tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83296489084622566752024-03-06T13:34:55.627+08:00IT SCHEISSDedicated to debunking and rubbishing the hype, hoohah, bullshit and ballyhoo touted by information technology (IT), Internet and cyberspace 'pandits', self-styled 'consultants', the techno-deterministic myths of IT 'futurists' and cyber utopians by comparing actual outcomes against their claims made a decade or more back.
IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.comBlogger143125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-66969255511203414722022-03-25T04:34:00.001+08:002022-03-25T04:34:22.250+08:00GONZALO LIRA SAYS WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR QUITE A WHILE<p><span style="font-size: small;">Last Saturday, 19th March 2022, a friend of mine posted to me on Whatsapp:-</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><i>"Strongly reminds me about what you have been saying about the media industry, Khun" </i><br /></span></p><h1 class="title style-scope ytd-video-primary-info-renderer"><span style="font-size: small;">System Pigs, Part 1 — Journalists</span></h1><h1 class="title style-scope ytd-video-primary-info-renderer"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMbsPHQaoQ4</span></span></h1><h1 class="title style-scope ytd-video-primary-info-renderer"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">Yes, what Gonzalo says about the mainstream media today is similar to much of what I have been saying on <i>IT.Schess</i> since March 2012 when I started this blog, especially in relation to the reliance of media upon advertising revenue and of being beholden to advertisors, or being beholden to those who fund the media to keep it afloat to serve some political agenda, since advertising revenue is either too little or non-existent, or are beholden to the owners of the media who dictate the publication's editorial line.<br /></span></span></h1><h1 class="title style-scope ytd-video-primary-info-renderer"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">Yours trully</span></span></h1><h1 class="title style-scope ytd-video-primary-info-renderer"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;">IT.Scheiss</span></i></h1><h1 class="title style-scope ytd-video-primary-info-renderer"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br /></h1>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-81499423342629645072021-05-14T17:48:00.000+08:002021-05-14T17:49:01.783+08:00SMARTPHONES CAN BE A BLESSING OR A CURSE DURING RAYA AND AT OTHER TIMES<div><font size="4">Hari Raya Aid Il Fitr, as well as other major religious or cultural celebrations such as New Year, Chinese New Year, Nawruz, Vesak, Deepavali (or Diwali), Christmas, Gawai and other religious or cultural celebrations are generally times for families to get together to perform their religious obligations as well as to celebrate together and renew bonds in person.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">However today, the smartphone and social media have taken over, with members of the family sitting next to each other but socialising with others somewhere out there, including people whom they have never met or known in person.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">Around 2007, as he was leaving a media conference in Cyberjaya for his car, I asked the then Deputy Prime Minister Dato' Sri Najib Tun Razak whether smartschools would produce a generation of idiots by the Year 2020 and he said no.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">Well, I leave you to decide who is right on that one.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">I've not heard the term "smart schoosl" mentioned for several years now but fast forward to mid-2021, it increasingly looks like smartphones are creating a socially dysfunctional generation increasingly disconnected from their family members, friends and neighbours, perhaps by the Year 2030, the year the Share Prosperity Vision (SPV) 2030 is supposed to be achieved, after Vision 2020 turned out to be a flop.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">In the <i>Malaysia Now </i>article which follows below, several experts speak about possible problems especially of children becoming emotionally detached from their families in realspace, thanks to smartphones and social media.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">If I have the chance to meet Najib again, I should ask him - "Hi Dato' Sri! Remember me? Will smartphones create a generation of socially dysfunctional idiots by the Year 2030?"</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">The <i>Malaysia Now</i> article follows below:-</font></div><div><br></div><div><font size="4"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNilc9utobp5xuKFcIn1mOTGTVjyzIhvbJ8oACD7IZ3PMkEB4DMkUslcrPWvywIr9a6CuWh22iWnH7x7ZrzutPeJcL5sdHPktZr3-Le6xv3e2qUW9bneml8H0J8Rlr23uQ5554ZtVP8T5_/s1600/Smartphones+can+be+a+blessing+or+curse+in+lockdown+Raya+at+2021-05-14+14-59-44-741790.png"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNilc9utobp5xuKFcIn1mOTGTVjyzIhvbJ8oACD7IZ3PMkEB4DMkUslcrPWvywIr9a6CuWh22iWnH7x7ZrzutPeJcL5sdHPktZr3-Le6xv3e2qUW9bneml8H0J8Rlr23uQ5554ZtVP8T5_/s320/Smartphones+can+be+a+blessing+or+curse+in+lockdown+Raya+at+2021-05-14+14-59-44-741790.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6962080774636843458" /></a><br></font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Smartphones can be a blessing or curse in lockdown Raya</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Modern phones are supremely useful tools but too much of a good thing can harm physical, social, and psychological well-being, warn experts.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Siva Selan May 14, 2021 11:00 AM</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">With their smartphones demanding undivided attention, many people are becoming disconnected from their families even during festivals that are meant to reunite and bring people together.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">This year, as interstate and interdistrict travel remains restricted, millions will be celebrating Raya as they did last year: away from their family.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Once again phones will be key to connecting with loved ones.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Mariani Md Nor, a psychologist and lecturer at Segi University, told MalaysiaNow that because using social media to communicate with their wider circle of family and friends may be the only option for those trapped at home, it can result in a form of addiction.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Some people become more interested in updating their status on social media than celebrating the real festival happening around them.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"People are generally excited for the first few days of Raya, but they may then get busy with their phones, trying to connect with online friends by isolating themselves from immediate family members there in person," she said.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"This isn't just a problem among young people – even older people can be affected by the so-called 'phone pandemic' when routine activity becomes a demanding habit."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Fauziah Mohd Sa'ad from Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris agrees that more people are at increased risk of phone addiction as they are stranded at home during lockdown.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"People are stuck at home and they have nothing much to do, so they spend their time on the phone including during Raya," she told MalaysiaNow. "But the phone prevents us from interacting with people in person."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">She believes limiting phone usage is the key to addressing this complex problem.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"Phone use is okay as long as it serves a purpose and makes us happy. But we need to know the limitations," she said.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"Don't use the phone to the extent it affects you physically, psychologically, and socially. Prioritise your health and interacting with family members around you."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Both Mariani and Fauziah warned of phone addiction among kids who have grown up with smartphones. If left to their own devices, they can drift further and further away from interacting with people in the flesh.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Fauziah pointed out that many parents these days are actually "bribing" their children by giving them phones so they will not "disturb" them too much.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">But by doing this, she said, their kids will eventually find gadgets more interesting than real people and can easily end up missing out on developing vital social skills.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">There is also the risk of children being exposed to inappropriate content on the internet such as pornography and violence.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">The two experts have complementary advice for parents.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Fauziah urges parents to monitor their kids' phone usage all the time.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Mariani advises parents to set a good example for their kids to follow.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">They agree that young parents should monitor their kids' physical, emotional and social well-being.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">They should control the use of electronic devices, especially phones, by their children, but also by themselves as parents.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Mariani said, "Parents should plan their children's time meaningfully at home by ensuring their daily activities are balanced.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"Allocate children's time with phones properly by discussing it with them. Plan their time meaningfully at home and ensure they are growing up in a positive environment."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="4">In short, don't let your phone take control at Raya.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><a href="https://www.malaysianow.com/news/2021/05/14/smartphones-can-be-a-blessing-or-curse-in-lockdown-raya/"><font size="4">https://www.malaysianow.com/news/2021/05/14/smartphones-can-be-a-blessing-or-curse-in-lockdown-raya/</font></a></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">Yours trully</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="7">IT Scheiss</font></div><div><br></div><div></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-69472388083666009252021-05-14T15:20:00.000+08:002021-05-14T15:21:41.829+08:00SELAMAT HARI RAYA AID IL FITR / EID MUBARAK TO ALL MUSLIM READERS<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilbMGqSf0T_m8ceZApQZo4_R8CqGB_CregFt_jpkpNsb41tbpnDmq_KYOOlmW5zsWlhtjdv-R0gE1ZrqhfJPrrOX5kwmYTCr0Yji1vyYdpYncSD9_LjHH_juyfDhRg08TsWWV5twECGGda/s1600/Raya+2017c-701960.png"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilbMGqSf0T_m8ceZApQZo4_R8CqGB_CregFt_jpkpNsb41tbpnDmq_KYOOlmW5zsWlhtjdv-R0gE1ZrqhfJPrrOX5kwmYTCr0Yji1vyYdpYncSD9_LjHH_juyfDhRg08TsWWV5twECGGda/s320/Raya+2017c-701960.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6962042802741291618" /></a><br></div><div><br></div><div><font size="5">Yang Benar</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="7">IT Schess</font></div><div><br></div><div></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-86990067887164399292021-02-22T14:04:00.000+08:002021-02-22T14:50:03.630+08:00BATTLE OF THE COVID-19 CONTACT TRACING APPS<div style="text-align: justify;">Malaysians love politischeissing everything, even something as basic as two popular brands of bread as being "Pakatan Harapan" bread and "Barisan Nasional" bread, based upon who owns the bread company.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since early last year, when the COVID-19 pandemic became serious in Malaysia, apart from running from pillar to post looking to buy facemasks and gloves, Malaysians also began to politischeisse the two COVID-19 contact tracing apps - i.e. MySejahtera deployed by the Federal Government which had just fallen to the Perikatan Nasional and the SELankah deployed by the Selangor state government controlled by the Pakatan Harapan, which had lost control of the federal government due to infighting which led to the pact's fracture and its government's collapse.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYC2HSSmPFaKBxoRlulPQy5AMuR7Y9xo8nYVSxddfX36X4iRAOuBTXTH3SkVhwrtyeSYP-duO6_a9ud5_xHCznA7HNYkQve6-dpgekydFpXKGuHSf9lrLxW4pedR0N8JCWFUnJV5i2jbTe/s1600/Frustrated+users%252C+no+answers+-+SELankah+from+2021-02-22+12-35-38-712134.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="640" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6931965182738894594" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYC2HSSmPFaKBxoRlulPQy5AMuR7Y9xo8nYVSxddfX36X4iRAOuBTXTH3SkVhwrtyeSYP-duO6_a9ud5_xHCznA7HNYkQve6-dpgekydFpXKGuHSf9lrLxW4pedR0N8JCWFUnJV5i2jbTe/w568-h640/Frustrated+users%252C+no+answers+-+SELankah+from+2021-02-22+12-35-38-712134.png" width="568" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">As any data scientist worth his or her salt will tell you, computing and information systems work best when there is a single centralised database for applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics and so forth to work on, rather than having multiple databases and systems which tend to become separate silos of data and information.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">To overcome this problem, the federal government mandated that all establishments in Malaysia use the MySejahtera app for contact tracing, which would centralise all the data, so their processing tools can produce the clearest picture of the COVID-19 situation.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">More recently, there were some problems with SELankah and it was taken down for a while and it was recently relaunched with features which make it more like MySejahtera.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">However, according to Malaysia Now of 22 February 2021, there have been complaints about the revamped SELankah app:-</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Frustrated users, no answers: Selangor's SELangkah contrasts with MySejahtera amid low ratings, downloads</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">The app has had fewer than 6,000 downloads on Google Play, and unlike MySejahtera, users' concerns do not receive a direct response.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">MalaysiaNow Feb 22, 2021 12:18 PM </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Selangor's SELangkah app, which the state government relaunched on the back of controversy over its ability to carry out the same functions as Putrajaya's MySejahtera, appears to be dogged with problems as users of its Android version highlight bugs and weaknesses without any reply from its developers.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Checks by MalaysiaNow on Google Play, the official app store for devices running on the Android operating system, showed that SELangkah is listed under the "Lifestyle" category, with fewer than 6,000 downloads since it was relaunched by Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari with a special appearance by a television personality two weeks ago.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">At press time, there were about 60 reviews from users, most of whom complained about incomplete features, cumbersome form-filling and an absence of critical contact tracing needs such as registering on behalf of dependents.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">The complaints had received no response from SELangkah, other than one self-review by the app's developer Dr Helmi Zakariah who hailed his software as an effort to "bring an integrated, holistic pandemic response in Malaysia", adding that "we thought this will help tremendously".</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Checks also found that some users who gave the app a good rating had also noted problems they faced when using SELangkah.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"The longer you delay the feature to add dependents into this app, not many people will be using this to scan the qr code. Update 22/2/21: No response from app developer. Like not bothered," said one user, referring to the absence of interaction from the app's developer.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Another user, who gave a four-star rating, complained that users are forced to fill up forms each time they use SELangkah's newly added feature to scan MySejahtera as well.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"You should not release a section if the section is not ready. The home tab has so many ads and buttons which are not ready. Plus I think as of now, we do not need the first bottom tab as it just says coming soon when we click on it. I think this is messy," said a user.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"Not as much useful functions as MySejahtera despite the re-launch," said Lyn Chan, who added that unlike Putrajaya's app, SELangkah would not allow users to register a disabled family.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"This is very important as the person under my care is of a high risk classification. Please look into improving the app for its core intended purpose. Prove it in the application!" she wrote.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">In contrast, checks found that MySejahtera has been constantly interacting with users on Google Play, attending to their complaints.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Replies to feedback are given by "Government of Malaysia", with frequent apologies for any inconvenience caused to users and a promise of a solution to come.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Unlike SELangkah, MySejahtera is grouped under the "Health and Fitness" category, and in the number one spot for free apps in the same genre.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">With more than 420,000 reviews, MySejahtera has a rating of 4.6 stars compared to SELangkah's 3.8 stars despite only a little more than 60 reviews.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">MalaysiaNow had earlier reported that the app lacked basic functionalities needed for any Covid-19 contact tracing, and was found to be inferior compared to MySejahtera.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">This was followed by a discovery that SELangkah permits the use of personal data for uses other than contact tracing, despite assurances of data safety from the state's Covid-19 task force chief Dzulkefly Ahmad.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Dzulkefly had angrily scoffed at suggestions that the SELangkah app is inferior, and even claimed that Putrajaya had lagged behind the state in automatic contact tracing.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">SELangkah came under scrutiny following a spike in Covid-19 cases in the state, proportionately much higher than neighbouring Kuala Lumpur which dwarfs Selangor in terms of population density.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Repeated attempts in the past by MalaysiaNow to obtain a response about problems encountered in the app from its developer Helmi had fallen on deaf ears.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">When MalaysiaNow turned to Dzulkefly for answers, he said he had instructed that all queries on SELangkah should be directed to Helmi.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.malaysianow.com/news/2021/02/22/frustrated-users-no-answers-selangors-selangkah-contrasts-with-mysejahtera-amid-low-ratings-downloads/"><font size="4">https://www.malaysianow.com/news/2021/02/22/frustrated-users-no-answers-selangors-selangkah-contrasts-with-mysejahtera-amid-low-ratings-downloads/</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">The bottom line, folks, is that politischeiss cannot beat objective reality.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">So keep your politischeissing to preaching to the converted in echo-chambers such as WhatsApp groups, comments sections, hours of useless, idle chatter over teh tarik or beers.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Call me anti-social but thanks to COVID-19, I've not had to suffer being dragged to join people in these idle chatter sessions in 24-hour eateries until the early hours of the morning.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Yours truly</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="7">IT Scheiss</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-16228609413264366552021-02-21T17:00:00.001+08:002021-02-21T17:20:20.892+08:00WHY NOT ALLOW SCHOOLS TO OPEN ONLY IN AREAS WITH LOW DAILY NEW COVID-19 CASES ?<div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">According to this <i>Free Malaysia Today</i> article, several parents' groups wonder what is the rationale is behind the government's announcement that all schools across the country will open from 1 March 2021, starting with students in years 1 and 2, followed shortly after those in higher years.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">The government had ordered all schools to close from 9 November 2020, due to a rising number of daily new COVID-19 cases which had risen to 972 nationwide that day, and the parents' groups wonder why the government is opening schools when the number of daily new cases was at 2,936 nationwide on 19 February 2021.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Well, the answer is pretty obvious from my earlier <i>IT.Scheiss</i> blog posts on the issue of e-education and online learning and in several media articles about problems with availability of broadband Internet access at home, of availability and affordability of smartphones, tablets, notebook or desktop PCs for children to use for online learning faced especially by parents in the smaller towns and villages, as well as urban, lower-income parents.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Also, from my own direct experience this year itself, even more affluent parents for whom money is no object when it comes to buying whatever devices and accessories their children need for online learning, however some of these parents still lack the tech-savviness to know how to operate and operate online learning platforms and services such as Google Meet, Google Classroom and their children's unique Ministry of Education-assigned e-mail account to receive the notices, assignments and so forth submitted by the teachers. Some of these parents don't even know how to download a PDF copy of lesson submitted by teachers, how to access a <i>PowerPoint</i> slide and so forth, whilst some have problems guiding their children to operate the objective question and answer form online and I have noticed that relatively few children in the class my neighbour's son is in had submitted their answers to questions online.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">This may not be much of a problem for children in more senior years or in secondary school who should have acquired sufficient skills to intuitively navigate and operate online learning applications, but this has proven to be a problem for children in more junior years, as I have highlighted in an excerpt in the article below. </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><font color="#0000ff" size="4">From a health perspective, Azrul Mohd Khalib, chief executive of the Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy, said <b>it made sense for younger students to return earlier</b> as they have the "lowest risk" of catching Covid-19 and are also <b>"seriously challenged" when it comes to remote learning – which they find harder to adapt to</b>.</font></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"We don't have local studies to show what has been the impact of the movement control measures imposed as an effort to control the spread of Covid-19, but what we have heard is that some students have lost basic skills such as reading and writing," he said.</font></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"Children learn and retain better when they're in school and when they're face-to-face. I can only imagine that for exam-age students, in particular, this must have been a difficult and distressing year of disruption and lost learning."</font></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">So the answer to the question these parents' groups have raised is pretty obvious - i.e. ONLINE LEARNING HAS PROVEN TO BE INFERIOR TO CLASSROOM LEARNING - FULL STOP.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">I wrote several cover features about online learning, distance learning and computers in education during my early years with <i>In.Tech</i>, the now defunct weekly ICT pullout of <i>The Star</i>, way back in the late 1990s.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Back then, the concept of online learning was very new, especially in Malaysia, and all I could rely on as material for my articles was what I was told by vendors of online and distance learning systems and the opinions of academics who were advocates of online learning.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">However, now that I can look back with a perspective of over 20 years, when I read my cover features about online learning which I wrote back then, I realise what rubbish I wrote. </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Moreover, academics worldwide now admit that after 30 years of its promotion, the benefits of computer-based and online learning have shown mixed results as to claims of their superiority over traditional physical attendance in classroom learning.</font></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Well, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the limitations of computer-based and online learning over physical classroom learning have been further exposed.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">So reality trumps the hype, hoohah, BS and ballyhoo of the computers in education and online learning system vendors and its starry-eyed proponents in academia.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">However, a dilemma still haunts parents with schoolgoing children - i.e. keep them safe from COVID-19 at the expense of the quality of their education or attend classroom learning and risk being infected with COVID-19, with the added risk that infected children, who may be mildly affected or asymptomatic, however infecting more vulnerable adults at home. A tough decision for parents to make.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Perhaps the government could have allowed schools in </font><span style="font-size: large;">areas with low daily new COVID-19 numbers to open, whilst those in areas still with high new daily COVID-19 numbers remain closed and students continue to learn online, until when the daily new COVID-19 cases have dropped sufficiently for schools to be reopened.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFmu9ppImZu0enMDZDUwz0Enzu3yfy5wZgBqaFGYXwaPFUd9IRY3WQTn4G01Naa92VGOZZdFvBBXSKG3wlrdoQEgBZELql4IiyF9_7drYrJLsvYhsXvaNgFJ8rMjtfG1wo5xaZZpp5dr13/s1600/Positive+COVID-19+cases+2020-02-20-750129.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" height="504" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6931639359171161970" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFmu9ppImZu0enMDZDUwz0Enzu3yfy5wZgBqaFGYXwaPFUd9IRY3WQTn4G01Naa92VGOZZdFvBBXSKG3wlrdoQEgBZELql4IiyF9_7drYrJLsvYhsXvaNgFJ8rMjtfG1wo5xaZZpp5dr13/w640-h504/Positive+COVID-19+cases+2020-02-20-750129.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"> </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">The <i>Free Malaysia Today</i> article referred to follows in full below:-</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">What's the rationale for reopening schools, ask parents' groups</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Jason Thomas - February 21, 2021 11:15 AM</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">PETALING JAYA: The government's announcement that schools across the country will reopen from March 1 has not exactly been welcomed with open arms by two parents' groups.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">When all schools were ordered to close on Nov 9, the daily number of fresh Covid-19 cases was 972. By comparison, there were 2,936 new cases yesterday – a fact which a parent from Penang said topped most parents' minds.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"The number of cases is very high and worrying. It makes no logical sense to send kids to school," said Rowen Tan, whose son is in Standard 1.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Melaka Action Group for Parents in Education chairman Mak Chee Kin said he was unsure about the rationale behind the move.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"Parents need more than just the announcements of opening," he said. "Please tell us why schools are reopening and why Standard 1 and 2 will be the first?," he asked.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Mak added it would be better if classes were held on a rotational basis so as to prevent overcrowding in schools, a view shared by Tunku Munawirah Putra, secretary of the Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE).</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">While the group agreed with the re-opening of schools, Munawirah said there are several issues that need to be addressed to ensure classes can be conducted safely to prevent outbreaks within schools.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Apart from the appropriate preventive and protective health measures, she hoped to see classes scheduled to ensure schools are not overcrowded.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Among the other issues to be considered include ensuring adequate teaching staff for Form 4 and 5, considering that the same teachers will be teaching three cohorts since there are currently two SPM cohorts (2020 and 2021).</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">She also stressed that the mental well-being of students and those falling behind in their learning must be taken care of, with adequate support and guidance from teachers and schools to cope with the challenges brought about by the pandemic.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">At a press conference earlier, education minister Radzi Jidin said Year 1 and Year 2 pupils will be back to school on March 1 while those in Years 3 to 6 can return on March 8.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Secondary schools will be opened in two groups on April 4 and 5 according to the school calendar in respective states.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Thousands of Form 5 students returned to school on Jan 20 ahead of the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination which starts tomorrow.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">From a health perspective, Azrul Mohd Khalib, chief executive of the Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy, said it made sense for younger students to return earlier as they have the "lowest risk" of catching Covid-19 and are also "seriously challenged" when it comes to remote learning – which they find harder to adapt to.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"We don't have local studies to show what has been the impact of the movement control measures imposed as an effort to control the spread of Covid-19, but what we have heard is that some students have lost basic skills such as reading and writing," he said.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"Children learn and retain better when they're in school and when they're face-to-face. I can only imagine that for exam-age students, in particular, this must have been a difficult and distressing year of disruption and lost learning."</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">While reinforcement of health control measures and reasonable physical distancing are necessary, he also pointed out there is a need to also look at proper ventilation in schools.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Stating it is crucial that students are able to return to school in a way that is safe and sustainable, he said it also has to be done in a way that "inspires the confidence" of educators, school staff and the public.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"Therefore, the education ministry must be able to communicate continuously on this issue, giving as much information as possible to address concerns and anxiety among students, parents and guardians."</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2021/02/21/whats-the-rationale-for-reopening-schools-say-parents-groups/"><font size="4">https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2021/02/21/whats-the-rationale-for-reopening-schools-say-parents-groups/</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Yours truly</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="7">IT.SCHEISS</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><font size="4">https://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-85456152789822618842021-02-16T14:45:00.000+08:002021-02-16T14:50:36.293+08:00GLORY TO KPIs AND PROMOTIONS ! STUDENTS BE DAMNED.<div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">This is what happens when we adopt American-style management practices such as KPI (key performance indicator).</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Lecturers at graduate factories pay more attention to publishing in journals to make their KPIs than teaching students well.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">I know a young person who graduated with an first class honours degree in Chemical engineering from a university in the UK and continued to obtain a masters degree in chemical engineering from the same university before he returned to Malaysia.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">However, from his Linked-IN profile, he does not mention any work expereince in chemical engineering but instead, he joined an international management consultancy firm, or might I say an international management CON-sultancy firm.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Why does a highly qualified chemical engineering graduate not practice chemical engineering?</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">And, the government tells us that Malaysia needs more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) graduates.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Are there enough work opportunities in STEM graduates in Malaysia?</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Do STEM jobs pay well enough in Malaysia?</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Are STEM professionals valued enough by Malaysian industry?</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Well, it seems that arty-farty management types are valued more highly than hands-on STEM practitioners and professionals. I suppose that is what they mean when they say "upskill to be more relevant to employers".</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">MBA = Masters of Nothing Better, though you need one to advance in your career these days.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">And, this is how Malaysia will become a "knowledge-based", "information-rich", "high-income", "developed" nation by the Year 2020 - oops! Pardon me. That was by last year. Vision 2020 has since been postponed to Shared Prosperity Vision 2030.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">At the rate we are going, I don't think we will make it even by 2100, yet all this kok-talk will continue long after all of us here are dead and gone.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">A very revealing article follows. However, will the relevant authorities and parties act on the suggestions by practicing academics thmselves?</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">============================================================================================================================</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">'Publish or perish' mentality driving academicians to questionable journals</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Some Malaysian professors and lecturers are publishing their research in questionable scholarly journals that allow them to pay to be published and over time this will weaken the overall reputation of our universities, academicians say.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Malaysia was ranked as among the fifth-highest contributors in the world of countries surveyed by two Czech Republic economists Vit Machacek and Martin Srholec, who mapped the infiltration of so-called "predatory" scholarly journals into the citation database Scopus over a period of three years from 2015 to 2017.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The data was obtained from research involving 172 countries in four fields, namely health sciences, life sciences, physical sciences and social sciences and indicated that some academicians who are seeking 'shortcuts' to be promoted to associate professor and professor.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"This is not new and we have to look at the root cause," Dr Mohamad Hussain Habil (above) of Mahsa Universiti told Malaysiakini.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"The pressure on professors and lecturers to publish in order to get promotions is quite large. When I was in Universiti Malaya, the mantra was 'to publish or perish'.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"The problem is that to be republished in a reputable journal – and these journals require high standards – your work must be groundbreaking.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"So, there is stiff competition and when people are under pressure, they look for loopholes," Mohamad Hussain said.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">He said that the proliferation of unscholarly academic journals rose to meet the demand.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"It's simple capitalism – they are businesspeople and they spot the demand for this. They can charge up to US$1,000 to publish the article, it's not cheap also. Another factor is that in reputable journals you also have to wait. When you wait too long, you might not be getting your promotion, or someone else publishes the paper.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"Apparently not only junior lecturers but senior professor are doing this," he added.