Archive for November, 2008

  • 28 Nov

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    My thoughts on Harry Potter

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    I’ve classified this as a review, but it isn’t really. There are acres of reviews on HP around, and I don’t mean for this to be one more. But I just finished the last Potter book and thought I’d share my biased thoughts with you on it. Biased, because every reader comes to a book with her own baggage. And that baggage may even change from one reading of the same novel to another, but it’s still there. So here are my own clouded thoughts.

    Firstly, as I told J, reading Harry Potter for me is a lot like watching a trainwreck — painful but fascinating.

    It’s not the sentence structure that gets me (Rowling has nothing on Dostoevsky for convoluted phrase-crafting); it’s not the child characters (I like Harry and Hermione, although I think Ron is a putz, and Lucius is exactly as he should be); it’s more the adults.

    • I don’t like the concept of a little gang like Malfoy’s being allowed to run riot around the school with nothing beyond bland reprimands from the Hogwarts’ teachers.
    • I don’t like the idea of a teacher, any teacher, being allowed to terrorise a class with impunity.
    • The idea that Trelawney also is allowed to keep her position when she’s obviously completely incompetent just because she had one prophetic vision in the past is beyond pathetic.
    • I detest completely and utterly the whole power hierarchy and artificial house loyalty actions that rampage through the books.
    • And, last but almost at the top of my list, I abhor the way Dumbledore treats/treated Harry, pulling him out of scrape after scrape and treating him with such obvious indulgence it sets my teeth on edge.

    Yes, you can tell me it’s only a story, but there are social undercurrents are there that I Really Don’t Like. The idea that power will win over everything (whether it’s Snape over his class, or Dumbeldore over the whole school), regardless of whether it’s right or wrong; that egalitarianism is dead (not that it was ever alive in Britain, tbh); that anything is excused if you think you’re on the side of Good.

    Of course I’m painting in broad strokes — I’m blogging, not writing a thesis on the thing — but I find the series, as a whole, deeply disturbing. If I had a child attending Hogwarts who was neither Malfoy nor one of his cronies, or Potter or one of his cronies, the first thing I’d do would be to yank my child outta there and put her someplace else that doesn’t play its favourites so damned obviously and maliciously.

    At the foundation of the reason for this dislike is also the fact that I belonged to school houses through most of my childhood education. While it may be a delicious novelty for N. American children, it was a given for anyone growing up in a British system (our son is in one now (Blue house), though thankfully only for Sports).

    And it sucked.

    Just as in the HP books, points were awarded and subtracted for good/bad behaviour, sports results, anything else of merit, and the banners were arranged on their little tree (first place to fourth place) in front of the entire school at the end of each week so you knew exactly where you stood. It’s a divide-and-conquer strategy that I consider to be petty, hateful, and cynically manipulative.

    So that’s what I don’t like about Harry Potter. What I do like about it is one thing.

    Even subtracting everything else, the one redeeming quality that permeates the books is love. Love of parents for their children; love of mentors for their young charges. Up till this point, I didn’t think English people held any great affection for their children, to be honest. At least, it was never evident through their books. Whether Enid Blyton or Philip Pullman, Tolkien to Kipling to Ballard to Willans & Searle, there’s always been a distance between the children and adults I used to read about, an apparent aloofness bordering sometimes on active dislike that — quite frankly — puzzles those not brought up in that society.

    So it’s refreshing to read someone who’s not afraid to write characters who love, yearn, lose, gain, and grieve (okay, sometimes ad nauseam, but still …), and get support and strength from people quite alien in the average English children’s novel collection. Their parents. Or surrogate parents. Even the Malfoys are willing to defy Voldemort, in the face of worry for their son. I find that one solid thread through the series to be the saving grace of the books. The English have feelings. Who knew?

    (Even though I loathe and detest the school system in the HP books (can you tell?), I would not stop my children from watching the movies or reading the books. My personal dislike is, imo, not good enough reason to stop their acquisition of knowledge.)

  • 26 Nov

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    Interview with Charles Tan

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    (NOTE: Sorry about not posting yesterday but I was without ‘net access. The tech guys later told me a rat had gnawed through cable a few streets away near one of their junction boxes. Technology ain’t infallible!)

    It was through SF Signal that I discovered the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler. I contacted one of the co-editors, Charles Tan, to ask questions for a Broad article I’m writing, but his answers were so interesting, I thought I’d print the interview in its entirety.

    Cover of Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler

    Kaz: In the Introduction to Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler, an anthology of speculative fiction tales co-edited by you and Mia Tijam, you mention a boom in this particular genre category. You point to the appearance of publications focusing on Filipino s-f as well as the establishment of the Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards. Why now? Do you think that the country has reached a particular level of maturity and is thus able to expand its horizons? Or perhaps it’s a reflection of the economy or the mood of the nation? What are your thoughts?

    Charles Tan: I don’t think it was inevitable but a product of coincidence and passion of the people involved. For example, both Dean Francis Alfar (Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 1~3) and Kenneth Yu (The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories http://philippinegenrestories.blogspot.com) wanted to create a publication that published spec fic stories since no one else was doing it. Perhaps the coincidence there is that their timing was close to each other (late 2005). Story Philippines, on the other hand, is a magazine that was simply looking for fiction stories to print. It just so happened that many of the stories that were submitted and got accepted could be classified as speculative fiction. As for the Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards, that was honestly a stroke of luck. One of our big bookstore chains, Fully Booked, brought Neil Gaiman to the Philippines for a book signing. Suffice to say, it was a hit and Gaiman was so impressed with the reception and the culture that he decided to sponsor the Graphic/Fiction Awards.

    Of course those people can’t take all the credit. Lurking in the background is the rising popularity of pulp horror books (perhaps the most popular fiction genre next to romance novels). And while not applicable to fiction, it was also the boom of fantasy soap operas (“fantaserye”) thanks to the popularity of Lord of the Rings movies as well as the fantasy soap operas being produced in Korea (which eventually gets imported here).

