10th November 2007 - Bersih!

I was there!

I boarded the Putra LRT in the Kelana Jaya Station at around 1:10pm, thinking to myself that I would have plenty of time to join the rally by the time I reached my destinated gathering point in Pasar Seni.

The journey was nothing to be shout about, just normal commuters until when the train reached a station before but near Pasar Seni, where I started to see people with yellow t-shirt underneath boarding the train.

The mood of these people are relax and casual, somewhat excited (perhaps nervous?) of the gathering ahead. Then when we reached Pasar Seni, around 2:00pm. We had to stop the Train door from closing 3 times in order to unboard fully from the train.

Outside the Pasar Seni LRT Station, the sky looked very threatening. Black clouds gathered, and it seems a heavy downpour is inevitable. Damn! I lost tracked of the group of people with yellow t-shirt underneath. I was wearing a yellow polo shirt and I wanted to go to the gathering point near the Pasar Seni LRT Station, but I have no idea where it is (for I'm not from KL.)

Checking my watch, it's 2:10 pm. So, I must still have time. Well, since Petaling Street is nearby, I decided to walk toward the Petaling Street and hope that I could catch up with the group.

The sky is pouring and I'm trapped in Petaling Street! Well, since I am to march in a rally, and it's raining, the only logical option is: Buy an umbrella! Duh! So, I entered a convenient shop, didn't pay attention to the shop name. Get myself a foldable umbrella and head back towards Pasar Seni LRT station hoping to bump into the rally, in the heavy rain.

Then, I heard it. The chant:"Bersih! Bersih!" and "Daulat Tuanku!"

My heart was pumping profusely, I felt apprensive. What would happened to me if I join in? Would I be hit by the fully armour riot police (We call them FRU in Malaysia)? Would I be arrested? My mind flashes back to the stern warning issue by Malaysia famous SIL, the IGP, and various powerful politicians. I was scared. 

The idea of retreating pops up in my head. But I decided that I want to at least see the rally. So, I head towards the noise, the chant.

There they are, many of them already shoaky wet, just outside the Pasar Seni LRT Station, heading towards Pasar Seni. Behind them, a platoon of FRU, fully armoured with their shield and baton and tear-gas-cannister launcher. Some even bearing M16-Carbine.  

I'm filled with emotion, the chants moved me but the presence of the police force has intimidated me too.

What would happened to me if I'm arrested?  Would the lawyers standby able to helped me if I'm arrested? Those are the thoughts that run through my head.

Too late to turn back now, I'm finding myself following the rally, unknowingly.

We walked passed several pockets of police officers in their uniforms, whom were consecrating at the coner shoplots. The front rally are chanting "Daulat Tuanku!", the FRU following behind were doing their baton hitting the shield march, sounded like war drum, intimidating but does have a nice rhythm to it, I must admit.

Near Dataran Merdeka, we come across a heavily fortified road block by the FRU. The rally organiser asked us to divert, the rally in the front was continuing chanting "Daulat Tuanku!" and bravely facing the intimidating FRU. While we at the back were enrouting to the Istana following a back route.

On our way towards the Istana, we passed by the Pos Malaysia Building, and several Pos Malaysia Employee gathered there and gave support to the rally. The mood of the rally now is relax and calm, I noticed that the rain has subsided, no longer the heavy downpour when it started.

The journey was uneventful, if there's anything to boast, it would be the meeting of a few well known political bloggers. They appeared worried and weary. One of them worried that the rally line is too thin and tried to get the people to march in a denser crowd. I could understand their anxiety, as the thin line is vulnerable and could easily be broken by any armed riot police or even police. But there were no presence of police on the road we were taking.

We did come across more presence of FRUs and Police force, but they were not on the overpass that we were using, they were on the road underneath. There were police truck on siren trying to get on to the pass but their progress were hampered by the traffic jam caused by the road block set up by the police themselves. By the time I have walked away, they have not been able to get on to the overpass.

Finally we arrived! My God! The turn out is huge! I was amassed. I don't know how many people were there. But the number is definitely more than 4,000 (where some would like you to believe.)

Now that I have finally reached the destination of the rally, we waited, and waited, and waited.

The police helicopter was hovering on top from time to time. I read some blogs counted that there were three but I only saw two. Well, I could be wrong.

