Cutting in line!

Have you ever had people cut in front of you in a queue. Well, orang2 ini memang kurang ajar.
Unfortunately, rude people who cut in queue will always exist. Some with reasonable justification, and others with no reason what so ever. In Malaysia, I have experienced this happening to me many times. Especially the queue to the ATM. Though this is indeed a small matter, we should never tolerate such behavior. We cannot keep quiet cause that's going to ruin our mood. We have to stop queue cutters because, it makes people angry and will ruin someone's day. And that someone is going to ruin someone else's day and so on and so on. It will be a social chain reaction gaining negative angry energy outwards towards the community. Eventually, it will gain enough energy to be a social nuclear explosion. Hehehe, of course I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea. So stop the chain reaction occurring and escalating into a social nuclear explosion, you have to stop the chain reaction at the core.


The video above is one of the common methods that people use to cut queue.

Of course there are some exceptions.
1) Some people cutting a queue going to the toilet. They just have to pee and they can't wait. Usually ask, "Cik tolong, saya tak tahan nie, karang terkencing kat sini"
2) In cases of emergency, some people cut in line to use a telephone booth to call the police. You shouldn't be angry at this people. Their justification usually goes, "saya kena pakai tepon, emergency nie"
3) A pregnant with water just broke...."ketepi, beri laluan, nak terberanak".
I'm sure there are a few exceptions not listed here.

In any other cases, I have never tolerated queue cutters and always confronted them. However, in the past, I always thought that I didn't handle the matter smooth enough. I tend to get angry or end up in an argument. I guess, the best way to handle this issue is to remain calm. Some websites suggested the following method:


1) Get a witness. Ask the person behind you or in front of you if they saw the person cut in line. Doing so will help you get people to agree with you.
2) Nicely and quickly approach the person cutting the queue by politely asking a straight forward question. Like, "excuse me, I believe there is line here that starts over there and it looks like you just cut in line."
3) If an argument starts, I suppose its just not worth fighting over it. But the main idea is remain calm.

So be calm is the main idea here. Before blurting out ##$@$# .."get in line you idiot". Instead breath in, breath out.....find your zen  and rethink and follow the suggested steps above. good luck and save the world from a social nuclear explosion.

Ketagihan kelemahan manusia

Ini merupakan percubaan kali kedua saya untuk meningkatkan lagi bakat di dalam berbahasa ibunda. Dengan cara ini, saya percaya kita dapat mengekalkan jati diri melayu, disamping menakluki ilmu globalisasi dunia.

Topik yang ingin saya sampaikan kali ini ialah mengenai isu ketagihan. Jika ingin dibicarakan mengenai isu ini, sememangnya terdapat berbagai-bagai ragam dan cara. Manusia ini sememangnya tiada yang sempurna. Walaupun kita sentiasa berusaha untuk menjadi lebih sempurna, namun ada sahaja kelemahan di dalam diri setiap manusia tanpa kita sedari,

Selama ini saya percaya bahawa saya mampu melakukan apa sahaja aktiviti yang saya gemari. Mungkin hanya tinggal beberapa sahaja aktiviti lain yang masih belum saya lakukan seperti "sky diving", "ice climbing" dan banyak lagi. Namun, Seperti manusia lain, saya juga mempunyai pelbagai kelemahan. Salah satu kelemahan saya ialah ketagihan merokok. Sudah hampir beberapa kali saya mencuba untuk berhenti merokok. Namun, paling lama yang saya mampu bertahan hanyalah 3 hari. Itupun setelah habis mengigil dan mengigit kuku jari tangan kerana tidak mampu untuk bertahan. Mungkin jika masuk hari ke empat, berkemungkinan saya akan menggigil sehingga menggigit kuku jari kaki saya pula. Bagi saya, ketagihan merokok ini terlalu sukar untuk diatasi. Jikalau tidak, masakan syarikat rokok semuanya mampu menjadi kaya raya. Saya percaya, untuk berhenti merokok adalah terlalu sukar dan merupakan cabaran yang paling hebat. Lebih hebat berbanding belajar untuk mendapatkan PhD. Ketagihan ini juga sudah pastinya menjadi kelemahan ramai lagi lelaki-lelaki macho di luar sana yang mana jika dicabar untuk bergaduh, sudah pasti mereka berani untuk bertumbuk. Tetapi jika dicabar untuk berhenti merokok, pasti mereka tidak mampu bertahan terutamaya sewaktu “melabur” di dalam tandas.

