Google Malaysia's Extraordinaire Logo

Late last night I noticed a difference in Google Malaysia's Extraordinaire Logo. In conjunction with Malaysia's 50th Independence Day (Merdeka 50 tahun as stated in the Bahasa Malaysia language) being celebrated on 31 August 2007, Google displayed the following logo:-

But it's back to normal this morning. How nice of Google.

Tags: Google, Google Malaysia, Google Logo, 50th Independence Day

Malaysia's 50th Independence Day

My beloved country, Malaysia, is celebrating its 50th Independence Day today on 31 August 2007, the day it gained independence from the British.

Plenty of activities yesterday night that continued all the way to the midnight countdown at various places in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city and held at other various cities throughout Malaysia. Yesterday, a number of us were in church praying for the nation, Malaysia's King and Prime Minister and unceasing unity.

This morning, a large parade happened at the Dataran Merdeka ("Merdeka Square") to commemorate the auspicious day with Malaysia's King, DYMM Sultan Mizan and HRH The Duke of York, Prince Andrew Edward from the British Royal Family attending the event.

Reading: Malaysia Marks 50 Years as Nation - BBC News/Asia-Pacific

Reading: A Tribute to the Celebration of Malaysia's 50 Years of Nationhood - Virtual Malaysia

Reading: A Truly Malaysian Dinner - Marina Mahathir (daughter of former Prime Minister)

Tags: Malaysia, 50th Independence Day, 50 Years, Nationhood, Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur, Sultan Mizan, Prince Andrew, British Royal Family

Latest Credit Card Fraud's Modus Operandi

Received this via an email this afternoon:-

Another credit card fraud scheme forwarded to me by a friend. Pls be aware!...

I just want to share the incident that happened to me yesterday. I received a call from a woman by the name Lisa claiming she is calling on behalf of Bank Negara. She introduced herself formally and explained to me that Bank Negara is concerned for credit card users in Malaysia who overspend their limit and put themselves too deep in debt. So, Bank Negara is introducing this new "MBF Countdown Backup" card for all owners of credit cards all around Malaysia and will soon be a compulsory thing. The card, according to Lisa, will be swiped everytime a transaction is performed using your credit card and this will enable Bank Negara to monitor our spending. And in return, we will get discounts ranging from 5% to 40% for different merchants.

Then, this is where my stupidity sets in. Because she spoke to me in Bahasa Malaysia and the background noise implicates that it is a bank working environment, and above all this, she was able to read out to me my 16-digit credit card numbers and particulars and even my outstanding balance with the credit card, it convinced me that this could be a new system implemented by Bank Negara. So, when she asked for my 3-digit approval code written behind the credit card, I "STUPIDLY" gave it to her.

Then after all this was charade was over, Lisa informed me that a charge of RM480 will be charged to my credit card as a starters fee to waive off the annual fee. This woke me up!! So, I questioned Lisa on why do I need to pay for something that Bank Negara wants to implement to help the people of Malaysia (not a very noble cause).

Then she explained to me that they are from a company calling on behalf of Bank Negara. And she said all the banks are well aware of this system. She then passed me over to her manager, Mr. Zakri or Mr. Z (similar to the MIB) or something. This gentleman then tries to assure me that this is not a fraud or scam.

Then after his long-winded speech about the benefits of their card no longer Bank Negara's), I told him to hold the approval of the card as I don't need it. I told him that I will call my bank to verify this card and get back to him. He agreed to my suggestion and even gave me 2 of his contact numbers for me to get back to him (03-40422522 and 03-40424288).

So, when I called both my credit card banks regarding this matter both banks told me that there was no such thing. Immediately I told that I might have fell for a fraud telephony case and wanted to cancel and suspend all my credit cards. The banks suspended my cards and agreed to send me a replacement card. Then when I called back Mr. Z at the number he gave me, a different lady attended to me and passed me on to a chinese lady who spoke in mandarin to me in a very heavy China accent. I told them that I have called my cc banks and cancelled my cards and specifically told her that I do not agree to their terms and I don't want their offer. She explained to me and assured me that they will delete my cc details and not charge me for anything. So, all this happened yesterday.

