Looking for Inspiration

These guys are looking for something to fall from the sky or are they looking for inspiration.

Hi Pressure - Low Pressure

Work is just piling up and I don't seem to have enough time to clear it. There does not seem to be enough hours. I don't seem to enjoy my stay at my work place no more.

The only thing that appeases me and reduces my blood pressure is my morning drive to work via the NPE. That is my normal route to work whenever I am late (most of the time). I'll hit Bangsar and Travers by 7:15-7:30 and sometimes I get a glimpse of sight and situation which calms and soothes me and I do find it very calming though I don't know why.

The moment I reached office, everything changes until I hit the gym again......Arggghhhh

Sorry for this stress relieving posting - Nothing better.

Reprogramming DaVinci Code

Curiosity has got the better of me and since I was being handed a couple of free tickets to the movies, I chose to watch The DaVinci Code one afternoon. Having read the book, my objective in watching this movie was to see how the filmaker's translation of the already action packed style of book writing into a movie and how some of the vivid description is brought to life.

Unfortunately, instead of watching the movie and fulfilling my objective, I was lost in scenaries and "location analysing environment" as some of the scenaries brings back many poignant memories of my stay in Paris some years ago. Having being attached to one of the French Government Agencies to promote collaboration, the scenes of a road side cafe and cramp streets (Rue) does bring memories of my challenging times of my attachment in Paris.

However, I do find the movie average (though I have heard others mention that it is not as good as the book) but exciting and I would recommend if you are the type that likes Indiana Jones type of storyline. Some of the facts may be questionable though , but nevertherless it is a good movie to escape to. Throughout the movie, with all the special effects and reconstruction of facts, I was expecting the personnels from CSI team to be around but alas, I suppose all of CSI was already embedded within Tom Hanks' character.

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Metaphorically Speaking

What if u were told, u have only about 3-6 month to live, how would u have lived the rest of your life.? That was a question post to me. Ironically, the question has so much relevance to what I am facing that it caught me by surprise.

Yeah, how would i live my live now, if u know your days are numbered?

a) Would I live it up and enjoy?
b) Would I just make preparation for the eventualities and take care of people close to me?
c) Would I even disclose this news from my friends and loved ones?
d) Would I fight and look for ways to survive and recover (if it was even in my control)?

Now,these are question that is currently racing through my mind and it seems to be overusing my brain CPU. So many questions, so little time. Ah well, maybe I shud take one day at a time .......................... at this particular moment.;)

Hung up on broadband Wireless Technologies

We are sometimes hung upon technologies that comes our way. We also tend to take news about technologies on face values that we tend to be gullible on its claims. Take the example of Wimax and 3 G,there are so much claims on its speed and capabilities that we sometimes fails to examine them in relation to the laws of physics.

To demonstrate this claim in relation to reality, let us look at the claimed performance vis-a-vis to the reality on the ground. The common claim is that WIMAX will be a solve all technology due to its endless performance capabilities in broadband performance. Let us examine this claim in reality.

Limitation of Spectrum (Frequency).
Transmitters using WiMAX usually is deployed at base station to transmit broadcast signal to the end users for broadband usage. To transmit it effectively in a one to many configuration, the base station will be configured to transmit in a sectorial mode. The operators deploying these base stations will choose how many sectors depending on the amount of spectrum resource that is available to them. Normally, in a typical country, these spectrum resource allocated is around 20 Mhz. If the planning calls for 4 sector to cover the 360 degrees coverage, then the spectrum reserved for the deployment maybe 2 (with adjacent sectors using a different frequency). The client set may opt to use a different frequency band for transmitting back to base station, hence effectively u will have 3 frequency band to be allocated within the 20Mhz spectrum.

That will mean roughly per band you can only have 6 Mhz of spectrum. When U have 6 Mhz of spectrum , there is no way u can pump out more then 10 Mbits of bandwidth per band. It just defies the law of physics (at this present moment).

Transmitting Distance
Another myth is that WiMAX can transmit more then 25 km in distance. Generally this is true if and only if, u have a transmitter that has high enough wattage that may fry the birds (or at least causing hazardous health concern - in regulatory speak) coming close to the transmitter and u are only transmitting one way - to a passive reciever.

What most people forget is that if U are just receiving broadcast from the transmitter that maybe OK, but the client system also has to broadcast back to the base station. With current limit of 1 watt at the client devices, there is no way on earth that the client system can transmit back beyond 5 km (or thereabouts) unless using some high gain antenna. That would defeat the idea of portability, wud it.

So people, lets us not go and repeat this story without realizing the fact and reality on the ground.

Which Cartoon character Reflects Your Personality?

We watch TV and Cartoon Programme and though some of us envisage ourselves to be like Wille E Coyote from the Road Runner Show, some of us also see ourselves as Eric Cartman from South Park.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I am being labelled as a Ned Flanders ( a character out of Simpsons). Duh...that is not flattering. Looking around my blogging colleagues, I sometimes wonder who are the Road Runners, Daffy Ducks or even the Homer Simpson in the Blogsphere.?

Broadband Penetration - Reality of the Matter

Everytime I come across an article about Broadband Penetration, I squirm at the statistics being bandied around. We are always trying to benchmark ourselves with neighbours and regional Economic Tigers when we have not really looked at our own statistics and socio-economic determinant in details. The commonly quoted statistics are , "Oh, we have only reached a broadband penetration of 8 to 10%, we need to do more".