Bukan itu sahaja, malahan terdapat pelbagai lagi ketagihan yang dihadapi oleh kaum lelaki. Seperti yang telah saya nyatakan, ketagihan ini terdapat di dalam berbagai-bagai cara dan jenis. Ada ketagihan pada arak, ketagihan pada dadah dan jugak ketagihan pada wanita. Walau bagaimanapun, masih terdapat ketagihan lain yang jarang kita dengar seperti ketetagihan berlagak alim yang mana seseorang itu perlu untuk menunjuk-nunjuk kepada orang lain bahawa dirinya itu adalah seorang yang alim. Saya mengkategorikan ianya sebagai ketagihan, kerana individu yang berlagak alim ini sememangnya perlu membuat orang lain merasakan bahawa dirinya itu seorang yang alim dan perlu dihormati hanya untuk membuat drinya merasa selesa. Samalah seperti merokok, di mana seseorang itu, perlu merokok hanya untuk membuat dirinya merasa selesa.

Bukan kaum lelaki saja yang mempunyai ketagihan-ketagihan ini. Malahan, ada juga ketagihan lain yang secara umumnya terdapat pada kaum wanita. Tetapi jangan salah sangka kerana kaum lelaki juga mempunyai ketagihan seperti ini. Contohnya, ketagihan mengumpat. Saya mengkategorikan mengumpat ini sebagai satu ketagihan, kerana terdapat beberapa individu yang sememangnya perlu untuk mengumpat hanya untuk membuat dirinya merasa selesa. Jika sehari tidak mengata perihal orang lain, sememangnya membuat dia merasa gatal dan tidak senang duduk sehingga terpaksa menggigit kuku jari. Ketagihan seperti ini sememangnya banyak terdapat di syarikat saya dahulu.

Bukan itu sahaja malahan ada juga yang lebih daripada mengumpat seperti suka membuat cerita perihal orang lain lalu di tokok tambah pula dengan mitos-mitosnya yang tersendiri seperti memburuk-burukkan orang lain dan sebagainya. Bila berkesempatan, ada sahaja modal mereka untuk memburukkan orang lain lalu mengheboh-hebohkan cerita kepada semua orang. Kononnya itu merupakan tanggungjawabnya sebagai seorang yang beriman dan warak. Baginya, sebagai seorang Muslim, dia perlu mengambil tindakan yang kononnya tidak dia ingini sama sekali. Padahal dia cuba berlindung disebalik alasan yang kononya dia tidak sesekali ingin menceritakan perihal buruk orang lain tetapi terpaksa kerana baginya perkara itu terlalu buruk dan mengakibatkan dirinya terpaksa memberitahu semua orang yang dia kenali. Padahal, sekiranya betul dia itu seorang yang beriman dan warak, sudah tentu dia akan menegur dengan sendiri setiap perbuatan buruk yang dilakukan oleh orang lain tanpa perlu membawa cerita dan akan cuba mempertahankan maruah individu tersebut dari tersebar luas. Tetapi, yang sebenarnya apa yang dilakukan itu bukan lah kerana kewarakannya, tetapi kerana ketagihannya. Jika tidak diceritakan kepada orang dan memburuk-burukkan orang lain, maka menjadikan hidupnya tidak senang duduk sama sekali.

Sememangnya Allah telah menciptakan manusia penuh dengan kelemahan. Masing-masing mempunyai kelemahan dan ketagihannya yang tersendiri. Cubalah kita fikirkan sejenak mengenai ketagihan lain yang tanpa sedar kita miliki. Jika kita tidak mampu untuk menghapuskannya, cukuplah sekadar menyedarinya agar menjadi satu tahap permulaan untuk kita cuba mengatasinya.

