35. The girl who play Chess

 Back then in my schooling day, there was a chess match. I am just an observer, wah! the girl is so fierce, every move she made, is "Check, then she sapu the queen, castle, horse etc". You have to choose between the king and the queen.

Back in my mind, I have decided this girl should be avoided at all cost. What if she is your gf let alone wife? Consider every chess move she have proven.

Later on, some 20-30yrs passed by, she seems living happily with her husband + kids. Well, I guess I was wrong!

A few months later after the match, in another game/match the girl was so convinced that the game is hers. She been cleaning up her opponent chess board quickly. The male opponent already lost queen, castle etc... While her board still got many pieces. In the process of "shoik shoik eating" "joyful eating" her opponents, in one move. Her opponent check-mate her. Then, she was upset and talk to her mentor. I don't know what was conveyed between them. As I reflect on many2 years later,  I think that games taught her how to get a husband. What do you think?

34. 1/0 = infinity

Infinity! Back in Form 4 and 5, Mr Chai our modern math teacher asked us why is "1/0" = infinity. Why infinity?

Then he demonstrated to us

1/0.1 = 10, 1/0.01 = 100, 1/0.00000000...1 = infinity

I finally able to understand why 1/0 = infinity rather than remembering it as a fact.

33. My Hobbies KPI for parents, Kids, close relative and Friends

 18th June 2024.

In one of the gathering with friends. The parent (of our ages+10 years) spoke about how she managed to get her kids to grow up in sports (swimming). She said it was tiring to fetch them here and there for training, paid for coaches (small sum back then) in the end they represented the country at junior level for swimming events. They also did well in studies. Now, as they have grown up, they start earning part time by teaching swimming. A sign of contentment. Then the complaint begin "well i dun dare to involve them in my activities". I asked do u know how to swim? Aiyah! Useless lah, my son never teaches me.! dunno how to teach me etc etc....

Well, at this point in time, I felt there is a great disservices from her child. Well, it is their family business. However, after reflecting for 1 - 2 years, as I recalled b4 writing this. I have a new KPI.

"Whatever hobbies I do, my parents + kid + close relatives + friend (in descending priorities) , should have a taste of it. If I've climb mt tahan, they should at least climb Sg Long etc etc. " Unless they are not interested. Something 4 U to think about!

29. Assigning Different Assignment Question to Student Automatically.

 

Problem.

In large classes with over 100 students, assessment plagiarism is a problem. One way to resolve it is to have examination in an exam hall. Anything that is not done in an exam hall, there is a tendency for some student to copy.

The situation can be so bad that in some private universities, student will only do work during contact hours (lab, lecture and tutorial hour). The only way for them to learn more is to give after contact hour assessment such as take home test or assignment. It may not be graded but during lab hour they will be tested/quizzed on what they did for their assignment. However, this is less effective, as most student will not put in their effort in anything that is not graded and in this scenario, they may just simply do their quiz.

One effective way for student to learn is to give them an assignment where the student is forced to work out the solution for a pre-long period of time so that they can indirectly learn from it. This assignment should be zebra type assignment, where the student can self-test whether their solution is correct or wrong. For example in Computer Science,

a)      built a network using Cisco Packet Tracer with 5 routers.

b)     Build a 4 bit counter with a count sequence of 5->10->15->2 (repeat).

However, the student will copy their assignment from each other. Thus, the examiner must give a lot of different questions. If an examiner has 500 students with 100 questions, each question is done by a group of 2 students, keeping a record of which student doing which question can be tedious. There is a better solution to solve this problem.

Solutions.

Each student indirectly has some random variable such as birthday, student ID, National ID, Passport No, Gender, Race, Home State, HomeTown, Country etc. Hash function can also be used to ensure uniform distribution. If it is a single student, the question assignment can be in the following form

a)      Sha256(STudentID, Birthday) % (No of question) = Question No

b)     (studentID)%No of question =Question No. Variable on the question will depend on the student Birthday.

A complete example will be as followed.

If your student ID ends with "0", you suppose to do 5R10.pka If your student ID ends with "1", you suppose to do 5R1.pka If your student ID ends with "2", you suppose to do 5R2.pka If your student ID ends with "3", you suppose to do 5R3.pka If your student ID ends with "4", you suppose to do 5R4.pka If your student ID ends with "5", you suppose to do 5R5.pka If your student ID ends with "6", you suppose to do 5R6.pka If your student ID ends with "7", you suppose to do 5R7.pka If your student ID ends with "8", you suppose to do 5R8.pka If your student ID ends with "9", you suppose to do 5R9.pka   All PCs are connected to f0/0 port. All IP addresses must start with "2" The first 2 digits of your IP address is based on your birthday Let said your birth day is 4th Dec 2000 Then the IP address for the whole network will be 204.12.X.X   Let said your birth day is 12th July 2000 Then the IP address for the whole network will be 212.7.X.X All the last digit of the Router IP for all interfaces will follow the Router No!. R1 f0/0 = 212.7.1.1 R2 f0/0 = 212.7.2.2 R3 f0/0 = 212.7.3.3 R4 f0/0 = 212.7.4.4 R5 f0/0 = 212.7.5.5   All PC IP will end with 100. E.g. PC1 IP = 212.7.1.100   If R1 is Connected to R2, then the IP will be 212.7.12.1 (R1) and 212.7.12.2 (R2)   If R3 is Connected to R2, then the IP will be 212.7.23.1 (R1) and 212.7.23.2 (R2) (start with the smaller digit). The network mask is 255.255.255.0   Special Cases, If your birthday falls on 24 - 31st, Then you must deduct 20 days from your birthday. For example., your birthday is 26th Feb 2000, (minus 20 days will be 6th feb 2000) then the IP address you use should be 206.2.X.X

 

If it is a group assignment consisting of two person, a lot of variation can be done

a)      Question No = (StudentID 1 [+,x,^] StudentID2 )%NoOfQuestion

b)     Question No = sha256(studentID1,studentID2)%NoOfQuestion

Etc.

