The first morning of ‘vacation’ started off with a run. However, It was my nose and not my legs that are doing it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, my throat went for the ‘perpetually parched’ feel and my head turned into a boat engine on full throttle. After a long bout of absence Mr. Flu finally came back from his own vacation and decided to pay me a visit. Shucks.
Looks like I’m going to spend the entire week home-bound…
For the uninitiated, refer to ‘Mahathir vs Badawi: Whose side are you on?’ comments section.
Firstly, I am getting tired of people pointing fingers at the government, poking holes in their arguments, condemning their policies and then call it a day! Don’t take this the wrong way for those of you who actively debate politics out there. Just hear me out before hitting back.
I understand the need to focus on the pertinent issues that need saying, for the reason of promoting awareness. There are ignorant people out there who need to know, for which I respect every one of those who actively tries to promote dialogue on politics especially on the ‘sensitive’ issues. However, I have the opinion that discussions should bring about a greater understanding and as I’m taught, scholarly discussions must fill in gaps in knowledge. Of course, this is no scholarly think tank or forum, but I’m sure that most of you would agree with me that our home country’s politics are closer to our hearts than just academic material so we should have the impetus to do more. That said, if you do care, and are willing to point out the problems, that’s good. Even better, why don’t you try coming up with solutions? All of us could be expert armchair critics, but how many of us could come up with ideas, or action? That would be great isn’t it? Now, on with the comments made (in particular the anonymous one).
Of course, I must admit I’m biased in favour of my friends, but I am particularly angered by racist comments made by anonymous. Let’s us try to correct the misconceptions. First, disillusioned_rebel had not proclaimed that he knew how the government works! Granted, he may sound like a primary source (hence disillusioned_rebel, maybe you might need to provide sources next time), but that is no grounds to assume that. But, I recognise that the tone and the style of the article did not help very much to dispel the notion so I won’t point fingers here.
But, I am offended by the suggestion that the quote "The internal split within Umno will weaken the party’s position and this will pave way for the Chinese Malaysians to make various demands to benefit their community" was not meant to be offensive. Don’t be ridiculous. This was a statement made in public, and any public figure that made statements in a gathering with the media present essentially made a PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT! Come on, even if it was meant to prevent infighting within UMNO, must really it be you Malays against them Chinese? By singling a race among all the other races in our multi-racial country as a threat, this is RACISM by DEFINITION! Let’s say the Americans did the same thing, but used African-Americans or Hispanics instead of Chinese. Or take Britain against their Muslim minority. I doubt that the minority would take it standing down, given the history of past events.
Oh yes, is it really the Chinese alone that works so hard to be wealthy? It may seem that way, but again, that’s just being RACIST! Oh, and I do remember that Ananda Krishnan and Tony Fernandes are not Chinese. Money is a basic necessity in life, so everybody will work for wealth! But yes, Chinese are more successful, but they deserve the effort that was poured into it right? It’s self perpetuating really. UMNO picks on the Chinese, the Chinese feels the greater need to succeed. The fault is both sides think too much for themselves, which is something that needs addressing.
The feeling about Hishammuddin by anonymous isn’t misplaced. I agree with that.
Why?
Because he too played the ‘Malay nationalist game’. Remember the keris wielding incident? Something said about ‘Hak Melayu tidak boleh dipersoal’? Dr. M played that card before too, but at least he made a U turn over time. Face it, they had to play the race card to gain support from the UMNO elite. The rest played along because of fear, peer pressure or they don’t care about it. Hmm, Malays get equal treatment as other races? Really? But I remember that Article 153 of the Constitution says otherwise.
For the cafe experiment, I worked at Starbucks before so I can say something about that. While there, I never bothered about who complains or who doesn’t. My stand is that they’re the customer. If the coffee is late, they deserve the right to complain as we’re in the wrong. Therefore, why keep score on who complains and who doesn’t when they’re merely pointing your mistakes? And if I may ask, where does race come into the picture?
