Science on keithrozario.com

The problem with Grab

Wed, 06 Feb 2019 00:12:52 +0000

As a company, Grab has done enormously well for itself, and naturally will be the target of some hate.

But I think there's a deeper issue with Grab that needs addressing before it becomes an unsolvable problem.

Grab is a win-win

Let's start with what makes Grab so appealing.

Grab (at least in my mind) is the highest paying hourly wage job in the country. As long as you possess a car, and a valid driving license you can be a Grab driver, earning significantly more than any other hourly wage job.

According to this WOB article (which looks suspiciously like a paid ad), the average Grab driver earns RM5,000 per month, which is crazy money for a unskilled job -- and yes driving Grab is unskilled labour.

For unskilled work in Malaysia, earning RM5,000 per month is a god-send, after all even graduate employees don't earn that much. And like all hourly wage jobs, the more hours you put in, the more money they make -- 5,000 is just where it starts

So this seems like a win-win for everyone, drivers get to earn, and at the same time provide a service that is in high demand.

And in truth, Grab is a win-win -- at least for now.

Fast-forward

The problem is that when you fast-forward 10 years, or just 2 elections from now.

Most Grab drivers I've met aren't doing this part-time. They're driving as a full-time job, and they're putting in serious hours (10-12 a day) to make serious money. That means they've no time or to up-skill themselves, because every hour learning a new skill is an hour they could have been driving.

The cost of learning to them is a double-whammy, first they spend on acquiring the new skill (like everybody else), but also the lose income from their not driving. This for most, will be too high a price to pay.

You might argue that driving isn't un-skilled. But all it takes to be a Grab driver is a driving license and a car, skills don't factor into this. Grab doesn't care if you're a PhD, diploma holder or SPM drop-out, it'll pay the same.

Grab views all of it's drivers as a supplier of the one commodity it needs -- cars to move passengers. The only time Grab pays more to drivers is when they turn on the auto-accept feature, because that makes their algorithm more efficient. The more subservient you are to the algorithm, the better it will reward you -- that is a pretty nasty feeling.

So as more folks join the Grab band-wagon, we're sucking out skilled labour from the job-market. Leaving the entire country, as a whole, worse off in terms of competitiveness. But we're just getting started.

So you think English is the lingua-franca of Science...

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 08:00:23 +0000

I get annoyed when parent associations insist that the Government needs to teach science and maths in English. They argue that because English is the lingua-franca of science, teaching science in English will help students learn more effectively without needing them to translate scientific terms from the vernacular. They add that teaching Science and Maths in English is a great way to improve the standard of English in schools.

It would great if those points were true, but they’re not.

English as the Lingua franca of Science?

Firstly, English isn't the lingua-franca of Science. True, scientific journals are mainly in English and citations in most scientific literature point to English journals only, but shockingly primary and secondary school children don't read the latest publications on the higgs-boson.

Instead, what children learn in school is so dated, that their initial publications were probably in Latin or Greek, with older text going back to Arabic, Chinese or even Indian origin. The most recent ‘findings’ your children learn in physics is Quantum Physics, which is roughly a hundred years old. Even then, they aren’t reading Einstein’s original paper on the Photoelectric effect, they’re reading a textbook that sufficiently distils and simplifies it for their consumption.

In fact, a vast majority of what children learn in Form 4 physics is derived from Principia, which is a collection of 3 books by Sir Isaac Newton who wrote them in Latin. The famous rhyme that “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction” may sound nice in English, but doesn’t exist in the original text, simply because it wasn’t written in English. Going further back in history, the algebra you loved in high school derives its name from a notoriously hard to pronounce book titled “kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-ğabr wa’l-muqābala” , the highlighted al-gabr means the reunion of broken parts, and forms the origin of the word Algebra. The book itself was written by al-khwarizmi (who is the most important mathematician you never heard of), and whose name is where we get the word Algorithm from, obviously he didn’t write his works in English.

Of course, I use these ancient examples a bit unfairly, but the fact is that your children are learning ancient science in schools. It’s not irrelevant, it’s that you have to build the foundation of scientific literacy from these ancient roots before you can tackle modern day science of the Higgs-Boson. You can’t fly before you learn how to walk.

The point is, that if these ancient text were translated into English at some point, why can’t we do the same to Bahasa, or Mandarin, or Tamil..or whatever language you want to. Isn’t it easier to translate and contextualize these century old ideas into a language the next generation is comfortable with, rather than hope they suddenly develop a love and understanding of a foreign language like English?

