Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Book of theYear 2008

If I were to choose a book that I would consider as the best book that I have read this year, two names spring immediately to mind.

Jared Diamond’s Collapse – an analysis of past great civilizations that are…well, not so ‘hebat’ now or have already been wiped out except for mysterious evidence testifying to their existence (think Maya ruins and Easter Island stone heads).


Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers – a book on why some people are so successful in their lives while others struggle to make ends meet. Are they born with something that the rest of us lack? Or is it due to sheer determination and hard work?

Outliers

Both books are well written and held me captivated from beginning to end. However, Jared’s book is more academically oriented with the author needing to explain a lot on a civilization’s past, its culture, how they came up with methods of testing and data collection to support their hypothesis and that makes it slightly harder to read as compared to Outliers which was very straightforward in their examples.

For that reason, I choose Outliers as the best book that I have read this year. I’m not saying it is a better book than Collapse, don’t get me wrong, I highly recommend Collapse as well but I’ve had more fun reading Outliers.

Now, back to the question I asked earlier – are successful people born with an advantage or do they achieve their success by their own hands? The answer is both. The book is divided into two parts, Part 1 – Opportunity and Part 2 – Legacy. I’ll just leave you with an example from part 1 and who else to better measure success than one of the richest people in the world, Bill Gates. Part 2? Go buy the book ler...

This man was for most of my student life, the richest man in the world. His father was a wealthy lawyer and his mom a banker. Bill was easily bored by his studies as a child, so his parents enrolled him in a private school. As fate would have it, the school started a computer club and bought a computer terminal for $3000 funded by the school’s ‘Mother’s Club.’ What is extraordinary about this is that this is the 1960’s and computers weren’t easily affordable or plentiful.

Opportunity 1 - Bill Gates had the opportunity to do programming while still in high school!
Opportunity 2 – Computer fees were not cheap those days but the ‘Mother’s Club’ continued to raise money for the computer club.
Opportunity 3 – One of the parents from the school happened to work at a company (C-Cubed) which needed people to check on the program codes during the weekends in exchange for free programming time and Gates volunteered.
Opportunity 4 – After C-Cubed got bankrupt, another company ISI needed people to work on their payroll software and Gates jumped at the chance. In exchange for his work he got more programming time.
Opportunity 5 – Gates happened to live within walking distance of the University of Washington and they found out that the medical center and the physics department had free computer time between 3am and 6am. He would wake up at that time and either walk to the University or take the bus.

There were many more opportunities for Gates and when he dropped out of Harvard University to start up Microsoft, he already had tens of thousands of hours of programming under his belt. How many teenagers at that time can claim to have that kind of experience? He was not born a genius, but he had right opportunities presented to him at the right time and he reached for it sacrificing his sleep, comfort and also worked for free. (This is actually called the 10,000 hour rule and my friend Min Shen has written something about it on his blog... do not believe the evil part though)

This book may be a witty and smart book but it lacks something. Malcolm gives you many insightful jabs but lacks the killer punch at the end. He has challenged my thoughts and changed the way I look at life but I was hoping for something more from him at the end. Yes, I do agree there is something wrong with our system, the way we work, the way our schools are run...but I was hoping that Malcolm would be able to offer some more practical advice on overcoming these. Nevertheless, this is still a great book and I will highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good read.

Outliers

Oh...and a very Happy New Year 2009 to all of you!!!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everybody! I hope that you've all had a great time this year and may you all have a better year to come.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Wee Siang + Huy Ping (Afternoon Session)

Here are the pics from the afternoon session.





























That's all! Hope you all enjoy the photos and my congratulations and best wishes to the couple!

Wee Siang + Huy Ping (Morning Session)

As promised earlier, here are the pics from Wee Siang's and Huy Ping's wedding :) Overall, it was a very tiring day, but we all had fun. These are pics from the morning session, afternoon session coming later.


