Unsurprisingly, Merdeka Bargain comes out. Call it a bargain, compact, contract, covenant, deal or whatever, but my honest opinion is it’s blackmail. Granted, the Malays are feeling insecure at the time of Independence so this compromise was worked out. Given the alternative, the Chinese and Indian being declared persona non grata and then deported, with their worldly possessions stripped away I don’t suppose there is much of a choice to begin with. I would also point out that the statement ‘the deal was that they should never question about the Malay special rights’ is not entirely true. I beg to differ again. Please check your history notes. The Reid Commission made the recommendation that Article 153 be submitted for review 15 years after Independence. It has been 49 years post Independence and yet nothing has happened and the whole issue swept under the rug. Isn’t it ironic that almost half a century after we achieved freedom, at least a quarter of Malaysian born citizens do not get full ‘sons/princes of the Earth’ rights? They are every bit sons (and daughters) of Malaysia, yet treated as immigrants while history again tells us that most Malays themselves are immigrants too, who came to Malaysia 700 years earlier. Do we have to wait until 2700 before Malaysia will have racial equality? If so, then Vision 2020 of a truly progressive, multi-racial and harmonious Malaysia is in tatters and should really be Vision 2727?
Ultimately, this is not about wealth, this is not about race, this is not about creed. This is first and foremost a fundamental issue of equality. Even if it is true that Malay rights only exist in name, people will still feel a sense of inequality. If it really exists only in name, it can be abolished without harm to the country. As we have seen, the Malay establishment wants the status quo to remain, which means that the Malay rights are more than just 2 words. Short story, Malay rights sticks out like a sore thumb and no longer serves any useful purpose.
As I have said, I’m trying to correct the misconceptions so that we can move to new ground. Maybe it is a good idea to come up with a list of common misconceptions and then publish it somewhere. I’m sure places like Recom.org would be happy to accomodate it.
Thankfully, Tuesday’s the best day to blog (18 hrs straight of free time!) so here I am double and potentially triple posting. I came across this somewhere today (I think it was CNN, but it’s no longer available there so I grabbed it from CNBC) and nearly forgot to post this until I was working on a related piece.
Anyways, this concerns a matter which is undoubtedly familiar (and dear) to our hearts : The University Admissions Applications process. Ahhhh yes, the very mention of that brings back gushing emotions of indecision, anxiety, fear, last-minute panicking and whatever stress related emotion that you can think of. Question: ‘Do you think the entire process is flawed?’ Ok, I don’t think I get a lot of yea, raised hands and nods here. Ok, let’s rephrase it again. Question : ‘Do you think the entire process is flawed in the sense that it is overtly successful?’ Aha, this is more like it. We should know best, since we’re ‘fresh’ from the roller coaster trip. From personal experience, I knew almost exactly what was going to happen, but admittedly it was still hard to endure the wiggling worms in your stomach having to wait. We all know the process is fundamentally wrong somehow right? At last, some one at the top came to realise that.
MIT Dean of Admissions, Marilee Jones had gone through the same process with her 18 year daughter, and has decided to try and change the system for the better. BTW, what’s with women clustering at the top of the admissions food chain? Not to say that it’s bad, but I guess Nancy Hopkins has done a pretty good job of revamping the whole picture. To really understand what’s she’s fighting for, go here for the article. Let’s see if Marilee Jones could pull off an equivalent stunt. She has clout, but unlike gender equality her cause is more ambiguous, hence more difficult. All the same, let’s hope she will prevail. 
P.S. : If Nancy Hopkins sounded familiar to the biology students out there, it should be. She’s mentioned in Campbell & Reece Biology 6th Edition (somewhere in the genetics section I believe) where she talked about zebrafishes and gender equality. However, I might be wrong in the details because I last touched that book almost a full year ago. 
That is the statement that I believe resonates deeply with my life and studies here in S’pore. On the macro scale we can see how LKY’s social Darwinism policies for the country (and vestiges of British colonialism) have both Oriental and Western influences at play. Can’t really say if kiasuism meets individuality is all bad or all good for now so I’ll reserve judgement for now.