In this way, student cannot copy directly from their friend. However, they can look at their friend’s solution and try to implement the same approach into their assignment. They are also encouraged to discuss their assignment with their friends. Given, the enormous amount of effort required to do the assignment, it is quite unlikely to have someone else to do your assignment.

However, this kind of scenario is only possible for certain subjects in Computer Science such as

Digital Logic Circuits (varies between different Boolean Function, Count Sequence, Flip-Flop Type, IC type)

 Computer Network (Varies the network topology, IP address, interface type and protocol type)

Programming Subject (Varies between different type of programming question for example in MicroP programming classes)

Q22. The 32 bits value stored in 0x2000 till 0x2000 + 36 is actually the date in BCD format. For example, MMDDYYYY,  for example 0x11221972 is represented as 22nd November 1972. If the date format is valid, store “1111” in 0x2100 till (0x2100 + 36). Else store “2222” in 0x2100 till (0x2100 + 36). Q23. The 32 bits value stored in 0x2000 till 0x2000 + 36 is actually the date in BCD format. For example, YYYYMMDD,  for example 0x19230523 is represented as 23rd May 1923. If the date format is valid, store “1111” in 0x2100 till (0x2100 + 36). Else store “2222” in 0x2100 till (0x2100 + 36). Q24. The 32 bits value stored in 0x2000 till 0x2000 + 36 is actually the date in BCD format. For example, YYYYDDMM,  for example 0x19231503 is represented as 15th March 1923. If the date format is valid, store “1111” in 0x2100 till (0x2100 + 36). Else store “2222” in 0x2100 till (0x2100 + 36). Q25. The 32 bits value stored in 0x2000 till 0x2000 + 36 is actually the timestamp in BCD format. For example, 00:HH:MM:SEC. For example 0x00233435 is represented as 23 hour 34 min 35 second. If the time format is valid, store “1111” in 0x2100 till (0x2100 + 36). Else store “2222” in 0x2100 till (0x2100 + 36).

 

For other subjects may require some form of creativity is required to varies different type of question from a similar problem.

Assessment Problem.

1.      The difficulty of each question is not uniform

2.      If the solution is correct it is easy to verify, however if the solution is incorrect then it may be very time consuming to check. Thus, it may be best to give a slightly easier problem so that it is achievable for majority of the students. For example, instead of 4 bit counter, reduced it to 3 bit counter.

3.      It may not be possible to give answer to all solutions. It is only possible after one round of teaching.

4.      The examiner does not want to do extra work or don’t have the creativity to create many questions.

 

Key summary

1.      Student are forced to do their assignment

2.      Most of the assignment cannot be copied but the approach is similar where student can learn from each other by looking at each other solutions.

3.      It also encourages discussion/self-teaching among all student.

 

28. Stages in Trail Clearance

Negative Stage: Totally unknown or forgotten. Nobody know about it, example secret tree, waterfall, caves, plane crash site, forgotten historical land mark (KKB train to Bukit Kutu) yet to be discovered. (for mount peak:- It can be easily detected and seen from below). In this case, the target is unknown.

Stage 0: Target GPS location is known but then no known trail to reach the destination. There are plenty of them. Just use google map terrain, find an un-named peak you want to go and start exploring. For waterfall, it is much harder, you need to go to a slightly bigger forest with at least 500m peaks. Then, you have to look for valley in the terrain and just hike there hopefully you hit a jackpot.

Stage 1: Someone has reached the peak/destination. But the trail is still not properly marked and not clear properly. Remain a trade-secret for those who “cari makan”. E.g Trans Batu!

Stage 2: GPX is recorded and distributed. Experience hiker can reach the destination following the GPX. However if there is a landslides along the GPX then big detour, If massive tree fall then a slight detour. If there are massive brushes overgrown such as paku-pakis and bamboo tree. Then, extensively cutting is required. Hikers seldom goes to these mountain as there are generally not so popular. (E.g Trans Meranti, Bah Gading)

Stage 3: Trail is properly marked with ribbon cable and 90-95% of the trail is clear, almost no cutting is required.  Most popular mountain are like that. E.g Trans Naning

Stage 4: Super highway (Nuang, Gunung Hitam, ANSI, Datuk, Bukit kutu Etc)

Stage 5: Community hill. (SACF, APEX Hill, Wawasan, Sg Long.) 

The problem in Stage 4-5 are

a)      Most hikers would like to create short cuts + connecting route here and there.  It may be confusing for hikers who are new to the hill.

b)     Soil erosion on the trail due to excessive number of hikers. The trail should not be created on the steepest one (water tends to flow here) but it should be created on the 2^nd steepest one.

c) Cannot throw paper marker or kena curse, if U 1 2 contribute, make some sign board at each junction to remove hiker confusion.

