What if the US used sex bombs to invade Iraq? What if the scientists who are doing so much research into developing high-tech weapons, instead spend that effort into producing sex bombs? Imagine, instead of Sensor Fuzed Weapons (SFW), we have Sex Crazed Hottie (SFH)? Imagine instead of having millions of unexploded cluster bombs left out in the open spaces harming many civilians, we have millions of ever willing sensor-fuzed sex bombs roaming around our bedrooms, ready to explode upon sensing our urges.
Common offerings at food stalls in Terengganu. Plenty in Batu Buruk beach, Kuala Terengganu. You'll never miss this in any pesta, carnival, festival, and other public events in Kuala Terengganu.
Nuggets, sausages and beef patties (burger) are actually made of loads of animal fat and skin. That explains why these taste so good and yummy. I believe the so-called fish balls and sotong balls are flavoured flour with loads of MSG. Eat at your own health risk.
Cheap or expensive, street or elegant, all clothes look their best in a crumpled pile by the bedside in the morning.
Ask the Terengganu people who flock the Terengganu Carnival where affordable wears almost dress up the whole carnival. Clothing stalls are the dominant feature of every carnival, pesta or expo in Kuala Terengganu. Here's where you can get all the clothes your four wives will ever need.
So really, in the end, what you wear does not matter.
Think Rio - think Brazilian babes in birthday suits.
Think Terengganu Carnival - what comes to mind? Beautiful islands, kites, turtles, kerepok lekor, sun, sand sea, surf and cool coconut water. A carnival in Terengganu would not be complete without hot girls in sexy batik silk blowing in the wind. Somehow, the carnival is incomplete. So, sorry guys - no shots to take, so no pictures to show.
Next time, think Terengganu Carnival, think SIRIM selling pau. If you check out the gloomy, poorly lit SIRIM stall at the carnival, you'll probably discover something more fulfilling than pau. Something like what you may find in those glitzy hair salon. Given the twisted, wickedly convoluted politics in our country, anything can happen.
But SIRIM selling pau in a gloomy stall begs taxpayers to get answers to one big question. What are we getting from the well-paid scientists in SIRIM? Literally Permanent Head Damage?
I'm trying to imagine the scenario whereby, while grinding and pounding like a piston at high speed towards seventh heaven, your hardware fails. Bursa Malaysia CEO, Datuk Yusli Mohamed Yusoff, told a press conference yesterday (3-Jul) that the suspension of two trading sessions was due to “hardware failure”. And according to him, such technical glitches are "normal market risks" and "is a purely technical issue". Can we say hardware failure is a normal F*^%@ risk?
Bursa's CIO, Yew Kim Keong, said "the back-up system had taken longer than expected to start yesterday due to additional measures adopted to ensure trading integrity. It is our policy (to ensure) that not more than a third of the brokers are unable to connect to the central trading system.”
Blame it on the system!!! That's what I used to do and I thought it's the best excuse you can ever give to your boss or your customer or your supplier when you owe them. But now Bursa's CEO and CIO use the same excuse!!! I thought the higher-up people with such designations are more intelligent than me.
Isn't it people who built the system and maintain it?
Given what Yew said, if you're intent on grinding non-stop to seventh heaven, make sure your system is not "HP Non-Stop Hardware, which was commonly used by exchanges around the world".
“Most importantly is the loss of credibility," said Malaysian Investors Association president Datuk P.H.S. Lim, in responsed to the system breakdown.
Guys, make sure you have a backup penis in case your hardware breakdown while at it. With a loss of credibility, the only ones you could have sex with would be people at Bursa Malaysia.
It's now obvious why divorce rate in Malaysia is as high as France's. Not that we can speak of France's culture in the same breathe as we speak of Malaysia's. Tan Sri Bernard Dompok had a one night stand with Tan Sri Leo Moggie till they got their arses blistered, but not by the infamous buttman, Dato Seri AI.
Leo Moggie didn't make any statement? Why? Isn't it obvious that he owe his living to the BN? So Bernard Dompok spoke up. Why? My guess is that Leo Moggie gave Bernard Dompok a blow job in return for him to do the talking.
Why is Bernard Dompok raising the demand now? I'll stick to the conspiracy theory for my answer. The Prime Minister or his people gave a blow job each to Bernard Dompok, Leo Moggie and Federick Lojingki in return for them to play lead roles in the "Sabah, Sarawak Demand More" drama.
It seems so real - such fine acts. But they missed the most telling evidence of a fake - Bernard Dompok, Minister in PM Dept. How convenient. In these trying times for the BN, succeeding at main wayang-wayang is critical success factor.
Now, here's an alternative religion that I've created to prevent incidents like rape and illicit sex as well as to safeguard the morals and dignity of women in Kelantan. And the gods are between the legs. Every time you look up to the heavens in prayer, you get RM500.00. That's the equivalent amount of the fine imposed by the Kota Bharu municipal council if you wear thick make-up, bright coloured lipstick and high-heeled shoes which made a tapping sound. Convert and be rewarded now!