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"When they find out that there are predatory journals, for them it's an opportunity. But after some time, articles from cooked-up data get exposed in the industry. The objective of the research is to improve our scientific understanding, but an article that is full of mistakes – statistics skewed for a false conclusion – it serves no purpose.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">These days, with social media, you can't hide if someone exposes it, Mohamad Hussain said.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"It's not difficult to expose, go to Google Scholar and it can be found," he said.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"When I first started, we never had these predatory journals. They only came out when universities became so worried about rankings, not more than 15 years ago."</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In the Czech survey, a total of 324 predatory journals were found to have infiltrated Scopus, a Netherlands-based global citation database made up of more than 30,000 journals covering life sciences, social sciences, physical sciences and health sciences.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Kazakhstan is the most culpable, with 17 percent of such articles, followed by Indonesia, Iraq, Albania and Malaysia.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Former deputy education minister P Kamalanathan served from 2013 to 2018, which is the period covered by the study.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Kamalanathan said that while the government consistently focused on academicians achieving higher recognition and and came up with hundreds or millions of ringgit of quality spending towards this aspiration, the Ministry of Higher Education would have to investigate the claims of predatory research papers.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"They should verify its authenticity and if culpability exists, then I'm sure they will take stern action to protect the integrity and the reputation of Malaysian academicians," he told Malaysiakini in a text message.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Reflection of a corrupt system</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Prof Zaharom Nain, chairperson of the Malaysian Academic Movement (Gerak) didn't pull his punches when discussing the matter.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"It's a sad consequence and reflection of a corrupt system, both nationally and globally. Much of higher education and much of research in higher education – in Malaysia and elsewhere – have become exercises in gaming a system that emphasises rankings and ratings (national, regional and global).</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"The higher your university goes up the rankings or is rated – the more attractive and prestigious will be your university. There'll be higher student intake and quality faculty and, hence, more income to succeed in a wider neo-liberal system," Zaharom said.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">He said that are many good, honest and hardworking academicians in contemporary Malaysian universities, some of them even world-class.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"But there are also those who are pressured to meet uncompromising KPIs often set by pen-pushing university administrators hell-bent on playing a system that seeks to quantify scholarly output, often at the expense of quality."</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Zaharom said there are also those really not qualified to teach or research in universities.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"They get into the public universities through a system of, say, 'kulitocracy', given our quota system. And, let's not forget, the same system brings in the administrators, whose idea of administrating is to openly and uncritically receive ideas from the top.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"Combine these – a leadership that is more politicised than wise, an administrative class that believes that it must menurut perintah (follow orders) and largely-clueless academicians bereft of a public service ethos, and only wishing to get to the top of the university ladder – and you get the sad state we are in now," he said.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Malachi Edwin Vethamani, a former professor at University of Nottingham Malaysia, urged academicians to be careful where they publish their work.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"It has been a steep learning curve for many academicians. There is certainly a lot of pressure on meeting publishing KPIs.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"Over the last few years, there have been a lot of information on predatory academic journals and academicians should do the due diligence on a publisher before they submit their work. You cannot plead ignorance," Malachi said.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">UMT vice-chancellor denies emphasis on publishing</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In contrast, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) vice-chancellor Prof Nor Aieni Mokhtar responded to the recent study, saying that journal publication is not the main criteria for a lecturer to be promoted to associate professor or professor.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In a statement yesterday, Nor Aieni said other criteria for promotion as a professor at UMT include teaching trust, supervision, research, publication of indexed journal books and articles, knowledge transfer as well as academic and management leadership.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">She said every promotion application submitted by UMT academicians must go through various strict vetting processes to meet the academic excellence requirements set by the Senate, as the highest academic body at the university, and approved by the University Board of Directors as the university's highest authority body.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"Candidates must submit an application through the dean, the director of their respective institute or centre and if it is supported by the head of the department, a committee consisting of professors at the faculty, centre or institute will screen and evaluate the application.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"If a candidate fails to pass this internal screening, the application will not be extended to the censorship committee at the university level. However, when the application is brought to the censorship committee, it will be screened and evaluated by a committee composed of professors," Nor Aieni said.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Her views appeared to be firmly in the minority, with another former UM lecturer telling Malaysiakini that the predatory journal phenomenon was not surprising considering the university's obsession with rankings.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">This academician cited other dubious practices, like forcing PhD students to put the names of their supervisor on their journal articles as co-writers.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"This may be normal in pure sciences, but in social sciences, it can be highly unethical," said the lecturer, who did not want to be named.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Zaharom concurred: "Academic dishonesty – in the form of plagiarism, supervisors (and now even universities) pressuring post-graduate students to put them as the main authors of the students' publications, and, yes, universities coming up with their journals of questionable quality – is the end result.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">He called for serious and sincere academic reform.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"But such reform won't come about when the system – nationally and internationally - is headed by clueless and self-serving individuals and institutions, like our current Ministry of Higher Education," Zaharom added.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Mohamad Hussain said that if the problem was left unchecked, it would undoubtedly bring down the reputation of the country's higher learning institutions.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"Universiti Malaya was recently ranked number 59 in the world according to the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, and we have other good universities, so there is a lot of good work that could be undone.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"If there is any reason to suspect the publications of academicians, the authorities must order an investigation and not sweep it under the carpet," Mohamad Hussain said. - Mkini</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://malaysiansmustknowthetruth.blogspot.com/2021/02/publish-or-perish-mentality-driving.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MalaysiansMustKnowTheTruth+%28Malaysians+Must+Know+the+TRUTH%29"><font size="5">http://malaysiansmustknowthetruth.blogspot.com/2021/02/publish-or-perish-mentality-driving.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MalaysiansMustKnowTheTruth+%28Malaysians+Must+Know+the+TRUTH%29</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Yours Truly</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="7"><i>IT.Scheiss</i></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-20086426436991393222021-01-23T05:45:00.000+08:002021-02-03T21:31:44.954+08:00A VIABLE COUNTER PROPOSAL TO E-LEARNING ?<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEwLU6vVeWE0j1OpdcSc5vxH0mrI87A3hCC_tsbwJm2Rd7f7X-ANrh__csH6-9XQDp928__3eDa2njciSOfdJsx6e2A17sgZu3T-3AijOjdgsqqxv63ChVMeCeRAeM4mXGzF7SIPBvBp_1/s1600/Sabah+rep+suggests+broadcasting+lessons+on+TV%252C+radio+from+2021-01-22+21-29-00-731559.png"><img alt="" border="0" height="588" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6920741232109205810" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEwLU6vVeWE0j1OpdcSc5vxH0mrI87A3hCC_tsbwJm2Rd7f7X-ANrh__csH6-9XQDp928__3eDa2njciSOfdJsx6e2A17sgZu3T-3AijOjdgsqqxv63ChVMeCeRAeM4mXGzF7SIPBvBp_1/w640-h588/Sabah+rep+suggests+broadcasting+lessons+on+TV%252C+radio+from+2021-01-22+21-29-00-731559.png" width="640" /></a><font size="4"></font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">The COVID-19 pandemic has forced students in Malaysia and worldwide to close their schools and for students to attend their classes online through Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and other free of charge of paid videoconferencing services.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">However, ample evidence from the field in Malaysia and abroad shows that such forms of computer-mediated, Internet based online learning have their limitations, especially for school students, due to inability of many parents to afford to buy the devices for several of their children to attend class virtually on; lack of fixed or wireless broadband of their homes or lack of sufficiently reliable coverage; their inability to afford the cost of broadband access, even if it is available in their area; not knowing how to operate the relevant applications on these devices even if they can afford them and so forth.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">According to <i>The Vibes </i>of 22 January 2021, based upon the real-world experience of students and parents in her state, Sabah DAP Wanita chief Jannie Lasimbang proposed that the government use older, proven educational channels such as educational TV and radio, whether via satellite, fibre or free-to-air, which are relatively easy for most people to use compared to having to set up and operate applications for e-learning on a computer, tablet device or smartphone with its links to click on, logins, passwords and so forth.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">She cited problems parents face, such as lack of affordability to purchase enough devices for their school-going children in her state; that according to the Sabah Education Department, some 52% of students in the state do not have smart devices and internet access; that parents with several children had complained to her that they had difficulty finding the money to buy sufficient access devices for their children to learn on; that many parents were unable to help their children access learning platforms as they lack the knowledge to do so; and that the instructions given to them were insufficient.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.thevibes.com/articles/news/14897/sabah-rep-suggests-broadcasting-lessons-on-tv-radio"><font size="4">CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN FULL</font></a></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">After all, before mass Internet access became widely enough available in Britain in the mid-1990s, Britain's Open University broadcast its courses to regular TV sets throughout the country and despite the lack of on-air interactivity between students and lecturers, it worked well enough, so why should Malaysia insist on Internet-based e-learning when students, teachers and parents face so many practical problems?</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">On the other hand though, parents with several school-going children will most likely have to get a TV set for each one, especially if the courses for their different standards and forms are conducted concurrently, as would be the case with physical classroom attendance.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Then again, there is a difference between a university-aged student pursuing an Open University degree through the TV who we can expect will have the self-discipline to remain focused on the lecture, and the other hand, especially primary school students who would prefer to view something more entertaining on the TV, besides whatever other distractions there are in the home. So there are pros and cons either way.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Malaysia's national and national-type schools began classes on 20 January 2021, for all students starting from Standard 1 to Form 6, with Form 5 and Form 6 students who will be sitting for public examinations allowed to attend class physically during the COVID-19 crisis afflicting Malaysia and the whole world right now, whilst the rest of the students have to attend online via e-learning using video communication services such as Google Meet.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">All well and good it may seem, but past experience in 2020 has revealed major barriers to online leaning being lack of devices such as PCs, tablet devices and smartphones for students to learning on, lack of widespread enough coverage of fixed and wireless broadband Internet infrastructure to enable those with e-learning devices to access lessons online - these being the two main problems students face in attending lessons from their school teachers online, according to<i> Malaysia Now</i> of 20 January 2021.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Besides that, <i>Malaysia Now</i> cited a study by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia's (UKM) Faculty of Education which found that student attendance was below 80% and many were unable to focus on their lessons due to an inconducive atmosphere at home. The study also found that about half of teachers are not comfortable conducting online classes, with only 50-60% of teachers with the IT skills needed to do so.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><i>Malaysia Now</i> went on to say:-</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">Azlin Norhaini Mansor, who heads UKM's Centre of Education Leadership and Policy and who also led the study told <i>Bernama</i> (Malaysia's National News Agency) that the online teaching method was less effective as it did not correspond with the competency and learning levels of the students.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">She said even with sufficient devices and good internet access, teachers, students and parents face constraints and difficulties in implementing online learning.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="4">"The students find it difficult to understand what is taught to them online due to the one-way communication… they can't ask questions or seek clarification. "In such instances, their parents have to tutor them and help them to complete their exercises," she told <i>Bernama</i>.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><a href="https://www.malaysianow.com/news/2021/01/20/thousands-start-school-at-home-but-problems-persist/">CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE IN FULL</a><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">On 22 January 2021, the <i>Malay Mail </i>reported that whilst students on Pulau Aman, a small island of 250 people off Batu Kawan on mainland Penang had the equipment to access online lessons but wireless broadband connectivity was a problem:-</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">On tiny island off Penang, students struggle with virtual lessons as internet line often on the blink</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><a href="https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2021/01/22/on-tiny-island-off-penang-students-struggle-with-virtual-lessons-as-interne/1942997">CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE IN FULL</a><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Distance learning, smart schools, e-learning and so forth was one of the "Flagship Applications" of Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor (now known as MSC Malaysia) initiative to develop Malaysia's information and communications technology (ICT) and multimedia content industry, inaugurated by then Malaysian Prime Minister, then Dato' Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in 12 February 1996 and the Multimedia Super Corridor itself is special economic zone and high-technology business district between Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">On 17th May 1997, which coincides with World Telecommunications Day, amidst much pomp and fanfare, Dr. Mahathir officiated at the groundbreaking ceremony of Cyberjaya, Malaysia's first intelligent cybercity and the headquarters of the 6,960 acre Multimedia Super Corridor. I was at this cleared portion of an old palm oil plantation to cover the groundbreaking for <i>In.Tech</i>, then the weekly ICT pullout of <i>The Star</i>.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">However, looking back over the years, how did all this distance learning, online leaning, e-learning, smart schools and so forth work out? I don't see much evidence of the computers on every desk in Malaysian schools, knowledgeable, tech-savvy, well informed students. Whenever I visit my old school, the most I see in some classrooms is an overhead projector and I understand that there are not enough working PCs in the ICT lab for the students do do their computing practical.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">When I stepped into my old school's science lab for the first time after 50 years. apart from an overhead projector, everything else, including the lab benches and lab equipment was exactly the same as when I was last in the lab in 1969. </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">In late 2012, I covered a media event by YTL Communications and YTL company Frog Asia to announce their winning of Phase 1 of the Ministry of Education's 1Bestarinet contract to provide the then 10,000 schools across Malaysia with wireless broadband access using their then WiMAX (Worldwide Interoprability for Microwave Access) technology and provision of their Frog Virtual Learning Environment (Frog VLE) for students to study, do their homework, interact with their peers online, form collaborative teams with fellow students to work on joint projects and assignments online, for students to interact with their teachers online, for parents interact with their teachers online and to check up on their children's progress and performance and so forth, all online.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Wow great! it may seem but how many parents across Malaysia can afford to provide each school-going child with a desktop or notebook PC, a tablet device or a smartphone to access Frog VLE and use it to the full. Also, even if parents can afford to provide each of their school-going children with such devices which they can use within the WiMAX coverage of their school, however how many parents would be able to afford the fixed or wireless broadband connectivity for their children to access the Frog VLE at home. Moreover, would there be fixed or wireless broadband coverage of their homes, especially homes in the smaller towns and villages?</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">An answer came in October 2015 when Malaysia was blanketed with a thick smoky haze blown over from Indonesia and the air quality was so bad that schools were closed and students expected to learn from home using Frog VLE but it did not work out well as you can see below:-</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Teachers' union says 1BestariNet useless for online learning from home</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/2015/10/teachers-union-says-1bestarinet-useless.html">CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL BLOG POST</a> </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">The issue here was not that YTL Communications was only able to connect 89% of schools with its WiMAX broadband due to a variety of reasons including inability to obtain approval from the relevant local authorities to install their radio base stations amongst other limitations. However, this was not much of an issue, since YTL Communications could lease either fixed or wireless broadband connectivity from other communication service providers to serve these schools.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">However, the main issue, was that Frog VLE use by teachers, students and parents was very low at between 0.01% and 4.69%", according to findings revealed by the third series of the 2013 Auditor-General's report, which said that it had been monitoring the contractors' performances and status of the project's implementation in all states and had found that the project was implemented before teachers and students were fully trained to utilise the VLE, according to <i>The Star </i>of 11 November 2014.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Ministry: 1BestariNet project failed due to delays</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/11/11/Ministry-1BestariNet-project-failed-due-to-delays/"><font size="4">CLICK HERE FOR THE STAR'S ARTICLE</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">YTL Communications won Phase 2 of the 1Bestarinet contract which ended on 30 June 2019 and was not renewed, and schools in Malaysia turned to other broadband Internet providers and learning environments such as the Google Classroom learning management system (LMS), which still requires knowledge of how to log in with a Google ID and password and so forth and it works across multiple devices.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Now I have recently seen some real world problems parents and their children face.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">A neighbour's son started Standard 1 at a Chinese medium vernacular school on 20 January 2021 and under normal circumstances, the parents would go to the school and collect the relevant physical text books and workbooks for the subjects to be studied throughout the year but due to COVID-19 containment restrictions, a list of PDF softcopies of the books were sent out and in the evening of 18th January 2021, I received the list with the links below forwarded by this parent via WhatsApp with the request that I download them for him from the Pandai.org e-book portal. </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgxwSYwXPyPy3TngkuVFC-E5U4DYALamuGJB5_ChVPe2Yaa43YT-OAbrta84hqJpbQ0pWFGQMye5I_SQTEs6pMS4tEMPpfMYa7Zkf4EaodbVPLfH9hqCeduwh_eHDsh7VL-bwAovpHGz6X/s1600/E-book+Pandai.org+from+2021-01-23+02-29-42-736450.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6920741250246513442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgxwSYwXPyPy3TngkuVFC-E5U4DYALamuGJB5_ChVPe2Yaa43YT-OAbrta84hqJpbQ0pWFGQMye5I_SQTEs6pMS4tEMPpfMYa7Zkf4EaodbVPLfH9hqCeduwh_eHDsh7VL-bwAovpHGz6X/s320/E-book+Pandai.org+from+2021-01-23+02-29-42-736450.png" /></a> </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Thankfully, the list does not require one to log in with their Google ID and password to download the books for all subjects from Standards 1 to 6 and Forms 1 to 5 and these e-books are available in Malay, Chinese and Tamil for all languages and also in English for relevant subjects such as Science and Mathematics.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">I was visiting my aunt at the time, so had no time to download the relevant e-books required and then nine PDF e-books were forwarded to me via WhatsApp, with the request to print them out. These e-books had been posted via WhatsApp to the relevant parents' WhatsApp group which also served as a parents' support group.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Based upon advice from the parents' group, my neighbour's wife had managed to install the Google Meet app on it and she would copy the relevant meeting IDs from WhatsApp on her smartphone into Google Meet in the iPad. It would have been simpler if it was an Android tablet. </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">I downloaded the books to my phone and tried to e-mail them to the iCloud e-mail of his son's iPad which he would use to virtually attend his classes but each of these books was between 99 and 148 pages long and their file sizes ranged from 22 to 44 megabytes which was too big to send as an e-mail attachment. Gmail's attachment limit is around 25 megabytes.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">When I got home, I connected my phone to a PC via its USB charger cable and copied all the books out from the WhatsApp>Media>Documents folder to the PC's hard disk.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8x_0zHAHPeZQVVQppPAHnsuYx2fpLeP-ItjPXL-1YvvTo8zew86C-uzoHiYlD0p39OYNIa2QqpBTj_drpAivpuolsImR4mNevXVU4t2vxEmd7KazFZ1KkLA81p8-qIHxIhnsRLTWQViHE/s1920/WhatsApp+Web+from+2021-02-03+21-05-51.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1920" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8x_0zHAHPeZQVVQppPAHnsuYx2fpLeP-ItjPXL-1YvvTo8zew86C-uzoHiYlD0p39OYNIa2QqpBTj_drpAivpuolsImR4mNevXVU4t2vxEmd7KazFZ1KkLA81p8-qIHxIhnsRLTWQViHE/w640-h352/WhatsApp+Web+from+2021-02-03+21-05-51.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><font size="4"><div style="text-align: justify;">Another way would be to log into WhatsApp Web in a browser on the PC and download the nine books one by one directly to the PC's hard drive.</div></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">However, each of the e-books was too big to print out on a home printer, so I wrote them to a CD, intending to pass it to my neighbour the next day for him to take to the print shop.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Thankfully, some of the more tech-savvy parents in the group found a print shop to print them out and my neighbour went over to the print shop to buy printouts of the nine text books and the related workbooks all nicely bound, so it seemed that the problem was solved.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Then yesterday 22 Jan 2021 I got this request forwarded to me by WhatsApp. To which I replied in light green.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl6HLxpM-aN6NWDjrNpRIgLqtcBBB2jdHW_Vk7EqWG4Pig0tRaWPD4XL1nBD3tVjWrp6kdQ6LXDJBTzLeip0-xtjYeVqMd0JrRP2_Mx2FPbVGyyRp-Wpw7JvKPLJC-_wzE2cj07Hu5Y2Od/s1600/For+those+facing+difficulties+from+2021-01-23+02-36-42-740847.png"><img alt="" border="0" height="238" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6920741268591667442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl6HLxpM-aN6NWDjrNpRIgLqtcBBB2jdHW_Vk7EqWG4Pig0tRaWPD4XL1nBD3tVjWrp6kdQ6LXDJBTzLeip0-xtjYeVqMd0JrRP2_Mx2FPbVGyyRp-Wpw7JvKPLJC-_wzE2cj07Hu5Y2Od/w640-h238/For+those+facing+difficulties+from+2021-01-23+02-36-42-740847.png" width="640" /></a><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">The message was sent by a teacher in another class and it clearly shows that parents of children at this school in a fairly vibrant, middle class residential and commercial area of "sophisticated" and "affluent" Petaling Jaya face such problems of "without gadget", what more parents in the smaller towns and villages of Malaysia, such as in Sabah or even the remoter areas of Selangor, said to be the "most developed", "most sophisticated" and "most affluent" state in Malaysia with the highest level of Internet penetration.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Now many parents of children starting Standard One must be pretty young and supposedly more "tech savvy" than senior citizens but from the looks of it, even they face problems with using smartphones, tablets or PCs for more productive uses than for messaging and for social media.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3A6olR11UVrCo5rxu15UWHI1KkKI3Twrz1L39rIM84maEPmW85AeKVy4weUcfBzQ7VoUiprkzKuzpe1ZgrDyOkKf60HM1g9vS6dtdZ1q7PqJ5FsADwByiY7Urk5oSRqxXb_ocQCU4ovcc/s1920/DOS+GWBASIC+from+2021-01-05+16-09-37.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1920" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3A6olR11UVrCo5rxu15UWHI1KkKI3Twrz1L39rIM84maEPmW85AeKVy4weUcfBzQ7VoUiprkzKuzpe1ZgrDyOkKf60HM1g9vS6dtdZ1q7PqJ5FsADwByiY7Urk5oSRqxXb_ocQCU4ovcc/w640-h352/DOS+GWBASIC+from+2021-01-05+16-09-37.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Whilst admittedly, today's PCs, smartphones and tablets with a graphical user interface are easier and more intuitive for people to use compared to their text-based command line predecessors of my time, however they are still not that simple for most users to operate beyond simple messaging and social media functions, and this is true, even of young users.</font></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCd_AdLEtjrbL7IPJTjqd9YY1AtVxvkn4b-KSXyry7AS_2Rjc62NPVmkyV2tBT-6Caw7eqzlSXPcKLNjjLParG2eLjSbfXDt_Ss_lcAHDzTu2Cz8nKZZRWOPYqnMEVFrsklB2ZUlcEWAos/s1920/DOS+GWBASIC+YEAR2000+from+2021-01-05+16-16-33.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1920" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCd_AdLEtjrbL7IPJTjqd9YY1AtVxvkn4b-KSXyry7AS_2Rjc62NPVmkyV2tBT-6Caw7eqzlSXPcKLNjjLParG2eLjSbfXDt_Ss_lcAHDzTu2Cz8nKZZRWOPYqnMEVFrsklB2ZUlcEWAos/w640-h352/DOS+GWBASIC+YEAR2000+from+2021-01-05+16-16-33.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><font size="4"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></font></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7esoM421kLYdWDqS_Czx2MgUaaeqHSxsDn3TX6bDSYaRar-5GiGeDnD9HUrnOXFqYcw5YKUD-4frlcB2VOuzQkLhl2kMRKdjisNJFUQzZpuTQ3A_hqMP1wG-SKYvjqi6r93gMYVkjBV8/s1920/DOS+GWBASIC+YEAR2000+from+2021-01-05+16-18-57.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1920" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7esoM421kLYdWDqS_Czx2MgUaaeqHSxsDn3TX6bDSYaRar-5GiGeDnD9HUrnOXFqYcw5YKUD-4frlcB2VOuzQkLhl2kMRKdjisNJFUQzZpuTQ3A_hqMP1wG-SKYvjqi6r93gMYVkjBV8/w640-h352/DOS+GWBASIC+YEAR2000+from+2021-01-05+16-18-57.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVxzH3WrMeYIPKFaHH4GYvhgjAxgBzl3-yFcl4BwmTXys-yZyHxvW3j3byO27qN5oipvTFCPY9v9VAye36Js8ruTFM8iGQ4TlW_fNhLFsVLphyYeUGKyLQkJADs2bwq7TgtXI_13vF8CWA/s1920/DOS+GWBASIC+YEAR2000+from+2021-01-05+16-20-40.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1920" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVxzH3WrMeYIPKFaHH4GYvhgjAxgBzl3-yFcl4BwmTXys-yZyHxvW3j3byO27qN5oipvTFCPY9v9VAye36Js8ruTFM8iGQ4TlW_fNhLFsVLphyYeUGKyLQkJADs2bwq7TgtXI_13vF8CWA/w640-h352/DOS+GWBASIC+YEAR2000+from+2021-01-05+16-20-40.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">So that being the case with e-learning which many students, teachers and parents have problems operating, proposals such as to instead deliver lessons by TV or radio, such as made by Jannie Lasimbang, would likely be a more viable, though a less "sexy" solution for a real-world problem on the ground.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">But then again, as stated at the beginning of this post, parents may need to buy a TV for each of their school-going children to attend TV learning concurrently, so which would be more affordable? That's a tough question to answer.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">With the COVID-19 crisis still raging in Malaysia, I suppose students, teachers and parents are faced with a situation similar of having to eat canned and packaged food to survive when fresh food is not available. It's not an ideal solution but perhaps the best substitute.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4">Yours truly</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT9TDwZ6j-oEiwXdXRLIjhHRIs_Yh9SPaHZ02cc56kOvy-YlFzlA2hHrAlQ3tFKjKkFuHulU0q1JDIjeobV5j-K6kvxfgjkuM8vEKbmSSZkKILqv-EnDLYZLNdzl1Yo8btw2rw4CGjkUfz/s325/IT.Scheisss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="320" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT9TDwZ6j-oEiwXdXRLIjhHRIs_Yh9SPaHZ02cc56kOvy-YlFzlA2hHrAlQ3tFKjKkFuHulU0q1JDIjeobV5j-K6kvxfgjkuM8vEKbmSSZkKILqv-EnDLYZLNdzl1Yo8btw2rw4CGjkUfz/s320/IT.Scheisss.jpg" /></a></div><br /><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="7">IT.Scheiss</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><font size="4">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-37489364147489829242020-11-01T15:16:00.000+08:002020-11-01T23:24:13.204+08:00HAVEN'T I SAID THIS MANY TIMES BEFORE?<div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Ladies and Gentlemen,</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">About a week or two ago, I had a debate on a WhatsApp group about whether especially the lower end of small and medium industries, as well as micro enterprises are financially, technically and have the conceptual appreciation to be able to adopt information and communications technology (ICT) based business applications and solutions such as point of sale and inventory management, order processing and invoicing systems, supply chain management systems, enterprise resource planing and management systems and so forth, whether installed on their computer or cloud-based and operated through a web browser or a client application on their computer over the Internet.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Malaysia's government agency, the Small and Medium Industries Development Corporation (SME Corp or SMIDEC) defines micro-enterprises, small and medium manufacturers, services and in other sectors by annual turnover or number of employee in the infographic below:-</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiisA65HgDDzqfuODTKpY5MqSvQahajBmpCE0e5HpGbO8bXNXchXDoGr7n1cSuJIFMZRLCk-L60CMbbZ_Nj61YcJODmZ0zlSVGunuOp7_x8xBGih76lscK7knj37f2UGzQEtOGMSX7F52_f/s1600/SME+definition+-+SMIDEC+2020-11-01+13-18-43-729177.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="310" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6890051103615308578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiisA65HgDDzqfuODTKpY5MqSvQahajBmpCE0e5HpGbO8bXNXchXDoGr7n1cSuJIFMZRLCk-L60CMbbZ_Nj61YcJODmZ0zlSVGunuOp7_x8xBGih76lscK7knj37f2UGzQEtOGMSX7F52_f/w640-h310/SME+definition+-+SMIDEC+2020-11-01+13-18-43-729177.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.smecorp.gov.my/index.php/en/policies/2020-02-11-08-01-24/sme-definition"><font size="5">https://www.smecorp.gov.my/index.php/en/policies/2020-02-11-08-01-24/sme-definition</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">The members of this WhatsApp group are mostly comprised of well educated and highly experienced professionals, senior management and business owners, including some who provide such systems and cloud-based services to their client.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Having looked at the website of one of these person's company which provides such systems and services, I see that most of its customers are either the Malaysian units of multinationals, large Malaysian corporations or large retail, convenience store chains, pharmacy chains and so forth but includes no small businesses such as sundry shops, independent hardware stores, minimarkets, kopitiams, Mamak restaurants, banana leaf restaurants and so forth, even though almost all of these now have a point of sale terminal cum cash register on their counters, especially after these were required for GST (Goods and Services Tax) recording and reporting when GST went into effect on 1 April 2015 and was replaced with the SST (Sales and Services Tax) from 1 September 2018, after GST was repealed.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">I have oftentimes asked, multinational suppliers of business and enterprise management software such as SAP and Oracle which industry sectors are their major customers in Malaysia and from their replies, almost all of them are Malaysian units of multinationals, large Malaysian corporations, utilities companies, telecommunications companies, large retail chains, banks and financial services companies, government bodies and so forth but no small businesses, and this supplier's customer base is consistent with what others have told me. </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">The owner of that company argued that instead of the old notion that ICT being an enabler of business, instead ICT is the business today, and this philosophy applies to all businesses from multinational and corporate giants down to food hawkers and stall owners in pasar malam (flea markets). </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">From my own personal experience of a small business, its owner does not even know how to check the company's own e-mail or track a courier shipment online, fill in a survey form, check its phone bill online on a smartphone, let alone understand, appreciate, or operate slightly more complex ICT applications and systems related to the business.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Admittedly, some kopitiams, Mamak and banana leaf restaurants, as well as some food hawkers have taken advantage of food delivery services such as Foodpanda, Grab Food and so forth and I have seen one of them in my neighbourhood which operates a hand-held terminal provided them by Foodpanda which prints out the orders as they are received, however whilst I believe that medium sized industries have the capacity and capability to take advantage of ICT in their business, however I believe that many small industries and micro-enterprises will not be able to, especially those in the smaller cities,towns and villages across Malaysia.