Cynix’s World

It has been a long time since I went back to my hometown, Penang. I heard that a lot has changed & Penang Island is becoming heavily populated. Recently, there has been a spring of websites & blogs involving news about SJK(C) Sin Chung in Kepala Batas which was partly demolished.

As The Star pointed out: At about 11am, two excavators started pulling down structures soon after the court dismissed the school’s application to seek non-enforcement of a March 25, 2003, court order to surrender the school property to Motif Era Sdn Bhd, which is also the landowner. Two hours later, at about 1pm, the developer halted the demolition work after receiving the High Court order & the school was given an indefinite stay of execution to the 2003 order pending a judicial review.

All the pupils, including Bumiputras that studied there was devasted by this incident. It is indeed the result of poor management of the goverment. Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon is quick to give his views & give an explanation regarding the demolition & reprieve. He stated that: “We are very disappointed with the developer’s action although they had received the court order but at the least they should have shown some concern for the students’safety in the classrooms.” DAP did not waste time to grab people’s attention by sharing videoclips of this topic.

Temporary Reprieve: pupils during recess

It would seem that the goverment has came up with something to solve this problem temporaily. Headmistress Sze Too Yu Ching said arrangements were being made for all the pupils to be relocated to SJK (C) Aik Keow in Penaga, about 7km away from Sin Chung. Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon also appealed to the public not to view the demolition from a racial or ethnic angle as the state government strongly condemns the rough and hasty behaviour of the developer in tearing down part of the school building on Thursday. He also urged the school to expedite construction of its new building, noting that the Government would allocate RM300,000 for the project.

For pictures & mandarin blog entry regarding this, please visit here. There are ways to help available here as well.

On a different story, Pulau Jerejak which is an island quite near to my Penang house, is to developed as an eco-tourism destination and with no casino in mind. That island used to be a leper colony and later became a penal colony. Sincerely hoped that the situation there has changed for the better.

Tag: penang

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Happy New Year 2006 to everyone. This year has been a special year for me as I’ll be having a new house, a new job and a new lifestyle - working life that is. Just started work this year, went to the orientation on 3rd January. It started with intro like usual, but this one has some much more info, from how to login to enterprise, IP phone to how to report my time & expenses, quite tiring. After a few hours, the recruiting personnel said we’ll be going for lunch. When I was going to the lift I had a chat with a fellow programmer about her work, she had started 10 days ago. She was assigned to a project in Kerinchi and she said there are no transportation allowance to get there. [She could be mistaken as she’s a newcomer as well, collegues said that genereally, transporatation allowance to other offices is given] I was quite worried as I have no idea at all where I’ll be assigned to just yet. And from what I heard, the location could vary anywhere from Cyberjaya to KLCC.

The partners decided to take us to Chinoz on the park for lunch. I dare say that is one of the most expensive restaurant in KLCC. The experienced hire professionals such as consultants, immediatly started ordering appetisers, soups & main entree. Each item costing crazy prices. I had salmon fillet which I enjoyed and an ice lemon tea, wanted to order more, but was afraid that I couldn’t finish them. Enjoyed myself at Chinoz, it’s after all the first time I have been there. However I was quite worried about my placement thus was pretty quiet during lunch.

After a few more hours of explanation regarding health & insurance benifits, flight booking, wroking visas & tons of procedures, the orientation finally came to an end. It was then a HR was sent to me & she told me that I’ll be assigned to a UOB project in Singapore! But I’ll be based in the KLCC office! Thank god, I had always wanted to work in the KLCC office as it looks pretty modern & I have an existing mode of transportation there. Was so relieved that day Many others were assigned to different locations, I was the only programmer assigned to the Singapore project however.

Sample AS400 command window, looks pretty “matrix-y”, ancient IBM app tho

Started working for real the next day, was assigned a project that uses AS400 server & RPGLE progamming language. So I get to learn something totally new & quite different from what we learnt in university. Good thing for me as I always preferred to learn something new rather than doing the same thing repeatatively. Funny thing is that this is the prog language that tortured many of my senior collegues when I was having my industrial training. I didn’t have to learn it then, but certainly have to learn it now, haha… Collegues in the company & project team are very friendly & helpful, taught me a lot of stuff. However this shows that there aren’t anytime for newcomers to chill either.

Received a bunch of company emails, quite a lot of invitations to the company’s various official & unofficial gatherings as well. One thing special about this company is that everyone uses IM, I’ve seen y!m, msn, icq in every desktop and the recruiting HR has told us that this is one of the primary communication media in the company to my surprise. I certainly wouldn’t mind & ‘adapted’ to the company culture immediatly of course, . Learnt how to create PF, DSPF, RPGLE, Query, Subfile and a few more in 2 days of work, tiring but worth it I guess.

