One year already!!

Time flies. It has been one year already since i joined this company in KL. Also it is my 1 year in KL.

I have been working on ESB/SOA stuff since day 1. Back then i was really blur of all these queue/web services/broker/adapter stuff as i was from web development background. I am glad that i was given the chance to get exposed to this area. Thanks to the support from my colleagues. They are really great!

Since i am doing integration job, i often have to liaise with a few parties. Hence the interaction between me and them is quite important. The communication between me and them has to be effective to ensure that i am able to deliver the right solution as according to what business users need. This part has troubled me a lot. I think i still have much space for improvement in this area. Perhaps i need to take some psychology course. Hahaha.

I am quite lucky to witness the outsourcing process. My client - a telco company has outsourced its IT department to my company some time back. Things have turned quite messy at the first few months after the outsourcing. For example my project manager has changed 4 times in 3,4 months time and the process is no longer as clear as the one before the outsourcing. Fortunately i can see things are getting stable now.

Just looking forward to learn more things as long as i have not left this company. I hope can get high pay with minimum workload. Hahaha.

Statistic - The decline in Malaysia's economic from year 1960 - 2000

Below shows the statistic of GDP per capita which is a very good indicator to a nation's economic strength.
Year 1960, Msia ranked 4th after Singapore, Hong Kong and The Philippines.
Year 1970, S.Korea had caught up and pushed Msia to 5th place. However The Philippines lagi teruk(from 3rd - 6th).
Year 1980, Msia showed some improvement by pulling S.Korea down one place. Guess it was due to the discovery of crude oil in the 70's.
Year 1990, this time S.Korea caught up again and broadened the gap to 9591-6924 = 2667 !!!
Year 2000, the gap between S.Korea and Msia went bigger to 15702-11405 = 4297!!!
Can't wait to see how is it for year 2010.
In summary, from year 1960 until 2000, The Philippines ranking dropped the most. The accusation could go for its then incomplete politic system especially during reign of the notorious Marcos.
It's sad to see the gap between Malaysia and S.Korea to get bigger & bigger. It has been 9 years from year 2000 and i am quite negative that Malaysia could overtake S.Korea's place once again as what it did in year 1980.


1960

country	year	gdp per capita	gdp per capita2
Singapore	1960	4211.01	4219.14
Hong Kong	1960	3264.24	3321.62
Philippines	1960	2037.33	2038.72
Malaysia	1960	1829.30	1800.74
Korea, Republic of	1960	1544.15	1458.35
Taiwan	1960	1490.94	1443.61
Indonesia	1960	1098.52	1071.28
Thailand	1960	1085.84	1059.09
Vietnam	1960	na	na

1970

country	year	gdp per capita	gdp per capita2
Hong Kong	1970	6988.34	6967.22
Singapore	1970	6843.57	6837.95
Taiwan	1970	2872.19	2846.37
Korea, Republic of	1970	2621.31	2551.89
Malaysia	1970	2571.76	2529.36
Philippines	1970	2427.13	2430.59
Thailand	1970	1748.07	1733.87
Indonesia	1970	1279.19	1272.85
Vietnam	1970	na	na

1980

country	year	gdp per capita	gdp per capita2
Hong Kong	1980	13326.40	13410.37
Singapore	1980	13001.41	13032.17
Taiwan	1980	5944.63	5962.89
Malaysia	1980	5009.63	4950.16
Korea, Republic of	1980	4556.59	4496.54
Philippines	1980	3293.29	3313.71
Thailand	1980	2741.71	2708.16
Indonesia	1980	2082.79	2083.55
Vietnam	1980	na	na

1990

country	year	gdp per capita	gdp per capita2
Hong Kong	1990	22003.35	21963.40
Singapore	1990	19472.46	19465.91
Taiwan	1990	11283.90	11248.17
Korea, Republic of	1990	9591.27	9592.83
Malaysia	1990	6924.16	6889.75
Thailand	1990	4844.58	4863.76
Philippines	1990	3208.79	3213.57
Vietnam	1990	1441.61	1433.65