For most mountain, it will go back and forth between Stage 2 and 3, during monsoon session or puasa month, some mountains are deserted. Thus, some part of the trails will be overgrown with bushes. There is a need to bring hikers to hike in periodically. During hiking paper marking may be needed so that hiker won’t get lost. The trail can be done on the steepest terrain as the water flow maybe helpful in preserving the trail. The trail should be made on shaded route as bushes tend not to grow on shaded route. On an unshaded route, be prepared to cut again every month if there is less hiker.

For Serdang Hill (beside MEX highway), Putrajaya, Bukit 527, the trail look like Stage 2.

27. What I put in my car for hiking?

1)     Spare clothing

2)    Slippers 

3)     Big size cotton clothing (old t-shirt) covering the front seat (driver + side passenger). Use to absorb those hiking dirt and sweat and collect dust. Once reach home just take out the T-shirt from the car seat and throw inside washing machine.

4)     4x 1.5 liter fresh water stored in 100+ bottle. For washing and bathing after hiking!

5)     Changing Tent! I use the changing tent for bathing as well! Just flush away all the body sweat and odour with fresh water. I have an almost-cleaned and dry body after hike. I seldom see hiker use a changing tent. They just have a wet underwear all the way home.

https://shopee.com.my/Camping-Changing-Tent-XL-Auto-Pop-Up-Outdoor-Waterproof-Privacy-Toilet-Shower-Bath-Fitting-Barang-Tandas-Khemah-Solat-i.868272385.18949694491?sp_atk=c84d8055-fb7b-442b-ba15-b53ce6c96e3a&xptdk=c84d8055-fb7b-442b-ba15-b53ce6c96e3a

6)     Big Plastic nylon bag to put all the wet clothing and dirty shoes.

23. Number of Important Contributions Per author

 There are many blogs with few hundreds of articles. If U wrote which argument U get into, what food U eat etc, your writing is infinity. However, I will be doubtful about the impact of your writing. Most users just want specific contents, thus a proper article classification is required so that search/filtering is available. What I want is, U search website found my article, U read my article, U get to know something and translate it into action. U R done. There is no need to come back.

In any scientific contribution, a scientist is known by their few main contribution such as Einstein : E = mc2 ,   Netwon : F = MA, Survival biases : Abraham Wald.

For a single person, their intellectual contribution (useful article) to the society is few. Thus, I will just write what I think it is useful. For me, if I see someone written tonnes of articles with lengthy nice wording, I will assume the information content is very low and may not worth the ROI to read it.

 

22. The Changing Trend in Amateur Sports : Running, Cycling, Hiking

 Back in 1980s, 1990s and perhaps early 2000s, people participate sports just for the joy of it. Most of them will be “Hangat2 tahi ayam” approach, where they will come on and off to train. They just come for the joy of it, because there are some company and nothing else.  However, recently I do see things are changing rapidly among those amateur sport takers.

Many of them take sports seriously, if they are in running, they are more than willing to go through a long challenge. Starting from 10km, over the years they will progress to marathon and some to trail running and ultra marathon.

In every distance, they come with a mind to set their personal best. Sub-5, Sub-4 marathon. Damn they take it competitively and seriously. They will come for training every week. They are more serious than you. Young, old, auntie, uncle, grand pa, grand mum they came for training and will certain train and run much faster than you.

The Chinese are more to running and Hiking. As far as cycling, some of the Chinese are a bit reluctant to fork out the capital$ to buy a road bike + accessories (which cost RM3 – 5K) and other are a bit fearful on the safety side of cycling. The malay they are more dominant in cycling. They have a higher willingness to spend $$ and willing to take more risk. On top of that, they like to be associated with an expensive road bike and fancy attire.

The number of cycling and running event have been on the rise so far. Every week there is a running event. Not only that, it is also expanded to Trail Running, Hiking Group etc. The number of event I think it is 3-5x more than what we have in year 2010. (10 years ago).

Even in badminton, people will go from matches to matches. Every year, each club will have 1-2 annual competition. With around 10 clubs, you will have at least 10 badminton competition to go for every year. Parent will be more than willing to send them for competition. In the end, those that came out strongly in every sports are those from sport groups. There are various running, hiking, cycling, badminton etc groups in Klang Valley. Each group are leaded by inspiring leaders who has a deep interest in their sports. Some goes to the extend to hire badminton coach to teach themselves in their 40s. The main purpose is to raise the level of their game so that they can keep up with others and have more fun.

 

21. Why Black People run faster, White People Swim faster?

Back in my school days, one of my coach told me that Black People have a denser bone, so physically they are born with a strong skeleton system which can hold together their muscle and body mass stronger than the rest of the people. So, whenever they run they can run faster than the rest. However, since their bone is denser, whenever they swim their body will sink and create a big drag. That why U C in Olympic 100m run most/all are black in color and in swimming event all is white/yellow color.

Once can always count argue that black are generally poor and there is no access to swimming pool other than river, pond and seas. Swimming may cost $$ in certain country, googles, fin, etc. Then it is a technical sport because water is 780x denser than air. Good coaching for improved swimming skill is required so that one can swim with less drag. Well, the argument goes on.  Running is free and running skill is pretty much established in africa. For more than 30 years, I did not progress with this theory, a theory without any verification. Then one fine day, I came across an article in a medical journal. That somewhat confirm my coach statement. 30 years confirmation. In summary,

“The prevalence of osteoporosis is influenced by ethnicity and race. African Americans have both lower rates of osteoporosis and higher bone mass. However, the consequences of fracture are not lower in this ethnic group. Mortality after hip fracture is higher among African American women than among white women [22].Mar 23, 2011”

The full article can be found below.

