History Tuesday

A refresher course video on what happened during the Konfrantasi. Interesting to see it from Singapore's viewpoint.

Bludgeon me bloody

Have you ever entertained fantasies of being Dexter? No, I'm not talking about the serial killer thing, sheesh. Unless you are a violent sociopath, in which case, keep calm and carry on SUBMERGING HOMICIDAL DESIRES.

The lovable serial killing villain has a day job with the fictitious Miami Metro Police as a blood pattern analyst. So what the heck does that mean? The pictures below shed some light on what Dexter does  in his professional capacity.

 

*All pictures stolen from here, original source is this.

Television shows like the CSI franchise sold us on the idea that forensic science can solve almost anything. To certain extent, science have made crime investigation a lot more reliable than the previous method of beating up a suspect until he/she confessed (though it's still applied in parts of the world where civil liberty is still a laughable dream). As much as the television show has done to encourage interest in science, it has as much to do with real-life laboratory practice as porn is to making love. My friends and I often laugh at the insane timeline portrayed in CSI (collecting specimen, tagging and paperwork, sample prep, sample run AND analysis in a single day? Please.) and we mock at the clean chromatography results (yeah, nice, distinguishable peaks from a swab at the freeway. Riiiiight.). Not to mention the awkward pipetting techniques or the blase centrifuging without balancing the rotor. To have someone comment, "You're doing it the CSI-style, aren't you?" is considered as a gross insult.

Science, however, is not infallible; DNA profiling is not the magic bullet of conviction as evidenced by the inability to distinguish the rapist twin from the innocent one (though this may change). Samples degrade, there are issues of contamination, false evidence, specimen tampering and many more. That said, it doesn't mean that you can call a video iron (refer to comment by Tuan Guru Haji Hadi Awang on Anwar Ibrahim's Chinadoll video) and throw science out of the window. DNA technology has helped to overthrow convictions on people wrongly imprisoned for rape and give names and faces to victims of mass disasters. Surveillance technology helped to map the unfolding of the Boston marathon bombing step-by-step. Biometrics have been invaluable in enhancing security protocols as well as identify presence at a crime scene.

However, as more and more criminals and villains get smarter from watching Discovery Channel and use forensic science against the law enforcement, legal technicality gets a lot more convoluted and conviction remains equal parts of science, good investigation, robust prosecution and a huge dollop of luck.

God has a sense of humour

Really. He does.
 


Happy Monday, y'all.

Oldie is not goldie

It is not uncommon to see sunrise/sunset couples. Yes, the kind where the dude could be mistaken as the dudette's father or even grandfather.

Case in point:

Media troll and vitriolic partner.

Beauty and Daddy.

Why don't these sort of partnerships raise brows, unlike:

 They hot together, no?

Both are drool-worthy, regardless of the way you swing.

Is it because partnership has to be about a resource provider hooking up with the best of baby factories? After a certain age, women develop menopause and can happily throw away the birth control pills, intrauterine device, estrogen patches, etc that helps them make sure no unexpected babies pop up (or out)*. For some reason, this leads to a devaluation of women in the eye of society; conveniently forgetting the wisdom that comes with age and the inner sex goddess unleashed by freedom from getting knocked up (also, who discovered the joy of self acceptance, unlike self loathing nymphs in their twenties).

It is okay for older men to hook up with younger women, right?  Men remain potent shooters of baby makers till the day they drop dead. Well, guess what?

Just 'cause you can shoot, don't mean you should.

Older fathers are more likely to pass on joyful stuff like sporadic schizophrenia (where you sometimes hear voices and may/may not go manic), osteogenesis imperfecta (where the offspring is so fragile that a strong sneeze could break a bone, kinda like this guy) and autism (it's not all like Rain Man) to their hapless offsprings. This is because the older you are, the greater the likelihood for your testicles to produce error-riddled sperms. Not to mention that fathers transmit 4 times more mutations than mothers.

And no, just because you are over 35 years old, it doesn't mean that your mutant sperm is going to produce X-Men in the next generation. Nature is cool, but it ain't a comic book.

I do have a predilection for this man, er ... Gambit.

* Caveat: Do not throw away the condom. You don't know where he's been. Learn the lesson from senior citizens who developed nasty stuff like HIV, herpes and syphilis.