    That’s also not to say that fantasy and science fiction were always absent in Philippine literature. One of our literary awards, the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards, had a “futuristic fiction” category while the general categories (short fiction, novel) had texts that had elements of magic-realism.

    K: What is the attitude of the average Filipino to speculative fiction and their writers? In Malaysia, the prevailing religion is Islam and fiction writing is seen with a jaundiced eye, as something wasteful. How is it perceived in your country, which is strongly Roman Catholic? I notice a lot of that faith weaving its way through the sampler’s stories.

    CT: Honestly, I don’t think much of the populace is aware of it. I mean one of the most popular genres here are the romance novels which is consumed by the masses. Their print runs tends to be in the tens of thousands. What follows suit is the horror genre or ghost stories genre which, if they’re lucky, manages to sell around ten thousand copies. The rest of Philippine literature, unless you’re required reading for school, will usually just have a print run of a thousand or two copies (if not less). Unfortunately, speculative fiction falls into that category so in a country plagued with overpopulation, in the long run, not a lot of Filipinos are probably aware of it.

    Sure, some of the critics can be discouraging of speculative fiction (because of their focus on “social relevance” and “realism”) but that’s because they’re critics, not due to religion.

    I also want to add that while local fiction isn’t being widely read in the country, a lot of international speculative fiction books such as Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Twilight are popular here. Then
    there’s the treasure trove of fanfics out there on the Internet. So take what you will from that.

    K: How about the other genres? Fantasy and horror? Is there much of a market for that kind of fiction in the Philippines today?

    CT: In film and TV, fantasy is one of the hot items right now. As for fiction, horror is probably the closest thing speculative fiction has as a best-seller.

    As for whether there’s a market, that’s a tricky thing. Again, if we’re talking about international books, sure. There’s never a day when I drop by the bookstore and somebody isn’t inquiring about Stephenie Meyer’s books. Local speculative fiction, on the other hand, seems to be an uphill struggle in terms of selling and marketing it. Right now Philippine speculative fiction is probably more appreciated by people outside the country than those in it.

    K: In the West, there are a number of tertiary learning institutions that have courses that dissect and examine genre fiction. Is it the same in the Philippines? Is it moving that way?

    CT: There have been a class or two in select schools and universities but for the most part, not really. Is it moving that way? I hope so, one day, but as of now, no, I can’t honestly claim that’s the case.

    K: What’s the gender balance like for s-f? Where are the stories coming from?

    CT: I think the gender balance is rich when it comes to Philippine speculative fiction. A lot of women as well as men are submitting stories.

    Where we do have issues is where the stories are coming from. The Philippines, aside from being an archipelago, is home to several hundred languages and dialects. The ones most represented are those in English and Filipino. For obvious reasons, the only ones you’re hearing about are the former, and that also limits the geography of where the stories are coming from. For the most part, it’s centered in Metro Manila, although we also have Ian Rosales Casocot who’s based in Dumaguete (one of the southern islands) and is running a critiquing group there.

    I’m sure there are a lot of speculative fiction stories being written in Filipino and other native languages, they’re just not being circulated or publishers are hesitant to publish them. Publishing isn’t exactly the most
    profitable of businesses here.

    K: Is there a defining trait, or a set of defining traits, you see as characteristics of Asian, or Filipino, s-f? In reading through the Sampler, I have noticed a decided slant towards relationships and human dynamics over hardware. In fact, the level of technology described in the stories is quite basic, while the concepts themselves are advanced. Would you agree?

    CT: For the most part, I think Filipinos tend to have a magic-realism style, even before Gabriel Garcia Marquez became popular. There also seems to be a hesitation to tackle sci-fi stories (although there are obviously sci-fi stories being written). Majority in my opinion will tend to be fantasy in nature and as I mentioned in the previous answers, horror is a popular market.

    As for the character-centric stories, I think that’s more reflective of the preferences of me and my co-editor, Mia Tijam, rather than reflective of Philippine speculative fiction in general.

    K: Thank you for using the term “magic-realism”. In the West, “speculative fiction” usually involves some kind of technology at its core. That is, when one uses the term “speculative fiction”, there is an assumption of new technologies or a future landscape. In the Sampler, I noticed what I suppose you described as “magic-realism” (rather than what I think of as “speculative fiction”), where there’s more of a blurring between technology and fantasy. An almost mythic take, if you will, on concepts such as bioengineering, and even a blurring into horror. Now, you say that Filipinos seem to veer towards this style over more nuts ‘n’ bolts stories. Do you have any thoughts on why this should be?

    CT: Oh, that’s where I beg to differ. When I use the term speculative fiction — and many other people as well, at least based on the wikipedia definition of speculative fiction — the term encompasses various genres which includes fantasy as well as science fiction and horror. I don’t think speculative fiction is exclusively technological. It could easily refer to Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. One reason I’ve picked up on the term in the first place because “fantasy and science fiction” (or vice versa) is a lot longer to type.

    As to why Filipinos veer towards a style of writing that’s more akin to magic-realism, I leave that for scholars to ponder. But speaking from an anthropological point of view, the Philippines isn’t so different from many
    of the Latin American countries in which magic realism developed. We both have a history of colonization (and in the case of Colombia where Gabriel Garcia Marques hails from, the same colonizer, Spain). We’re also relatively near to the equator and sport a tropical climate. Roman Catholicism is also a dominant religion in both areas, while at the same time our peoples have a rich and vibrant belief in native mythology (Filipinos believe in magic talismans, local monsters, etc.). There’s a lot of similarities between us and I don’t know whether geography, culture, or a combination of both (and perhaps some unseen variable) that gives rise to it.

    K: What’s next for you now that the Sampler is available online? What projects are you working on?

    CT: I’m the type of person that doesn’t publicize his projects until they’re out. There’s a lot of things that could go wrong and you end up not having a product to show for.

    That said, perhaps my most active project right now is my blog. There’s book reviews on Mondays, interviews with various personalities in the publishing industry on Tuesdays, feature articles and essays on Wednesdays, etc.

