April 30th, 2008

Short Vacation

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Wrapping up my vacation in, erm, I can’t remember how long but must have being several years. Vacation for me means staying in my bed and playing World of Warcraft for 3 days. As my sis-in-law getting married in France, my wife insist we take a short vacation through Swiss Alps, thru Geneva and end in Paris.

Anyway, time to go back to work. Boarding now. See you in Copenhagen.

April 18th, 2008

Automated Content Creation (Patented)

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Credit: Philip M. Parker

Parker shows a book being created.

Using a little bit of artificial intelligence, a computer program has been created that mimics the thought process of someone who would be responsible for doing such a study link »

It will then open a Word document and export the information into Word, just like a real author would out of their minds, so to speak, or spreadsheets link »

Credit: Philip M. Parker

Parker shows a book being created.

– from He wrote 200,000 books (but computers did some of the work) | Tech News on ZDNet via sharedcopy.com

April 16th, 2008

Back to Shanghai

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I come back from China with a soar throat and cough 2+ weeks ago. The cough has persist till now and I am going back Shanghai with it. Hopefully I will recover there :P

Boarding now. No more blogging. See you later.

April 15th, 2008

Blogger Friendly

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Was at the National Press Club in Malaysia to meet up with various bloggers.

Quote Rockybru “Malaysia is the most blogger friendly country in the world now.”

Strange world. 6 months ago, bloggers are jobless liars. Today, all politicians must have a blog “or else you are not a leader” :-)

Note to self: Don’t play scrabbles at National Press Club. ^_^

April 9th, 2008

Impact of ICTs on the Malaysian Elections

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It is a close door session and I shall respect the decision of the organizer to keep the close door discussion, which is very interesting, private.

But I raise up two points at the event that I am at a liberty to share:

1. Actually the impact of New Media has being felt in the Singapore 2006 GE before the Malaysia 2008 Elections.

While there is no doubt PAP will come back in power, PAP was very confident that it will win at least 80% of the popular votes at 2006 GE. The result? 66.6%.

Despite a ban on all political discussion on the internet like blogs and forums, political blogs continues to thrives during the election period and discussions are vibrant. While the traditional media continues to behave like typical Singapore traditional media then, people has turn to the new media. In fact, the new media forces the traditional media to eventually cover stories that it has shunned.

While not all the differences between 80% and 66.6% can be credit to new media, the new media certainly plays a role.

2. I am anxiety that the power-to-be seem to take an attitude that New Media is some sort of anti-establishment uncontrolled platform that needs to be tamed.

New Media gains creditability not because it is anti-establishment. It gains creditability every time the traditional media makes a blunder, forcing people to turn to New media as an alternative news source. Each time traditional media tried to “shape” the opinions of the people that does not reflect reality, it loses readers to the New Media. The more controls you have on traditional media, the more people turn to New Media, whom they feel *reflect* their views.

Thus, New Media is like any media – what is important is the stories that can connect and engage the readers. It seem anti-establishment because the anti-establishment get no voices in the traditional media and thus this is the avenue for them. It seem uncontrollable because the power-to-be never want to contact and engage in the New Media, afraid that any contacts using New Media will add credibility to the New Media, afraid that any engagement with the readers is murky because they will get questions and god-forbid, they have to answer those questions.

April 5th, 2008

Credit Default Swap

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The seeds of today’s disaster were sown in the 1980s, when financial services began a pattern of growth that may only now have come to an end. In a recent study Martin Barnes of BCA Research, a Canadian economic-research firm, traces the rise of the American financial-services industry’s share of total corporate profits, from 10% in the early 1980s to 40% at its peak last year (see chart 1). Its share of stockmarket value grew from 6% to 19%. These proportions look all the more striking-even unsustainable-when you note that financial services account for only 15% of corporate America’s gross value added and a mere 5% of private-sector jobs. link »

This process has turned investment banks into debt machines that trade heavily on their own accounts. Goldman Sachs is using about $40 billion of equity as the foundation for $1.1 trillion of assets. At Merrill Lynch, the most leveraged, $1 trillion of assets is teetering on around $30 billion of equity. In rising markets, gearing like that creates stellar returns on equity. When markets are in peril, a small fall in asset values can wipe shareholders out. link »

– from The financial system | What went wrong | Economist.com via sharedcopy.com