Mr. Haxa Does The Blogs

What Merdeka Means To Me

This entry was originally posted on August, 10th. 2003

Last year, for the first time, I visited the Pasir Salak Memorial Complex in honor of the local heroes who fought the British during the period of 1800 in the state of Perak.

The memorial is an artifact as to how today's generation should appreciate the struggle for independence. And I must say that I was all proud during the visit because of the courage and determination that these people done to achieve that.

Today to quote Albert Memmi's The Colonizer and Colonized “... the final form of imperialism/domination is cultural" my perspective towards imperialism has changed. In light of globalization, I have today become total opposite of what my statesmen fought over hundred years ago. They felt the urge to ensure the sovereignty and independence of state, but I have voluntarily subscribed to the idea of free market demand-centered capitalism, a totally new form of imperialism by the developed countries.

Today, I am a global customer, consuming global products in a global world. Today, when the facilitator of my globalization module noticed that I brought to class the 'foreign coffee' that I skipped the coffee break downstairs and over the discussion of cultural role in globalization, I began to question myself whether am I being a hypocrite believer in taking the stand of anti-globalization.

Everyday, I would start my day waking up from my Ikea bed, covered in Ikea bed sheet, heading to bathroom, only to be cleaned by my favorite Biore facial cleanse, Oral toothbrush, and Darlie toothpaste, and then lathered by the medicated Biore shower foam or sometimes the Sanex foam (that reminds me of Martina Hingis). My office wear favorite has always been this

Hong Kong

based brand. Yes! From shirt to pants. And I will put on my Rockport boots to the office. My coffees are interchangeably the different grounded Starbucks coffee beans that I brew on my Haier coffee maker. Or sometimes the packet

Milo

chocolate drink that I believe would fortify my body throughout the entire day. And I will then check on my daily appointments on my Clie palmtop before I begin my work.

Let me stop there because the list keeps going on and on. I understand (thanks to an e-mail from Beta-blogger) that the personal consumption on foreign items can be traced back to years in history, but, what scares me is that these items are flocking the local market in big magnitude than ever before. Then these producers either go direct, or selling at retailers (big foreign hypermarket chains - made their way as part of opening up the local retail industry) that also come from those developed countries at the expense of local producers and small retailers or groceries!

I am actually questioning whether my reasoning against globalization are being reflected in my enacted values. Nah! They are just the total opposite of the spectrum. And I believe most of my peers and networked friends are in the same boat as me in this issue. That we are just another global customer, consuming local products, and living in a global village.

And in reflection of our 46th. independence day this year, my stand is that although globalization has changed my taste and consumption, I will always remain the person who will fight globalization against the imposition of structural economic changes that will be imposed by either IMF or the WTO's GATS. That I won't allow the agendas of the total free market proponent to cause chaos in our ever complex socio-economic stability formula that we have kept in balance all this while.

So, should I stop buying Vanity Fair? Should I terminate my account at Citibank? Should I stop buying Nautica? Should I instead go for Nasi Campur instead of McDonald's? Should I stop watching CNN? I don't know! Maybe yes, maybe no!

Maybe these are another progression in modernization? Another healthy consumption and spending to expand the economy? Or, that will I want to work with the NGOs to ensure the check and balance in the globalization model that we will use?

I sure do have lots of thinking and reflection to do this year.

Happy Independence Day! MERDEKA!

Reviews: Les Miserables' Musical, Movie, & Soundtrack

Inspired by the Victor Hugo’s epic tale that was then inspired by his encounter of a woman who was beaten to death because she was so poor, that she couldn’t afford food and much more the rent to pay during the revolution period in France; Cameron Mackintosh directed Les Miserables the musical of which London Reviews in 2000 described that it could no longer be called a musical, but had rather became an institution and a tourist attraction, just like the Parliament House and The Dome.

The production had just ended on West End and Broadway a couple of years back. Too bad I didn’t get the chance to watch this production back when I was a student. All I went for were Phantom of The Opera, Guys and Dolls, and Carmen (Laser Disc show at the Music Appreciation class). Few months back I bought the DVD that commemorate the original cast; Colm Wilkinson, Michael Ball, Patti LuPone, David Burt, Lea Salonga, Phillip Quast, and Alan Armstrong. Too bad it was performed as a concert, rather than a full production. Nevertheless, the original cast performers put up a splendid show.

