Archive for July, 2008
What if I am sitting in front of my PC 10 years ago, and accidentally read this blog?
Posted by Jackson Lim in Relationship on July 28, 2008
Although modern science made it fairly clear that it is quite impossible for current world event to influence the past, but that doesn’t stop me from wondering, what if 10 years ago while I am happily browsing web 1.0, I accidentally bump in to this post? What sort of important message I want to tell myself when I am 12 years old? When I am old enough to differentiate between male and female, yet young enough to believe that I have the fattest fingers in the whole wide world. I guess I’ll probably make this post as easy to understand as possible, because there isn’t much word in my vocabulary back then.
First thing first, Jackson, stare at this screen right now, put 100% concentration and try to understand word by word on what I am trying to say to you, this is the single most important thing I want to tell you right now, because it will make the years ahead of you less complicated and happier. Ready? this is my advice, stop paying insane amount of attention to the color of your skin! You are not ugly because of it, yes I know, because of your skin color kids at school make fun of you, saying all kinds of nasty things that really hurt your feelings. But keep this in mind, girls really like your complexion more then you could ever imagine right now, you stand out and become the center of attention in college because of it. So throw away that leather Chicago Bull cap, stop wearing it to cover your face, I know it is hard for you to do it right away but remember this, sooner or later you’ll start to appreciate the amount of hair your have on your head and on your face.
Once you get over that fact that you are not as ugly as you think you are, take at least 30 minutes of your time in a day and talk to Mom. Listen to her and talk to her, you don’t really have to agree on what she said, and she might not listen to your opinion, but be patient and listen to her anyway. Although you will talk to her more often when you are 15 and 16 years old, but there is no harm to start early. Appreciate the food that she prepared for you, appreciate the bed she make for you, appreciate the cloths she wash for you, appreciate the kiss and hug she gave you each morning before you go to school, and more importantly, appreciate and remember the unconditional love that she give you right now. It will be the purest, the most sacred, the holiest love you will ever receive for the rest of your life.
I know currently you are quite distant with Dad, but trust me, once you heard his side of the story, you will be amazed at his courage and perseverance. You will not find another man in this world who is more family centered, more kind, and more forgiving then he is. I know he doesn’t talk much, he doesn’t really show his true emotion to you, but you’ll get the shock of your life to find out that when you are older, you and Dad will have so much in common you wouldn’t even believe it yourself! Take some time and try to understand dad, he is a complicated man but once you use love to decipher his emotion, it will be fairly easy to read his mind.
I don’t want to tell you too much about the future, because I know you wouldn’t like it right? I know you want to experience all the is to life on your own, but remember this, people will not always be kind to you, some love to see you fall and collapse, you’ll see more of these people when you grow up. Therefore you must always love yourself, hear your inner voice, I can guarantee your life will turn out great if you just stop and listen to the voice in your head. I love you, I will never leave you, and I will be here for you whenever you need me. Have faith in yourself, have faith in your ability. Hopefully 10 years from now, you will be able to write a similar letter to yourself 10 years ago.
My journey of trying to answer the origin of life
Posted by Jackson Lim in Emotional Inteligence on July 20, 2008
“Mommy, where did I come from?”, that I think is the first serious question I ever asked myself throughout my entire lifetime, and luckily it is also the question that millions of people around the world asked when they are growing up, perhaps it is also the question that will leave thousands of scientist sleepless at night for many years to come. I am not talking about your ancestral roots, although it is important as it may be, I am talking about our common ancestor, our roots, the origins of life.
When you trace your family roots to its very top, you might just found your good great grandfather’s grandfather (some people doesn’t even go that far), but have you ever wondered who is your grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather? Who is that person and how it came into beings? Where did he come from? Who is his grandfather? I think now you get the bigger picture, my family roots might trance back to yours and vice verse, and scientist have many reasons to believe that the current human population around the world, can trace back to their ancestral roots in Africa some 50000 years ago (The year might varied, but all mainstream scientist agrees on the fact).
What does that tell us? All of us have a very high chance of marrying our own distant cousin, yuck! But scientifically there is nothing wrong with that, but it is a big no to those who want to marry your close cousin because in biological point of view, the children produced from those marriages have lower immune system and there are high probability that the child has defects. When I contemplate on the latest findings, the fact that all of us are related is some way really open up my mind. We might be separated by our race, our religion and our nationality but genetically, we are inseparable.
But who is the grandfather of my grandfather in Africa? And who is his grandfather. Now that is the key question, and the answer given by science is even more baffling then the fact that I can trace my roots back to Africa. Biologically we humans share the same great common ancestor as all the animals and plant on the planet, which means that you and your cats and dogs shared the same biological ancestor in the tree of life. Many scientist around the world agrees that all life on Earth comes from a simple microorganism that make up life, I think you learned that in high school, but do you take it seriously?
Some people think that all those so called facts are total B.S and they choose to believe that humans come from heavens, and humans descended to Earth because they ate the forbidden fruit. But I on the other hand much rather stick to science, even though I have to believe that my ancestor is African and the mosquito I killed last night might have some biological relationship with me. But wait, there is more. Where does microorganism comes from? What is the building block of life comes into being?
