This is ROFLOL!

I love PhDComics. I recommend anyone planning on entering graduate school to read it. It's friggin' hilarious! Today's comic made me laugh so hard. Alright, it might be a tad geeky for normal people to understand, but it's soooo funny. To the engineers among you, I hope that you enjoy the joke (unless of course you are an undergrad, in which case the joke's on you!).

*** image from phdcomics.com .. used without permission but i assume that it should be okay, as the author allows sharing the comics through other services. ***

Anti-Lies

Any sane person will know that the Internet is filled with lies. I used to tell people that they should not believe 9 out of 10 things that they read on the Internet, and they should know that 9 out of the 10 things that they believe, will turn out to be lies. So, be very careful of what you read on the Internet.

People tend to believe anything that is in print. That is why newspapers have always had such a sway on public opinion. If a newspaper claims that a scientist had discovered a way to make pigs fly, most people will believe it without question. Hence, journalists have had to maintain a certain level of integrity, in order to protect the public trust. The Internet has changed all that though.

This new age is filled with strange new words like blogs and wikipedia. Some have dubbed the Internet as the new or alternative media as opposed to legacy and mainstream media. This is a reflection of how people have come to consume media. We are increasingly looking to the Internet as an authoritative source on everything, especially that which the regular media chooses not to report.

As a result, we turn to citizen journalists, who are really just a bunch of regular people like you and me, for the truth. How these people could possibly discern the truth from the spiel that gets spewed out by the establishment, really boggles the mind. In reality, most bloggers just end up writing biased views on what is perceived truth. This concerns me because bloggers have strength in numbers. When a lie gets repeated oft enough, it starts to sound awfully like the truth.

Therefore, I have always been troubled by one simple fact: that the Internet is filled with opposition blogs and anti establishment news sites. I would prefer a more balanced Internet, where I could read views and opinions from both sides of the fence and draw my own conclusions. I have previously suggested that bloggers are fallible. Sadly, the pro-establishment writers don't seem to have a strong presence. They are probably too busy just trying to keep on top of their own biases in print.

So, I applaud our Minister of Energy, Water and Communications, Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik, who has called for the setting up of websites to counter these counter establishment lies. I would go further and even suggest that he start the ball rolling by setting up his own personal blog. He is the Minister of Communications. It doesn't take 15 minutes to set up a blog. He can choose to use any one of the many public and free online services. If he is confused, he should just ask his fellow opposition politicians about which service to use. They have got a wealth of experience in this area.

Personally, I really look forward to reading the anti-lies from our ruling coalition. With some of the jokers that we have in parliament, I'm sure that it will make excellent reading for a dull afternoon.

An anti-lie is the opposite of a lie. It should not be mistaken for, an entirely different creature, truth, which is alien to politics, the progenitor to both lie and anti-lie, where spin is it's highest form.

PS: Maybe our ruling politicians are just afraid of what they may end up saying. They cannot really blame their own blog for misrepresenting what they say or mean, especially when they don't really know what they actually mean to say.

C'est bizarre!

I read this article about a new experiment by our Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) to improve parts of our education system in Malaysia. According to the article, it's a first of its kind collaboration programme. The implementation of the Malaysian-French Doctoral Network will allow academicians to conduct their doctorate studies under supervisors from Malaysian and French universities, and split their study period between the two countries.

Then, the article goes to list the Malaysian universities that are involved. That's when I found it particularly weird that there was no mention about the French universities. I was particularly interested to find out if ECP was involved, as I had visited that university while on my trip to Paris, last year. So, I did a little more digging.

First, I found out that the MoU was signed between our public universities' DVCs and Professor Olivier Audeoud, who is supposed to be the President of the Commission for European and International Relations for the Conference of University Presidents (what a long title). So, I googled up this commission and found nothing on it.

Next, I googled up the professor. Turns out that he is a legit. Phew! He is the president of Paris X University, Nanterre. Google also turned up a bunch of papers published by the professor. So, I assume that the mass media got it wrong with his extremely long title. Who could blame them. He should've just gone with his official title as the president of Universite Paris X.

Digging further, I found out that the programme was designed by the Malaysia-France University Centre (MFUC). So, I visited their website, which is incidentally named FMUC. Then, I discovered their official press release here. Turned out that the Malaysian print media did get the name wrong and yes, they had a list of the French universities involved.

1. Université de Bordeaux 1
2. Université de Bourgogne
3. Université de Bretagne-Sud
4. Université de La Rochelle
5. Nancy Université
6. Université de Paris-Est
7. Université de Toulouse

Well, at least we can be safe with the knowledge that these are all fully accredited French universities. However, they're not really one of the Grandes écoles, which are higher education establishments outside the mainstream framework of the public universities system. Unlike the French public universities which have an obligation to accept all candidates who hold a Baccalauréat within their territorial competence, Grandes Écoles recruit mainly on written and oral competitive exams among the students of dedicated extra preparatory classes.