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Then on 31 October 2020, <i>Malaysia Now</i> published an article, <i>Time to go digital, SMEs told</i>, which quoted Emir Research research analyst Sofea Azahar thus:-</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"As long as businesses fully utilise these incentives that are driven by technology, alternatives for SMEs' survival remain present," Sofea told MalaysiaNow.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">But such a journey is easier said than done.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Among the obstacles to going digital is a lack of what Sofea refers to as "digital-savvy talents".</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">She also spoke of a lack of motivation for companies to automate their business processes.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><b>My comment: Precisely what I have argued in my <i>IT Scheiss</i> blog many times before.</b></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">The article goes on:-</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">But there are other factors beyond a company's control such as digital infrastructure gaps between states and a difference in awareness about embracing the digital economy.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Crossing these hurdles may be difficult, especially given that the country's skilled workforce accounts for just 27.5% with semi-skilled workers comprising the bulk at 60.1%.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-large;">However, it is not impossible.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"To fully embrace digitalisation, these indicators call for the upskilling and reskilling of talents through education," Sofea said, noting a drop in the number of students choosing science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects in schools."</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #2a76c6; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.malaysianow.com/news/2020/10/31/time-to-go-digital-smes-told/"><font size="5">https://www.malaysianow.com/news/2020/10/31/time-to-go-digital-smes-told/</font></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><b>My comment: With all due respect to Sofea and Emir Research. I've heard the words "upskilling" and "reskilling" mentioned countless times before from government ministers, government officials, senior corporate managers, management consultants and so forth during my 26 years career if writing about the ICT industry and in perspective, I have seen very little evidence of that in reality after all these years.</b></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><b><br /></b></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><b>Instead I see more and more people, both young and old being increasingly savvy at using their smartphones for frivolous activities such as casual messaging, posting and forwarding useless political crap, for casual social media access and other unproductive activities, yet have difficulty or unable to write a simple letter using a word processor on a PC or even a manual typewriter if it would save their lives.</b></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><b><br /></b></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><b>Well now with the survival of businesses due to this business and economy-crippling COVID-19 pandemic which as seen airlines, department stores and businesses close down, I am afraid that many especially small businesses and micro-enterprises which cannot make use of alternative business channels online such as e-commerce have a bleak future.</b></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><b><br /></b></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><b>On the other hand, this does not mean that those businesses which have survived the pandemic by going online, will not revert to more traditional business channels once the pandemic has passed but that is a topic for another blog post.</b></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><b><br /></b></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><b>Also, why are fewer Malaysian students opting for the tougher science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) courses?</b></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Meanwhile, reproduced in full below is the full <i>Malaysia Now</i> article:-</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"> </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Time to go digital, SMEs told</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">It may be difficult but it will be worth it, struggling businesses told.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Amanda Suriya</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Oct 31, 2020 9:00 AM</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">While Malaysians have been quick to embrace technology and all things digital from internet banking to online grocery shopping in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, moving entire businesses in the same direction is proving to be more difficult, even for small-scale entities like SMEs.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Office life has gone remote with #WorkFromHome now part of the new norm, yet the shift has only highlighted how some SMEs were ill-equipped for the plunge from the physical to the virtual. Close to 70% of SMEs reported a 50% drop in business during the first movement control order (MCO).</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Some had existing digital channels in place to support their brick-and-mortar presence.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">But not all were able to pivot as quickly as they needed to, especially given the sporadic nature of subsequent MCOs.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">For some, this was due to a lack of funds. Unlike larger corporations which often have financial buffers in place, many SMEs have cash flow reserves that will not see them past three months.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Others such as furniture shops, barbers, and spas depend on in-store customers.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Whatever the reason, the onset of the pandemic has shown all too clearly the difference that going digital makes for SMEs.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"Consumer behaviour is impacting local businesses as people opt for simpler and faster processes via e-commerce," Azlan Zainal Abidin, the chief enterprise business officer at a mobile telecommunications conglomerate, told MalaysiaNow.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"At this juncture, going digital isn't just about growth anymore – it's also about survivability and the sustainability of the business."</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Small but powerful</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">At 98.5%, SMEs form the bulk of business establishments in the country, according to Emir Research research analyst Sofea Azahar.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"SMEs contribute 38.3% to the national GDP," she added.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"The survivability of these businesses is crucial to economic recovery, in order to maintain the expansion shown in previous years."</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">This is something the government has been mindful of since the pandemic hit Malaysian shores early this year. In the months following the first lockdown which saw nearly all business activity suspended to curb the spread of Covid-19, billions were channelled under the Penjana economic rescue package to help SMEs recover.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">With financial support in place, Azlan and Sofea said, SMEs would benefit from adopting tools such as cloud-based electronic point-of-sale systems or digital marketing solutions, especially as restrictions on movements continue in areas across the country.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"As long as businesses fully utilise these incentives that are driven by technology, alternatives for SMEs' survival remain present," Sofea told MalaysiaNow.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">But such a journey is easier said than done.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Among the obstacles to going digital is a lack of what Sofea refers to as "digital-savvy talents".</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">She also spoke of a lack of motivation for companies to automate their business processes.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">But there are other factors beyond a company's control such as digital infrastructure gaps between states and a difference in awareness about embracing the digital economy.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Crossing these hurdles may be difficult, especially given that the country's skilled workforce accounts for just 27.5% with semi-skilled workers comprising the bulk at 60.1%.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">However, it is not impossible.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"To fully embrace digitalisation, these indicators call for the upskilling and reskilling of talents through education," Sofea said, noting a drop in the number of students choosing science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects in schools.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Will it be worth it? She says yes, and not just for SMEs.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"Leveraging technology will create opportunities for Malaysians in general," she said – as long as they are equipped with the skill sets needed to ensure a smooth digital transition.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Thanks to <i>Malaysia Now</i> and Emir Research, I can confidently say that I have been vindicated.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Yours trully</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="7"><i>IT SCHEISS</i></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><font size="5">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-45145904526976006362020-09-30T17:24:00.001+08:002020-11-01T23:24:50.136+08:00SAY NO! TO TECHNO-FASCISM<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Definitive results such as that of the recently concluded Sabah state elections, of the winner of the U.S. presidential election in November 2016 and many more have often defied the results of scores of public opinion surveys which show the opposite.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">We have been forced to go online through a web browser on our PCs, through an app on our smartphones or receive softcopoies via email to check our telephone bills, utility bills, bank and credit card statements, make appointments to visit government departments' public service centres, apply online for permission to enter Sarawak, use MySejahtera, Selankah and other contact tracing apps on our smartphones to register our visits to a mall, supermarket and the outlets within, pay local authority parking charges and so forth.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">However, whilst Many Malaysians as well as foreign nationals in Malaysia are expert at using their smartphones for messaging services such as WhatsApp, WeChat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media apps, I often have wondered how many can use their computers and smartphones for more serious and productive uses.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Well, the statement by the Statistics Department reported in <i>The Star</i> of 27 September 2020 reveals that only about 10 per cent of Malaysians had completed the online e-Census, which provides a definitive answer to my question.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2r8Y4_J2Z8Or4Gy1M7DU7hpo3glel4sRtKDBQJxCc3Ffjugajr6vFg9QbLP6hiwM63zuXbm0-4yjPE2vO4HIcnKoUzbahf1QA73iWlqtYgKGsD9wcKCnpcSg4j-h6T-Y6kkZfY58HJVas/s1600/About+one+in+ten+Malaysians+have+completed+online+census+so+far+from+2020-09-30+16-30-03-796894.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6878209321573845746" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2r8Y4_J2Z8Or4Gy1M7DU7hpo3glel4sRtKDBQJxCc3Ffjugajr6vFg9QbLP6hiwM63zuXbm0-4yjPE2vO4HIcnKoUzbahf1QA73iWlqtYgKGsD9wcKCnpcSg4j-h6T-Y6kkZfY58HJVas/s320/About+one+in+ten+Malaysians+have+completed+online+census+so+far+from+2020-09-30+16-30-03-796894.png" /></a><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Statistics Dept: About one in ten Malaysians have completed online census so far</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Sunday, 27 Sep 2020</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">7:34 PM MYT</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">By REMAR NORDIN</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">JOHOR BARU: The Statistics Department says about one in 10 Malaysians have completed the Census 2020 online.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Chief statistician and Census 2020 commissioner Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said to date, about 10% have filled their information through the e-Census form in the first phase of Census 2020, which ends on Sept 30.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">He also expressed confidence the department would reach its target of 10 million – or 30% of the total Malaysian population of 32 million – participating in the census online.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"There are still a few days left before the first phase ends and we hope that those who have not filled in their information to do so to avoid congestion on the e-Census website.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"The first phase is being implemented through the e-Census, while the second phase, via face-to-face interview, will be from Oct 7 to Oct 24 where we hope to be able to achieve 100% completion," he said when met by reporters at the e-Census clinic at Johor police headquarters here on Sunday (Sept 27).</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The e-Census clinic was also attended by Johor police chief Comm Datuk Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">He added that more than 1,000 e-Census clinics have been set up across the country that operate every day to help with data gathering, which is conducted every 10 years by the government to determine the number of people living in the country, including foreigners.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"Our investigations revealed that the public awareness of the Census 2020 is very high, it is just that we have the habit of doing things at the last minute," he said, adding that he is confident the number would continue to grow in the coming days.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The e-census website is accessible at ecensus.mycensus.gov.my/landing.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2020/09/27/statistics-dept-about-one-in-ten-malaysians-have-completed-online-census-so-far"><font size="5">https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2020/09/27/statistics-dept-about-one-in-ten-malaysians-have-completed-online-census-so-far</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">I completed my e-Census form online and found it to be a challenging ordeal not for the faint-hearted. </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">And now the Statistics Department is chasing people to pre-register before the end of today (30 September 2020) to received the invitation to complete the e-Census form online.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">What happens if you don't complete the e-Census 2020?</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Wednesday, 30 Sep 2020</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">3:00 PM MYT</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">By Angelin Yeoh</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Today is the last day for members of the public to pre-register to receive their Invitation Code (IC) for the e-Census 2020.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">To do so, visit the e-Census website, click on First Time user or go here for the pre-registration page.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The public are advised to check their Spam or Junk folder to see if the e-Census email may have ended up there.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">After receiving the 11-digit IC which is meant to represent their household, Malaysians can then use it to login on the e-Census website to fill in the questionnaire.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Then, they have until Oct 6 to complete and submit the questionnaire.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">According to an FAQ, the Statistics Department encourages more people to participate in the Census 2020 online as a way of maintaining physical distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The FAQ stated for those who missed the e-Census questionnaire online submission period, a surveyor will visit their homes for a face-to-face interview using a tablet, smartphone or questionnaire from Oct 7 onwards.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Chief statistician and Census 2020 commissioner Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin in a Sept 27 report said only about one in 10 Malaysians had completed the e-Census 2020.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"The first phase is being implemented through the e-Census, while the second phase, via face-to-face interview, will be from Oct 7 to Oct 24 where we hope to be able to achieve 100% completion," he said.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The Census Act 1960, Section 9(2) makes it mandatory for members of the public to answer all questions in the census form and Section 17(1) states that failure to comply may result in a fine of no more than RM100 or prison term of no more than six months or both.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In other news, users also have until 11:59pm tonight (Sept 30) to utilise the ePenjana credit in their eWallets before it expires. Any unused balance will be removed from the eWallet.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Users may still be able to spend or use some of the additional incentives introduced by eWallet providers beyond the Sept 30 ePenjana deadline. They just need to reload enough cash into the eWallet and check the campaign announcements in the app for more information.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2020/09/30/what-happens-if-you-dont-complete-the-e-census-2020"><font size="5">https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2020/09/30/what-happens-if-you-dont-complete-the-e-census-2020</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Thankfully, for those who have not filled in the e-Census online, the Statistics Department will be sending out their enumerators to interview households face-to-face for Census 2020.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">I hope they will reveal how many people answered the e-Census online.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">I don't expect that that many more have answered the e-Census 2020 online since 27 September 2020 and this should be an indication to app developers, banks, insurance companies, financial institutions, telephone and utility companies, federal and state governments, local authorities and so forth not to be TECHNO-FASCISTS by forcing people to resort to using apps and go online to check their bills, make applications, make payments and so forth.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="7"><b>NO! TO TECHNO-FASCISM.</b> </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Yours truly</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="7"><b><i>IT.Scheiss</i></b></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><font size="5">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-85356587412005746992020-08-22T13:15:00.001+08:002020-11-01T23:25:12.786+08:00I'M SO HONOURED<div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">I can't believe this but the academic paper site Academia.edu has informed me via e-mail that IT Scheiss has been mentioned in two academic papers.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Boy! I didn't realise that my rantings and ravings about the ICT scene would be taken so seriously. However, it's good to know that there are people who consider my critique of the ICT scene valuable enough.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"> </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="-x-evo-resizable-wrapper"><font size="5"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKoNymtbNT9RU7v2q1vi193wuAyeYU0qHXG88qb889v2emPMFPYx1HACXimOYoWbqC8cWG_OXApoa4VCW2GImsRm0pN35UOJ95R4cAkK3_Y-swqyzgpVG2Ef6g8TehobD7fz456nbokIR7/s1600/IT+Scheiss+mentioned+-+Academia+edufrom+2020-08-22+12-58-48-732664.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6863672724045213698" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKoNymtbNT9RU7v2q1vi193wuAyeYU0qHXG88qb889v2emPMFPYx1HACXimOYoWbqC8cWG_OXApoa4VCW2GImsRm0pN35UOJ95R4cAkK3_Y-swqyzgpVG2Ef6g8TehobD7fz456nbokIR7/s320/IT+Scheiss+mentioned+-+Academia+edufrom+2020-08-22+12-58-48-732664.png" /></a></font></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="-x-evo-resizable-wrapper"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="-x-evo-resizable-wrapper"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/upgrade?feature=name_mentions&trigger=view_dl_ri"><font size="5">https://www.academia.edu/upgrade?feature=name_mentions&trigger=view_dl_ri</font></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">However, to obtain further details about these mentions of "IT Scheiss", I will have to upgrade my account for a fee. Well for now, I'm not interested.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Yours trully</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="7">IT Scheiss</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><font size="5">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-21641961596989637482020-08-18T19:02:00.002+08:002020-11-01T23:26:00.634+08:00DID MORE USEFUL CHANGES IN MY HOME<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-family: "noto sans";">Hello folks,</span></span></p><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Continuing with my</span><i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Doing Something Useful<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i><span>series, I recently made some further useful changes in my home. There's no rocket science involved here but just my desire for convenience and some tidiness.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">For a long time, I used to have the extension power bar powering my main desktop computer, monitor and printers resting on my desk. The power bar took up desk space and moreover, most of the cable used to rest on the floor, which required to be lifted up whenever I do any sweeping, vacuum cleaning or mopping. Also, I believe ants on the floor used to walk up the cable onto my desk.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now some brands and models of these extension power bars, such as the ones shown here have holes for screws to pass through.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I then disconnected the power bar from the mains (please unplug the power bar before to avoid the risk of electric shock or electrocution if you decide to do similar work).</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Found screws of the right length and thickness from my collection - i.e. it should protrude about 3 cm beyond the back of the power bar. In my case I used 2 inches (about 5.1 cm) long screws and 3cm long plastic wall plugs.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I then marked the screw holes to be drilled in the wall. A simple way to do this is to place the power bar where you intend to fix it on the wall, insert the screws in until they touch the wall and knock them gently with a hammer to mark the wall with indentations.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I then found a masonry drill of similar thickness as the wall plug, fitted it to me trusty electric drill, which I powered from another power plug through another extension (not the one I am going to fix to the wall) noted the part of the drill bit which was 3 cm in from the drill head, then drilled two holes of about 3 cm deep at the points I had marked earlier.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I then pushed plastic wall plugs into the two holes I had drilled and they went all the way in smoothly, with a nice fit.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I then inserted the two screws through the holes in the power bar and guided then to fit into the holes in the wall plugs already in the wall and using a phillips (cross-head) screwdriver of the right size, I screwed the power bar firmly to the wall, as you can see in the picture below, where you can see the two black screws.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVWLzmgJGnIrOa1pl75F3Yb5XuzTiWlvI_sDwyP2wqdCmkBySAo_tP9h2Hm69C5M87lYZExtamMlO5VwwYqeGNs9AYfkACwHbAELv1wFanU12Qi0KNe-9yv05BY0Poq9Pst8_OIgUYOQa4/s1280/Doing+2-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="904" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVWLzmgJGnIrOa1pl75F3Yb5XuzTiWlvI_sDwyP2wqdCmkBySAo_tP9h2Hm69C5M87lYZExtamMlO5VwwYqeGNs9AYfkACwHbAELv1wFanU12Qi0KNe-9yv05BY0Poq9Pst8_OIgUYOQa4/s640/Doing+2-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">And, below is the power bar with the plugs for my table lamp, computer monitor, computer and additional extension mini power bar for round a flat pin plugs, as and when needed.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWZrjVXELuLej83VzxKbZX9FLPLQBDOscH9Xt7IdLqEG3pSZZvP4SfGn8KX34Zek6A-SzNpJpTYJyCzBzMuLw5wNKpMOZGL_EXkXZfH_pYRkzuBVqNLcW5lWri2cYk-gYmBa4jLt9_g16T/s1280/Doing+2-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1111" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWZrjVXELuLej83VzxKbZX9FLPLQBDOscH9Xt7IdLqEG3pSZZvP4SfGn8KX34Zek6A-SzNpJpTYJyCzBzMuLw5wNKpMOZGL_EXkXZfH_pYRkzuBVqNLcW5lWri2cYk-gYmBa4jLt9_g16T/s640/Doing+2-2.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I also manage the business e-mail and correspondence of a friend and neighbour with a small business and have dedicated another desktop computer for that purpose and likewise the power bar used to rest on the computer table which took up space.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">So out came my electric drill, drill bit, screws and wall plugs and in similar fashion, I mounted a 5-socket version of the 4-socket power bar above on the wall and mounted it to the wall as shown below and also secured the bar's cable to the wall with plastic cable clips as shown. In this case, I used 8 mm cable clips which I have but 10 mm would have been a better fit. I'll make it a point to get box of 10 mm cable clips the next time I'm in a hardware shop or a DIY shop. Whilst I did not show it in the picture of the power bar above for my main computer, however I did fix the cable to the wall in similar manner as shown below.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">In this case the leftmost plug powers a fluorescent lamp (not shown) which I can use as and when needed, then plugs for the monochrome inkjet printer, the colour all-in-one (AIO) inkjet printer, scanner and copier, the computer monitor and the computer.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC74fmhXvHUiuGFPsiubxomu-_bh5ykRcAs6IDCucvQPhXb8ZYneBBNzLwZKPkfdQh_3K7dWhbO4wgHO7QR7a5U5Tpw9HDrImK1rm9to9GCDNpI6HGJTw1eKy8HfXmYmh9IMMaO13hbhjn/s1280/Doing+2-3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC74fmhXvHUiuGFPsiubxomu-_bh5ykRcAs6IDCucvQPhXb8ZYneBBNzLwZKPkfdQh_3K7dWhbO4wgHO7QR7a5U5Tpw9HDrImK1rm9to9GCDNpI6HGJTw1eKy8HfXmYmh9IMMaO13hbhjn/s640/Doing+2-3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The whole set up of the second PC and printers is shown below. At least I got more space on the computer table.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrdoM94_2YhoR-9vMDqc3ANtgW-u1KHZRv17qknxUnSeaw3TdxeOgBuv1KzLSjU9gQJO8epywZysl7fxuUYxhT5d6mGLUKD_BiNq7tqmycKJLKraKFLeINRNR4prIhSbSFKqINXoSMLZzm/s1280/Doing+2-4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrdoM94_2YhoR-9vMDqc3ANtgW-u1KHZRv17qknxUnSeaw3TdxeOgBuv1KzLSjU9gQJO8epywZysl7fxuUYxhT5d6mGLUKD_BiNq7tqmycKJLKraKFLeINRNR4prIhSbSFKqINXoSMLZzm/s640/Doing+2-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Now you may be wondering how the PC above connects to the Internet. Well what is not shown in the picture above is a WiFi-USB adaptor (a dongle) plugged into a USB port at the back of the computer as in the picture below, which enables the computer to connect to my home WiFi router without messy LAN (local area network) cabling running all over my home.</div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDcTRYCovZ5BFT_R0RkizssBqG2kt1_CAtk5FYrbZIewdHG1-1HLEk-WzAi00icuZqm7pajy0X8fOvSVY5QQuYysTsw3J7-dErScrZt6iQpRtt4nNM5rr7JWi2DYwiFxRBFbG7PcfJb28a/s1280/WiFi+dongle+1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDcTRYCovZ5BFT_R0RkizssBqG2kt1_CAtk5FYrbZIewdHG1-1HLEk-WzAi00icuZqm7pajy0X8fOvSVY5QQuYysTsw3J7-dErScrZt6iQpRtt4nNM5rr7JWi2DYwiFxRBFbG7PcfJb28a/s640/WiFi+dongle+1.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is not an advertisements for Tenda but below is the box of the same model or WiFi-USB adaptor, which I bought for RM30 from Sri Computer in Low Yat Plaza, Kuala Lumpur. This model has a high-gain antenna which has a longer range to the WiFi router.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEuVH7bxMvRcd3okJRwqL21vnWQC__2G4LyB0DNoN3QkScRTXx0YzTn_M79aX_t6d1hrh3dZBF1Fb5qr77SyXa7clRvkSz_WE-vLEYVsm_LkvFajqk8ffQI8pZcUOdqsT_dlpAyAfvHoOF/s1598/WiFi+dongle+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1598" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEuVH7bxMvRcd3okJRwqL21vnWQC__2G4LyB0DNoN3QkScRTXx0YzTn_M79aX_t6d1hrh3dZBF1Fb5qr77SyXa7clRvkSz_WE-vLEYVsm_LkvFajqk8ffQI8pZcUOdqsT_dlpAyAfvHoOF/s640/WiFi+dongle+2.jpg" /></a></div></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, there are many other brands and models of WiFi-USB adaptors you can choose from in the computer stores. Below are a few options, including a Tenda high-gain model I picked up from Sri Computer for RM28 instead of RM30.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5w9dmsYt61Ky6upIFTuXqO2xZCD5Gkek4wr97XoiACkY3So7R1oZ_n3JdqNc6mMQGl6pWfPtqk4KCyVkSXAxRbRx5wrY4c8MF9tsElAXLM80601PwIxN7HZGqDOn07Eoh-qlb4Rxe_KWI/s1280/WiFi+dongle+4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5w9dmsYt61Ky6upIFTuXqO2xZCD5Gkek4wr97XoiACkY3So7R1oZ_n3JdqNc6mMQGl6pWfPtqk4KCyVkSXAxRbRx5wrY4c8MF9tsElAXLM80601PwIxN7HZGqDOn07Eoh-qlb4Rxe_KWI/s640/WiFi+dongle+4.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">And below is another is a Level One high-gain model</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNT7O0GbsVHBdydh3ZEwBdTjsR_W0CEyNIoW1iFDA4V-fbc6FTindXwNYtAJXWnr0goyMc9Fm7PuVHZz51yZ0foGt9ZAMklTKAXC3uBfcK70zC5DLJxw-0P5vMcQBOQ-p4sqxPQXPgRS8_/s1444/WiFi+dongle+3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1444" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNT7O0GbsVHBdydh3ZEwBdTjsR_W0CEyNIoW1iFDA4V-fbc6FTindXwNYtAJXWnr0goyMc9Fm7PuVHZz51yZ0foGt9ZAMklTKAXC3uBfcK70zC5DLJxw-0P5vMcQBOQ-p4sqxPQXPgRS8_/s640/WiFi+dongle+3.jpg" /></span></a></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">My mother bought me an electric drill after I completed Form 5, like way back in 1971 and I kind of taught myself to be a handyman of sorts around the house.</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Once again, don't waste your life behind a computer or smartphone screen accessing social media and endlessly chatting about useless politics for hours. Instead, do something useful with your life.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Yours Truly</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">IT.Scheiss</span></div><div style="font-family: "noto sans"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-size: large;">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</span></a></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia3.1278871 101.5944885-5.6124669514731718 92.805426 11.868241151473173 110.383551tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-82049215395967206552020-07-26T14:18:00.000+08:002020-07-26T14:19:25.860+08:00DID SOMETHING USEFUL LAST NIGHT<div><font size="5">Hello folks,</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Instead of sitting on my backside behind the computer screen or wasting three hours talking rubbish (mostly about shitty local politics) in a 24-hour eateries or on social media, I instead did something useful last night.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">We've had this drinks stand in the family since the 1970s, if I remember right, and I have to lift it and carry it if I want to move it.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPIWYeuZdreGEslgbpXb46iNLURTe1ahLmi6CAxk0Yo6CU3ZyV0pNZ7NyNnYup12v5lkiraPp8lKwQIGNysldC1mMlsriDehKMJZQEtOhOYTDiUEHZt6asjB14qYq7mYnUTNMKkMj2a0Be/s1600/IMG_20200726_125235-765868.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPIWYeuZdreGEslgbpXb46iNLURTe1ahLmi6CAxk0Yo6CU3ZyV0pNZ7NyNnYup12v5lkiraPp8lKwQIGNysldC1mMlsriDehKMJZQEtOhOYTDiUEHZt6asjB14qYq7mYnUTNMKkMj2a0Be/s320/IMG_20200726_125235-765868.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6853669875075566706" /></a><br></font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">So I bought four casters from Ace Hardware, took out my electric drill, fitted it with a 10mm drill bit - the nearest above the 3/8 inch (9.5mm) drill bit size recommended for these casters, drilled four holes for the caster holders in the bottom of the drinks stand and snapped the castors into place - a job which took about 15 to 20 minutes. </font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHqPqWCWUq-uds27SOqvPS5RqbSFdENXF-rP2-6UrewSEYRjCeuoKaDqNvBwbtakbSkcZlBVe9rNQT6ZPHOrDQR_MtAjG_-SWIYhv-lMzQxB8NpaCP_1kzQxySCYlmuLBJGC93iIxDbDIV/s1600/IMG_20200726_125511-770824.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHqPqWCWUq-uds27SOqvPS5RqbSFdENXF-rP2-6UrewSEYRjCeuoKaDqNvBwbtakbSkcZlBVe9rNQT6ZPHOrDQR_MtAjG_-SWIYhv-lMzQxB8NpaCP_1kzQxySCYlmuLBJGC93iIxDbDIV/s320/IMG_20200726_125511-770824.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6853669902952583010" /></a><br></font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">I normally don't use this as a drinks stand but as a stand to place items, such as books, a fan, computer printer or other things on, so I took out the middle shelf and placed it on top and turned it into a stand for other items, which I can wheel around. </font></div><div><font size="5"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXizWMkIzCOTIoSlS5CLJ7zXO3DPIzIkDBkjaMJKeRgatlHzeT-ioLIcdDN062yMDV1nSwnAzvK7L0EElacg819VgMkj5lk5Z5JJzcYwPTgxxWOTmF3pwDKF12eKo9-B3TqxSGHLS1FEsd/s1600/IMG_20200726_125718-775491.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXizWMkIzCOTIoSlS5CLJ7zXO3DPIzIkDBkjaMJKeRgatlHzeT-ioLIcdDN062yMDV1nSwnAzvK7L0EElacg819VgMkj5lk5Z5JJzcYwPTgxxWOTmF3pwDKF12eKo9-B3TqxSGHLS1FEsd/s320/IMG_20200726_125718-775491.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6853669916568973154" /></a><br></font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Don't waste your life behind a computer or smartphone screen. Do something useful with your life.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Yours Truly</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="7">IT.Scheiss</font></div><div><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><font size="5">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</font></a></div><div><br></div><div></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-36913506289469505102020-06-27T16:25:00.000+08:002020-11-01T23:26:49.275+08:00RELYING ON WAZE, NOT ONE'S BRAIN.<div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">This <i>Malay Mail</i> of 26 June 2020 about a motorist who claimed that he ended up driving in the motorcycle lane beside the Federal Highway because he had followed the guidance of his Waze navigation app which was set to Motorcycle mode.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_6NwglU905qcE4nlFo2sEGwHp2UH7vFL6fJXdvt957nW4mQW86cDvhPNA4JnNusCRLOdWm04QbjTFqxXTu9PV4zL4Ar-b_5E5pIvtxAtJjXlstf-OxcwgLetTcwemRqQZ-YcWnVWoToau/s1600/motorist+ends+up+in+bike+lane+from+2020-06-27+12-31-47-770421.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="478" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6842941068550764082" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_6NwglU905qcE4nlFo2sEGwHp2UH7vFL6fJXdvt957nW4mQW86cDvhPNA4JnNusCRLOdWm04QbjTFqxXTu9PV4zL4Ar-b_5E5pIvtxAtJjXlstf-OxcwgLetTcwemRqQZ-YcWnVWoToau/w640-h478/motorist+ends+up+in+bike+lane+from+2020-06-27+12-31-47-770421.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I too use Waze for guidance, especially in unfamiliar areas, but I would not have followed its guidance and driven into a motorcycle lane, and if I inadvertently did, I would have immediately stopped, turned on my hazard lights and tried to back out. Looking at that picture above, that 4x4 off-road vehicle could have easily been driven out of the motorcycle lane across that narrow grass verge back onto the main road.</span></div></div></div><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">If this is true, it only goes to show how our reliance on information and communications technology (ICT) tools to guide our actions has resulted in us becoming like robots which will jump off a cliff to their destruction if programmed to do so. For instance, cruise missiles are robots which will seek to destroy the enemy along with themselves in kamikaze-fashion. They just do what they are programmed to do, whatever the consequences to them.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">About 10 or so years ago, I used to do product reviews of dedicated GPS navigation devices which necessitated me doing practical field trials of these devices in my car and in one instance it directed me to turn left and drive across an open monsoon drain, which would have resulted in my car getting stuck in the monsoon drain or worse plunging down onto the road on the left which was below the level where I was. In another instance it directed me to turn right, which would have resulted in me having to drive across a road divider, but I used my brain and ignored the guidance which would have otherwise led to disaster.</span></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Hmmm! I wonder what would have happened to me if I was riding in a self-driving car.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Welcome to the information and services society where people use their brains less and less until they become like robots doing what they are programmed to do, with any decision making - i.e. artificial intelligence, however seemingly "independent" or "autonomous", in reality is being limited to decide within the scope defined by the human programmer - i.e. no thinking outside of the box and then our Ministry of Education and education professionals will wonder why Malaysian students don't think outside the box and education CON-sultants will propose courses to teach our students to think outside the box, only for them to be constrained by scripts and flowcharts which constrain them to think within boxes in real life after they leave school.