TR EMERITUS

The Nanyang Technological University professor who was stabbed by a final year student earlier this month has broken his silence to respond to vicious talk on the Internet. In an exclusive interview with The New Paper, Associate Professor Chan Kap Lup, 45, who teaches in NTU's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said he was bewildered by nasty speculation over his character and sexual inclination in the aftermath of the stabbing attack by Indonesian student David Hartanto Widjaja, 21, who later fell to his death on that shocking March 2 morning. Some netizens have suggested on sites such as SgForums.com that Prof Chan was attacked because he wanted to give the student a poor grade for his final year project. Some others even went so far as to imply Mr Widjaja and Prof Chan had a homosexual relationship, said the TNP report on Thursday. Prof Chan, who is married with two young children, told TNP: 'My goodness, there's no such thing. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet, because people can write whatever they want. 'I never read these Internet forums because the postings can't be taken seriously - anyone can write anything.' Refuting allegations on the poor grading, Prof Chan, who was Mr Widjaja's project supervisor, said with a laugh, that his role was to help students do well. 'We are not to fail the students and that's why I'm laughing at the suggestion that I wanted to give David a poor grade. Ask any professor if they wish to help their students do well and their answers are the same.' The don, who suffered injuries on his back and right hand, was discharged from the National University Hospital on March 4 and is on medical leave for a few weeks. Prof Chan added that all students 'have the same experiences of meeting deadlines and coping with other modules', but would not say if Mr Widjaja was slack with his project. 'If David had any problems with his project, he certainly didn't tell me. It's very sad he ended up like that,' he said. He declined to talk more about the stabbing, saying he had given a police statement. Source: Straits Times EDITORS' NOTE: Why did Prof Chan refuse to tell the public more about the stabbing? Isn't this the crux of the tragedy? There were so many allegations and rumors circulating around the internet chatrooms, why only pinpoint such trivial ones on his sexuality?  Read More →

