A colleague asked if I could help burn a data folder into a CD. “Sure,” I said. The folder contained materials for a workshop the department is organizing, and the organizing committee thought that it would be good idea to give each participant a CD. When I went to the computer, I saw that the folder was just about 6MB-large. Since a typical CD can nominally store between 650MB and 700MB of data, I thought that it would be a huge waste to burn a CD to only use less than one percent of the storage capacity.
Instead, I suggested simply providing the materials on every computer during the workshop. Participants could then either save the materials onto their own USB flash drive or email them to themselves. This way we could save a lot of CDs. Everybody nowadays walks around with a USB flash drive with at least 1GB of storage anyway. With ever bigger and cheaper hard disk drives and USB flash drives, broadband Internet connection and web-based email services like Gmail offering free online storage in the Gigabytes, CDs are fast going the way of the 2.5-inch floppy.
However, the committee insisted. They wanted to give the fee-paying workshop participants something concrete to take home with, other than a folder full of course materials. So I burned the CD.
During our conference last April, a few participants actually went around room to room collecting hard copies of the presented papers even though they were already given to everyone in a CD. There were more than sixty papers presented at the conference. I doubt that they read all those papers during the conference. I doubt that they actually took all those papers home either.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Game Theory
LOL. If love is a game.
(Click for full size)
__________
PS: On second thought, how do you win a love “game”? How do you lose? It doesn’t make sense.
(Click for full size)
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PS: On second thought, how do you win a love “game”? How do you lose? It doesn’t make sense.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Grammar Nazi
I don’t want to be a grammar nazi but I think people, especially students, should write properly. It would have been easier if I didn’t understand what is written so I can just ignore and delete it. Unfortunately, I’m not that old – no offence to old people – but I wonder if they’d write differently to a senior professor.
While of course, I shouldn’t expect proper grammar in an informal email to arrange for a consultation meeting, we are seeing this abbreviated electronic communication language in formal test and exam scripts too. Students in my class actually asked me recently whether they should write full sentences in the essay part of the coming final exam, and I thought “WTF?!” Some lecturers allow them to just give bullet points, they say, and only look for key points.
Call me old-fashioned, but I think proper grammar is very important. It doesn’t have to be perfect – I know mine isn’t – but one should be able to properly spell words and form sentences. When dealing with complex concepts and ideas, proper grammar helps us order our thoughts. It is also important to ensure that the information we wish to convey is correctly understood by the reader.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Salvation
Just so you know I am really bummed right now. Bummed. Yeah. PFFT!
So, is it too late to write about Terminator Salvation? There may be spoilers if you haven’t watched the movie, so consider yourself warned.
I wanted to watch it, then I didn’t, and then Chee Yoong asked if I wanted to watch the new Terminator – he’s paying – so I did. I wanted to watch it because Batman Christian Bale plays John Connor. Then I didn’t want to watch the movie because all the leaked stories and reviews made me realize that the whole franchise is beginning to sound really tired. Terminator 3 sucked. So the week it opened I watched Night at the Museum 2 instead, which was a load of fun and has the Jonas Brothers as singing little winged angels.
Badass three-part poster
All right, I enjoyed the action. My favorite part of the movie is seeing the old A-10 Thunderbolt II attack plane, one of my favorites, as the main (only?) fixed wing combat aircraft used by the Resistance. Although, I have to wonder how the Resistance in 2018 still manage to even have an air force. Hiding a fleet of aircraft is one thing, maintaining the supply of fuel, spares and ammunition to keep them flying is something else. It also seems that nuclear explosions only make huge mushroom clouds but no EMP nor radiation. Hmm…
Story-wise, we learn nothing much new about John Connor, who listens to his mother’s old tapes all the time. The story is mainly about Marcus Wright, the half-human, half-robot who may or may not want to kill Kyle Reese, Connor’s future father. When Reese is captured by Skynet, Connor goes off to rescue him and is fatally injured in the process. Oh, no! :P Wright offers Connors his heart to save him, which Connor accepts. So John Connor, leader of the Resistance and perhaps humanity in general has no problem accepting a heart from another person who’s still alive. In fairness, however, Connor already regards Wright as a thing instead of a person. Whatever. Anyway, I can’t help thinking the Terminator franchise can easily be extended and later linked to The Matrix.