Here's the real deal!!! 73,000 Malaysians have it. In 2006, 5,400 Malaysians got it. Based on current trends, by 2015, 300,000 Malaysians will have it. 36% of them are amongst people aged between 13 to 29 years old. It is likely that people who found out that they got it before the age of 30, actually got it in their twenties and sometimes even during their teens. What's this "it"? Nah, too dirty a word to mention.
This is one AWESOME video!!! Full length of the infamous "Girls Gone Wild" videos which ruthlessly exploit the sexual imprudence of American college girls. The age of the non-procreative union is here and discerns the signs of a new counter-culture.
In our sex-saturated culture, we pay homage to the Terengganu man who, after siring 25 children with 3 wives, has taken a 4th wife with whom he intends to produce another 15 children. The archetype of modernity is no more the young women who take on opportunities to flaunt their attributes and prove that they are "sex positive", but the "bertudung" ones who'll be 2nd, 3rd, or 4th wife. In this new culture, we liberate young women from the constructs of patriarchal society (where fathers guard their daughters) to a, perhaps, more incestuous alternative. Watch this video and say bye-bye to MTV sexual exhibitionism.
This is the Empurau fish, of the white species (there are 2 other species - red and black). Found upstream in fast flowing Sarawak rivers with clear clean rock-bottom waters (major rivers in Kapit, Belaga, Limbang, Lawas and Ulu Baram). Catch for the family table weighs 2 - 10kg, but can grow up to 30kg, tho rare nowadays. Feeds on certain type of flowers and fruit - ensurai and engkabang trees. Dwindling in numbers. Only on a vey lucky day can you catch one - like striking a lottery ticket prize.
Very, very tasty, flesh with tinge of sweetness. Juicy in its own oil. Best cooked steam. Most yummy fish. Way, way tastier than the common salmon, cod, tuna or others. Even the scales are soft, sweet to eat.
Guess how much it costs.
RM300 - RM450 per Kg from the kampong fisherman, depending on which part of the river. RM500 - RM1,000 per Kg from the middleman. Served at RM1,000 - RM1,500 per Kg in selected chinese restaurant.
According to Dr Elli Luhat, the empurau is found mainly in trans-Himalayan countries like Nepal, Afghanistan and all the way to Burma. It is known as “mahseer” in some of these countries.
Said to be the king of the Himalayan rivers. Locally, the Semah, which is of the same family, is often mistaken as the Empurau. The Empurau's long median lobe on the lower lips distinguishes it from the Semah.
The empurau’s population is dwindling due mainly to indiscriminate logging. It has been successfully bred for the first time at the Tarat Inland Fisheries Station in Serian. This breakthrough is the result of three years of collaboration between the Fisheries Division and Deakin University headed by Prof. Sena De Silva.
Contact Dr Elli (+60.13.8289795 or ordrelliluhat@gmail.com), for conservation and breeding of empurau.
How is that the guys in the adult movies can last for hours before reaching orgasm? It's movie magic, stupid! But even in the live performances (go Europe), the guys seem to last forever.
This post is for the poor guys who can't last even a minute (normal is over 7 minutes). At the same time, it's also for the fathers who want to make baby girls or baby boys. What' the relationship? It's my theory to explain why there seems to be more girls than boys. I see more women than men in my office, I see more women driving on the roads in Kuala Terengganu than there are men, and certainly there are more females in schools, colleges and universities in our country.
For Fathers Day, I'll stick to absurdity and sexiness - how long you last determines if you'll get a baby girl or baby boy. No, you don't need the expensive high-tech techniques. Check to make sure I'm correct here.
The acidity or alkalinity of a woman's vagina is very important in determining baby boy or girl. An acidic environment favours girls, since it will kill the weaker male sperm first and leave a greater number of X sperm (female) to fertilise the egg. So, if you are trying for a boy, a good time for intercourse is when the vaginal balance changes to alkaline - on the day the woman ovulates, or ensure that she orgasms first before you do. Orgasms play a role in determining the sex of a child - the female orgasm. A woman’s body releases a substance that rises alkaline levels when she orgasms. Boys are produced much quicker when there are higher levels of alkaline.(so the explanation for the apparent more-female-than-male phenomena is perhaps because our women don't orgasm enough or because many men now don't last long enough for the women to orgasm).
Fathers, on this Fathers Day, if you want to make baby boys or just want to last as the guys in the movies do, check this drug, Dapoxetine, and this spray, the TEMPE Spray. Don't get over-excited yet. The drug and the spray are yet to be released. If you can't wait, these drugs are in use - Anafranil, Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil.
Craigslist In Kuala Terengganu, you can't find any classifieds in any newspaper or ads in any 7-Eleven Community Board on room or house for rent. I scouted the city and suburbs, but not a single notice on any unoccupied house if it's for rent. But, in many US cities, Craigslist is the best way to get a job, find an apartment, buy furniture or get a date. It's not flashy or slick, but you won't see any commercial ads here, and the Best Of section is not to be missed.
