It was funny to Malaysians how out of touch our IT minister was and how far the ruling party was willing to go to put a stop to the use of tech that had mobilized the opposition movement and given voice to descent.

In response the Twitterverse lit up with #yorais posts, making potent satire out of pure idiocy. Gotta love it!

It’s died down a bit but check out what’s been posted target=”_blank”. I’m proud to be Malaysian!

My Favourite #yorais tweet:
RT @mikeyvoon: #yorais is so out of touch. He wants to ban ALAMAK! He thinks it’s Western for Mother of God.

When someone can tell you how you’re meant to pray, what words you are allowed when crying out to the divine, ’subjugation’ just doesn’t cut it.

It is for the same purpose that we seek to use that word. We aren’t trying to bestow the Name upon any one or thing we think lowly. We don’t seek to disparage or denigrate Its Meaning or your reverence for It. We want to use It in the same way that you do. To speak of God.

To debate me on this is fair enough. But that you have put aside your benignity to burn down a place of worship… you have done more damage to His Name than you sought to fend off.

I live in a country forever in fear of May. Forever gripped by the thought that its right arm might once again rise to do harm to its other members.

It’s a fear, a terror that keeps me in silence. I don’t seek equality. I don’t seek freedom of speech, or to be naturalized or feel enfranchised in the country of my grandfather’s birth.

But I settle for a peace. On the brink. And I am worth more. More than enough to be called a son of this soil. More than enough to pray dalam bahasa negaraku (in the language of my country). In words yang dipilih olehku (that are chosen by me).

My blood is worth more spent in my veins than spilt, our churches worth more to our communities upright than burnt.

Even to a Muslim.

So I don’t get it. I don’t understand why I’m not of you. Why I can’t call God as you do. And why you get to direct, move, pacify and rule

me.

Canon and Vimeo are attempting a video-equivalent of a Twitter novel. What probably excites me most is the fact that these short films – or at least the first one by Vincent Laforet – will be shot on Canon SLRs, in HD.

The renting of professional HD equipment was always one of the biggest expenses we had on student projects. Almost everything else was provided, but if you wanted to experiment with the HD format, you needed to find a camera with lenses and trimmings that you could afford to rent.

Now you have people shooting professional-grade short films on Digital SLRs, with bodies and kits that are a fraction of the price of their dedicated-video counterparts. The kids can now play with the big boys and actually get to grips with post-production in HD.

If you work in media production, broadcasting or filmmaking that experience is sorely needed and these past few years have seen a gap form between what the schools and colleges are equipped to impart and what the industry demands. Now we’re seeing that gap bridged.

I hope at least one student or amateur project makes it to the finals of Canon’s contest. Even if it doesn’t, I dig it!

I did the right thing, and went with the family for New Year’s Mass.

Christmas was spent at St. John’s, so we figured New Year’s would be great at CDM (Church of the Divine Mercy) in Shah Alam. And it was.

The theme for 2010 involves “integration” which, as you know, is a humdinger for my family. What came as a surprise to us though was how well our parish priest, Fr. Paulino, speaks Tamil and Mandarin.

Communion – or rather, the sacramental blessings – was/were done in English, B.Malaysia, Tamil and Mandarin, different parts in each language. Speaking as an Indian-Chinese Malaysian whose first language is English, that was *omitting expletive* awesome!

It’s nice to know that the words ‘holy’, ‘blessed’, ‘love’ and ‘God’ exist in each of those tongues.

Fr Paulino did forget the countdown though. Which was… well, you can’t have everything. But we did do the bog standard Auld Lang Syne. Countdown aside, a great way to ring in the New Year.

Happy 2010 people! Peace & blessings in the new decade. Do you hear me Obama?

While this went on, a US based law firm was mulling over a class-action suit by Xbox Live users who had been locked out of Microsoft’s service. Their access to the Xbox Live cloud was barred over charges that they (the users) had modded their consoles. (Read all about it…)

This new stage in tech interests me. The entire computer age that budded in the 70s and 80s, and took flight in the 90s, came about because of guys who liked to meddle and mod. Now we’ve reached an era when the gargantuan companies founded by these same meddlers and modders seek to ban innovative experimentation.

There’s a point I’d like to make here, that won’t be the main point of this entry but…
Heading down to your hardware store won’t cut it for today’s tinkerers. The sophistication and intricacy of today’s tech is such that the present day innovator and inventor often starts by playing with finished products. Penalizing those modders and meddlers stifles innovation. And for patent laws to be used as the pillow is ironic, as those laws were designed to encourage growth in that area.

Moving on…

This idea that access to the cloud could be denied as penance, coupled with Google’s push to get all our data up onto that proverbial mass, certainly gave cause for pause this week.

With your right to privacy being something Google doesn’t believe in (read) and with Britain and France passing laws that allow entertainment companies to have at your Internet connection – you have to ask yourself, do I really wanna give up my hard drive? At least you’ll have some videos saved to keep you entertained when you’re in the dark.

I have a friend, living in London, who, a few years ago, became determined to collect classic books. He’s not the kind of guy you’d think would dig through Foyles for an old copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, in fact he’s the kind of guy who, you’d assume, had found a way to hack the Kindle and bring it across the pond. When I asked him why the sudden urge to horde old volumes, he said it was because he heard libraries in Britain were contemplating going digital.