Anybody all excited to watch Transformers 2 next week? Me, not so much.
By the way, do you know that the real life Skynet is a network of British military communications satellite? You know, huh? Well, all right then. The first Skynet satellite was launched in 1969, so it was not named after the Terminator Skynet. I don’t know about the courier company, though.
__________
CREDIT: All pictures from Warner Bros. Pictures/Yahoo! Movies
So, is it too late to write about Terminator Salvation? There may be spoilers if you haven’t watched the movie, so consider yourself warned.
I wanted to watch it, then I didn’t, and then Chee Yoong asked if I wanted to watch the new Terminator – he’s paying – so I did. I wanted to watch it because Batman Christian Bale plays John Connor. Then I didn’t want to watch the movie because all the leaked stories and reviews made me realize that the whole franchise is beginning to sound really tired. Terminator 3 sucked. So the week it opened I watched Night at the Museum 2 instead, which was a load of fun and has the Jonas Brothers as singing little winged angels.
Badass three-part poster
All right, I enjoyed the action. My favorite part of the movie is seeing the old A-10 Thunderbolt II attack plane, one of my favorites, as the main (only?) fixed wing combat aircraft used by the Resistance. Although, I have to wonder how the Resistance in 2018 still manage to even have an air force. Hiding a fleet of aircraft is one thing, maintaining the supply of fuel, spares and ammunition to keep them flying is something else. It also seems that nuclear explosions only make huge mushroom clouds but no EMP nor radiation. Hmm…
Story-wise, we learn nothing much new about John Connor, who listens to his mother’s old tapes all the time. The story is mainly about Marcus Wright, the half-human, half-robot who may or may not want to kill Kyle Reese, Connor’s future father. When Reese is captured by Skynet, Connor goes off to rescue him and is fatally injured in the process. Oh, no! :P Wright offers Connors his heart to save him, which Connor accepts. So John Connor, leader of the Resistance and perhaps humanity in general has no problem accepting a heart from another person who’s still alive. In fairness, however, Connor already regards Wright as a thing instead of a person. Whatever. Anyway, I can’t help thinking the Terminator franchise can easily be extended and later linked to The Matrix.
Anybody all excited to watch Transformers 2 next week? Me, not so much.
By the way, do you know that the real life Skynet is a network of British military communications satellite? You know, huh? Well, all right then. The first Skynet satellite was launched in 1969, so it was not named after the Terminator Skynet. I don’t know about the courier company, though.
__________
CREDIT: All pictures from Warner Bros. Pictures/Yahoo! Movies
Monday, June 15, 2009
WTF
I found a letter in my mail box last week. It was from mysterious phantom dude. All right, dude is not exactly mysterious because I actually know full his name and student ID number, and if I want to I can access his registration and academic records (and do what?).
Dude wrote that he experienced some problem with the network connection and forgot to save after dropping my class in the online registration system. My thought went back to why he didn’t print a confirmation slip (?). However, when I showed the letter to other staff members at the kulliyyah, they zoomed in on the saving part. The system immediately deregisters a student from a class once they click on the drop button. There is no save button. So whatcha saying, dude?
His second excuse is that he received a last minute notice to go for umrah. Strange, I thought. Umrah, the small pilgrimage, can be performed at any time during the year so you get to choose when to go. Having made plans to perform the umrah, even if the exact dates weren’t confirmed, dude shouldn’t have registered for the optional short semester in the first place.
Hmmm…
One thing, though, his letter was quite unexpectedly well-written with very few grammatical mistakes. So dude can write. The letters I received from students before were quite invariably so horribly written I wondered how they passed SPM English. Some of the letters were in fact in Malay, though again so horrible Malay I wondered how they passed SPM Malay.
So when the Education Minister asked recently whether English should be made a must-pass subject in SPM to improve our school-leavers’ proficiency in the language I thought, “WTF?!” These students whose letters I read and whose answer scripts I mark already passed SPM English and still their English is horrible.
Making English a compulsory and must-pass subject in SPM will not necessarily improve our English. Teaching mathematics and science in English won’t improve our English too but that’s for another day. The only way to improve command of the language is to improve teaching of the language itself. I was so shocked to read in the newspapers that grammar is no longer taught in schools. No wonder we are so frakked.
