Colin Charles Agenda

What made Marie Digby? I’ve heard about her on the radio from time to time, while I do the unnatural act of driving somewhere. Now, I’ve been invited to an event, where the tagline says that she’s “a star born from YouTube”. I had to dig further.

Decided to watch the famous video. Its just her, sitting with her guitar, performing an acoustic version of Rihana’s Umbrella. Nothing fancy. I’m told she sat in front of her MacBook to make the “hit”.

Grassroots marketing? Bands try much harder, and still feel the pain of becoming somewhat famous. What makes her different? Beauty (she’s of Japanese-American heritage)? Sultry look?

I wonder what her tipping point was. She’s had it easy, when you think about it. The Internet has popularised so many good things, and even if you rewind back say fifteen years ago, there is no way an artist would have made it easily, via grassroots events/stunts.

Aren’t you glad you’re part of the free software revolution? If not for Linux (SuSE), Python, MySQL, and lots and lots of disk, you will not be seeing Marie Digby, now will you? And naturally, if not for the ease-of-use of her Apple laptop, and how they’ve become commodity hardware (15 years ago, there were for “graphics professionals” and were sordidly expensive). Times do change.

Maybe I’ll go to the event… if I’m not too jet-lagged (imagine, planning a month in advance to be jet-lagged)…

Technorati Tags: marie digby, music, youtube, trends, rihana, umbrella, macbook, apple, open source, free software revolution, tipping point

The Economist, is easily one of my favourite magazines out there. I occasionally buy a copy from the newsstand, but more often than not, get it free while I’m on a plane. I think the tipping point to subscription for me, happened today. Some articles I’d like to bring to your attention, with select quotes.

Malaysia’s election | The no-colour revolution

“In five states, including the most populous, the opposition will form the government. This is extremely good news for many reasons. The most basic is that democracies need a vibrant and credible opposition. Any party that stays in power for half a century is liable to show signs of complacency, arrogance and corruption, and UMNO is no exception.”

“Second, the election result is a victory for hope over fear. At times the government has used harsh laws against opponents.” It goes on to say, “the National Front has played on the fears evoked by the ghosts of 1969, when opposition advances at the polls were followed by bloody race riots. A vote for the opposition, went the none-too-subtle message, would risk bloodshed as the Malay majority took its revenge on
the minorities. Yet it was not only many ethnic-Chinese voters (about a quarter of the population) and, especially, disgruntled ethnic Indians
(about 8%) who deserted the National Front. Many Malays switched too.”

It wasn’t electoral suicide: “That is a third reason for optimism: communal tension may not be the tinderbox that Malaysia has for so long assumed it to be. If so, the result may herald new thinking about the institutionalised racism of the pro-Malay affirmative-action policies introduced after 1969. The opposition parties campaigned on a platform of “colour-blind” affirmative action—help for those who need it, not for a particular ethnic group.”

On the NEP? “Many seem to have recognised that the policy has become less a means for redistributing wealth to the disadvantaged than a vehicle for
corruption and cronyism.”

The Internet and Malaysian politics | The perils of modernity

“Even before election night, the internet had already played a big part in the vote. Malaysia has an unusual combination of high internet
penetration and pliant mainstream media. It is therefore fertile ground for cyber-politics. According to the government’s multimedia regulator,
3.9m of the country’s 28m people have dial-up internet subscriptions and 1.2m broadband. Some 60% of the population, it reckons, use the
internet. Even if that is an overestimate, the limitations of the mainstream media are enough to drive politics online.”

On why Dr. Mahathir did something useful: “Television hardly ever covers opposition rallies and speeches. But the online world is delightfully free. Anxious to make Malaysia a high-tech cyber-hub, the county’s former prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, exempted websites from the annual licensing requirements that help keep print publications deferential. The 1998 Communications and Multimedia Act decreed that there would be no censorship of the internet.”

“Mr Pua thinks all parties underestimated the effects of “secondary access” to the internet, as news broken on the web—of opposition rallies, for example—was disseminated by word-of-mouth and mobile-phone text messages.”"Most worrying for the government and the mainstream media, Malaysia is young. A new generation sees the internet as its primary news source.”