 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3111798/

that what I want in life, not just theory2 only. Confirmation!==> then in become a FACT.

20. "Won't do issue" vs "Can't do issue"

 Long ago, I overheard my boss conversation with another boss over a company meal. The discussion focus on how to get their employees to perform. So, he said it all boil down to 2 issues which is “Won’t do issue” and “Can’t do issue”.

In “Can’t do issue”, the employee does not have the skill to perform the required job thus you should give him more training and opportunity to learn. You must get to the bottom of this and properly assess whether the employee have the required skill to perform that job.

In the case of “Won’t do issue”, the employee does not want to do it. It may due to “attitude problem” or “remuneration problem”.  Their conversation stopped there. The rest of the details below is my own interpretation.

First, one should properly assess their employee potential. What they are capable of and what they are not? Then only address the won’t do issue. For attitude problem, it is may be due to fairness or ego issue. This has to be addressed at company level. For remuneration problem, perhaps the incentive structure is wrong. For example, a big Telco operator would like their staff to be certified in Cisco CCNA certification but most of their staff is reluctant to do so. Well, the manager can say it is part of their KPI but then not concrete came out from that. I told them just make a new scheme, “Certification Allowance of RM100 per month”, then every staff will get their certification done without much issue.

So what is the worst case scenario? Over the years, I came to a conclusion for a nasty situation. Let assume it is Mr X. Mr X is not capable of doing the task begin assigned to him. Yet not only he grabs the task and prevented others from performing it, he also boasted that he knows all the stuff. Then he will assign the task to his lower sub-ordinate. He will not be able to properly supervise them. Then, in case the job get partial done, he won’t remunerate his lower sub-ordinate and take all the credit. This is a typical mid-level manager in Malaysia. So, it is “Can’t do and won’t do + lie (won’t tell U the truth) Issue”.

18. ZI Wei Dou Shu A waste of time.

 It is a great waste of time studying something where the opportunity to apply it is limited. Many people are scared to disclose their date and time of birth (compulsory element in Zi Wei Dou Shu fortune telling calculation). Some scare that you’ll make witch craft (I bet even if I study 10 Phd I won’t be able to do it). Other simply felt it is a breach of their privacy. More than 50% will give a hypocrite answer or action, “Oh I don’t believe in fortune telling”, yet they did not disclose their details.

 So, you end up with a limited set of people who are willing to provide you with such data. Therefore, your ability to practice it is limited. Most of the time, it will be self-experimenting whether your own life calculation is right or not. One of the important things, is to have a brief characteristic of people behaviour especially those who you are dealing with frequently. Well, in this case, physiognomy (Facial fortune telling) will be a better option. Aiyah! Got to study again.

16. Saucony 30km 4th August 2019 . Personal Race Report.

A day before a group of students promised to come to a class, at 9 am. I planned out everything, as I switched on the car, the car cannot start due to a battery problem. Damn, I got to rush to my office. Well, let cycle there, just about 40 mins cycle I can still reach there. I thought I was late, and then when I pump and cycle to the office, there is no student. All of them FFK, (let go airplane), shit. I should have called the GrabCar service. Then I won't be so tired.

So, on the way I cycled back, I took my breakfast at the food court and went to a car workshop. I asked them to come to my house to fix the car battery at 10 am. Well, I the boss, my workers haven' t arrived yet, they are still Zzzz. I think they will come at 11-12 am. OK.lah. No choice I have to wait for you.

Later at 11:45, he came to change the car battery. The car was functioning again. I told him what happened to his worker, well their family are too rich. Even if I deduct their salary, they will still be more than willing. Every month I deduct RM300/-, they don't feel any pain. Otherwise, how do you find workers? Soon after he left, there was heavy rain.

Then I went and collected the race kit. I was thinking of selling off my BIB as my hamstring is still pulling. Then I tried to find out more information, whether there is a luggage keeping facility, where to park the car for the race. I cannot find such information. I asked for help in Alam Damai Whatup group, and someone forwarded me with the info. Later I filed a complaint at the Saucony FB page.

"very poor organizer. No road block information, where should we park our car. WHich route will be closed on that day.  this information not given. No luggage drop off for participants. Shit organizer. Later i found out the info in https://www.facebook.com/Mysportsdiary/posts/1289859947855489

You want to give info, give properly lah. Don;t give one piece here and there. Hell finding these informations. You put it at https://www.ticket2u.com.my/…/127…/saucony-run-malaysia-2019 then habis cerita lah. Lucky I know some runner, if not tomorow, i may missed out something.

"

36 hours b4 the race, I took calcium and magnesium pills. Sleep early at about 10:30pm. Set my alarm at 3:50 am. Then around 2:30 am I woke up. WTF, I want to wake up at 3:50 mah! Not now. Then, I sleep again at 3:00 something! Got alarm mah. But the bell did not ring!

"When I woke up, damn it was 6:30 am. The run starts at 5 am. Worst, I forgot to lock the side gate; some foreign workers went into my house to sleep at my couch. Damn, I have to kick them out. What should I do? Then I don't know what happens?"

