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.

I’ve been a bit slow on the post these days, part of that is because I experienced a life-changing experience some time back, but mostly because I was experimenting with a new medium–youtube!

I’ve made 3 new youtube videos, and plan to post one every week. Unfortunately, what that means is that there’s less time to spend on the regular blog post. Hopefully by the end of the year, things will stabilize and I should be able to post a youtube video and a blog post regularly. But for now, most of my effort is going to be focused on the creating those videos.

Here's my first video:

Do you know a Groupon Junkie?

It's those people that start and end everyday checking out what sort of 'deals' they can get online, the sort of people who'd buy completely unnecessary items purely because they were on sale. These people literally stalk websites like Groupon or livingsocial to see if they can get a iPhone powerbank for 40% off, or if the Japanese restaurant in Subang Jaya had a deal on Salmon Sashimi.

I was a Groupon Junkie once. I used to religiously subscribe to the mailing list of these group discount websites, and what I found was that I was actually spending more than I was saving. Sure I was trying out new places to eat, but in the end I felt I was spending a lot of money on things I never wanted in the first place--and the things that I actually wanted, were never on Groupon.

To me, the dream was always if I could get Groupon to pick out the items I actually wanted--rather than a random haphazard items that no one knew existed in the first place.

A friend of mine, might have stumbled upon the answer. You see Groupon is a random collection of deals--and the only thing that ties them together is that there's a deal on them. Visiting Groupon is like windows shopping at the 5 dollar store, sure you might find something useful, but most of the time you just bought yourself a bunch of nonsense just because it was on sale. The only thing in common the items in the 5 dollar store have--is that they're 5 dollars, other than that they range from cooking to gardening to stationary and even car care.

The solution to the problem is to have a specialized website. One that didn't sell everything under the sun, but a very specific niche offering, so that people don't feel they're in a 5 dollar store, but a store that was offering a deal on something they ACTUALLY wanted to buy.

But what sort of niche market would that be? What niche market is in high demand--but also would benefit from the concept of group buying.

Say it with me now people-- THE PROPERTY MARKET!

It's a great idea, because not only are properties in high demand, Property buyers are looking for discounts (after all what buyers aren't), and from that came the idea of Propertyplus.

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.

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.

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:

Petaling Jaya, (September 19, 2013) - To celebrate its 5^th Anniversary, Packet One Networks (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (P1) invites all Malaysians to keep playing without limits by launching a special unlimited quota promotion for two of its award-winning wireless home broadband plans.

The ForHome^TM 99 and 149 offers a speed up to 1Mbps and 2Mbps with unlimited quota for the affordable prices of just RM99 and RM149 respectively for a limited time only.

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:

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“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?

Vaccination deniers - KILL CHILDREN - Bill Gates.