Malaysia’s election upset | Anwar overturns the apple cart

“After 22 years of rule by the abrasive and authoritarian Mahathir Mohamad, Mr Badawi was seen as more conciliatory and more committed to tackling corruption. He has indeed offered a less acerbic style. But few believe corruption has lessened. Instead, there has been a series of ugly scandals. And the high-flying Mr Khairy, Mr Badawi’s son-in-law (and a former intern at The Economist), has become what one observer calls a “walking, talking, boasting” symbol of nepotism.”

That’s a lesser known fact - Khairy Jamaluddin, was an intern at The Economist.

“M. Manoharan, an ethnic-Indian lawyer, was elected to the state assembly of Selangor, despite being detained without charge under the
Internal Security Act after a street protest last November. He was elected in a predominantly ethnic-Chinese constituency.”

Once you’re done reading the amazing Economist, don’t hesitate to read the comments as well (that’s something you can’t get in the paper version of The Economist, eh?).

Technorati Tags: economist, malaysia, elections, NEP, Internet, freedom of speech

First off, I must apologise to my regular blog readers for all the recent politically motivated content. Its mostly over; well at least the regular pace it was at the last couple of weeks.

Malaysia made history on March 8 2008, during her 12th General Elections. The Barisan Nasional was denied a 2/3rds majority (only about 61% control now), and five states, including the most prominent Selangor (heard the phrase, Klang Valley? Its the economic powerhouse of Malaysia). The last time this happened, there was a dark day in Malaysian history, that have subsequently been written out of the history books. Don’t they learn? History is bound to repeat itself…

I was awake till past 5.30am that fateful day, chatting with the #myoss’ers, and numerous friends on various IM networks. As the results flowed in, everyone was in a state of good shock. This has to be the first general elections, where I saw so many people have a large interest, staying awake, awaiting results. It looks like the Malaysians finally decided, a change needed to happen.

Stalwarts were replaced - Samy Vellu, longest serving cabinet minister lost his Sg. Siput seat, reminding me of November 2007, when John Howard himself lost his own seat in Bennelong, during the Australian Elections.

The ruling coalition blamed the rise of the Internet and online media, for their downfall. I say they had it coming. Part of the New Economic Policy, favoured sending ethnic Malay-Muslims overseas, on a scholarship, for an education; little do they know, that they are all taught to think and started enjoying the good life (eating pork, drinking alcohol, gambling, et al) and wanted it when they had to return to Malaysia. Anwar, vows to end race-based favouritism, and focus on the NEP being there to help deal with issues of poverty (i.e. not to enrich the UMNO leaders and their cronies).

Already, there is talk about implementing a Freedom of Information Act (reported at Malaysiakini, as a statement made by Khalid Ibrahim, the new Selangor MB). I can only hope this translates to action, ASAP.

Friend, open source advocate, popular blogger, participant in NGO events (to be honest, where I first met him - Asia Source, in Bangalore) , Jeff Ooi, has also won by a great majority. I couldn’t be happier for him.

The young, who couldn’t even vote, turned up at the election rallies, and I’m proud to say, a friend from school, Shazeea Banu, was interviewed on Channel News Asia, about why she supports Nurul Izzah (Anwar’s daughter, who also defeated the incumbent with a pretty nice majority).

All in all, congratulations Malaysia. Exciting times are ahead, and here’s me tipping my glass, to you becoming the economic powerhouse that you used to be.

Technorati Tags: malaysia, elections, 2/3rd majority denied, barisan nasional, klang valley, pkr, pas, dap, new economic policy, jeff ooi, shazeea banu

Public Service Announcement: Malaysiakini’s DNS servers have been knocked off the Internet. Basically, they’re pointing to 127.0.0.1, which is localhost (your machine). Live reports of election results are still available, just access Malaysiakini via their IP address: http://122.0.17.30/.