Being paranoid, I called my banks again this morning to double check if any transactions had gone through yesterday after I cancelled my card. And guess what. Those m#^*!#f actually did try to charge me but the banks did not let the transactions go through. I consider myself lucky coz I acted a step ahead of them.

Lesson from all of this, never ever entertain telephony offers that involve credit cards. 2 of my colleagues fell for these scams before and 1 of them was lucky enough to have the bank recognise it as a fraud case while the other 1 lost RM3000.

Jia Yin, Irene
Related reading: The Dangers of Credit Card - Lowyat.Net

Tags: Credit Card Fraud, Credit Card, Bank Negara, MBF Countdown Backup, Fraud

Difference Between A Wife & Girlfriend

This is good…. But true !

Wife is like a TV. Girlfriend is like handphone.

At home watch TV. Go out bring h/p.

No money sell TV. Got money change h/p.

Sometimes enjoy TV but most of the time play with h/p.

TV free for life but....h/p, if you don't pay, "The number you have dial is not in service" ....!

My comment:
TV more reliable, h/p more fashionable...
Tags: Wife, Girlfriend, TV, Handphone, Funny, Humour, Jokes

Spiderman Abilities Being Developed

Ever thought how does a lizard or gecko (as known in certain countries) and spiders have the abilities to hang on to the ceiling but does not fall off easily?

It's not easy to understand as involves science and quite complicated for me too. Both the lizards and spiders have tiny hairs which act as an adhesive agent. As seen, a lizard may not be that light but yet it was able to have the strength to hold its body up at the ceiling, upside down.

The Spiderman, in cartoon or movie format, displayed the same abilities for sticking onto walls up high in the buildings.


The scientists have done a research under "Structural properties of a scaled gecko foot-hair" under the Bioinspiration and Biomimetics which has been published in the Journal of Physics.

The scientists are doing a research on a potential spiderman suit which has the same capabilities as shown in the Spiderman movie.

The following criterias must be met first:-
1. most obviously, it must be able to demonstrate strong adhesive properties

2. the suit must be able to detach easily from a surface after it has stuck

3. the suit must, to some degree, be able to clean itself as dirt may interfere with the adhesive properties of the suit


And all the above involves such scientific terms:-
* intermolecular forces
* "van der Waals" forces
* carbon nanotubes
* geometrical properties or topology
* superhydrophobic

In the end, the scientists did mention this - that human beings' muscles were not developed to hang upside down like the lizards or geckos as the muscles will have its fatigue after a long hang. So, please go back to being a human ....... don't dream that you could a be superhero. That's only a comic book story.
Tags: Lizard, Gecko, Spider, Spiderman, Journal of Physics, Bioinspiration, Biomimetics, Intermolecular Forces, Van der Waals Forces, Carbon Nanotubes, Geometrical Properties, Topology, Superhydrophobic, Comic Book

Climate Is Too Hot Lately

How hot was it 10 years ago? I found it really warm at times but of course, uncomparable back at Sudan. Only if it rains in Kuala Lumpur now, I found the room's temperature cools down faster even with the air-cond switched on.

Humans have to adjust their dressing styles to fit in with the warm weather of late. And when you want to open up a business to cash in on the warm weather, an ice-cream stall may just be the answer.

The viability of the ice-cream business really depends on where you locate the business also.

Tags: Global Warming, Environment, Ice-Cream

Child's Guide to the Global Financial Crisis

This is a simple & funny illustration of the US sub-prime crisis.

You know dad is in trouble, and that mom is crying, and that the order for the Oyster 100 has had to be cancelled, and that the Bentley Arnage convertible is out, and that Graciela and Baby are on their way back to Manila and we're just left with Candy to help out, and that you probably aren't going to Choate after all, and it might be hard to figure everything out. But it's not.

