A song that truely warms my heart. I think it speaks the voice of many Malaysians, home or abroad.
Video, music, lyrics Downloads at their site. Spread the words fellow Malaysians. Sing along!
Update: Check here for the writer Pete Teo's interview, and Pete Teo unscripted video
Processed tomato products have higher lycopene content than fresh tomatoes.
Boiling was better for carrots, zucchini and broccoli than steaming, frying or serving them raw.
Trade off: boiling carrots significantly increased measurable carotenoid levels, but resulted in the complete loss of polyphenols compared with raw carrots.
When salsa or salad were served with fat-rich avocados or full-fat salad dressing, the diners absorbed as much as 4 times more lycopene, 7 times more lutein and 18 times the beta carotene than those who had their vegetables plain or with low-fat dressing.
Funny new umbrella - "Nubrella".
Right click and click play to see video.
The website: nubrella.com
Will it take off like the new rotary can opener?
Donations for the Quake Relief in Sichuan, China:
Account Name: Embassy of The People's Republic of China in Australia
Earthquake Relief Fund
Account No. BSB:352-000 A/C: 126512
Bank Name: Bank of China, Sydney Branch.
***Telephone No. of the Embassy: 0414880919; 0408784630;0414793168
I have followed Jayjay (our CSSE ex-school manager, now school manager at Physics) to present at many talks he organised. At the beginning it was outreach program to high school where I showed high school students computer graphics stuffs like image morphing, video-based rendering, perspective rectification, etc.. Recently we had been going around to show the virtual 3D UWA with the new Google crown.
We did one at the UniClub auditorium to 170 high school students. And here are what they write down in the feedback form about us.
Feedback from students:
* Life is about reflecting light into dark places by using the resources you have as best as possible;
* I will remember the speakers and how they were all unique;
* My favourite was Jay Jay because I am interested in that career path;
* Tzu Yen was my favourite because he was funny and informative;
* Jay Jay and his gang because what they spoke about was cool;
* Tzu Yen, his virtual universe project was very interesting;
* The 3-D computer group was so interesting! Explored new boundaries;
* I found the computing group interesting;
* Did not enjoy the virtual tour as I found it not stimulating enough;
* The favourite was the Asian guy who showed us the designing thing on the sketch pad; ("Asian guy" I guess refer to me, and the "sketch pad" must be SketchUp)
* My favourite was Jay Jay and Gary;
* The computer man with the T-shirt was my favourite; (I'm the computer man with this :) T-shirt)
* Speakers were all awesome but Tzu Yen was awesome more; (Oh Yeah! Awesome more! I like that. Hear that Barney?)
* Some of the speeches went for a while longer than expected and got boring at some point – although they were all worth it in the end;
* I think we should have had more breaks and some speeches were too long;
* The best thing about the visit today was the speakers; they really do give us something to think about, to aspire to.
There's a 76mins full version on his CMU website - CMU website with a full transcript.
I have been busy putting together my thesis chapters lately. The progress has been satisfying and the thesis starts to take its shape. Working consistently with the pace, I shall be able to submit in July. Yay!
Apart from the dry process of writing thesis, I had been doing some puzzles. Canon research lab CiSRA is having a puzzle competition. Danno told me about it as he work there and want me to never graduate. Haha!
Me, ShihChing and Minh are teaming up as Fubar Fighters to crack the puzzles. We solved the first group which was open for a long time, then this week the real battle started at the rate of 4 puzzle a day for 4 days! My brain is rather overwork. Some of the puzzles are just clueless to me!
Anyone can take part in the competition, just have to register for it and play. But Australian students are eligible to win prizes. Looks like my hope to win the camera is slowly vanishing.
A friend send me this website on puzzles which tech interviewers like to use. See techinterview.org
It was advertised as 15cent a print at HP's online photo site Snapfish but 1-60 photos postage costs $2.95, so it work out to be about 20cents if you print 60 photos in one order.