When you say Lingua-franca of science, in the context of what children actually learn in primary and secondary school–it isn’t English.

Why you must ALWAYS question government

Sat, 14 Mar 2015 22:38:56 +0000

Today I read that our beloved Education Minister is ‘SHOCKED’ that Malaysian students are not on par with their foreign counterparts.

Shocked? Really?

Just 2 years ago, the good Minister was proudly proclaiming that “The Malaysian education system is on track to becoming among the world’s best”, and this was backed up by a Government Transformation Project (GTP) report.

The Monty Hall Problem in Excel

Sat, 07 Jun 2014 17:06:05 +0000

I remember this problem from watching an episode of numbers. You’re a contestant on a game show–and you’re given 3 doors to choose from.

Behind one door is a shiny new sports car–behind the other 2 are goats. Your goal is to get the sportscar, by choosing a door. But after you choose a door the host reveals one of doors with the goats. Leaving you with you just two doors, instead of your initial 3.

Why do computers like to calculate Pi?

Sun, 25 May 2014 21:23:26 +0000

Pi has always held a special place in my heart and probably yours as well. When people ask me to pick a number between 1 to 10, I always pick Pi (or sometimes the square root of two), which hasn’t made me the life of many parties.

And there’s an entire community of Pi lovers like me out there–people who are just fanatical about calculating pi to the trillions of digits? With just the first 40 digits of Pi we’ll be able to calculate the circumference of our galaxy with an error that is smaller than the size of a proton, so calculating PI to trillions of digits is quite superfluous. So why then do people do it?

My teachers day tribute to Mr. Vijay: Summing every number 1 to 100

Sat, 17 May 2014 22:38:04 +0000

Teachers day was last Friday, and I thought it would be good to make a small post in tribute to an interesting teacher I had in form 4.

Imagine a 200 pound man, with a thick moustache, carrying intimidating rotan, and wore nothing but Chairman Mao style Bush-coats everyday–that’s Mr. Vijay, and he thought me Additional Mathematics.

Mr. Vijay was interesting in many ways, including the wrestling stories he’d tell in class, but for all my years in school I only remember a handful of lessons, and none more vividly than the time he thought me the story of Carl Friedrich Gauss during us lesson on arithmetic sequences.

The story is certainly fiction, similar to that of Newton discovering gravity by watching an apple fall from a tree–but that is irrelevant, what’s relevant is how I remember it, and as my tribute to one of my teachers, I’d re-tell the story here.

Here goes.

Once upon a time, there lived a boy named Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Even while still in elementary school, Carl was already a maths genius, and like all other geniuses was a bit of a nuisance in class. So one day to shut Carl up, his teacher gave him an ‘important assignment’–he was to calculate the sum of all numbers from 1 to 100. i.e. 1+ 2+ +3 +4….+100. The idea was that this would keep Carl busy for the remainder of the lesson

However, Carl came back very quickly with an answer of 5,050!!

How did Carl do this?!!

Trust the science: Why mining pool water is safe to drink

Sat, 10 May 2014 16:49:24 +0000

Do a quick experiment:

Fill a glass half-full with water
Drop a couple of ice-cubes into the glass
Measure the water level before the ice melts
Measure the water level after the ice melts

Now compare the water level before and after the ice melted, and you’ll find them to be the same. So if melting ice doesn’t increase the water level in your glass–why do melting ice-caps raise the sea-levels of the earth?

Study shows Malaysian students can't solve problems

Wed, 02 Apr 2014 10:31:21 +0000

The latest PISA 2012 results are out, and it comes with a twist. Instead of testing the usual 'knowledge' of the students, PISA crafted a new exam meant to test the creative problem solving skills of students in various countries.

Edweek.org further explains:

The assessment, which was the subject of an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report released Tuesday, defined creative problem-solving as the ability to “understand and resolve problem situations where a method of solution is not immediately obvious.” Worldwide, a representative sample of 85,000 students took the exam, including 1,273 U.S. students in 162 schools.

MH370 crashed our romanticized perception of technology

Sat, 22 Mar 2014 17:55:15 +0000

As our thoughts and prayers remain with the passengers of flight MH370, I think that as the search enters its 3rd week, it’s a good time to reflect on just how much our perception of aviation technology has changed as a result.