To me the attractiveness of this creation is that the classifieds are not edited. Another attraction, too, is the anonymity of the Internet - so now I get to shed some inhibition. Some landlords and apartment dwellers looking for roommates are offering to accept sex in lieu of rent on Craigslist. There's an ad offering a room in exchange for "sex and light office duty." Another, a one-bedroom pool house is free "to a girl that is skilled and willing." Yet another ad, a USD700-a-month room is available at a discount to a fit female willing to provide sex. I just wonder if these guys really get to collect rent under the sheets. But it gives me some absurd Father's Day idea.
I got two empty rooms in Kuala Terengganu and now that I could shed some inhibition, I'm thinking of taking a little adventure with this form of voyeurism and hope that it does result in an actual exchange of sex for rent. I'll use the local Terengganu term - homestay, instead of house for rent. Guys, when you see an ad that goes like this, let the hot chicks know: "Athletic MBA Man offering attractive Homestay package in Kuala Terengganu. RM500 per day, negotiable for attractive and willing young females. Offer expires after Fathers Day". Should I change the tag for this post to something sexy and absurd?
Google Maps I could find, with ease, my way to Kampong Biawak, Lundu, Sarawak with this Google Map on my HTC TyTN II phone. People said I could get fish, fresh from the fishermen's boat a Pulau Kambing in Kuala Terengganu. I located the place on Google Map on my phone and got my fresh fish just as they landed from the sea at the Pulau Kambing jetty. Google's Street View brought a new dimension to mapping this year, offering users real-life images from ground level.
Yelp.com At Yelp, customers write critical appraisals of everything from theaters to public restrooms. It's the "wisdom of the crowd" in action. Does anyone know if we have something similar here in Malaysia, comprehensive, reliable? If so, it means we Malaysians have moved one level up from being mere consumer of internet-based info to providers of good content.
NYTimes.com So much have been said about how this grand old newspaper reinvented itself. It has crafted a strong, user-friendly online presence spiced with engaging interactive graphics and first-rate news video. Check this out to see how brilliant the online presence has been designed to give us such an awesome online experience. Our local thestar.com.my is almost there, I think. But the poor guys in RTM, Media Prima and NSTP's www.emedia.com.my continues to remain latecomers, if they ever get to survive the next few years. http://www.nytimes.com/
Sidestep SideStep scans more than 200 other travel-focused Web sites, looking for low-priced flights, hotels, rental cars and cruises. The bottom line: It's surprisingly effective at finding deals. It's a great model. Somehow, I haven't found a low-priced deal that low-priced enough for an average Malaysian like me.
Digg Digg continues to serve denizens of the Web as the most reliable barometer of must-read news on the Internet. Another interesting idea.
Flock On Father's Day when you get sick of having to surf to all your favorite sites and services, get Flock. Flock integrates Facebook updates, Twitter feeds, YouTube videos, Flickr photo streams, Gmail and Yahoo Mail and blogging tools into a single navigation (and browsing) interface. Read a review here.
The coming Wet n Tech Camp will again be a time for adults to exercise effective skills in nurturing young people in an informal setting. We have seen too many programs targeting young people, but fail to involve them in building life-skills. Take the National Service program for example. Would it not benefit the young people if they are involved in the designing, planning, running and evaluation of the program activities? Wouldn't they at least learn about planning and leadership by being involved that way? Have you seen how the adults communicate with the participants?
Often, we adults talk down to children. It's almost a natural thing to do and our children grow up to do the same thing. We lecture and preach to children. We talk to them condescendingly or without respect, judge their actions, force our own values unto them, use punishment or anger, and make their questions seem silly.
Experiences from raising 6 children (I'm sure you have your experiences to share), combined with community sevice work involving children, here's some positive adult-children communication that may help improve how we get along with young people. It's no different from the communication skills we need in the office. But it takes us to change our own way of relating to young people:
1. Listen and ask questions. 2. Understand the problem or issue. 3. Give facts and correct information. 4. Be able to say, "I don't know". 5. Share your values. 6. Be patient. 7. Share your faith. 8. Respect their opinions. 9. Assure confidentiality and build trust. 10. Share alternatives and options. 11. Give choices. 12. Develop their decision-making skills. 13. Give guidance to live long, healthy lives. 14. Help them identify their feelings and opinions. 15. Build their confidence and self-esteem.
Facilitators of the Wet n Tech Camp, as usual, will need to exercise this communication skill. These may also be especially useful when communicating about family issues, sexuality and growing pains with young people.
Buying new phones now may not be a good idea. No, not because of the fuel price hike. Apple just launched its new 3G iPhone, priced at USD199 (previous iPhone retailed at USD399) and will be available first in 70 countries (not Malaysia, yet).
For those who can't wait for iPhone's availability in Malaysia, we have two iPhone killers worth owning, but yet to be available. 1. Nokia's Tube 2. Samsung's Instinct
With the iconic iPhone redefining the user experience in mobile phones, Nokia and Samsung have been toiling away with touch-based competitors to the iPhone. Both touted by critics as iPhone killers. (From my experience, nothing comes close to Apple's user experience). Tube is Nokia's first touch device, powered by the new Symbian operating system with built-in Java support (iPhone does not support Java, but Sun has announced will port JVM to iPhone).
