Nevermind that it is actually announced under the National Broadband Initiative (NBI). While I do not oppose government donating laptops, what I’m interested in is what sort of laptops the government will be purchasing, and from whom.

Ever heard of the $100 laptop? I supposed it’s more appropriate to call it the $199 laptop. That aside, assuming that the government is purchasing this laptop, which is approximately RM 660 with the current exchange rate of 1 USD = 3.318 MYR, the government will be able to purchased a whooping 1.5 million units of laptops for the students, disregarding shipping and handling.

Let’s assuming that the government is buying Dell laptops, the current Inspiron Mini 10v is selling at just RM 999, which means the government can afford to buy approximately 1 million laptops, again, disregarding shipping and handling.

Let’s just hope that these laptops will not turned out to be something like those RM 12k monsters currently sitting in the parliament.

Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it. The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

It is quite unfortunate that these are not the Ten which were literally set in stone, don’t you think so? Anyway, The Eight “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts” are not too bad as well.

Fast forward to end of 2008, my brother convinced me to give Kubuntu a try. Why Kubuntu, you ask? One of the reasons is that my brother was and still is using Ubuntu, and I thought giving Kubuntu a go would let me find out more about the differences between the two. Besides, Linus Torvalds himself has been quoted to say “I don’t use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn’t do what I need it to do. Please, just tell people to use KDE.”

So, in October 2008, I gave Kubuntu Intrepid Ibex a try but unfortunately, it was completely unusable. Wireless was not working, the graphics were not working well, and at last I had to admit defeat and say that it is buggy as hell.

In March 2009, I started using Dvorak keyboard, and at that time, I was still using Windows, Windows Vista, that is. The reason was that I was waiting for the next release of Kubuntu in April. I tried using the built in Dvorak keyboard (under Region and Language setting) and soon found out that I need to relearn all the keyboard shortcuts, especially Undo, Cut, Copy and Paste. Having them all accessible using the left hand is essential especially when I am working on a Spreadsheet.

After some time searching online, I found out a nice little tool called AutoHotKey which allows me to bind all the keys from QWERTY to Dvorak and revert back to QWERTY whenever I press a modifier botton, such as Ctrl, Alt or Window. The code that I used was posted at the AutoHotKey forum by somebody with the display name Igor. There was, however a bug of some sort that I don’t really remember what the problem was. In my defence, it has been so many months and my memory has always been quite bad. I found out a way to overcome that bug by adding a line into the script (see below) which seems to solve the problem.

; QWERTY to Dvorak mapping
*!d::Send !d <—(Add this line)

I should mention that I gave KeyConfig, a Firefox add-on a try during that time. It did solve the problem of keyboard shortcut in Firefox, but as expected, not in other applications.

In April 2009, Jaunty Jackalope was released and I gave it a try. The advantage of using Kubuntu is that you can change the global keyboard shortcut, and that was precisely what I did. It is under System Settings –> Keyboard & Mouse –> Standard Keyboard Shortcuts. At that time, I started using Programmer Dvorak keyboard layout and I have to admit, typing codes using that keyboard layout is much much more comfortable, especially when I have to use keys such as { } [ ] & ^ $ \ a whole lot in LaTeX. Programmer Dvorak allowed me to type those keys without having to hold the Shift button.

In June 2009, I installed a beta release of KDE 4.3 and that, unfortunately was totally unusable and I stopped using Kubuntu since. Having to revert back to Windows means that I have to relearn how to type in Dvorak, rather than Programmer Dvorak. Fortunately, the changes weren’t too difficult to overcome, but I did like the positions of ‘ and ; (these two keys changes place) that I made corresponding changes in my AutoHotKey script to retain that setting.

In October 2009, I started using Kubuntu Karmic Koala and I have to say, it is a much much more polished release. I do encourage people to give it a try. This time, I use KHotKey to bind all my Dvorak keyboard shortcut to that of QWERTY and as with before, I don’t have to relearn all the keyboard shortcuts. A problem I noticed was that the keyboard shortcut does work properly when I am typing in Firefox’s Awesome Bar, with the Awesome Bar showing it’s search results. However, if the Awesome Bar is not showing the search results, the problem does not occur.

Example, Ctrl+K (in Dvorak) should be sending out a Ctrl+V signal (using KHotkey) but when typing in the Awesome Bar with the search result showing, Ctrl+K signal is sent instead. As some of you would have known, Ctrl+K would bring you to the search bar at the top right corner, but unfortunately I like my Firefox to have extreme minimalist layout and I have since remove all the bookmark (who needs bookmark buttons when you have Awesome Bar, right) and the Search Bar (who needs this as well, when you have Awesome Bar, right?) and all the Forward, Back, Home, etc. I even installed an extension called Hide Menubar which function is quite obvious. So, my Firefox shows the Awesome Bar, the Tabs, and website contents, and the bottom, the Status Bar. Call me crazy, but that’s how I like it.