Written by Darkness of the brotherhood - guest columnist - Why do some things, people and ideas remain ageless and timeless? While others just come and go like Haley’s comet? What’s the ONE winning secret that really separates the winners from the loser? Perusing the landscape of winners and losers it would suggest, nothing is supposed to last forever. The Roman Empire didn’t make it. Neither did the Mongols, Greeks or even recently the British Empire – everything it seems is destined to go to the dogs – nothing it seems can bear out the chastening passage of time. The advent of the recession brings into stark focus many of our encrusted beliefs – as to how we often put our chips on the losers rather than the winners – tell me, how many of you could have imagined that Lehman Bros with its 100 year old appelation could possible fold up and disappear like a traveling circus? What about AIG? Would you have believed me, if I told you one year back ago; it would go down in history as the biggest corporate rag and bone man in the block? What about UBS, care to place your bets on how it would have turned out? It would seem nothing is supposed to last forever. But having said that every now and then we do come across, leaders, firms and even schools of thoughts and states of minds that has manage to weather the chastening passage of time only to successfully come through safely the other side. Nothing seems to affect these winners, not economic melt downs, natural disasters or even cataclysmic events like war or plug, play and throw away age. They just seem to be anchored like the stoutest lighthouses shouting out at the top of their voice, “come what may!” What am I talking about; that old bike that just ride the way it should - you just know once the gear mashes followed by the forward glide - this a winner / or that person that you always find yourself going back too when the world seems to close in – or that belief system that you just know; if you keep to the rule; it will keep you safe and see you in good stead. But why do these winners survive against the odds? One clue to understanding why some things wax and wane, while others remain ageless and timeless is to be found in the science of life expectancies. To cut to the chase the math is pretty screwy here, and since I am writing this on the MRT on the way to work on a mini sized key board -  I will just spare you all a comatose inducing lecture and gut out the gooble-d-guck and give you all the low down. In a nut shell – it goes something like this: The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule) the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Business management thinker Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population / It is a common rule of thumb in business; e.g., "80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients." Bear in mind, I am simplifying big time here gutting out whole chunks of math, stats, axioms and even disquisitions, but the logic goes something like this: if we square off the irritating details with our imaginary broad rule and discount the odd anomaly like cross eyed women drivers who regularly plough into bollards etc – the whole of idea of beating the law of averages is actually quite a robust theory that does a very good job of explaining why some products, firms and stuff manage to thrive long before the end of their expected life spans. A big chunk of trying to understanding why some things go from strength to strength while others go down the dodo hall of fame is because we don’t usually use all functions that’s offered in products and services regularly marketed by firms. You could just as well reverse engineer this logic to account for why some firms, oligarchies and people belly up and die – the rule of thumb is this; you don’t have to be very good at everything – but you need to focus on doing a few key things really well – if you want to succeed. Conversely, if you’re going to die; it also means – you don’t have to cock up in every area; all you need to do is get torpedoed broadside by one or two ideas – could be something like a juggernaut firm deciding to plonk all their chips on one market niche like Banking – or like the Shah of Iran believing in some social theory that will seed the greater good. My point is whether you succeed or fail depends on the 20%, never the 80%. Don’t believe me, then cast your mind back to the time when you were trying to make a good first impression on someone – was it the first 10 minutes in the conversation that was the clincher or the remainder of the 50 minutes? Or how many programs do you regularly use in the latest edition of Microsoft Excel? Even the number of songs you listen too in an iPod, if you tabulate it out, it would probably be less that the regular 100 odd despite the capacity to hold 5,000 tunes. By the same logic, I know the latest PDA offers probably 1,000 new functions complete with all the bells and whistles of regression curves cum extrapolation that basically even allows a novice engineer to build an atomic bomb, but if I really squared it off against the bread and butter day to day runs of functions you regularly use – again you would probably 20% – the rest you could just chuck out and it wouldn’t really make any difference. That could be well explain why the girls that make the best wife’s come with brains as an optional feature – it could also explain why after this write up; my inbox is going to smoke with another round of charming death threats – my point is the 20% is really the make or break. So the key to understanding why somethings have this enduring capacity to remain ageless and timeless is to look deeper at the 20% instead of trying to figure out the larger than life picture of the 80%. And what does that mean; well simply this – if you are going to love a woman to bits, its going to be that 20% that makes all the world of difference and never the 80% (like how she never shaves her armpits) – if you’re going to put rat poison into some ones coffee its probably going to be the 20% that pushes you over the edge (that could explain the stabbing pain somewhere in my liver right now. I think, she only got less than 20% of her bonus this year) – if you’re going buy car A instead of B; the decider is just going to be 20% and if you win or lose in life – the margin of between the thrill of victory and agony of defeat is just separated by that elusive 20% that makes up the rest of the 80% to make up the wholeness of 100%. And that’s all I have time for. Its time to rejoin the glorious world of the battery chicken – have to pay the bills, I’ve be back again in part two with the rest of the 20% of this essay – stay tuned. Remember, life just boils down to 20%. (to be con’t) Darkness 2009 / The Brotherhood Press  Read More →

As the clock ticks down for the transition of power, the tension in Umno appears to have taken a supernatural twist. A police bomb squad, which conducted a routine sweep of the Umno headquarters in Kuala Lumpur a few days ago, stumbled upon suspicious items under the party president Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's table. The check was conducted on the meeting room located on the 39th floor of the Putra World Trade Centre in view of the coming Umno supreme council meeting, which will be the last to be held before the party polls which is slated to kick off on March 24. According to a report in Sin Chew Daily today, bomb squad personnel found two tiny pieces of paper with Jawi inscriptions as well as a piece of wood wrapped in a white piece of paper. "The pieces of paper were so small that it could be hidden in the mouth and this is an highly suspicious act," read the front-page report. So far, the police have not detained anyone in connection with the case but have recorded statements from three individuals who have access to the room, including two police personnel. The third person is said to be the assistant of a politician, who was not named. The meeting room is not equipped with a close circuit television camera. Apart from politicians, only cleaning personnel have access to the room. The report further stated that the police were unable to decipher the contents in the paper and have referred the materials to the chemistry department for further investigation. Dang Wangi district police chief Zulkarnain Abdul Rahman confirmed the matter but declined to elaborate. Read rest of article on Malaysiakini EDITORS' NOTE: This type of gutter politics can only happen in Malaysia which is making us a joke in the world. So did the two pieces of "charms" brought the downfall of Badawi? Najib had better checked his desk thoroughly on his first day of office. And wait, don't forget the loo as well.  Read More →