Beware of a catch if you print 100 photos! Because 61-99 photos cost $4.95 in postage, but 100 photos costs $8.95! Strange arrangement and I overlooked it last time! :`(
See the full pricing here.
20 free prints for new account.
(Let me know before you register if you wouldn't mind me getting 20 free print by "telling a friend")
Urban 3D Modelling from Video - University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and University of Kentucky
More video and details on their website.
This is an artist impression of me after the artist saw these photos. Apparently, he thinks I look like a combination of Bruce Lee and Harry Potter (the glasses).
Muarotak has more of his comics and drawings on his site (in chinese).
I saw Danno blogged about his devalued Zimbabwe dollar last week. And today I stumbled upon this in-picture report of Pre-election Zimbabwe on BBC. 1US = 25million ZD?! Thousands of people have to walk 3km every day to work! 80% people unemployed, escalating HIV infection, one meal a day for many!!! That's mad!
Will Mugabe still win the election on 29th this month? He has the army in his pocket. How about the ordinary Zimbabweans?
Mugabe's good friend Mahathir has stepped down for more than 4 years. Malaysians have also shown their disgust of corruption and misgovernment by the election tsunami on 8 March. Will Zimbabwe have some new hope after the election?
Malaysia is in a much better state compared to Zimbabwe and it's really not a good comparison...
Anyway, have a look at the picture and report.
Pre-election Zimbabwe
This is the most exciting General Election of Malaysia I've ever witnessed!
People's anger and frustration finally translated into real seats and gave the ruling parties a big slap on the face! It has denied the ruling Barisan National's 2/3 majority in the parliament so the constitution can't be easily changed at its pleasure.
Five states have also fall into the opposition, given them a big challenge to show the people what good governance which they preach is really about! If they can pull it through then it will pave way to eventual balance of power in the parliament down the track. Otherwise, the opposition will be seriously attacked in the next general election.
Channel News Asia has the report at 0014hrs.
(Blogger.com and many webserver were not responding when I wanted to post this late last night.)
Malaysian opposition slays govt giants in elections
Posted: 09 March 2008 0014 hrs
Special Report
Malaysia GE 2008
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's opposition has claimed several high-profile scalps in Saturday's general elections, including the sole ethnic Indian minister who lost his seat, according to official data.
The daughter of opposition figurehead Anwar Ibrahim, 28-year-old Nurul Izzah Anwar, thrashed powerful incumbent Women, Family and Community Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil in her first ever tilt at parliament.
Manoharan Malayalam, an ethnic Indian activist who is being detained without trial after organising anti-discrimination protests, was elected from his jail cell -- beating the government incumbent in a state seat.
Manoharan, who represents the Chinese-based Democratic Action Party (DAP), won twice as many votes as the ethnic Chinese candidate, in a seat dominated by ethnic Chinese voters.
Indian Cabinet minister S. Samy Vellu lost his seat in central Perak state which he has held since 1974, state Bernama news agency reported.
Samy Vellu, a loyal supporter of the Malay-led government, has borne the brunt of anger from Malaysia's ethnic Indian minority who say they have suffered decades of discrimination.
The DAP has claimed victory in the island state of Penang, ousting the government for the first time since 1969 in a stunning outcome.
Unofficial results showed the opposition is close to claiming the northern state of Kedah with the Islamic hardliners PAS and former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim's party Keadilan securing 22 of the 36 state seats, Bernama reported.
The opposition is also in the lead in central Selangor state, traditionally a BN stronghold, it said.
The Election Commission's official tally showed Barisan Nasional ahead in the new 222-seat parliament, with 45 parliamentary seats in the bag, including eight that were uncontested.
The DAP has claimed six parliamentary seats, PAS currently has three and Keadilan has three. - AFP/ir
Comedy Court made:
ELECTIONS Blah blah blah
Rough Little Indian Boys
The Family Tree
And more of other political and non-political videos on Comedy Court
AMWA had a belated Chinese New Year gathering at Kardinya community center on Labour Day (3 March). I was there helping up from 9:30am for 11am start. Good fun in the kitchen chopping cabbage, cutting water melon and running around taking photos. Event finished at 2pm and we cleaned up, packed up by 3pm.