    I also contribute to various other speculative fiction websites including some interviews at the Nebula Awards site, short Q&A’s with the nominees for the Shirley Jackson Awards Blog (I hope they get me again next year), and I’m a regular contributor to SFF Audio and Comics Village. When it comes to my own fiction writing, one of my short stories is going to see print in a local publication, The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories later this year and another story next year in Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 4.

    Anything beyond that, people are free to contact me and submit proposals (and hopefully hire me!).

  • 21 Nov

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    Hidden agendas

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    In only twenty-four hours, I’ve come across three blatant examples of hidden agendas. And the examples have followed so quickly on the heels of one another that even the conspiracy theorist in me is starting to get a bit shaken.

    Example One

    Andrew Wheeler recently blogged about the obvious and incorrect bias in a cartoon by Lisa Benson about Detroit and the UAW. Go here for his blog. As well as proving that I have no life by commenting on recent actions of the UAW, my comment on Andrew’s blog contained the following:

    Putting my conspiracy theorist hat on for a moment, what is the tie between the media organisations where these cartoons appear and the auto-makers? How is public opinion being manipulated via satire in order to push a particular agenda?

    Okay, all well and good. It’s Kaz being her usual narrow-eyed, cynical self again. Let’s move on.

    Example Two

    I’m a regular reader of the China Matters blog and, also recently, China Hand wrote a blog about General Motors. (If you’re wondering about the coincidence of two successive blogs on the automotive industry, it’s because it’s a big subject at the moment. No more.) CH’s post (“Buying a Sick Horse and Turning It Into a Dead Horse”, Wednesday 19 November 2008) was, as usual, illuminating and interesting and also contained this little snippet:

    The tubes of the Internet have been abuzz concerning a report on the auto industry website www.allaboutcars.com headlined “Breaking News—Chinese May Buy GM and Chrysler”. … The Chinese appear to have no plans to acquire GM. And perhaps Allaboutcars was getting vigorously massaged by Deloitte-Touche, which has a vested interest in all things M&A, China-wise.

    CH quotes, as always, excerpts from the items in question to bolster the argument. (That’s one reason I like reading the blog. No namby-pamby I’ll-just-say-what-I-want-and-damn-the-facts rhetoric. Here are references I can follow, if I’m so inclined.)

    During the consolidation [i.e. a conclusion to the possibility that some Chinese industrial manufacturers will successfully internationalise as the global economic climate reduces resistance to Chinese penetration of European and American manufacturers] , Chinese enterprises could begin by purchasing GM suppliers and GM’s China joint ventures, Deloitte Touche China believes. [my emphasis] …

    I bet they do! So Deloitte Touche China has a vested interested in Chinese matters concerning the manufacturing and automotive industries and they just happen to drop a statement in a news article that would increase their own business tenfold (at least) if proven correct? It isn’t the comment itself that raised my eyebrows (such moves are common in the business world), it’s the brazenness of it, considering that Deloitte is trying to obviously influence the Chinese government in the matter. Ten out of ten for chutzpah, guys, but I’m not confident of your chances, tbh.

    Example Three

    Possibly the most worrisome one of all. But first, some background. The GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) is … well, let me use their words:

    The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), at Columbia University in New York City, is a laboratory of the Earth Sciences Division of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and a unit of the Columbia University Earth Institute. Research at GISS emphasizes a broad study of global climate change.

    But what does this mean? From their About page:

    A key objective of GISS research is prediction of atmospheric and climate changes in the 21st century. The research combines analysis of comprehensive global datasets, derived mainly from spacecraft observations, with global models of atmospheric, land surface, and oceanic processes. Study of past climate change on Earth and of other planetary atmospheres serves as a useful tool in assessing our general understanding of the atmosphere and its evolution.

    Essentially, the GISS is the go-to body for climate change data. So far, so good. The problem is this. Their October data, which prompted the report that October 2008 was the warmest October since reliable record-keeping began in 1880, was wrong, because September data from Russia was used in place of October’s. (And, as anyone in the northern hemisphere knows, September is a warmer month than October.)

    If you want to know more about this issue by the person who first nailed the October anomaly, check out Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit blog. Further investigation leads to the conclusion that, in fact, many terrestrial temperature-monitoring sites (which the GISS uses more than would seem evident from their quote above) tend to err on the side of higher temperatures, usually through bad station placement. So Question Number One for the dilettante scientist (that’s me and perhaps thee) is, as Anthony Watts puts it:

    If Russian weather stations are located in cities that have [a hot water/steam pipe ] district heating plan, and a good percentage of the pipes are uninsulated, how much of the waste heat from the pipes ends up creating a local micro-climate of warmth?

    This dodgy data (from all over the place, not just Russia) gets collected by the GISS to present a, shall we say, less than accurate picture of global warming. But it gets worse. Considering its importance, the GISS (with a billion-dollar annual budget) only allocates one quarter of one resource (25% of one person’s time) on checking the data it uses. Just the kind of priority a peak scientific establishment should give to its source data, right?

    But that’s not all. The baseline data has changed. The 1930s temperature data is now (in 2008) lower than it was during the 1990s. Which means that today’s average temperatures are, of course, seen as relatively higher. Can you see the picture forming here?

    But wait. There’s more. An algorithm that caters for missing historical temperature data arbitrarily increases the temperature by 0.1 degrees Celsius regularly throughout the 20th Century without any apparent justification.

    The Register puts it succinctly:

    GISS makes unannounced, unexplained changes, and this practice is confusing and gets in the way of scholarship. GISS calibrates its data to 0.01°C. This implies a very high degree of accuracy and low margin of error. But their aggregate adjustments [the aforeto mentioned algorithm] add up to tens of times greater than this scale. Therefore to provide data in hundredths of a degree is a clear case of misplaced precision.