Samsung Instinct has a touch screen (smaller than iPhones) featuring localized tactile feedback, called haptics, which allow the virtual QWERTY keypad and other operations to become a sensory experience. It has features like Visual Voicemail, allowing users to listen to messages in their order of preference and manage them with a simple tap of the screen. It also provides support for (POP3) email, multitasking capabilities that allow the user to play music in background mode while surfing the Internet, texting or playing games, a 2.0 megapixel camera with camcorder and expandable microSD memory of up to 8GB. It also includes a Global Positioning System chip. Does it have a feature that enables one to have more sex?
Kampong Biawak, Lundu, Sarawak is home to the Selakau people, a Dayak group. It's a border village. You can get across to Kalimantan on a day pass. Across the border is the other half of the kampong.
I spent the first day of Gawai, 1st June, visiting open houses here and enjoyed the rest of the day at open houses in Lundu, moving on to Bau district to the villages of Kpg Opar, Kpg Serasot and Kpg Stass.
Of all th kampongs, Kpg Biawak is a deep contrast to the others. Even after 50 years of independence, the people of Kpg Biawak continue to commute on dusty gravel road, an improvement from the earthen road.
It's no wonder that more and more people are demanding change. For me, that change means that the boss of Petronas must be a Sarawakian, that Sarawak decides how the revenues are spent. That change means instead of giving out oil revenue royalty, the Federal Government must now request for from Sarawak and justify for revenues for its expenditures.
Here is the new, more acceptable Six Sigma logo. "Quality is like sex. Everyone wants it, but few people get it", that's what a friend and one-time mentor (now CEO of MyBiz) once said. I have never been able to dispute that. There are just as many sex therapists as there are quality management gurus to remedy the many who fail to have sex and companies that fail in quality management. The companies I work for all fail their quality programs and for me, it's always the other guys who have all the luck with the hot chicks. Both quality and sex have many terms by which people refer to them - Six Sigma, QCC, Shag, Copulate for example. Both quality and sex have so many stuffs written about them and there are just as many 101 Ways of Enjoying Sex books, articles and websites as there are 101 Ways of Improving Quality in Your Company books. More similarities:
1. I don’t “get” either one. 2. They both have a measure phase. 3. People have used both to pay their bills. (pls check with Motorola if people have used sex to pay their Six Sigma bills). 4. Exciting at first, then disappointing. 5. Lies, myths and exaggerations are rampant. 6. They both make me sleepy.
One difference between the two - in business institutions there are quality programs such as Six Sigma program or QCC, but we don't have sex programs in our marriage institutions. Another difference - after the initial arousal and excitement, quality programs die off without ever reaching climax, but with sex and good play you can get multiple orgasm and spiritual fulfillment.
Lesson from experience - use of the term "Sex Sigma" (or similar terms) to describe a Six Sigma quality program indicates the term users have rejected the Six Sigma program. If you start hearing such terms around your company, then you can conclude your Six Sigma program is being rejected within your company.
When that happens, it is time to use a more acceptable logo (such as the one shown above) for your Sex Sigma program. With sex being the most searched topic on the Internet by Malaysians, you can't go wrong with Sex Sigma as a successful program in your company.
These people certainly know where the best Gawai is - always in Singai. The Super Bikers, the former diplomat (diplomats are the biggest party people I know), the UNDP folks, all the children and even the poor boy who got sick through out the holidays.
Think of Terengganu, you think of beaches and turtles. When I think of beaches, I think of all things associated with it - sunshine, sea, sand and bikini-clad unidentified female objects. And really, that's what I came to Terengganu for - hot, sexy bikini-clads.
So far, I've never found any. But here's the closest I could get to my fantasy - girls trying to fly kites on the beach. I learnt that if you do not know how to fly kites, try wearing the kites instead. You could make the kites look good.
Another lesson - forget the bikini-clads. Instead, hang around the hotel's jacuzzi coz' you could get lucky shots for your blog.
As for the turtles, they're nowhere to be found, perhaps because they too don't see any bikini-clads on the beaches. Don't you see why the SUKOM 2008 mascot, Si Diman, is a fish? No matter how educated or how religious we are, we continue our despicable inhumane acts of destroying our environment and cause the extinction of God's wonderful creations like the leatherback turtles. Some redemption can be here and you'll find more serious fun, bare naked with nature here.
These are my angels. One of them is a Japanese. He's the only one who loves durian and I thought that's amazing. Even more amazing - as warriors, they're not wearing their keris.
The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) mission is: To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves. The target group: The nearly two–billion children in the developing world who are inadequately educated, or receive no education at all. The means to the end: A project to build and distribute a small, simple, robust and sub USD100 laptop that would revolutionise life for the poor by educating their children - or, in the most idealistic version, allowing them to educate themselves by playing with the software.
I'm reminded of OLPC upon visiting the Intel booth and surprised that it is apparently still alive. Even more surprised that our Ministry of Education is running the pilot in 10 schools. We had the Smart Schools MSC Flagship Application that drained hundreds of millions of taxpayers money without any results to show. Then came the Education Blueprint. Now this.
