Modern day pirates and old day explorers

The management of the company I work for wants all staff to delete all unlicensed software from their computers. This follows pressure from the top who themselves must have been pressured by higher authority. The higher authority may be instructed by government official to clean up or face consequences. And our government is probably acting after being pushed by certain foreign government with some threat of retaliation. To encourage creativity and entrepreneurship, those with excellent ideas and willing to take risks should be rewarded. So say the advanced countries whose main export are ideas, creativity and high-tech stuff. They produce the stuff so it’s only logical that we pay them to get the product. Those who are involved in selling software, movies or CDs without license are labelled as pirates. Fair enough. Except when you look back into history and start asking questions.

The other day I was watching a documentary on TV about the stealing of Egyptian treasures by Western collectors. Among the most prominent is the Rosetta Stone, the finding of which made it possible to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs (ancient writing using symbols). The stone is now in the British Museum in London after it was brought from France. The French took the stone together with countless Egyptian mummies to Europe during their colonisation of Egypt. One of Egypt’s own prominent scholars in Egyptology was calling for the return of the stone to Egypt because it is Egyptian national treasure and rightly belongs to Egypt. The British has so far turned deaf ears to his request. He was sad and angry because while the British could enjoy the beauty of stolen Egyptian priceless artifacts, the Egyptian themselves had been deprived of pieces of their ancient civilisation.

The theft of ancient Egyptian treasure is just one example. There are countless other treasures taken from less developed part of the world during the colonisation of these countries. Malaysia was not exempted. Many documents of historical significance to us are now jealously guarded in the major libraries of Europe. A serious scholar who would like to study about pre-Independence Malaysian history has to visit the British Library, Oxford, Cambridge or Leiden for original manuscripts. Similarly, one has to visit Britain or France to study Egyptology. God knows how much of less developed countries’ wealth was used to build their countries into advanced nation status. In old days, they might just have taken it for free knowing fully well that the uneducated natives did not appreciate the significance of their own heritage. When they came back after long journeys with all the priceless stolen items, they were hailed as great explorers and conferred titles by their monarchs.

So it’s a bit hypocritical of them now to accuse countries of the East of stealing their intellectual property when their ancestors took away our treasures as if they belonged to them. At least they should return all our priceless treasures before they ask us to pay for their ideas and so-called intellectual property. Instead, they keep it safe in their museums, claim it as their own and dare to impose fees for visitors, including the rightful owners of the artifacts, who want to see it. So next time you go shopping for VCD or computer software, bear this in mind. They have been robbing our wealth for centuries. For us, now is the time to explore.


22 May 2005

Pipeline Engineers Wanted

The rising world oil price has some good effects for people like me. Oil companies want to produce more oil and transport it to their customers. Every barrel sells at higher price and they make better margin. The big oil companies all report hefty profits. The company I work for also is expected to announce bigger profits. More fields that were not economically viable may now become more attractive for exploration and production. More development activities need more engineers.

It’s the supply and demand thing. The supply of engineers, especially those with experience, is fixed while the demand suddenly jumps. It’s not a surprise therefore a mainstream newspaper today advertises posts for pipeline engineers for two international companies – one big US company and one Middle East operator. They must be paying handsome amount of money to those qualified. I am not sure if I am qualified but the offer looks really interesting. It’s going to be a big change from my daily routine if I decide to take the plunge. A friend took the challenge more than a year ago and is now glad that he made the choice. But, on the other hand, I know many people are willing to give the world just to work for my current employer. It seems so nice looking from outside. But from within the other pasture appears greener. It’s probably normal human nature.

They say separating with your first company is like, well … your first wife. It’s difficult going from one to two, but any number after that is no sweat. The embarrassing thing later is probably when you are desperate to get back with your first wife after she has improved her figure and by then is married to your ex-gardener!

Being in this company for so long has created so huge a “comfort zone” that is almost impossible for me to leave. Yet I feel the need to make some major decisions about my career now that I have been here for more than a decade. I need to learn something new and increase the breadth and depth of knowledge in my chosen field. My learning curve here is almost flat. And with that so is my career development. I need to get involved in doing something fresh, make more contacts and see the whole wide world. I cannot let others or circumstances decide what my future is going to be. I don’t want to look back ten years from now and find myself still in the same place, with more hair on the floor than on top of my head! With so many questions demanding difficult answers in my mind it’s no wonder why the ads caught the attention of my casual browsing. Suddenly the words printed on the low quality brown paper appeared unusually attractive.


Saturday
14 May 2005

Aggression pays

Tony Blair, the British prime minister won a historic third consecutive term in the UK election held on 5 May 2005. He became the first Labour leader to return to power for third consecutive term. He was the last of the three main architects of the war against Iraq in 2003 to be reelected into government despite strong opposition to the American-led aggression in their own country and the world over. The first re-elected was John Howard of Australia, then George Bush and finally the charismatic Blair.