Dude wrote that he experienced some problem with the network connection and forgot to save after dropping my class in the online registration system. My thought went back to why he didn’t print a confirmation slip (?). However, when I showed the letter to other staff members at the kulliyyah, they zoomed in on the saving part. The system immediately deregisters a student from a class once they click on the drop button. There is no save button. So whatcha saying, dude?
His second excuse is that he received a last minute notice to go for umrah. Strange, I thought. Umrah, the small pilgrimage, can be performed at any time during the year so you get to choose when to go. Having made plans to perform the umrah, even if the exact dates weren’t confirmed, dude shouldn’t have registered for the optional short semester in the first place.
Hmmm…
One thing, though, his letter was quite unexpectedly well-written with very few grammatical mistakes. So dude can write. The letters I received from students before were quite invariably so horribly written I wondered how they passed SPM English. Some of the letters were in fact in Malay, though again so horrible Malay I wondered how they passed SPM Malay.
So when the Education Minister asked recently whether English should be made a must-pass subject in SPM to improve our school-leavers’ proficiency in the language I thought, “WTF?!” These students whose letters I read and whose answer scripts I mark already passed SPM English and still their English is horrible.
Making English a compulsory and must-pass subject in SPM will not necessarily improve our English. Teaching mathematics and science in English won’t improve our English too but that’s for another day. The only way to improve command of the language is to improve teaching of the language itself. I was so shocked to read in the newspapers that grammar is no longer taught in schools. No wonder we are so frakked.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Keep the Faith
I chanced upon a music video on television one late afternoon a long time ago. Only eight or nine years old at the time, I didn’t understand a word of the lyrics, but the tune was forever imprinted in my mind. Though I never saw the video ever again nor heard the song until much later, I could always recall the tune in my head. It was my first and all time favorite song.Fast forward to 1992 , I was at a departmental store in Seremban when I heard the song again on the PA system. This time I definitely had to ask. Though they were already playing a different song by the time I got to the DJ station, the music was unmistakably from the same band. The DJ showed me the album they were promoting, Keep the Faith, the then-latest fifth studio album by rock band Bon Jovi. Before that I’d never even heard of the band. Everybody in school was transitioning from Guns N’ Roses to Nirvana. I took one look at the audio cassette, decided that cover art was quite cool for a rock album, and bought a copy right away.
Keep the Faith is my very first music album purchase, and I bought it based solely on a vague memory of a song I didn’t even know the name of. Nevertheless, it is an awesome album that remains till this day my favorite and the only music album I know the words of all of its songs. The old audio cassette carries fourteen tracks but CDs sold today lack the songs Save a Prayer and Starting All Over Again.
It didn’t take long before I bought all of Bon Jovi’s previous albums including the 1986 Slippery When Wet that contains the song that started it all – Livin’ on a Prayer, and I’ve been buying all of their albums since, including the 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong box set.
__________
During undergraduate a popular professor told us that the 2000 hit song It’s My Life was evil. I wondered if anybody took him seriously.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Our Finest
There’s this dude who registered for my class but never showed up, so as per university regulation I sent him a warning letter (for missing 10 percent of classes) followed by a barring letter (for missing 20 percent of classes). A barring letter means a student is prevented from sitting for the final exam and a zero-credit Y grade is recorded in the official transcript. It’s as good as failing a course, or worse.
Anyway, the very next day a few students from the class approached me to tell that their friend, the mysterious phantom dude, is away at his hometown. Supposedly, dude thought that he had dropped the course. Supposedly, I say, because that was the story they were telling me but the record says that he’s still registered. Funny thing too, because after adding or dropping a course through the online registration system, one is supposed to print out a confirmation slip before logging out. They gave me a withdrawal form they filled in on behalf of their friend the phantom dude (very nice friends, I thought) and asked me to sign it. “But I’ve already issued a barring letter,” I said. “Help-lah, sir,” they said.
So I brought the withdrawal form, already signed, to the kulliyyah office. “The student is the one who’s supposed to settle this personally, not you,” said the admin staff in-charge. “The head of department needs to sign the form too, and the student has to pay RM300.” So much for trying to be helpful, I thought, and took the form back to the department office and dumped it in the head of department’s signature tray.
