emotionally bankrupt

When 15% of your dead loyal followers start harassing you for updates, you really gotta give it to them. Score one for my propaganda, but I should also add that those 15% actually amount to about 3 people.

My good friends will note (and I think I've said it on my old blog a few times) that I don't call myself a blogger. I am just a dude who, one Easter holiday, while procrastinating on my 3rd year project, chanced upon this 'blogging' fad and hopped on to it, getting very good at telling people what I thought, and pissing off a lot of people along the way. But it wasn't like a log or journal of what was going on - it was mostly a commentary or a sharing of experiences.

Then it got old.

I found other (more productive) ways of amusing myself and spending my free time. Plus, most of what I say here is redundant anyway. Most of my thoughts are well documented, most of my beliefs are well stated and most of my theories have been shared with anybody who cared to listen - either here or in my old blog. Therefore, I felt I had nothing much else to add or say.

Until this week.

Earlier this week, there was a video circulating around Facebook of a certain poodle getting abused by a bloke in a messy room. And oh, would you believe the outrage? Of course, I am familiar with online witch hunts and this was no different - what with all the mistaken identity of the so-called assailants.

What struck me was the fact that loads of people showed extreme sadness over a dog. Or to put it crudely, "just a dog". But there people were, crying (literally) over a video that they watched, or in some cases couldn't bear to watch. For me, I couldn't watch the video because it got boring after the 2nd minute. For me the more pressing question was - what so fun about watching a dude beat up a dog that people had to watch for 15 minutes?

Would I be pissed if it was MY dog? I don't know - probably. I mean I had a dog who was poisoned when I was a kid (they poisoned my dog because they wanted to rob my neighbour's house the following week). But was I crying? No, in fact I was more worried that my dog's ghost would haunt my house.

But it is some random stranger and some random dog who didn't even die, didn't get his eyes gouged out or anything; heck the bones weren't even broken, it was just slapped around silly. And let me clarify here - I am not supporting that bloke; I think he should be thrown in jail for abuse.

My point here was that I didn't understand all the emotions running through the minds of people watching the video - enough to make them cry and lose sleep over it? As I noted on my Facebook wall (ever the oracle of my wisdom these days):

If happiness is the absence of sadness, then the secret to eternal happiness is apathy. Because you can't get upset if you don't give a crap.

Yes, a certain woman of historical past would love to remind me that I am "emotionally bankrupt" but I retort by saying I sleep better at night. I never get upset over issues like that, and contrary to popular belief, I am a way happier person than most. I don't get myself worked up. I don't worry about issues I cannot resolve. And for issues that I can resolve, I compartmentalize them into neat little boxes in the back of my mind to be handled systematically.

Try it, folks.

The following day, Mikey, my current partner in crime and I were throwing around jokes, dissing the idiots who hacked the alleged abuser's FB account and the morons who were leaving threatening messages - come on folks, that's really stupid because I am sure the police take more seriously death threats against human beings more seriously than some topless dude slapping around poodles. If that "Doreen" girl wanted to press charges, I am damn sure the police would find a solid case against the online mob.

And Mikey was saying how she thought it would be funny if either of us were to go to that hacked FB account and leave messages on the wall - "I wish my dog could stand on two legs!" I added in "Damn that's a smart dog!" or "You have madzz dog training skillzz - can you train my cat?"

OH HOW TASTELESS.

Did we mean it? Of course not. It was tasteless humour that we enjoy only amongst ourselves but that took our minds of some random event that we had no control over.

Am I emotionally bankrupt?

Probably. But that also means I sleep better at night not worrying over things I cannot control.

chill, will ya?

Wow.

It's actually been 4 months since I last posted something. Since I started eons ago, the longest I had gone without saying something was a month. Usually never longer than a couple of weeks! It's not to say that I've been busy, but priorities do change. And if you haven't figured out, writing to random strangers on the Internet hasn't been deemed as sufficiently important in the context of my life.

But I still like writing, and last I checked (in the mirror), I am still a narcissist, so I shall keep writing because a part of me believes that it is important that I influence as many people as I can.

---

And so that brings me to the hot topic of the moment - the fact that the Prime Minister announced in that "they" were gonna build a 100-storey tower (with a really, really unimaginative name). Now cue the general outrage from the general public. Cue to various online petitions, and Facebook groups. And of course, cue opposition from erm, the opposition party.

WILL YOU GUYS JUST CHILL?!?

No, seriously.

How can you declare point blank that you agree or disagree without arming yourself with proper facts? Aren't we all matured adults? Is nobody capable of a rational thought process? How can you decide you don't like something even before you hear them out?