</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">This reminds me of a direct sales agent telling me about one of her fellow direct sales agents who sold herbal slimming tablets (basically a herbal laxative) to her customers who indeed lost weight but felt weak and went back to the seller who told the customer to buy vitamin and mineral tablets to make up for the loss of vitamins and minerals which were being purged out by the laxative. So spend money on herbal laxative tablets only to spend more money on herbal supplement tablets. </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">ICT is making us dumber and dumber, and after "Baby Boomer", "Generation X", "Generation Y", "Generation Z", "Millennials", "Generation Whatever", we'll have Generation I (Generation Idiot).</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">BTW. I don't believe these age group classifications have the same characteristics worldwide but differ subject to the different material (objective) and subjective circumstances at different places and at different times. For instance, the objective and subjective circumstances in Malaysia back in the 1960s and early 1970s did not give rise to a countercultural movement in Malaysia, such as the hippies in the west which back then was at the height of its post World War II long economic boom, even though many youth of my generation ("Baby Boomer") in Malaysia emulated the outward manifestations of our youth counterparts in the west such as their taste in music, casual dress and hairstyles (usually long) - i.e. uniformity in non-conformity, but that is where the similarity ends. Also, let's not forget that behind such seeming "cultural revolution" are commercial interests out to promote sales of all the accessories, products and merchandise involved, including the narcotics. It's BIG BUSINESS after all ma-h-an!</font></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">I see similar robotic behaviour of strictly following an if-then-else script in call centre agents who cold call me to try to convince me to accept their proposed personal loan, which I don't need. and end up enriching the bank with my payments of the interest in addition to my reimbursing the loan amount. After all, banks get rich by milking people like us for the interest - this is the nature of finance capitalism which Vladimir Lenin and others spoke and wrote about - i.e. finance capitalism is parasitic and is based upon getting people, companies and countries into debt and then milk them on the interest.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">I often end up losing my cool and screaming at the call centre agent who cannot accept my polite "no", "not interested" reply and instead twist and turn as if according to script to try and get around my polite refusal. Then one day I remember my former colleague Bernard Yeoh's advice and just put my phone face-down on the table and carried on doing what I was doing. Apparently, that call to my phone was active for a long time, as my phone's battery was a;most flat, which must have cost that call centre much money. Thanks, Bernard. Good advice to deal with these pesky sales calls without losing my cool. </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">When I see so many of our younger generation going around with their faces buried in their smartphones' screens, I see a bleak future for them, when already there are so many fresh university graduates in Malaysia and in the advanced countries having no choice but to accept gig-economy and zero-hour information and services jobs - i.e. check smartphone app for food delivery assignment (the information part) and deliver the food ordered to the customer (the services part) and get paid per delivery with no job security or medical benefits if they are involved in an accident on the job.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">For instance celebrity progressive, left-wing, U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez graduated cum laude from Boston University College of Arts and Sciences with a BA in 2011, majoring in international relations and economics. Earlier in high school Ocassio-Cortez came in second in the Microbiology category of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair with a microbiology research project on the effect of antioxidants on the lifespan of the nematode C. elegans, and in recognition of her efforts, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory named a small asteroid after her: 23238 Ocasio-Cortez.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">After college, Ocasio-Cortez moved back to the Bronx and took a job as a bartender and waitress to help her mother—a house cleaner and school bus driver—fight foreclosure of their home.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez" style="cursor: text;"><font size="5">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">So she is a smart cookie but and whilst it's noble of her to help her mother, however why would such a well qualified person have to work as a bartender and waitress? </font><span style="font-size: x-large;">Not that these are demeaning jobs but they are services jobs well below what she is qualified for and there are many well qualified and well experienced people in the U.S., in Europe and in Malaysia who have no choice but to accept jobs well below their qualifications, whilst public and private universities and colleges (graduate factories) crank out graduates lumbered with having to pay back their student loans plus the interest. The education business today are money-making concerns for educational institutions and the banks.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Congresswoman is a services job too, albeit very well paid, and any idiot can become a Congressman, Congresswoman, President, Member of Parliament, Cabinet Minister, Prime Minister, Premier, State Assemblywoman, State Assemblyman, Chief Minister, all of which don't require any academic, trade or professional qualifications - not even a Failed Pre-School qualification, when even bartenders in the U.S. have trade certifications. Perhaps I should send my resume to the Human Resources Manager at Parliament, applying for a position as Member of Parliament.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Anyone read or heard about John Naisbitt, Alvin Toffler, Don Tapscott or Nicholas Negroponte in the media especially after the financial crisis of 2008 ??</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">In the 1980s, 90s and early 2000s, management CON-sultants, seminar speakers, business CON-sultants, corporate heads and government ministers (mostly reading speeches prepared for them which they most probably did not understand) were dropping the names of these futurist authors like confetti at seminars, conferences, press conferences and so forth but especially after 2008, hardly anybody mentions their names or books anymore. I suppose "Information and Services Society/Economy" has become a dirty term, especially when the adverse effects of the U.S. and western economies, with their manufacturing base hollowed out impact upon the majority of working class citizens.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Fortunately, now semi-retired, I'm spared the torment of having to cover such seminars and conferences. After all, the seminar and conference business is about filling as many seats as possible with backsides willing to pay the substantial fee to hear the "words of wisdom" of these speakers who are touted as "prophets" having descended from the mountain with tablets bearing the sacred words in hand. I suppose bullshit sells in the Information and Services Society/Economy, especially after productive, real wealth-creating work - i.e. "sunset industries" leave our shores for lower wage countries which are experiencing a sunrise as a result of the influx of these "sunset industries".</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Anyway, <i>The Malay Mail</i> article follows below.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Malaysian motorist ends up in bike lane – after claiming to have mistakenly set Waze on motorcycle mode (VIDEO)</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Friday, 26 Jun 2020 05:05 PM MYT</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">BY TAN MEI ZI</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">PETALING JAYA, June 26 — A driver ended up cruising through the Federal Highway's bike lane – after he claimed he had mistakenly selected the motorcycle mode on his Waze app.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">A Facebook video of the incident taken by a motorcyclist shows the driver in a black sports utility vehicle (SUV) driving down the bike lane heading towards Subang, with his vehicle almost occupying the entire width of the road.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Some motorcyclists overtook the driver to block his path and direct him towards an exit near a bus stop.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">One of the motorcyclists can be heard asking if the driver was under the influence.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><i>The Star</i> reported that a police report was lodged against the 53-year-old after the video went viral on Wednesday and he was called in for questioning by the police at 5pm on the same day.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">He is now under investigation for violating Section 79 of the Road Transport Act 1988 for neglecting traffic directions and signs.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">According to Petaling Jaya OCPD Asst Comm Nik Ezanee Mohd Faisal, the driver wound up in the motorcycle lane because he had failed to select the correct setting on his traffic navigation app.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"He was using Waze to get to his destination but because it was set to motorcycle mode, he ended up on the motorcycle lane," said Nik Ezanee.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">He also confirmed that the driver has undergone the necessary tests and was not intoxicated at the time of the incident.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The case has been handed over to the deputy public prosecutor for further investigation and the driver faces a fine of no less than RM300 or up to RM2,000 if found guilty.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.malaymail.com/news/life/2020/06/26/malaysian-motorist-ends-up-in-bike-lane-after-claiming-to-have-mistakenly-s/1879153"><font size="5">https://www.malaymail.com/news/life/2020/06/26/malaysian-motorist-ends-up-in-bike-lane-after-claiming-to-have-mistakenly-s/1879153</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Yours truly</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="7"><i>IT.Scheiss</i></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><font size="5">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</font></a></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-66399631127019014112020-06-21T21:32:00.001+08:002020-11-01T23:27:24.556+08:00HASAN MINHAJ ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE NEWS INDUSTRY IN THE U.S.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I started my <i>IT Scheiss</i> blog to refute claims by certain self-styled "new media consultants" that online and digital news media is the "future" of media publishing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I just came across this Netflix video by Hasan Minhaj about how the news industry in the U.S. is being destroyed.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">The News Industry Is Being Destroyed | Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj | Netflix</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icNirsV1rLA"><span style="font-size: large;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icNirsV1rLA</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Yours Truly</span></div>
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<span>IT.SCHEISS</span></div>
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<a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-size: large;">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</span></a></div>
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IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-64872820457935181342020-05-27T17:28:00.000+08:002020-05-28T01:48:25.309+08:00TEACHER's UNION FORESEES POORER STUDENTS WILL BE DISADVANTAGED WHEN IT COMES TO ONLINE LEARNING<div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I was at used PC and PC rental company last week and its business owner told me that most demand during this COVID-19 period has been for notebook PC purchases and rentals by parents for their children to study online due to school closures during the movement control order (MCO).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This leaves school students with having to attend class online but as evidence has emerged not only in Malaysia but also in other countries, online education has its shortcomings in the real world of school education, especially at this time when a study by Khazanah Research Institute's (KRI) on how school closures since mid-March had disrupted formal learning for an estimated 4.9 million students in pre, primary and secondary schools nationwide.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Back in the late 1990s when Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC Malaysia) initiative to transform Malaysia, into an "information-rich, knowledge-based economy, high-income economy" by the year 2020 - i.e. this year, and proponents of computers in education in academia, computer and online learning system suppliers and various educational institutions were touting notions that computers in education and online distance learning would "free students from common, standardised classroom curriculum designed for the industrial age" and enable them to study a choice of subjects suited to their interests and at their own pace, which is "more suited to the information age". </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">That's the kind of befuddling gobbledegook spewed out by ICT industry CEOs, ICT industry marketing types, government officials, government ministers, even prime ministers, seminar speakers, new media CON-sultants, management CON-sultants, starry-eyed or opportunistic ICT and Internet futurists at ICT industry conferences, seminars, media conferences and so forth that I had to endure and faithfully regurgitate in my articles, till the point that well over 20 years later today, it gives me as a technical man - psychological trauma when attending such events, especially when </span><span style="font-size: large;">I'm not one of those ICT journalists who drinks the ICT industry's Kool Aid or eats the industry's dog food.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now <i>The Star</i> of 23 May 2020 reports National Union of the Teaching Profession Secretary-General Harry Tan says that disabled and students from underprivileged families will lose out due to insufficient access to online lessons during this MCO and CMCO period and that the government to galvanise aid from various parties across the nation to upgrade and provide Internet connectivity between students and teachers as soon as possible. In reponse to the KRI report, Tan also called for teachers to be retrained to master techniques of distance and online learning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">KRI noted that the closure of schools and shortfalls in teaching and learning activities during this health crisis had affected schoolchildren unevenly. Besides increasing broadband penetration, KRI report called upon the government to ensure all children have access to the needed devices, including making devices more affordable and accessible. It also called upon the government to urgently develop high-quality digital content, perhaps even translating appropriate foreign materials, and to equip teachers with the skills to more effectively use e-learning technologies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education is in the midst of digitising educational material for schools and whilst noting that, former deputy education minister Datuk P. Kamalanathan said tha Ministry must find a way to expand the process to encapsulate learning from home, and that the issue of devices and connectivity has to be studied thoroughly and a comprehensive long-term solution has to be developed, and that a portion of the education budget must be allocated towards this and that private-public partnerships was a good way to boost online learning, the former Deputy-Minister said, adding that the uneven learning environment would translate to a wider gap between privileged and underprivileged (urban and rural) students if changes were not done now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Melaka Action Group for Parents in Education (Magpie) chairman Mak Chee Kin called upon the government to upgrade Internet connectivity and raise awareness among parents to brush up on their children's digital skills, and that those in need should be identified and subsidised for devices and Internet access. Mak also called upon the government to launch an e-awareness campaign on learning and education that highlights this priority and how it can break the vicious cycle of poverty, and that the Ministry of Education should get teachers who were digital natives (i.e. ICT-savvy) to train their colleagues who are not yet digitally literate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ladies and Gentlemen, fine words indeed, the likes of which I have heard hundreds if not a thousand times before during my close to 26 years of writing about the ICT industry and government ICT initiatives in Malaysia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">With all due respect to persons and institutions mentioned above, I'm pretty sure that most of the well-intentioned recommendations and suggestions above will be forgotten once this COVID-19 crisis has reduced to a low enough level for physical schools to reopen, or as the Malay expression goes - it will all be <i>hangat, hangat tahi ayam</i> (as hot as chicken shit) and anyone who has been around chickens knows that chicken shit cools very fast after it hits the ground.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, those of us who use PCs, smartphones and tablet devices only know too well how these devices, the operating system and software they run by design of the ICT industry soon become "obsolete" and too slow or no longer unable to run the latest software, forcing especially the less ICT savvy amongst us, which is most users of such devices, to spend our hard-earned money to buy new devices which will serve us a few years until they too become "obsolete" and we have to replace them again. Also notice how users cannot easily replace the battery of their smartphone when it runs out, so have to either send it to an authorised repair centre or a third-party phone technician to have the battery replaced at a pretty hefty cost, so most of us tend to just chuck the phone out and buy a new one. The ICT industry keeps us running like hamsters on a treadmill.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi1crmM15ukNUjh_fFPIZD3RgRpaS94mgzMdN7B70RUucm_ufdHnWg8kjC9TT3I0Kc8AHBNMzlkiCIpVmEg_v4wKxDL5P-M2IXkgPcqBOn0z2A2ZzSrdEBXMkk4ZARPFsNpEV-8XfRSsBE/s1600/tredmill-769243.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6831453741229627426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi1crmM15ukNUjh_fFPIZD3RgRpaS94mgzMdN7B70RUucm_ufdHnWg8kjC9TT3I0Kc8AHBNMzlkiCIpVmEg_v4wKxDL5P-M2IXkgPcqBOn0z2A2ZzSrdEBXMkk4ZARPFsNpEV-8XfRSsBE/s320/tredmill-769243.gif" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So OK! Let's say the government and the Ministry of Education does implement all of the above recommendations and manages to close the digital divide between rural and urban areas, between the underprivileged and the privileged, between the ICT unsavvy and the ICT savvy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, for how long will this last before all the devices become "obsolete" and will the government be able to afford to run like a hamster on a treadmill repeatedly upgrading all the equipment or repeatedly buying new equipment to replace "obsolete" or broken down equipment, and how many parents of underprivileged children can afford to keep coming out with the money to repeatedly buy new PCs, smartphones and tablets with the latest operating system and software or when their batteries wear out and need to be replaced ???</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Please think about my question above.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Star'</i>s article referred to follows below:- </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXMe0E7ZBNXfLkyr_k5yDNFv92pg4r5rUdPf3ys15Ah-V6_tELOzNa7lt0kXxsxMiwD_U9GNPUCfyNbJKfNpj8FAlnHWFjnN8IjDbi3AubOCYQEAtd3uJXSXeWcSpnILy48biWV_8qEata/s1600/NUTP+-+School+dropout+rate+will+rise+from+2020-05-23+15-18-55-773536.png"><img alt="" border="0" height="505" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6831453763425795634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXMe0E7ZBNXfLkyr_k5yDNFv92pg4r5rUdPf3ys15Ah-V6_tELOzNa7lt0kXxsxMiwD_U9GNPUCfyNbJKfNpj8FAlnHWFjnN8IjDbi3AubOCYQEAtd3uJXSXeWcSpnILy48biWV_8qEata/s640/NUTP+-+School+dropout+rate+will+rise+from+2020-05-23+15-18-55-773536.png" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">NUTP: School dropout rate will rise</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Saturday, 23 May 2020</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">By LEE CHONGHUI</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">PETALING JAYA: The school dropout rate is likely to rise post-movement control order (MCO) due to an unequal learning environment caused by the disruption in formal classroom learning in light of Covid-19, says the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP).</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Its secretary-general Harry Tan (pic) said underprivileged and disabled students who did not have sufficient access to online lessons throughout the MCO were most likely to give up on education.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"Lack of facilities could cause them to be left behind in the syllabus and eventually grow disinterested when they can't cope with the workload even when they try to.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"This will make them feel inferior and reinforce the notion that since they are poor, they will always be frowned upon, " he said.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">The socio-economic gap will ultimately widen in the long run when education is only accessible to the higher strata of society, he added.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">To prevent this, Tan urged the government to galvanise aid from various parties across the nation to upgrade and provide Internet connectivity between students and teachers as soon as possible.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"Teachers should be retrained to master techniques of distance and online learning, " he said in response to Khazanah Research Institute's (KRI) report on how school closures since mid-March had disrupted formal learning for an estimated 4.9 million students in pre, primary and secondary schools nationwide.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">KRI noted that closure of schools and gaps in teaching and learning activities during the health crisis had affected children unevenly.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">The looming economic downturn following the lockdown will hit those from disadvantaged backgrounds especially harder with longer term consequences.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"Apart from strengthening broadband penetration, more needs to be done to ensure all children have access to the needed devices, including making devices more affordable and accessible.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;">"It is especially urgent to develop high-quality digital content, perhaps even translat</span><span style="color: blue;">ing appropriate foreign materials, and to equip teachers with the skills to more effectively use e-learning technologies, " the report added.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Noting that the Education Ministry was in the midst of digitalising education at the school level, former deputy education minister Datuk P. Kamalanathan said it must find a way to expand the process to encapsulate learning from home.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"The issue of devices and connectivity has to be studied thoroughly and a comprehensive long-term solution has to be developed.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"A portion of the budget should be allocated for this purpose. It's not going to be easy financially but the pandemic has demonstrated that now is the best time to enhance and expedite long-term solutions, " said Kamanlanathan, who is also MIC education bureau chairman.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Private-public partnerships was a good way to boost online learning, he said, adding that the uneven learning atmosphere would translate to a wider gap between privileged and underprivileged (urban and rural) students if changes were not done now.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Melaka Action Group for Parents in Education (Magpie) chairman Mak Chee Kin said unequal education opportunities could create a sense of urgency for the ministry to perform upgrades to Internet connectivity and raise awareness among parents to brush up on their children's digital skills.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"Those in need should be identified and subsidised for devices and Internet access. The ministry could also embark on an e-awareness campaign on learning and education that highlights this priority and how it can break the vicious cycle of poverty, " he said.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">He added that teachers who were digital natives should be recognised by the ministry to encourage and train other teachers who were not yet digitally literate.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2020/05/23/nutp-school-dropout-rate-will-rise"><span style="font-size: large;">https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2020/05/23/nutp-school-dropout-rate-will-rise</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Take care and stay safe during this COVID-19 health crisis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yours truly</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>IT.Scheiss</i></span><br />
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IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-73671078448741661452020-04-22T16:38:00.000+08:002020-05-14T14:26:14.186+08:00DIGITAL DIVIDE IN "AFFLUENT" AND "SOPHISTICATED" HONG KONG<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">In my last<i> IT. Scheiss</i> post, I commented on Perai State Assemblyman (ADUN) and Deputy Chief Minister II of Penang, Y.B. Tuan P. Ramasamy's statement highlighting the issue of a digital divide, especially with regards to computer, tablet and smartphone-based online learning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/2020/04/well-said-yb-tuan-p-ramasamy.html"><span style="font-size: medium;">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/2020/04/well-said-yb-tuan-p-ramasamy.html</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well today, <i>The Star</i> of 22 April 2020 carries a <i>South China Morning Post</i> article about a digital divide </span><span style="font-size: large;">in "affluent", urban and "sophisticated" Hong Kong, between school pupils from wealth families who can afford to provide their children with a device each to use exclusively for online learning on and on the one hand pupils from lower income families who have no choice but to take turns to share devices used for online learning from home when schools are closed due to COVID-19.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Below is an excerpt from the article which cites results of a study which found that students mainly used their devices, whether exclusively or shared, for communication with family and friends and for leisure purposes - i.e. for messaging, engagement in social media, surfing the web, watching videos and so forth. Well, that's also what I had observed about how most people young and old use their devices - i.e. mostly for messaging, social media, for entertainment and some to access information such as news and websites.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, when it comes to online learning, the Kong Kong University professor who headed that research project believes that students who do not have exclusive use of a device for online learning will be at a disadvantage to students who do have exclusive access.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Nancy Law Luk Wai-ying, a professor at HKU's Faculty of Education who spearheaded the research, said when the data was collected last year, students were mainly using electronic devices for communication with family and friends and leisure purposes.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">While a complete lack of digital access represented a clear disadvantage, an analysis of student performances showed there was a relatively small difference between those who had to share a device and those who had their own.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"Having access or no access, it makes a real difference. But having to share, when it wasn't the main means of learning, where one needs to t didn't hurt the students' digital competence," Law said.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">But that was last year.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">While data for the past few months was unavailable – a batch of data covering the 2020/21 academic year will come later – Law believed the sudden emphasis on digital learning would likely have an adverse impact.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"When you have to be online a lot of time when you are learning, if you don't have your own device and have to share, will it affect [one's performance]? It probably would," Law said, adding she had recently heard of a family of four sharing one or two devices between them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is one of the concerns a friend who had a daughter in one of the 1Bestarinet "Champion Schools" - i.e. if a family with five school going children were to have to share the one PC in their home for online learning, doing and submitting their homework and so forth using the Frog Virtual Learning Environment (Frog VLE), how much time each day would each student within such a family have to study and do their homework online.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, as I had pointed out in my earlier post, if school pupils are accustomed to use such devices for messaging, social media and for entertainment, how well would they adapt to use such devices for concentrated learning without falling for the temptations to engage in more frivolous and fun activities on these devices?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As it turned out, use of the Frog Virtual Learning Environment for learning, doing and submitting homework online was found to have been minimal and I don't expect that the use of Google Classroom today will turn out to be very different, especially with school children.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The article in full follows below:-</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Wednesday, 22 Apr 2020</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">By Chan Ho-him</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Researchers from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have warned of a "tsunami-scale" divide in digital learning after a months-long class suspension that about 10% of Hong Kong students could be weathering without any electronic devices at home.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">The university study's findings, released on Tuesday, also found about 40% of more than 2,000 primary and secondary pupils polled said they needed to share electronic devices with their family members, according to data collected during the 2018/19 school year.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">About 900,000 kindergartens, primary and secondary school pupils have been out of class since February due to the Covid-19 epidemic, and with most switching to online learning, children from low-income families have faced an entirely new set of challenges.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Nancy Law Luk Wai-ying, a professor at HKU's Faculty of Education who spearheaded the research, said when the data was collected last year, students were mainly using electronic devices for communication with family and friends and leisure purposes.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">While a complete lack of digital access represented a clear disadvantage, an analysis of student performances showed there was a relatively small difference between those who had to share a device and those who had their own.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"Having access or no access, it makes a real difference. But having to share, when it wasn't the main means of learning, it didn't hurt the students' digital competence," Law said.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">But that was last year.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">While data for the past few months was unavailable – a batch of data covering the 2020/21 academic year will come later – Law believed the sudden emphasis on digital learning would likely have an adverse impact.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"When you have to be online a lot of time when you are learning, if you don't have your own device and have to share, will it affect [one's performance]? It probably would," Law said, adding she had recently heard of a family of four sharing one or two devices between them.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Elizabeth Loh Ka-yee, assistant professor at HKU's Faculty of Education, said many teachers had found it challenging to help children lacking online infrastructure such as electronic devices or Wi-fi.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"There is not much teachers can do in terms of students' lack of devices. Some teachers have even worried about a 'tsunami-scale' digital divide [between students with and without digital access] when face-to-face classes eventually resume," Loh said.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Over the past few months, some schools have lent electronic devices to families in need, while principals and non-governmental organisations have provided children with internet services, including giving out pocket WiFi routers and SIM cards.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Law suggested primary and secondary schools should both expand their scope of e-learning and trace students' progress during the online learning period, so different aspects could be improved.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">She also encouraged the government, schools and community to work together to provide better infrastructure for disadvantaged students, including donating devices and assisting them with Wi-fi access.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Stanley Kam Wai-ming, principal of SKH Bishop Hall Secondary School, added that schools should be spending more effort in promoting students' digital literacy and competency, something that should go beyond traditional computer or IT classes.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"Parents' input is also particularly important," he said. "During the pandemic, kids will make better use of [time] if parents spend time with them during online learning." – South China Morning Post</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2020/04/22/covid-19-hong-kong-students-without-electronic-devices-could-be-left-on-wrong-side-of-tsunami-scale-digital-learning-divide"><span style="font-size: medium;">https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2020/04/22/covid-19-hong-kong-students-without-electronic-devices-could-be-left-on-wrong-side-of-tsunami-scale-digital-learning-divide</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The above article is further proof that online learning cannot replace classroom learning, especially for school students and that industrial age "chalk and talk" learning still rules the day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Take care and keep safe during this COVID-19 crisis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yours truly</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">IT.Scheiss</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-size: medium;">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</span></a></span></div>