OLPC was launched in Jan-2005 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland by founder, Nicholas Negroponte of MIT Media Lab. It was endorsed by Kofi Annan, Rupert Murdoch, Presidents of Brazil, Nigeria and 20 or more countries that announced their intention to buy. Several hundred thousand of the laptops have actually been delivered, mostly in Peru. Reportedly, no one knows exactly where.
Critics say it was an expensive gimmick. In places like my kampong that can hardly afford pens and pencils for their schools, it is not obvious that a USD100 laptop for every child is the answer to mass illiteracy. Read the blog of a OLPC senior executive who quit this year, Ivan Krsti, after he was sent out to Peru to oversee the distribution of the some 40,000 laptops in about 570 schools there. He describes "across jungles, mountains, plains, and with total variance in electrical availability and uniformly no existing network infrastructure. A number of the target schools are in places requiring multiple modes of transportation to reach, and that are so remote that they're not even serviced by the postal service. Laptop delivery was going to be performed by untrusted vendors who are in a position to steal the machines en masse. There is no easy way to collect manifests of what actually got delivered, where, and to whom."
Even if the laptops reach the schools they are supposed to reach, there is no evidence at all that they will actually help children to learn. Lets learn to learn. Lets learn lessons from our not-so-successful Smart Schools project that emphasized computers. It takes a leap of faith to believe that children learn better through computers than books.
The last I report I read the OLPC is going down. The collapse of the scheme higlights the falsity of the believe that IT alone can lift people out of poverty. Knowledge may, but the technology that spreads knowledge best is literacy, not laptops. Supporters say that the laptop enables people to have access to more information via the Internet allowing them to tap into a vast reserve of knowledge - e.g. Wikipedia. But how much information does a person need to consume to have sustainable livelihood? Though the Internet gives you access to information, but so does a good textbook.
How is a laptop more efficent than a book? Textbooks require no power, don't need winding up or solar cells, they can be passed to the next kid when it is finished with. They only use sustainable trees in their construction, and are cheap.
And what can a unsustainable laptop teach that a book cannot? Only IT skills, and I'd imagine that an agriculture community like my kampong, Singai, in Sarawak, does not have IT top of the survival skillset.
I'm 40 something and the Internet wasn't there to impact on my secondary education. I'm sure none of my forty something colleagues would regard our education as woefully deficient.
Not that I want to generalise, but back in my kampong school in remote Sarawak, we studied English lit with 10 copies of the novel to be split between about 60 kids. In that situation, at least, a laptop for every child would have been laughably irrelevant.
In the age of the Internet today, how is that a McKinsey study finds that only 11% of our graduates are employable by multinational companies?
An even deeper lesson: Just watch our own children - without adult support and encouragement, children will use all technology to play with. If you give them paper, they will make paper aeroplanes; if you give them laptops, they will play solitaire. So really what our beloved Malaysia needs is better educated teachers.
MOE, please learn one more lesson: In the Smart Schools project, the people in charge don't bother to find out what the end-user really needs and can cope with. The project ends up enriching some private companies, wasting lots of taxpayer money, and doing no good, and no-one takes the blame. In the end the verdict is that "lessons will be learnt" but in fact they never are because the same mistakes are repeated over and over.
At the Intel booth it was revealed that its soon to be released new generation of the OLPC, the NetBook, will be powered by the new generation Intel Atom processor.
Intel joined OLPC in July last year and introduced its version of the laptop.
Watch a video of Intel's Classmate PCs in Dr Craig Barrett's Keynote Address at WCIT 2008. His presentation defines what is a world-class presentation.
At expos, I observe that booths of exhibitors from foreign countries are usually less patronized. Be it IT expo, halal showcase, MAHA or any other exhibition, the response is the same, no matter how well-designed the booths are.
I can offer free professional advice to these exhibitors, but my advice is nothing new and in fact successful exhibitors use this tactic all the time to attract - attractive young girls in skimpy, sexy or skin-tight clothing.
Instead of giving hand outs, goodie bags or cheap gifts (some offer sweets and candies), nothing beats offering sexual favours. Imagine the kind of response a booth offering 40,000 sexual favours would get.
Hey, even Malaysia Debt Ventures Berhad (MDV) exploit those sweet young girls to entertain people at MDV booth, asking for business cards and ofering gifts in return. MDV's CEO sat behind watching over the girls. If he was wearing other than a black suit, he would almost look like a pimp watching over the brood. In the scheme of things, how about repaying our loans with sexual favours? If you check out the blog of MDV's CEO at http://www.debtventures.com/cms/index.jsp, the possibilty is there.
I'm yet to imagine the number of visitors to my blog if I offer 40,000 sexual favours on this blog.
I'm not sure. Are you? The incredible ease at which I submitted by income tax returns last month left me feeling truly empowered. Like having sex, the feeling subsided after logging out off the e-Filing website. Reality struck back - the BN gov't will continue to ensure that our tax money is not well-spent and will enrich the few. The soaring cost of food and fuel, the many tolled roads, the increase in crimes, the unstoppable waste of taxpayers money, the ever churning datukship industry - I'll never feel empowered. Perhaps that's how it feels to be impotent, too.