Can you imagine at work, you have what you think is a great idea, and you knock on your boss' door:

You: Boss, I have this brilliant idea, let's call it Project X, we could combin....

Boss: What?!? Project X? No that's a fucking stupid idea! Get out of my room!

You: But boss, if we implement this idea, we could save RM120 thous..........

Boss: Who cares? It's a stupid idea we could do better things with the money like buy a new microwave for the pantry

You: But boss, we could also cut manpow.....

Boss: No no no no no no no stupid stupid stupid stupid la la la la la

I sure hope none of the you have a boss like that, and I certainly hope none of you shoots down your employees' ideas like that!

But that is exactly what most people are doing today!

We are shooting down an idea without hearing them out! Nobody, and I mean NOBODY has been able to answer these questions, and without the answers to these questions, how can you make an informed decision?

Before you start agreeing or disagreeing with this project, perhaps a few simple questions to guide you along the way.....

1. Who is funding this project? I mean really....if it is funded by PNB, as they say it is, then again we ask, where are they getting the money from? If it is through their Amanah Saham, then surely the holders of the unit trust should be the ones to decide? If they are using their internally generated funds, then what's the problem - it's not your money, it's not even the government's money! And if they are raising external debt, say, by issuing bonds, then again, it's the bond holders' call, innit?

If people think it is worth investing in, then they will pour money in, if people think it is a stupid project, then they won't put in money and the proposal will meet it's death. Either way, it is an economic project, not a social one...so regardless of whether the tower is going to be built or not, investors are not going to pour that RM5 billion or so into building schools or roads - that is for the government to do, nothing to do with the private sector!

2. What is the projected office space requirements in the next 10 years? Sure, it is easy to say that there is a glut currently (which there is) but if you have not seen the projections, how would you know if there would be enough office space in 10 years time? You have to consider the fact that this project is running concurrently with the Economic Transformation Programme with numerous amounts of projects slated to roll out in the coming years. Whether the ETP materializes is a story for another day, but how do we know what the projected outcome of it will be?

3. What is the knock-on effect of this project on the economy? How much will our economy grow with the multiplier effects in place? What sort of jobs would be created in constructing and then sustaining this project? How will the surrounding areas be affected - real estate prices will shoot through the roof - what sort of effect will that bring?


So really, you guys out there are complaining and protesting over the wrong thing. What we should ask for, what we should demand is to see the feasibility study of the project - get the facts, then once you know for sure what you are talking about, then please, feel free to air your opinions, but before that, try to seek out some answers before jumping the gun.

lazy

For the uninitiated, the government has been trying to build a coal-fired power plant in the East Coast of Sabah for quite a while now. I shall not dwell into the long history of the proposals, but if you are interested, there is enough written on this issue - nothing you can't find with a quick Google search.

Opposition towards this plan has been quite vocal especially online and amongst politicians. Go here if you want to read more about it.

In a nutshell, these people are against a coal-fired plant and have been extensively quoting a couple of academic studies that suggest that a few biomass plants would be more feasible than one large coal plant.

While I acknowledge the well known fact that coal isn't the cleanest energy option out there, it certainly isn't as bad as these people make it out to be. Not these days at least. My beef here is that a bunch of people plucked a study conducted by University of California's Renewable & Appropriate Energy Laboratory (not exactly the staunchest supporter of coal, eh?). If you are interested, you can download and read those two studies from the above website. So these guys have been going around lauding the feasibility of biomass - just because some academics said it is. And pretty much everybody who is against the coal project have been referencing from these two studies.

Personally I think this smacks of laziness! This is not how science and business works! You cannot point at TWO studies to prove you are correct! This is common in science - for every study you point to supporting your case, someone else can release 10 other studies disputing your case!

I wonder if the oppositions of this coal project ever launched their own study to verify the so-called feasibility of the biomass proposal. Or are they saying it can be done just because some other people in the US said it can be done? Do they even understand the contents of the Berkeley study?

In summary, that study proposes that there is no need for one large power plant; it states that since there is a vibrant palm oil industry in that region, it would be feasible to collect the waste and use it as a fuel. Indeed this is already done on a smaller scale by palm oil mills to run their boilers to produce steam. The study proposes that this be done on a larger scale under a Small Renewable Energy Production (SREP) programme and all the small palm oil mills will generate electricity on a small scale and inject it into the grid.

Sounds good, eh?

But there is more than meets the eye. There always is.


Economics

There are two ways to go about this - you can either burn the solid palm oil waste (empty fruit bunches, fibres, shells, etc) directly or you can allow the Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) to decompose, releasing methane. You then use the methane as your fuel source; both these methods are proposed in the study.