It’s quite important to differentiate between what REALLY happens and what we THINK happens, an in some cases the gulf is so large, that our perception of what happens borders on science-fiction. Take for example, our perception of the US Secret Service. Years of Hollywood movies have led us to believe that if anyone even thought about firing a weapon at the President, Secret Service agents would immediately throw their bodies in the line of fire, evacuate the President and then take out the bad guy. That however is mere fairy tale–no different from the Giant Robots in Transformers or the Aliens in Star Wars. If you look at History and reality, you’d find that some years back, an Iraqi Gentleman not only had the time to throw a shoe at President Bush, but enough time to TAKE OUT A SECOND SHOE and throw it again at the President–were it not for the Presidents quick reflexes, he would have ended looking like David Beckham after a night out with Ferguson.

So the gulf between what we think the Secret Service CAN do, and what it ACTUALLY does, is quite enormous.

Is it Root-er or Rao-ter : The age old question for the pronunciation of the word router

Mon, 03 Mar 2014 22:15:20 +0000

Here’s an age old question, is it pronounced router (as in rao-ter) or is it router (as in root-er).

A lot of people seem to think it depends where you are, if you’re in the US, it’s rao-ter, and if you’re in the UK it’s root-er. But the internet is global, it doesn’t care where you are, it doesn’t matter which culture you’re from, there can only be one answer to this question, and it must be location agnostic.

Why the Angkasawan Program failed

Sun, 03 Nov 2013 22:49:01 +0000

In 2003 the average score of Malaysian students in in the Trends in International Maths and Science Study 510 (slightly above the global average). In 2007, that number slumped to 471, below the global average. Then in Oct 2007, we sent a man to space. With the idea that it would "instill the interest of young Malaysians to explore new areas of science and technology " Surely our science scores would sky-rocket after such an endeavour.

It didn’t. We scored a embarassing 426 In just 8 years we went from being above average to bottom third, and the angkasawan program did absolutely nothing to arrest this slide.

Of course, the Good Minister will tell you that we’ve had 24 academic papers published as a result of the program, first of all I couldn’t find the mysteriously ‘well-received’ papers on any google searches I performed. Including papers related to the Food In Space experiment, which was meant to taste 9 difference Malaysian delicacies on board the ISS. Notice also, that the word collaboration is wrongly spelt on this slide.

Why Malaysia should never send anyone into space again--EVER!!

Sat, 05 Oct 2013 22:22:45 +0000

There's been a lot of talk lately on Malaysia sending a second Angkasawan into space. Unfortunately, we don't seem to be getting our moneys worth, the Angkasawan program has done nothing to stop the slide in our Scientific literacy in Malaysia, in fact, if the graph above is anything to go by it's actually made the it worse.

One of the key reasons always cited to support the Angkasawan program is to promote the understanding of science and maths in Malaysia–unfortunately, the Angkasawan program seems to have a negative effect on our international test scores for science. I wonder why? I’ve made a video on why the angkasawan project was a waste of time, check it out here.

STEM in Malaysia

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 07:00:37 +0000

Taken from the newly minted Education Blueprint:

Malaysia places great importance on education as a means of becoming a developed nation to meet the challenges and demands of a STEM driven economy, by 2020. Accordingly, the Malaysian government instituted the 60:40 Science/Technical: Arts (60:40) Policy in education in 1967 and started implementing it in 1970. The policy refers to the Ministry’s target for the ratio of students with significant STEM education to those with a greater focus on the Arts. This policy target has, however, never been met due to various factors discussed below.
In 2011, only 45% of students graduated were from the Science stream, including technical and vocational programmes. Additionally, the percentage of secondary school students who met the requirement to study Science after PMR but chose not to do so increased to approximately 15%. This raises concerns about the education system’s ability to produce sufficient STEM graduates for the economy.

Journalist mixes capital 'M' and little 'm', makes Sabah most energy efficient state by a mile

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 22:22:01 +0000

The Star today reported that the entire state of Sabah had its electricity supply 'crippled'. I used inverted commas because the article goes on to say that the reduction was as much as 200mW.

Now, any school child in a reasonably good school is going to tell you 200mW is nothing. 200mW actually translates to just 200 milli-watts, or 0.2 Watts. That’s less than 1 Watt!!

You see in science (and more specifically engineering), the lower-case ’m’ is used to denote the prefix ‘milli’ or 1/1000th. It’s why a millimetre is 1000 times shorter than metre, and why a milligram is 1000 times less mass than a gram.