2000

country	year	gdp per capita	gdp per capita2
Singapore	2000	29433.77	29433.77
Hong Kong	2000	27236.15	27236.15
Taiwan	2000	19183.93	19183.93
Korea, Republic of	2000	15702.27	15702.27
Malaysia	2000	11405.50	11405.50
Thailand	2000	6473.60	6473.60
Philippines	2000	3825.62	3825.62
Indonesia	2000	3771.86	3771.86
Vietnam	2000	2189.41	2189.41

昔华中学杰出校友

目前为止所知道的杰出校友有数位如下：

1. 黄子。他常在报章电台等媒体发表意见。他在电台上的说话方式非常滑稽，常常反讽时弊。他现时在南洋商报有个专栏。
2. 杨善勇。自多年前就常在各报章看到他的文章。从中得知他的专长乃城市策划。近来他在东方日报有个专栏。
3. 后起之秀彭靖岚彭靖雯两姐妹。他们的部落格/博客/网志在本地非常受落因而累积了一些知名度。2年前我偶然间于凌晨在国营电台听到他们的声音，原来是当天的嘉宾。

就只知道这数位，有待日后补充。

Disappearance of Iceberg off Alaska

It happened just within a year!!! Pciture on the left shows a large piece of iceberg in white color whereas picture on the right shows the disappearance of the iceberg.

科技使汉字复活？

今日阅报，得知简讯的迅速发展促使了日本人倾向于在发短讯时使用汉字。其原因是片假名着实过于烦琐，打起字来得花不少时间，而汉字与之相比又快又简洁，短短数字就能表其意。

这趋势对促进汉学的发展有利，乃一大喜事也！虽然日语与汉语相差太大，但如果双方在汉字的字义上能达成共识，那么将有助于汉和两种文化的沟通。同样的，韩朝越亦能受益于此，在各方努力下，进而渐渐形成一个汉字文化圈 - 语言不通文章通，这并非是不可能的。那情况就如同文言文让中国广大地域操不同语言（客语、闽语、粤语、泸语等）的人能沟通一样。

然后在东南亚诸国华裔的推动下，渐渐使汉学散播于各民族间，新加坡有潜质能成为在东南亚汉学的桥头堡！长远的目标当然是把东南亚诸国并入汉字圈内。

谈到文言文，鉴于要极快的表达，人们在发短讯时也频繁文言文，这已是一种现象！当然，现代人文言文火候十足的是不多，所以所谓“火星文”也出现了，许多古字复活了，许多字被赋予新义了。

总而言之，中文简化对推广中文非常有用！容易的语言是必受欢迎的。这话可能不太客观，但容易确是受欢迎的众多因素之一。我认识的一些朋友有些都会说汉语但不会认汉字，有些则说写皆不行。汉字比起只有ABCD的英语的确难学难认难写，这难题有待汉语专家克服。

Ai FM's DJ was crying over Yasmin Ahmad's death

I was driving back to KL from my hometown. I was listening to Ai FM(a mandarin radio) as usual. 10.05pm was DJ Ji An's programme. He was talking about a lot of things about Yasmin Ahmad because he invited Yasmin Ahmad a few times to his programme as guest. I think after a few times Yasmin Ahmad was invited they became some sort of close friends. Well at first his tone was still calm but suddenly he burst into tears. I guess that was really a sad moment for him when Kak Yasmin passed away. So from 10.05pm to 12pm DJ Ji An was replaying all the programs that he had invited Yasmin Ahmad as his guest.

The 2 hours was a nice one. Yasmin Ahmad was really anak Malaysia yang betul-betul membuat movie untuk semua Malaysian. It's a great loss for us Malaysian that Yasmin Ahmad could not produce more touching TV advertisements & movies anymore.