Diharapkan penulisan saya pada kali ini tidaklah berbunyi seperti warga Indonesia yang ingin berbahasa Melayu Malaysia.....

--Telah disunting semula oleh my beloved Editor 16/02/2009

Joey's Unproven Theory of Heroes Reality

A while back I was reading Scientific American Report while taking a dump in the toilet and an article really light up a bulb in my head. The article that I read, had nothing to do with this blog entry, but with a little sprinkle of my silly imagination, and Eureka....behold Joey's Unproven Theory of Heroes Reality.

My unproven theory states that by 2100 man will start to evolve to be super humans with abilities far beyond what we are capable today. Man will take an image of god, being more perfect beings with abilities far beyond our ancestors. I'm sure all of you have seen the famous tv series Heroes. Where some genetic anamoly in the human race are creating exceptional beings with abilities to fly, telekinesis, time and space manipulation, spontaneous freezing and combustion, mind control, mind reading, midas touch, electromagnetic and etc. Well, I'm not saying that we will reach these abilities so soon, but may infact somehow reach closely to these abilities and evolve slowly through time.

I came to this theory with a few insights from the article "Rise of The Robots" by Hans Moravec in Scientific American Reports, May 6, 2008. Typically, scientist believe that computers maybe fast enough to do computation as fast as our synaptic nervous tissue are able to create impulses. Our nervous tissue is what creates our brain where all our memory and ability to think occur. A monkey's intelligence for example is equivalent to 5 million MIPS(Millions Instructions per second). A computer with this speed, can surely replace some of the people working in the government sector...hehehe. But how much speed do we need to replace human beings. In another article, "The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine", Scientific American Reports May 6, 2008 predicts that it takes 10 to the power of 15 to have a processing speed of a human brain. If we are able to download a human's brain into a computer of this speed, we may also say that we have already made a computer conscious. By 2060, the typical computer would have a processing speed of all the human brains combined in the world.

If this is true, computers are able to create robots with brain power much more than all the professors exist in the world. Well educated robots may function as scientist working diligently, cheaply, rapidly and increasingly effectively will ensure that most of what science knows in 2050 will have been discovered by our own artificial progeny.
This sounds like a science fiction story, but it is not impossible. Once we all thought that flying to the moon is impossible. By 2060 we may become gods by creating our own Adam and Eve and create a new generation of a robot race.

It won't be long when we will have to compete with our own creation for survival at work, sports, and scientific findings. It won't be long when our own creation will eventually choose to be closer to their creators, to follow the image of their god, which is humans. They will create biologically advance biocybernatic beings that far exceed the robots that we create.

By 2100, humans will soon have to compete with this super robot beings. And the human race may even perish from the face of earth where we are known as gods....but only exist as incorrect historical data like the idea we have about Zeus, Aries, and what not. But the human race are not as fragile as we think. We are very flexible and we have the ability to evolve. I don't think we will go away so easily. It is said that the human race only uses 5% of their brain's potential. In fact, some in my work place, even uses much less than 5%...hehehe. So there is another 95% of untap power which we have not evolved yet. According to Darwin theory of evolution, a process of natural selection is what makes monkeys evolve into human beings. Now, there have been a lot of arguments here, but we shall not dwell on it today. But, if this theory is true, the instability of the norm, where human's are complacent, will have to change. Natural selection can occur again, and only the smartest and strongest human beings will survive. And slowly but surely, genetic contruction of a more perfect being will evolve, slowly but surely. The evolve human being will use much more percentage of their brain. One that would have abilities to maybe to do computation as fast as machines, one that are capable to run faster than a cheetah. There is no telling what new abilities we may able to discover by tapping more potential of our brain. Maybe telekinesis, time and space manipulation or even spontaneous combustion....

Will heroes become a reality? We can only wait till 2100 to prove Joey's Unproven Theory of Heroes Reality.

Police Image

I don't usually talk about personal feelings in my blog, not because I'm cold, or indifferent, but because when I vent out, the dark side of me surfaces, and it is not a pleasant one. I don't usually talk about politics because I know that I have friends with many different opinions and views, and I try very hard not to offend their beliefs.

