Shugo Chara - ep 76

Suu is a brilliant character.

Freedom to satisfy or freedom to express?

Jun Fook muses on customers to his blog:

I don't want to squeeze something in which readers would get disappointed after reading it. And eventually they all run away with disappointment.

I do care about traffic. And of course I do care about earning. But what I care most is the content of what I'm sharing.

At times like this, the ABC's Editorial Policy against commercial product placement looks pretty good.

I like the freedom to be expressive as I want without needing to pander to the prejudices and expectations of blog readers. Which is why I care not for traffic. I am not constrained by people who only listen to what they want to hear. I have no advertising agency to satisfy. Feedback is few and far in between.

And it is this freedom that allows me to post anything I want. I don't have to put up with prudish conservative nuts. I cut through the spin, and say what is correct, not what is politically correct. I don't have people telling me to act according to their blinkered views and prejudices. To me, just because a truth is difficult, uncomfortable, politically unpalatable, and supposedly repungent to society, does not make it any less of a truth.

Also,



I would love to see the lawyer who thinks that a defamation action can arise from this post. You wouldn't tell a Civil Engineer how much steel to use for a bridge. You wouldn't tell a electrician how much cabling to use. And certainly I don't tell Biomedical students how my nervous system works.

So why is it, when there is a post which is supposedly "offensive", not because of any legal foundation, but because of the prejudices and blinkers on a person that thinks pointing out real and logical mistakes is "offensive",

that everyone and their aunt become defamation lawyers?

Can someone shut Namewee @ 黃明志 up?

I'm generally a reasonable person. Overall I believe in freedom of speech and even if I don't agree with certain opinions, doesn't mean I don't read them. But even I have my limits.

With his latest "song" (and I use that word very loosely), Namewee has shown the hypocrisy of the ethnic Chinese in Malaysia. I'll sum it up: If its targeted towards the Chinese community, its racism. But if it originates from the Chinese community, its freedom of speech and "patriotism".

Don't get me wrong, I have no love for Siti Inshah Mansor, the principal of SMK Tunku Abdul Rahman who allegedly "told Chinese students they were not needed in the country and could return to China and that the prayer strings Indian students tied around their necks and wrists were similar to dog leashes".

But to ask her to "suck banana" (lets be honest, we all know what Namewee's saying is "suck cock") is uncalled for. Why would anyone want to question the Islamic tradition of fasting during a the holy month of Ramadan, other than to further a Islamophobic agenda? And for all the flaws of the Malaysian Department of Education, it warrants neither the middle finger nor accusations that the department is run by pigs.

Namewee has in the past accused the call to prayer by Mosque's as noise pollution. While indeed I would love some peace and quiet, as if the eve of Chinese New Year is a silent one, with the fireworks keeping everyone up. He has criticised the "laid-back" culture of the Muslims, which by definition are overwhelmingly Malay, as "without culture". Right. As if continuous burning of joss sticks and open burning of hell money is the pinnacle of a civilised group of people.

While I do not dispute that a lack of productivity afflicts Malaysia at all levels, it would be fallacious to think that it is exclusive to a particular race. In the same way that poverty is supposedly the exclusion of a determinate class of people.


A sample of the racist reactions of Facebook. Thanks to the Facebook API's and Openbook. Lets face it, they all come from one group of people. The ethnic Chinese.

One does not fight racism with more racism. You just get trapped into a self-calling recursive procedure without a base case. And how is that different from the very group of people who you criticise?

I for one, am happy to see his citizenship revoked, if only it didn't give his BN supporters so much mileage.

(Memo to Pakatan Rakyat: A Malaysian Malaysia includes standing up against all racially motivated mediums. Silence can constitute acknowledgment)

Kyle, (Age 14. Asian enthusiast) sums up K-ON!!

Yes, spelt with 2 exclamation marks.



It is the most beautiful thing I've read for something like K-ON.

This is why we can't have nice things

Or limitless Internet access:

This is why I can't stand Malaysians

On the front page of the Malaysian Mirror:



A columnist writing under the name of Pak Bui writes:

The MACC, the Attorney-General’s Office, and their masters in Umno, have made Malaysia, our judiciary and legal profession a laughing stock worldwide. Our worldwide reputation now matches that of the Singaporean legal profession, infamous for its meek subservience to the executive.