Then I woke up again it was 4:25 am. Thank god it was a bad dream!. Thank god for giving me a 2nd chance. I rushed to the car. Damn, the car did not start again! WTF. I just changed the battery yesterday. Don't tell me I have to cycle again. Oh! I just put the gear in park mode then the car can start. It is a vehicle safety feature. Thank God.

Then I rush to the race location, put some deep heat on the hamstring. Hopely I can last for 30 km without hamstring. Well, no hamstring but cramp elsewhere. Well, I learned my lesson from my last marathon. I need to control my pace. So I keep it with 6min to 6:20 per km. when my pace is 5:50 and below I tried to slow down. I was able to keep this pace till 21km. Then I started to bonk.! Damn, it must be due to the cycling done yesterday which I have yet to recover. I was trying to make

sure I do not pull my hamstring, so my running is compensated with other muscle groups. Some parts of your muscle which you never think it will cramp started to cramp. This experience is worse than my previous marathon. Then my feet cramped cannot move at all. So later, when the cramp recovered, I tried to run 50 meters and walk 20 meters. It was working for a while. Then at KM 22, the 3hr:15min (30km) pacer went past me for the last time. I thought 3:15 is gone lah.

Then during a downhill, I ran too fast and did not recover from that. From the last 28 km, I virtually walk to the finish line. Then I reached 30km on my watch, damn the finish line is still 500m away. Damn, later the clock show it was 30.62km. My time was 3:41. Well off my initial target 3:15.

Later I saw my Alam Damai runner friend. I asked what is your time 2:47 or 2:57 I cannot recall. He said "Why so slow?". In my mind well, I run much faster than you wow! During the ADR interval training. How come you finished so fast?. Later I found out, while they took their group photo I was still running!

Now I learned my lesson, only 1 big event every month. Max 2 events but must be 2 weeks apart. Before any event, I will have sufficient rest and don' t get injured. I must start to do some weight training as my muscle is not strong enough and can get injured easily. I planned to do more BRICK training such as cycle for 1.5 -2 hours and run for 1 hour after that. It's less damaging for my leg. 


Let hope; I can achieve my dream sub-4 hour marathon — still a long way to go. Later on Tuesday, some of the Alam Damai runners did hill interval after 30km run. Well how can their body standard such a work-out, my whole leg is still in aching pain. I guess my age is catching up.

15. Why certain stall’s food is always fresh?

June 09, 2019
Some food operator depends on supplier to supply them the raw fishes, prawn, vegetable and etcetera. Some go to NSK supermarket, pasar borong etcetera to buy themselves directly. Some do half-half, where certain things they took from suppliers, specific things they will go market to buy themselves. Unless you are a restaurant with a guarantee payment to supplier and willingness to pay for a higher price most likely, you will not get fresh raw material.

Good food operators must source their critical raw material themselves and do not depend on supplier delivery. There was one Char Kuey Teow Seller whose mee is very delicious because all the crucial ingedient like prawns, cockles, bean sprouts are fresh. He goes to market almost every day to get his supply. In the past, he used to get it from a few suppliers, but the freshness is not guaranteed. It only takes one or two stocks of spoilt prawns, then most of his customer is gone.  Thus, in the end, he had given up on suppliers and sourced it by himself. The rest like noodles he can source from suppliers. Going to the market may involve extra cost and effort. Imagine your stall open at 8 am,  you need to prepare by 7 am. Thus you may need to go market at 5 am to source the material. So, some buy expensively from the nearby supermarket, freeze it and then give you a smaller prawn. Others may give you alternative meat.

On top of that, the operators are not greed. They roughly know their daily sales and most of the time there is very little wastage, all food is sold out. There is a high probability that you will not get an overnight prawn or cockles. I wonder which seller is willing to go through these extra miles to deliver their food.

14. Pointless argument or debate

In the past, I used to argue or debate with people. The debate is mainly used to get my point across on specific issues and occasions. Some debate can go seriously fierce until no more friendship. However, since 2015, years have passed and I begin to see there is no point in arguing. No matter how logical is it pointless, as in a conversation, most people already made up their minds about what they want to convey and their listening preferences. There is little hope in convincing them. All they want is freebies, SHOW OF POWER AND EASY WAY OUT. Roughly from my experience, only 5% of all casual conversation can accept a friendly debate.

My brief experience tells me that if you disagreed with someone (especially those rich and experience one) on a particular topic.  They will briefly ignore you and quietly move on to another topic. Most will think that it is counter-productive to argue with you.  However, if you are ready for a full debate (non-personal issue, no personal attack), I always on, just let me know. We are still friends after that.  I also have a policy,

a)       If you are not interested, I will stop talking immediately and quickly.
b)      I ‘m not here to convince you about my belief. You are free to believe whatever you want. However, there is little evil in my mind to cast doubt on what you believe or practice?

There are many issues such as religion, special rights, discrimination, corruption etc. Each group, parties, religion, interest group etc have the burning desire to debate, to prove their point and “jihadist” their idea. Thus, two opposite views should not confront each other as one can never change the other. It only leads to wars and fighting. In most cases, there is no point in a logical debate as everyone has an unshakeable belief on how things should work.