What we fail to examine are the followings:-

a) The number of Copper lines laid down by Telekom Malaysia is 4.2 Million Copper lines of which 2.9 million are household. In Telco speak, there are 2.9 million DEL to home users
b) There is 25 Million people in the country of which the average household members are 5, which means that we have roughly 5 Million household in the country.
c) There are 2.5 Million inhabitant in Klang Valley which translate to roughly about 500-600K household (depending whether if we use 4 to 5 members in each household) just in Klang Valley.
d) Based on the copper cables availability and the limitation of household, the maximum possible number of broadband users in Malaysia at this moment is between 2.9 Million and 4.2 Million subscribers (assuming everyone is a Broadband freak)
e) When TMnet claims that they already have 600K subscribers, my immediate take of it wud be that half of that is from the Klang Valley. (Which in turn translate to almost 50% of the Klang Valley market). The other half have other forms of livelihood that may not require them to pay RM88 per month and willing to settle for RM20 just for dialups.

For all U know, the market for broadband in Klang Valley and almost everyone has an internet account in sofar as Klang Valley resident is concern and the broadband market in Klang Valley is already saturated and not there anymore.

Now if U look at neighboring countries statistics, the population profile is different and the household ratio is different. Singapore (a nation state) may have a population of 4 Million people and household population ratio of 2.3 to a household. This translate to 1.73 Million household. Their DEL (copper lines) is approximately 1.8 Million which means every household has a phone and almost every household has broadband. Even if they have 1.5 Million broadband subscribers, their statistics will look much better then ours in terms of penetration and reach.

I think we need to check and conduct logical arithmetics to review what ever statistics that we hope to claim to promote Broadband.

Tribute to iPOD Jockey (new Roman Drummasters)

Remember watching those old movies, like Jason and the Argonauts or one of those Burt Lancaster movies where he is a slave in a ship galley, whipped up by those Roman to row their big ship. You kinda get the feeling of sorrowness and despair for these slaves. Back in modern times, i sometimes felt the same feeling when going to the Group excercise in the Gym, though I know its good for me, but halfway thru, you get this feeling of tiredness and exhaustion. But then again I must comment that those "Roman Drummaster" Gym Instructor are doing an excellent job motivating you to finish and get through the class.

I felt that I owe a bit to these Instructors and their words of motivation especially when they try to sing along on some of the songs. I also term these instructors as iPOD Jockeys though some can sing better then others. One of the most demanding instructor but a great motivator is Wes especially when he belts out wording such as "..we have no fear" from the Song Track Olympia while doing BodyPump.

Another of his other favourite tracks will be a song from the group Garbage called "Push it" which he likes to go over the the lyrics in both Pump or RPM classes which goes something like this " ...this is the noise that keeps me awake, my head explodes and my body aches..." Kinda comical , I thought.

When you particpate in his RPM Challenge class, he dishes out this song called "Why" by DJ Sammy and rhetorically asked us why are we doing this?? Kinda challenging ur mind, doesn't it?

Another instructor Peter has different approach being slightly humourous in his framework but particular in techniques as he belts out command from stage if you get it wrong. One of the tracks that he commonly plays is "From Paris to Berlin (Pumping For Love) by Infernal" as this song is very raunchy and gets you up when you are trying to Pump 15 to 20 kilos continously for more then 5 minutes. The lyrics that he keep us motivated is something like this ".... Patience is a game, ...."

Other enjoyable song in his class will be "Pump it up" by danzel and "Pump It" by Black Eye Pea" more so for his on stage improvisation techniques ;)

My favourite song that motivates me to Pump is actually a song called "Come to me by Tina Cousins". I am not sure what motivates me in this song, whether is it because of its strongs synth bass lines or the sultry voice of Tina Cousins or when it was first introduced in Pump, it was demonstrated by a Drummaster,Instructor Wenisa.

Of course these are some of the instructors that has been highligted though there are other iPOD Jockeys such as Swee, Wayne, Herny, Collin and Chloe. Particpate in their class and see how they motivate U .......

Things are not necessary what it seems

When will our service industry get their processes right? Imagine, when you have people queueing inline for 20 minutes to pay for ones parking ticket, you are stopped by the attendent just as you reached the machine,who wants to service or collect the coins in the parking collection box. Shouldn't you informed the queue that this particular lane will be closed and the people shud carry on the queue in another machine to avoid disgust looks by the patron. This happens at one of the so called renowned shopping complex the KLCC.

I don't know what three quarters the crowd at KLCC do but walk there aimlessly on Sundays blocking the other quarter from reaching their destination. The moment I got off the car park to go to Best Denki and Sports Station, I had to follow people who were walking ever so slowly, aimlessly and seems without purpose, which really cheeses me off. I don't mind the family and the kids, but middle aged person walking around blurred....Come on, get some direction.

I also nearly bump into two "pondans", who happen to have the shapeliest bodies I have seen (even compared to some girls I know). They were looking around for the toilet and the moment they open their mouth, I knew this was no girl. My only predicament in showing them the toilet was whether I had made a right choice of pointing them to the "ladies". But I suppose, had I given the wrong answer, I would have been greeted with a slap in the face. So I bid my exit ever so quickly and silently.