Under the Kyoto protocol, carbon income is essentially selling carbon credits on the market to offset the pollution caused by the Europeans/Americans. This means that a developing nation is allowed to sell 'carbon' that it did not generate as a result of using renewable energy to someone in the EU/US who is operating a plant over the allowable limits in order for that person to avoid a hefty fine (or get shutdown).

In the solid waste proposal, the economics are slightly questionable because carbon income accounts for one-fifth of the income. Slightly dodgy and questionable because in their projected Year 11-20 of plant operations; if carbon income is totally removed from the equation, the power plants will all be operating at a loss! Who is to know what would happen to carbon trading in the next 10 years?!

Even worse is the POME proposal - 100% economically unfeasible! The electricity income is projected at RM39mil over 20 years while the carbon income is projected at RM64mil over the same period. Isn't it ludicrous to expect a power generation company to derive their main expenditure from a trading exercise?!? Yes, carbon trading can be used as a supplementary income but surely you are not suggesting that a power generation company depend on 60% of their income to come from activities outside their core business? What kind of fantasy land do these people live in? Who on Earth is going to approve such a risky project with such low returns?!

(Dodgy) Economics aside, let's talk technicalities:

Dirty

Sure, coal isn't super clean - but how much do you know about burning palm oil waste?
Sometimes when you drive along the highways, you can smell the palm oil mills from miles away. There is one near KLIA, I am sure you can notice the smell coming off the North-South Highway. Smoke, ash, greenhouse gases; they all exist. You are not burning some magic fuel; you are still burning carbon based fuels. It may be cleaner than coal - but it still pollutes.


Water

A boiler is like your kettle. You are boiling water to produce steam. This steam, under high pressure and high temperature is then passed through a steam turbine which rotates a generator. If you were paying attention in Form 3 science, you would remember that electricity is produced when you cut the flux of a magnet.

As with your kettle, water quality is supremely important here. If the water has high mineral content, you get scaling on your boiler tubes the same way you get scaling on the heating element of your kettles. Only difference is that scaling on the boiler tubes are extremely dangerous as they will cause uneven heating and potential explosions. Therefore, water has to be treated properly before being used.

Most of the palm oil mills in Sabah face the problem of high silica content in the water sourced from streams and rivers. Currently it is not that big an issue because the palm oil mills only generate electricity to cater to their own requirements. Water source would be one of the major problems in a larger scale SREP power plant. Both quantity and quality of water will be a big issue which the academics did not mention in their study.


Regulations & Enforcement

Then comes the issue of treating the water; chemicals are used extensively here. Chemicals are used to remove scales, to treat the steam condensate to prevent algae and barnacle growth. Disposal of spent lube oil is also an issue here. In a single large facility, it is easy to regulate. In a SESB/TNB operated plant it is even easier to regulate their emissions. In fact, we would expect that a company like TNB self regulate and would easily comply to the emissions standards set.

But do you expect DoE to be able to regulate small SREP plants in the middle of the jungle to ensure proper disposal and proper usage of those chemicals? Given the dodgy economics of these projects in the first place, can we regulate the small plant operators to act ethically in disposing all their waste properly?

---

I am not saying coal is definitely feasible. Neither am I saying biomass is completely unfeasible.

I am merely saying that you cannot propose something blindly. The government has released detailed studies of the coal fired facilities. I don't see any detailed biomass proposals. If you are going to object so strongly to something, you need to propose a viable alternative and put forward a good case promoting its viability (not just an 11 page report written by some academics). That reeks of laziness and opposing for the sake of opposing.

Ideally, yes. Renewable energy should be the way to go. But I am a realist. Development does not come cheaply. Inevitably, there has to be some ecological impact. But that ecological impact can be minimised greatly and in a sustainable way.

Instead of banging your heads against a brick wall, start lobbying for more stringent controls. Demand that the standards for greenhouse gas emissions be tightened. Insist that the cooling water discharge into the sea is at a temperature closer to ambient. Lobby for harsher penalties for DoE infrigements.

Save the dugongs? Hell yeah, but let's do this realistically, shall we?

blog

Blog?

Who has time to blog?

World Cup la dey....


Actually, I do want to touch on a couple of issues - notably the JPA scholarships and the government's decision to send more post-grads overseas and keep the undergrads at home.

Secondly, I have a really huge bone to pick with the lazy environmentalists and politicians who are opposing the coal fired power plant in Sabah but are proposing a (few) biomass plants. I call them lazy because they obviously did not bother doing more homework and instead reference everything to a couple of academic studies which I am sure they did not even fully understand, given their ridiculous justifications for biomass.