Reason behind the DNS being unavailable is unknown, but do keep up with the Malaysiakini DNS Suspended! post.

BTW, Malaysiakini runs FreeBSD + Apache + Squid :)

There are also 6 mirrors at the time of writing… And remember, the hand that rocks the DNS, is the hand that rules the Internet (or something like that)

Technorati Tags: malaysiakini, ip address, dns

Malaysia’s General Elections are today. I’m not voting.

The opposition, aim higher

I did not receive my postal ballot papers. I’ll have to file a complaint soon. For fun reading, do read: How Secure is the daftarj.spr.gov.my Website?

Then, read from Malaysiakini, Programme reveals ‘twin’ postal voters. 49% repeats exist in a random selection of about 560. Shocked?

Should election commissions be trusting and running closed source software?

Update: Read Would I Vote if I Could? by Shaolin Tiger. Its great reading. Ideas like having a shadow ministry is just crucial.

With the upcoming general elections in Malaysia, I’m sure quite a number are fed up of reading mainstream news, that really are extensions of the ruling coalition government; aka they’re government mouthpieces. Now’s your chance to read Malaysiakini for free, until March 10 2008. Its the general election special.

Technorati Tags: malaysiakini, malaysia, free, online newspaper, government, general elections

It seems that Badawi has caught on the Internet trend. Malaysians can now send their gripes, suggestions, and comments to the Prime Minister, via the Warkah untuk PM website.

Comment to t he Prime Minister in all four languages

The Star reports that it was the DPM, Najib, who had to launch the website. Whats interesting is that each message from with public will get a response from Abdullah, according to Najib. Does this mean that the sleeping PM will now spend all his waking hours responding to email? I highly doubt it. More interestingly, creative and innovative ideas, by the first hundred submitters, will ensure you get to visit the PM. Its gotten the blogosphere talking.

What I don’t get? They fear public debate, seeing that there’s easy comparison now with the American elections, yet they are interested in hearing public gripes and responding to them?

On open source friendliness…
What pisses me off? The website is running Windows Server 2003, on IIS/6.0. This is even more a waste of public money for a site that is simply a feedback form.

In comparison to the open source friendly, DAP, PKR, and PAS. I’m impressed, they all run Linux, save for the latter, in where PAS runs FreeBSD with the Suhosin-Patched PHP. All served up via Apache HTTPD, and DAP has got a smattering of lighttpd even.

For what it is worth, Barisan Nasional’s website, bn2008, is also running Windows Server 2003 and IIS/6.0. Disgusting.

If they can waste your ringgit on buying proprietary software licenses, when there are clearly open source alternatives, can you trust them with spending and budgeting for a country?

Technorati Tags: abdullah badawi, najib, warkah untuk pm, website, feedback to the prime minister, public debate, public spending, open source, windows server 2003, iis

Today, me, and about eighty other folk, went to Malaysia Hall, to register ourselves as postal voters.

From what I understand, the forms we filled out need to reach Malaysia by 5pm (UTC+8) on the 27 February 2008. Assuming that the official close of 5pm (UTC+10, +1 DST) is met, this leaves 3 hours to fax all the forms to Canberra and to the Election Commission in Malaysia. This is going to keep one Dr. Ali (Education Attache, Malaysia Hall, Melbourne - since we don’t have a consulate in Melbourne), rather busy. He’s also going to courier the original forms back.

One can now only hope that in the next week, a postal voting form appears. Everything was professionally done, only the identity card (IC) was required (no passport, as initially thought), there were sample forms that were filled out, and there were quite a number of people there when I was filling out my form.

The talk? Keadilan (PKR) [they also deserve special mention: minimum wages in Malaysia], PAS, DAP, and an independent candidate! Don’t know if our minuscule Melbourne votes are going to make any difference in this election, but here’s hoping.

Again, mad props to Tirath for helping sort this out. Also met up with an old friend, Raja Azlina while I was there (from MIMOS days, its been about a decade or more since we’ve known each other’s work).

Technorati Tags: melbourne, malaysians vote, voter registration, absentee ballot