I would have dismissed this as a typo, if the article didn’t continue to read:

Ibrahim Ali gets his maths wrong

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 16:45:42 +0000

There’s something terribly wrong, when a politician can’t get his million, billions and trillions correct. This Malaysian Insider story has quoted my favorite bigot as saying:

[box icon=“chat”]

“Right now, the GNI of Bumiputeras is RM56 million. So to achieve RM900 billion by 2020, the government must provide funds worth RM1.4 trillion to Bumiputeras,” he said.

I’m pretty sure the 56 million is a typo or just a slip of the tongue, however the RM900 Billion requiring Rm1.4 Trillion, is some what of a ‘calculator rosak’ moment for Ibrahim Ali. Of course this begs the question—where will the additional RM500 Billion go?

Bill Gates on Vaccination

Wed, 18 Sep 2013 10:15:07 +0000

Vaccination deniers - KILL CHILDREN - Bill Gates.

Of pirated software and vaccinations

Sun, 15 Sep 2013 23:32:57 +0000

Here’s a quick question–do you have a ‘original’ version of Windows running on your PC or is it pirated?

If you’re like me, then obviously you’ve learnt long ago to only use original versions of software–especially when it’s the operating system of your PC. Of course, I wasn’t always like this, back in my university days, I couldn’t afford the couple hundred dollars it cost to buy an original Windows XP, and hence used a pirated version–my windows installation CD was actually burnt from a pirated CD, I wonder if that made me a pirate of a pirate?

One of the things that puzzled me was that even with my obviously pirated software, I could still download Windows software security updates–something I thought represented Microsofts failure to engineer a way to check on the legitimacy of my software. It wasn’t until much later, that I discovered the true reason for Microsoft seeming benevolence–Microsoft was merely protecting it’s paid customers by providing free updates to the pirates.

Say what now?

It may sound ironic, but one of the best ways for Microsoft to provide security for their paying customer is to ensure that even the pirates receive security patches.

Imagine for a moment if Microsoft didn’t allow patching for pirated Windows, and assume that 20% of the Windows machines on the internet were pirated. What that would mean is that 20% of all PCs on the internet would be vulnerable to each and every Windows vulnerability discovered. That’s a large chunk of customers that would be affected, and the real down-side is that the 20% of pirated customers could end up re-infecting legitimate paying Windows customers. So in order to reduce the spread of vulnerabilities in it’s ecosystem, Microsoft had to protect it’s paying customers, by patching its pirated copies.

Vulnerabilities aren’t fun for Microsoft, but they’re a fact of life–and being the dominant Operating System of the 1990’s and 2000’s meant the Microsoft received more than it’s fair share of attacks, the problem of course was how to address the vulnerabilities as and when they’re discovered?

There are two ways to deal with this problem: Limit the number of people who know about the attack or reduce the number of systems that are vulnerable. The first method has been tried for years with little success. This leaves us with the option of reducing the number of vulnerable machines on the Internet. Or as one team of researchers noted (pdf), “a vulnerability dies when the number of systems it can exploit shrinks to insignificance."[1]

So Microsoft followed the science and attempts to shrink the number of vulnerable systems to insignificance, and that can only mean allowing patches for pirated versions of Windows, no two ways about it, a world where Microsoft didn’t allow pirated version of Windows to be patched would be a dangerous world to live in.

The Star pisses me off--again.

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 22:02:00 +0000

I pity TheStar, it gets whacked from both sides of the political spectrum, one for being too pro-government, and for not being pro-government enough. However, my sympathy has its limits when I saw what is undoubtedly the single stupidest article in any newspaper titled “Spicy food can trigger aggression”

Now sure, the wonderful world of science sometimes throws us a surprise every now and then, but to link spicy food to aggression without any form of scientific study is tasteless (in every sense of the word). Not only can it reinforce bias on cultures that love their spicy food (Thais and Indians), it also serves to mis-inform the public by passing off what is one mans opinion as scientific fact–when it truly isn’t.

Illegal numbers?

Thu, 16 May 2013 07:00:51 +0000

Great video from the guys at Numberphile talking about illegal numbers. It always amazes to think that your money in the bank isn't protected by steel doors or guards with guns anymore--it's protected by numbers. (more specifically it's protected by one VERY VERY large number).

The encryption key that is responsible for keeping your sensitive bank details secret, is nothing more than a very very long number, and that number protects your money more than any steel door or armed guard ever could.