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IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-12387915871276173102020-04-20T19:30:00.000+08:002021-02-03T20:49:21.291+08:00WELL SAID - Y.B TUAN P. RAMASAMY!<div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Firstly, I hope you all are well and keeping safe during this COVID-19 scourge which is afflicting us at time and greatly threatening our economy, and livelihoods. </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Thus, right now I am on a self-imposed moratorium on commenting about <b>domestic Malaysian party politics</b> during this COVID-19 crisis which afflicts Malaysia and the rest of the world, as we struggle and sacrifice together as Malaysians to contain and hopefully eliminate the scourge of this disease from our midst.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Let us hope and pray for the souls of those most unfortunately departed due to the virus, may their souls rest in peace; that more of those already infected will recover; and that the number of new COVID-19 cases will decline to zero; and that we all can return to some semblance of normalcy, even whilst continuing to take all precautions possible to avoid the disease and to avoid infecting others.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">OK. That said, let me commend Y.B. Tuan P. Ramasamy, Perai State Assemblyman (ADUN) and Deputy Chief Minister II of Penang state for highlighting the issue of the digital divide, especially with regards to computer, tablet and smartphone-based online learning in the <i>Malaysiakini</i> article following below.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">I started writing about the ICT industry in Malaysia from as far back as when I joined what was then called <i>In.Tech</i>, the weekly ICT pullout of <i>The Star </i>on 22 September 1994, or about 25 years and six months ago.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Especially during the latter half of the 1990s, I wrote several feature articles about online distance learning based upon inputs from online learning advocates in academia, private schools and companies providing online learning courses and ICT companies providing the equipment and systems for online learning.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">e-Education was part of Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor's (MSC Malaysia's) Smart Schools "flagship applications", along with e-Government, MyKad, Telehealth, R&D Clusters, Electronic Business and Technpreneur Development "flagships" - i.e. seven "flagship applications" in all.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><font size="5"><i><font color="#0000ff">3. Smart School – to National Education Philosophy, terms to teach and learn for the information-based society</font></i>.</font></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://ivytn.blogspot.com/2007/10/seven-flagship-applications-in-msc.html"><font size="5">http://ivytn.blogspot.com/2007/10/seven-flagship-applications-in-msc.html</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Whilst some of those "flagship applications" such as e-Government, MyKad (Malaysia's smartcard-based national identity card), electronic business (online shopping, online banking, interbank electronic funds transfers and so forth) and to an extent technology entrepreneur (startup business) development have become significant realities in Malaysia today, however much of the "great realities" and "superiority" of online education and distance claimed by its advocates and proponents have either not materialised at all or have fallen far short of their claims.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Whilst most of the newsprint on which my articles were printed must have ended up as fish, nasi lemak or some wrapper for something else, or has long been recycled into toilet paper and so forth, a fairly recent instance of the failure of online learning is the case of 1Bestarinet.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">I covered Frog Asia's and YTL Communications' media event in November 2012 to announce their winning the contract from the Ministry of Education to implement and deploy the first phase of 1Bestarinet.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">However, about three years later, when schools were closed due to heavy haze from Indonesia and students were told to learn from home through 1Bestarinet, the teachers' union, the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) issued a statement saying that 1Bestarinet was useless for learning from home.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">I won't burden you with the details here but you can read about it in my <i>IT Scheiss</i> blog post below:-</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5" style="font-weight: normal;">Teachers' union says 1BestariNet useless for online learning from home</font></h3></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/2015/10/teachers-union-says-1bestarinet-useless.html"><font size="5">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/2015/10/teachers-union-says-1bestarinet-useless.html</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">In his article below, P. Ramasamy believes that poor children understand the value of computers and of learning through them but they cannot due to issues of affordability.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">"<font color="#0000ff">It is not that poor children do not know or understand the value of computers or learning through these devices but it is primarily the question of affordability</font>."</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Well, he's partly right, especially with regards issues of affordability but from my direct experience of several urban, middle class people who have no problem affording devices such as computers and especially of tablets and smartphones and the high-speed broadband connectivity, including fibre and 4G LTE - is that whilst many of them know how to access social media such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, You Tube, Instagram and so forth backwards, however they are lost when it comes to performing more useful functions on their devices such as to search for information online, check their bank account and perform online banking, check their fibre broadband and cellular service provider's bills, check and respond to their e-mail, perform an e-commerce transaction, file their income tax returns and so forth online on their PCs or through their tablets or smartphones, and this is what can be called a tech-savviness divide.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Also, give a child a PC, tablet, smartphone and Internet connectivity and what do you think he or she would prefer to do on it rather than to use it for study?</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">We've all been children before, since long before we had computers, tablets and smartphones and we all would remember that between sitting down to study, we'd much prefer to go out and play or hang out with friends, unless we had our parents or teachers standing over us with a cane.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">There are many more distractions available to both children and adults on computers, tablets and smartphones than there are in realspace amongst our siblings and friends and parents today tend to be more indulgent and allow their children to do what they like both in cyberspace and in realspace.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Also after about 30 or so years of the promotion and advocacy of online and distance learning being "superior" to "industrial-style" classroom learning "in the informationa age", more recent studies have found no clear evidence that online learning yields better results than classroom learning.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">It's unfortunate that the need for social distancing to curb the spread of COVID-19 rules out classroom learning, especially as long as the MCO lasts, but at the same time, online learning does not look like it will be a viable alternative, especially for school-age children, whatever their financial background, whether rural or urban.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">On the other hand, mature students, including adults could benefit, just as they did from snail-mail based correspondence courses or attendance at further education courses ("night school") back in the 1960s, 1950s and even earlier, where many obtained certificates and diplomas in accountancy, secretarial qualifications, vocational training and so forth.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#000000" size="5">Y.B. Tuan P. Ramasamy's article follows below:- </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#000000" size="5"> </font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">ADUN SPEAKS | Digitalisation bridges or reinforces inequality?</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">P Ramasamy</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Published 10:47 am Modified 11:23 am</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">ADUN SPEAKS | Under the conditions of the present pandemic with the movement control order (MCO) in place, the country is almost in a state of shut down except for essential services.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">While it is a great relief to students and parents that some examinations are cancelled or postponed, the real question in their minds is whether there will be continuous education beyond the classroom.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The imperative of digital transformation to meet the challenges of the 4.0 Industrial Revolution has been much talked about and there have been some serious efforts to bridge the digital divide.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The importance of e-learning or learning through the internet might not have reached its present urgency or demand without the MCO.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The MCO has laid bare our unpreparedness or inability to ensure children have access to learning through the computer, having access to the internet and availability of information.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The Education Ministry was forced to admit that online education might not be effective. It is not because online education is different from straightforward classroom teaching, but simply because of the digital divide between those children who have access to computers and internet services and those who do not.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Children in rural or remote areas don't even own computers and forget about whether these areas are connected with internet services.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">It is just not a regional divide, but a class divide between those from the lower and higher socio-economic backgrounds.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Thus, regional and class divide reinforce one another to the extent that school children in rural areas are denied the benefit of online education.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Over the years, the government has spent billions in bringing about development in rural areas, but whether such a move addressed the issue of the gap between the rich and poor remains unclear.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The repeated reference in bridging the digital divide was more at the level of propaganda than anything else.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Long before the Coronavirus pandemic, our system of education was not prepared or did not lay the foundation for online education.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Not that there were no efforts at all, but the initiatives might not have benefitted all children equally.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Even in areas that are wired with services, poor children cannot afford to buy necessities such as computers or mobile phones for access.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">It is not that poor children do not know or understand the value of computers or learning through these devices but it is primarily the question of affordability.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Putting food on the table under the MCO seems more of a priority for poor families.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">However, children in urban areas, especially those from the middle and upper-class families might not experience the same misfortune.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">This is why it is often said that bridging the digital divide might not be as simple as it seems as it might invariably bring about inequality among the people.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">P RAMASAMY is the state assemblyperson for Perai. He is also deputy chief minister (II) of Penang.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/521537"><font size="5">https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/521537</font></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Way back when Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak was Education Minister, I asked him on the sidelines of a media event in Cyberjaya whether Smart Schools would create a generation of idiots by the Year 2020 - i.e. now and he replied "No". </font><span style="font-size: x-large;">Well I leave you to figure out the answer to my question.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">What we know today is that according to figures by the Ministry of Higher Education, 50% of our university and college graduates are unemployed, whilst graduate unemployment amongst ICT graduates is higher at 60%, and some of these graduates may have delivered your lunch or dinner by motorcycle for a living. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Welcome to the Information and Services Economy!</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Take care and stay safe.</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">Yours truly</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font size="5">IT Scheiss</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><font size="5">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</font></a></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-61539771900267755742020-02-14T18:35:00.001+08:002020-02-15T13:03:22.061+08:00STAGNANT WAGES, RISING COSTS LEAVE LESS DISPOSABLE INCOME TO SUPPORT SERVICES INDUSTRIES<div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I was sceptical about various futurists' predictions that the services economy would increasingly become prevalent over the industrial economy, especially in the west, since as far back as 1979 when I first heard about it from a fellow university student.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As it has turned out of course, over the intervening years this has been the case especially in the advanced industrial countries of the west, as well as some of the developed countries and regions in the east, such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, and it's also so in advanced, resource and agriculturally-rich countries such as Australia and New Zealand, booth of which never had any major domestic manufacturing industries to speak of anyway, besides domestically-based, foreign-owned automotive, home appliance and other assembly plants, plus some domestic plants producing chemicals and parts such as pipes and materials used by the agricultural, resource extraction and construction industries. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As for the past trend where major employment had shifted from the agricultural (farming) to the manufacturing sector due to the growth of large farms where mechanised farming methods had replaced the need for a large number of human workers, as well as the preference amongst agricultural workers for industrial jobs - were much cited by these futurists as the basis of their predictions that a similar trend was taking place from manufacturing to information and services jobs, especially in the advanced countries of the west; however what these futurists did not mention is that this trend observed especially in North America and Western Europe especially after World War II, was largely due to manufacturers in the west moving their more labour intensive manufacturing operations out to lower wage countries such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and after the end of the Cold War, to China and Vietnam, all of which were recipients of these "sunset industries" which were being moved out of the west to take advantage of cheap labour in these Asian countries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Where these "sunset industries" moved to, there was an economic sunrise, as people who worked, even in sweatshops earned a higher income and more spending power, which in turn fueled their respective domestic economies, and some of these countries, notably Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and today China learned the technologies which came in along with the industries and developed their own home grown technologies to the extent that they became developed, advanced economies themselves which competed with the west and likewise, labour and cost of land rentals became expensive, sometimes even more expensive than in the west, and they too began to shift their labour-intensive operations ("sunset industries") to neighbouring lower wage countries, thus adding to their economic "sunrise".</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Whilst countries like Malaysia and Singapore did not develop their domestic manufacturing industries to the extent that they could compete head on with the advanced countries in the west and in Asia, however wages and standards of living, as well as costs did rise to the extent that especially multinational companies also began to move their labour-intensive manufacturing facilities, such as of computer hard disks, semiconductors, cigarettes, fast-moving consumer goods and so forth out to neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, China, Vietnam and so forth where labour is still relatively cheap and costs lower.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It was this concern, that prompted Malaysia to embark on developing its own information and communications technology industries, especially in multimedia and content creation, as well as the hosting in Cyberjaya of outsourced and shared services, such as centralised internal administrative functions such as order processing, invoicing, payments, accounting, human resource management and so forth serving either nationally-based subsidiaries of the whole enterprise worldwide or its subsidiaries across countries of a region such as the Asia Pacific. Some examples of these include HSBC and Standard Chartered, as well as Jabil's Global Business Center at Mayang Mall in Penang and others. Also, Malaysia sought to attract multinationals to base their regional or global customer service centre, or global managed services centres in Cyberjaya or other parts of Malaysia. Besides that, major call centres also set up operations in Malaysia.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Global Business Center (GBC) affirms Jabil's commitment to Penang</span></h2>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Penang, Malaysia – October 25, 2018 - Jabil Inc. (NYSE: JBL) today officially opened its Global Business Center (GBC) in Penang's <a href="mailto:GBS@Mayang">GBS@Mayang</a>, after relocating from Bayan Lepas Industrial Park earlier this year. The center marks a milestone for Jabil's growth, which has continued to expand operations in Penang since 1995.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">The Jabil GBC started with just 200 employees and has since made a home in Penang employing approximately 950 professionals. Today, Jabil's GBC – combining the company's global information technology, supply chain management, centralized procurement, and finance global business solutions functions - supports over 180,000 Jabil employees around the world. It is one of the largest shared services centers in Penang. Jabil will occupy two floors measuring 72,700+ square feet, with the capacity to accommodate an additional 1,100 people as needed.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Gary Cantrell, Jabil's senior vice president and CIO, said, "We are proud of Jabil's journey in Penang. This new space brings our shared services team under one roof, while fostering better employee interaction, collaboration, and innovation. We continue to invest in technology to drive solutions for our internal and external customers. Furthermore, our new office will provide better infrastructure and accessibility with its centralized location within the Bayan Baru district."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Shared services will be driven by new technologies such as predictive analytics and big data to enable faster and more accurate decision support. And, Penang's highly skilled workforce and conducive ecosystem will allow Jabil to scale over time.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Cantrell was on-hand to formally open the GBC at <a href="mailto:GBS@Mayang">GBS@Mayang</a>, in the presence of Yang Berhormat Zairil Khir Johari, Penang State Executive Councillor for Public Works, Utilities & Flood Mitigation, representatives from the Penang Development Corporation and investPenang, as well as additional executives from Jabil.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">YB Zairil said, "Jabil's move to <a href="mailto:GBS@Mayang">GBS@Mayang</a> is an acknowledgment of Penang's capabilities in providing first-class infrastructure, skilled manpower, and value-added services. It also reaffirms their continued commitment to Penang. We are pleased to be a part of Jabil's growth journey."</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.jabil.com/news/jabil-opens-global-business-center-in-penang.html"><span style="font-size: large;">https://www.jabil.com/news/jabil-opens-global-business-center-in-penang.html</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Florida-headquartered Jabil provides design, engineering manufacturing and supply chain solutions for a wide range of industries including automotive, aerospace, defense, healthcare, telecommunications, computing and others and most of its facilities in Penang are involved in the design and production of circuits and solutions for these industries. The company had recently expended its operations into a plant on 20 acres in the Batu Kawan Industrial Park in mainland Penang, so R&D and production is still Jabil's main business in Penang.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, large computer-based graphic design and video post production have set up shop in Malaysia to take advantage of lower skilled labour costs than for similar skilled work in the west, and some of these offshore production centres, including U.S. owned ones, have contributed major parts of big-name Hollywood films which have graced our cinemas in recent years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Many of the above operations are pretty labour-intensive and are said to "provide mass employment in the information age". However, the question remains as to whether they can provide enough mass employment to replace the jobs lost from the assembly and manufacturing plants which have and are moving out of Malaysia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As I had written in my earlier posts, most of the production floor workers in the National Semiconductor integrated circuit assembly plant in the Senawang Industrial Park where I got my first job back in 1980, had an SPM (Malaysian Certificate of Education, Form 5) qualification or lower such as SRP (Lower Certificate of Education), whilst most line supervisors has an STPM (Higher Certificate of Education, Form 6) qualification.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When I watched the presentation about Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC Malaysia) initiative by Multimedia Development Corporation's (MDeC's) first Chief Executive Officer, the late Tan Sri Dr. Othman Yeop Abdullah at a Malaysian National Computer Confederation (MNCC) Annual General Meeting back in the 1990s, where he spoke about how the information and services jobs created by the MSC Malaysia initiative would replace those industrial jobs lost, I wondered whether most my former colleagues in that National Semiconductor plant would be able to upgrade their skills to participate in Malaysia's digital economy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps my fears were mostly unfounded, since almost all the production floor workers were young women in their late teens and early 20s in 1980, who by the time of Tan Sri Othman's presentation would be approaching their 40s and would mostly be married with children by then and would most likely have left long their production plant jobs but then could their younger replacements upgrade their skills to work in Malaysia's digital economy. Tan Sri Othman did not have an answer to my question.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, that National Semiconductor plant in Senawang closed down around the time of the economic downturn in the late 1980s. By then, I had long moved on and was happily working as a computer service engineer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, MDeC has since been renamed the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, more recently, Western Digital closed and sold off its hard disk production factory in Petaling Jaya at the end of 2019, whilst its service centre is now in Singapore.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"After over 20 years in operation, Western Digital Corporation announced that it will be shutting down its HDD (hard disk drive) manufacturing facility in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, by the end of 2019."</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2018/07/18/western-digital-to-close-down-its-iconic-pj-factory-this-year"><span style="font-size: large;">https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2018/07/18/western-digital-to-close-down-its-iconic-pj-factory-this-year</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, Seagate closed down and sold off its hard disk production plants in Penang and in Negeri Sembilan in early 2017 and moved some of its operations to Thailand. However Seagate has maintained its plant in Senai, Johor.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"US-based disk storage solutions firm Seagate Technology Plc, which is in the process of shutting down its manufacturing facilities on Penang Island and in Negeri Sembilan, is hoping to dispose of them for a total of RM130 million."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"The closure of the plants is in line with Seagate's global restructuring strategy, which includes relocating some of its Malaysian operations to Korat, Thailand. It was previously reported that Seagate was winding up its operations in Penang and Negeri Sembilan owing to weak demand."</span></div>
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"However, Seagate will continue to operate its facility in Senai, Johor."</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, recent reports have said that several remaining semiconductor production plants in Penang have downsized and have laid off some of their workers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When I visited Intel's research and development plant in Penang in 2013, I learned that whilst it was increasing its research and development operations in Penang, however it was gradually moving its production and test operations out of Malaysia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">On 22 April 2016, <i>The Star</i> reported that Intel had already moved its manufacturing operations of "mature products for the desktop PC market" to its facilities in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Chengdu in China.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2016/04/22/intel-may-cut-workforce-at-penang-kulim-plants/"><span style="font-size: large;">https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2016/04/22/intel-may-cut-workforce-at-penang-kulim-plants/</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Intel's design and development facilities employ mostly engineers and scientists with degrees in electronics, electrical and chemistry, whilst manufacturing and assembly plants mostly employ people with more intermediate skill levels such as SPM, STPM, certificate or diploma and whilst in an ideal world, everyone can even qualify with a PhD but in reality people's academic abilities tend to be concentrated mostly around intermediate levels, so it's unrealistic to imagine that everyone can obtain a science or engineering degree to be able to work in these higher skilled jobs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Besides that, an oversupply of university graduates is evident in about 50% of university graduates being unemployed, according to the Ministry of Higher Education, and amongst them, 60% of ICT graduates are unemployed or underemployed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well now we read of and hear reports of a number of engineering graduates with honours degrees having to find work delivering food for services such as Foodpanda or Grab Food, driving e-hailing taxis such as Grab, working as home and office cleaners, opening small businesses selling drinks and so forth just to make a living.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I suppose the nett loss of productive facilities which provide mass employment are amongst some of the reasons why the Penang and Selangor state governments have allowed rampant property development projects, despite there already being an excess of available properties in the market, whilst the government has lowered the minimum property price for foreign buyers down to RM600,000 per property. Perhaps, state governments and local authorities hope to collect quit rent and assessment from the owners of these properties.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I suppose school levers and unemployed graduates can find work as real estate agents, though since their income is mostly based upon commissions from property sales made, if they can't sell a property, they get no income.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps more Malaysians will become. sales promoters, unit trust consultants, insurance agents, telemarketers and so forth and we can earn an income selling unit trusts, insurance policies and so forth to each other.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And let's not forget the oldest services industry - i.e. prostitution. The government should consider legalising, regulating prostitution and health-certifying prostitutes as Malaysia increasingly becomes and information and services economy. ;)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This way, Malaysians can continue to afford to by a whole lot of consumer goods, such as smartphones produced by productive industries in neighbouring countries to which these "sunset industries" have moved.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, an article by Helen Buyniski in <i>Russia Today</i> of 13 February 2020 points out that the success of services industries, such as those in the U.S. mostly depend upon the disposal income of citizens to be able to purchase these various services and wages in the U.S. have been stagnant in the past 50 years, whilst cost of living has been increasing and an increasing number of employment in the U.S. is in gog economy jobs and when 78% of American workers are living from paycheque to paycheque, they do not have the disposable income to make purchases, which support services industries, which will eventually collapse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have listed some key excerpts from Helen's article below:_ </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"a 2019 survey found 78 percent of American workers were living paycheck-to-paycheck , and similar scary figures have graced financial headlines for years."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"It's common knowledge that as cost of living has increased in the last half-century, American wages have stagnated. But the reality is actually getting worse - since 2006, median wages have actually declined 9 percent when adjusted for inflation, according to the PayScale Index ."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">"While Trump may praise the country's swelling employment numbers to the sky, <b>many of those are gig-economy positions that offer no benefits or real job security and don't come close to replacing the long-term career-oriented jobs</b> wiped out in the financial crash of 2008."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well, Malaysia is heading towards that dystopian future too, whatever Tun Dr. Mahathir, Lim Guan Eng or Azmin Ali may say.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The full <i>Russia Today</i> article follows below:_ </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><b>Almost a THIRD of US workers can't live on their paychecks, spelling doom for a service economy based on discretionary spending</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Helen Buyniski - is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/velocirapture23" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@velocirapture23</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"> Almost one in three American workers can't quite make ends meet in between paydays, a new survey has revealed. This doesn't bode well for the US' service economy, where discretionary spending is the major driver of growth.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Some 32 percent of US workers are unable to stretch their salaries to cover their needs, according to a survey published on Tuesday by Salary Finance. Nor is this inability to make one's paycheck last limited to poor and working-class individuals - the poll queried over 2,700 adults working for medium- to large-sized companies about their finances and found that even among those making over $200,000 annually, 32 percent "always" or "most of the time" ran out of cash before payday.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Certainly, the insufficient-funds problem is more severe for those making under $15,000 per year - fully 40 percent, or two in five, are unable to make ends meet on that salary. But no matter how high up the pay scale one goes, the problem stubbornly refuses to vanish.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">When "living paycheck to paycheck" - once the hallmark of the stressed-out working poor - becomes an aspirational goal, it's clear the US economy is in trouble. But this isn't a bolt out of the blue: a 2019 survey found 78 percent of American workers were living paycheck-to-paycheck , and similar scary figures have graced financial headlines for years.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">How, then, might Americans square the slow collapse into poverty they see in themselves and their neighbors with the vision of golden prosperity laid out by President Donald Trump at the State of the Union earlier this month, bolstered by facts and figures that surely no one could refute? It's common knowledge that as cost of living has increased in the last half-century, American wages have stagnated. But the reality is actually getting worse - since 2006, median wages have actually declined 9 percent when adjusted for inflation, according to the PayScale Index . While Trump may praise the country's swelling employment numbers to the sky, many of those are gig-economy positions that offer no benefits or real job security and don't come close to replacing the long-term career-oriented jobs wiped out in the financial crash of 2008.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Also on rt.com That's a bit rich: Biden says paycheck doesn't matter, jobs are 'about dignity'</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">At the same time as workers make hardly more (or even less) than they did 40 years ago, average consumer prices keep on creeping up, increasing 2.3 percent in the last year alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Healthcare costs increased by more than twice that rate. But Americans keep consuming at the same rate they have all their lives, accustomed to a certain standard of living. Shopping is second-nature to those raised in the service economy of the post-NAFTA years, taught to express themselves in their purchases. It is this cultivated need to consume as a core function of their humanity that has kept that economy alive, fed on discretionary dollars. This is not irresponsible or frivolous spending, either - a nation of perpetual customers who can be counted on to spend their surplus income on products they don't necessarily need but have been told they want and deserve has been absolutely critical to keeping the economic engines running.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">And when those customers run out of surplus income? They're already out, for one thing - nearly half (48 percent) of respondents to the Salary Finance survey admitted they don't have any money set aside, even for emergencies. Consumer credit card debt hit a record $930 billion earlier this week, dwarfing the numbers seen during the 2008 crisis. Even before taking into account student debt - a crisis in itself - and mortgage debt approaching 2008 levels, the American consumer, once liberated by the ability to buy anything they wanted, is now weighed down by the hangover from a decade-long shopping spree.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">This is uncharted territory. The only certainty is that business as usual - debt bubbles swollen beyond absurdity while the supposed adults in the room are literally swimming in too much money to care - can't last forever.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.rt.com/op-ed/480710-one-third-americans-paycheck-poverty/"><span style="font-size: large;">https://www.rt.com/op-ed/480710-one-third-americans-paycheck-poverty/</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">No. This can't last forever and when there is such a huge property overhang, I suppose real estate agents can sell these properties to ghosts who will pay for them with Hell Money.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A couple or so years back, someone bought three dilapidated bungalows down the road from where I live, I understand for RM1 million each. They were torn down and rebuilt into three identical, modernist looking bungalows complete with a swimming pool in the front yard each and I understand their new owner is asking for over RM2 million each.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well, they still stand unsold, with real estate agents' posters on the front gate until today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A predominance of speculative (such as real estate), services and information industries over productive, real wealth-generating industries is a sign of an economy in decline.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Despite whatever rubbish various paperback writers, economic, business and management CON-sultants have told us, reality testifies that the economic sun sets where "sunset industries" move out from, leaving behind "sunrise industries", whilst the economic sun rises where "sunset industries" move to, such as Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, China and so forth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, Star Media Group should be releasing its fourth financial quarterly report 2019 (Q4 2019) sometime in the last week of February 2020. It will be interesting to see if it manages to buck the series of consecutive quarterly declines in quarterly revenue and nett profit, or will it manage to make a turnaround.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Stay tuned:-</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.malaysiastock.biz/Corporate-Infomation.aspx?securityCode=6084">https://www.malaysiastock.biz/Corporate-Infomation.aspx?securityCode=6084</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Like many other media companies worldwide, Star Media Group has been adversely impacted by a commonly observed trend where despite having an online and digital platform presence in addition to its print edition, however print advertising revenue has been observed to provide the bulk of a publication's advertising revenue but at the same time has been dropping between 8 and 10 times as online and digital advertising revenue has been increasing and moreover, for most publications worldwide, online and digital advertising revenue comprises around 10% of total advertising revenue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Once a publication goes online and/or digital, it faces competition for advertising from the likes of Google and Facbook, as can be seen in the chart below and both Google and Facebook can customise advertisements relevant to the country the viewer is in to appear based upon their IP (Internet Protocol) address detected and moreover most Internet users, including myself are annoyed by such advertisements popping up and obstructing our reading or viewing experience and many of us install ad-blockers to try and block them or just close them and get on with our reading or watching. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix80G7MSXxPIZefUMOOYJS3hDJbNIviEudFzj8IFVGb50JktkwIzaNUrmXPy6LpgHggJsjbRwoj668Si6dp-2Yh_NuO-KucGjwyVLrsBgvnKyqy9D5OTEVN-ceRSHSCPQ1t33VGTGEaO9p/s1600/newspaperadsdecline+Google+and+Facebook-764272.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="436" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6793249128927934690" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix80G7MSXxPIZefUMOOYJS3hDJbNIviEudFzj8IFVGb50JktkwIzaNUrmXPy6LpgHggJsjbRwoj668Si6dp-2Yh_NuO-KucGjwyVLrsBgvnKyqy9D5OTEVN-ceRSHSCPQ1t33VGTGEaO9p/s640/newspaperadsdecline+Google+and+Facebook-764272.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As for online or digital only publications, including the many alternative publications in Malaysia, for most of them, their advertising revenue is not enough to sustain their continued operations and many are propped up by un-named financiers behind the scenes - i.e. sugar daddies who keep them afloat for personal reasons or to serve their respective political agendas, whilst others struggle to survive through paid editorial deals. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Given the above media scenario, I would never advise a young school leaver to embark on a career in journalism in the hope that it will remain a viable paying career, since they could be out of work in their mid forties when they are lumbered with the burdens of a wife and of having to pay for their children's schooling, of having to pay off their car and housing loans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Instead, aspiring writers will require a main source of income from another job, profession or business, whilst they write for free in their free time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">With few exceptions, this is the future of journalism as I see it. Thankfully, I'm an old fart enjoying my semi-retirement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">In his book, </span><i>Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy</i><span style="font-size: large;">, Joseph Schumpeter spoke about Creative Destruction, in which he proposed that companies need to "reinvent themselves" or upgrade their operations and workflows with new technologies, but in the case of media, the creative has proven to have been unable to make up for the destruction.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I started this blog IT.Scheiss in March 2012 to refute the nonsense about online and digital platforms being "The future of journalism" by opportunistic, self-styled, new media CON-sultants. Besides such refutations, I have also expanded IT.Scheiss to refute other nonsense peddled by Internet idealists, tech-marketers, opportunistic futuristics, authors and seminar speakers who earn fees from attendees who pay to listen to their "gems of wisdom".</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Welcome to the information and services economy and the dystopian future for most which lies ahead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yours most truly</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b>IT.SCHEISS</b></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-size: large;">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</span></a></div>