Anyway, according to the release: Upon completion of the Doctorate and defence of the thesis before a bilateral Jury, the student will be awarded a PhD degree from its Malaysian university and a National Doctorate degree from the French university.

Wah, not bad leh! Can get a double doctorate within 3-4 years. Afterall, according to the Deputy Minister, only 30 per cent out of 21,000 lecturers in public institutes of higher learning were PhD holders in 2006. The ministry hopes that with this new collaboration, it will raise the rate to 60 per cent by 2010. Must really praise our government for coming up with such a grand idea to accelerate the number of PhDs in our public universities.

Walk Hard, the MCA way!

I just read about this from a couple of different blogs. Regardless of the authenticity, it is obviously very interesting. According to these blogs, our momentary Health Minister had sent the following email to all the Malaysian JPA scholars of Chinese ethnicity studying overseas.

Greetings to all JPA students all over the world! Its certainly a privilege to be a star student, standing tall as young Malaysians living overseas. I am sure you do your family proud, and I hope you will cherish this moment for the rest of your life, especially at this time of the year when the cheerful holiday mood is abound.

2007 has been a year of many lessons learnt for many nations. As other cities burn in turmoil, violence and disruption, Malaysia has thankfully weathered our difficulties in a peaceful manner to ensure that we have continued harmony and unity among the races. Amidst some tough economic times ahead, with worries of escalating global oil prices, every day living will increasingly be challenged. Similarly, Malaysia will also need to brace itself for such a period by remaining economically relevant and globally competitive.

[1] The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) has worked hard over the last eight years to ensure that the community's best and most talented receive top class education for deserving people such as yourself. While it is understandable that the world over is also vying for the best that it can attract into their labour force, it also our hope that our own students and graduates return to their homeland to serve their country.

[2] MCA is also actively playing a role to help returning graduates and local talents who have a special interest in serving in the government. Civil service diversity is critical to address moderation, fairness and balance in the implementation and enforcement of our nation's laws and regulations at all levels. So important is this point that MCA has set up a secretariat/service centre to handle first hand the enquiries and issues pertaining to application, entry and even promotion in the Malaysian civil service.

MCA hopes that our efforts to build the nation and community can be realized with your appreciation as well as your service so that you, your family as well as your friends can enjoy the fruits of our peaceful nation forever.

MCA wishes you a good year ahead! And Happy New Year!

Ong Ka Ting

President, MCA

Now, let's see what issues I have with the bold sentences above.

1. In that single sentence, he has just insulted every one of the scholars. He implies that without the hard work of the MCA, they would not have been able to receive their top class education even though these scholars deserved it. I guess, the fact that the scholars probably put in some real work does not count. I'd really like to know what kind of hard work any MCA man had put into helping the JPA scholars: (a) gain entry into the top class universities, (b) get a scholarship.
2. With this single sentence, he stresses that the MCA is helping more Malaysian Chinese to secure civil service jobs. Considering our government's racially blind recruitment policy mentioned by our Chief Secretary to the Government today, I'm not sure how much the MCA can help anybody. Also, he has openly condemned our civil service for being immoderate, unfair and imbalanced. Touche!
   

Regardless, he must not be interested in the scholars here. I've asked some of my friends and they did not get the email. So, I guess that the MCA isn't interested in helping anyone here get a civil service job. Or more likely, he did not dare tell anyone here that they owed their present privileges to the MCA. Anyway, I'd recommend everyone to go watch the real "Walk Hard" in cinemas. It's strangely funny!

UPDATE@18/01: One friend informed me that he has actually received the email and there are like 700+ emails listed in it because our MCA president did not BCC them. Must've been very hard work to type in those 700+ email addresses. That must be what he meant by the hard work that MCA had put in for them.

How to recognise a Code Monkey

I've mentioned several times in my blog, recently, that when hiring someone for a job, companies should value the person, not a piece of paper. Today, I read an interesting blog on how to recognise a good programmer. Although it's main target was programmers, in general, it could be used to apply to any skilled discipline. Through my experience, I'll have to agree with all the points that were raised in the blog. I'd encourage anyone who wishes to be good at anything, to actually read the blog. It's main points are:

1. Passion
   I agree with this. In order to be really good at something, a person needs to be driven by passion. Someone who merely does it for the sake of the job, will never be good at it. I personally believe that passion is the most important ingredient.
   
2. Self taught
   If someone needs to be taught something, they aren't going to get very good at it. In the case of programmers, most of them start really young. I've personally known someone who started programming at 4! So, it's never too young to start learning any skill. It just gives them more time to get good at it.
   