Tag: 2006

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Few sights in the solar system are more strikingly beautiful than softly hued Saturn embraced by the shadows of its stately rings.
The gas planet’s subtle northward gradation from gold to azure is a striking visual effect that scientists don’t fully understand. Current thinking says that it may be related to seasonal influences, tied to the cold temperatures in the northern (winter) hemisphere. Despite Cassini’s revelations, Saturn remains a world of mystery.

Currently, the rings’ shadows shield the mid-northern latitudes from the harshest of the sun’s rays. As Saturn travels around the sun in its 29-year orbit, the shadows will narrow and head southward, eventually blanketing the opposite hemisphere. For more, please read here.

Have been reading Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince, pretty interesting. Popular Bookstore is selling the Bloomsbury Adult Version for RM59.90, the usual market price would be RM99.90. Spells and magic have always facinate me, so it’s no surprise I’ve taken a liking to it.

I’ve also enjoyed Dan Brown’s books very much. In fact, I’ve finished The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, as well as Deception Point. Still half way through Digital Fortress, but I suspect I’ll continue & finish it some day. Once I’ve read one book, I can pretty much guess the villian for the others, the most unexpected one would be the answer. The Da Vinci Code movie is going to be shown in cinemas as well, starring Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu and Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing. I love Audrey Tautou’s acting skills very much personally, famous in french movies such as Amelie. Robert Langdon is suppose to be smartly handsome, duno if Tom Hanks can pass this but we’ll see. As for Ian Mckellen aka Gandalf, I’m pretty sure I would not be disappointed.

Ever guess How Much is Your Blog Worth? Well I’ve found this:
Inspired by Tristan Louis’s research into the value of each link to Weblogs Inc, this little applet has been created using Technorati’s API which computes and displays your blog’s worth using the same link to dollar ratio as the AOL-Weblogs Inc deal.

Well not bad, isn’t it, that’s like RM8K, haha However, as you try to check how much is your blog worth, you’ll soon find out that this figure is easily reachable. Since it’s calculated by amount of posts and I’ve only just started not long ago, those of you out there who’s been blogging for quite some time should be getting a lot more

Tag: the da vinci code

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First of all Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2006 to all my fellow friends! Hope all of you will have great parties to go to & enjoy yourself all the way through to next year.

Have been getting quite a lot of forwards regarding Santa vs Jesus. The article mentioned that: In the battle between Jesus, the Christ child who gave Christmas its name, and Santa, a 70-year-old figure that is largely the creation of a soft drink company, it would seem that the humble carpenter from Bethlehem has met his match. And the safe bet would be that Santa is more popular than Jesus during X’mas.

You can’t really blame the kids if they thought X’mas is a birthday celebration for Santa Claus rather than Jesus when they keep seeing all this marketing campaign involving Santa & (more importantly) presents! And it might pain you to know that Santa Claus could very well be created by a large soft drink company which is non other than Coca-Cola Company. He wears the corporate colors — the famous red and white — for a reason: he is working out of Atlanta, not out of the North Pole. Although many people might argue about this, but I guess it’s safe to say that Coke did not invent Santa but they certainly make him one of the most popular men in America.

And then there’s indication that Christ (if you believe he existed) is borned in late spring. And quite a number of people think the celebration of his birth is shifted to coincide with pagan’s Winter-solstice celebrations so that early christians were not prosecuted.

There are also other views such as this:
Dec 25 is also the date of a celebration by the Romans to their primary god, the Sun, and to Mithras, a popular Persian sun god supposedly born on the same day. The Roman Catholic writer Mario Righetti candidly admits that, “to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by the pagan masses, the Church of Rome found it convenient to institute the 25th of December as the feast of the birth of Christ to divert them from the pagan feast, celebrated on the same day in honor of the ‘Invincible Sun’ Mithras, the conqueror of darkness”

However, To all the christians out there:
The essential fact is that God did enflesh Himself in time and space (1 John 4:2). He was born from a woman on a specific day in a specific year, walked among us, died for our sins, was raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven. This is what we celebrate at Christmas: God was (and is) with us!

And To all the non christians out there (or those that are christians by name - in honor of their parents, like me):
It doesn’t really matter when Jesus is born or whether he ever existed. Everyone Loves Christmas, coz it’s a time for caring, sharing & exchanging presents. And we can celebrate Christmas just as much as we wanted to!

P/S: Happy Dong Zhi as well! Hope all of you get to have Tang Yuan with your family.