Checking out the people present there, there are the olds, the young, and there are whole family there. One such family was of an indian family with an eldery lady sitting in a wheel chair being wheeled to the front of the rally with the crowd giving way for them to pass.

Most of the time, we at the back have no idea what was going on, we'll sit when there're people shouting "duduk!", then when there're roaring in the front, we'll stand up out of curiosity and eager to find out what happened.

I have completely lost tracked of the time, but suddently there's something happening at the back. It's Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, under some protectiong from a convoy of people moving to the front of the rally.

More waiting...

More standing up and sitting down. (Actually more like squating down for me, yeah not a sight to behold.)

Then, there's a hand signal signalling that it's time to disperse. Then someone shouted:"Masjid Negara!". I was confused. Many were confused. An old pakcik said to me:"Tu, cari pasal tu..." (That's looking for trouble...). Nonetheless, thinking that it's the organiser wish and probably they wanted to make some speeches before dispersing, I followed on. Many too. On the way to the Masjid Negara, it then dawn on me the sheer size of the rally. It was people and yellow colour everywhere I see. In the front and in the back. There're definitely multiple magnitude more than 4,000 people there. I wouldn't know the exact number, but everywhere I see, there're people in yellow.

Arriving in the Masjid Negara. One fella in red were telling the people:"Bersurailah, dah habis." (You can disperse, it's finished). Phew, safe and sound.

From there I walked to the Masjid Jamek LRT Station and board the train heading home.

In the whole rally, I was amazed at how well the organizer had planned the rally. It might not have been intended, but I must say, the Bersih rally organizer did appear to have hood winked the police and the FRU. But kudos to the police and FRU forces as well for the police presence I've come across were all exercising excellent restraint on their part. After all, in terms of fire power, they did win hands down.

Ripping DVD audio stream

This is just a record of steps that I have used in Fedora 6 to rip DVD audio.

First, I use dvd:rip to rip the videos in dvd to my hard disk in .vob format.
Then by using mencoder, I encode the audio stream into mp3 format using mp3lame encoder. The command is: mencoder *.vob -ovc frameno -o frameno.avi -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=128 -aid 160
the options used are:
-ovc frameno :- no output video frame
-o frameno.avi :- store video in file named frameno.avi
-oac mp3lame :- output audio coder is mp3lame
abr:br=128 :- audio bit rate is 128 bit
-aid 160 :- audio stream 160, the audio stream of the .vob file rip from my dvd.

Then I use mplayer to dump the mp3 audio stream to a mp3 file. The command I use is
mplayer -dumpaudio -dumpfile audio1.mp3 frameno.avi

Walla! Now, I have an audio file rip from my dvd!

Alchemy is not dead

I'm working in a field that's related to Semiconductor devices,
some what anyway. It's getting more fascinating to me the
more I think about it.

In anyway, what the semiconductor industry doing is nothing 
short of alchemy. Do you know that the chips you used in your 
pc, handphones, pdas, digital camera are essentially made of sand?

I'm not kidding, they are! Let me briefly bring you through the
process of fabricating a chip.

The raw material is pure silicon, essentially pure sand. The sand
is then melted and allowed to go through a process call
crystallization. This itself could be said as a form of alchemy.
In a way, we can say that we have technology to transform sand
into crystal! Albeit not that type that normal people would perceive.

The Silicon Crystal is grown. 
Yes, grown. It is grown from a full pot of melted Silicon. 
(we call the pot - the crucible). To grow a crystal from
a melted crucible full of silicon, we use a small Silicon crystal called
the seed. With the seed, we could grow a single Silicon ingot.
An ingot is single long round cylinder shaped crystal. Magical isn't it?

Of course, an ingot is too big to make the tiny chips that are found
in our computers and electronics devices. It is first sawed into discs.

Then to gain the electrical property we needed, the crystal disc is
undergone a process called doping. Doping is essentially a process
that add in impurities to the pure Silicon Crystal structure. One of
the impurities element experimented by scientists is gold.
But gold has the nasty habit of diffusing into the Silicon Crystal
and disappear. Well, they don't actually disappear,
but more like changing into silicon. 
So, we have found that we could turn gold into sand!
Well not exactly but close.