3. Intelligence
   Just because someone may lack certain social skills, doesn't mean that they're stupid. It's important to be able to evaluate intelligence and the only good way to do it is by actually talking to a person about something relevant. None of the small talk crap. Also, no amount of parametric testing will help at all.
   
4. Hidden experiences
   Do not assume that a CV tells everything. Someone who is passionately drive, will have things done for "fun", that don't make it into the CV. In fact, they'd probably have more missing from their CV, than in it. If they had to list everything, it'll probably take 20 pages instead of 2.The CV would just contain the highlights.
5. Variety of expertise
   Their knowledge would not be constrained by anything but their thirst for knowledge. They would also, naturally, have knowledge in other relevant areas. Anyone who claims to only be good at one thing, is probably only good for one thing.
   
6. Formal qualifications
   Degrees and certifications are a completely useless indicator of how good a person is. They're only good for HR to cover their asses. A person who is good at something, will do it not for a degree. Any degree is just dressing.

Although, I've mentioned that we should value a person, not a piece of paper, I'm beginning to have an idea on how difficult it might be to do so. For example, a HR manager will find it difficult to identify who a good programmer when he/she knows nothing about IT. The IT manager might have difficulty doing so too, if he/she was never a good one to begin with.

Although a certification does not tell you how good someone really is, it will at least tell you how bad someone isn't. If they were able to pass the exams, at the very least, they'd know ABC, even if they didn't know XYZ. As a result, people ended up having to rely on a piece of paper to help them out. Certificates ended up being used as a baseline. As a result of this hiring practice, most people end up hiring the baseline.

So, how do we identify a code monkey then? Easy. Put 100 programmers in a room, get the 5 who are good to leave, and the ones that are left are the code monkeys.

Shoot.

A Coin has THREE Sides!

Most people in the world live with the idea that there are two sides to a coin. Many are even taught this in school. Unfortunately, this is patently untrue. Believing in such lies will only get one into trouble. There are at least three sides to a coin: look to the picture on the right for the truth.

With recent events, we have seen the shadow of growing Islamisation, enveloping our nation. There are plenty of such examples, like the recent intellectual property claim on the word Allah by some idiots in our Government. But this problem isn't only happening at home. For some unknown reason, there is a gradual creep of increased religious piety worldwide. For example, Christian extremists in the USA are challenging evolution with intelligent design and believe that they are a Christian nation. Sigh, where are the centrists?

I tried to do my bit recently, on the blog of our opposition leader. A parent had written to him, to ask for advice, and he decided to politicise the issue for no good reason. I found that fairly irresponsible. The issue was about the school principal madating the prefects to wear a songkok as part of their uniform. As a Chinese Christian family, the parent felt that this was an attack on their race/religion. From many of the comments, you can tell that most people see it in the same way.

I tried to point out the fact that it was not a race/religion issue, but an issue of personal freedom. I asked one comment, how wearing a songkok is against the 10 commandments as none of them mention attire, and got called an agnostic. I asked another, if the male prefects had been mandated to wear skirts to school instead, would it be a gender issue, and got called illogical. I find this fairly comical as I've also been called the exact opposite. Seems like I must have hit a nerve.

The thing that I find sad is that most Malaysians will see this issue as a race/religion issue. I cannot blame them as we have been conditioned from young to see everything through the lens of race/religion. As a result, politics in Malaysia will not change. Our National Front (BN) will continue to rule by divide-and-conquer and our Opposition will exploit exactly the same thing. On the surface, it does involve race/religion as the songkok is a Malay traditional head wear and Malays are, by definition, muslims. But dig deeper, and you'll see that it's a crime of stupidity, not hate.

I have always hoped that our Opposition will grow up and handle real issues. I have blogged about this many times before. The problem with Malaysia is that, through the many decades of conditioning, our fellow countrymen have become mostly bigots. The centre is growing thin and crumbling. When the centre becomes too thin, the coin falls over.

When that happens, as a nation, we are so screwed.

Next-Gen Beetle - Tata Nano

This little car has the potential of transforming the face of the world. One of the largest Indian companies, Tata Group, has today unveiled, what it calls: The People's Car. It is a that is priced at Rs 100,000, which is about RM 8,000! This car could just be the Beetle of the 21st century.

Here are some of it's most impressive specs, gleaned from various sources:

• Specialty bodywork
  The Nano comes with a 100% rust free money back guarantee. The specialised body work is made from the latest polymer technology with a specialised rust free coating. Unlike the fruity Nano, you will never need to rush out for a can of WD40 when your neighbourhood kids decide to scratch up your paint job. Experience peace of mind, parking your Nano in any neighbourhood.
  