13. Carbon 60 Olive Oil.

Hi,

There are some studies on Carbon 60 Olive Oil. There are many claims that C60 will extend the life of rats. In 2012, there is a study that extends the life of rat by 2x. You can refer to the video here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLZS1WQl_1E&t=2s

For complete information, you can refer to the list of videos here.
https://www.youtube.com/user/kjohnson1701/videos


Anyway, if you 've run out of option, why don't you give yourself a try!
Good luck.

12. Friend are hopeless! How to solve it?

All the while, I thought if I want to do anything, I ask my friend to join me. Perhaps, I ask the wrong friend. I invite my old friend (>10years) to join me for swimming, cycling, hiking. None of them join me despite repeated requests. Let alone doing business (buy/sell/etc) with them. So, you will have to join strangers for your activities. What went wrong here?

Friends are specific. Colleagues, Universities Mate, School Mate, Kampung Mate, Interest group mate etc. Each of you become friends because of some condition and remains intact (stay in the group) for the same reason.

I have a friend Mr. A who use to sell goods on eBay. Mr. A told me 99.5% of his customers are strangers. There is one customer who is his old friend Mr. B, Mr. B found out from eBay that Mr. A is selling some stuff off his interest. Mr. A did not promote it to Mr. B in the first place.

So how to solve this problem. Let said you want to do travel backpacking, but none of your friends want to go with you.

Rule 1: Find, locate, join and cultivate “Interest Specific Friend/Group.”

The solution is “Interest Specific Friend” and Meetup group. For me I like hiking, so I join https://www.meetup.com/KLhiking/  . Anything to do with hiking, I will make friends with people from this group and join them. The rest of friend I can almost forget about them because 99% of them will not be interested.

However, Old friends are friend mah! So, I will briefly inform/self-advertise a bit here and there on facebook on which nice adventure I went. When they ask, I point them the answer. https://www.meetup.com/KLhiking/

Rule 2: I already briefly told you what I have done and my interest. If you ask, I will tell you more.

So, now I am more interested in forming some interest-specific friends such as running, cycling, swimming, research group, religious group and hiking. I assume they don’t cross border. Cyclists will remain as cyclists etc. Nevertheless, rule 2 still applicable.

All my life, I been wasted my time trying and hoping to develop interest among my friends. Since I have found Rule 1, I also found rule 3&4

Rule 3: Interest are not nurtured; they came out naturally.
Rule 4: Interest-based on greed come out naturally, but they won’t last and it’s the first to go.

So, if U 1 2 come along (rule 4), pay your bills. I ‘m not going to pay for your free holiday. $$ is better used for donation to the needy.

It all goes back to the same premise (specialization), if you want to eat good chicken rice, go to a shop that sells only chicken rice and not economy rice stall.

11. Hiking Checklist.

My own rough checklist for hiking

Hiking checklist

Cap. Helmet is caving

Spec, spare

Spec tie

Sun glasses

Mask : volcano

Warm clothing : cold mountain

Long sleeves shirt

Rain coat,

Whistle

Emergency blanket

Spares in car: T-shirt, tower, trousers, underwear, sarung, slippers, water to wash hand, shoes, baths,

Shoes

Gloves

Drinks

Food

Sweets

Headlamp, battery

Emergency kit: plaster, cotton

Salt, activated carbon, calsium, magnesium pill.

Knife

Match

Rope

Lighter

Permit: Emergency contact no.

Plastic bag,

Fly sheet

9. 5 pillars for successful career in sports. 1st Oct 2018

From all I knew today 2018, I wish I could have gone back to early 1980 to tell myself about all these. Having known all these upfront may have made me a more successful sportsman rather than a not so successful athletic track and field runner. My personal best is 50.8 for 400m at the age of 23. In this article, I assume one has all the basic required resources needed such as coaching, sufficient funding etc. If you find this article useful to your younger child, relatives, friend etc, do forward them this article. I hope it helps.

First is Genetics:

When I first started seriously running in 1986 at 14 years old, I realized that I could never beat the school sprinter (Khairul and RizalSham) 100m. No matter how I train, I can never beat them. They have all the given genetics to do well. Khairul does not need much training, all he needs to do is keep healthy, not overweight and practice 2-3 weeks before the competition and nobody in school can beat him. So, I don’t have the genetics for sprinting, let forget it. Focus on some other thing.

Second is Effort:

Then I realize what if I run 400m like 100m sprinting. I was more than willing to take up the effort in endurance work. Finally, with 1-year training, I made it in 400m, nobody in school can beat me in it. I think this success is also the biggest mistake and attachment I have for the rest of my life and worst have indirectly prevented me from doing other events. I stayed in 400m until the end of my running career. The only innovation I made is genetics + effort. The effort part will automatically filter out 90% of the potential competitors because they prefer to “lepak” / do nothing. Watch TV etc at home.

Let do a simple calculation to illustrate my idea.

Let me assume there are 1,000,000 people around my age group. I will be able to beat 90% of them in 100m. So there are, 100,000 people within the same age group who can still beat me in 100m.


From these 100,000 people,  let said only 1% are willing to train for years and endurance work. My training years are 1986 till 1996. I have plenty of spare time to compete. Thus, I will be completing these 1000 people for years to come. Therefore, this is an easy qualification for me to represent the district or state school level representative in Malaysia.