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IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-8977114257731854702020-02-06T09:00:00.001+08:002020-02-06T09:00:51.537+08:00WHY DO YOU NEED AN APP TO COUNT A CAUCUS VOTE - GEORGE GALLOWAY<div><font size="5">I really love what George Galloway said - "Why do you need an app to count a caucus vote?" and "It's like the script of a sitcom"</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Now Europeans find that - "The Democrat Party is no fit to run a bordelo or a drunken party at a brewery".</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">(I guess that's also true about the Pakatan Harapan's ability to effectively run a country - i.e. Malaysia.) </font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Basically, this smartphone app has seriously set back the Democrats' chances of winning the presidency in November 2020.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><h1 class="title style-scope ytd-video-primary-info-renderer"><font size="5">The winner in Iowa is President Trump – George Galloway</font></h1><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO6TshkQ1oc"><font size="5">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO6TshkQ1oc</font></a></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders supporter Jenn Dize of <i>Status Coup</i> describes the problems with this app in greater detail.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><h1 class="title style-scope ytd-video-primary-info-renderer"><yt-formatted-string force-default-style="" class="style-scope ytd-video-primary-info-renderer"><font size="5"><span dir="auto" class="style-scope yt-formatted-string">SMELLS ROTTEN: Failed </span><a spellcheck="false" href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23IowaCaucus" dir="auto">#IowaCaucus</a><span dir="auto" class="style-scope yt-formatted-string"> App Has Pete Buttigieg/Hillary Clinton Connection</span></font></yt-formatted-string></h1><div><yt-formatted-string force-default-style="" class="style-scope ytd-video-primary-info-renderer"><span dir="auto" class="style-scope yt-formatted-string"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyHgO5KUqC4"><font size="5">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyHgO5KUqC4</font></a></span></yt-formatted-string></div></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Ah! but never mind, there will be more MSC Malaysia status companies receiving startup funds to develop apps and propel Malaysia towards becoming a "high-income", "knowledge-based", "information-rich" economy by 2020 (oops! postponed to 2030), and ministers talking crap read from scripts prepared for them by their press secretaries or public relations consultants about the "wonders" of an app launched by a startup company the launch of whose app they are officiating at, after which hordes of journalists covering the event will breathlessly file their stories extolling the app, perhaps along with accounts of how fragrant the ministers' farts smell. </font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Meanwhile, <i>Russia Today</i> reports:-</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">"The US Senate has voted to acquit President Donald Trump of impeachment charges brought by the House Democrats, ending the attempt to oust him from the White House ahead of the November 2020 elections."</font></div><div><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/480169-senate-acquits-trump-impeachment/"><font size="5">https://www.rt.com/usa/480169-senate-acquits-trump-impeachment/</font></a></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Another blow to the Democrats.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Yours truly</font></div><div><font size="5"> </font></div><div><font size="7">IT.Scheiss</font></div><div><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><font size="5">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</font></a></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-40895940371756296812019-12-12T11:08:00.001+08:002019-12-12T11:08:28.149+08:00RETRENCHED JOURNALISTS FIND IT TOUGH TO SURVIVE DOING GIG WORK<div><font size="5">Further to my post yesterday, this <i>Free Malaysia Today </i>article cites retrenched journalists who reveal that gig work such as driving e-hailing taxis and work as independent contractors selling stuff to each other on the streets is no fun, unlike what the proponents, including conference and seminar speakers as well as business and management CON-sultants of the "new world of work in the information and services economy" touted, including with the help of journo-prostitutes in the information technology and business media.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">I started this blog - IT Scheiss (IT Shit) <a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</a> in March 2011 to provide the other side of the story about the ongoing trend whereby whilst media readership has been increasingly moving from print media to online and digital media, however online and digital media can command very much lower advertising rates that print media could and the experience of newspapers in the U.S. show, that for every US$ 8 to US$10 drop in print advertising revenue, there is a US$1 increase in online and digital advertising revenue and moreover a media publication's online and digital platforms earn far less advertising revenue that their print platform, so advertising revenue from their online and digital platforms cannot make up for the decline in advertising revenue from their print platform, which in the long term is unsustainable for media organisations and for the future of journalism as a viable, paying career upon which media workers can rely upon for a living.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Those self-styled New Media CON-sultants back around 2011 and 2012, some of whom were IT journalists, touted the fact that media readership was moving from print to online and digital in their articles - which is one side of the coin, so to speak, but they suppressed the other side about online and digital advertising revenue and the decline in print advertising revenue as this is what I set out to highlight in my blog IT Scheiss, and seven years later, we can see the harsh reality unfolding before our eyes.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">This is not just a problem affecting Malaysian media such as Utusan Malaysia or Malaysian media companies such as Media Prima, Berjaya Media, Star Media Group but it's a problem which has affected media in the developed world several years before it hit Malaysia.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">I highlighted that in greater detail my blog post yesterday:-</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">600 MEDIA WORKERS TO LOSE JOBS BY FRIDAY (13 DECEMBER 2019), THOUSANDS MORE BY Q1 2020</font></div><div></div><font size="5"><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/2019/12/600-media-workers-to-lose-jobs-by.html">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/2019/12/600-media-workers-to-lose-jobs-by.html</a></font><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">In the future, journalism will be a pastime or hobby where people with another source of income, such as a daytime job or a business write, blog post videos of their opinions and analyses in their spare time for free.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Or, media organisations which survive will have to be sponsored by governments, wealthy businessmen or tycoons wanting to promote an agenda, political parties wanting to promote their political message, non-governmental organisations wanting to promote their respective political agendas, foreign governments or foreign government backed non-governmental organisations (actually very much governmental non-governmental organisations and so forth. Like have you ever wondered why many of Malaysia's so-called "alternative media" or "independent media" are coy about revealing who their "investors" are?</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">The <i>Free Malaysia Today </i>article follows below:_ </font></div><div><font size="5"> </font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrOF5fTvppDehscY6p9wOv8rXsQGihlEBdQsIbPbTqXQ9nw0AzkqCAQJxGawfvOcq0p0UjPHcWttComMjswb1z7FN4lod7AtKvty9991eYtC3FQzSgvMFqhNxv53RfVJ3XcPziSpZwpGul/s1600/Bad+news+for+thousands+of+journalists+as+they+report+their+own+troubles+from+2019-12-12+10-00-48-708164.png"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrOF5fTvppDehscY6p9wOv8rXsQGihlEBdQsIbPbTqXQ9nw0AzkqCAQJxGawfvOcq0p0UjPHcWttComMjswb1z7FN4lod7AtKvty9991eYtC3FQzSgvMFqhNxv53RfVJ3XcPziSpZwpGul/s320/Bad+news+for+thousands+of+journalists+as+they+report+their+own+troubles+from+2019-12-12+10-00-48-708164.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6769384338254659330" /></a><br></font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">GEORGE TOWN/KUALA LUMPUR: Most of us probably have difficulty remembering the last time we paid for and held a physical newspaper.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">After all, with boundless free content at our fingertips, who needs to buy actual newspapers anymore? That's one of the great benefits of the digital age.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Yet it's not good news for traditional media who are struggling to adapt their business models to survive in the new electronic world.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Increasing numbers of skilled employees are the collateral damage of this unevenly matched battle between print and digital media. As hard copies disappear from the nation's trains, waiting rooms and office desks, thousands of workers are finding themselves redundant.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Ex-reporters who used to chase stories on the streets of Malaysia's cities now find themselves slogging along those same streets trying to find other jobs to survive.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">They are the fallout from the decline of legacy print media in the digital age.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In the recent turmoil of Utusan Malaysia's on-again off-again attempts to survive, hundreds of journalists now find themselves out of a job.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">They have to earn a living somehow. It's not unusual for ex-employees to run into each other peddling kitchen utensils or perfume from their car boots on the streets.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Life for Ali (not his real name) has changed for the worse since he was let go from Utusan after 17 years of service in Kuala Lumpur and Penang.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The 38-year-old used to edit stories written by younger reporters, attend major press conferences, and cover PR events for the newspaper, earning a salary that paid for his housing, car instalments and the kind of life a young city-dweller leads. It was a responsible job that he enjoyed.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Today, Ali drives more than 12 hours a day, six days a week for two e-hailing companies just to keep his head above water.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">He says his debts are rising as Utusan has not yet paid him his final two months' salary of RM10,000, leaving him with no option but to search for other sources of income.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"I had no choice but to move to KL as I can't make as much money as a Grab driver in Penang. Here, I can make about RM1,000 in a good week," he told FMT.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">And yet even in the capital he struggles. "Driving earns me barely enough to pay for my home and car and other expenses."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Another redundant Utusan reporter said many of his ex-colleagues now do odd jobs, such as selling food and Tupperware from their car boots on the street.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The 49-year-old ex-reporter, who wanted to be known only as Mohamad, said he was lucky, because after much searching he has finally managed to land a job as a writer at a marketing and event management company.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"A friend told me about the opening. If not, I would be driving for an e-hailing company right now," he said.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"Some of my ex-colleagues are selling perfume on the streets, kaki lima. Others have become runners and unit trust or insurance agents. It's hard to find a job, and even if you can, the pay is too low."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">For the lucky older ones with a good career behind them, the future is not so bleak.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">A 55-year-old ex-member of the editorial staff of another English daily, who left through a mutual separation scheme in 2017, said he's happy that he got out of journalism.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">For one thing, he is now able to catch up on his travel ambitions.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">He plans to continue writing, albeit not for newspapers anymore.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"I'm enjoying my retirement," he told FMT. "Since I left I'm travelling more often as that's my other passion besides writing."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Younger ex-employees are less enthusiastic about being out on the streets job hunting.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">And Utusan's cast-outs are not alone in their woes.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">On Friday, a major media group which operates several Malaysian television, radio and print businesses is to lay off an estimated 600 newspaper workers as part of its restructuring and downsizing. Over half of those affected are journalists.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">As shares tumble ever faster in traditional media companies, what was once a career with lifelong prospects is looking increasingly shaky.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The news industry's traditional printing presses have now mostly ceased their clatter for good.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Ex-reporter Mohamad puts it like this: "For many of us, if we were offered a chance to go back to Utusan, we would have to think about it very carefully. The future of print media is very bleak."</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><a href="https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2019/12/12/bad-news-for-thousands-of-journalists-as-they-report-their-own-troubles/"><font size="5">https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2019/12/12/bad-news-for-thousands-of-journalists-as-they-report-their-own-troubles/</font></a></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Yours truly</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="7">IT.Scheiss</font></div><div><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><font size="5">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</font></a></div><div><br></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-47574652892520928402019-12-11T22:35:00.001+08:002019-12-11T22:35:24.936+08:00600 MEDIA WORKERS TO LOSE JOBS BY FRIDAY (13 DECEMBER 2019), THOUSANDS MORE BY Q1 2020<div><font size="5"><i>Free Malaysia Today</i> of 11 December 2019 reports that 600 media workers would be out of work by the end of this week - i.e. Friday the 13th 2019, according to an un-named source within the media company.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0O2NYNH0GS8ktqUg6N2LdsqwlYrd5ZCbWuz5hHczN67AqSjDbOk2foY1N0YvTiKgn9xegaWbhYCKzKCBChAX_GIMlty1kTMx4gStAe0R-vROlOS2djUD_ZVdxKdHrBCzuDzrhBvnil8Am/s1600/FMT+-+Hundreds+to+lose+jobs+this+week+in+latest+media+lay-off+from+2019-12-11+14-21-27-724947.png"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0O2NYNH0GS8ktqUg6N2LdsqwlYrd5ZCbWuz5hHczN67AqSjDbOk2foY1N0YvTiKgn9xegaWbhYCKzKCBChAX_GIMlty1kTMx4gStAe0R-vROlOS2djUD_ZVdxKdHrBCzuDzrhBvnil8Am/s320/FMT+-+Hundreds+to+lose+jobs+this+week+in+latest+media+lay-off+from+2019-12-11+14-21-27-724947.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6769190279896826594" /></a><br></font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><a href="https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2019/12/11/hundreds-to-lose-jobs-this-week-in-latest-media-lay-off/" style="cursor: text;"></a><a href="https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2019/12/11/hundreds-to-lose-jobs-this-week-in-latest-media-lay-off/"><font size="5">https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2019/12/11/hundreds-to-lose-jobs-this-week-in-latest-media-lay-off/</font></a></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><div><font size="5">Whilst <i>Free Malaysia Today</i> did not explicitly identify the media company affected, the caption to a photo included hints that it is the Malay language <i>Utusan Malaysia</i>, a controversial publication said to have strong links or leanings to the United Malaysia National Organisation (UMNO), the dominant political party in the Barisan Nasional coalition which lost the general elections on 9 May 2018.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">However, despite the political leanings of the publication - presumably <i>Utusan Malaysia</i> - this supposed loss of 600 media jobs by the end of this week is a blow to the lives of these media workers and their families, and given the dire straits most media in Malaysia and elsewhere are in today, whether print, online, digital or combination of all three platforms and I don't expect that it will be easy for them to find work with media which are still surviving, when the Berjaya Media Berhad (BJMEDIA), which owns <i>The Sun</i> newspaper, is currently classified amongst 22 PN17 (Practice Note 17) on Bursa Malaysia (the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange).</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><a href="https://www.bursamalaysia.com/trade/trading_resources/listing_directory/pn17_and_gn13_companies"><font size="5">https://www.bursamalaysia.com/trade/trading_resources/listing_directory/pn17_and_gn13_companies</font></a></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Basically, Bursa Malaysia listed companies classified as PN17 are companies which are in distress and if they are unable to turn around and recover financially, they risk being de-liated.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Also, whilst still profitable, the Star Media Group reported a mere RM250,000 net profit due to owners of the parent in its 3rd Quarter 2019 financial report, compared to RM1.596 million net profit in Q3 2018. Also Star Media Group reported RM5.477 million combined net profit due to owners of the parent in the first nine months of 2019, down 61.3% from RM14.413 million in the first nine months of 2018.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Star Media Group looks like the Titanic as it increasingly took on water and settled lower and lower above the surface until it finally slipped below the waves, unless the management can magically plug the leak and turn around the company in time before the "Titanic" goes down.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><a href="https://www.bursamalaysia.com/market_information/announcements/company_announcement/announcement_details?ann_id=3005582"><font size="5">https://www.bursamalaysia.com/market_information/announcements/company_announcement/announcement_details?ann_id=3005582</font></a></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">So with the media in such dire straits in Malaysia today, it will be tough for those 600 to find work in currently surviving media, especially when more media workers are expected to join the ranks of the unemployed by the first quarter of 2020 - the Wawasan (Vision) 2020 year when Malaysia was supposed to have arrived in the "Exclusive Club of Developed Nations", with a knowledge-based, information-rich, high-income nation with a gross national income per capita of around RM64,000 per annum (or RM5,333 per month). However Vision 2020 has been postponed 10 years to Shared Property Vision 2030.</font></div><div><font color="#000000" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#000000" size="5"><i>Free Malaysia Today's</i> article follows below and it isn't pretty:-</font></div><div><font color="#000000" size="5"><br></font></div></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Hundreds to lose jobs this week in latest media lay-off</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">FMT Reporters - December 11, 2019 11:42 AM</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">PETALING JAYA: Feathers have been ruffled among personnel at a flagship newspaper as a deadline nears for its owners to reveal a list of hundreds of staff to be axed this week, in the latest series of journalist lay-offs.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">An internal source with the company, one of Malaysia's largest media-related groups, said some 600 workers would be axed this Friday in the latest retrenchment exercise, half of them from the print daily.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">But it said the management had yet to engage with union representatives despite promising to do so in October.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"They have a deadline to come up with a retrenchment list. It's two days away, but unions were not engaged," the source told FMT.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"Labour laws stipulate that those who will be affected must be informed."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">It is believed that the hundreds to lose their jobs this time cut across the board, and will have no choice or option to appeal when termination letters are served to them.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The retrenchments, if true, will come amid a spate of media company shutdowns and downsizing exercises in an industry which has seen thousands lose their jobs over the last three years.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">On Oct 9, Utusan Malaysia and Kosmo! announced their final appearance at news stands nationwide after publisher Utusan Melayu Bhd went into liquidation.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Early last month, Media Prima, which owns the New Straits Times Press and a slew of television channels, announced job cuts affecting thousands of employees. It said this was part of a "restructuring exercise" to be completed by the first quarter of next year.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><a href="https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2019/12/11/hundreds-to-lose-jobs-this-week-in-latest-media-lay-off/"><font size="5">https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2019/12/11/hundreds-to-lose-jobs-this-week-in-latest-media-lay-off/</font></a></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">The main problem affecting media, not only in Malaysia but also worldwide has been the decline in advertising and circulation revenue as readership and advertising moves from print media to online and digital platforms and where print advertising revenue, whilst still considerable is declining at between eight and 10 times as fast as online and digital advertising revenue is rising, even for media which publishes on print, online and digital platforms. Also, where print platforms enjoyed a relatively exclusive access to advertisements and advertising revenue, once they go online and digital, they face stiff competition for advertising dollar from the likes of Google and Facebook, since the latter reach a much larger number of eyeballs than the online and digital platforms of even the best media organisation does, and with some specialist professional or industry exceptions, advertising is all about reaching the biggest mass audience.</font></div><div><br></div><div><font size="5"><span class="-x-evo-resizable-wrapper"><br></span></font></div><div><font size="5">The chart above, courtesy of the Newsppaper Association of America and the <i>Carpe-Diem Blog</i>, shows that newspaper advertising revenue in the U.S. (adjusted for inflation in 2014 dollars) grew steadily from US$50 billion in 1950 to a peak of US$67 billion around 1999, then plunged down to a total of US$19.98 (print + digital) in 2014. It also shows that Google's worldwide advertising revenue surpassed total US newspaper advertising revenue around 2009, whilst Facebook's advertising revenue surpassed US newspaper advertising revenue around 2014.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">A developed economy, the U.S. was ahead of Malaysia in 1999, in terms of PC penetration and Internet access and like in Malaysia, Internet access in 1999 was still mostly over dialup connections and most cellular phones were mostly feature phones which supported slow, second-generation (2G) 114 Kbps (killobits per second) GPRS (General Packet Radio Services) data rates in Europe and most of Asia and 115 Kbps speeds of 2G IS-95B Code-division Multiple Access (CDMA) phones in the North America, Latin America and some Asian countries such as South Korea. </font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Rather interestingly, whilst regarded as an American technology and industry standard developed by the U.S. company Qualcomm as CdmaOne, the theory of Code-division Multiple Access was developed and proposed in the Soviet Union in 1935 by Dmitry Vasiliyevich Ageev, a scientist, educator and radio engineer at the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute of Communications, as part of his PhD thesis.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Anyway, historical aspects aside, feature phones, even today, are hardly the best devices to access news on. However, even by then, media access had already begun to move online sufficiently to begin to make an negative impact on media advertising revenue.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Telekom Malaysia launched Streamyx, its first broadband Internet service in 1999. Streamyx is based on ADSL (Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line) technology which offered a "super fast" speed of 1 Mbps (megabits per second) to subscribers over the same metal wire-pair telephone line into homes and offices. Apart from speeds up to 20 times faster than dialup Internet which ties up the telephone line whilst in use and where users are charged for time connected, a Streamyx connection is always connected whilst the telephone can also be used at the same time. Also, Streamyx subscribers pay a flat monthly fee for the service. </font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Then in March 2010, Telekom Malaysia launched its Unifi fibre Internet service which is even faster, whilst smartphones were increasingly being used mostly over faster 3G or 3.5G cellular data connections.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">And, with 127.7% broadband penetration as of the 2nd quarter of 2019, according to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC/SKMM), over 99.3% of which are cellular broadband connections.</font></div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://www.mcmc.gov.my/skmmgovmy/media/General/pdf/2Q_CM-2019.pdf"><font size="5">https://www.mcmc.gov.my/skmmgovmy/media/General/pdf/2Q_CM-2019.pdf</font></a></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">So now, Malaysians can access media reports, personal commentaries and videos anywhere in the world and mostly for free, so no more having to wait for the paper man to throw today's edition of the newspapers over the house gate or of of having to wait to watch the latest news on TV. Instead, if we want to find out how the 12th December general election campaigns are going in the U.K. and find out the outcome tomorrow (12th December 2019) night, or how Donald Trump's impeachment proceedings are progressing, we don't need to wait to read all about it the the Malaysian newspapers (whether print, online or digital), when we can access such news closer to where its happening long before it's reported in our local media, and for free.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Meanwhile, over in the U.S., media organisations have been retrenching workers by the thousands over the past several year.</font></div><div><font size="5"> </font></div><div><font size="5">On 15 July 2019, <i>Business Insider US</i> reported rather extensively and it isn't a pretty sight:-</font></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5"><i>Business Insider US</i> or 15 July 2019 reports:-</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">3,000 people have lost their jobs so far this year in a media landslide</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Benjamin Goggin, Business Insider US</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">July 15, 2019</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"> In the last month, layoffs hit have MAD Magazine, Pride Media, Quartz, and Meredith, bringing the total number of media layoffs in 2019 to over 3,000, according to Business Insider's tally.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"> The latest cuts follow layoff announcements at BuzzFeed, Verizon, Vice Media, McClatchy, Machinima, and Gannett – the largest newspaper publisher in the US.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"> It is estimated that between 2014 and 2017, some 5,000 media jobs were cut from the market.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"> Read more stories like this on Business Insider.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The media industry continued to execute large cuts in June as MAD Magazine, Pride Media, and Meredith reduced headcounts.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The cuts followed large rounds of layoffs earlier in the year from companies including BuzzFeed, Verizon, and Vice Media.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The massive cuts so far this year represent a recent trend in media that has seen upstart companies and newspapers alike shrinking and disappearing.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Here are the media jobs that have been lost so far in 2019.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>MAD Magazine: Around 10 jobs, July</b></font></div><div><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">MAD Magazine laid off around 10 staffers, according to one estimate given to INSIDER by someone close to the situation, amid news that the magazine would cease the production of original content.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Issue 10 will reportedly be the magazine's last issue including new material. The magazine will continue to honor existing subscriptions with issues featuring new covers and recycled material.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">It's estimated that hundreds of freelancers will be affected.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Editors Casey Boyd and Dan Telfer were both affected by the layoffs, among other employees.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Jet and Ebony: 15 jobs; June and May</b></font></p></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"> The New York Post reported that at least 15 people were laid off at African-American focused magazines Jet and Ebony.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In May, seven staffers were laid off when parent-company Clear View Group told Ebony staffers that the print edition of the magazine was being suspended, according to the Post.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In June, eight Jet staffers were laid off shortly after Clear View Group told Jet employees that they couldn't pay them for the last pay period in May, according to the Post.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Quartz: 11 jobs; June and January</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"> Quartz, a publication that's focused on data-driven global coverage, laid off four employees in the UK in January and seven employees in June, according to reports from Digiday. The cuts were composed of business-side employees and members of the company's commercial team.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">According to Digiday, Quartz is attempting to pivot its business model from making custom commercial content for clients to a subscription-based model.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Quartz's total headcount is reportedly down to 235 from 243 in January.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In July 2018, Quartz was acquired by Japanese media startup Uzabase, and was tasked with handling the company's mobile English-language business subscription service, according to the AP.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Quartz has had traffic struggles according to Comscore, whose data indicates a 50% dropoff in visitors following the publication's acquisition, Digiday reported.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Pride Media and Out Magazine: 10 jobs; June and February</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"> In June, during LGBT pride month, WWD reported that five employees at LGBT media group Pride Media were laid off after a year of drama surrounding payment and funding at the company. The cuts reportedly hit corporate Pride Media staff and Out Magazine editorial staffers.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Five other staffers at Out were reportedly cut in February.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The company, and Out Magazine in particular, had been facing criticism from its journalists who said they hadn't been paid for months.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Just days before the layoffs, Pride Media had received a cash injection from investors after months of promises, Vice News reported.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Meredith: 60 jobs, June 7</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"> The New York Post reported that magazine giant Meredith laid off around 1% of its workforce, 60 employees, in early June months after acquiring Time Inc.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The cuts were primarily at Entertainment Weekly and Traditional Home.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In September, the company laid off 200 people from a variety of lifestyle publications.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">A Meredith spokesman told the Post that the cuts came amid "a lot of competition internally for ad dollars."