The Things They Still Do Not Understand - 12 Illusions of OSS

From the presentation of Jon Maddog Hall

1. Large firms offer me security
2. LINUX is hard to install
3. LINUX is hard to use
4. There are no application
5. There are so many different distributions
6. There is no support for LINUX
7. Microsoft is the standard
8. Software patents is good
9. You can't make money with free software
10. GPL is a virus
11. The software are no good, that's why they give it free
12. Free OSS are written by a bunch of ...

Jon "Maddog" Hall Reasonings on Why Should You Go Free & Open Source

Never have I found reasons so compelling as to why should I start embracing the free (as of freedom) and open source software movement than those that were suggested by Jon “Maddog” Hall at his keynote address this morning; particularly because his reasoning are of economics and quantifiable. As far as I can remember, here are the five points that this Director of Linux International put forward on why should any entity, be it programmer, community, firm, and even government should push the free and open source agenda to the forefront of their IT strategy:

Balance of payment. Keeping capital in the country as maintenance and support utilizes local talents and reducing licensing payment that overburdens the governments and domestic firms.

Creation of quality job. Case study of four town’s office in California of that leverages on OSS, to govern the small town 300,000 population postal, fire department, police, etc services.

Empowerment. Equal right with everybody else. (One of the GPL licensing principle)

Security Control. It is only makes sense that any government could control the source code of the operating system or software that runs strategic defense or military application.

Business Decision. That instead of having vendors predetermine the very dynamic business rules, most firms today can determine their own set of technology for adoption and even on purpose creating a heterogenous environment (for security purpose) due to the promotion of open standards by the open source community.

Getting the chance to have some chat with Maddog would also mean that you got to dig in some dirt in the SCO case against IBM. According to him, the open souce community could care less about the litigation, that the filing might take seven years down the road to be over; and interestingly, it was also pointed out that the claim of SCO on IBM, although has got to do with the code they disclosed last week; the truth is that it has to do with some contractual problems between SCO and IBM dated years back.

And it will be interesting to listen to what he has to say tomorrow. (I will get more points above updated)

Soccer Marathon

It was one of those rare weekends that I avoid schmoozing with strangers or acquaintances in the city’s social circle. So I stayed home in front of cable TV for the Saturday night three soccer games marathon followed with two more games on Sunday evening. To my further enjoyment, my two favorite teams won. Perak defeated Public Bank by 3-0 at the Selayang Stadium, whilst Arsenal clinched their second victory in the second game of Premiership, 4-0 against Middlesborough.

[1] Manchester United 2 – Newcastle United 1
[2] Chelsea 2 – Leicester City 1
[3] Perak 3 – Selangor Public Bank 0
[4] Liverpool 0 – Aston Villa 0
[5] Arsenal 4 – Middlesborough 0

Decided not to join my clans at the Selayang stadium, I waited eagerly for weekend fixtures on the ESPN right after John Dykes program made way for Martin Tyler and Andy Graham commenting, in anticipation that I could watch MU loss to Newcastle United. Shearer scored the first goal of the game. And it was awesome. Newcastle later on looked promising, but not threatening enough to MU. In a game where Ferguson was asked to leave after protesting against referee Uriah Rennie decision not to award free kick to Giggs; MU controlled most of the second half of the game. MU won 2-1.

The Migraine Attack

Surprisingly, after almost a year it disappeared, I experienced a new episode of migraine attack yesterday, peaked early in the morning, leveled off late in the afternoon, and felt nauseas the entire day. This time it was due to the high caffeine intake (two shots and a caramel), lack of food (only ate a piece of capati at 10.30pm), and changing in sleep pattern (busily blogging that I only slept at 4 in the morning); all the right ingredients to getting an attack.