On the educational front, NUS’s Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Science jointly offered the Engineering Science degree which I’m doing right now. In retrospect, it’s a bit foolish considering the Hell I’m currently in. One problem is when they tried to meld the British and American system, it’s a hell of a problem for those of us that likes projects only or exams only (as shown by how we all bickered over the marking breakdowns for our modules). Since they want their graduates to know everything, it’s double trouble for us since they want to make us ‘engineer-scientists’. The caveat: we’re almost finished with Mechanics and coming to Waves (which means our mid term test might be equivalent to Mechanics module finals!), Advanced Calculus Project on Hermite Polynomials is a headache (anybody, just anybody who dabbled with it either in Mathematics, Quantum Physics or Statistics talk to me!!!!). Organic chem? Our lecturer is like the Energiser bunny in coming up with Chem notes and questions, but thankfully she knows when to give us the week off. 
Maybe HKUST really stands for HK University of Stress and Timeout after all. Another fun part was listening to our Computing lecturer describing how his professors grew horns and turned into devils when the time came for grading assignments in his days at KTH (Sweden). Moral of the story? Just make sure your wonderful users NEVER EVER GET THE CHANCE TO INPUT STUFF LIKE ‘- monkey’ or ‘10^30’ or ‘1,000!’ into your programme!!!!
Studies aside, the facilities here are undoubtedly excellent. Not that it was unexpected though. It’s a slightly worse deal for my residence room though (which has a cell-like quality to it), and my cluster mates are not perfect (accents makes it harder to understand things, and my wonderful Swedish mate drank a wee bit too much and caused a bit of a fuss in the wee hrs of the morning). However, the blessing in disguise is I don’t have to devote my time to hall activities which as you can imagine, the lazy pig in me cackles with joy (which helps offset the >50hrs of coursework weekly). Is it a weird manifestation of relativity, where essentially space got traded for time? What else? We get our own ESP conference room cum computer lab cum lecture room cum tutorial room cum exam room cum student lounge cum mini-library. It’s not perfect, but it’ll do for now. Hehe, ‘integrated’ is the exact word to describe ESP, IMO. Can’t wait till we relocate to the future Residence College, but that’s in 2010. 
There’s a problem of us having classes at FoE, but some of the lecturers at FoS, so that’s the worse of two worlds. Everything is not in the same place!
Now, for a bit of USP (University Scholars Programme). I had my own misgivings about the whole thing at first but it turned out to be quite interesting, for now. I didn’t get to take the module I wanted (Danger and Security), but I ended up somewhere nice still (Questioning Evolution and Progress). Just reached Unit 2, so can’t critique LKY and S’pore’s policies just yet. In the meantime, Units 1 and 2 are very very interesting. Unit 1 has Darwin, Nordau, Galton and Lankester while Unit 2 has Lawrence, Hardy, a touch of Austen, maybe Nieztsche and a few others. As you can see, the keyword’s ‘multi-disciplinary’ since it examines Darwinism in biology, society, literature and eventually politics. Much to learn, but it was fun too! And so, a nice twist is that I’m dabbling in a study of Victorian society and S’porean politics taught by a Brit here in S’pore. Typical rojak isn’t it?
Best of all, I think I have my lecture notes problem solved. Last time, I had to print them in the USP Multimedia Lab using a cash card. That solved my queuing problem (heh heh heh, I don’t need to be a sucker to print them at Central Library), but not my cash problem. I’m happy to announce that it’s solved. ESP gave us a laser printer to use! Thank goodness! There’s just this little problem of no printing paper, but I know of someplace where they keep stacks of printing paper in plain sight. So, free paper + free printer = blissful joy + more $$$! Muahahahahaha!!!! I hear you people going … , but then silence is golden isn’t it?
Been struggling really hard to keep afloat with all the incessant bombardment of work, but I’m getting addicted to youtube.com thanks to the wonderful speeds of broadband in campus. Oh whattaheck, I’ve already screwed up my first test, so don’t carela.
This one’s for the documentary lovers out there. If you want to get freaked out by real life threats to humanity, watch this:
What’s the best part about this? You don’t need to spend 8 bucks to go to the movies and watch a senseless horror movie. : P To assuage your fears, most of the events explored here has negligible probabilities of occurring so you shouldn’t lose any sleep over this. That is, with the notable exception of global warming and climate change.