Here's how it works. Think about gumdrops. They are no different than sub-prime home mortgages, and they illustrate how such a tiny segment of the housing market in the US could cause so much trouble for the world economy.

You used to be able to buy two gumdrops for a penny but now the price has gone up. They are a penny each. You want a gumdrop, but you don't have a penny. But I will loan you one because I know you want the gumdrop. I am not asking you if you have a way to pay off the gumdrop because I think you will pay it off, or I did before your dad got into trouble. I don't need to. But let's figure out if I can get some collateral. Collateral is a big word for something I can grab if you can't pay. That would be the gumdrop.

But collateral doesn't really matter. I know you signed a paper with your little six-year old hand that you would pay back the penny. Your father is rich, or was until the current unpleasantness, and I think you're good for it anyhow. So just like your father at the hedge fund, I have an IOU that represents the gumdrop. We can call it a mortgage.

But surprise. As soon as you gave me your little signature, I sold the paper to an 8th grader.

The kid who bought it from me has a great idea. He takes the gumdrop mortgage, and collects lots of them. Then he puts them into a fund that everybody can buy. A smart investment banker figured out in the 1980s that you could take lots of little IOUs, called mortgages, and bundle them together into bonds. These are called derivatives because they are financial instruments derived from the original mortgage. Then whoever buys them slices and dices them into different components.

The kid who bought your gumdrop IOU from me is like that. So what kind of derivatives can we derive from your gumdrop? Well, the kid who bought the gumdrop IOU split it into a whole bunch of new financial instruments. They are called collateralized debt obligations. He sells securities on the gelatine in the gumdrop for 1 cent. He sells securities in the dye in the gumdrop for 1 cent. He sells securities in the sugar for 1 cent. He sells securities in the aroma for 1 cent. He sells securities in the appearance of the gumdrop for 1 cent. He sells securities in the squeezability of the gumdrop for 1 cent. Your gumdrop, which you bought for one cent (although it's really only worth half a cent because of speculation and inflation) is now worth 6 cents.

But that's just the start. Each of the buyers of the gumdrop securities breaks them into component parts and sells them on to other kids. The kid who buys the gelatine security breaks it down into its separate chemical components and sells each of the chemical component securities for one cent each. That creates five new securities each worth a cent. The kid who buys the dye security takes a prism of the color and breaks it down into each of its component colors. The possibilities are nearly endless. Colors can be separated split into endless variations using color separators. Magenta and cyan are components of red. Yellow and cyan can produce green. Each one can represent a new security.

The kid who buys the sugar security got a great deal. Sugar is a disaccharide that breaks down into glucose and fructose. It breaks down after that into something called C12H22011, with the systemic name of D-fructofuranosyl or D-glucopyranoside. Each one of those is broken down again. Over and over. It's fun! Each of the people who breaks these down into individual securities says the security is backed by your one-cent gumdrop mortgage - the collateralized debt obligation.

In your dad's world, this is called "creating new financial instruments." By now, the total market value of the securities built on the value of your one-cent gumdrop is somewhere around 50 times that. But in a bull market, when everybody gets concerned that their snouts aren't deep enough into the money trough, they start to panic and buy more, forcing the price up even higher. So your half-cent gumdrop now represents maybe US$1.

Way down at the bottom is you. The whole thing is built on your gumdrop, but I remember that you haven't paid me the penny you owe me, maybe because you're scared to ask dad, who is very grouchy these days. So I'd like the gumdrop back. Unfortunately, you ate it.

There was another man who was a lot like that investment banker who figured out how to securitize mortgages. His name was Carlo Ponzi. But that's another story.

Related reading: Shrewd lenders spark US mortgage chaos
Tags: Sub Prime, Financial Crisis, Mortgage, , US Mortgage, Investment Banker, Financial Instruments, Bonds, Derivatives, Collaterised Debt, Securities, Carlo Ponzi