Those days without it was probably due to this Japanese toxic removing external pads that I would put on my feet prior to night sleep or you may apply it to whichever area you think your body toxic concentration is high or the area which you suffer the ache or pain as the box recommends it. Upon waking up, you will notice that the herbs contain within the pad will turn into brownish colored-like-wet gel. The more often you apply it, the clear the color will be.

Purchased it from a friend who sold it to me at the supplier’s price, I thought the purchase worth it since prior to that the pain from migraine attack was so unbearable and I learnt that the only way to get rid of it was to throw up and get a hefty amount of sleep. Today Gurmit Singh aka Phua Chu Kang is the spokeperson for one of the brands that sell this product, of which I recently saw at the Bangsar’s Guardian pharmacy.

It Ain't Bad After All

It is amazing when somebody opens up to you and starts telling you the new path he or she is trying to charter in life or how disconnected the elements are to be put together; i.e. the grievances, the cries, the plans, the feelings, the dissatisfactions, etc, it gives you the feeling that after all, sharing with others might heal some pain and dry the rain. This evening I had two different conversations with two different persons, at two different settings, on two different contexts, but of similar nature that I described earlier.

As if one’s life does not have to chug the pain and hardship that's already tormenting the soul and being, listening to the anecdotes of others make you feel that as if suffering sometime exist infinitely for the better or for worse. Therefore, no matter how much the voice at the back of your head is telling you to put everything to an end because you can’t stand certain things anymore, the fact that the prescription that you could foretell of the other person, that the solutions lie within the problem itself; is an irony, because sometimes you tend to overlook those signs yourself, and albeit all the signals you have received, there is tendency that might be looking onto the outer parameters of the problem, where the solution doesn't exist. And no matter how hard you try to get away from it, it will always haunt you back, just like an endless loop in any open system. After all we are organic beings.

Cainer's Analysis

Thank you to Jikon and Najah (trackback) for the link. Find out what Cainer has to say about you here. Here goes mine, which I think is so funny. Tell me yours.

Haxa is an unsung hero, an undiscovered genius...and an unknown quantity. It is because Haxa is such an unknown quantity that his heroism goes unsung and his genius undiscovered. Some people will blow their own trumpets from the highest hill even when those trumpets are battered and badly out of tune. Haxa is rather the opposite. No matter how bright the light inside him shines, he will always find a bushel big enough to hide it under. Haxa wants to be thought of as stable, steady and solid.

He tries his best to do what the world expects of him, he wants to be a trooper - a loyal, reliable, down-to-earth kind of character. In the attempt to give this impression Haxa strives to be modest, restrained and realistic. He almost succeeds. Through diligent effort Haxa manages to persuade himself and the rest of the watching world that he is a known quantity. At best he will allow himself to be known for his talent in one particular area or for his courage with regard to one particular topic. The trouble is Haxa is a Capricorn and Capricorns, despite all that some astrologers say, are always unknown quantities.

Palm Inc. = PalmSource + palmOne; Tale of an American Tech. Company

From getting funding to being acquired, to the part where the founders left, then spun off, then broken up, and yesterday, new announcement of further break up, Palm Inc. the company has gone long way since its foundation by three budding enterpreneurs, Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky and Ed Colligan.

What began as quest for Zen design for Palm that will compete against Apple's Newton and Windows CE in 1992, it later became a target of acquisition by 3Com Corp (who just bought over US Robotics back then) due to lack of funding for the launching of Palm's first handheld. And Palm became the subsidiary of 3Com.

Sooner, Donna and Jeff left 3Com after their persistent request to chief executive, Eric Benhamou to spin it off was turned down. In 1998 they both created JD (Jeff Donna) Technology before it was later named Handspring. Cooligan later joined Handspring.

The World We Live in Today

It has becoming an alarming trend that speculation, hot money, get rich scheme, bribery, organized crime, and all sorts of other possible short cuts to make quick bucks are bubbling much more than what the fundamentals strength of the economies call for, i.e. technology, innovation, and enterpreneurship.

It is just a matter of time for the former bubble to burst again at much more bigger scale (than the '97 foreign exchange crisis) and leaving the lack of the latter jeapordizing the state of our nation's future and at worst, another world recession.

Our challenge today lies in our will power and determination to charter a better future for our lives and the next generation.