Why is Malaysia trailing Singapore, Taiwan, Korea

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 07:01:26 +0000

[gallery orderby=“post_date”]

A lot of people ask why Malaysian has fallen behind countries like Korea, Taiwan or Singapore in terms of our economic development. The answer most politicians give is corruption–but there’s hardly any data to suggest that’s a big issue–at most corruption can account for the ’loss of income’. There’s no guarantee that the money we saved by eliminating corruption would be spent wisely on good projects, there’s no guarantee we’d be where Korea, Taiwan or Singapore is even if we had no corruption. Do you think there’s corruption in Kelantan, yet they seem to be trailing behind everyone in terms of development? Low corruption is not a guarantee of good education.

Malaysian Scientist don't believe in Evolution?

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 07:00:50 +0000

Previously I wrote about a great report from MASTIC that surveyed the perception of the Malaysian public regarding Science and Technology. What I failed to mention or rather what I ‘chose’ not to mention at the time was a specific portion of the report that dealt with the Theory of Evolution, and the reason why I didn’t want to address it was to not distract from the original intention of that post.

This however, is a different post, one with a different intention that aims to ‘inspire’ some question regarding the Malaysian public attitude towards the Theory of Evolution and towards science in general.

What MASTIC says about Evolution

The MASTIC report is actually a subset of a much larger international survey that aims to gauge public opinion about Science and Technology, a buried among the questions lurks two that address the question of our origins:

Human Beings as we know today developed from earlier species of Animals (True or False)

The Universe began with a big explosion (True of False)

For both these questions, MASTIC believed that the answer was False! This is of course inconsistent with what the European and the American survey that deemed the right answer to be TRUE! More importantly– this answer is inconsistent with the scientific evidence at large.

Of course, you don't have to be a scientific genius to figure out the real root the discrepancy--someone somewhere in MASTIC decided to inject their own personal beliefs into what was otherwise a nicely done scientific survey, and this is where things begin to become a bit dangerous for Science in Malaysia.

When government officials begin to inject their personal beliefs into the scientific establishment without any regard for the evidence to the contrary– then we begin to see a decline in science, that’s when science itself comes under attack. Science is above all interested in the pursuit of truth, and that pursuit has led it to the theory of evolution that establishes a framework to understand the diversity of species in the known world–both past and present–and connect the past to the present via Darwinian natural selection. Evolution maybe a theory, but it definitely isn’t theoretical–and the scientific community has long accepted Evolution as ‘THE’ definitive theory that explains the diversity of species that exist today (and yesterday), while its supposed ‘competition’ receives no attention at all–mostly because the supposed competition of the theory of evolution are without basis and are not supported by the evidence.

The fact that MASTIC think that they can change the answers to something so fundamentally agreed upon by scientist the world over is disturbing–nearly all of biology involves a solid understanding of Evolution, and yet here is MASTIC denying a scientifically accepted FACT!

When is Cheating OK?

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:00:06 +0000

The Star today reported on ‘4D fortune teller’ who was arrested for in connection with a cheating case worth over RM1 Million.

Of course most of think that the guy got what was coming to him, however the question becomes how do we say a ‘4D Fortune Teller’ was cheating–to the point where we can charge him in court (under section 420A of the Penal code). The report goes on to state that:

DCP Mohd Shukri said the man would distribute pamphlets in various areas, highlighting his supposed ability to predict lottery numbers.

“When he gets a call from someone interested in his service, he would tell the person to deposit money into his bank account to perform special’ prayers to get the lottery number.”

“He would also scare the victims by telling them they would suffer bad luck if they did not deposit the money,” he said.

My only question is, why was this one particular person singled out?

Why not go after the entire Feng Shui industry in Malaysia–after all don’t they promise the same thing? Isn’t Lilian Too doing nothing more than promising her customers better luck? Isn’t this guy doing the same thing–promising his customers better luck (albeit in more concrete terms)

We haven’t even begun to talk about how Financial institutions make predictions of the stock markets by placing ‘buy’, ‘sell’ or ‘hold’ calls on various counters–does anybody do a thorough analysis on these calls to make sure they’re nothing more than just random guesses? In fact for the most part, many studies have shown that Index funds (that simply buy all the stocks in a given index at a weighted average) do better than actively managed funds (where a fund manager actively selects counters from a specific index).

