How should we judge a government?

In Malaysia, if you don't watch television or read newspapers, you are uninformed; but if you do, you are misinformed!

"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience - Mark Twain

Why we should be against censorship in a court of law: Publicity is the very soul of justice … it keeps the judge himself, while trying, under trial. - Jeremy Bentham

"Our government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no
responsibility at the other. " - Ronald Reagan

Government fed by the people

Government fed by the people

Career options

Career options
I suggest government... because nobody has ever been caught.

Corruption so prevalent it affects English language?

Corruption so prevalent it affects English language?
Corruption is so prevalent it affects English language?

When there's too much dirt...

When there's too much dirt...
We need better tools... to cover up mega corruptions.

Prevent bullying now!

Prevent bullying now!
If you're not going to speak up, how is the world supposed to know you exist? “Orang boleh pandai setinggi langit, tapi selama ia tidak menulis, ia akan hilang di dalam masyarakat dan dari sejarah.” - Ananta Prameodya Toer (Your intellect may soar to the sky but if you do not write, you will be lost from society and to history.)

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Innovation: from mundane stuff

why didn't we think of that!




The Royal College of Art's graduate show has opened, and this year, the show-stopper was actually -- a plug. Min-Kyu Choi impressed every passerby with his neat, apparently market-ready plug that folds down to the width of a thin mobile computer.

"Many of today's mobile computers have become wafer thin but here in the UK , we still use the world's biggest three-pin plug," says Choi.

Enter Choi's slimmed down British three-pin plug wonder.

It's so plausible and so obvious a product that it should produce a few red faces; how many more years are we going to endure attaching our palm sized mobiles and wafer thin laptops to an object that's barely been touched since its first design in 1946?

Choi picked an everyday product that most other designers might have found too mundane to dabble with and drastically improved it - exactly the kind of thinking that we should be celebrating right now.

Meanwhile, his surname reminds me of a Yemeni's version of Seasons in the sun by Terry Jacks when we were staying at the Methodist International House in Leeds (1973/74) :

"We have Choi (actually spelt Tsui from HK), we have Chan (from Malaysia), we have Susan (cleaner's daughter) in the kitchen..."

It was funny then, and now only those who were with us then would be able to relate to it.

Incidentally, our Yemeni friend who finished his doctorate in Leeds University should be in a very responsible position now.

Tsui at the time, was with a group from Hong Kong who did their first degree, master degree as well as doctorate, mostly in textile related courses. Their university mates would have included the well known singer - the late Leslie Cheong Kwok-Wing, who died in 2003.

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