What I will talk about is constructive ideas. Which might be destructive, but I will try making the best of it. As we now know, the people of our country are having problems in trusting the authorities. Particularly, the authorities that are meant to uphold the law and justice are now questioned for their veracity. The recent events in our country made the police looked bad. The "vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified" (quoted from the movie V). True indeed, that once, we respected the police, we consider them protectors and they were the heroes that would voice out the truth and yet today they vitiate and we stand flabbergasted as their actions seems to be full of debauchery, and nothing less than having venal arrangement with what the people perceived as villains.

The police image is definitely infected and what they need are new ideas on how to help their image, to help morale in the police force and get citizen support to help them in their investigations. The sad thing is, there are a lot of honest police out there, and they are being discredited for their hard work. When heroes are looked upon as villains, the law and order of things will break down. And so, thats why we must help remind the good police officers the reasons for them being in the police force. People should know about their sacrifices, and the media should help in giving credit to good man and woman working in the force.

Unfortunately, for the police, everything they do now cannot be right. If they issue a summon, people will hate them, and if they don't people say they are not doing their job. If they do investigations, they are abusing their power and if they act on a hunch, their are not being thorough. So how can the police fix their image.

The solution is a reality show for police.

What if the public knows what police are facing everyday? What if a hidden camera is set up to follow a traffic police everywhere? How sneaky drivers would offer bribes to them, and how they are trying hard to avoid such corrupt practices despite their poor living conditions with the salary they are getting now? This will immediately give credit to the honest traffic police, the heroes that help our streets save, and give the respect that they deserve. Of course they are corrupt traffic police everywhere, and we can't do much about it. However, we can give credit to those who have abstain themselves from the path of corruption.

What about other types of police? What if the media shows the challenges of police officers in narcotics are facing. The fear of being poke by a needle as they come to arrest drug addicts. The fear of being shot at by drug offenders high in cocaine. These are the things that the people might not know.......and the reality of things is that the police is earning less than comfortable income, support a family with small kids while his wife worries everytime he walks out of the door, for he might not come back alive one day.

Of course I'm being dramatic. But politicians are also very dramatic, and the media extol their actions as if they are heroes. As they make seemingly biblical proportion sacrifices infront of the media, they still go back to their nice banglo houses, and tinted black luxury cars. So why not the poor man and woman who serves our country with no intention of gaining political power, owning nothing more than a motorcycle and living in rundown flats like our police, fireman and soldiers too get the attention of the media? They are well more deserving....as their sacrifices are real.

SENSYS 2008 DEMO SUBMISSION

Lately our research group submitted a demo paper to The 6th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, 2008 (SENSYS). As one of the authors, I am very excited about it. We can't submit a full conference paper yet, since our research is far from what we are trying to do, and all we can do right now, with our preliminary data and experiments is show a demo in this respectable conference.
The reason why I am very excited about it is because SENSYS is one of the leading conferences in my area. Albeit, it is just a demo, but unlike many other conferences, SENSYS actually publishes their demo and poster papers. Furthermore, looking at papers, demo and posters being accepted in the past, much of the accepted papers comes from big named schools. Similarly, the review committee are from well respectable schools and well known individuals in our research area. I'm hoping our research holds some kind of significance to the reviewers, enough to get our demo publish in this conference.
Getting our demo publish will get us a feedback on whether my research area is something of interest to the Embedded and Networked Sensors community. It will also get us buy in on our research ideas and be a stepping stone for us to get funding as well as getting our papers publish in the future.
I'm praying hard that this paper actually gets accepted, and the wait is making me restless.
There is a possibility of being rejected due to the high volume of submissions, and this particular conference has been known to be very competitive. In the past, out of the many demo papers submitted from all around the world, only about 20+ demos gets accepted every year. I am not looking forward to be rejected, but I'm trying my best to not get overly excited to minimize the disappointment. So I'm telling myself, if we don't get accepted, at least we got rejected from well known individuals in the area, and the fact that I've tried.
If, I'm lucky, and I hope I am, we will get accepted. Which will also give me a nervous breakdown, since I will have little time to make my experiments good enough for the demo and get ready to face the public on my research work in the conference by early november this year. The good side of things, I will get to travel. This year, the Sensys Conference will be at Raleigh, NC.
So knowing that I really need it, wish me luck....:)