Sorry for the digress, as I was saying, I have removed the Search Bar and pressing Ctrl+K will bring me to Google search page instead. You can imagine how that was driving me insane. When I’m trying to paste something into the Awesome Bar, it brings me to Google search page.

A solution that I tried was to configure Firefox to not show the search result in Awesome Bar. This can be done by changing the value of “browser.urlbar.maxRichResults” from 12 to 0 in about:config. However, the Awesome Bar ceases to be Awesome and that is not something that I can live with.

Next solution is this: Configure shortcuts in Firefox such that Ctrl+K is a shortcut for Paste, not Web Search. This can be very done using the KeyConfig add-on but unfortunately, that add-on no longer works in Firefox 3.5. A little hacking as shown by Ubuntu Guide will tell you how to do it. Next problem that you’ll notice is that all those Cut, Copy and Paste keyboard shortcut configurations in KeyConfig do not work. However, this can be overcome by using the codes suggested by Dorando in MozillaZine. The codes are shown below:

goDoCommand("cmd_copy");
goDoCommand("cmd_paste");
goDoCommand("cmd_cut");

Well, that’s all, folks. Do drop me a comment if you are stuck with any of the steps. Remember, use Firefox and you’ll stay Awesome.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

It’s interesting how he arranges the three: love, knowledge and empathy. For those of you who would say you have the same passions in life, would you have arranged them as such?

A friend once asked me what kind of person I’m searching for. I said, somebody who would accompany me through all the ups and down in my life, and when we are old and I look at her, I’ll say to myself, “I’ve made the right choice.”

I recently had a nice conversation with a lecturer of mine. What I found most pleasant about the conversation is that it is not the typical teacher-student conversation. Rather, it was nearly like a conversation among friends in which we share our thoughts and opinion on various issues. He tried to encourage me to consider doing a post-graduate degree. Suffice to say, the reason he gave was not the usual “climbing the corporate ladder” crap that one hears most of the time. For that, he has my gratitude.

One of the issues we discussed was of course about the possible career path for me. This, unfortunately, is not something that I can clearly discuss yet. Heck, I still haven’t made up my mind on the subjects that I’m going to take for next year. One thing for sure though, I still think it is very unlikely that I’ll be taking a post-graduate degree.

There’s an interesting subject that I might take next year though, Transport System. This interest clearly is due to the fact that Penang has such a screwed up transport system. Whether or not I’ll be taking that subject, that I will decide after talking to the subject coordinator.

It would be nice if there’s a feature in WordPress that allows authors to write comments in their blog, for example, words after % will be treated as comments, and will not be shown in the final output. The advantage will be obvious for those who knows programming language, where they can write all the “fucks” they want after the comment. Unfortunately for me, HTML is not a language that I speak, and I’m not sure if it can be done using HTML.

Well yeah, and I’m sad, but at the same time I’m really happy that something could make me feel that sad. It’s like, it makes me feel alive, you know? It makes me feel human. And the only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt somethin’ really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good, so I guess what I’m feelin’ is like a, beautiful sadness. I guess that sounds stupid.

How about a shorter quotation from Towelie:

You wanna get high?

I guess it all depends if you are willing to follow the words of a stupid little boy or a genetically engineered alien spying towel. Enjoy.

Blogging is not what I need now.

Oh, fuck it.

Loyalty itself is doubtless a great emotional virtue, but it can be an equally great intellectual fault. Loyalty is the shining front of a shield whose obverse side may be inscribed with prejudice, intolerance, and fanaticism. I believe I can be unreservedly loyal to ideals, to great causes, to whatever and whomever I admire. I can act loyally, too, out of a sense of duty, toward people and institution to whom I owe such conduct by conventional, and no doubt inherently sound, standards. But I cannot give myself passionately to people and institutions merely because I happen to be part of them. This is probably a fault of character, a manifestation of still wider deficiencies which grow out of my lifetime emphasis upon the intellectual as opposed to the emotional in human life.

- Benjamin Graham, in The Memoirs of The Dean of Wall Street

I can’t help but to agree with Benjamin Graham, and smirk when I consider it in the context of Malaysia. Unfortunately, I don’t think it is safe for me to spell out my thoughts here.

Yes, I’m a coward, and I’ll be the first to admit it.