Who will ever be held accountable and prosecuted for the over RM50 mil waste of public money on the failed e-Village project in Dengkil? Will taxpayers be able to get back the RM500 mil burnt in InventQjaya in Cyberjaya? Can MDeC answer what happened to taxpayers money in its investment arm, Meitech Development Sdn Bhd and the investments and subsidiaries such as Optica Fiber Technologies MSC Sdn Bhd, Knowledge Worker Exchange Sdn Bhd, e-commerce application service provider (ASP) GO2020.com MSC Sdn Bhd? Perhaps Datuk Arif Nun and Dr Muhammad Ghazie Ismail can explain.
Don't be mistaken when MDEC proudly proclaims that it is the pinnacle partner of WCIT. MDEC equals Taxpayers. And MDEC management must always remind themselves this when they treat themselves lavishly.
This article in The Star today caught me like the momentarily-blinding sunlight. I'm reminded that Sweden has minimal wife-beating incidences. Really, because there is almost no wife to beat. We know that Swedish people are often referred to as the freest society (unburdened of morals, also in terms of Index of Economic Freedom) and most advanced (refer to human development index, also the 2nd most ICT connected society).
More than half of Swedish men and women live without marriage, any Swede with any other for any length of time (this is the part I like). The people have coined a name for this arrangement: sambo (sam means together; bo means live). The family is no more legitimate. In fact, the family is looked down as un-modern, antiquated. Sweden is often cited by liberals as an example for freedom, gender rights, and human rights. However, Sweden has high incidences of women-beating, i.e men, whom are not husbands, beat women, whom are not wives. How free is free?
In Sweden, as an institution, the family is dead. The gov't has to step in to fill the gap - care for the infirm, the aged, and the unemployed. In substance, the Swedish are consequently, the least free - they are most state-dependent, in fact. Result, the Government bears the costs of helpers to look after the uncared for aged Swedish. Even medical care brought to them if they are unable to get around easily.
A nation like ours, need moral police such as Munirah Bahari, vice-president of National Islamic Students Association of Malaysia. Never mind Munirah's concern that “The white blouse is too transparent for girls and it becomes a source of attraction. ... This is the source of the problem, where we can see that schoolgirls themselves are capable of using this to attract men to them. ... This could see them getting molested, having premarital sex and all sorts of things . . .” (as quoted from the article). (by the way, I grew up in a community where women go about topless. Yet, till today, the community has zero molest, rape or incest case. In fact, respect & protection of women is a community norm. It came as a surprise to me that the east coast states of Peninsular M'sia has high rates of these 'silent' crimes compared to other states). It is the broader longer term effect of unpoliced moral in our Malaysian society that should be of more serious concern to us.
If not for saviours who are holier than us, like Munirah, the final phase of modernity is already on us - the non-procreative man-women union. If you are a regular at Fitness First gym, you'll also think that the continuing phase of modernity is the non-procreative man-man union. Consequently, population regresses threatening the existence of our nation, our cultures, and economic prospects.
Societies and families unshielded by the normative moral standards respected by our society, and not policed by the moral police such as the likes of Munirah, cannot survive. The society and family that function on normative moral standards, unburdens the gov't, releases people from the master-client relationship of Barisan Nasional and voters, and frees the citizens from state dominance. That is why we have a family provided social security and Western countries have a gov't-dependent social security.
We can now count on Munirah to set up a moral police department in the PM's Office. It is strategic for the enduring prosperity of our nation.
Is the momentarily-blinding sunlight coming through open windows better than the claustrophobic blackness of a secure and perpetually closed room?
I loved this booth. It's like they brought Mount Kinabalu to KLCC. Or was WCIT 2008 held on top of Mount Kinabalu? The setting of discussion tables with the backdrop of Mount Kinabalu provided that pleasant & therapeutic effect after fighting thru the KL traffic to get to WCIT 2008.
Here's my 3rd and final two cents worth in conjunction with WCIT 2008.
We’re already witnessing a few smart companies using the Internet and related technologies in radical ways to harvest talents of innovators working outside corporate boundaries. Some of these companies routinely involve customers, independent contractors in the creation of new products. Loncin, a motorcycle manufacturer in China lets its suppliers work with one another to design components, making sure everything fits together, and reduce costs. The Linux operating system was developed over the Internet by a network of specialists. When this approach to innovation becomes widely practiced, the impact on labour activity and skills of our workforce could be significant.
The online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is a product or service created by its distributed customers. OhmyNews, a popular South Korean online newspaper is written by over 6,000 citizen reporters. Threadless, an online clothing store engages hundreds of customers each week by getting them to submit new designs for T-shirts. The community at large votes for its favorites.
As more and more sophisticated work takes place interactively online and new collaboration and communications tools emerge, companies can outsource increasingly specialized aspects of their work.
Top talent for a range of activities—from finance to marketing and IT to operations—can be found anywhere. The best person for a task may be a free agent in India or an employee of a small company in Italy rather than someone who works for a global business services provider.