    Can all of this surreptitious tweaking be traced back to one person? Like GISS Director, James Hansen? A man who would like to see oil company executives prosecuted for their contribution to global warming? Is he stacking the GISS data deck so he can make the statement:

    Global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationships between the greenhouse effect and the observed warming

    a vindication of his own personal views? This is a passionate man who believes that the actions of oil executives, their lobbyists and pandering politicians are undermining democracy. But how far can he be trusted? And should such a person be put in charge of a premier, supposedly unbiased, longitudinal scientific study? What do you think?

    Conclusions

    Straight news items, especially when they concern big-ticket items like car companies or the environment, never are, as these examples illustrate. In each, you have the vested interests of a person or organisation trying to push a particular agenda. I’ve written this long-assed post to hopefully get you to act a little more sceptically in the face of news, no matter how wholesome the source may appear to be. (NASA? But they’re my heroes!)

    On the NASA GISS front, the example I cited is particularly troublesome. I ascribe to the personal view that I cannot believe the accumulation of humanity’s agricultural, social and industrial interventions on the planet throughout history have not contributed in some way to some change in how the Earth’s biosphere works. However, I cannot condone the tricks undertaken by the GISS in the name of science and the environment. Fudging data may work in the short term, but it only hurts its own cause, no matter how noble that may be. Science should not work like that.

    As for Hansen, as head of a public service organisation of critical importance to the whole world, his personal views should remain exactly that. Personal.

  • 18 Nov

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    What did you say?

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    There has always been an intellectual and developmental rivalry between Singapore and Malaysia for reasons that are complex and which switch from one party to the other. (Singapore is winning this one at the moment, imo, even though I’m not a fan of Singapore.) However, also in my opinion, the worst thing Malaysia could have done was what they did in the mid-70s. They shot themselves in the foot and changed the language of instruction in schools from English to Malay.

    Now, when we talk about schools in Malaysia, we’re talking about a many-headed beast. There are the federally-funded schools, which are overseen by the Ministry of Education. Then there are the Chinese schools, which cater mostly for Chinese students with the medium of instruction being Mandarin. And there are the Indian schools, which cater mostly for Indian students, but I’m not sure which language they use (yes, obviously, one of the Indian ones … Tamil?). There are fully private schools, where the medium is English. And semi-private/government schools. And then international schools.

    So, to get back to the story, all the schools under the federal system began teaching all subjects in Malay. I think the Singapore government must have been chortling into their chicken rice when they heard that one. Showing that stubbornness is a pervasive trait, the government didn’t overturn that ruling until 2002, more than a quarter of a century later, when English finally became the official medium of instruction for Science and Mathematics but by then the damage had been done. For how could you get teachers to competently teach in English when they themselves had gone through a Malay-only education? The government appealed to the older teachers to come out of retirement and do their bit for the country, but here at the tail-end of 2008, the after-effects can still be seen.

    Everything in Malaysia is political. Everything. So believe me when I say that the Malay elites are still gnashing their teeth at having to concede part of their position on the issue of language. And, ever since 2002, every couple of years, they try a different trick. The latest is one where the government called the principals and senior teachers of the Chinese and Indian schools together and asked them whether they really wanted to teach English at their schools for subjects other than English? (This is two years after an agreement had already been reached that they wanted to.) Wouldn’t it be better, the government suggested again, if the Sciences and Mathematics were taught in … oh we don’t know … your native languages? I mean, it can’t be easy forcing students to learn such heavy subjects in a foreign and difficult language, can it?

    The Malaysian reading this immediately knows what the government is up to. If the ethnic schools agree to change their language of instruction (as is their right as private schools), then the thin edge of the wedge is hammered in, and the next step is to then claim that, as all other races are becoming nationalistic, why shouldn’t the Malays? And, bam!, Malay is back as the only medium of instruction throughout school. I was never so proud of Malaysia as when — not only the principals and teachers, but also — young pre-teen students polled replied that English was the language of commerce, science and the Internet and, although difficult, they needed to learn those subjects in that language if they were ever going to make a success of their lives. The only holdouts were a couple of young Malays who had probably already absorbed the goodness enshrined in the NEP (New Economic Policy), a raft of positive affirmative laws geared solely towards Bumiputras that will provide opportunities available to nobody else, and ensure these young students’ relative economic wellbeing well into adulthood, purely because they’re Malay.

    Now, I can understand that a country wants to feel proud of itself and its language, especially if the country is as young as Malaysia. But if its goal is to become a fully developed nation within my lifetime (as the government keeps claiming) then it has to put aside its nationalistic idealism in favour of pragmatism. Wong Chun Wai points this out clearly in his column from Sunday’s edition of The Star newspaper. Taking into account two of Malaysia’s neighbours:

    …in 2006, the number of college students who spoke and could write English in India was reportedly 100% while in 10 years, it has been estimated that China would have the largest number of English speakers.

    This is the competition facing the young Malaysian. The economic landscape is tough enough as it is, and narrow nationalistic fervour should play no part in hobbling its young citizens, especially as:

    many [such Malay nationalists] benefited from the English medium schools of yesteryear

    themselves. Exactly. Hypocrisy, much?

    The second major source of distaste is the following. Education is a Very Big Thing in this part of the world. A recent WSJ Asia article (13 November edition, “Dispatch” column by SungHa Park) detailed life in South Korea on College Entrance Exam Day. And it included a quote that rings true throughout the region, not just in South Korea.

    “To many South Koreans, the admission tests are something that should always remain fair because education is the last fortress through which everyone, regardless of their current status, can ascend to a higher social status,” said Choi Set-byol, a sociology professor at Ewha Womans University.

    And the Malaysian post-secondary system of education is stacked firmly against the non-Malays, with Malays (or “Bumiputras”, sons of the soil) being allocated the majority of federal university places, purely on the basis of their race. In a part of the globe where so much emphasis is placed on knowledge and learning, Malaysia has the dismal reputation of being the only nation on Earth that discriminates against its own citizens on the basis of access to education.