Never leave home without a good knife

Sing-a-long in Javanese!



*Stolen from Facebook, hence the tiny quality.

The song is about the process of having a wedding for Javanese families. Traditionally, the family would gather for a meeting to discuss division of labour; roping in aunts, uncles, cousins, etc to help out. Either the parent(s) of the bride/groom heads the endeavour or a family elder is tasked with the coordination of the needful for the event. No need for wedding planners.

I love how well the songwriter included the various elements of the kenduri like rewang (hanging out to help cook, decorate, etc), lining the palm of the host with a money-filled envelope before taking your leave and many more. The title of the post is a reference to how many ladies like my grandmother (and yours truly included) would never depart home for a rewang without our own knife with which to work. After all, the host may run out of knives for you to use or have inferior blades of the kind of sharpness and size that you do not favour (too many people have small, blunt knives. I check out the kitchens). I remember freaking out my grandmother's neighbour as I peel onions with a six-inch (not including the handle) chef knife. But hey, my knife was beautifully sharp and of great heft that slicing and dicing was a breeze.

However, the rewang tradition is slowly being eradicated as our lifestyle change; we can no longer depend on the commitment of families and neighbours with the catering (with perhaps a souvenir from the host for their time and energy in the form of a kain batik/pelekat, etc) and prep, everyone is so busy. Unless you live in a close-knit kampung or community, you are better off engaging professional caterers to get things done. Granted, your event will look like those in the magazines (assuming you have the budget for it), but the camaraderie of showing off your skills, developing talents and just hanging out together gossiping but the uncle who was chased out by his third wife as you peel onions will no longer part of the communal memory.

Ah well. That's the price of progress, innit?

What is truer than truth?

Title stolen from Isabel Allende in this video.

The following two videos underscore how story telling goes beyond mere entertainment. In the ancient days of my motherland, we have the penglipur lara, the storyteller, who travel from village to village, sharing stories, news and relating historical myths of the ancient kings. Their stories gave wings to the imagination of the ordinary folks and their arrival was much anticipated.

Technology and globalisation have changed the way stories are narrated. The penglipur lara may be dead for hundreds of years, but his stories continue to be told in different media. This is the power of stories: it evolves, are adapted and become incorporated into another narrative. In a way, stories are immortalised beyond the lives of the tellers.

But have we ever examined the origins of the stories we consume? Who delivered them? What was their intention? Were their sources right? What inspired them?

Herein lies the danger of the single story narrative.



I will admit to being guilty of the same thing. You tend to swallow what was told to you, especially as children. I am sure that many of us grew up with all kinds of stories about the "other" people. People who don't look like us, don't behave or pray (if they pray!) like we do, don't think like we do. Some of it is relatively harmless (or not); like mothers of the old admonishing wayward children to behave or "The benggali* will come and catch you!"

The more malevolent were like, "If you have to choose between killing a snake and a (insert ethnic/religious group of suspicion), it is better to kill the ethnic/religious person." This is about dehumanising the other person, making them alien and difficult to identify with. It would also make it easier to denigrate them, and to look down on them.

I am struck by her words about how the people in power made the definitive story and this could be used to dispossess the people, hijacking their history and culture. When a story is repeated over and over again, somehow it gained the veneer of truth and became accepted as a fact. This is some particularly profound for me, as my ethnic group is often painted as lazy, lacking initiative and always looking for a shortcut to solve problems. This perspective of our former colonial masters was countered by the eminent humanities scholar Syed Hussein Alatas in his book The Myth of the Lazy Native (which I will admit to having yet to read). But this idea of Malays being lackadaisical, etc has been so tightly woven in the nation's narrative, that it is difficult to disentangle. And like a self-fulfilling prophecy, we make it come true.

Like Ms. Adichie, the stories I write in my head (and occasionally pen down) often feature people from other countries because I have been steeped in American and Western culture, thanks to a steady diet of books, music, television and films.

*shame-faced*

While Ms. Adichie felt that Asian and African and South American and other non-white writers should be working towards developing narratives that is a contrast from the Western world view, Ms. Shafak felt that the manifestation of identity need not be utterly personal, so one could write from the viewpoint of people who is not oneself. 