In addressing his nation after the victory, Blair acknowledged that he lost a lot of ground because of the split over Iraq. However, the opposition was split into the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats with the LDP gaining most of the ground lost by Labour. Based on the recent elections, the conservative Republicans in the US increased their support while in the UK support for the Conservatives had weakened.

So as far as foreign policy is concerned it is obvious that at least in the three countries, the majority of the people do not seem to mind whether their leaders attacked another country and killed more than 100,000 ordinary people as long as those people were foreigners. And they all seem to agree that the world’s largest oil producing countries – which happen to be Muslims - must be firmly under their control in order to maintain their superiority in the world. The stated justification for their continued subjugation of Muslim countries is terrorism and democracy. The real reason is control of their oil wealth. You just have to look at Saudi Arabia to prove the point. How much more democratic are the Saudis than Iraq under Saddam? But why was one country attacked with the pretext of “bringing freedom and democracy”, while the other, almost equally dictatorial, still enjoy warm relations with the world’s biggest oil consumer? And, what about countries of Africa, who don’t have much oil and still mired in dictatorship. Don’t they also deserve freedom and democracy? If the desserts of Arabia were just sand and stones would the so-called champions of freedom care whether the Bedouins are democratic? The answer perhaps will become clear when they have pumped out all the oil and all that’s left are really sand and stones. But according to current estimates, at the current rate of oil consumption, that will not happen for another 90 years. In the mean time, as far as those countries are concerned, oil is a curse to their ordinary people.

The re-election of the leaders of these Anglo-Saxon descendants prove that all their talk about freedom and democracy is only rhetoric. Deep down it is still about the struggle for control of limited resources. In our guts, we are still wild animals. And in the animal world aggression really does pay.

Saturday
7 May 2005

Harga Minyak Naik Lagi

Rakyat Malaysia terperanjat lagi. Selepas mesyuarat mingguan kabinet semalam, harga runcit minyak dinaikkan lagi sebanyak 10 sen seliter. Kenaikan ini agak mendadak kerana sebeleum ini pun sudah beberapa kali harga minyak naik. Mengikut kerajaan subsidi minyak yang terpaksa ditanggung kerajaan akan dikurangkan dan harga runcit di negara ini masih rendah jika dibandingkan dengan negara jiran. Pengeluaran minyak Malaysia sekarang ialah lebih kurang 650,000 tong sehari dan pada harga pasaran dunia 50 dolar Amerika (lebih kurang RM190 setong) pendapatan minyak Malaysia sehari ialah RM123 juta! Atau RM45 billion setahun. Kenaikan mendadak ini akan menyebabkan harga runcit barang-barang keperluan harian juga naik. Tambang bas naik. Kadar tol naik. Angin naik. Tekanan darah pun naik.

Mereka yang paling tertekan ialah yang berpendapatan rendah. Tapi apa mereka boleh buat? Dengan 90% majoriti di Parlimen, kerajaan sekarang boleh buat apa sahaja yang mereka suka, sekurang-kurangnya sehingga tahun 2008. Jadi memang sudah dijangka sebarang tindakan kurang popular akan diambil sebaik sahaja memenangi majoriti besar pilihanraya. Menjelang lima tahun akan datang rakyat akan lupa dan mereka akan dipilih semula. Betul kata Dr Mahathir, Melayu memang mudah lupa! Masakan beliau tidak tahu. 22 tahun dia memimpin bangsa yang pelupa ini. Jadi memang patutlah apa yang mereka dapat sekarang ini. Orang Malaysia sepatutnya tak perlu merungut jika semua harga Barang Naik. Mereka telah memilih BN. So, you stupid Malaysians, shut up your mouth and get back to work!

Happy 10th Anniversary

As far as my employment with this company is concerned 2nd May is very significant. On this date 10 years ago (yes! that’s right, it’s TEN, and I did not add any unnecessary 0 to it) I formally joined this company. And stuck with it ever since. After completing a post-graduate degree I was very eager to practise what I learnt at university. I opted to be transferred into this company, the research arm of our big company.

Since my days at university, I have developed interest in in-depth study of engineering problems. When described with mathematical equations, with some simplifying assumptions, physical phenomena are beautifully modeled into sets of abstract symbols and numbers. Wow! I felt like I had been given a privileged taste of God’s beauty as manifested in nature. It’s God’s work as revealed to us in the science of mathematics. I thought everybody was highly involved in high-powered cutting edge research, finding new solutions and contributing knowledge to the world. I was an idealist.