    That the ruling Malays would further stack the educational deck in their favour and strive to make Malay the only language of instruction is another slap in the face to the other races. Because where would a young Chinese Malaysian go for further education? Or a young Indian Malaysian? It’s obvious they’re not wanted in their own country, the current system having nothing to do with meritocracy. Overseas perhaps? With zero knowledge of English? On that basis, even Singapore (the most affordable “overseas” education destination there is) is ruled out.

    You may ask if the motivating force here, on the part of the government, is malice or apathy. In fact, it’s neither. It’s fear. And really, Malaysia deserves much much better. Pity it’s not getting it from the people with that very responsibility.

  • 14 Nov

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    Bazza and a stick

    2

    BREAKING NEWS: Hubble has succeeded in taking a visible-light picture of a planet circling another star. The planet’s three times the size of Jupiter and is called Fomalhaut b, orbiting star Fomalhaut, in the constellation Piscis Australis. Fomalhaut is a mere 25 light-years away. Way to go, Hubble! (Thanks to Fred Kiesche via SF Signal for this. OT comment: yes, considering that the new Star Trek movie is supposed to take place before TOS, I was expecting an Enterprise less sleek and more clunky too.) Continuing on the geek theme for Friday …

    I think the reason I’ve taken to Linux is because I’m basically a difficult person to satisfy. Take my Aspire One. J gave it to me as a birthday present a few months ago, and I had the awful feeling its hal (Hardware Abstraction Layer) was corrupted even back then because I couldn’t connect to the internet every time the cable was plugged in. (Nope, there was nothing wrong with the cable.) That didn’t bother me too much because I wanted to use the netbook for writing and the fewer distractions available the better, right?

    But then I didn’t like the default screen either. And I wanted wbar. And custom icons for particular favourite apps. And my Aspire went from this:

    old & dowdy

    (And I mean, bleeech people. Just bleeech!) to something that more resembled this:

    old & dowdy

    (with thanks to ADcomp from the AspireOne fora for the screenshot). But, somewhere in between all that tweaking, I completely lost access to all the Aspire’s external ports and my ethernet connection was only detected, on average, 10% of the time. This was not a happy situation for backups. What to do?

    I re-stumbled (‘cos I’d been there once before and bookmarked it because it was so cool) across pendrivelinux.com and was saved! Because I have a Netbook With Little Grunt, I opted for Puppy Linux, to see what it was made of. If you’re a geek like me, you’ll often have several USB sticks hanging around, so I grabbed an old Kingston 512MB, put Puppy 4.1 on it, set my Aspire’s BIOS to boot from the device, and presto! instant access. I could automount USB drives and get on the Net (after I remembered to run the Network wizard … doh!) without any hassle (thus confirming that the original supposition of corrupted hal files was correct). The default Puppy screen looks like this:

    Puppy!

    which is pretty sweet, except for all those icons crowding the screen. The resolution was so sharp, I almost cut my fingers on it. I could access my data and move it to safety. Flushed with success, I then loaded PCLinux OS on another USB stick (a 4GBer this time) and tried it out. This too worked, but Puppy felt a lot quicker and cleaner, and so I’m now back to it. Puppy is less than 100Mb in size, which means you’ll still have heaps of room left for bells and whistles on that Asus, MSI or Aspire of yours. The latest version comes with wireless/MP3/samba/Flash support ootb (Out Of The Box). There are also variations (called “Puplets”) with particular customisations. I’m looking for a Puppy + OpenOffice + wbar mashup, and think I’ll do it myself. And that is, at once, one of the strengths and weaknesses of Linux.

    On the plus side, you get an incredible feeling of achievement from wading through the system yourself. You start to get a feel for where everything is and how it’s organised. It’s like having a car. There are people who feel more confident as drivers if they’re able to change a tyre, check on coolant levels, change sparkplugs and generally have an idea of how their car operates. If you’re this kind of person, I think you’ll enjoy Linux. Otoh, there are types who just want to get in and drive, only having to worry about filling up on a regular basis. For those kinds of people, I’d recommend they stick to Windows.

    The one criticism that’s been levelled at Puppy is that the user runs as root. This means you are, essentially, the equivalent of a Windows user (as J put it), able to delete and move around files without any kinds of limits on the damage you do. Considering I’m only running my machine mostly to bang out words, that doesn’t bother me at all. Besides, I’m sick of having to use a command line or terminal to change permissions so I can shift files from one location to another. I understand the risks of being root and accept them, so that objection is not a strong one with me. (If I was loading Puppy for one of the kids, however, then it would certainly be a consideration.)

    If you’d like to take Puppy Linux for a spin, their web page is here. From what I’ve read, Puppy is one person’s brainchild and he’s worked unceasingly on it. That person is Barry Kauler. You did a magnificent job, Barry. Well done!

    A nice review of Puppy Linux 4.1 is here if you’re curious about what it contains (a lot!).

    PenDriveLinux I’ve already mentioned, but here it is again! Another great site.

    And last, but not least, many thanks to jimyjazz for bringing the topic up on the Aspire One fora to begin with.

    It’s been a while since I was so excited about using a new Linux distro. (A month or so ago, I believe, when I downloaded Mandriva’s latest. Low boredom threshold, much?) Am now looking forward to welcoming a new Puppy home!

  • 11 Nov

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    I’ve discovered a new diet! And it works!

    2

    [Cross-posted from Sugar.]

    I was sick on the weekend. An horrible, excruciating-headache, about-to-throw-up, sick … but there was a good side to it. I thought up a sure-fire money-making exercise. Bear with me while I explain.

    What kind of book sells the most in the United States? Uh, besides romance? I mean, in the non-fiction area? Yes! It’s diet books. And after nanosecond after nanosecond of perusing (or trying to recall) the kind of diet books I’ve leafed through/heard about/ignored in various bookstores, these are the essential characteristics I’ve discovered about them:

    1) They have a catchy name that gives you instant social cachet.
    2) Sooner or later, they’ll cost you money. Or friends. Or both.
    3) They’ll have you vacillating between the highs of euphoria and the nadir of depression.
    4) You’ll be obsessed by them, consumed by a love-hate relationship that will hold you in thrall for years.
    5) Even after you’ve moved on, you’ll always have regrets about what you did/didn’t do.