To her, the most important thing is that the story need to be informative and well researched, written to evoke emotions and perhaps, create connections and empathy. One must not be limited to one's nationality, gender and sexuality. It is a very liberating thought, but I do believe that one should be free to tell the stories that speaks to one. However, it does seem that white authors get more leeway than non-white authors, who are expected to write only about their own culture and experiences.


Ninot Aziz, a celebrated Malaysian author, is reviving the hikayat, the folk tales and legends of  the Nusantara. Although the stories are sourced from Malay folk tales, she believes that the cosmopolitan nature of the stories transcends any cultural dichotomy and will speak to us regardless of our background.

Her book, Hikayat - From the Ancient Malay Kingdoms is up for the Anugerah Buku Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia - RTM. Please vote for her here. The author name is Ninot Aziz and the ISBN number of the book is 978-967-61-2540-80.

Here's to more excellent stories coming out of Malaysia!

* corruption of the word Bengali (someone from the state of Bengal in India). Usually the Sikh or other Bengal ethnic man who wore a turban and was an itinerant merchant of cloth and other household items during the pre and post Independent Malaya.

Flogging ...

... a Dead Horse? Revisiting the Question of Intellectual Decline in Muslim Societies.

I bet some who saw the headline thought that this would be a post about some kinky activities or primitive punishment exerted on criminals in days of yore. Sorry to disappoint you but that was the title of the talk I attended today at the IAIS, given by Prof. Syed Nomanul Haq, a Senior Visiting Professor at ISTAC.

Prof. Haq was a wonderfully engaging speaker who did not perpetrate the dreaded Death by Power Point by avoiding the use of multimedia altogether.

Speaking sans PowerPoint is an idiosyncrasy common among social scientists; those of the hard sciences persuasion would be appalled at the idea of crippling their delivery with a lack of figures, graphs and pictures of disemboweled laboratory animals. Nonetheless, Prof. Haq did a good job of engaging the audience with his ideas by sheer force of personality.

He exhorted the idea that intellectualism died with Al-Ghazali's pronouncement that the scientific approach is inadequate is a gross fallacy. According to Prof. Haq, Al Ghazali was actually an exponent of rationality, going so far as to say that scientific discovery trumps a hadith or scripture; that the hadith or scripture that contravenes science or maths to be interpreted allegorically. He also moaned about the lack of Muslim physicians in 11th century Persia. 

These are not the actions or thoughts of a thinker who denigrates science. Therefore he is unlikely to be responsible for Muslim intellectuals to stop sourcing new knowledge. However, Al-Ghazali may have been misinterpreted as his original writings may be inaccessible to modern readers who have to rely upon translations and interpretations of other scholars on his work.

Yes, those scholars have no ulterior motives to misinterpret him in such a way.

And yes, I'm being facetious.

Prof. Haq felt that the problems with the Muslim world could be laid at the feet of the systematic disenfranchisement due to lack of educational reform. When the society is hobbled with the inability to process, much less generate information to solve day-to-day problems, there is no wonder why many Muslim apologists are forever looking back at the so-called Islamic "Golden Age" with nostalgia. They reiterate that a civilisation that taught Galileo and Copernicus all that they know and debunking Galen's humors is a civilisation to be reckoned with.

Yup. About 800 years ago, mate. And we now have medical imaging and use quantum physics to compute dizzying array of numbers and take pictures of galaxies that died millions of years ago in space.

When you embrace theological perversion that shuts out half of the society from participating in nation building and socioeconomic progress (the burqa, the harem, the Taliban's campaign against Malala Yousefzai to name a few), then you should not wonder why the rest of the world is outpacing you. Blaming the Jews and the Illuminati can only go so far. But then again, if you reject the use of logic and rational thinking when evaluating situations and evidence, perhaps believing in an omnipresent organisation that is out to get you is not a big stretch of the imagination. 

 And you would believe this too.

The question and answer session was nice; Prof. Haq did not shy away from hard questions that challenged the views that he presented today. He countered the idea of Islamisation of knowledge: there are no secular and religious knowledge. ALL KNOWLEDGE is Islamic, so calculus, theoretical physics, biochemistry, political science etc are all 'ilm usul ad deen (normatively called usuluddin or knowledge of the way of life). 

