曾国藩自立下課程十二條
- 主敬：整齊嚴肅，清明在躬，如日之升。
- 靜坐：每日不拘何時，靜坐四刻，正位凝命，如鼎之鎮。
- 早起：黎明即起，醒後勿沾戀。
- 讀書不二：一書未完，不看他書。
- 讀史：念三史（指《史記》、《漢書》、《後漢書》），每日圈點十頁，雖有事不間斷。
- 謹言：刻刻留心，第一工夫。
- 養氣：氣藏丹田，無不可對人言之事。
- 保身：節勞、節欲、節飲食。
- 日知其所無：每日讀書，記錄心得語。
- 月無忘其所能：每月作詩文數首，以驗積理的多寡，養氣之盛否。
- 作字：飯後寫字半時。
- 夜不出門。
iPhone makes quick astronomy
I’ve always wanted to get into astronomy since the late 1990s but could not make it due to busy schedules (yeah lame excuse, I know), lack of mentor, not having a clue how to find and identify objects in the sky, etc.
Then, last night I stumbled upon an iPhone app, SkyView which uses Augmented Reality (AR) to reveal the current positions of planets, stars, constellation, satellites and even the International Space Station (ISS)!
I demonstrated the wonder of the app to my kids outside our home just now. Although the sky was cloudy, we could still see the moon so I used the moon as the reference. SkyView accurately revealed the exact position of the moon on my iPhone screen. Tonight, we found a lot of constellations, including Virgo which was behind the moon. Next to the moon was Saturn, as illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Virgo, moon and Saturn.
Not too far away from our moon, we found three satellites, the COSMOS 1536 (below the moon), COSMOS 1975 (slightly above the horizon but behind the apartment and MIDORI II (ADEOS-II) (further to the right of the moon). See their illustration in Figure 2, 3 and 4 respectively.
Figure 2: COSMOS 1536
Figure 3: COSMOS 1975
Figure 4: MIDORI II (ADEOS-II)
Beside these, we also found the Hubble space telescope and the ISS (International Space Station). Both of them were below the horizon and behind (or under?) our house!
Figure 5: Hubble space telescope and ISS
The SkyView app is a great iPhone app for astronomy hobbyists and perfect education tool for both parents and kids. It’s certainly worth investing. It costs only $1 and there is also a stripped down version which is free.
The Cancer of Malaysia – Part 1
March 2008, the opposition parties or denominated the People’s Coalition (or Pakatan Rakyat or PR for short), received an unexpected landslide victory in the 12th General Election (GE12). PR had successfully secured 5 northern states in peninsular Malaysia. Since then, Malaysians have started to witness their own very beloved country becoming the showcase of betrayals, mockeries and remonstrations.
Before our former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad stepped down, he made a radical change to our education – the use of English language to teach math and science subjects in all primary and secondary schools. His change was immediately welcome by many Malaysians, I was for one of them. This, of course, was disagreed by many other parties who champion pro-ethnic education. Dong Jiao Zhong (the association of Chinese vernacular school boards and teachers) is one of them to loudly protest.
Before we get deeper into education, it is worthwhile to mention a few racial and religious pandemonium which happened recently. One most recent uproar is the protest of the ruling of court over the use of the word “Allah” in a Catholic newspapers, Herald. Churches were bombed and torched by some unscrupulous citizens. Before this, a group of Muslim protesters trampled a severed cow head to protest the building of Hindu temple near their residences. You can find many reports on disheartening eruptions of racial and religious matters besides politics on the Internet so I am not writing the entire length and breadth but to mention one or two as examples.
Malaysia advertises herself as a beautiful country with multi races living together in harmony and tolerance. Where is the noble tolerance between different races and religions? What is contributing to this separation of ethnicity and religion?
Let us ask ourselves a very simple question: What has happened to Malaysia? This simple question has no easy answer. The answer is multifold and viciously lurking and recycling in every layers of Malaysian society.
If you ask me what my answer is, I think the best analogy to describe this is cancer! Yes, multi-stream education in Malaysia is like cancer, slowly suffocating and envenoming the pure untouched minds, silently consuming ethnic unity in Malaysia.
Before I go further, I would like to boldly correct a common mistake and suggest a term to address Chinese descendants or Malaysia-born Chinese as “ orang Cina” or “Cina” for short. In my opinion, only the native inhabitant of China can be entitled as “Chinese”. Like Peranakan, “Cina” will be the proper localized term to classify our ethnicity. While for Malaysia Indian, I would address them as “orang India” or “India” and Malays as “orang Melayu” or “Melayu”. To be fair.
As a Cina myself who has received 6 years of primary Cina education, I generalized the grass root Cina community as conservative and hardworking with narrow and superficial thinking and vision. Close minded, emotional and shallow. I personally have experienced these many years ago during school days.