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>GateHouse Media: At least 219 jobs, May and January</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"> GateHouse Media, one of the largest local newspaper publishers in the United States, quietly laid off journalists in multiple large rounds throughout the year.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Business Insider confirmed there were at least 60 layoffs at various local newspapers owned by the company at the end of January. The layoffs focused on local sports reporters and photographers, some of whom had worked at their papers for over 30 years.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">At the end of May, GateHouse reportedly laid off at least an additional 159 people at newspapers across the country, including reporters, editors, and other staff.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The cuts seemingly began after the $30 million acquisition of Schurz Communications Inc., which immediately resulted in 11 cut jobs at three publications in Maine and Indiana.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">After first-quarter losses, other cuts began in May. When Business Insider inquired about the cuts, New Media CEO Mike Reed called them "immaterial." He later told Poynter that layoffs would only number around 10 people.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Reading Eagle: 6 jobs, May 23</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Pennsylvania's regional daily newspaper the Reading Eagle announced that it was filing for bankruptcy in May 2019.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The same month, MNG Enterprises said that it would buy the paper and issued a warning that it could lay off all 221 employees, according to a state labor filing cited by The New York Post.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Later, however, a representative of the firm handling the sale of the company, Dirks, Van Essen, Murray & April, said, "We don't know how many people will be retained."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">So far, only 6 people have fine laid off.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>CNN: 100 jobs, May 6</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"> On May 6 it was reported that more than 100 employees at CNN took buyouts amid corporate restructuring efforts. The buyouts were offered to employees who had hit retirement age, with four weeks of pay for every year of service – potentially providing two years' worth of pay total, according to Deadline.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">A CNN representative told Deadline that the buyouts were explicitly not related to layoffs, but the move comes as AT&T – which owns CNN – attempts to restructure billions in debt.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>New Orleans Times-Picayune: 161 jobs, May 2</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"> In May, New Orleans' Times-Picayune was acquired by one of its competitors, The Advocate. All 161 employees of the Times-Picayune were laid off.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The Times-Picayune had long been the city's paper of record and had won numerous Pulitzer Prize awards for its reporting on Hurricane Katrina.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In 2012, the paper reduced its publication days to three days a week and put focus on its NOLA.com site. In 2013, the paper resumed daily publishing, but only after The Advocate swooped in and began publishing the New Orleans addition that would prove to be fatal competition for the paper.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>G/O Media: 25 jobs, April 30</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Despite G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller claiming he didn't anticipate layoffs after he joined the new conglomerate (which comprises Gizmodo Media Group and The Onion), the company laid off 25 people, or 6% of its staff, in late April, Variety reported. The cuts included top editors and veteran reporters.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Spanfeller said that despite the cuts he planned to hire above the original headcount by the end of 2019. In May, there were only five postings on Gizmodo Media Group's job site.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Circa News: 16 jobs, March 26</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Sinclair Broadcast Group's Circa News shuttered on March 26, 2019, with the company citing challenges facing small publishers.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"While we see new business opportunities with digital video and OTT, they do not require the daily publishing of a website," Sinclair told The Washington Post.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Sinclair told the publication that 16 employees would be laid off, and 22 would be integrated into Sinclair's news team.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Circa started as a news app in 2012 and was shut down in 2015 after failing to find a large user base. Sinclair bought and relaunched the property later that year.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Red Deer Advocate: 25 jobs, March 26</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"> In late March, the CWA Canada media union announced that Alberta's local Red Deer Advocate, owned by Black Press Group, had laid off 26 staffers across the news and mail room.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Along with the cuts, Black Press announced it was shutting down the paper's weekly edition.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Digg: 2 jobs, March 26</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Former tech legend turned new media company Digg.com laid off two editors in March, shrinking the number of employees to 10.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The staffers affected were the managing editor and the features editor, both of whom wrote and edited original content on the primarily aggregated site, indicating a refocusing on aggregation for the brand that in the last few years had branched out to publishing original writing and video.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The layoffs follow the sale of Digg in 2018 to ad-tech company BuySellAds, which cleaved off nearly half of the company.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In a statement to Business Insider, BuySellAds CEO said: "This does not mark the end of original content at Digg, nor does it hint at a major change in direction or strategy. We continue to believe in the publication just as much as the day we acquired it."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>The Plain Dealer: 41 jobs, March 15</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Cleveland's The Plain Dealer newspaper announced on March 15 that it would lay off 12 newsroom employees in addition to 29 previously announced layoffs scheduled for May. Editor George Rodrigue told union members by email that "since around 2001 newspaper advertising revenue has been plummeting."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The union has asked for the paper to wait until after an upcoming subscription drive to make the cuts and has vowed to fight them.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"This is a catastrophe for Cleveland and for local journalism," Guild unit chairman Ginger Christ said, according to Cleveland.com.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The 29 positions at stake are production jobs, which are being moved to a third-party factory that the paper is contracting. The additional 12 jobs are in the paper's news department.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>First Look Media: 9 jobs, March 13</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">On March 13, First Look Media – the parent company of Glenn Greenwald's The Intercept and Laura Poitras' Field of Vision – laid off seven staff members and two contractors (4% of the group) across the company.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Three of those laid off were tasked with maintaining and securing the company's archive of materials leaked to Greenwald and Poitras by Edward Snowden. The Snowden archive was also shut down with the layoffs.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">First Look Media CEO Michael Bloom told staffers that the company had decided to "focus on other editorial priorities" after mining the Snowden archive for five years, the Daily Beast reported.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Bloom continued: "It is our hope that Glenn and Laura are able to find a new partner – such as an academic institution or research facility – that will continue to report on and publish the documents in the archive consistent with the public interest."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>New York Media: 32 jobs, March 11</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">New York Media, the family-held owner of New York Magazine, Vulture, and other properties, laid off 32 employees on March 11 as part of a restructuring. The cuts affected 16 full-time employees and 16 freelance or part-time workers, according to a statement from the company.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"The departments most especially affected include audience development/circulation, copy, fact, production, and video," the company said.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In November, the company announced that all its online content would go behind a paywall, which it said was part of the reason for the cuts.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"In some cases, the changes we are making reflect a need for new focus as we build out our digital subscription business; in others, they reflect an overdue integration of print and digital staff," read the statement.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Last year the company said it was considering a sale; this year its staff formed a union.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Metro: 3 jobs, March 7</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">On March 7, Philadelphia's Inquirer reported that three staffers in Philadelphia had been laid off from the free tabloid Metro, which also publishes in New York City and Boston, where there were also layoffs.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The team was told the news over the phone from a new executive team in New York, and were shell-shocked, according to The Inquirer. The paper is said to be refocusing on building readership among train and bus riders in the city.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>St. Louis Post-Dispatch: 23 jobs, March 4</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Fourteen people took voluntary buyouts at the legendary St. Louis Dispatch in March, following the paper's announcement in January that it would offer 15 buyouts and downsize offices.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In February, nine design, copy, and layout employees were laid off when the paper decided to outsource the work.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The Dispatch laid off five people in 2018 and had another round in 2015.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Canadian Living, Style at Home, Elle Canada: 28 staffers, February 19</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">On February 19, Canadian Living, Style at Home, and Elle Canada magazines, owned by Groupe TVA, cut as many as 28 staffers.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">According to an email from the company's VP of communications to J-Source, the company will move the headquarters of Canadian Living and Style at Home from Toronto to Montreal as part of the restructuring.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The company said: "In the context of the magazine industry undergoing numerous worldwide changes, TVA Publications had to reconfigure its internal structure. This decision will allow TVA Publications to continue to offer its readers and its advertisers high-quality brands that perform well in Canada."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Canadian Living and Style at Home were acquired in 2014 by Groupe TVA, which also owns Les Publications Transcontinental-Hearst Inc. – the owner of Elle Canada and Elle Quebec, according to J-Source.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Machinima: 81 jobs, February 1</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Machinima, what used to be one of the largest video producers online, announced that it was closing in statements to news outlets February 1.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"Machinima has ceased its remaining operations, which includes layoffs," a spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter, announcing that 81 jobs had been cut.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The company, which made gaming content for YouTube, was bought by WarnerMedia and housed under Otter Media in 2016 but stopped publishing material in January.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Otter Media announced that it had cut 10% of staff in December.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Vice Media: 250 jobs, February 1</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The Hollywood Reporter first reported layoffs at Vice Media. According to the report, the Brooklyn-based media company will cut about 250 jobs across the company, with the aim of trimming down and helping the organization become profitable.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"Having finalized the 2019 budget, our focus shifts to executing our goals and hitting our marks," CEO Nancy Dubuc wrote in an email to staff.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Vice Media will refocus around its TV production unit, its international news team, its digital properties, and its original TV content.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Staff members in the US who are unionized are set to receive payouts of their accumulated paid time off, 10 weeks of severance, and medical benefits.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The cuts were previewed in a Wall Street Journal report in November that said the company would cut staff in part because of audience attrition over the past three years.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>The McClatchy Co.: 450 jobs, February 1</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">On February 1, The McClatchy Co., which owns properties such as the Miami Herald and the Kansas City Star, emailed staffers to announce that 450 employees would be offered voluntary buyouts as part of a "functional realignment," essentially signaling that the jobs have been marked out of the budget.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The news was first reported by the Miami New Times. It followed McClatchy's failed attempt to buy Tribune Publishing in 2018.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Verizon (Yahoo, AOL, HuffPost): 800 jobs, January 23</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In late January it was reported that Verizon would cut 7% of its staff at its media companies (an estimated 800 people), which include Yahoo, AOL, and The Huffington Post.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"These were difficult decisions, and we will ensure that our colleagues are treated with respect and fairness, and given the support they need," Guru Gowrappan, CEO of Verizon Media, said in a memo to staff.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">It's estimated that 20 employees were laid off at HuffPost last Thursday, including opinion writers, political reporters, and others. Nearly 100 corporate Verizon employees were reportedly laid off in San Francisco.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The layoffs are in addition to the 10,400 employees that Verizon is looking to shed by the middle of 2019 as part of a buyout program announced in December.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Gannett: 400 jobs, January 23</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Newspaper giant Gannett reportedly laid off journalists across the US the same day that Verizon's layoffs were reported, following a round of voluntary buyouts.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Gannett has been quiet about the layoffs, but Poynter reported on cuts that affected editors and senior journalists at local papers owned by Gannett in regions across the US. The New York Post reports that cuts affected as many as 400 people. In total, Gannett owns over 100 news entities.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The layoffs came after Alden Global Capital made a $1.3 billion hostile takeover bid to take control of the company, which it says it's reviewing.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>BuzzFeed: 200 people, January 23</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">BuzzFeed announced last Wednesday it would lay off about 220 employees, slashing jobs in its news, LGBTQ, international, and other divisions.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The layoffs ruffled feathers among media watchers when employees working outside of California were not offered payouts for their accrued paid time off, a decision that was eventually reversed after BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti met with staff council and was called out on the publisher's own streaming show, AM2DM.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Laid-off BuzzFeed employees also received a notable amount of harassment from trolls online, NBC News reported.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In a memo published by Digiday on Tuesday, Peretti said the company would refocus its efforts on BuzzFeed Originals (home to quizzes and viral videos), commerce content, branded content, and branded production and publishing.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In 2018, BuzzFeed laid off its in-house podcasting team and restructured its advertising group.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>Condé Nast: 10 jobs, January 10</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Job cuts hit Condé Nast in January, quietly eliminating several positions across its properties.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Slate reported that on January 10, the day Condé Nast's Wired magazine moved onto a new floor of One World Trade Center, five employees were let go. In November, Wired cut five staffers devoted to its Snapchat channel.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">WWD reported cuts also hit editors at Glamour and junior staff at GQ magazine.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In 2018, multiple executives left the company ahead of an unspecified number of layoffs on its digital side.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><b>The Dallas Morning News: 43 jobs, January 7</b></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The Dallas Morning News eliminated 43 jobs, according to the Columbia Journalism Review, half of them in the newsroom, on January 7. The cuts affected journalists who covered immigration, transportation, the environment, and the courts.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In a letter, publisher Grant Moise said the cuts would reduce costs and begin a refocusing of the paper. Moise said the editorial and opinion section would be merged, and arts coverage would be reduced.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">For context, it's estimated that 5,000 journalism jobs disappeared between 2014 and 2017.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The cuts represent a seismic shift in the media landscape. According to the Pew Research Center, a total of 5,000 media jobs left the market between 2014 and 2017, including growth in the digital sector.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><a href="https://www.businessinsider.my/2019-media-layoffs-job-cuts-at-buzzfeed-huffpost-vice-details-2019-2/?r=US&IR=T"><font size="5">https://www.businessinsider.my/2019-media-layoffs-job-cuts-at-buzzfeed-huffpost-vice-details-2019-2/?r=US&IR=T</font></a></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font size="5">Also, <i>Bloomberg</i> of 1 July 2019 reported:-</font></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">business</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Journalism Job Cuts Haven't Been This Bad Since the Recession</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Reporters become bartenders and baristas while looking for work</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">By Gerry Smith</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">1 July 2019, 17:00 GMT+8</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The news business is on pace for its worst job losses in a decade as about 3,000 people have been laid off or been offered buyouts in the first five months of this year.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The cuts have been widespread. Newspapers owned by Gannett and McClatchy, digital media companies like BuzzFeed and Vice Media, and the cable news channel CNN have all shed employees.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The level of attrition is the highest since 2009, when the industry saw 7,914 job cuts in the first five months of that year in the wake of the financial crisis, according to data compiled by Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an outplacement and executive coaching firm.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The firm's tally is based on news reports of buyouts and layoffs, and includes downsizing at printing operations and advertising and tech executives at Verizon Media Group, home of HuffPost and Yahoo, which announced in January that it was laying off about 800 employees.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">About 88,000 people worked in U.S. newsrooms in 2017, according to Pew Research Center.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">With the U.S. unemployment rate the lowest since 1969, the journalism job market is one of the rare weak spots, said Andrew Challenger, the firm's vice president.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"In most industries, employers can't find enough people to fill the jobs they have open," he said. "In news, it has been the opposite story. And it seems to have been accelerating."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The cuts have created a competitive job market where the number of out-of-work journalists often exceeds the number of openings. When Bklyner, a local news site in Brooklyn, said in May it was looking for a new political reporter, 16 journalists emailed their resumes within a few hours, said Liena Zagare, Bklyner's editor and publisher. Many had prior work experience at national media outlets such as CNN, Reuters and New York Magazine.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"I was looking at my inbox like, 'Oh my goodness,'" Zagare said in an interview. "It was beyond what I've seen before — the kind of people looking to work for us and the speed that their applications were coming in. To me, it was incredibly depressing. It says something about this industry that we can't employ these people."</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Bad News</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="5">U.S. newsroom jobs dropped 23% between 2008 and 2017</font></div><div><br></div><div><font size="5"><br></font></div><div><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">There are a few reasons for the job losses. Local newspapers have seen much of their advertising revenue vanish as readers move online. They've also struggled to attract many digital subscribers after past rounds of layoffs and buyouts eroded their quality. Digital media startups, funded by venture capitalists seeking growth, aggressively hired journalists then scaled back to focus on profitability. Almost everyone is struggling to compete with Facebook and Google, which accounted for three-fourths of U.S. online ads sales last year.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The job instability in online media is one reason for the wave of unionizing across the landscape. At Vox Media, home of websites like the Verge and Eater, a new union contract ensures that employees get a minimum of 11 weeks of severance pay if they get laid off.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In January, John Stanton, a former Washington bureau chief for BuzzFeed News, was one of about 250 people cut from the company. In June, he helped start a nonprofit called the Save Journalism Project, which calls attention to how tech giants like Facebook and Google are threatening newsrooms by dominating the online advertising market.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">So far, the group has published op-eds in newspapers, launched an advertising campaign and flown a plane over a Google conference with a banner that read "#savelocalnews."</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"We're trying to get our colleagues to speak up," Stanton said. "We need to protect ourselves or we're not going to have jobs."</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Many BuzzFeed journalists who were laid off in January are still looking for full-time work, he said. Several are freelancing, in some cases writing 1,000-word articles that pay about $400 and take a week to complete. "The pay freelancers get is completely inadequate," Stanton said.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">While tech giants are often blamed for the news industry's financial troubles, they have also become a destination for journalists who want to leave the field. Amazon is hiring editors to cover local crime news for a division of its security-focused doorbell, Ring. Facebook, Apple, Snapchat and Google have all hired journalists in recent years to work on their media-related initiatives.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">The journalism job hunt can be particularly challenging between the coasts. Last year, Emma Roller, 30, took a buyout after working as a politics writer for the website Splinter, which was part of Univision's Gizmodo Media Group. She got married and moved from Washington to Chicago to be closer to family. But as she looked for a new job, she found many positions required that she live in New York, Washington or Los Angeles.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"All of media has become concentrated in three cities," said Roller, who now works part-time at an elementary school and as a barista at a coffee shop while freelancing. "I chose to move away from where journalism jobs are. But at the same time it's a structural problem."</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"No one becomes a journalist to get rich."</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Journalism schools say enrollment is up, despite the dark headlines about the industry, and they are adjusting their curriculum to prepare students for in-demand jobs. The University of Maryland expects 44 graduate journalism students this fall, up from 32 last year. The school has started requiring students take more audio reporting classes because "this generation seems to love podcasts," said Lucy Dalglish, dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">Some news outlets are growing. The Los Angeles Times has added about 100 employees to its editorial staff since billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong bought the newspaper last June. The Washington Post announced recently it is adding 10 people to its investigative team.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">But for some journalists, even winning national awards is not enough to help make ends meet. More than two years ago, Chris Outcalt took a chance on a job at a startup that wanted to launch a technology news website. But the team was laid off before it got off the ground. So Outcalt began freelancing.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">In June, Outcalt won a Livingston Award, a prestigious prize given to journalists under the age of 35. Yet he's still searching for a full-time job. In the meantime, he's started working part-time as a bartender at a craft brewery in Denver to help pay the bills.</font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5"><br></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff" size="5">"I'm often thinking about whether I'll be able to hang on until I find something a little more stable — something, say, that provides health insurance," Outcalt said. "Certainly no one becomes a journalist to get rich. But I also can't imagine there are that many people who would want to enter a challenging profession that also requires you to tend bar two nights a week."</font></p><p><font size="5"><br></font></p><p><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-01/journalism-layoffs-are-at-the-highest-level-since-last-recession"><font size="5">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-01/journalism-layoffs-are-at-the-highest-level-since-last-recession</font></a></p><p><font size="5"><br></font></p><p><font size="5">So there you go folks.</font></p><p><font size="5"><br></font></p><p><font size="5">Would you want to become a journalist or would you want your children to become journalists, when either you or they could be retrenched mid-career with a car loan and house loan to pay off and children to support ???</font></p><p><font size="5"><br></font></p><p><font size="5">How would you fancy riding a motorcycle taxi with GoJek or driving a taxi with Grab for a living ???</font></p><p><font size="5"><br></font></p><p><font size="5">Some say that the media is going through a phase of Creative Destruction and that as opportunities disappear in older forms of media, new opportunities are emerging in newer and more sophisticated forms of media but are there enough of these new opportunities to absorb all those displaced by the decline of older forms of media ???</font></p><p><font size="5"><br></font></p><p><font size="5">I'll leave you to think about that.</font></p><p><font size="5"><br></font></p><p><font size="5">Yours truly</font></p><p><font size="5"><br></font></p><p><font size="7">IT.Scheiss</font></p><p><a href="http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/"><font size="5">http://itsheiss.blogspot.com/</font></a></p><p><font size="5"><br></font></p><p><font size="5"> </font></p><p><br></p></div><div></div>IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-39704961140838946542019-10-27T02:40:00.004+08:002019-10-27T02:40:39.075+08:00MORE TO MOVING UP THE VALUE CHAIN THAN ICT AND BIOTECHNOLOGY<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In my over 25 years of writing about the computing, information and communications technology (ICT) industry in Malaysia and abroad, I've heard no end about Malaysia having to develop a domestic ICT, multimedia content, bio-technology, nanotechnology and other gee-whiz emerging technologies in order toe be able to move up the skills and value chain to increase our competitiveness, productivity in order to become a knowledge-based, information-rich, high-income economy by the year 2020, which was recently postponed to 2024 and now to 2030.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Malaysia's government ministers and officials downplayed Malaysia's existing agricultural and natural resources industries as "First Wave" and Malaysia's manufacturing industries as "Second Wave" as "sunset industries", whilst they touted ICT and multimedia, bio-technology, nano-technology and other sexy emerging technologies as "Third Wave", "sunrise industries" which would move Malaysia up that much touted value-chain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Whilst, such national aspirations are not wrong in principle, however our neighbours in the region have been moving up the skills and value chain in terms of creating higher value-added agricultural and manufactured products, rather than undergo premature de-industrialisation, or in short, grow Malaysia's degree or economic complexity and diversity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In his <i>OutSyed the Box</i> blog post reproduced below, Syed Akbar Ali explains economic complexity simply as the extent to which a country's productive, innovative and inventive capabilities have moved up the skills and technological chain to move beyond being a mere commodity raw materials producer to a downstream producer of higher-value products, which can fetch higher prices in world markets and earn the country more foreign exchange, which should enable the country's workers to earn higher incomes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Syed also explains Thailand's strengthening Baht versus the Malaysian Ringgit as being due to the growth in Thailand's economic complexity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Back in the 1960s and 1970s, one Malaysian Ringgit would buy 11 Thai Baht and in the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s, the exchange rate was about one Ringgit to 10 Baht. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, in the past few years, the Baht has strengthened to one Ringgit to around 7.21 Baht, which has got Thailand's central bank worried about about how to keep the Baht's rise under control for fear that it will adversely affect Thailand's exports, according to a Bloomberg article carried by The Star below.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In his blog post, Syed also referred to a report in March 2018 - <i>Complexity and Growth: Malaysia’s Position and Policy Implications</i>, by Brenda Cheah Wenn Jinn and Mohd Shazwan Shuhaimen of the Economics Department or Malaysia's central bank - Bank Negara Malaysia, which shows a direct correlation between a country's degree of economic complexity and national income levels in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, and also compares growth in Malaysia's Economic Complexity Index (ECI) with ECI growth in our neighbouring Asia-Pacific countries, including Japan, South Korea and Singapore. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxi7emGdy9PajGbDmT6yPKYHqDbxjgq7QoxkJmle8NpgDnpUUW8Jo7g0d8ARbtAGHuRdvH40qp1LPIgEcO1iyTMrYxJpXc73kaCw2GWaTq7i-IPEhc0qy4TSl2hLi2MiXXl9EfDfPv47n_/s1600/Economic+Complexity+Index+andGDP+Per+Capita+%25282016%2529+from+2019-10-27+00-56-29.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="535" height="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxi7emGdy9PajGbDmT6yPKYHqDbxjgq7QoxkJmle8NpgDnpUUW8Jo7g0d8ARbtAGHuRdvH40qp1LPIgEcO1iyTMrYxJpXc73kaCw2GWaTq7i-IPEhc0qy4TSl2hLi2MiXXl9EfDfPv47n_/s640/Economic+Complexity+Index+andGDP+Per+Capita+%25282016%2529+from+2019-10-27+00-56-29.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Syed's <i>OutSyed the Box</i> blog post follows below, highlighted in blue:-</span></div>
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<a class="domain reader-domain" href="http://syedsoutsidethebox.blogspot.com/2019/10/thai-baht-economy-surges-their-economic.html"><span style="font-size: large;">syedsoutsidethebox.blogspot.com</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Thai Baht, Economy Surges - Their Economic Complexity Is Increasing</span></h1>
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<b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Here is The Star and Bloomberg.</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxkiEf0R9zVTFuQKZB47MhucChttPwnM2QsBzezTTemjDK7IXfZj0HhlJduJUkm6e0LmammCcVVNnBpHFzU696ZVQMol3JQbdrdL-jUP_SYLLoAilPjCr2dnObAbR16fFaDwIOnxfk54Fm/s1600/The+Thai+Baht+reached+a+new+6-year+high+from+2019-10-26+23-14-21.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="714" data-original-width="857" height="532" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxkiEf0R9zVTFuQKZB47MhucChttPwnM2QsBzezTTemjDK7IXfZj0HhlJduJUkm6e0LmammCcVVNnBpHFzU696ZVQMol3JQbdrdL-jUP_SYLLoAilPjCr2dnObAbR16fFaDwIOnxfk54Fm/s640/The+Thai+Baht+reached+a+new+6-year+high+from+2019-10-26+23-14-21.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2019/10/25/the-thai-baht-reached-a-new-6-year-high-heres-why-its-surging" target="_blank">CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE</a></span></b></div>
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<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">tough to stop baht from surging</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">baht advanced 0.3% on Friday to 30.187 per dollar</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">strongest level since May 2013</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">gain 7.8% this year, more than peers except Russia’s ruble</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Why is baht so strong? </span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Several factors attracting investors to Thailand</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">haven for foreign money</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">healthy current account tops them all</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">IMF forecasts surplus of 6% of GDP this year, double Japan</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Thailand’s reserves, negligible inflation also provide investors comfort</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">foreign reserves stands at US$220 billion</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">equivalent of 12 months imports</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">inflation 0.3%, below target of 1% - 4% since June</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">getting boost from gold</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Thailand hub for bullion trading</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">benefited from 17% gain in gold price this year</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">How much more can baht appreciate?</span></b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">whether baht will breach 30 per dollar</span></b></li>
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<b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">- Bloomberg</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">My comments : </span></b></div>