Yes, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission head prosecutor Abdul Razak Musa has highlighted the stupidity that is lawyers (why do you think there are so many lawyer jokes?) Indeed, the MACC, set up in the best intentions and modeled after the best practices of the Hong Kong ICAC, has a serious image problem in front of the public. Certainly few would believe that Teoh Beng Hock's death was suicide (through I have to admit the idea of marriage fills me with dread). And don't get me started on how a person could strangle themselves.

This is Bolehland afterall.

No one would believe that our judiciary is impartial. Many would agree the legal system and its instruments in Malaysia is a mess. I question the transparency of the Attorney-General.

But the notion that the Malaysian judiciary is a laughing stock worldwide? Seriously? Do you think the world cares about a very domestic matter that is the death of a minor political aide?

This is why I can't stand Malaysians sometimes. Its one thing to be so-called village champion, thinking that your successes are of any meaning. Its another to think that the world is looking at Malaysia. The reality is that Malaysia is a very minor player in the bigger scheme of things.

And the reality is that Singapore's legal system, while indeed perceived to be subservience to the ruling PAP, at least applies the law equally to all citizens, regardless of religion, race and creed.

Election posters

Sidi Munan talks about the lack of election posters in Australia:

But where were the posters and the billboards? Not one poster, no billboard, nothing to indicate that the campaign for national elections for all the states is on. These Aussies are not serious about elections, I thought. Not as serious about being elected into office and being called a YB like we Malaysians are. At home we would be spending millions of ringgit on posters and billboards and flags and buntings. These Australian parties do not believe in the effectiveness of all these advertisements, it would seem.

Time to look beyond the blinkers of Malaysia "Uncle Di". The only reason why elections in Malaysia are just an excuse for visual pollution is the fact that a) our population is poorly uneducated b) We're not monolingual.

The only way to get into the consciousness of individual voters is to bombard them with images of a rocket, weighing scales, and moons superimposed on Green/Blue backgrounds (amongst others). So people don't so much vote for the candidate as much for the image that appears on the ballot paper. Because they can't read what is on the paper to begin with.

Secondly, all parties and political interests have (relatively) free access to the mass media to peddle their messages in Australia. Try having The Star carry a full page advertisement from DAP, or The Borneo Post editorialising how weak and ineffective the SUPP candidate is. Will Seehua carry a paid advertisement from me outlining my distaste of business and political interests intertwined together?

Thirdly, Malaysians don't read. You would have thought they'd be watching TV, but few people actually watch free to air TV due to its poor content and cannibalisation of the broadcast market by Measat Broadcast Network Systems, aka Astro satellite television. (In addition to movie piracy and the internet: see fragmentation of the media scene) Some have put newspaper readership in Malaysia as low as 65% of the population.

To put how low that is into context, Australia has a newspaper circulation around the 90's, while newspaper penetration is close to 99% in Japan. So using the printed press to try and push your message doesn't have the reach that you need.

One can never read newspapers. Many have not tuned into free-to-air television for ages. However, no one can escape the onslaught of posters, banners and flags stuck on every lamppost, intersection, overhead bridge, and wall. Which is why, the only way to get your message out in an election in Malaysia is to do visual pollution.

Finally, virtually all political messages in Australia are in one language: English. Malaysia does not have that luxury. Political messages are inevitably drawn across linguistic (read: racial) lines. So people don't so much vote based on the message, the manifesto, the candidate, but for the image on the ballot paper. Because its the only thing that transcends linguistic and racial barriers. But it also means that the vote is cast within the constraints of linguistic and racial limitations.

Endnote: I have to also point out that Australia practices preferential voting, so its not just as simple as putting a "x" mark on a ballot paper. Also, state and federal elections are almost never held at the same time in Australia, so there is a clear division between the different levels of government. Unlike west Malaysia, where state and federal elections have been held simultaneously for so long, that people don't realise that they are 2 separate governments.

Twitter gems, part 9

Lerrymaru should stay away from the southern hemisphere: there are no locks on bedroom doors in this part of the world. Seriously.

In other news:

Browser behavior and websites with insecure content

I've noticed some interesting behavior with web browsers when dealing with web pages that have insecure content in an otherwise SSL connection.