    Well, I was lying there under an equatorial sun (no air-conditioning in our bedroom … we’re trying to be green … I believe the word for “idiot” in Malay is bodoh), and it suddenly came to me: The Viral Diet! “Sorry, dah-ling, can’t talk, I’m on the Viral Diet.”

    Sounds cool, doesn’t it? But, of course, the name’s only the beginning of the thing. The foundation of the Viral Diet, what makes it so unique and different (and obviously better) than all the other diets out there, is that … it’s not based on food! Can you believe that? A diet book that’s not focused on food. That should be good for a US$1 million advance from Harper Collins right there and then. Instead, it’s based on … children. Specifically, young, just-school-age children.

    Because I’ve noticed something. The moment you’re a parent of a young child, you catch every single bad-ass virus and bacteria out there. Doesn’t matter if the incubation period only occurs in the humid depths between a hippo’s toes, if your kid has started school in the past two to three years, you’ll catch it. And while the little petals usually bounce back from their esoteric illnesses with a speed that makes you grit your teeth, you are left at death’s door for days, crying wanly for help, an end to your misery, and the promise that you’ll cut down to only one doughnut a day if only someone takes away the unceasing pounding in your head and the intimate relationship you’re currently having with your toilet bowl.

    But, you see, while you’re sick, you’re doing two things that will help shed the weight. One, you’re sleeping. (Adequate sleep helps you shed the kilograms. Don’t believe me? Go do some searching. I’m actually right on this one.) And two, you’re not eating. Interestingly enough, scientists have also found a connection between eating and weight gain. Who knew?

    The beauty of the kids bit is that it’s continual. When you have young, school-age children, you’re always falling sick. Think of the weight-loss potential. The only bit I haven’t figured out is what to do when the kids get to the age when they have good immunity, and you’re just not getting that high “sick day” index any more. Still, that gives you about three years of steady weight-loss that you can use to research what exercise you can do, whether you’re reducing stress in your life, and whether you’re getting adequate sleep.

    So, as the inventor of the Viral Diet, my advice to you is to: (a) get kids, preferably already four or five years old, (b) send ‘em along to every camp, playgroup, school activity, social gathering of children, you can think of, and (c) greet them with warm hugs and lots of cuddles when they get home and don’t shower for a day afterwards.

    No, no need to thank me. Just knowing I’m doing my bit for humanity is reward enough.

  • 07 Nov

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    Don’t squander this

    1

    What I like about Americans — their open, unbridled optimism that can be both engaging and empowering — is also what annoys me about them. Take the election of Barack Obama. This was a significant moment in itself. But please don’t go on and on (and on and freakin’ on) about how “this could only happen in America”. Like the events of post-9/11, all you’re doing is alienating the rest of the world again with that attitude.

    Do you really believe that “only in America” could a minority could be elected to the highest office? Really? What about the female leaders of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka? They already came, made their mark and disappeared before Hillary Clinton fought for a spot on the Democratic ticket. What’s more, there were female, and even — God forbid — communist leaders in Europe and prominent communist and minority players in Asian politics long before now. (And don’t think I’m cheating and only referring to the Soviet bloc here, ‘cos I ain’t.)

    Let’s rephrase. Maybe when you said a minority could be elected “only in America”, you meant only in the world that’s like America. Say, Canada, Britain, Australia and America. Forget the rest of the world. Palin didn’t even know Africa was a continent, right, and Obama made that gaffe about the 57 states of America (excuse: the past lecturer in American constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School may have been tired that day), so let’s stick to what the average American knows. Well, believe it or not, a woman (or, at least, a woman-shaped object by the name of Margaret Thatcher) was elected as Britain’s Prime Minister in 1979, when Obama had just reached voting age. The leader of New Zealand is a woman. There have been female opposition/third-party leaders in the aforementioned countries.

    [17-Nov correction: It now seems that the "Africa is a continent" statement did NOT come from Palin, but was made up by a pastiche personality called Martin Eisenstadt. Full story here. What's really interesting is that I didn't rely on a blog for this news but got it from The Register which, in turn, embedded a Fox News clip that went through the allegations. I read the text, watched the video, and deemed it legitimate enough to include in this blog. If there ever is an example of never believing what you hear -- especially from media outlets -- this is it.]

    Even in the forelock-tugging colonies, things are better than the shining city on the hill. As P Sainath, an editor with The Hindu, points out in a recent Counterpunch essay:

    India today has an upper-caste Hindu woman as President. A dalit (former Untouchable) as chief justice of its Supreme Court. A Muslim for Vice-President. A Sikh for Prime Minister. And the leader of its biggest  -  and ruling -  political party, the Congress, is Sonia Gandhi, a Catholic from Italy. The Speaker of Parliament is a godless Communist.

    And, believe me, India is not a land of unicorns and sparkles and still has a long, long, long way to go on the road to true participatory democracy, as Indians themselves will readily admit. (And for anyone reading from India, the line about it being “Asia’s oldest democracy” is also wearing a bit thin, to be honest.)

    I made the comment once on LE Modesitt jnr’s blog that I thought a problem facing America was its steadfast belief that it was/is the bestest evah country in the world. There are other countries that think that, and it’s my contention that such thinking is blinkering. If a person thinks that theirs really is the best country in the world, then what is there to change? What dissatisfactions rear their heads? Or, do you mean to say, “mine is the best country in the world, except that it doesn’t look after its sick, one fifth of its children are officially malnutritioned, our literacy rate — and percentage of women in professional positions — is behind Cuba’s, our incarceration rate is the highest in the world, our environmental record is woeful, we torture civilians, we eavesdrop on our citizens and read their email, it’s where the gap between the richest and poorest is highest, and a few other things, but it’s still the country every other country in the world should look up to”?