I was a town boy and lived among grass root Cina. I had never communicated with a Melayu or India until I was in secondary school. I would see some Melayu ladies passing by my house every morning and evening.
In primary school, I was among the 100% Cina students except a few Melayu teachers and staffs. My limited exposure to other races did not come to the end when I went to secondary school. All students coming from Cina primary school would be put together in “Remove” class, 100% Cina with no India at all. I only began to have Melayu classmates during Form 1 and I could tell you, they were fun to call them friends compared to other Cina peers. This racial mixture had to come to the end when I entered Form 4. I was in Science 1 class and there was not a single Melayu classmate, only 1 India. In Form 6, again I was in Science 1 doing double math, my classmates were 100% Cina.
After more than 20 years, I can still remember an experience during my upper 6. Our teachers always advised and encouraged us to speak English in school and of course I was the only “stupid” Cina student to comply. As the result, one of my female classmate called me “Banana Man” （a racial discrimination term used by Cina to call other Cina who does not speak Cina, it is like banana, yellow (Chinese skin) on the outside, white (English) on the inside) and together with other classmates as well as our peers from other classes to desist from speaking to me. How shallow she and the others could be? This is the malignant product of multi-stream education. These shallow and superficial minds are poisoned and shaped by the monotonous environment.
About 5 years ago, my wife and I were to decide which school we should send our children to. Being a Cina educated who did not have confidence in Cina vernacular education and my wife received her education from national school, we decided to send our children to national school based on a few observations.
I was back to my former secondary school and coaching karate there. In my class, I had both Cina and Melayu students. And the Cina students were from both Cina and national school. I observed them for very long time and these were what I concluded:
- the Cina students coming from national school are more willing to interact with their Melayu peers.
- the Cina students coming from national school are more communicable and possess good interpersonal skill far better than those coming from Cina stream.
- the Cina school educated students demonstrate self centered attitude.
- the Cina school educated students shun themselves away from dialog.
- the Cina students from national school are more active and socializing.
As a software engineer, I have not used Mandarin to communicate despite the fact that many years ago I had collaborated with software developers and engineers from China and Taiwan. Based on personal experience and observation, we decided not to send our children to Cina-stream school.
But to be fair, ethnic and religious demarcation happens in national school. This Chinese New Year, my wife prepared some cookies for our eldest son to bring to school and to share with his classmates. None of his Melayu friends ate or touched the cookies. It is pathetic to see how religion separates Malaysian children at such a young age!
Multi-stream education is the separatist which divides the ethnicity at the very young age. Children are separated by ethnic idealism in the name of education. And Malaysia is the only country in the world which practices multi-stream education.
Next, we should look at treacherous political influence and the historical mistakes in multi-stream education.
Making my dad proud
Perhaps this is the most difficult post ever for me to write. A mixture of emotion makes it even harder to start and it is impossible to write this post without shedding tears and touching emotion.
Apple TV playlist
I have installed an Apple TV at my client’s office waiting area. His purpose is to educate his patients while they are waiting for their consultation. That is a brilliant idea as we had long and boring waiting experience when LA was consulting him.
The idea is to design different programs with advertisements and messages interleaved among documentary and his own educational videos for playback on different days of the week. And the most important thing is to allow the doctor himself to easily update his educational videos and advertisements anytime as he wishes from his new 24″ iMac.
After I installed Apple TV a few days ago, I realized it did not have movie playlist. After Googling for a while, I wasn’t alone. Here is a blog entry with the same problem. And I found out the Apple TV Software Update 2.3 allows movie playlist in iTunes to be seen on Apple TV. I downloaded the 2.3 update this afternoon, and after I activated the movie playlist in Apple TV settings, it is now able to play the movies in the playlist as desired.
I pondered why Apple did not ship Apple TV with new software update 2.3. It was released in November 2008. About the Apple TV software update can be found here.
Good adaptation
This is the sequel of my previous post, School Registration Day.
Yesterday was the fourth day in school for both Dmitry and Dietrich. First, let’s talk about Dietrich. He has been adapting very well and not too difficult of sending him to school compare to Dmitry two years ago. He will walk straight into his class, put his bag down and then go to the playground to play with his friends. The only thing I notice is that he has been cool to everyone there. He is not having the same trait as Dmitry and Dominik.
Yesterday when I was there to pick up Dmitry after school, I saw him walked out with his good pal, Haiqal, who is in another class. I met his father on Wednesday. I noticed Haiqal was carrying a huge bag on his back so I told Dmitry about it. To my surprise, he asked Haiqal, “Mengapa bag awak besar?” (Why is you bag so big?). Dmitry is multilingual. He can speak English, Mandarin, bahasa and Chinese dialects Hokkien and Hakka. He can understand Cantonese but can’t speak because we don’t speak Cantonese at home.