Currently there are still no one single conclusion on that question, but scientist have a theory that the building block of life or biochemical compounds from outer space are responsible for originating life on Earth and possibly in other parts of the universe where suitable atmospheric conditions exist. Can I call that external intervention? Currently scientist are trying to proof the theory by creating early Earth atmosphere in the lab, with violent lightning, hot water and different gasses that exist millions of years ago, and add some chemical compound taken from meteoroid found in remote places on Earth to see whether they can recreate simple microorganism from scratch. If they are successful, I can tell my son in the future that all life on Earth comes from outer space, and technically we are the aliens on Earth.
So what if we really come from outer space, what if all of us can trace back our roots to Africa, what is the significant of that knowledge? Although we won’t see the result of that findings immediately, but in not so distant future scientist might be able to Engineer a creature that has human intelligence, but physically 10 to 100 times stronger then any human beings on Earth, or they can engineer your babies genetically to be much smarter then anyone else on Earth in history. But I can foresee a much bigger impact if scientist are able to answer the question about the origin of life:
- The question of God existence will finally be answered
- The question about human life’s purpose will be answered
- Humans will be able to predict the future much more accurately
Are you ready for the answer? You better be. Because all those big questions might be answered within our lifetime, but if you think that all those findings are total B.S, it really doesn’t matter to you anyway.
Anwar vs Shabery – Today we form the government, tomorrow the oil price will drop
Posted by Jackson Lim in Political on July 15, 2008
After watching the live debate on TV between the opposition party’s leader Anwar Ibrahim and Information Minister Shabery Cheek, I felt somewhat relieve because most of my frustration and questions about how the current government control the oil prices has been presented eloquently by Mr Anwar Ibrahim. It has come to no surprise that Mr Anwar dominated the whole debate, but how the current government representative answer several valid questions from him really baffles me.
For instance, why the government choose to increase the oil price dramatically within a month? Why the government can’t even churn out RM 5 Billion Ringgit to reduce the current oil price by 50 cent? Now that is a valid question, Mr Anwar himself even gave several suggestion to his opposition such as reducing the outflow of diesel oil illegally to other countries, reduce wastage by the government and stop corruption. But the Information Minister failed to answer his question, and choose to lecture about Malaysian history. How the government form Petronas, why it is formed, and he even add in personal attacks to spice things up.
But that doesn’t solve people’s problem, although I have to admit that it made good television. Please bare in mind that I stand objectively between both parties, both politician have their own political agenda and the oil price issue can easily replaced with other local issues. But what I am concerned about is the quality of the debate, and what the outcome is after the debate. And from my impression, the government is still naive about the current economy state of the country. Mr Shabery Cheek touched about how low our inflation is compared to other countries even though our oil prices are high, we as Malaysian are lucky that he is not our finance minister.
Come on, I am not an economist but even I have the common sense that if oil price increased, food and other products will also increased because goods are delivered by trucks and planes, and trucks and planes need oil to run their engine, that’s it, simple as that. It really doesn’t make any sense to me when oil prices increased, food and product prices will remain the same. After Anwar state the bare facts, Shabery defend himself by talking about the history again, what is the situation of the country when Anwar is the no 2 man in the country, how his previous action has caused several companies to shut down in 1997.
Again our information minister steer away from the context and choose to attack Anwar personally, how does that solve people’s problem? In the debate Anwar remind him again and again that he will not entertain such personal attack, and ask him to stay in context, but does he listen? No. Again that clearly shows the childishness of the government representative, and how unprepared he is for such an important debate that is shown to millions of people. The government doesn’t have anybody else who is more eligible then Shabery? Why the prime minister himself doesn’t participate in the debate? Oh that’s right, spreading information by common sense is the Ministry of Information’s job. Silly me.
Base on what is mentioned on the debate, the government reduce the subsidy of oil since 2005 and base on the government plans, the money saved is used to increase transportation infrastructure of the country. But what do we, as the citizen saw in those 3 years? What are the plans that the government have for us people? All I heard is the “Curved” bridge from Johor Bharu to Singapore is canceled, the new bridge from Seberang Perai to Pulau Pinang is canceled, the Pulau Pinang monorail got no new update at all, the new railway system from north to south of Malaysia is delayed and now it will cost double to built. This is what I read from the local news since 2005, and I doesn’t see any increased of transportation infrastructure in the country.
The opposition mentioned about the transportation infrastructure, and Shabery response was, giving a 2 minute lecture on history, 1 minute of personal attacks and another 1 minute of stumbling around. The opposition tried to get an answer out of him, but he was politely stopped by the chairperson. Finally the debate ended with more question being thrown in the air, and non got answered within context. I really wonder why such debate are allowed by the government anyway, doesn’t that make them look worst then they already are. I think the government need a better PR, because the current one obviously suck at it.
At the end of the day, does the debate help solve people’s problem? I think the answer is obvious.