So often in our history, unhappy, misguided people have created scapegoats, blaming those that are different for the problems in their own lives.

- Professor Charles Francis Xavier

I have now concluded my task. I have given, in more or less detail, a sketch of my eight years’ wanderings among the largest and the most luxuriant islands which adorn our earth’s surface. I have endeavoured to convey my impressions of their scenery, their vegetation, their animal productions, and their human inhabitants. I have dwelt at some length on the varied and interesting problems they offer to the student of nature. Before bidding my reader farewell, I wish to make a few observations on a subject of yet higher interest and deeper importance, which the contemplation of savage life has suggested, and on which I believe that the civilized can learn something from the savage man.

We most of us believe that we, the higher races have progressed and are progressing. If so, there must be some state of perfection, some ultimate goal, which we may never reach, but to which all true progress must bring nearer. What is this ideally perfect social state towards which mankind ever has been, and still is tending? Our best thinkers maintain, that it is a state of individual freedom and self-government, rendered possible by the equal development and just balance of the intellectual, moral, and physical parts of our nature,—a state in which we shall each be so perfectly fitted for a social existence, by knowing what is right, and at the same time feeling an irresistible impulse to do what we know to be right., that all laws and all punishments shall be unnecessary. In such a state every man would have a sufficiently well-balanced intellectual organization, to understand the moral law in all its details, and would require no other motive but the free impulses of his own nature to obey that law.

Now it is very remarkable, that among people in a very low stage of civilization, we find some approach to such a perfect social state. I have lived with communities of savages in South America and in the East, who have no laws or law courts but the public opinion of the village freely expressed. Each man scrupulously respects the rights of his fellow, and any infraction of those rights rarely or never takes place. In such a community, all are nearly equal. There are cone of those wide distinctions, of education and ignorance, wealth and poverty, master and servant, which are the product of our civilization; there is none of that wide-spread division of labour, which, while it increases wealth, products also conflicting interests; there is not that severe competition and struggle for existence, or for wealth, which the dense population of civilized countries inevitably creates. All incitements to great crimes are thus wanting, and petty ones are repressed, partly by the influence of public opinion, but chiefly by that natural sense of justice and of his neighbour’s right, which seems to be, in some degree, inherent in every race of man.

Now, although we have progressed vastly beyond the savage state in intellectual achievements, we have not advanced equally in morals. It is true that among those classes who have no wants that cannot be easily supplied, and among whom public opinion has great influence; the rights of others are fully respected. It is true, also, that we have vastly extended the sphere of those rights, and include within them all the brotherhood of man. But it is not too much to say, that the mass of our populations have not at all advanced beyond the savage code of morals, and have in many cases sunk below it. A deficient morality is the great blot of modern civilization, and the greatest hindrance to true progress.

During the last century, and especially in the last thirty years, our intellectual and material advancement has been too quickly achieved for us to reap the full benefit of it. Our mastery over the forces of mature has led to a rapid growth of population, and a vast accumulation of wealth; but these have brought with them such au amount of poverty and crime, and have fostered the growth of so much sordid feeling and so many fierce passions, that it may well be questioned, whether the mental and moral status of our population has not on the average been lowered, and whether the evil has not overbalanced the good. Compared with our wondrous progress in physical science and its practical applications, our system of government, of administering justice, of national education, and our whole social and moral organization, remains in a state of barbarism. [See note next page.] And if we continue to devote our chief energies to the utilizing of our knowledge the laws of nature with the view of still further extending our commerce and our wealth, the evils which necessarily accompany these when too eagerly pursued, may increase to such gigantic dimensions as to be beyond cur power to alleviate.

We should now clearly recognise the fact, that the wealth and knowledge and culture of the few do not constitute civilization, and do not of themselves advance us towards the “perfect social state.” Our vast manufacturing system, our gigantic commerce, our crowded towns and cities, support and continually renew a mass of human misery and crime absolutely greater than has ever existed before. They create and maintain in life-long labour an ever-increasing army, whose lot is the more hard to bear, by contrast with the pleasures, the comforts, and the luxury which they see everywhere around them, but which they can never hope to enjoy; and who, in this respect, are worse off than the savage in the midst of his tribe.

This is not a result to boast of, or to be satisfied with; and, until there is a more general recognition of this failure of our civilization—resulting mainly from our neglect to train and develop more thoroughly the sympathetic feelings and moral faculties of our nature, and to allow them a larger share of influence in our legislation, our commerce, and our whole social organization—we shall never, as regards the whole community, attain to any real or important superiority over the better class of savages.