• Air conditioning
  The standard model comes built-in with natural air conditioning. There is a more expensive deluxe model that comes with artificial air conditioning. Why settle for the fake thing when you can have the original. There is no better feeling than cruising down the highway with the wind in your hair while enjoying all the natural scents that nature has to offer.
  
• Power steering
  Surprisingly, for a car of it's size, it comes standard with human power steering. This makes the car extremely responsive and gives the driver total control over the car. Feel like a man, when nipping around the bends in the city. Side parking will never feel the same ever again.
  
• Power windows
  All models of the Tata Nano come standard with hand powered windows. This features a variable speed setting and full directional and level control. No longer will you have to contend with the auto-lower or jerky-raise. You will be able to raise or lower the windows smoothly, over the entire range.
  
• Safety bumpers
  Who needs air bags when you have safety bumpers. The bumpers have been welded on with the best plastic adhesive on the market. Fender benders will be a thing of the past. Instead of crumpling in, the bumpers are designed to fall off. You can easily reattach it back with any off-the-shelf plastic glue, thus saving you a visit to the local mechanic.
• Speedy engines
  At the heart of this car is a 600cc engine. This has been specially engineered to give you a speedy experience of scooting down to the local kedai runcit for your groceries or your local mamak for a game of football. With an impressive top speed of 110kmph, you will never ever have to worry about speed cameras ever again.
  

Jokes aside, I do think that this is a fairly impressive car, for it's cost. You cannot possibly find any other car at that price. In fact, the only other road vehicles that you can find at that price range are motor cycles. So, I can appreciate the kind of difficult choices some people will be faced with, when buying their next family vehicle. I guess, the days of seeing families of 7 on a honda-cub are numbered.

There are definitely other uses for this car, besides just being a plain car. It is cheap enough to wreck for fun. I'm sure that some Bollywood director is already thinking about a remake of The Italian Job, The Indian Job. Instead of Charlize Theron, we can have Aishwarya Rai. I'd certainly pay money to watch the movie.

Also, I can already imagine DIY modders dreaming up ideas on how to pimp this little car. Obviously, the bodywork needs a lot more attitude. And for a car like this, the sky is really the limit. Just like the Asus Eee PC ($299 notebook PC), it's only a matter of time before we will see people buying this car just to modify it into their own super machine. I'd certainly do it.

It would be a great car for mechanics and vocational training. You can just screw around with this car and not worry about destroying it. I love the idea of owning one of these things and fiddling around with all it's little parts.

I cannot wait till they review this car on TopGear. Meanwhile, watch their previous review of Britain's cheapest new car below:

International Idiot University (IIU)

There's this article in the Beebs today, that involves a Malaysian running an Irish University. It's a scandal. As I cannot possibly write it better than them, I recommend that you give the original article a good read. If nothing else, it's worth a laugh. I would like to put in my dua sen though.

If an institution charges a group of people some money, gives them some coursework and awards them a certificate at the end (along with the necessary gown and ceremony), is anyone a victim? If this certificate results in better employment opportunities, is anyone a victim? What would you call this kind of institution?

When I look at this situation from an abstract point of view, I see a fairly disturbing scenario. In fact, this scenario can aptly describe what many people go through, these days. You go to an institution (let's say Cambridge), you pay them a good amount of money, do some work, and get a certificate at the end, which says that you were awarded a degree. With this degree, you manage to secure a good job.

Where are the victims?

As for the students of IIU, they paid money, and got something out of it. If they were looking for an accredited qualification, then, they should have looked just a little harder. The IIU is clearly listed as an unaccredited institution on Wikipedia. There really isn't an excuse for them to say that they had been cheated/conned. So, the students may be a bit daft, but they aren't victims per se.

Some people might argue that the employer had been cheated because the degree isn't legitimate. My argument is that, an employer hires a person, not a piece of paper. If the person has the necessary knowledge and skills, then, they were right for the job. So, no victim. If that person doesn't have them, then, the employer shouldn't have hired them in the first place. If the employer was hiring a piece of paper, then, they are victims of their own stupidity. So, the employer isn't a victim either.

Who should we hold accountable?

If we assume that someone was indeed victimised, who should be held accountable? I say that the only party responsible for this whole debacle is society. For some unfathomable reason (at least to me), there is a lot of value placed on a sheet of paper. It serves as a conduit for a person to gain higher social status only because society chooses to recognise it's value.

I've always felt that we should value a person for the person's skills and abilities, not their degree. For as long as we value their degree more than themselves, universities like the IIU will exist.

PS: As far as scams go, this one is fairly benign and can actually bring benefit to it's 'victim'. So, I'm not even sure if it can qualify as a scam.

*** image credit - the IIU ***