It basically covers some of the potential Extinction Level Events (10 in total in this documentary) that we may face in the future, such as supervolcanoes, global warming, gamma-ray bursts to the classic asteroid impact.
The documentary features notable experts (more like celebrities) in their respective fields such as Dr. James E. Hansen (NASA lead climate scientist who complained of government interference in science), Professor Michio Kaku (theoretical physicist whose books are freaking expensive!), Dr. Seth Shostak (SETI Institute Senior Astronomer who regularly writes for SPACE.com), Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium who was voted the "sexiest astrophysicist alive" by People Magazine in 2000), Al Gore (come on, you guys should know him!) and many many more. In short, it’s kind of a crash course if you ever need to write about the environment and astrophysical events.
It’s divided into 13 unequal parts (don’t quite understand why they need so many partitions) so it’s going to be a bit messy trying to watch it all. Plus, it’s not continuous for some reason but I think it covered the major parts. If you want to continue watching, go here and find the rest of the documentary in the sidebar here. Have fun!
P.S. On the subject of global warming, Leonardo DiCaprio is among the big Hollywood stars who actively campaigns on environment-related issues. There is a Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and their site features a couple of videos featuring Leonardo DiCaprio narrating on environmental issues (’Global Warming‘ and ‘Water Planet‘). Now who says that environmental activism is only for queers and geeks? Everybody can play a part! And have I mentioned Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’?
Simply put, Pluto is Now Just a Number: 134340.
While getting my regular fix of Half-Life comics at hlcomic.com, I found out that some magazine editor used the Internet to propose at JayPinkerton.com. Just another example of how much the cyber aether has pervaded our daily lives. Look, people even use SMS to divorce now. Um, nevermind the conflicting examples, just get the point I’m trying to illustrate.
From the looks of it, here are the pros and cons:
Pros-You don’t need to embarass yourself by getting on one knee with a Platinum ring topped off with a diamond in a romantic atmosphere (eg: something in the realm of impossiblilty like by the seaside over candlelit dinner with the full moon hovering in the dark, cloudless, starry night) to beg. Plus, you win points in impressing by making the proposal public on the World Wide Web. Oh, and you get to save money by not having to get the said ring and setting up the elaborate romantic setting. Best of all, you’ll know how often she visits your website.
Cons-You don’t impress by not getting on one knee with a Platinum ring topped off with a diamond in a romantic atmosphere (eg: something in the realm of impossiblilty like by the seaside over candlelit dinner with the full moon hovering in the dark, cloudless, starry night) to beg. Doing it this way won’t save you from the humiliation if you got rejected. If she doesn’t visit your website at all, it’s gonna be awkward, don’t you think so? Lastly, no ring. Enough said.
P.S. : Whoever who reads this and decides to do the same thing in the future, keep this in mind. One, PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK! Two, if you do try this out and it fails, my head is not yours for the taking to pay for the failure. However, if it actually works I shall claim secondary credit for introducing the idea to you. Three, while you’re typing the proposal, SPELL THE NAME CORRECTLY!
Stephen Robert Irwin (22 February 1962 – 4 September 2006) 
Image courtesy of theage.com.au
The Dasyatids finally achieved what others (snakes, crocodiles etc etc) cannot do. Steve Irwin, the Australian naturalist bit the dust (ironically, in the ocean) today no thanks to a stingray barb to the chest. Ouch. Now look here Mr. (or Mrs.) Stingray, that’s not very helpful in promoting consevation efforts. Didn’t somebody tell you guys killing the missionaries that came to study you is a no-no? Oh well, at least you didn’t try to eat him.
I must confess that I don’t watch his documentaries but like the space shuttles, they have been doing their jobs so well that we forget how dangerous the nature of the mission is until something tragic happens. It’s a sad end to be killed by your passion, but tribute goes to his dying in the ‘line of duty’, the fight to bring an end to public ignorance of nature by making tonnes and tonnes of documentaries. Heartfelt condolences and RIP.
