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

10. Open Challenge. Indian/Malay operated coffee shop.

For the reader of my blog, here is an open challenge to you. Can you show me “A coffee shop that is operated by a “pure Indian or Malay” owner in Peninsular Malaysia which operates likes a Chinese Coffee shop? Mixed parentages are not allowed. The main tenant/owner runs the beverages operations and sub-rented more than five stalls to other stall operators to sell other food like mee, rice, fried etc. Food courts are excluded. The main tenant/owner must operate in a physical shop lot. The most I have seen is about 2-3 stalls, one sell satays and others.

The first person who emails me along with the evidence such as photo, shop name and address location and other information? I will go there to verify it. Upon verification, I will bank in RM20 (twenty ringgit) into your Malaysian Bank account. I reserve the right to publish the given shop details and information.

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.