Third is Skill

Back in 1987, I often visited Kg Pandan Sport complex. I saw Rabuan Pit, Ishtiaq Mubarak, Nur Herman Majid, Hanipiah Nasir, etc. However, I hardly talk to them. Going back in time, I should have at least approach them. I was just too shy and dumb ashes (period). One thing I observed in 1988, is that in High jump, hurdle, pole vault, throw event is usually dominated by the same group of people for a duration of 5 – 15 years depending on which athletic you are referring to. Every year you see the same person will the state event and he went on to compete with the same group of people from another state. Thus, skills may be another factor to consider

A 100m runner may be able to beat many sprinters if he trains consistently for years, but then he may not be able to beat Rabuan Pit. His best maybe around 10.8 or 10.9 in 100m. That the best he can do. However, for him to be successful if he could recognize it earlier, he could start training for 110m hurdles before the age of 15-16, then probably he may be able to perform as a 110m national hurdler.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_Schwarthoff

On average, if one perfected his hurdling skill, it will take about 3 seconds away from his 100m time. If he can run 11.0 in 100m, perhaps he can run 14.0 in 110m hurdle. It is the timing for gold medalist SEA games for 1987-1991.

The mistake I made is

1.     I lazy and lack of patience to learn hurdling. The drills involve jumping here and there around the hurdle with no particular reasons for maybe at least six months to 2 years before you start to win any medal at the state level. At the same time, I have to do my heavy intervals for 400m. Like 6x300m etc. I need to spare one hour per day, three days per week for the drills. I begin to doubt the initial ROI as I already got 400m mah.

2.       I also scared of falling down, hitting the hurdle.

Moreover, the coaches are right there at Kg Pandan. I just dumb ashes.

Let do a simple calculation to illustrate my idea.

From the remaining 1000 people, let said only 20% of them have coaches to teach them hurdling, effort to learn and patch up their skill for at least two years. Then, there are only 200 people left to compete against you. Thus, if you are a state-level 100m,400m runner, you almost upgrade yourself to be a national 110m hurdle or 400m hurdle runner (if you are willing to spend 2-3 years perfecting the hurdling skill).


Lately, in 2018, I got involved in swimming. I also found that swimming is very technical in nature.


Fourth is Interactive.

Track and Field event generally is non-interactive sports where individuals are competing against themselves. In interactive games, like racquet games. You decide to hit the ball in one direction. Your opponent has to pick it up. I read the book when I was 20+, “The WAY of a champion.”

Eddy chong wrote this. Maybe your badminton opponent can jump 2 feet higher than you to smash. However, he cannot jump 20 feet to smash. Then I realize how wrong I was sticking to track and field. Your opponent may have 2x your stamina, but in the game, if you can make him run all over the court. You can still beat him. Every moment, as one hit the ball, it’s a game of skill, effort and intelligent. Thus, badminton is more interesting.

Well, during my late teen years, I always read the review “How carl Lewis lost his 100m to Ben Johnson in 1988, as he turns to look at Ben when he ran?”.Carl eventually won as Ben Johnson cheated on the race by using drug. I also read the review “How Dr M. Jegathesan focus beat C Kunalan in 100 m 1966 Asian games”? All these are nice plus interesting but super short. Ten seconds and it’s all done. But when I come to think of it. It is no match compared to a simple badminton game between LCW and Lin DAN where every point count or how they approach the game every moment counts.

 Fifth is TEAM work

Lastly, sports that involve teamwork. Well, you can be an exceptional player, but in a football team, the whole game depends on everybody. You can have all the four qualities mentioned above; now you need other players to have the same qualities as you and most importantly, willing to cooperate with you to win the game. For example, CHINESE athletes are good in individual and two-person team games; however, in large team events such as hockey and football. They did not perform well as compared to Korea and Japan. In Malaysia, I do foresee team event is a bit problematic.


Conclusion

Maybe I should write more and explain further. In the first three pillars, most of the time, you can practice on your own. Hurdling drills, you can DIY. With youtube, you can learn the skill by yourself. If you can get a coach even better, or you can video your drills, jump, run, swim and send it to someone for review. With technology and some $$$, you can even get an Olympian to review your video. We Asians are small in size; without skill, you can never be an Olympic medalist. (period).Thus, in every sport, you must have at least the first three pillars.


In interactive sports, you may need to find a team to practice with e.g. Badminton club. You cannot practice with a wall. That is a major drawback, especially for rural areas where the sport is not popular. Thus like it or not, champions will come from city areas. In badminton, I do see some hope, however in other sports not much hope. I will explain more in another article.

8. Mountain Hiking (general experience)

Blog 8. 7th August 2018

Since small, I like to hike, but I was not given the opportunity to do so. There is no Internet access in the 80s and early 90s. Not much information about hiking is available for the general public.

In 1994, I managed to join some of my USM mates to go for some hike such as Taman Negara and Gunung Tahan. After graduating in 1996, I did not go for any climb even though I wish could. Perhaps, I did not really look for them and most of the time there is no advertisement. I briefly heard of Persatuan Mendaki Malaysia, but beyond hearing, I did not do much. If I actively search around, I should be able to find some. However, I can' t depend on my friend as there are not hiking kaki.

The main problem in 1996 – 2000 is I did not find any group or partners to do the mountain hiking stuff. Then I 2001, I saw my university student club OARS MMU organizing some mountain hiking activities, I just said I am interested and followed them to various hike in 2001 – 2005/06, I went to Gunung Korbu, Gayong, Irau, Brinchang, Gunung Batu Putih, Nuang, Ansi. I think that about it. In 2002, I managed to climb Mountain Kinabalu.