Malaysian Public Opinion of Science and Technology

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:23:03 +0000

I recently discovered a really good study conducted by the MASTIC in Malaysia to determine Public Awareness of Science in Malaysia. The study was conducted every 2 years from 1998 till 2008, which gives us 5 really great data sets to determine not just the public awareness of science in a particular year--but also how that perception changes over the decade.

The study makes for a good read–but the main point I was interested though is this one question on how the Public Viewed science, in which 3 possible answers were given, either they thought Science did more good than harm, Science did more harm than good or that Science was neutral. In 1998, nearly half the population viewed science as causing more good than harm, but in 2008 that number increases to nearly 3 quarters. So we see a stark rise of about 25% of people going from being on the fence about science to believing it causes more good than harm.

However, there were about 8.7% of the population who believed science caused more harm than good, these are those who think that science has a negative effect on society, and what’s interesting is that the number of people in this country has barely changed in the last 10 years, remaining more or less constant around the 6-8% range.

Malaysian Education System : Seriously flawed GTP report

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 22:02:58 +0000

In conjuction with the release of the Government Transformation Project Annual report, the Star today reported:

The Malaysian education system is on track to becoming among the world’s best as stringent monitoring is in place to ensure its success under the Government Transformation Plan (GTP).

“The rate of improvement of the system in the last 15 years is among the fastest in the world,” the GTP report said.

Malaysia also ranks among the top in the world for equitable access to education.

Malaysian parents don't want Kids to do science

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:00:46 +0000

This is so true.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is probably the most famous astrophysicist on the planet, and of late he’s been the face of science education in America. He’s got the coolness of Jay-Z mixed with the lovability of Bill Cosby and the intelligence of Carl Sagan all rolled into one. He’s been promoting science in America a lot, and fighting for a budget increase for NASA.

However, he’s pointed out in this video, that the barriers to scientific inquiry don’t lie with our children or our kids, it lies with the adults. Adults that in most cases control budgets and policy regarding science–just like a Minister of ours who suggested we send an astronaut to space to play traditional games. I’ve also noticed this a lot in the past, ever since I wrote about having a career in IT I’ve had more than a few emails sent to me from young people who’d like to pursue IT but face a stumbling block in the most unfortunate places–they’re parents.

Mobile Phones at Gas Stations : They're Safe

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:00:59 +0000

Sometimes good intentions lead to bad things, particularly when they’re not grounded on rational science. Just like how some still believe that Wi-Fi poses a health hazard and even more common myth of how Mobile phones cause gas station fires.

Now that’s a myth that’s been around a loooong time.

No matter whether you call them handphones or cellphones or mobile phones–they’re not allowed in most petrol stations (or Gas Stations) simply because people still believe that somehow these phones can ignite petrol fumes. This is related to the myth that Wi-Fi poses health hazards because Mobile Phones, just like WiFi transmitters use microwaves–and people are irrationally afraid of microwaves.

Microwaves have been getting a lot of bad publicity for the last 2 decades, ever since we discovered we could heat food up with them everyone has freaks out everytime they’re mentioned–everyone except the engineers.

Engineers love Microwaves–they’re the waves that transmit everything from WiFi to WiMax to 3G to HSPDA to LTE, from Astro to Maxis to Digi to Celcom, and we’re constantly bathing in microwaves because everyone uses them–but for some reason it’s not OK to use a Mobile Phone at a Gas Station.

The next time you’re a petrol station, look on the roof, there’s a GIANT ass satellite on it, just bathing in microwaves. That’s a VSAT satellite that most Malaysian petrol stations still use for connectivity.

Are Free Public WiFi initiatives safe? Or do they pose a Health Risk?

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 07:00:51 +0000

Techdirt recently reported on how Canadian Schools are Banning WiFi based on bad science, and I was appalled by the complete lack of science we have operating in the minds of these clueless parents. No doubt they’re well-intentioned but their complete and utter disregard of the scientific evidence in favour of fearful knee-jerk reactions are actually causing more harm than good for the very children they intend to protect.

Of course it doesn’t take much research to find out that WiFi isn’t dangerous, and there’s no evidence to show that it is dangerous. In fact, most studies suggest WiFi radiation is so weak, that a year of WiFi radiation equals to 20 minutes on a cell phone. The most important thing of course is not to fall into the trap of thinking we’re ‘better safe than sorry’ because we already are safe with WiFi and we have enough evidence to suggest what WiFi poses to health risk.