This is the lesson I have been taught by my observations of uncivilized man. I now bid my readers—Farewell!

I have now concluded my task. I have given, in more or less detail, a sketch of my eight years’ wanderings among the largest and the most luxuriant islands which adorn our earth’s surface. I have endeavoured to convey my impressions of their scenery, their vegetation, their animal productions, and their human inhabitants. I have dwelt at some length on the varied and interesting problems they offer to the student of nature. Before bidding my reader farewell, I wish to make a few observations on a subject of yet higher interest and deeper importance, which the contemplation of savage life has suggested, and on which I believe that the civilized can learn something from the savage man.

We most of us believe that we, the higher races have progressed and are progressing. If so, there must be some state of perfection, some ultimate goal, which we may never reach, but to which all true progress must bring nearer. What is this ideally perfect social state towards which mankind ever has been, and still is tending? Our best thinkers maintain, that it is a state of individual freedom and self-government, rendered possible by the equal development and just balance of the intellectual, moral, and physical parts of our nature,—a state in which we shall each be so perfectly fitted for a social existence, by knowing what is right, and at the same time feeling an irresistible impulse to do what we know to be right., that all laws and all punishments shall be unnecessary. In such a state every man would have a sufficiently well-balanced intellectual organization, to understand the moral law in all its details, and would require no other motive but the free impulses of his own nature to obey that law.

Now it is very remarkable, that among people in a very low stage of civilization, we find some approach to such a perfect social state. I have lived with communities of savages in South America and in the East, who have no laws or law courts but the public opinion of the village freely expressed. Each man scrupulously respects the rights of his fellow, and any infraction of those rights rarely or never takes place. In such a community, all are nearly equal. There are cone of those wide distinctions, of education and ignorance, wealth and poverty, master and servant, which are the product of our civilization; there is none of that wide-spread division of labour, which, while it increases wealth, products also conflicting interests; there is not that severe competition and struggle for existence, or for wealth, which the dense population of civilized countries inevitably creates. All incitements to great crimes are thus wanting, and petty ones are repressed, partly by the influence of public opinion, but chiefly by that natural sense of justice and of his neighbour’s right, which seems to be, in some degree, inherent in every race of man.

Now, although we have progressed vastly beyond the savage state in intellectual achievements, we have not advanced equally in morals. It is true that among those classes who have no wants that cannot be easily supplied, and among whom public opinion has great influence; the rights of others are fully respected. It is true, also, that we have vastly extended the sphere of those rights, and include within them all the brotherhood of man. But it is not too much to say, that the mass of our populations have not at all advanced beyond the savage code of morals, and have in many cases sunk below it. A deficient morality is the great blot of modern civilization, and the greatest hindrance to true progress.

During the last century, and especially in the last thirty years, our intellectual and material advancement has been too quickly achieved for us to reap the full benefit of it. Our mastery over the forces of mature has led to a rapid growth of population, and a vast accumulation of wealth; but these have brought with them such au amount of poverty and crime, and have fostered the growth of so much sordid feeling and so many fierce passions, that it may well be questioned, whether the mental and moral status of our population has not on the average been lowered, and whether the evil has not overbalanced the good. Compared with our wondrous progress in physical science and its practical applications, our system of government, of administering justice, of national education, and our whole social and moral organization, remains in a state of barbarism. And if we continue to devote our chief energies to the utilizing of our knowledge the laws of nature with the view of still further extending our commerce and our wealth, the evils which necessarily accompany these when too eagerly pursued, may increase to such gigantic dimensions as to be beyond cur power to alleviate.

We should now clearly recognise the fact, that the wealth and knowledge and culture of the few do not constitute civilization, and do not of themselves advance us towards the “perfect social state.” Our vast manufacturing system, our gigantic commerce, our crowded towns and cities, support and continually renew a mass of human misery and crime absolutely greater than has ever existed before. They create and maintain in life-long labour an ever-increasing army, whose lot is the more hard to bear, by contrast with the pleasures, the comforts, and the luxury which they see everywhere around them, but which they can never hope to enjoy; and who, in this respect, are worse off than the savage in the midst of his tribe.

This is not a result to boast of, or to be satisfied with; and, until there is a more general recognition of this failure of our civilization—resulting mainly from our neglect to train and develop more thoroughly the sympathetic feelings and moral faculties of our nature, and to allow them a larger share of influence in our legislation, our commerce, and our whole social organization—we shall never, as regards the whole community, attain to any real or important superiority over the better class of savages.

This is the lesson I have been taught by my observations of uncivilized man. I now bid my readers—Farewell!