Prof. Haq also expressed that there is no profit in discussing whether the Shiite are outpacing the Sunnis in terms of knowledge acquisition; we should accept that as Muslims, regardless of the school of thought you embrace, we should accept each other at face value. Yay to pluralism WITHIN Islam!

Sadly, I didn't quite get his response to the query regarding how the conditional denial of decline of the Islamic civilisation is a denial of the problems faced by the Muslim world. 

Basically, my take home message from the talk and discussion was that we must encourage OPPORTUNITIES TO LEARN. We should revolutionise the education system to give children an opportunity to learn everything that they could learn: from languages (beyond the national language and English) to maths, the various branches of science, as well as logic and articulation skills. We should also enrich our culture to encourage life long learning, not limiting ourselves because of age and how the new knowledge is not relevant to our work.

We must stop encouraging one field of knowledge at the expense of another. This is seen at the university level where many humanities departments are getting less funding in order to expand the technical and engineering laboratories. Soft and hard sciences have their place in this world and must be encouraged to grow and prosper.

It is only with educational opportunities that we can open minds to ideas that bring hearts to righteousness in order to fulfill our roles as the vicegerent of this Earth. However, this does not mean that you should stuff your kids' extra classes to the gills, but rather inculcate a love of learning so that they will create opportunities to learn beyond merely what is taught in school.

At least, you should hope to do so.

No kidding?

Heh. It has now been verified. You got to stand up for your right, ladies. Cos the men ain't just gonna hand it over.

The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change: Combating Violence against Women in Global Perspective, 1975–2005

MALA HTUN and S. LAUREL WELDON (2012).
American Political Science Review, Volume 106, Issue03, August 2012 pp 548-569
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=8675829

Hearts on fire

You would think that the line above is only something out of a torrid romance novel, right? But what if I tell you that it can happen to you while you are lying helpless and paralysed?

Yup, I'm talking about surgical fire.

What's that you ask me? It's fire that can happen while you are under the knife for something as innocuous as an appendectomy (removal of that little caecum that nobody knows the raison d'etre of which that is inflamed, causing you pain and potentially fatal) or even something as scary as a quadruple bypass. The operation theatre is a ripe fire hazard what with the easy availability of fuel (e.g. surgical drapes, clothes, alcohol-based prep, the patient [yes, that's right. Spontaneous human combustion nightmare much? Hahaha!]), ignition source (you don't need a smoker to light up, just the surgeon happily working with lasers and lights and whatnot) as well as an oxidiser (i.e. oxygen for you to keep breathing while being sedated).

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Fire in the surgery may be minor (no one got singed, nothing got damaged) or even catastrophical (someone - usually the patient - has minor to third degree burns). If you want the gory stuff, there's this magical thing called Google. You can look it up!

However, I am not here to be a fear-monger and make you cancel that life-saving surgery you just scheduled. It's just a little educational tip for you to know that there are more risks to medical procedures than overdosing on your painkiller and permanently damaging your kidneys or suffering another heart attack when your insurance company won't cough up for the much needed quadruple bypass.

Surgical fires are preventable. There are training for the medical personnel and information made available to patients. So please ask questions before you go for ANY medical procedures and make sure that your health care providers are able to educate you on the risks

If I gave you another medical phobia, well, too bad.

*insert evil laughter*

Excitement!

I love her contagious enthusiasm: I will never look at a penis (mammalian or otherwise) the same way again.



I admire how she could discuss something titillating in a funny and creepy way.

(Undercut because pretty NSFW)

Scent for trouble

Limburger cheese is now helping to eradicate malaria. But perhaps not the way you would think so.

Let your curiosity guide you to look for answers in unlikely places!

Genius unappreciated

An awesome comic paying tribute to the unadulterated genius of Nikola Tesla.

Stolen in entirety from here.

When science and fanart collide

I am alarmed, all right

And I'm not even a parent.




Please, if you have boys, be alarmed too. And don't think that your son is safe just because you don't live in the decadent West.

You don't have to keep your hands to yourself

This song always makes me smile with its easy honky tonk rhythm, bringing to mind a smoky Western bar with ladies in painted on jeans and big hair and wild make up line dancing to it with men in ten gallon hats. But the deeper message of the song is not that light hearted. Basically it was about a guy who wants a little lovin' without payin', if you catch my drift.