“How about the barring letter,” I was asked later, “do we still process it?”
“Sure,” I said. What I have is the fact that dude hasn’t been coming to class; and a story that his friends – yup, his friends, not himself – told me that he thought that he’d dropped the course.
Yesterday, I received an email from phantom dude. He wrote that he called and spoke to the dean and deputy dean, and they told him that it’s my call to revoke the barring notice. I cannot just issue a warning letter and then cancel it. “Write me a letter,” I replied.
When I logged into my email account this morning there was another email from phantom dude. He wants me to “check” his letter before he sends it. Come on, lah!
Anyway, the very next day a few students from the class approached me to tell that their friend, the mysterious phantom dude, is away at his hometown. Supposedly, dude thought that he had dropped the course. Supposedly, I say, because that was the story they were telling me but the record says that he’s still registered. Funny thing too, because after adding or dropping a course through the online registration system, one is supposed to print out a confirmation slip before logging out. They gave me a withdrawal form they filled in on behalf of their friend the phantom dude (very nice friends, I thought) and asked me to sign it. “But I’ve already issued a barring letter,” I said. “Help-lah, sir,” they said.
So I brought the withdrawal form, already signed, to the kulliyyah office. “The student is the one who’s supposed to settle this personally, not you,” said the admin staff in-charge. “The head of department needs to sign the form too, and the student has to pay RM300.” So much for trying to be helpful, I thought, and took the form back to the department office and dumped it in the head of department’s signature tray.
“How about the barring letter,” I was asked later, “do we still process it?”
“Sure,” I said. What I have is the fact that dude hasn’t been coming to class; and a story that his friends – yup, his friends, not himself – told me that he thought that he’d dropped the course.
Yesterday, I received an email from phantom dude. He wrote that he called and spoke to the dean and deputy dean, and they told him that it’s my call to revoke the barring notice. I cannot just issue a warning letter and then cancel it. “Write me a letter,” I replied.
When I logged into my email account this morning there was another email from phantom dude. He wants me to “check” his letter before he sends it. Come on, lah!
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Smoke-Free
May 30, 2009 19:59 PMLast week’s news, I know. I’m a little behind on a lot of things. Adding more places to the list of no-smoking areas is always a good thing; a neat way of telling those thick-headed smokers that they aren’t welcome. Enforcement is another matter, however. Only 4,500 people were summoned for smoking in smoke-free areas last year?! 4,500 out of God-knows how many people who light up at bus stations, food courts, shopping malls etc the chance that an offending smoker is summoned is very small indeed.
Hotel Lobbies To Be Smoke-free Zones
KUALA LUMPUR, May 30 (Bernama) -- Hotel lobbies and centralised air-conditioned offices are also to be declared smoke-free zones in a move by the Health Ministry to ban smoking in more areas.
…
Smoke-free zones are currently enforced at, among other places, entertainment outlets, hospitals and clinics, public lifts, public vehicles, air-conditioned eateries, airports (except designated areas), government premises, halls, institutions of higher learning, kindergartens and nurseries, public transport terminals, schools, service counters at banks and financial institutions, shopping complexes, sports complexes, stadiums and petrol stations.
[Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai] said the Third Health and Morbidity Survey 2006 showed that the overall smoking prevalence in the country was 21.5 per cent, encompassing 2.73 million adults.
…
He also said that last year, 4,500 people were summoned for smoking in smoke-free zones and fined between RM3,000 and RM5,000.
…
-- BERNAMA
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=414817
I suppose health officials are the ones issuing the summonses. The police don’t care, it’s not their job. They have better things to do like catching “real” criminals. Unfortunately, there aren’t many health officials around, and they have better things to do too. Besides, everybody knows in this country laws are only enforced when there’s an “operasi” going on.
What about summoning premise operators instead? RM500,000 for allowing people to smoke in your smoke-free premise. It should be a lot easier, logistically, than trying to catch individual smokers, passing the enforcement burden to the operators.
Another interesting angle over this whole smoking issue is that smoking has already been declared forbidden (haram) by fatwa councils at the federal level and at least five states, not to mention many eminent international scholars. If we respect and obey other rulings by these religious authorities then why ignore this one?
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