Wireless@PENANG : The Health risk of Public WiFi

I'm also reminded of Wireless@PENANG project, that took so long to launch due to pressures from public groups and NGOs similar to the Canadians parents. This includes flak from Anil Netto (a journalist I respect) , who wrote a couple of post about how the public were not consulted about the Wireless@PENANG and how the European Parliament has begun to be wary of Wifi. All of this of course didn't bode well for the Penang Government, because they had to organize a town hall on the matter, fortunately the science prevailed and Jeff Ooi (whom Lim Guan Eng branded as 'tech-savvy') announced that the project was back on track shortly after the town hall.

Unfortunately, the consumer association of Penang wrote a long open-letter to Lim Guan Eng, chastising him for not engaging them enough. It was clear from the letter than the Consumer Association, while having the right intentions in mind–were clearly misled in terms of the science. It was even clearer that all they wanted was for them to be engaged, but from my end I can’t see how a consumer association who has looked at the scientific data (and lack thereof) not conclude that the benefits of WiFi almost astronomically dwarf the ‘perceived’ health risk– quite frankly there are no health risk. More to the point, I would not even begin a conversation with them, till they point to some scientific proof of how WiFi is a health risk. At present there is no such data.

Should Science Teachers be Paid more

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 07:00:36 +0000

Lawrence Krauss is a smart guy, he’s a professor of physics, he’s written a whole plethora of books on science and has an award list from the scientific community that’s longer than my sunday grocery list (and trust me that list is looong).

He’s also famous for one of my favorite books, the science of Star Trek, in where he explains things like warp speed an teleportation. So in general Lawrence is a pretty big voice in the physics community and when he says something people usually listen–they may not agree, but at least they listen.

I recently watched a 2 hour video of him conversing with Richard Dawkins about ‘Something from Nothing’, and I was really intrigued, but what really caught my attention was a 5 minute piece he did for Big Think about why Science Teachers should be paid more than Humanities teachers. It’s quite interesting to think about, the general premise being that:

Some rather odd Maths

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 21:55:24 +0000

I wrote recently about the sad state of Science Education in Malaysia, now I’m beginning to see some examples of really bad Mathematics as well.

Bernama today reported that:

BN has the ability to obtain a two-third majority in the 13th general election (GE), that is expected any time soon, Department of Special Affairs (Jasa) director-general Fuad Hassan said.

He said to garner two-third majority, BN needs to draw at least 30 percent votes from the Chinese voters, and respectively 65 percent from the Malay and Indian voters, nationwide.

Is America Building the Death Star -- Not really

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 07:00:25 +0000

The White House has a “We the People” website where any member of the US public can submit a petition.If the number of people supporting the petition exceeds 25,000 then the White House will at the very least respond. While for the most part, the petitions are boring and politically slanted – the coolest and most techy petition to date was one to “Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016” . Now some of you might be thinking this was a joke–well it may have started out as one, but to date more than 34,000 Americans have signed it, well exceeding the minimum 25,000 required to elicit a response. Some of you might wonder what the hell a death star is, to those people I say–your lack of faith is disturbing!!

The coolest part about all of this though, is that the White House actually responded as promised, and they did it in style. Check this out:

MACC says Facebook at work is Corruption

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 07:00:39 +0000

According to last weeks Star, MACC deputy chief commissioner Datuk Sutinah Sutan was reported to have said that Civil servants and staff of government-linked companies (GLCs) surfing social media or engaging in personal matters during working hours may be categorized as having committed corruption!!

The underlying logic to the argument seems plausible enough, Datuk Sutinah goes on to elaborate that:

“For instance, if a person spends three hours during his or her stipulated working hours for personal tasks, it can be deemed a form of corruption as the Government trusts and pays its employees to fully utilise the working period to complete tasks relating to the respective jobscope,”

Now while all this sounds good on paper, I think we need to delve deeper, because every time a broad statement such as this comes along it’s important to take a step back and analyze the evidence rather than rely on ‘common sense’. Common sense is after all–not so common (this reminds of the MACC lawyer who claimed the Teoh Beng Hock could strangle himself to death)

So here we have a situation where the MACC deputy chief seems to think that the social media habits of Government servants warrants a statement from such a high ranking officer and therefore logically this must be something of high consequences to the nation, much more than the RM250 Million soft-loan given to a company to sort out the nations beef issues.