Now, the gents may think that the lady was being a little hard on him, insisting on a wedding ring before engaging in intimacies. But many men don't appreciate that it is always the woman who is left holding the bag, or more likely, the baby. Many denigrate the pro choice team for being "baby killers" but how do you resolve the problem of unwanted pregnancies (whether within a marriage or without)? Women can lose their jobs for getting pregnant. Often they have little to no support to help them either financially, materially or emotionally to have children, even worse for those who have no partner to help shoulder the burden.



I love how this song speaks about the hard choices a woman have to make, often without support because of a mistake or even rape.

For so long the discussion about unwanted pregnancy focuses on women; how they should be more modest, don't tempt men, keep their knees together, and not have sex with men who are not their husbands (like men only have sex with their wives, hah!) and so on and so forth. Because women are the one who will get pregnant, it seems like the onus is only on them to make sure it doesn't happen.

But may I point out, gentlemen, that it takes two to tango?

Why not make it easy on the lady (or ladies, if you fancy yourself a player) in your life and partake on the amazing discovery by Prof. Sujoy K Guha and get yourself RISUG? The procedure doesn't take any longer than your visit to the dentist and you only have to get it once every ten years. Think of how much you can save on condoms! Besides which, condoms do have a failure rate of up to fifteen percent and some men are allergic to latex (you DO NOT WANT rashes on your precious dangly bits or the need to carry EpiPen to ensure the post-coital panting isn't anaphylactic reaction).

So take responsibility for your sexuality, gentlemen and do the right thing! Do it even if your DNA is super amazing and demands propagation! Unless, of course, you wanna be pickin' up the child support cheque. In which case, by all means go forth and multiply.

Note: If you are in the habit of bed hopping, then you need to use condoms (latex or polyurethane) to ensure that the bodily fluids you share ain't gonna carry nasty critters to your partners (or you acquiring said nasty critters). It's kinda awkward having to ring up a bed partner three weeks later to inform her that she may need to pay a visit to the friendly neighbourhood STD physician, you know?

Honours or honest degree?

I was amazed when I read this. There are students out there who could afford to fork out two grand for someone else to write their thesis? The mind boggles. My experience of student life (undergrad and postgrad) is one of skimping because even if you get a scholarship, it doesn't necessarily cover all your expenses (my uni is located in Kuala Lumpur).

Are we more morally bankrupt than the people before us? Are the changing landscape of professional development and personal growth pushing us to become more dishonest? Are we just lazier than before?

Who knows. It could be any and all or even none of the above. All I know is that being a teacher at tertiary level just got tougher. I mean, you can identify that the student was cheating, but proving it is something else altogether. So you may have to grit your teeth and just pass the kid anyway even though you know well that he/she couldn't use prepositions properly to even save her/his life. The kid whom you know worked hard, built his/her skill sets to write a darn good thesis got no more than the cheating one because you can't prove how the cheater cheated.

How depressing.

Science rocks!

From particle to people

Under cut because of a lot of cool stuff!

Maths rule!

Okay, I flunked maths. A lot. But there is no denying that the universal language is really numbers and mathematics. If you go to the Andromeda, only earthlings speak English/Arabic/Malay/Mandarin/whatever. But all over the universe, 1 + 1 + 1 will always equal 3. When it comes to numbers and equations, there is no need for a translator, the meaning doesn't change across linguistic acrobatics.

The wave equation explains why some sounds are pleasing to our ears and why some just makes us grit our teeth (nails down the chalk board, anyone?). It is also modified in studying earthquakes to let us understand the phenomenon and predict little stuff like tsunamis.

Maxwell's equations are the base of our communication technology: from the old telegraph to our mobile phones. Schrodinger's cat may or may not be in the box (or both dead AND alive), but his equation translates quantum mechanics into things like your DVD player and smart phones. As for Fourier transform, suffice to say that you can thank him for removing unwanted noise from your recording and the manipulations to make your digital photographs prettier.

Equations make the world go round.

Vive le numbers!

*All stolen from newscientist.com.

Farting danger ...

... particularly so if you are an astronaut. It's not just the smell, but potential for explosion.

And unlike what you see in most movies, explosion (and farts) in space are silent.

Snake oil debunking

OMG! Love this guy!