After that, when the old batch of the hardcore student left, the new group of students like leisure activities more. They like to go Pulau Pangkor,  camping at a waterfall and snorkeling kind of trip. No STIM. So I left them without much thought in 2005/2006. I think my last trip with them is on Gunung Batu Putih 2003-2006. I can't recall which year.

Then there were some other priorities coming along the way, ding dong here and there without any goal on hiking, time passes just like that it's one decade already in 2017 until I first joined KL hiking group in July 2017. Aiyah, why didn't I find them earlier? The group was created in 2011. I missed six years of trekking. Now old already, there are many actions which physically challenging for me to do. On top of that, I "may not have sufficient time" to do anymore. Nevertheless, I still try to gain as many hikes as possible now.

Here is some of my mistake

In 2004, even though I no longer joined OARS, I still heard my friend go for various mountain hiking trips. Nice to hear, but at least I should have asked them the following questions.


"How you find such groups?", or at least thick skin a bit, "can I join U?" when is your next trip? What is your plan?.
I did not ask any of these questions at that time.

Mistake 1: if curious, be bolder, ask them. Find out the root of the problem — the source of entertainment, etc.


In 2012, I saw my student in facebook with some mountain hiking picture under KL Hiking group. At that time, I did not know it was KL Hiking Group. I even complimented him on the hiking. However, I was not curious enough, and I did not ask how to join them. I think over the years that was the biggest key mistake.


I also not so fortunate to have a "KUIH REN", secret teacher or someone wise who pointed me the way, to said, "OK you join this group, that group, this website etc". One fine day in 2017, accidently I browse the web and found KL Hiking group in meetup.com, and now after one year, I think I went for about ten hikes with the group already. Probably there is more than that; when I browse further, I saw many Facebook groups as well.


Then in 2017, I overheard some conversation in KL hiking group, now most forest needs permits to enter. Wow! I did not recall I need any forest permit to go to Gunung Brinchang and Irau back then in 2003. Damn, I have missed the biggest thing in a lifetime as far as hiking is concerned.


Back to the future in 1996, If I determined enough back in 1996, I can set up a website on hiking and now it will be very successful in term of organizing trip but may not be making $$$. Well, the chance is odd. However, the very least I can do from 1996 till 2002, if I could find a group of friends from my OARS MMU contact, at least I could hike various mountain while I'm still fit and would have covered many mountain sites. Alternatively, the very very least, I could have joined KL Hiking group in 2012.

Back then there is very little phone coverage, no GPS, no permit, just cowboy and enter the forest. Find your way in and out if you are lost good luck. You may need some ARMY survival skills to find your way out.  Many parts of forests are untouched. I just missed the boat. Now virtually every mountain you stated, you throw a stone, someone in town/housing estate had climbed it before.


The next level of skill is the GPS trail. Well, I heard GPS since 1996, but my mind is still "KATAK dalam tempurung" as far as GPS is concerned. Until, one trip in 2018 Trans Jerling where ALEX told us to download the GPX trail file into my handphone. Now my mind gets wilder.

Now if you are lost in a forest, then you are a fool because most routes there are available in GPX file uploaded by various hikers. If you deviate 20-30 m from the GPX trail, the handphone will tell you. Now, it more difficult to get lost as long as you keep yourself in the given trail and GPX trail. As long as I can get 1-2 friends to go with me, with GPX file alone in a mountain you never been before I will dare to go. Just scout around the GPS coordinate, I'm sure we can reach the destination. Just a matter of time.

Now, whenever I see someone (known/unknown/close or not close) whom I get to chat with them. I will introduce them to meetup.com and various hiking groups. At least they know where to go and why. The rest is up to them. The very least is that I don't want people to be like me. I want to strike them hard in their mind as far as hiking is concerned, just like Steve Job did to ex-apple CEO John Sculley when he tried to recruit him from Pepsi Cola. "Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?".


In one of my friendly community meeting, one very outspoken person Mr. ABC tell us his hiking story." Here and there the story is still limited to Gunung Ledang only". Then, a very introvert people came along and spoken about his Gunung Tahan trip. Suddenly he becomes very excited and outspoken. The whole group got excited, listening to his story. Based on his experience and the way he spoke, Mr. ABC ends up keeping quiet only. The adventure that you have been through will stay forever in your heart, once the moment of sharing appeared, just by merely talking about it, the joy it brings to those who never been is tremendous. OK, get some adventure, there will be someone to listen in time to come when you share.

Despite all these talking, remember these words "Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before."……

Well, you join certain hiking groups, there are paper trails laid by the leader, just follow the trail you won't get lost 95% of the time. Other than tiring and boasting that wow I climbed Mountain XXX within XXX time. In case you left behind, there is a sweeper to make sure no one left behind. However, is there any adventure other than a hard walk and climb. For me it NO.

Then what is the philosophy of adventure? You are tired and hungry+ thirsty and you reach the end of a trail with virtually no trail to go. What are you going to do?

The real adventure begins like this. OK this is Mount ABC where you have not been before, here is the starting point. Don't use your GPS. Use compass only. You with a group of friends, go and find/scout your way up the mountain. That the real adventure. However, the number of reasonable adventures/trips will go down day by day as you climbed many more mountains. Thus, for any reasonably hard hike, once you found a friend, just go.
OK. Until here. Have a good hike.