I think I will start to pick up again some Polish at home with LA. She has been speaking some Polish words to the boys such as Dziękują (thank you), Mleko (milk), Dobry rano (Good morning), Dobre południe (good afternoon), and a few others. We can get some help from our Polish friend, Michał.
This morning after sending Dmitry to school, I spoke with other non-Malay parents who we met. Susan (Chinese) and Sharon (Eurasian-Indian) are worrying about their sons for not be able to catch up because they are weak in bahasa. I told Susan not to worry. It is only matter of time for her boy to learn.
I am glad to see Dmitry has such a good adaptation at school and fairly good command of languages.
Oh yeah. I spoke to some of the teachers there. Although they are Malay, they can speak very good English. Some of the Malay parents who I met can speak very good English as well. I find that the school has very good open policy. On the way back, I heard the headmistress talking to Susan and assuring her that her son would do well and he could speak English while learning bahasa.
School Registration Day
Today is Dmitry’s registration day! We woke up a bit late today and got ready then rushed out the house by 0730. We dropped Richie and Nik at grandma’s.
We enrolled our boys into national school. There are a total of 42 students in his class. Three Chinese including Dmitry and four Indians. The number of Chinese and Indians are not many. During the parents briefing session, we were surprised to hear that the school is teaching Chinese language to non-Malay students. However, enrollment is opened to everyone. Enrollment forms were given out at the end of the briefing. Many Malay parents were rushing to the forms! By the time LA submitted the form, there were already more than 50 enrollments! Another surprise for us.
The Chinese education is always an issue in Malaysia. I don’t see why should they make an issue out of this. Chinese who have migrated to the West, do not demand special education for their children. Instead, they blend into mainstream education and society. So, why the FUD?
The answer is very simple, the Chinese politicians want to control and manipulate the Chinese population so that they can have their votes. Those f***ing Chinese politicians! Please mind your own politics and stay out of education!
English, a deterrent tool
Yesterday, I met an Indian lady who was a retiree. We had a little chat and we both agreed to many things, like the education and English in Malaysia. She was in banking and now she works as a part timer to fill her time and to gain experience in some other fields. I told her about my plans to further my study and she gave me some useful advice.
She has a few children, they are in Australia, working and/or studying. She too finds our English standards, as well as our education system, are deteriorating precipitously. One interesting point she mentioned was the English language tests like the IELTS and TOEFL are used as a tool to daunt immigrants, whether studying or working.
After 911 incident, countries like US and UK have implemented measures to deter immigration. One of the deterrent is to increase the requirement of English proficiency test. Let’s put aside those Iranians and Iraqis who take these tests in Malaysia because their passing rate is extremely (pathetically) low. Even some Malaysians who are English educated during the British era and those younger Malaysians who speak very good English can’t even pass the requirement test. Many of them have taken the test over 5 times but still fail to meet the overly stringent requirement.
After talking to her, it has become clearer in my head, the direction I am heading to and am better aware of the requirement and challenges lurking ahead.
Against All Odds – The Rise Of An Industrious Country
It was two weeks ago, if my memory served me right, my kids were playing around the dining hall. One of them, took a hard-boiled egg and put it into a basket of uncooked eggs. LA was getting crazy about this. I heard the incidence and I came out of my working room.
“This is the great opportunity to show the kids about science I learned when I was in lower primary.”, the thought emerged quickly. At that age, I used to read science comics for kids published by a Hong Kong publisher. I never had any chance to use that knowledge. My mom would do the cooking and I did not mess around her kitchen so there was no chance to mix up the cooked and uncooked eggs. This time, my kids gave me an opportunity to show off. 
I took the two eggs in my hand and LA gathered the boys around the dining table. Mom told D, “Look, daddy is going to demonstrate science.”
I took one egg at a time, stood it on its broader end and then spun it on the table, One egg would spin standing until it lost its angular momentum. The other egg couldn’t hardly spin on its end for a fraction of a second. The cooked and uncooked eggs had been determined. The boys, especially D, were astonished.
Well, what is the relationship about this egg tale and the rise of an industrious country?
Math and Science in English: A failure
My recent post about our tertiary education has revealed a serious flaw in our education as a whole. I read in awe an article of the same title by Meeky-Meeky and really got very disappointed about the policy. As I commented in Meeky-Meeky’s post, our education system is very much driven and influenced by politics. Those ignorant fools who oppose to teach Math and Science in English are shallowed minded, short-sighted and politically retarded. It is imprudent to let politics to influence and chart the course of education.