Anyhow, by doing this doping process we could make the crystal
more conductive or more resistive to electricity. So, switches could be made
by varying the conductivity and resistivity of different areas of the
crystal disc. These switches then formed the tiny electrical circuits that make our computers and other consumer electronics devices. 
Depending on the process, the chip we wanted to make and the size 
of the Silicon Crystal disc, one disc could be used to make many 
little chips.

So, imagine that, the pc you used to type away and to read this blog is actually run by a device that is made of sand!! Isn't that alchemy?

Crime in Malaysia

Crimes have been making headlines in Malaysia. Before it was snatch thieves and loan sharks.
Now it is robberies, frauds, rapes, murders, and kidnappings.

Admit it or not, Malaysia crime rates have been climbing year after 
year for some time already. 

If you have paid attention, we are no longer living in our homes. We are living in our little iron grilled prisons. We no longer feel safe even in our own house, so, we have taken measures to safeguard our home by installing grills on our doors and windows; in doing so, introducing another form of hazards without knowing it: blocking off fire escape route.

Another phenomenon is the popularity of gated communities. People are now preferred to live in a gated communities despite the extra cost incurred. It's no longer viewed as a luxury but a necessities even for common folks like you and me. Essentially, crimes in Malaysia have changed the life of Malaysians.

Now in Ipoh, the situation is getting worse.

Recently, I have had both colleagues and friends, whose house have
been broken apart by thugs and thieves. Yes, you heard me right.
The criminals don't just break into your house anymore. Now, 
they break apart your house too. Ok, I've exaggerated, they were 
breaking apart the gates for the stainless steel bars. Yes, they 
would dismantle your front gate if it were made of stainless steel.
So, house owners in Ipoh, don't just safeguard your house, you need
to safeguard the gates that safeguard your house too!

The question is why. Why is crime rate in Malaysia so high? First,
lets look at the type of crimes that is happening day in and out 
in Malaysia. If you have examined it closely, they were mainly 
crimes of opportunity. (I learnt this from my friend.)
As the term goes, crimes of opportunity is not planned, 
if there were a presence of a uniform law enforcement officer, 
the opportunistic criminals would not have committed the crimes. 
So, what does that should have told us?
Simple, that our police force is understaffed.
There are simply not enough uniformed police men and women
walking beats on the street and residential areas.

Men are Pigs, Women are ... Piglets.

It's amazing that how quick a woman would jump into the conclusion:"Men are Pigs." They do it in different ways. If you've paid attention, the most common form is asking the question: "Why is men...." and the question would "naturally" leads to the conclusion:"Men are Pigs."

So, I ask the question:"If men were pigs, what are women then?"

After some soul searching, books reading, women talking, and movie watching (my favourite). I got an answer:"If men were pigs, women will be piglets."

Why? Here's my take:

1) Just like the cute piglets, women (especially the drop dead gorgeous one) can get away with murder.

2) Like piglets, women are given way too much credits than they deserve. E.g. A piglet clumsy movement is perceived as cute, as in a woman throwing tantrum should be forgiven just because, yes, you get it, she's a woman.

3) Piglets are selfish. If you have had rear piglets before, you know what I mean. They don't care about their siblings, to them, the most important thing is to find that nipple to suckle even if they had to climb over their siblings, just like a woman, do you think she really cares if you have had a good time with her? Of course not! What she cares is if SHE have had a good time! No? Then why do women expect men to bring them to expensive restaurants for dinner and the men should pay?

4) So, what happened when a piglet grow up? Yes, you get it. It turns into a pig. That's normally what happened when the piglets go through the growing up process call: Marriage. No? Ask your married guy friends, how many of their once sweet girlfriend had turned into .... well you get the drift.

Here's what I have come up with so far. So, what's the moral of the story? For men, forget it, no matter what you do, men will be pigs. But men, you could do something about your girlfriend/fiance/wife: Make sure she stays a piglet.

Women and Diamond

Women and diamond are like two highly reactive chemicals. When mixed together, it'll result in violent chemical reaction and in serious cases: explosion. The volatility of the reaction is directly proportional to the size and weight of the Diamond, reportedly measured in carrots. The bigger the number of carrots can be carried by a diamond, the more passionate energy is emitted from the women. However, be warned. When the carrot count is low, men, brace yourself for impact!