The implications of shifting more work to freelancers are interesting. For one thing, new talent-deployment models could emerge. TopCoder, a company that has created a network of software developers, may represent one such model. TopCoder gives organizations that want to have software developed for them access to its talent pool. Customers explain the kind of software they want and offer prizes to the developers who do the best job creating it—an approach that costs less than employing experienced engineers. Changes in the nature of labor relationships could shift payment schemes from time and materials to compensation for results. The other interesting thing, in conjunction with this new model, our workforce must have the required skills to be able to engage in this new model. Talents entering this workforce will require even stronger skills in team collaboration, information processing and problem solving.
I would not be wrong to say that this trend would gather steam in sectors such as software, health care delivery, professional services, and real estate, where companies can easily segment work into discrete tasks for independent contractors and then reaggregate it. As companies move in this direction, they will need to understand the value of their human capital more fully, seek new skills in the talents they need and manage different classes of contributors accordingly.
Again, all these trends in the way companies harvest talent and manage human capital will have a significant impact on future workforce. Are we preparing them for this new trend? Will our education system evolve fast enough to meet the future workforce? Are we doing anything as individuals, as parents and as responsible citizens to prepare our children who will enter the workforce?
Further reading: Thomas W. Malone, The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style, and Your Life, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.
Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life, New York: Basic Books, 2004.
Daniel H. Pink, Free Agent Nation: How America’s New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live, New York: Warner Books, 2001.
Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, Cambridge, MA: Yale University Press, 2006.
C. K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy, The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value with Customers, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.
Here's my second two-cents worth in conjunction with the World Congress on IT 2008 (WCIT 2008)in KL, May 19 - 21. Sellaband.com is revolutionizing the way artistes or music and singing talents become popular stars. Sellaband.com provides a platform to match aspiring singers with fans who are willing to bet on potential.
An aspiring artist puts his demo songs on the sellaband.com website and offer 5,000 "parts" for sale. Fans and artist and repertoire (A & R) wannabes shop on the site for songs they like. When they find something worthy, they invest in the artist by purchasing one or more parts, at USD10 each. Upon raising USD50,000, the artist is assigned an experienced A & R person and producer, and goes to the studio to record an album. Believers (the investors) get a limited edition of the CD.
Three songs are given FOC on sellaband.com website. The rest are downloadable at USD0.50. Believers, sellaband.com and the artist get portions of net profits from the downloads and from the advertising revenue.
The artist can also order his own CD at cost and sell it - Believers share USD2 per CD. Believers can also set up shop on sellaband.com, selling related products from their artistes. So, MCMC, who needs all those dumb copycat reality shows on local TV? Wake up, MCMC, the revolution has left you far behind.
MCMC, your website, www.skmm.gov.my, has not changed a bit after 10 years. That means you're 100 years behind the revolution. Your MyICMS 886 strategy, in its 14MB 2nd edition, clogs our creative networks. Your Networked Content Development Grant can be better used to open up our education system that continues to suppress creative innovation. Look, even RTM uses YouTube when it should be at the forefront of innovation in both delivery and content after being in existence for many decades. The minds in RTM are as old as those in MCMC, backward, stale, non-progressive.
Finally, the gov't delivers on it's promise. Now we're hearing the cheers from the farmers.
It would be interesting to see if the incentives really get to the real farmers in need. This is fertile ground for BN politicians to enrich themselves while influencing who gets the benefits. These incentives will go a long way in alleviating the food crisis and in helping farmers sustain their business in the wake of soaring production costs. So, politicians, think of what hungry people are capable of doing.
Kadar Insentif Tanaman Sayur-sayuran - RM81/mt Buah-buahan - RM78/mt
As the World Congress on IT 2008 in KL is only a few days away, here's a glimpse of how we fare among countries in the the world in terms of ICT.
Connectivity has been recognized as having a positive impact on transparency, good governance,and democracy. There are also implications of increased connectivity that are currently in the process of being defined, particularly in areas such as urban systems, lifestyles, and quality of life. For example, according to a 2006 technology needs assessment and economic development impact study, high bandwidth connectivity has the ability to enhance a city’s appeal to the “creative class” of knowledge workers. Across the world, increased connectivity has also become a prominent factor in the discourse on strengthening and maintaining social cohesion. Narrowing the digital gap between urban and rural areas has been a priority for our public sector, at least that's what our BN politicians say. The ranking benchmarks how far our gov't has gone to do so. This agenda has also served to placate fears that the rapid advances in technology would benefit urban areas at the expense of those geographic segments that are already struggling with their distance from markets.
Now, take a moment to reflect on the implications of the benchmark on our country's future competitiveness against our nearest neighbours. Then, lets think further about how we, as responsible individual, NGO and corporate citizen can respond.
Innovators: Sanjit Biwas (r.) and John Bicket have created inexpensive wireless technology that allows Internet signals to carry into remote areas.
Over the past two years Meraki has powered several thousand wireless networks across 70 countries and opened up the Internet to people who otherwise could never afford it.