    I am constantly struck by a strange division in the minds of Americans I speak to. On the one hand, they know a lot of things in/about their country need changing (as with every other country in the world) but, on the other, they also simultaneously think that they are head and shoulders above every nation on the planet. This is compounded by the fact that they quite cheerfully also admit they know very little about any other country on the planet. (“Australia? Isn’t that in Europe somewhere?” “Malaysia, you say? Is that the country the rest of the world calls Indonesia?”) Am I the only one here seeing a basic example of cognitive dissonance in all this?

    I’m not saying that people should completely run down the country of their citizenship. But I do believe a degree of clear-sightedness and open criticism does the country more good than harm. As does some basic knowledge of world geography.

    It isn’t cute that people in the most armed and powerful nation on Earth don’t know the difference between Austria and Australia. Or don’t know where Iran and Iraq are. Or that minorities have been elected to leading positions in other nations or empires decades (sometimes even centuries) before it ever happened in the USA.

    It’s frightening.

  • 06 Nov

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    Category

    Reaction to a blog comment

    3

    Karen Scott’s latest blog was on the election of US President nominee, Barack Obama, to the post. And it prompted a comment from Dorothy Mantooth:

    Yes, funny how Americans turned out to not be the stupid racists so many people insist we are, isn’t it?

    And my answer to that is much longer than can be accepted as a blog comment, so I thought I’d post my reply here.

    I wasn’t keen on the election of Barack Obama for several reasons, and Mantooth’s comment is one of them. First off, let me say that there is bigotry in every country in the world. Every. Damned. Country. If I search within myself, I will admit that I hold prejudices and negative opinions about segments of various world “others” myself, no matter how rational and even-handed I try to be. I console myself with the fact that I, or my family, have been hard done by at the hands of these “other” groups, but that still doesn’t excuse me extending my default distrust to every member of that particular group when we first meet. That’s one of my personal demons and I try — or not, as the case may be — to deal with it. (Don’t think I’m talking solely about race here. One the groups that I have an instant distrust of is community child-care counsellors, for example.)

    Following on from that point, just because Obama was voted President doesn’t mean that the USA has suddenly become a haven of love and sparkles for minority groups. However, I’m afraid that a large segment of the population will use this as an excuse well into the future. “Whaddya mean, we still hate blacks? We elected one for President, didn’t we?”

    The problem is, with all this focus on race, the realisation that people voted for Obama due to other reasons is lost in the flurry. And I’m sure that several million people held their noses when they pulled that lever, rationalising that someone who was clearly intelligent, erudite and seemingly empathetic — even if he was also black — was at least better than what came before. (An indictment of true democracy, but that’s for another day.)

    In fact, I think the NAACP has a bigger job ahead of it now, because discriminatory practices in the US will continue, but it will be entwined with the kind of superior rhetoric that will diminish understanding rather than increase it. In other words, I’m waiting for this kind of comment and all its attendant consequences: “Why do we even need affirmative action programs any more? I mean, a black’s in the White House, for Chrissakes!”.

    At this point in time, I feel that the election of Barack Obama will prove to be a difficult step for one of race relations in the USA. It may even end up being a step backwards, although I hope I’m wrong. Any missteps he makes are going to be “black” missteps. Any unpopular decisions, “black” decisions. And, considering that there are very few other prominent African-Americans in the political life (how many AA governors? how many AA DAs? Senators? Congress reps?), his errors are not going to be because he’s stupid, or greedy, or short-sighted, or high as a kite, or has idiotic advisors, (all good and valid excuses for past Heads of State) but because he’s black.

    This attitude (and I can’t wait to see some of this drivel play out on Fox News as a result of Obama’s election) could very well polarise sections of society, all utterings of “everybody’s equal in America” to the contrary. Those of paler hue may feel even more threatened and become intransigently bellicose, prodded by the hateful promptings of people you know about as well as I do. (Do you honestly think they will stop their rantings? Or will it be more a case of throwing petrol on a fire?) On the other hand, you will have a black population feeling incredibly energised and enthusiastic and more willing to grasp opportunities that have (or haven’t) been presented to them before. And, at that point, my mind turns to the Hispanic population, wondering what they will have to cope with in the near future as well.

    So, in closing, while Mantooth may have felt quite smug when penning that comment, it actually does the cause of minority rights more disservice than service. A premature resting on laurels at best; a pervasive ignorance of human nature at worst. But I’m happy that she made it because it crystallised some of my own thinking.

    The attitude of Americans to the issue of race wasn’t decided on Election Day. But it will be decided in the months to come.

    POSTSCRIPT: Sorry to hear Prop 8 passed.

  • 05 Nov

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    Melodie Bolt on Radio Free Bliss

    3

    I alluded to the fact that the interview I recently had with Melodie Bolt (now up at Radio Free Bliss) was the second one, but I never mentioned it in the podcast explicitly. Here’s the story.

    I interviewed Melodie, who is a kind and gracious lady, last month. But when I went to edit the interview (after an horrendously, procrastinatingly long delay), it was a mess due to a distinct hum in the audio. And I couldn’t get rid of it without making Melodie sound like she was talking from the other side of a tinny wormhole.

    Being the great person that she was, Melodie agreed to a re-interview but that meant I had to find the source of that damned hum. I thought it was due to the little aquarium on my desk (“Curse you, aqua-scum!”). Turns out I was wrong. Vibrations from construction going on across the orchard? Nope. Vibrations from something else travelling up through my desk? Nope. Turns out it was my USB hub, which was generating some kind of feedback through my USB headset.

    Several tests with J later, we redid the interview and you have the result over at the Bliss site. Melodie has a particular penchant for dark fantasy. We talk about the social and physical tumult now gripping Michigan, her attitude towards women’s general attitudes towards science-fiction, and what new writers really really need in order to take their writing to the next level.

