion that BN was in the absolute wrong in the Perak crisis. I would like to disagree with them slightly on this issue. Although I detest the way BN handled the Perak crisis, it is the method which BN try to 'justify' their claims that I disagree, not the claim itself.

Technically, there is absolutely nothing wrong about claiming majority in Perak because the truth is BN DOES HAVE majority. You may not like how BN got its majority, but this doesn't change the fact and defection is perfectly legal, though it may not be ethical. They (the defectors) could do it (defect), though they should not have do it.

You may claim that 'the people' disagreed with these defections. But, the people had their chance in the last general election and we screwed it. Whether it's a deception or just bad luck, we voted and it turned out that we had 'bad eye-sight' and we misjudged the character of some of our representatives (note: we were wrong in the judgement of the person but not necessarily the party). Technically, it is absolutely not necessary to go through another election to decide whether the people does indeed disagree with the defections. Election is important, but this is not a process that we have to go through over and over again to settle disputes. At least, technically, this is not a requirement. Besides, the so-called people who disagreed with the defections are the 50+% people that voted for the opposition in the general election a year ago. Even if 55% agree with Pakatan, there'd still be 45% that disagree. Are those 45% not also 'people'? The opposition have always claim that democracy is not just about majority but also about the respect for the minority. And they should stop being a hypocrite now.

What that may have gone wrong is that BN was too impatient and couldn't wait to table the vote of no confidence. What may have gone wrong is that the Sultan of Perak has decided to act a bit too quickly. If BN just waited for the next meeting to table the vote of no confidence, none of this would have happened, and BN would have won it fair and square. But perhaps there is a good reason for BN to be impatient. 'Frogs' like to jump a lot. One day they can jump here, another day they can jump elsewhere. So it was perhaps important for them to seize the day.

Initially, I was very reluctant to write this post because BN already has enough ammunition against the Pakatan (BN controls police, the courts and the mainstream media), and I didn't want to add any more ammunition for a government that I did not vote for. But I figured, if n>>0, then n+1≈n. I'm that small and I probably wouldn't matter. =D

However, as I have said earlier, what I was totally disgusted was the manner which BN handled the so-called crisis. The way BN control the courts, the police, the mainstream media were totally disgusting. The confiscation of Pakatan's DVDs of the May 7 events but did nothing for BN's 'showcase' of the same thing days later was utter double standard; denying detainees the access to lawyers; dragging of the 'former' speaker of Perak, etc. All the detentions that has happened so far was absolutely unnecssary. What was the danger of these protests? Some was just a 20 person candlelight vigil, what possible harm could that cause to the 'harmony' of the country? BN is going to win the courtcase and Zambry is going to be the CM anyway. So these 'aggressions' were totally unnecessary but was only used as a 'shock-and-awe' strategy to intimidate the people and democracy.

Again, I reiterate - it was the means the our PM has sought to justify the claims that has disgusted me and make me wonder after this person's ethic and worry about our future since he is our leader for years to come.

Another question is that does the Sultan has the absolute power and discretion to refuse the CM's request to dissolve the assembly? Or to appoint a new CM once the former CM has ceased to command the confidence of the assembly?

I'm not a lawyer by profession. So I do not know if the Sultan does really have the abovementioned powers. But I do feel that the Sultan SHOULD NOT HAVE those powers. It's a no-brainer (my former Senior Manager's favourite words) that Malaysia is not a feudal or monarchy state. We are not ruled by the Kings and Queens. As much as we respect our Sultan, and appreciate the royalty as an integral part of our heritage and identity, it is clear that the Sultan's power to rule the country is and must only be symbolic. This is what constitutional monarchy system should be about.

If the Sultan has the power to refuse the CM's or PM's request to dissolve the assembly, then the Sultan would be in indirect control of the date of the elections. This is unacceptable under the principle of democracy or a nation ruled by the people, of the people and for the people. Election is an integral part of a modern democratic nation and it is not an overstatement to claim that election is the single thing that a democratic nation cannot do without. Election is the sole process where people are able to 'rule' the nation and it is the mechanism that most clearly differentiates us from the obsolete monarchy system of the past. The CM is elected by the people, and therefore has been entrusted by the people to decide when to dissolve the state assembly and call for the next election. The Sultan, on the contrary, isn't.

If the Sultan also has the power to elect a new CM, once the current CM has ceased to command the confidence of the assembly. Then this would mean that the Sultan will have, at its complete subjective discretionary, the power to decide whether one has ceased to command the confidence. This would be disaster for democracy. It would mean that the Sultan can just choose whoever to be our country's leader. Then how would this system differ from one of the feudal or monarchy state in our history books, which countless nations fought so hard to get-rid off? (In the history of Malaysia, this has never occured because we were colonised since 1511. But if we look at the history of France (French Revolution), China (the fall of the dynasties), U.K. (Oliver Cromwell), etc. this is not uncommon.)

I am of course not asking to get rid of our Sultan or the royalty. I have a lot of respect for the Sultan and the instituition. But I failed to understand his decision this time round but I'm sure he has his reasons for choosing to do so. However, other than saying that he has the right to do so, he has said so little else about his decision. I hope to hear more from him soon in the press.

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If you are unsure about what actually happened in Perak, refer to the comment I posted here.

Where's Einstein?

2009-05-14T09:11:00.005+08:00

Ever since I step foot onto Cambridge University, I've been asking myself this question. Where are all the Einstein?

Ok, there are smart students. Abundance of them. But I haven't met many people that I could use the word 'genius' on them.

That is, until, I stepped into the world-famous Cavendish Lab today. I talked to a handful of researchers there and immediately I knew that here's where all the "Einsteins" are. It's difficult to describe in exact words, but suffice to say that the people there are 'hard-core'. I need to hang out with them more...

(FYI, up to before this, I reserve the word 'genius' only for my friend Foong Yake Ho)

Gandhi alive and well in Malaysia!

2009-05-12T16:16:00.005+08:00

OMG.....

if there's another Mandela or Gandhi, I doubt that he/she is here in Malaysia.

Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years. Let's see him detained under ISA for 27 years and then tell me he's willing to continue his fight. Of course, it's easy for him to 'talk big'. BN MPs are virtually immune to ISA detention (or detention under any other draconian laws in Malaysia for this matter).

And FYI, Mandela fought against the Apartheid. But you leh, Mr. Zambry? You fought FOR, not against, the semi-apartheid regime that BN has believed in for so many years.

Nice try Zambry.

This is just like the conversation I just had with my friend Cash Chow (again). As mentioned before that he is a fanatic Newcastle fan. So much so that he puts his club above his current employer, DAP. But you see, today Newcastle has finally managed a win after a series of loses. This long awaited win clawed Newcastle (just barely) out of the relegation zone, but yet Cash Chow says, "we're back!" in a tone like they've qualified for UCL. I have just two words for you la....just like Zambry, you "talk big".

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In response to Zambry's suggestion that he is like Mandela/Gandhi here.

the mainstream media...

2009-05-10T22:50:00.002+08:00

Noticed something of late? The mainstream media has only excerpts of speeches and media conferences from BN...

Where did Pakatan's MPs go? Well, I think I know where they went... (it was censored, the so-called 'balanced' report from our minister la!)

Let me know if you feel otherwise, or if you noticed the same trend.

A joke on democracy...

2009-05-07T22:59:00.003+08:00

I don't understand why so many people are interested in the politics of middle east and the rising of China when politics in Malaysia is so much more "interesting".

This is a total freaking joke on democracy.

But like in the past, all crack-downs like this will soon be forgotten. I hope it won't be the same for this one. Let's remember May 7.