If this continues, our country will be dumb-headed in a few generation to come. Our country is already losing competitiveness in so many areas. With the rise of China as a new economy in this region, the competition gets tougher. And soon, Vietnam will rise. What will be our future?
A disgrace to Malaysian tertiary education
Many of my friends and I do not see education in Malaysia at par with many western countries and even neighboring country like Singapore. Some students even revealed to me that some Ph.D. lecturers plagiarized lecture notes and assignments from foreign university’s websites and setting silly questions in mid-term paper for final year students. Some of them even were told to Google for answer when they approached their Ph.D. lecturers for pointers. Many of them have now realized how serious our tertiary education has deteriorated or has not even achieved in standards at all. But there are also some short-sighted students do not agree with that and continue to feel proud to be tertiary educated by Malaysia education system. Read the comment by a student nicknamed “Kick his Rosy ass” here.
This morning, I received an email from a friend from China who was reading local news website. Now, the whole world knew our standard and that’s extremely embarrassing but not surprising.
On August 23, New Straits Times published an advertorial entitled “Honorary Degree Award, 7th Convocation Ceremony University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia — Yang Amat Mulia Raja Zarith Sofiah binti AlMarhum Sultan Idris Al-Mutawakil Alallahi Shah, D.K.II, S.P.M.J., S.P.C.M.” This grammatically broken advertorial was produced by University Tun Hussein Onn. Click on the advertorial for larger view.
Later on August 26, New Straits Times apologized for mistakenly published this advertorial which was unfit to be published. The notice said (link):
NEW Straits Times published an advertorial entitled “Honorary Degree Award, 7th Convocation Ceremony University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia — Yang Amat Mulia Raja Zarith Sofiah binti AlMarhum Sultan Idris Al-Mutawakil Alallahi Shah, D.K.II, S.P.M.J., S.P.C.M.” in our Aug 23 issue. The advertorial contained gross factual and grammatical errors. The New Straits Times Press (M) Berhad, as publisher and printer, hereby expresses deep regret for inadvertently printing the advertorial, which was unfit to be published. The advertorial was produced by University Tun Hussein Onn to announce the honorary degree award to Yang Amat Mulia Raja Zarith Sofiah binti AlMarhum Sultan Idris Al-Mutawakil Alallahi Shah, D.K.II, S.P.M.J., S.P.C.M. by the university.
Well, if this had happened in one of the local university, it could happen in other local universities. Some could be better but were not necessarily to meet standards.
And to our “honorable” minister of education, this is a university that named after your father. What say you? Malaysia boleh!
The power of China
After watching the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympic 2008, I wrote a Chinese post about it and the magnificent Olympic torch ceremony. Tonight, the world witnessed again China’s ability to stage such a huge magnificent show to the world.
One thing that caught my eyes was the double deck bus which then transformed into a stage. When I was young, I used to imagine to have a vehicle which could transform into anything as I wished. China has done it! It has become possible.
Both the opening and closing ceremony have attracted the world’s attention. The shows take a person’s knowledge and understanding of Chinese cultures and history. Without such knowledge and understanding, the shows were just merely gigantic stage performances, and nothing more than entertainment. The story went down the time tunnel from Qin dynasty to modern China. They told the spectacular transformation of China and its rising.
Silly mid-term paper
Well, well, well. Many people has regarded MMU a great university. Many of its students have regarded graduating from there gives them highest honor. I always don’t think so.
Have you been thinking that an exam at university level must be difficult? Well, the answer is not difficult at all. Take a look at this snapshot of the recent mid-term paper set for senior students (final year)! This picture was downloaded from the blog of a MMU student.
Riddle: Guess what the big rose will do when it goes crazy?
Silly questions, aren’t they? I know who is that lecturer. Worse is that, he is a senior lecturer and associate dean and the *worst* thing is that he is a doctorate! Silly, silly, silly. The evaluation test that I gave to my scholarship candidates was even tougher than this. I wonder how he got his doctorate and at what standard he has got his doctorate? This reflects the inferiority of tertiary education in Malaysia.
Actually, I did not want to write a post like this anymore. I don’t want a post like this to pollute my blog. But I think it over under someone’s (a student) request. He says people need to know what quality this university has. Let’s not mention it anymore. It is a waste of time and an eye sore, really.
Protected: Dmitry’s graduation photo session
Distributed computing
I missed an opportunity to work on a distributed computing project many years ago. I was too engrossed in front-end dealing with GUI and stuff. Now, when I read more about Lamport’s works, distributed computing is becoming more interesting. I am also becoming more obsessed in reading distributed computing. Without me realizing at first, I have become Lamport’s fan.
I read his papers with great interest and the desire to read more of his works is becoming stronger in me. I have never had such feeling before. I will continue to find inspiration in his works.
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