    Because Melodie and I had been through this whole rigmarole once before, we were a lot more relaxed this time around (as can be evinced by the amount of machine-gun cackling I do through the whole thing … sorry), which made me think that I should really do TWO interviews with each guest. Or, on the other hand, I can just try harder to emulate Studs Terkel, who was — from what I’ve read — a complete natural at the interviewing craft as well as being a terribly interesting person in his own right. He will be missed.

  • 04 Nov

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    On fatwas and tightening the grip

    0

    We’ve all heard about them. Fatwas. The one against Salman Rushdie made him famous. But what exactly is a fatwa? From About.com, we see that a fatwa is:

    an Islamic religious ruling, a scholarly opinion on a matter of Islamic law. A fatwa is issued by a recognized religious authority in Islam.

    But what’s interesting is that:

    … since there is no hierarchical priesthood or anything of the sort in Islam, a fatwa is not necessarily “binding” on the faithful

    and, of course,

    it is not uncommon for scholars to come to different conclusions regarding the same issue.

    So, the issuing of a fatwa per se is not about to unleash hordes of torch-wielding Muslims looking for someone to execute (burning at the stake is frowned upon in Islam, from what I can gather). However, as with Christians, it will introduce yet another ruling to be adhered to by the more conservatively religious families. And, as mentioned above, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility for an imam at Point A to say one thing, and an imam at Point B to say something else when both given an identical question.

    At this point, I don’t see it as being terribly different to how Christianity operates, where people tend to congregate at churches that have pastors/priests/reverends partial to their general philosophical view, and who adhere to principles not explicitly covered by the Ten Commandments based on their religious leader’s sermonised pronouncements, or interpretations, of the Commandments (Rev. Jeremiah Wright vs Pastor John Hagee, say). And, to take another example, the Vatican made littering a sin back in March, thus saving the environment from lazy Catholics.

    Malaysia, being a Muslim country, has its own Fatwa Council that’s recently decided to come out with a couple of pretty controversial fatwas. The first is on “tomboyish behaviour”. That is,

    women looking like men whether in appearance or dressing

    This means women wearing trousers, for one. The fatwa was issued to preserve the faith of Muslims and thus stop the prevalence of lesbian sex. Like conservative Christianity, Islam takes the “threat” of homosexuality very seriously. In reality, however, I’m not sure how this fatwa is going to play out. We regularly shop at what’s regarded as a “Malay shopping centre” and I see Muslim females of all ages dressed in trousers, from toddlers to grandmothers. There’s a small playground set at the McDonald’s there. Would I really prefer to see young girls in skirts flash their underwear coming down the slide, rather than be sensibly clothed in pants? In which case, will we be looking at a fatwa to ban females from playground equipment next? For their own protection, natch.

    The second is not so clear cut because the Fatwa Council is only due to give its ruling on Friday, but has shot into the spotlight due to a remark from Professor Zakaria Stapa of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia who thinks that Muslims should avoid yoga because its origins could be tracked to Hinduism and, thus, threaten a devout Muslim’s faith. After a six-month study, the Fatwa Council is due to make its conclusion public on 7 November, so stay tuned.

    The slippery slope of fatwas such as these are readily apparent to many Malaysians, who sarcastically ask whether different currencies (one for Muslims, one for non-Muslims) will be issued next, so Muslims will not have to touch money that may have been handled by, say, pork butchers. Or that, if non-Muslim practices and culture are such a danger to Muslims (as Prof Zakaria Stapa would have us believe), then not only should there should be fatwas against attending movie theatres, all amusements and most restaurants in the country, but that every other building in Malaysia should additionally have “Muslim” and “non-Muslim” entrances, just to ensure that fragile Muslims don’t get corrupted by all these foreign cultures.

    For myself, I find Muslims in Malaysia, in general, to be a relaxed, tolerant and level-headed lot. We have only ever been viewed with curiosity at worst, warmth and friendliness at best, and hostility only from one supervisor at the local JPJ (Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), by any other name) who obviously had a chip on his shoulder about foreigners in “his” country. (Come to think about it, J faced the same thing in the US DMV, from a Japanese American, so there must be something about hiring practices across the world’s Transport departments … but I digress. As usual.)

    While I can understand, to some extent, the fear that a particular population has towards popular encroachments on their “values” from people perceived as “other” (Australia has this attitude in spades), what I can’t understand is the failure of common sense from those in authority. The people who are the decision-makers in any society are usually better-educated than the norm, yet seem wilfully blind. It seems obvious to all of us that patronising the general population and deliberately forbidding a particular practice is the sure-fire way of increasing its popularity. Drugs. Rock and roll music. The Prohibition era.

    So why continue doing it? Is it because authority trumps reason? Or because the alternative is entering into an extended, and perhaps ambiguous and painful, dialogue? That attitude’s understandable as well, to be honest, but does not do justice to any idea we have that we are, in any way, superior to the rest of this planet’s inhabitants. So what if things aren’t always black and white? Isn’t that why we have brains? So we have the capacity to reason intelligently, rather than just grasp at the first knee-jerk impulse that occurs to us? Doesn’t humanity deserve better?

    POSTSCRIPT: Interestingly, I found a fatwa about reading and writing fiction. The link is here, but I thought I’d reproduce the question and answer in full for your convenience.

    Question: What is the ruling regarding reading or writing fictional stories and those which arouse the imagination? And if some of them [aid in] rectify[ing] social problems, then is this permissible?

    Response: Fictional stories are from lies which occupy the time of the writer and the reader without benefit, so abandoning busying oneself with them is preferable. And if writing and reading [fictional stories] occupies oneself from that which is obligatory then this [fictional stories] is prohibited. And if it occupies oneself from that which is recommended then this [fictional stories] is disliked. In any case, the time of the Muslim is valuable, so it is not permissible to spend it in that which there is no benefit.

    So much for increasing my readership in Malaysia and Indonesia. ;)

    (Of course I’m being facetious. There are Muslim film directors making movies in Malaysia and Indonesia, and Muslim novelists with books for sale in the local stores. I’m just going to have to fast-track my learning of the language in order to enjoy any of them!)