See the blog and photo gallery for more.
Chinese New Year Gathering 2008
This is 2 weeks old. As mentioned in the Happy^Googleplex post, We went over to Sydney on an all expenses paid trip by Google. We flew in on 17/2 Sunday, spent a day at Google office on Darling Harbour on 18th and most of the team went back on 19th. Me and Minh stayed for one more day with Danno.
Highlights:
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| 2008_02_17 |
Using Wii, this CMU phd student made a monitor into a portal to the virtual world!!
Turning any monitor in to a 3D VR display
It's 10 days old, but I just read it via Nick's blog.
On the same day, Malaysia parliament was dissolved to prepare for the 12th General Election. The inter-racial misunderstanding and stereotype in Malaysia is still very strong and the BN government keeps on squeezing on old wounds and conniving new destructive behaviours for their political survival. When will the parliament of Malaysia be mature enough to one day produce something like this, to lead the people into new era of renewed hope and inspiration.
PM Rudd's 'sorry' address
February 13, 2008 - 4:08PM
I move:
That today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
...
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
A future where this parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.
A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.
A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.
A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.
A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.
There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future.
Our nation, Australia, has reached such a time.
....
One of the most notorious examples of this approach was from the Northern Territory Protector of Natives, who stated: ''Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation, all native characteristics of the Australian Aborigine are eradicated. The problem of our half-castes'' - to quote the protector - ''will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white''.
The Western Australian Protector of Natives expressed not dissimilar views, expounding them at length in Canberra in 1937 at the first national conference on indigenous affairs that brought together the Commonwealth and state protectors of natives.
These are uncomfortable things to be brought out into the light. They are not pleasant. They are profoundly disturbing.
...
There is a further reason for an apology as well: it is that reconciliation is in fact an expression of a core value of our nation - and that value is a fair go for all.
There is a deep and abiding belief in the Australian community that, for the stolen generations, there was no fair go at all.
There is a pretty basic Aussie belief that says that it is time to put right this most outrageous of wrongs.
It is for these reasons, quite apart from concerns of fundamental human decency, that the governments and parliaments of this nation must make this apology - because, put simply, the laws that our parliaments enacted made the stolen generations possible.
We, the parliaments of the nation, are ultimately responsible, not those who gave effect to our laws. And the problem lay with the laws themselves.
As has been said of settler societies elsewhere, we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors; therefore we must also be the bearer of their burdens as well.
Therefore, for our nation, the course of action is clear: that is, to deal now with what has become one of the darkest chapters in Australia's history.
In doing so, we are doing more than contending with the facts, the evidence and the often rancorous public debate.
In doing so, we are also wrestling with our own soul.
This is not, as some would argue, a black-armband view of history; it is just the truth: the cold, confronting, uncomfortable truth - facing it, dealing with it, moving on from it.
Until we fully confront that truth, there will always be a shadow hanging over us and our future as a fully united and fully reconciled people.
It is time to reconcile. It is time to recognise the injustices of the past. It is time to say sorry. It is time to move forward together.
To the stolen generations, I say the following: as Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry.
On behalf of the Government of Australia, I am sorry.
On behalf of the Parliament of Australia, I am sorry.
I offer you this apology without qualification.
...
Whatever words I speak today, I cannot undo that.
Words alone are not that powerful; grief is a very personal thing.
I ask those non-indigenous Australians listening today who may not fully understand why what we are doing is so important to imagine for a moment that this had happened to you.
I say to honourable members here present: imagine if this had happened to us. Imagine the crippling effect. Imagine how hard it would be to forgive.
My proposal is this: if the apology we extend today is accepted in the spirit of reconciliation, in which it is offered, we can today resolve together that there be a new beginning for Australia.