Take Twitter's, er, own twitter account for instance: https://twitter.com/twitter

Note the HTTPS. That means it should be secure right? Well no. While the actual page that is displaying the tweets is secure, the other parts of the web page (ie CSS) are served from non-https servers. This means the connection is not totally secure and safe from eavesdroppers.

So how to the major browsers deal with it?



Firefox loads the page, but the address bar is devoid of any color markings that would indicate a secure connection. However, there is no message informing the user that the connection is not secure.



To be fair through, there is an option in Firefox's settings, and by default it would ask you if you want to continue on to a web page with insecure elements in it. However, most people who see it at the first time would check the "Do not inform me in the future" checkbox.

The other 2 browsers below on the other hand, show no warning with the default settings out of the box.




Chrome happily displays the page with no questions asked, but at the address bar, if anyone notices, is a message saying the connection is not secure. Which is true, as some elements of the page have traveled through an insecure communications path.



Opera also shows no warning. Happily loads the page, but only if you look closely you would realise there is no gurantee that everything in the page has not been tampered with in transit.


Internet Explorer 8 on the other hand, would ask you if you only want to load page elements that have not traveled through a secure channel. The question is worded in such a way, that the general result of "yes" would mean loading only the secure portions of the web page.


Which generally means the CSS and images in the page.

Now all that is fine and dandy. However, some browsers exhibit some interesting quirks.

The Digimon who leapt through a summer of war

What do the Digimon Movies, Toki o Kakeru Shōjo, and Summer Wars have in common?



via manutaro of MangaJet.com.

JPMeyer is right: you could cross post screenshots from the 3 movies, and no one would notice. And that, my son, is what you call consistent quality.

Reminiscing Digimon

Cutfilm tovent takes a trip down memory lane:

I’d have to say that the third series, Digimon Tamers, was probably the creative peak of the franchise. Its characters were the most complex and fully-realized yet, its action scenes more convincingly set up and better orchestrated than ever, and its story inventive and emotional enough to overcome the cheap, commercial foundation that the series was rooted in.

For me, the Tamers series was the pinnacle of the Digimon franchise. I still have delusions of visiting the locations that were the inspiration for many settings in Digimon Tamers.

And I still think that the "bizarre opening sequence" that was before Digimon: The Movie was actually one of the best things I've ever seen before a movie. (Beats the commercials and trailers of movies I'll never watch)

But what if I like cats?

Linux by Examples talks about the power of grep:



Meanwhile: cat loves SUSE.

Singledom

Its quite funny, as the BBC runs an article about "The price of being single", while Brigham Young University submits an paper entitled "Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review". Which was picked up by the Sydney Morning Herald as "Make friends and live longer" (Reuters' article was slightly less sensationalist)

Maybe someone should do a study on the validity of Shinn87's waifu manifesto:

Spin City

Spin no 1:

The Star publishes a article titled "Internet junkie children have parents worried" (mirror here). It features quotes from MCA Public Service and Complaints Department Michael Chong and vice-president of HELP University College Goh Chee Leong about "students’ obsession with the Internet".

(On the side lines, is Goh Chee Leong allowed to use the "Dr" title in public, when he is NOT a a medical practitioner, but a PhD holder?)

In reality, its just a advertorial for parental control software dressed up as article regarding the "problem" of Internet addiction.

Its not just political parties that spin y'know.

Spin no 2:

laptopmalaysia.my publishes a post titled "Laptop reliability study, Asus and Toshiba got high reliability rating, HP got the last place."



What it doesn't tell you it is a recycled 2009 press release from "independent warranty provider" SquareTrade. Now using media releases as "content" is not new, but without attribution?

And Malaysians wonder why their university ratings (which are all about referencing and research) are at the low end of town.

Spin no 3:

The Malaysian Insider runs an article headlined "Outcry as Terengganu tops 2010 budget to RM2.1b" (mirror here).

Who's (out)crying? It certainly isn't the people. The only person questioning the Terengganu state budget in the article is Terengganu PAS deputy commissioner Mohd Abdul Wahid Endut. Hardly a "outcry" by any other standard, unless the motive is to create an artificial "outcry" to a problem that doesn't exist.

It is an outcry when a school bus driver rapes a 9 year old. It is an outcry when Penan girls are raped hitching a ride to school by the only means of transport they have. (see a pattern here?)

Incidentally, Sarawak has a budget of RM3.579 billion for 2010.