Freakonomics

Recently, I had the pleasure to experience a book called Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. This book is about a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything. Indeed this book was very interesting, it tries to explain a lot of things that normal people don't even try to explain. It tries to quantify things that aren't quantifiable and using empirical facts to reach astonishing conclusion.

The book explores why conventional wisdom is so often wrong, where criminologist to real estate agents to political scientist bend the facts due to ignorance or plain selfish motives. However, knowing what to measure, how to measure the necessary data, can help us understand life and enlighten us from conventional wisdom.

Some of the questions answered in this book are:

1. What do School Teachers and Sumo Wrestlers have in common? Do teachers cheat to have a better score for their Teachers Evaluation, similarly, are Sumo wrestlers corrupt....do they actually set up wresting matches? How do you find out?
   
2. How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real-estate agents? What kinds of secrets does this too group keeps from you for their own benefit. What does the real-estate agent mean by "well-maintained".
   
3. Why does a car's value drops the moment it leaves the lot, and what do online dates cheat about and can you really trust what online daters say about themselves.
4. If you think a drug dealer makes a lot of money, why does drug dealers still stay with their moms. Or why prostitutes earns much more than an architect. What does a drug dealer, high school quarterback and and an editorial assistant have in common. How the invention of crack cocaine mirrored the invention of nylon stockings.
5. Where have all the Criminals gone? In the early 1980's, some criminologist and experts claims that the crime and violence in year 2000 would be a blood bath. But it seems that the prediction was wrong....what really happened? Why the 1960's a good time to be a criminal. Why capital punishment doesn't deter criminals. Do police actually lowers crime rates? Is a a gun more dangerous than a swimming pool?
6. What makes a better parent? Why a good school isn't as good as you think? Eight things that make a child do great and 8 things that don't. For example, would your children do better in school if you were to bring them to the museum once a month?
   

The book was more a combination of philosophy, math and science and some of the results was amazingly surprising. For example, could you think of how abortion could help to reduce crime? Well it turns out that abortion was the reason why crime in the US dropped in 1995 onwards. And this is because, about 20 years ago, the laws prior to 1970 was against abortion, and so when a single mother fights for her rights to abort a child because she thinks she is not ready and would therefore be an unfit mother. She won the legal case and change the laws of abortion, and 20 years later the crime starts falling.....why is that? You just have to read the book to find out. I shall not spill the beans here....

The book made me think. Why is it that in such a conservative country like Malaysia, there are some people who still throw new born babies in the dumpster, which is far from our cultural and religious beliefs. Why does this happen? Are they afraid of being charge of wetlock? Or perhaps, its more than that....could it be that the social penalty is more unbearable. I guess it must be something attributed to the laws of abortion in Malaysia. I do not condone abortion, but what are people like you and me doing to help against this from happening. If unfit parents are force to become parents...what could possibly happen to their children...if not in the dumpster while being a fetus or eventual criminals in the future. But if our cultural and religious beliefs are against that, then our people, you and me, and hence the government that we choose, and the country that we live, should do something to address this problem. Because just by teaching them morals, won't really stop them. Particularly, social scientist in Malaysia should study, why people throw babies, what made them to act so callous. What could be a social, moral or monetary incentive to stop them from doing so. To know the answers to that mystery questions, a sufficient study and data gathering should be collected. Most mother's who feel that they are unfit are afraid to face the public due to all kinds of punishment the mother would be facing.....social indignation, capital law punishments as well as being stoned to death in some countries. Sometimes, experts or so called experts hail their knowledge and put fear into local ignorant people (some call them sinners) who are claimed to be doom and damn. And so they act against their believe and start to act like animals. Can we stop this from happening....is there an avenue that will re-educate lost young souls from acting like animals? Or do we just ignore it, or face our cheeks the other way and call them sinners? What do you think?