And it is to such a new beginning that I believe the nation is now calling us.
Australians are a passionate lot. We are also a very practical lot.
For us, symbolism is important but, unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong.
It is not sentiment that makes history; it is our actions that make history.
Today's apology, however inadequate, is aimed at righting past wrongs.
It is also aimed at building a bridge between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians - a bridge based on a real respect rather than a thinly veiled contempt.
Our challenge for the future is to cross that bridge and, in so doing, to embrace a new partnership between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians - to embrace, as part of that partnership, expanded Link-up and other critical services to help the stolen generations to trace their families if at all possible and to provide dignity to their lives.
But the core of this partnership for the future is to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians on life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities.
This new partnership on closing the gap will set concrete targets for the future: within a decade to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and opportunities for indigenous Australians, within a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant mortality rates between indigenous and non-indigenous children and, within a generation,
to close the equally appalling 17-year life gap between indigenous and non-indigenous in overall life expectancy.
The truth is: a business as usual approach towards indigenous Australians is not working.
Most old approaches are not working.
We need a new beginning, a new beginning which contains real measures of policy success or policy failure; a new beginning, a new partnership, on closing the gap with sufficient flexibility not to insist on a one-size-fits-all approach for each of the hundreds of remote and regional indigenous communities across the country but instead allowing flexible,
tailored, local approaches to achieve commonly-agreed national objectives that lie at the core of our proposed new partnership; a new beginning that draws intelligently on the experiences of new policy settings across the nation.
However, unless we as a Parliament set a destination for the nation, we have no clear point to guide our policy, our programs or our purpose; we have no centralised organising principle.
Let us resolve today to begin with the little children, a fitting place to start on this day of apology for the stolen generations.
...
None of this will be easy. Most of it will be hard, very hard. But none of it is impossible, and all of it is achievable with clear goals, clear thinking, and by placing an absolute premium on respect, cooperation and mutual responsibility as the guiding principles of this new partnership on closing the gap.
The mood of the nation is for reconciliation now, between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. The mood of the nation on indigenous policy and politics is now very simple.
...
Mr Speaker, today the Parliament has come together to right a great wrong. We have come together to deal with the past so that we might fully embrace the future. We have had sufficient audacity of faith to advance a pathway to that future, with arms extended rather than with fists still clenched.
So let us seize the day. Let it not become a moment of mere sentimental reflection.
Let us take it with both hands and allow this day, this day of national reconciliation, to become one of those rare moments in which we might just be able to transform the way in which the nation thinks about itself, whereby the injustice administered to the stolen generations in the name of these, our parliaments, causes all of us to reappraise, at the deepest
level of our beliefs, the real possibility of reconciliation writ large: reconciliation across all indigenous Australia; reconciliation across the entire history of the often bloody encounter between those who emerged from the Dreamtime a thousand generations ago and those who, like me, came across the seas only yesterday; reconciliation which opens up whole new possibilities for the future.
It is for the nation to bring the first two centuries of our settled history to a close, as we begin a new chapter. We embrace with pride, admiration and awe these great and ancient cultures we are truly blessed to have among us cultures that provide a unique, uninterrupted human thread linking our Australian continent to the most ancient prehistory of our planet.
Growing from this new respect, we see our indigenous brothers and sisters with fresh eyes, with new eyes, and we have our minds wide open as to how we might tackle, together, the great practical challenges that indigenous Australia faces in the future.
Let us turn this page together: indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, government and opposition, Commonwealth and state, and write this new chapter in our nation's story together.
First Australians, First Fleeters, and those who first took the oath of allegiance just a few weeks ago. Let's grasp this opportunity to craft a new future for this great land: Australia. I commend the motion to the House.
AAP
I'm so happy to be at home for Chinese New Year this year. I didn't go back on CNY last year and having the whole family together is so great. We had steamboat, grilled chicken and sea cucumber with pork trotter. See photos. .JPG)
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