The mission of the company is to bring affordable Internet access to the next billion people. Read more about how these two 25-year old PhD students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and founders of Meraki, a Silicon Valley start-up that has powered thousands of simple, inexpensive wireless networks around the world, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1212/p13s01-stct.html?page=1
Now we can tell Telekom Malaysia to close down its miserable service and mediocre effort to try to connect the rural areas.
The world hunger crisis is all over the news this week. In just three years, the price of staple foods like wheat, corn and rice has almost doubled. If we don't do something soon, hundreds of thousands of people face starvation and a hundred million more could fall into extreme poverty.
I just took action with the ONE Campaign and you can too, here:
Here's a pretty innovative youth programming that uses technology for developing life skills.
TheOneMinutesJr Network. www.theoneminutesjr.org. They are sixty-second videos made by young people (between the ages of 12 and 20) from all over the world. Time may be limited in a oneminutesjr video (this challenges the youngsters to form their ideas clearly), but not the freedom to express oneself creatively, which is the basic right of every person.
TheOneMinutesJr network is a non-commercial community without any set political belief or ideology. The network gives young people, especially those who are underprivileged or marginalised, the opportunity to have their voices heard by a broad audience, to share with the world their ideas, dreams, fascinations, anxieties,and viewpoints.
It consists of the interactive oneminutesjr website, a yearly festival competition, workshops across the world, video broadcasting on ten European public TV channels, and screenings at festivals and events. And this is only for now... As they involve more partners and explore new ways of getting the oneminutesjr videos out there, the network will continue to expand.
Also check out these similar projects: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blast/. A BBC initiative offering opportunities for young people to develop their own ideas, find contacts, explore their interest in art, dance, music or film and showcase their own work.
http://www.netdays.at/ netd@ys promotes the use of new technologies, especially the internet, in education and culture.
http://mediarights.org/launchpad/ The one-stop shop for the next generation of mediamakers" launchpad highlights stories by and for young people. it features tools, resources and media, exploring what it takes to launch, promote and distribute their work. from New York to Bangalore, join these emerging voices and become part of the growing community.
Kuala Terengganu is the Heritage Waterfront City. Or is it the Sewage Waterfront City. This is a picture of the self-proclaimed World Class Equestrian Resort - the Terengganu Equestrian Resort or TER, www.ter.com.my. There are at least 5 sewage drains feeding the resort's lake. The main ones feed untreated waste water from shops and houses across the road.
We may recall a Hollywood shoot that was supposed to happen on the waters of the Hong Kong harbour. It was called off because the harbour sea water has dangerous levels of contaminants. The TER lake is where people fish and do recreational activities. Take a walk along the lake and you'll be breathing pungent air from the lake. So here's the deal that city-status citizens get.
LCCT is where everyone gets to fly. Now, even boobs want to fly...each time she retrieves items from her luggage on the floor. These landed on an island beach off Kuala Terengganu. (This is the censored copy).
Lim Kit Siang has to spoil it all. He MUST be now immediately arrested and detained under the Internal Security Act. The way that he's handling the new found power, it's really getting too dangerous for the country. He's no different from the mafia or triad gangsters.
Great power must come with even greater responsibility. Lim Kit Siang is obviously irresponsible. Power and greed will kill DAP, PAS and PKR before they even know what's coming to hit them.
Following Barisan Nasional's resounding victories in Sarawak and Sabah, and its poor performance in Peninsula Malaysia, Abdullah Badawi must step down and give way to a new Prime Minister from Sarawak. May I also suggest that the federal capital be moved to Kuching? East Malaysia must now get a major portion of the development projects. Sarawak deserves to be rewarded for saving the Barisan Nasional from total annihilation by the Barisan Rakyat.
In Malaysian democracy, that script is still unwritten.
Thanks to all the voters who have brought about the long overdue changes.
When I saw his name as a 2008 General Election candidate for parliamentary seat, I thought I was halucinating. I had to close and put back the newspaper, recollect my thoughts before I turned back the page to confirm. I spent the last 6 hours of the eve of polling day accompanying him on his campaign trail Bau to Lundu. I couldn't believe that people actually waited for him even till 11pm to give his ceramah and to answer some grassroot issues. If he wins, it would be a classic David vs Goliath story. And it would be the stunt of the century.
This is the man tasked to bring down 2 giants in Mas Gading Constituency, Sarawak. A simple man, one of the humblest human beings alive today. An accountancy graduate turned entrepreneur.
It is a very, very tough fight, seems almost impossible. The odds against him are too many.
But I've flown all the way from Kuala Terengganu to be with him through the last 6 hours of campaigning. I'm for him because he's sacrificing for national service for the greater good of the Bidayuh in Bau and for my beloved nation. If we continue with the status quo, we'll only continue to rot in the filth of corruption, abuse of power and the self-enrichment of our supposed representatives.
If size does matter, then here's the new definition of democracy. Where mainstream media has been insulting our intelligence with their Opposition bashing frenzy, this size certainly catches more eyeballs. March 8, 2008, my vote will shape the actual size.