Who Killed the Duke of Densmore?

The idea of using interval graphs in detective stories was exploited in depth by Claude Berge in his novelette Que a tuZ le Duc de Densmore? (Who killed the Duke of Densmore?, Bibliotheque Oulipienne No.67). The story presented ideas of using Graph Theories to help solve realistic problems. However, getting this as an assignment can be far from realistic of getting a good grade. So anybody knows who killed Duke of Densmore, please tell me. I know the answer, but i can't solve it using Interval graphs or the academician style of explaining it in interval graphs. The question is as below:

The Duke of Densmore is found dead in the explosion of its castle on the Isle of White. The murder was committed with a bomb placed carefully in the labyrinth of the castle, which would require a long preparation in hiding in the mazes of the labyrinth. During his last years, the Duke had received eight visitors at his castle; each of them was brought first to the island and then back to the mainland by a motor boat. None of them recalls the precise dates or duration of her stay on the island, but each remembers with certainty whom else she had met on the Isle of White:

-- Ann saw Betty, Cynthia, Emily, Felicia and Georgia
-- Betty saw Ann, Cynthia and Helen
-- Cynthia saw Ann, Betty, Diana, Emily and Helen
-- Diana saw Cynthia and Emily
-- Emily saw Ann, Cynthia, Diana and Felicia
-- Felicia saw Ann and Emily
-- Georgia saw Ann and Helen
-- Helen saw Betty, Cynthia and Georgia

The testimony of each woman is comfirmed by the others and collusion between any two is out of question.

If you are a detective like Sherlock Holmes, and also happens to be a Graph Theory enthusiast, how do you find the killer. The killer must have stayed in the labyrinth once, or perhaps several times in order to prepare for her evil plan. Also, none of the suspects are giving false testimony, cause the Sailor who transported the suspects confirmed their testimony. However, the possibility of two people were at the same place and at the same time, but not see each other is highly probable. Any ideas?

There are a couple of ways to answer this question, you either need to be good at graph theory or have exceptional googling skills. I tried Googling, but can't find the exact solution I wanted.

The Human Element

I live alone in my small tiny apartment, and I must admit, my best friend is the TV, where I get to see the world in many ways, bending the space-time continuum to go back in time in the History channel, and warp ahead of time in the Science channel. I also get to see parallel universe of how our lives could be different if we were to do things differently. Other than that, I also get to learn all kinds of knowledge, from mathematics, home science, humanities, philosophy, musicology, physiology, biology, humorology, ... and etc-ology, just an abundant source of knowledge besides google-logy.

An interesting idea in an advertisement on the science channel is that humans are still trying to understand the world that we live in--in all aspects of life. To understand the world better, we try to classify things, and study the things around us. Hence, we create the periodic table with all kinds of elements that exist in this world. However, we are still trying to understand what makes us human. And the idea in the advertisement says that if we try to include ourself, the human element (Hu) in the periodic table, we can probably see how we tend to interact in the world that we live it, and the things that makes us special and what makes humanity.

If we try to put the human element, maybe we can understand a lot of things. Particularly, the human element would have two types, or maybe 4 according to some. Man, Woman, Man trap in a Woman's body, Woman trap in Man's body. Having that thought in mind, i received a funny email. The email tries to put humans in the periodic table. The human element (Hu) that they tried to classify was woman. I find it interesting, because its one of the first attempt to put humans on the periodic table.

This attempt of putting a human in the periodic table is ridiculous but yet could probably bring a lot of insights. Like any scientific endeavors, it will receive much criticism, and I'm sure a lot would criticize the validity or accurateness of such claims. But I think it is probably a brave start for such discovery and may help evolve to a lot more of interesting theories.

I'm sure a lot of man will agree with me that woman are impossible to understand. So maybe this attempt of classification of the human element will help us understand more about woman.

On the other hand, i know i will get a lot of hate comments here....But for the sake of science, and the advancement of humankind, I'm willing to take the risk....:)