But yah, you wait la. I'll keep it in the pipes and post it when there aren't any silly games to watch.

Oh, and by the way, in my new curiosity of all things North Korean, please check out this lovely website, which includes this lovely gem:

Only few people in the world know that Korea is divided by a big concrete wall in the Parallel 38 that was built by the United States of America when the Korean War finished.This wall is hundreds of times bigger than the one that existed in Germany and is separating the Korean families, brothers, parents... the nation is divided because the U.S.A. is dominating the southern part and keeps an army of more than 40.000 soldiers to avoid the union of the Korean people.

dirty dvds

There was a full page advertisement in the newspapers the other day warning the public that the police were set to clampdown HARD on pirated DVDs. This includes the street peddlers as well as anyone purchasing or owning one.

We all know that in this country, everybody has bought at least one pirated DVD in their life. It is such a big part of our pasar malam and our way of life, that it seems we cannot live without it. I think, this is one crime that most Malaysians don't even consider a crime in the first place.

I stopped buying pirated DVDs about 3 years ago. The last pirated DVD I bought was a box set of the complete series of Friends. My friends (and most people in fact) think I am an idiot because after I bought that set, I got into a realisation that one day, maybe I would invent an awesome product and some asshole would just copy it and rip me off the royalties that I was supposed to earn from that.

If there is one thing I really believe in is that one day Karma will always bite you in the ass. And I didn't want that to happen, so for some really messed up moral issue, I started to buy my DVDs at Speedy video or VideoEzy. I never downloaded movies. I do download on-going TV series, but that's only because you can't watch the latest episodes even if you were prepared to pay for it. Besides, the only TV series I follow these days is House and I checked, you can actually pay to download the latest episode on their website for about USD2, but it is only for US viewers.

And it turns out, it's not that bad. I watch most of the new movies in the cinema anyway. If I liked a movie I watched and think it's worth a second viewing, I'll probably buy the DVD. If someone raves on and on about a certain movie which I missed in the cinemas, then I will buy the DVD.

Most people justify their support of pirated stuff with, "buying original is so expensive-lah."

So what?

Watching movies is a luxury. It is not a necessity. If you couldn't afford to buy bread then perhaps, yes, you are left with no other option than to steal. Not legally correct, but morally understandable. So if you can't afford to buy an original DVD, then don't bloody watch it! I mean, I would love to drive a Lamborghini, but I can't afford it - that doesn't entitle me to steal it!

And yes, my friends would mock me for my somewhat skewed moral compass because I always felt that educational stuff was exempt from that rule. For instance, if you needed an engineering software such as AutoCAD, I always felt that okay, as a home user or a student, you perhaps could use a pirated version. But if you were running a business and profiting out of that software, then you should bloody hell buy an original license.

Hypocritical? Yes, but I never declared myself a saint.

So in the past, I've always touched on the ethical issue of not giving proper credit (by paying them!) to the people who created the movie or sang the song. But hey, a lot of people have very questionable ethics anyway, and that has never stopped anybody from doing anything that suited their fancy...

But today, I shall say this to guilt you, because it just crossed my mind recently.

If you spare one second to think about it, we all know that the pirated DVDs come from either China, Thailand or are manufactured locally. Have you sat down and thought about how these DVDs are brought into the country and how many palms are greased in the process?

From your RM6 DVD, how much money is spent so that the law enforcement officers 'look the other way' when the product comes into the country? If the DVDs are manufactured locally, how much do you think if spent paying someone off to conceal their illegal manufacturing? How much is spent to ensure that the pesky Ahbengs carrying around their basket of DVDs in mamak stalls aren't picked up? And how come every Malaysian knows where to go if they want to buy pirated DVDs, but our enforcement officers don't know where to go to shutdown those stalls?

There are hundreds of stalls in shopping malls, permanent fixtures in shoplots - what has been stopping the enforcement agencies from clamping down on them? If you don't know the answer to that question, you are clearly not Malaysian.

And if you think about it, it's no easy feat running such a large scale operation. Who are the people behind this lucrative business? Certainly it won't surprise anybody if it turns out that those are the same people running the illegal money lending business and smuggling women into the country to work as prostitutes. Would it surprise anybody if there was an organised crime Godfather behind all this?

My point here is simple. If you have ever complained about how this country is plague by corruption, if you have ever moaned about the seemingly high crime rates in this country, then don't buy any more pirated DVDs.

Stop contributing to this industry.

Stop throwing your blood money around.