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T<b>he Thai Baht has now appreciated to almost 7:1 against the Ringgit (Oops previously I mentioned 6:1, not true).</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-kfIKQTM7fHUH6ApLt8_r5lgkhP6xvU_IlStseW7PF5o9FV2mhnxF1_Uq8zpoPQjv5nYQFtQFH0eM7XcgWETYd-Y_9DRojSj7Yxah4eOjwfr1mhWGnvjROYAPC2HqzirjHyOsaop7atqX/s1600/Baht.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="147" data-original-width="320" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-kfIKQTM7fHUH6ApLt8_r5lgkhP6xvU_IlStseW7PF5o9FV2mhnxF1_Uq8zpoPQjv5nYQFtQFH0eM7XcgWETYd-Y_9DRojSj7Yxah4eOjwfr1mhWGnvjROYAPC2HqzirjHyOsaop7atqX/s640/Baht.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Over the past year the Thai Baht has appreciated over 7% against the Ringgit. You can see the chart here :</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL-vIKIkuMFDjdibfy8CS1sG0fP22Vh3Q2llU80zl4-sbESfh-sthOSJc-C-O8nRxQyi7wBRoTipFYgu5ptLSnDFxKgmqBP_XCITIhuzpfEGay0a6eWeNfrY0K9_NBul9r6UIZew3kpsf_/s1600/Baht+Chart.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="640" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL-vIKIkuMFDjdibfy8CS1sG0fP22Vh3Q2llU80zl4-sbESfh-sthOSJc-C-O8nRxQyi7wBRoTipFYgu5ptLSnDFxKgmqBP_XCITIhuzpfEGay0a6eWeNfrY0K9_NBul9r6UIZew3kpsf_/s640/Baht+Chart.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Locals say shopping in Danok or Golok is not attractive anymore. </span></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Thailand is becoming unaffordable for Malaysians</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Macam dulu orang JB seronok pi shopping di Orchard Road (Like before, Johor Baru (JB) people were comfortable to shop at Orchard Road (Singapore))</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Now with the Singapore Dollar worth RM3.07 orang JB cannot even afford to window shop in Singapore.</span></b></li>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Very soon Thais will come to Malaysia to buy things that Malaysians will not be able to afford to buy here. Just wait and see.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">There are many things good about Thailand. The Army Junta that
runs the country seems to understand that just letting the economy fix
itself and move forward is a good thing to do. The government stays out
of too much interference in the economy.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">The previous Shinawatra business dynasty which ran the country
was too big into cronyism and lining their own pockets - typical for a
Third World country with lax institutions and controls. (Hence the
importance of having strong and independent institutions in any
country).</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">There is no guarantee that the military Junta now is any
cleaner but perhaps they are less sophisticated in white collar
shenanigans (compared to the previous bunch). Lets hope they stay that
way.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">There are other factors. The Thai Chinese business community -
which basically runs the Thai economy - is obviously investing more of
their money in manufacturing. They seem to have more faith in the
future. This is critical for Thailand. The business people must not be
hindered from doing what they know how to do best.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Ok now I would like to thank the
reader (obviously an economist or in some related field) who months ago
sent me an excerpt of a <a href="http://www.bnm.gov.my/index.php?ch=en_publication&pg=en_work_papers&ac=60&bb=file" target="_blank">research paper by Bank Negara Malaysia</a> about some comparative analysis of Asian and ASEAN economies, including Thailand. I will be referring to some of that research now. </span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg9D8N10kMy3P5F5xqPcJLRlAwUTp7R6DLeifzuJA8h9m5CdZtkpoIO1191dICEt5UdsLNbbzHH4ycF5dF1WXd8WTI6yNC4Q0_r4FnjdF2fcOyUhh7arCDlW7oLMrMI7Xkxiv8UoB0B-qI/s1600/BNM+Paper.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="640" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg9D8N10kMy3P5F5xqPcJLRlAwUTp7R6DLeifzuJA8h9m5CdZtkpoIO1191dICEt5UdsLNbbzHH4ycF5dF1WXd8WTI6yNC4Q0_r4FnjdF2fcOyUhh7arCDlW7oLMrMI7Xkxiv8UoB0B-qI/s640/BNM+Paper.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">This paper is by two Bank Negara researchers Brenda Cheah and
Mohd Shazwan. It is about what is called 'Economic Complexity'. Here is a
snapshot about economic complexity.</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiERr6EtIQei9xpNnvmj_6aGCgKTqmFvikTjVocBOHkNJsiTJuPD-Dml7tzi4hWlCEuo7vj12SHpQB0Lm-ZEphU_vYm0VtquIS8paXdYjeR_V-pZg86N_aKe5eim_QTbJUfY22juaNLM1M/s1600/BNM+Complexities.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="303" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiERr6EtIQei9xpNnvmj_6aGCgKTqmFvikTjVocBOHkNJsiTJuPD-Dml7tzi4hWlCEuo7vj12SHpQB0Lm-ZEphU_vYm0VtquIS8paXdYjeR_V-pZg86N_aKe5eim_QTbJUfY22juaNLM1M/s640/BNM+Complexities.PNG" width="350" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Simply put this is talking about value added and linkages (or leveraging on that value added).</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Lets take our oil palm and palm oil economy. There is very
little technology (on a comparison basis with Singapore, Vietnam and
even Thailand.) Just clear the land, plant the oil palms and six or
seven years later harvest the fruit. Press the oil, put it into tanks
and ship it out.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">What are the supporting industries or industry sokongan? Lorry
drivers, grass cutters, weedkillers, plantation workers (Banglas,
Indons), Java Man's brother with Slave Labour Permits to import 1.5
million Banglas etc. Those are the industry sokongan. Almost no value
added (from 50 years ago) and few or no new linkages. So the palm oil
industry lacks any real complexity.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">The foreign worker permits business still is the biggest
useless ripoff that our economy has to face. It still costs RM8,000 to
bring in ONE foreign worker. Kula Thengga, LTTE aah? </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Each new level of complexity means new value added in that sector. </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Each new level of complexity means new wealth creation.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Each new level of complexity means newer, higher paying jobs.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">So the more levels of complexity in the economy the more value
added and the more advanced economy. If we can downstream process our
palm oil to greater levels of complexities we may earn much higher
incomes.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Instead of exporting tons of raw palm oil, why not process the
oil and extract all those highly concentrated stuff that goes into so
many higher value products like medicines, cosmetics, food etc? Who
knows a kilo of the downstream products may cost as much as a ton of raw
palm oil.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Anyway here is a comparison of the Economic Complexity of various countries.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwU2ZeYfowFCQhyJdyi9kWZg8PKBLlCWSADmMJE4l0-UrtG15inz1HZ1p_-wau_g2YL2bADRprFKpHiyo6mqNH5VwAazWJMsyOuot8I22fnNd39pBdFE4A5aS72KjjqfOeWkxMk44W2A/s1600/BNM+Chart+TH+Comparison.PNG"><span style="font-size: large;"><img data-original-height="393" data-original-width="418" height="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwU2ZeYfowFCQhyJdyi9kWZg8PKBLlCWSADmMJE4l0-UrtG15inz1HZ1p_-wau_g2YL2bADRprFKpHiyo6mqNH5VwAazWJMsyOuot8I22fnNd39pBdFE4A5aS72KjjqfOeWkxMk44W2A/s640/BNM+Chart+TH+Comparison.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Malaysia is now only one step ahead of Thailand. The Thais are fast
catching up. The complexity of the Thai economy is improving. Their
economy is having more complex linkages within industry sectors.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">
I can tell you about their auto industry. Thailand is now the Detroit of
South East Asia. Producing over ONE MILLION trucks per annum the Thais
are the largest manufacturers of 1 ton pick up trucks in the world. They
also manufacture a huge range of automobiles for major world car
brands. And now the Thai auto industry has really moved up the value
chain where design is also being done fully in Thailand.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">
Many foreign car manufacturers have design bureaus located inside
Thailand. There is therefore a complete car industry ecosystem - from
design to manufacturing - in Thailand.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">
This is what is meant by complexity. </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">
Two points to note - the Thais started their car industry AFTER Malaysia and they DO NOT HAVE a Proton Saga.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">
While the Economic Complexity of Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh and other
countries is rapidly increasing our economy is stuck or moving much
less slowly.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">That is why the Ringgit is now at 7.21 Baht. The Baht will likely strengthen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://syedsoutsidethebox.blogspot.com/2019/10/thai-baht-economy-surges-their-economic.html" target="_blank">CLICK HERE TO READ SYED AKBAR ALI'S BLOG POST (AND HURRY, AS IT USUALLY WILL NOT BE UP FOR LONG)</a></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">BTW. Besides being a blogger, Syed has served on the Advisory Panel - Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission, a businessman, property developer, author (three books to date), company director, newspaper columnist, NEAC economic consultant and a banker.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">To add on my part, the Bank Negara Malaysia report referred to includes a chart which shows slower growth in Malaysia's Economic Complexity Index (ECI) that the Philippines'</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgCqdD-YZgB-9xjkfQi3JWO0UGuMeYa7snKZYmy4RxIk2zhiHJOcTi150wnXl8rdvOtMxJIjtCUcDNowgkfs3MlLMQzvhkVStStYLAmL6iNeo-DbSz-S8ybneM4eTGqoPAXLdQbVyhFZEP/s1600/Snapshot+of+the+Structural+Export+Composition+of+the+Philippines+and+Malaysia+from+2019-10-26+23-33-58.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="791" data-original-width="806" height="628" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgCqdD-YZgB-9xjkfQi3JWO0UGuMeYa7snKZYmy4RxIk2zhiHJOcTi150wnXl8rdvOtMxJIjtCUcDNowgkfs3MlLMQzvhkVStStYLAmL6iNeo-DbSz-S8ybneM4eTGqoPAXLdQbVyhFZEP/s640/Snapshot+of+the+Structural+Export+Composition+of+the+Philippines+and+Malaysia+from+2019-10-26+23-33-58.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.bnm.gov.my/index.php?ch=en_publication&pg=en_work_papers&ac=60&bb=file" target="_blank">CLICK HERE READ OR DOWNLOAD THE BANK NEGARA MALAYSIA REPORT </a></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In addition to Malaysian's developing our skills, technologies, technical capabilities and expanding the range of higher value-added products our industries produce, firstly our industries, especially our small-to-medium industries and enterprises must commit to a culture of producing high-quality, innovative, lasting and reliable products which can be sold at higher prices to more discerning customers both domestic and overseas, and not selling cheap, low quality products sourced in bulk from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) overseas, which are domestically rebranded with some cosmetic embellishments and sell them to competed on the lowest price, as some domestic Malaysian rebranders of home appliances and other such items currently do.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuyuOlaD8FUf2O04x08j1SHYQQokuVFFtom3ApHffD1v-WrCpLMtNMsXRAxAoxfBciMqyySh2VGX-8CT67al0TsPqFKFRyt0o1ZugDDIqun6zT1SBwjOzUetypb5Ly6mqA3uMhwPIxA8Ek/s1600/2016-12-25-914.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="898" data-original-width="1600" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuyuOlaD8FUf2O04x08j1SHYQQokuVFFtom3ApHffD1v-WrCpLMtNMsXRAxAoxfBciMqyySh2VGX-8CT67al0TsPqFKFRyt0o1ZugDDIqun6zT1SBwjOzUetypb5Ly6mqA3uMhwPIxA8Ek/s640/2016-12-25-914.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For instance, cheap products such a this electric oven from a Malaysian small-to-medium sized company which rebranded it with with an impressive-sounding western name, in which the two heating elements warped upward and touched the metal roof of the oven cavity, causing a short which tripped the mains circuit breaker.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is the third time it developed a fault. The first was that two of its heating elements failed shortly after the one-year warranty expired and it was sent back to the company for repair for a fee.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The next time, its timer switch stopped turning just before it would cut off resulting in the food inside being burnt and it took about a month for the company's workshop to replace the timer switch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When it failed for the third time I threw it away and got a comparable replacement from a more reputable Malaysian small-to-medium sized manufacturer and that one has had no problem after over two years or so, though I believe that it too was obtained from a foreign OEM and rebranded with this other other company's brand name.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In order for Malaysian manufacturers to achieve greater economic complexity, they will have to be able to conduct their own research, design, development and manufacture of such products of high quality and reliability.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Otherwise, they can forget about adopting Industry 4.0 production facilities and technologies, artificial intelligence, Internet-of-Things, digitalisation and so forth, since all they will achieve is to produce the same scheiss more quickly and efficiently at lower cost, since Industry 4.0 won't design products for manufacturers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yours truly</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">IT.Scheiss</span></i></div>
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IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-75864152529946850462019-10-08T15:00:00.003+08:002019-10-08T15:00:58.354+08:00YOUR STREAMING VIDEO IS SLOW? WELL PAY US A PREMIUM FOR FULL SPEED.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6iB8JtIlAWpVH-l2NqbhkU0MkO1pqRJ1HyOSuevTLZEjKJQp0IczEopmd7yPGVt0qbLXEgoA9ERVJA263eN3Sw3jvKvSQirhFj1h1PLNNkcoSCKmIMvo9UBaJUS65g5Hd5jTIAUNLPch0/s1600/Trump+celebrates+%25E2%2580%2598win%25E2%2580%2599+against+net+neutrality+from+2019-10-08+12-40-58.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="790" data-original-width="845" height="598" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6iB8JtIlAWpVH-l2NqbhkU0MkO1pqRJ1HyOSuevTLZEjKJQp0IczEopmd7yPGVt0qbLXEgoA9ERVJA263eN3Sw3jvKvSQirhFj1h1PLNNkcoSCKmIMvo9UBaJUS65g5Hd5jTIAUNLPch0/s640/Trump+celebrates+%25E2%2580%2598win%25E2%2580%2599+against+net+neutrality+from+2019-10-08+12-40-58.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Cyberutopians in the days of dialup Internet, way back in the mid 1990s, told us that "the Internet belongs to nobody", "cannot be controlled by governments or censors", "will enable us ordinary people to challenge government and the big corporations" and so forth but today, many content creators are whining and moaning about their content hosted for free on social media sites being either denied advertising, hence advertising revenue or booted off entirely, their sites being listed way down in searches and so forth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">On 8 February 1996, John Perry Barlow published <i>A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace</i>, whilst hobnobbing with the capitalist world's elites at a World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in response to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in the United States.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Below, highlighted in blue, is his declaration, telling government to butt out of the "realm of minds" - i.e. Cyberspace, as is published on the website of the Electronic Frontier Foundation:-</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">by John Perry Barlow </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge. Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Davos, Switzerland</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">February 8, 1996</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So Cyber-libertarians like Barlow appear to regard Cyberspace as some kind of "new wild west" - a realm where the rule of law is unenforceable or non-existent, and where the one who draws his revolver and shoots first wins, like in those once-popular films called "westerns".</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fast forward to 2017, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the U.S. communications industry regulator and a counterpart to our Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), attempted to repeal net neutrality rules, which prevented Internet service providers and telecommunication network operators to provide equal treatment to all their customers, and the repeal of net neutrality, allows Internet service providers and telecommunication network operators to provide preferential treatments to some over others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For example, without net neutrality rules, an Internet service provider or a telecommunication network operator can limit the speed of streaming video content, such as a You Tube video, over their network, unless customers pay a premium to upgrade to full speed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Former U.S. President Obama opposed the FCC's decision to repeal net neutrality but more recently, a Federal Appeals Court in the U.S. backed the FCC's decision to end net neutrality and current U.S. President Donald Trump applauded the court's decision, as Russia Today of 7 October 2019 reports.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Trump celebrates ‘win’ against net neutrality – and it’s anything but a victory for open internet</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">7 Oct, 2019 18:30</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"> A federal appeals court has backed the decision to ditch net neutrality, and President Donald Trump is touting the victory; others warn net neutrality is key to an open internet. Now, does anyone remember what net neutrality was?</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">President Donald Trump hailed the DC appeals court’s decision to uphold the Federal Communications Commission’s 2017 move to axe net neutrality as “a great win for the future and speed of the internet” that will “lead to many big things, including 5G” in a tweet on Monday. But what is net neutrality, exactly, and why does anyone care?</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">The FCC, led by a former Verizon lawyer, dropped Obama-era net neutrality rules in 2017, deregulating companies like Verizon and Comcast that provide broadband internet service. Net neutrality rules barred these companies from speeding up access for sites and customers they liked and throttling or even blocking access to sites and customers they didn’t. Providers were legally blocked from manipulating internet traffic based on whether a customer or site had paid for ‘better’ service. Internet providers were held to the same rules as telephone service providers.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Net neutrality’s backers worried that without the rules, providers would create a two-tiered system that gave those who could pay quick and unrestricted access, while those who couldn’t would be limited to sluggish internet ghettos. The rules force carriers to treat all internet traffic equally – a crucial safeguard in an industry in which many broadband providers have a monopoly or near-monopoly on customers in a certain region. Opponents of net neutrality insist that providers that act badly will merely drive their customers to competitors – forgetting that in many areas, there are no competitors.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">The process of repealing net neutrality rules in 2017 was tainted by malfeasance. A New York state probe found that nearly half of the public comments submitted to the FCC while they were considering rolling back net neutrality were fake – and a Stanford University study found the vast majority of the real comments were in favor of keeping net neutrality. Even the House, despite hefty donations from telecom companies, has come out in favor of net neutrality, passing a bill in April to restore the Obama-era rules.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">There is a bright spot in last week’s ruling, however. It allows states to pass their own net neutrality laws and prevents the FCC from interfering. California has already passed its own net neutrality law, which the Justice Department immediately pounced on and which it will be allowed to keep if the appeals court ruling remains in effect.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">https://www.rt.com/usa/470391-net-neutrality-repeal-upheld-what/</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So Cyberspace belongs to someone after all, and they usually are a handful of very large corporations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">If Cyberspace "belongs to nobody", as these deluded Cyberutopians claim, we would not have to pay our broadband service provider for broadband access.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This goes to show that Barlow's <i>A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace</i> was a load of IT scheiss all along.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">These Ayn Rand, Chicago School, von Hayekist, von Misesist Cyber-libertarians (right wing anarchists) never learn or must have been smoking something besides tobacco to be able to come up with such nonsense.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Netizens have gotten to used to being able to get most items and services for free on the Internet from capitalist content hosting providers, until they have developed an entitlement mentality, whereby they expect it's their right to get everything for free on the Internet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, what these idealistic idiots don't realise is that such sites may initially host content creators for free in order to build up traffic to their sites and attract sufficient advertising revenue revenue, after which they can dump those content creators who are not bringing them enough advertising revenue, much like a sales and marketing company dismisses sales representatives who do not meet their monthly quota.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, online advertisers want to have a say in which websites or videos their advertisements appear on, since they don't want their products and services advertised to be associated with websites and videos which their potential customers may regard as controversial or offensive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For instance, You Tube, owned by Google, used to place advertisements on any video and shared the advertising revenue with the respective content creators.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, some major advertisers were not happy that their advertisements were appearing on videos featuring controversial political opinions, including expressions of prejudice, racism, sexism, radical politics to the far right or far left, generally objectionable content such as pornography and so forth, so You Tube redesigned its algorithm's to be more selective of videos and creators' video channels where advertisements appeared and many of the more radical or objectionable video creators saw a huge reduction in their earnings from their their You Tube videos, which they have termed as "demonetisation".</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">All this happened even whilst net-neutrality was in force, since the rule did not cover content hosting sites such as You Tube, which retained the right to decide on what content they wanted to host, just as landlords have the right to decide on which tenants they want to rent to, or hotels may reserve the right to deny accepting certain troublesome guests, even though that rarely happens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Way back in 2007, Kuching, Sarawak-based blogger Kenny Sia, whose blog was signed up with blog advertising placement company Nuffnang, told me that he avoids overtly political content on his blog posts, since it would drive away advertisers, and back then, he was earning around RM15,000 per month from advertising on his blog.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is why, you hardly find advertisements on politically-inclined alternative news portals, since advertisers don't want their especially mass-market products or services to be associated with a particularly politically inclined view, since they could alienate a major portion of customers who object to those views.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Similarly, advertisers are very selective about which print newspapers their advertisements appear on, so they generally avoid placing their advertisements on political party publications.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So look Cyberutopians! Only within a socialist society, where the means of production, distribution and exchange are owned by workers, not capitalists, will it be possible to provide free broadband access and net neutrality to all, though most likely, anti-socialist, pro-capitalist, anti-worker, anti-social, racist, sexist and bourgeois-decadent content such as pornography would be banned online under socialism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, we also very likely won't have annoying advertisements popping up online under socialism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yours truly</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">IT.Scheiss</span></div>
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IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-82459861557514284542019-09-29T04:40:00.003+08:002019-09-29T04:40:45.796+08:00LACK OF CREATIVITY AMONGST MALAYSIAN STUDENTS DUE TO OUR BRITISH COLONIAL LEGACY ?????<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7CLtRNTYEiPpW7yM-Yg2Pntxbg31uviZ3yn0Tga7IE57HzR8f-vrUcD2KceGhBZ6xx-jnnZts3rhwKxakT1daABLjP1JzU7TPM9f3IvxdQG_ag_R8zJLBqEfwiu4LeapQE_WWJ1SxfLU1/s1600/Education+system+doesn%25E2%2580%2599t+inspire+creative+thinking%252C+says+Microsoft+man+from+2019-09-29+00-23-52.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="762" data-original-width="654" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7CLtRNTYEiPpW7yM-Yg2Pntxbg31uviZ3yn0Tga7IE57HzR8f-vrUcD2KceGhBZ6xx-jnnZts3rhwKxakT1daABLjP1JzU7TPM9f3IvxdQG_ag_R8zJLBqEfwiu4LeapQE_WWJ1SxfLU1/s640/Education+system+doesn%25E2%2580%2599t+inspire+creative+thinking%252C+says+Microsoft+man+from+2019-09-29+00-23-52.png" width="548" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">What do you think of the cause of Malaysia' poor education system according to Microsoft Malaysia's national technology officer Dr Dzaharudin Mansor?</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2019/09/28/education-system-doesnt-inspire-creative-thinking-says-microsoft-man/" target="_blank">CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Whilst it's true that British colonial education systems in their various colonies were geared towards producing civil servants, police and military officers who would follow orders of their colonial master, however being a Microsoft man, his views are quite likely favourable to the American education system.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, do American school students perform better, when other aspects such as discipline, study ethic and so forth are taken into account?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For instance, in Malaysia, students of Chinese-language vernacular schools are often regarded as being better than students in Malaysia's national schools.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, students of mission schools such as the Lasallian schools believe that they are a cut above students from other mission schools, secular-oriented schools and national schools, even though the curriculum and teaching methods in these schools are largely based on the British colonial education system, with an Irish and French touch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, whilst the American education system and teaching methods may have enabled U.S. leadership and dominance in computing and information technology, however Britain and the rest of Europe were responsible for major inventions and innovations which came out of the industrial revolution, whilst today, Germany and Europe are leading in developing technologies and systems for the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0, whilst the Japanese, whose education system is said to be very much based upon rote learning and memorising facts, yet produces some of the most economical, yet quality and reliable cars, as well as consumer electronics and some professional electronic and optical equipment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">China today is leading the world in the number of patents in the Fifth-Generation (5G) cellular communications technology and in high-speed trains, whilst students in Singapore, which shares an almost identical British colonial legacy as Malaysia regularly come tops in PISA test scores.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So how true is Dr. Dzaharudin Mansor's assertion that Malaysia's education system and methods inherited from the British colonialists is responsible for the "lack of creativity" in our students compared to American school students in general?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Or have our education standards declined due to Malaysia having embraced some of the American teaching philosophies and methods in our school system?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Whilst I generally agree with </span><span style="font-size: large;">Dr. Dzaharudin Mansor that Malaysians, and South-East Asians in general lack creativity and imagination, however there are other reasons for this as well besides our British colonial legacy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I believe that these other reasons include legacies of our culture, traditions, lack of availability of funds to finance research & development activities, lack of domestic market demand for Malaysian-made products, and the dominance of hardware, software, systems and solutions by giant foreign multinationals upon the mindset of Malaysians.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The <i>Free Malaysia Today</i> article follows below:-</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Education system doesn’t inspire creative thinking, says Microsoft man</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">FMT Reporters - September 28, 2019 11:46 PM</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">PETALING JAYA: A national technology officer with Microsoft Malaysia has lamented that the education system does not inspire creative thinking and stifles innovation.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Dr Dzaharudin Mansor said Malaysia’s education system followed the “300-year old colonial British system”, which he said had the aim of producing officers to obey orders so that these officers could be sent to countries controlled centrally from England.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">However the United Kingdom had since moved away from such a system and had introduced relevant courses which were more suitable for the current work demand.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">“However, Malaysia still continues the colonial British education system which does not inspire creative and critical thinking.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">“We are not taught to challenge the status quo and this is one of the reasons why our culture of innovation is not maturing,” he said at the “Asian Tiger 4th Talk” organised by Akademi Harimau Asia yesterday.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Also present was Dr Azree Shahrel Ahmad Nazri, the president of Artificial Intelligence Malaysia.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Dzaharudin said the future of learning lay in “flipped classrooms” whereby students will be taught with the help of computers. He explained that in a “flipped classroom”, students watch lectures and take part in discussions online.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Students would come to classes only to focus on higher order thinking and more complex aspects of learning guided by teachers.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">“Teachers, on the other hand, ascend from teaching to engaging with students on more sophisticated learning. This is when teachers can challenge students to be more critical thinking and creative.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Dzaharudin said the job market, especially in the technology industry, was being disrupted by smaller and agile companies.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">“We need to change our mindset to stay ahead of disruption.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Taught with help of computers!!!!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Hee hee, ha ha, ho ho! Perhaps you may first want to donate some PCs to my old school's ICT learning lab, which is short of enough working computers for the ICT students, before proposing such hifalutin stuff such as "flipped classrooms".</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've had to suffer the psychological torture of having to cover too many of such conferences, seminars and presentations since I began writing about ICT in Malaysia 25 years ago and more often than not, most grandiose proposals on stage remained within the four walls of the splendid and opulent conference and seminar halls.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Going by what I was told about e-learning and computers in education during the early days of Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC Malaysia) initiative, every schools student would have a computer on their desk by now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, having visited my old alma mater each year since 2010, I have seen no computers on desks in the classrooms, which look just as they were when I was there, </span><span style="font-size: large;">whilst the science lab looked exactly the same as it was 50 years when I was a student there, except for the addition of an overhead projector.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">C'mon guys! Give me a break. I wasn't born yesterday.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yours truly</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">IT.Scheiss</span></div>
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<br />IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329648908462256675.post-72283719567653163272019-09-29T03:29:00.001+08:002019-09-29T03:30:45.403+08:00WHAT! NO MORE NEED FOR STEM GRADUATES?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Not too long ago, we were repeatedly told that Malaysia needs more STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduates but the Director General of the Department of Higher Education now tells us that electrical and electronic telecommunication engineering courses at Malaysia's 19 public universities are "irrelevant" and will be dropped.</span></div>
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Also, courses in animation and creative technology are "irrelevant" and will be dropped as well,along with courses in entrepreneurship and commerce.</div>
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Heck! As recent as 27 August 2018 - i.e. just over a year ago, we were still being told that creative multimedia was a major industry cluster within Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor initiative or MSC Malaysia, when the New Straits Times reported about efforts to turn Malaysia into a "creative powerhouse".</div>
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<a href="https://www.nst.com.my/lifestyle/bots/2018/08/405162/turning-malaysia-creative-powerhouse" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://www.nst.com.my/lifestyle/bots/2018/08/405162/turning-malaysia-creative-powerhouse" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">CLICK TO READ - TURNING MALAYSIA INTO A CREATIVE POWERHOUSE</span></a></div>
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So what will happen to that objective now - the Multimedia Super Corridor - Tun Dr. Mahathir's baby - becomes the Moribund Super Corridor ????</div>
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Unfortunately, the article below by The Star which is an excerpt from a Malay language <i>Berita Harian</i> article does not mention what courses are deemed relevant.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7VI45xtO1HqrBTRW5JvzBpoTClVQ4OlRY-P1n9uR1-9HM3FNlgOf4MlbGyaiEqMCw9dlfPBcxeWUJaZlcIBEgspFlBGjmsG0T3jynitf-BUqpEW82lOCkOTUc59HPQ5lW3ZCKki5JdD4H/s1600/Irrelevant+varsity+subjects+dropped+from+2019-09-26+04-51-51.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="858" height="636" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7VI45xtO1HqrBTRW5JvzBpoTClVQ4OlRY-P1n9uR1-9HM3FNlgOf4MlbGyaiEqMCw9dlfPBcxeWUJaZlcIBEgspFlBGjmsG0T3jynitf-BUqpEW82lOCkOTUc59HPQ5lW3ZCKki5JdD4H/s640/Irrelevant+varsity+subjects+dropped+from+2019-09-26+04-51-51.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Irrelevant varsity subjects dropped</span></h1>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Tuesday, 24 Sep 2019</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"> <strong>Compiled by DEREK YONG, OH ING YEEN and R. ARAVINTHAN</strong></span></div>
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many as 38 university programmes, mostly in science and engineering,
have been cancelled due to their decreased relevance to the current and
future progress of Malaysian industries, reported Berita Harian.</div>
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<span style="color: blue;">The programmes were offered by 19 public universities which were also assessing other subjects.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Higher Education Department director-general Datin Paduka Dr Siti Hamisah Tapsir (<strong><em>pic</em></strong>) said the move was in line with efforts to ensure graduates could find jobs that were related to their qualifications.</span></div>
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the programmes dropped are those related to sports psychology,
entrepreneurship and commerce, animation and creative technology, and
electric and electronic telecommunication engineering.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Siti Hamisah said the programmes needed to be replaced with new ones to meet the needs of industries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/09/24/irrelevant-varsity-subjects-dropped#ufe8MZ86TFdU7cW0.99" target="_blank">CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL ARTICLE</a> </span></div>
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IT.Sheisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13074171337614057799noreply@blogger.com0