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TIME Magazine has announced their Persons of the Year 2005 and they are Bono, Melinda & Bill Gates. three people on a global mission to end poverty, disease—and indifference. Bono is the lead singer of U2 & is an activist. As quoted from Oprah.com: He “transforms passionate intensity into action that just might change the world”. Melinda & Bill Gates is the dynamic duo whose charitable foundation rocks the world. As quoted in their organisation’s website: They are Working for a More Equitable World. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is committed to promoting greater equity in global health, education, public libraries, and support for at-risk families in Washington state and Oregon. Well these 3 people are quite a good choice, but if you want to know why: Bono - who spends several thousand dollars at a restaurant for a nice Pinot Noir, and Bill Gates - the great predator of the Internet age, has a trampoline room in his $100 million house are TIME’s Persons of the Year 2005 then you would have to buy the current issue of TIME Magazine.

It’s a genuine webcam shot, for full details go here

Although I’m not selected as Person of the Year 2005 but my photo still get to be displayed on the Billboard of Times Square New York City. More info on how my picture got up there is available here.

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As you can see from the previous entry, I went to Disneyland on November, that can be considered as my Birthday celebration as well. Had fun! I came back towards the end of November & attended 2 interviews at a company in KLCC Petronas Twin Towers. Got the programmer job for a normal pay, starting 3rd January. So I still have December to enjoy life somemore.

I haven been watching quite a lot of american tv shows such as desperate housewives, lost, grey’s anatomy & all 3 CSI’s. One of tv shows that I’ve started to watch is Bones from fox tv, new show, pretty neat so do check it out. I also noticed a famous game show in Australia started airing in USA, it’s called Deal or No Deal. The aus version started quite some time ago, but the american version just premiered this week. I’m guessing the rules are pretty much the same but one thing is different for sure, the women holding the number boxes in the 2 countries had distinctive styles. Australians enjoy it very much, watch em everyday, duno about americans tho.

Then they are some movies as well, we’ll start with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I enjoyed it just fine, though I find the part where the bush “attacked” Fleur and the part where Harry & Cedric fought over the cup, kinda ridiculous. And as expected, that was not how it was potrayed in the book. Among the more popular complaints from people who actually read the book (I didn’t) include: Dumbledore is too mean in the movie, Kristin Kreuk should have been Cho Chang & too much hormones going on. Next up is Chronicles of Narnia, considering that the book was actually written about kids & for kids, the movie is fine. Can’t expect much from a kids & animals conversation now can we? It started out kinda slow, but the war part which is max 2 pages in the book took up a lot of time in the movie. It’s to make the movie more interesting I suppose or to prevent a riot by the angry adults in the cinema.

My working shirts, full picture here

My Guess wallet & bag, full picture here

Well since I’ll be working next month, it’s time to shop for working clothes. Bought quite a few Shirts from Seed Work, one from Padini, one skirt from Elle & one pants from G2000. I guess that pretty much covered buying clothes during celebrative season for x’mas, new year & chinese new year. They’re on sale anyway Bought a nice blouse from Blook as well, not a bad shop if you’re looking for something fancy. I’ve forgotten to upload a picture of the Guess bag & wallet I bought from Guess Outlet in Katy Mills so here they are, they are quite cheap in USA.

Going beyond expectations? More like not within expectations

On a side note, just read the news about MAS “expenditure”. I remember not long ago that MAS was suffering from a loss & is increasing their air fare and the PM asked people to inform MAS’s CEO of their overspending. Putting all this aside, I still don’t see how those art pieces can improve their corporate image or maintain the stature of the place. If there’s one thing in Malaysia that needs a better image (by spending huge amounts of the hard earned tax payers money), it should be the country, not it’s airline. Let’s start with making sure that the spots that had signs that says “You’ll be fined RM500 for littering” are not the dirtiest spot you’ve ever seen. Or making sure that the stores under the sign “Selling of pirated products is prohibited” are not actually selling pirated products. That’ll do good to whatever image we’re trying to set.

Squat Incident

I also remember just when I came back to Malaysia, I heard about the ear squat incident. Lotsa hoohaa over the “fact” that she’s a Chinese National, ended up she’s a malay after all. Funny I never read any news about the woman suing the (pants off or) bejesus out of the police or the person who took the picture or anyone involved in it, for the emotional damage & traumatic experience. Never mind the tourist turn-off, defamation & humiliation, everyone in the world who has a slight interest in Malaysia, Chinese or (most probably) non clothed woman, had saw her in her b’day suit. I mean we do live in the world where privacy is important & those that intrude it will have to pay an unimaginable huge sum of money for compensation right?

Wait, what am I talking about. This is Malaysia.

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