If you haven't known this, know this now. Not all diamonds are the same. There are the Poh Kong's Diamond and there are the Tiffany's. Do not in anyway, equate them, not explicitly and not implicitly. Especially if you do not want to be given an unending lecture on why they are different.

Women and diamond... it's amazing how these little sparkling stone could animate a woman. If you haven't done so already, try this. Test it on your girlfriend, date, mother, sister, or female colleague (But be warned never try this on your fiance and wife. Unless you are prepared for another big hole in you wallet.) Tell them that you have no clue on diamond and ask them what constitutes a good diamond. You'd be surprised at the technical terms thrown out by them. They would know things like the measure of clarity, cutting, flaws and how these are gonna make a difference in the price tag.

Another warning to man. When buying diamond for a woman, make sure you have covered all the bases. If you were really close to your mother, don't forget her when you buy a diamond for your fiance. She might not have said anything, but she will remember this and in serious case, might start a war with your future wife. Same goes with vice versa, for god sake, don't ever buy a diamond for your mum without buying one for your wife!

Apparently, I've been told that engagement ring has to come with a minimum size diamond. For some reason, women equate that to eternal love. Blame it to the tv commercials, but you would still have to fork out the cash. Purportedly, the cost of the ring would show your sincerity of wanting to tie the knot with her. More "logical" women would expect the ring to cost around about your three (3) months income. Then they expect you to kneel down with it.

What happened to those guys who are earning less than the U. K. minimum wages? Well, don't worried, not all women are "logical". There are still women out there that doesn't mind how big is the stone on her wedding band, though these breeds of women is getting rarer. Better still, find one that would buy her own engagement ring and wedding band! When you found one, don't ever let her go! She'd be snatched up in no time if you do.

Women and diamonds... men, let's face it, you can't have one without the other.

On Being a single man in the 21st Century

Being a man, a single man in the 21st century is not an easy thing.

On being a man, you are expected to be tough, sign of weaknesses would immediately place a label on a man's forehead: wussy.

On being a man, you are expected to pay. Well, most of the time. For me, it's the test to see if the girl I'm dating were a keeper or a digger, gold digger.

On being a single man, you'd be asked the question:"When is it your turn?" in a wedding. This I presume is not that different for a single woman. In the 21st century, a man and a woman is still judged if he or she were successful in life based partly on whether they are married or not. The social stigma is that if a man or a woman is still single in their 30's, there must be something wrong with them, or worse: gay. (Apology to all my gay friends.) I can't imagine how it would be like for single men and women in their 40's.

On being a single man, most of us don't realized this, but your coolness is directly proportional to the number of opposite sex friends you have. The more female friend a single guy have, the hotter he instantly become in the eyes of the other females. This is the reality, whether you agree to it or not. I've seen girls drooling over obvious womanizers, though they would tell me that these men are jerks. Don't be fooled, if you paid attention, you would notice the dreamy eyes laid on these jerks from the same woman who had just uttered those words.

On being a single man in the 21st century, you are constantly being judged, socially. You are expected to approach the women in club, if you don't, you are a wuss. So, be a man and go talk to that hot woman across the table! Hell, talk to the one that sit next to you. She's there for a reason, and the reason might just be you!

On being a man in the 21st century, we are expected to act like a gentleman when with a woman. We are expected to open doors, pulled out chairs, offer our arms while walking: chivalry is still expected though not mentioned by women.

On being a man in the 21st century, we don't have the luxury to cry. Don't be fooled by people telling you that it's ok for a man to cry. Try do that in the public, and you'd instantly noticed that your social ranking have been drop at least 10 ranks, or worse: You have just been labelled a sissy. Tears and men just don't go well together.

On being a man in the 21st century, we must drive a beamer or equivalent. Else, we are not in a position where we would like our life to be in. This is partly true, as driving a beamer is downright fun! But sadly, how many men could well afford that big lemon! Seriously speaking a beamer is the biggest lemon of all time! Maintaining one is really a pain in the ass. But what to do? Chics digs 'em!

On being a man is really not easy in this 21st century... unless... you have inherited Billions, own a beamer, and have a face that looked like Brat Pitt. Good for you!

It's tough for being a single man in the 21st century. But know this, when the going get tough, the tough get going! Have a good life...