Friday, December 12, 2008

Wee Siang and Huy Ping

Well what can I say? I've had a really busy but enjoyable weekend at Johor attending Wee Siang's and Huy Ping's marriage ceremony. Let me tell you that it is never easy taking pictures for another fellow photographer, but in the end I've had a great time! My only regret is that I didn't have more time with the couple as everything was very rushed. Here are some of the photos taken the day before the ceremony, more will be coming soon so be patient ok.




Thursday, December 4, 2008

Mutated Goat's Milk

I came across this goat's milk powder when I was doing a stock check in my outlet... See anything weird?

Jeng jeng jeng... 2 HEADED GOAT!

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Thrifty Mode

I've been spending a lot in the past few months. Not only me, but the friends around me as well...heheh. Must start being thrifty liao.
But I couldn't resist this 50% discount at Popular...RM89.90 tagged on the book, but bought at RM44.95. I guess can make an exception for books since can claim tax relief.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Dirty Tactics

Last night, I was shopping around with my gf for some household items and we stopped by this shop at City Mall to check out some kitchen stuff. The name of the shop is Frico and they have a pretty interesting touch screen induction cooker.

After a few minutes of explaining their product, the salesgirl asked us to collect our free mug. So we obliged (free thing mar...don wan meh). After filling out our details in the form, she told us to check the mug for defects. We opened the box and saw the mug was ok...no problems at all. Then she took a look at the box and said 'Oh this box have been opened by another customer already...sorry, I'll get you a new one.'

We didn't see anything wrong with the box in the first place, but we let her change a new one for us. When she gave us a 'newer' box, we opened it up and discovered there was a voucher inside.

Salesgirl : Wah...you got voucher? See see see....
Me : Passing the voucher to her...
Salesgirl : Wahhh!!! Congratulations! You got a RM1000 voucher! There's only 5 of this in Borneo you know...i can't believe how lucky you are.
Me : Err...yea kah
Salesgirl : Yea, instead of RM2999 for this package, you can buy it now for RM1999 only! Wait I call my boss first to make sure if its still valid.
(Busy calling boss...)
Salesgirl : Yes boss! We have a winner! ...ah....yessss boss..(nods)..yes boss...(nods)..yes.

By this time all the other staff were getting in on the act too. They were telling my gf how this is the first time someone has hit RM1000 voucher and even showed her the other vouchers were only RM300.

Do you believe this? Hahah, frankly I don't. My neighboring shop used to be taken by Aowa and I see them pull this same stunt over and over for every single customer. You know what's the surprising thing? Aowa's 'package' costs nearly RM5k and there are many people who are willing to pay! Their daily sales is even more than my weekly sales.

Is it wrong? Maybe... Is it illegal? Definitely not. After all the transaction is that of a 'willing seller, willing buyer.' They made you feel like a winner...everyone likes to feel like one. So what should you do in situations like this? Just do what we did...take your free gift and thank them for their time. You know I may drop by this Sunday for another mug. Heheh...


Monday, November 17, 2008

SLAP like Louis

Last Saturday I took some time out to attend the 'Shoot Like a Pro' (SLAP) workshop conducted by Louis Pang in Kota Kinabalu. Met lots of great people, learnt a lot of new things and was inspired.

Louis explaining the details of a shot he had taken earlier

Behind the scenes

The model of the day, Hong Yi (sp?)

Sorry for the unflattering angle Melvin...

I didn't manage to get many shots during the outings that we went on (fighting for space with 24 other people is not easy, lol) but I did manage to take some pointers from Louis. Specifically
1) I will shoot in JPEG and get the shot right on camera (already have too many raw files on my HDD)
2) You don't need to have 5 star locations to get good pictures.
3) If a shot is not working, don't be afraid to move on.

Though its only a one day workshop, I highly recommend this workshop for people who want to take their photography to another level. It has certainly helped me lots.

Monday, November 3, 2008

New House

Just got the keys to my new house recently. Heheh... Here are some pics.
Front View

Side View (It is a corner lot...though not much space)

Living Room
Kitchen
Upstairs
Master Bedroom
One of the bedrooms
My future neighbors

I wish I had a wider lens to capture some of the shots but then again got to save money...seems like there will be many more sleepless nights ahead. Any advice to give to a new homeowner?