Are TNBs new electric meters rigged to charge higher

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 07:00:45 +0000

There’s been a huge controversy over the newly installed digital Electric meters by TNB, with consumers from all walks of life raising hell over their the perceived rise of their utility bills ever since they’ve installed thenew meters. USJ State assemblywomen Hannah Yeoh blogged about her response to this, urging TNB to explain the price hike.

However the state assemblywomens action pale in comparison to Dian Abdullah who urged her YB to investigate TNB, and started a petition asking for independent calibration of meters–which she eventually hopes to present to Agong once the petition reaches 10,000 signatures. Ms. Dian Abdullah reports that she " personally feel(s) that the time has come where TNB should stop scamming the Rakyat especially those living and working in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor."

Of course, in typical Malaysian fashion–this is all mired in politics. A popular blog reported that the suppliers of the meters to TNB are linked to former Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Obviously if we intend to get into that we might not have enough time or space in this one post.

My point though is that there is quite a simple engineering (or dare I say scientific) solution to the issue–something that doesn’t involve politicians or lawyers. It’s unfortunate that Malaysians immediately revert to political and legal solutions, when engineering and science can solve most of your problems for far less hassle, far more effectively.

No Surprise Malaysia scores low on Science

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 08:00:14 +0000

This is a tech blog, so let’s talk about tech.

Let’s about the technology behind the term geo-engineering. According to wikipedia “The concept of geoengineering (or climate engineering, climate remediation, and climate intervention) refers to “the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climate system, in order to moderate global warming”. The techniques of geo-engineering are based on science, but applied on scale that exceeds even my imagination.

Techniques of geo-engineering include things like injecting metallic substances into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sunlight and thus reduce the earth temperatures, or on the more audacious side of the spectrum we have engineers proposing we install cooling pipes into the ocean to mix the cooler deeper water with the warmer surface water to cut-off (or at least slow down) a hurricane. Slowing down a hurricane might sound ludicrous to you, but if you understand the concept behind the creation of a hurricane, you’ll soon realize the solution is solidly based on science, and all it boils down to is an engineering challenge on a never-before-seen scale. It also helps that the company pioneering the hurricane halting technology is currently applying for a couple patents and is supported by the big thinker himself–one Mr. Bill Gates.

It has its sceptics and critics, but then again there were many sceptics when President Kennedy propose to send a Man to the Moon and bring him safely back in 1969. Till this day, some still are sceptical that the United States actually sent anyone up to space in 1969, and even more are critical of the amount of government funds spent on the Space Program–just nobody tell Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

IT Career in Malaysia : Why Information Technology rocks

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 08:00:28 +0000

So your child has just finish SPM or STPM or A-Levels and now you’re looking at a possible future career for them, or you yourself have just graduated and considering your future career. This is not something to take lightly, after all it’s the 4th most important decision in your life, behind who you get married to, when to have your first child and which EPL team to support. (hint: the answer to last one should start with M and end with anchester united)

Of course, there’s a lot of things to consider when choosing your future career and usually it’s a mixture of passion, interest and future career opportunities.You want a career you like and have interest in, but you also want a career that has future growth possibilities that match your aspirations (do you plan to live in Malaysia or move abroad…etc etc), and if you plan to stay in Malaysia you need to pursue a career that’s growing in Malaysia not something that’s growing somewhere else.

So while it’s great that you like palaeontology and want to contribute to your Tanah Air, but you’re going to be very hard pressed trying to find opportunities for digging up Dinosaur bones in Malaysia. At some point you need to keep certain things as hobbies and find a career that’s offers more progression opportunities. Or make the difficult decision of pursuing your passion somewhere other than Malaysia. It’s a difficult decision obviously, and sometimes you don’t have enough information to make these decisions–but thinking of these things now will save you a lot of heartache later on.

I think we need a lot more engineers and IT professionals in Malaysia, all this talk about transformation from the government isn’t going to happen with lawyers or politicians–it’s going to happen with technology, and unless we have more technically focused professionals entering the workforce, no transformation is going to happen (or at least no ‘good’ transformation).

Unfortunately, not many people seem to agree with me and usually when people don’t agree with me–people are wrong (the only exception to the rule is my wife).

However, I can’t understand had a decline in IT graduates over the last 10 years, and at the same time have an increase in IT opportunities in Malaysia?

A Jobstreet/Pikom report on the ICT industry in Malaysia reports that we’ve gone from 120,000 graduates per year, to just 75,000 graduates per year. That’s a bad sign on so many levels, so today as my little bit of service to the IT community in Malaysia, I’d like to tell you why a career in IT rocks.