Tongue-in-cheek eulogy aside, whoever it was must be congratulated for his wit on Wikipedia. Read Jie Cuang’s post ‘Blooper on wiki’ to see what I mean. The remark has been removed from Wiki btw. Steve, hope you wouldn’t mind this little joke at your expense. We’re counting on your exuberant nature to laugh with us in your memory. If you find my comments inappropriate and/or heartless and/or insensitive, then I offer my sincere apologies.
P.S. : If you’re wondering why people are putting the tortoise emoticon in their Live Messenger nicks, it’s because people wanted to pay tribute to Steve, but couldn’t find a crocodile emoticon. So, a tortoise would have to do. lol!
All right, I am seriously close to being zombiefied. So far, I managed to fit into a ‘sleep properly once in 3 days’ routine. Sleep is truly a luxury.
Oh yea, I was attending the National Youth Environment Forum today at SMU all day. I’ve been attending on average 3 such events weekly, which is getting very very tiring. If I get 1 CCA points per event, it’ll be great but unfortunately there’s no such thing.
It’s essentially presentations on some environmental issues, then split into separate caucus groups and then back together for joint Q&A before concluding with a speech (what else?). I was in the Energy and Climate Change caucus group, which was interesting because an official from the Ministry of Environment was there. She was there to use us as a think tank to formulate ideas for new environmental policies. Of course, you bet we gave our best to throw ideas at them.
One interesting observation is my fellow caucus members are very keen on spending more on energy to make available alternative sources of energy. Noble intentions aside, I wonder what their parents would have to say about that. Another interesting thing is some Singaporeans are actually in favour of using nuclear energy, but there is significant giggle factor attached to it). Granted, it’s a possible solution, but with the drawbacks being namely a huge price tag, all the devils of nuclear fission and Malaysia freaking out, I think it’s a difficult path. According to the MoE official, carbon sequestration is not feasible, plus my personal estimate that wind, solar and hydro energy is not going to be adequate means that Singaporeans may have to end up with a nuclear reactor or beam energy from satellites down from space. Some choice indeed. Further discussions will be needed to see if that is really the case, but I’ll be waiting to see if the Singapore Institute of International Affairs will form a youth discussion group. I’ve always wanted to see how a think tank works anyway. In the meantime, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Anyhow, something happened during the event that really scared me. We were going through the findings of the other caucus groups in the conference hall and I was checking my organiser for next weekend’s schedule when suddenly I heard some noise that sounded like it came right out of Ju-On, but it was gradually increasing in frequency. I looked up from my pda and down towards the source of the sound. To my surprise and horror, the NUS Professor who was there to present on Energy and Climate Change was having a seizure just two seats away! The first thought was ‘Spoon’, but I was in a grip of paralysis (seriously, one moment he was all right, the next he was convulsing!) at that time and I just sat there stunned until somebody else mentioned that aloud. Then, I just left with most of the participants because crowding around would not accomplish anything, and I’m not trained in first aid. Somebody got a pack of tissue and jammed it between his teeth. Someone else actually took out a handphone with a Si case to volunteer it, but IMHO it would have probably filled his mouth with bits and pieces of electronic components which would make things worse. He was whisked off to hospital minutes later and we continued the session, but my concentration was totally lost for the better part of the hour. Hopefully he’s all right now, and it wasn’t stress getting to him.
Just in case you happen to be in my shoes in the future, I checked and I discovered that sticking a spoon in the mouth wouldn’t do much good (it’s something like an urban myth). Best to keep the person away from harmful objects and keep his passageways open. Try to get the person to relax (if person is aware of surroundings) and avoid people crowding around the person. Other than that there are perks like free food, shirt, drinks and great discussions. Yes, people do ask simple questions, but you have to really give them credit that they dared to ask it publicly in the first place. Great place to check your facts, and see if there are any alternative POVs. I’m not a Singaporean, but it’s a good time as any to contribute to our host country. Besides, environmental issues are a global problem, so anyplace is a good place to start with. Here, I decided it’s probably wiser to let people think that I’m Singaporean (it’s a piece of cake to blend in anyway). So except for my ESP-USP coursemates that were there, the rest were clueless. The ideas aren’t exactly laypeople friendly, plus there were so many ideas that it’ll fill a few pages if I’m going to post them here.