He outlined his theory, which sounded something akin to the last chapter of Orwell’s Animal Farm. “Digital copies can be changed.” Any blogger knows even a post that’s been up for three days can be tweaked, if you suddenly spot a typo. So what happens when Common Sense and wealth only exist in that fluid state?

Copies seem to be getting softer. From the hard page, to bytes on a disk, and now a cloud? I look at my BluRays downloading software updates and wonder what’s being put in or taken out.

The idea of freedom and fluidity in media, in theory, has a certain appeal. But in many of the ways that said fluidity could benefit society, laws are being written and policies structured to hamper growth. What happens when we’re renting our content? Are we comfortable with our digital lives turning into a form of economic exploitation?

Think about the idea of working so that you can afford to keep your music collection. Think about the idea of working to preserve your family photos. Working to afford the storage spaces and subscriptions that keep your digital possessions alive.

Innovation, creativity and experimentation will have to be licensed. And it’s a painful irony but, in that fluid media, wealth will not be mobile.

Depressing I know, so I’ll stop there, and return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

With the LHC, Physicists hope to produce the Higgs boson, a scalar elementary particle thought to be one of the fundamental building blocks of the universe. Things keep going wrong with the LHC though. After its last mishap, on September 19th, 2008, the Collider has been in repair ever since.

Overbye brings to the fore theories by two physicists, Holger Bech Nielsen, of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan. Described by Overbye as two “otherwise distinguished physicists”, Nielsen and Ninomiya are kicking around the idea of the Higgs boson being “so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one.” Heavy!

Nielsen is my favourite of the two. He posits that God “rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them.” Now I know there are God fearing physicists out there, I’ve seen a couple pray even. Having a physicist include God in the way that Nielsen did though – placing all of his colleagues in a holy little playpen – was downright . . . divine!

As benighted as it sounds, I take comfort in that playpen. We’re at an age when anything seems possible and our undoing more likely than enlightenment. I don’t know if I’d ask for brakes, but boundaries…are appreciated, dear Lord. And, yes, there is a part of me that cringes at the fact that I’d have that thought. Yet another part had it, and won out enough for me to write the thing down.

As for the wackiness in Nielsen and Ninomiya’s theories, my favourite bit from Overbye follows below:

Sure, it’s crazy… The theory was greeted on some blogs with comparisons to Harry Potter. But craziness has a fine history in a physics that talks routinely about cats being dead and alive at the same time and about anti-gravity puffing out the universe.

As Niels Bohr, Dr. Nielsen’s late countryman and one of the founders of quantum theory, once told a colleague: “We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.”

I think an academic discussing the very foundations of our universe has to be a little out of it. It of course being the cradle with conventions and rules you’ve accepted but not yet explained. True, I’d rather see some of that creativity in our economics, at present. But before this sucker blows, let’s see how far these physicists, scientists and theorists get us. Maybe they’ll reach higher than Babel. OK, yeah…that’s the other part talking.

Read the rest of Overbye’s essay here.

Didn’t anyone tell Buena Vista Columbia Tristar of Sony that in their own mothafreggin movie, Old Bruce isn’t a Surrogate.

Also…the movie…wasn’t bad, but you’ve pretty much seen it if you’ve caught the trailer. So save yourself the tenner and hit up Appl…ehem…I mean MSN Video

BENDERA then outlined their plan to “invade” Malaysia. Say WHAT?

Indonesia’s population is estimated to be around 229,965,000. Malaysia’s comes in at around 28,310,000. Why would we want to piss our LARGER neighbour off?

Between His Royal Highness Ike Turner, maid abuse horror stories and Malaysian ships in desperate need of some freggin’ GPS, I’d say they have plenty of reasons to hate us.

Still, I would appreciate it if they made it a little easier for us to take them seriously. My countrymen need to learn their lesson. But if the reckoning coming is going to look as ridiculous as BENDERA does right now, Malaysians won’t change a damn thing!

Please stop breaking blocks over your head and sharpening Satay sticks. We need the fear of God knocked into us, people! And an angry mob that can be stopped by scheduling problems, isn’t a mob worth fearing at all.

What do you mean the invasion’s been postponed? Did your day job hit you up on your Blackberry?

Know what…it’s a tactic. They’re trying to have us in stitches so we don’t see what hit us when they do come.

O and did you happen to catch that “satu rumpun” mess? “Satu rumpun.” “Satu Malaysia.” When did our government turn Buddhist? Typical totalitarians, they wanna be one with everything!

My iPhone 3G (sans-S) decides to act up a week before my trip to Hanoi. Part of the problem was the glitchy 3.1 update, the other part: a faulty headphone port – damaged by the oversized jack on the V-Moda Vibe Duos.

No service centre in the land would touch my Hong Kong bought 3G. I was told by one mothafraker at the MidValley Machines store to take a flight to Hong Kong and get it fixed. This fool said it without a hint of irony or sarcasm. The A-hole meant it!

So I gave in.

I had originally resisted the ‘S’ when it came out, grumbling about the fact that I’d hafta spend 3k on one damned letter of the alphabet. “It stands for speed.” Frak you Forestall!

With mine broken though, I figured it was as good a time as any to replace and upgrade.

Turns out, stock of the 3GS is not only short, in my neck of the globe, it’s just plain out. So I decided to hit KL’s gadget underworld – the Low Yat mall. It’s half Tech-Wonderland, half you-betta-watchyo-back-’fore-somebody-robs-ya-man.

I was on the hunt for a unit with a Maxis warranty. After hours of sifting through jailbroken US units, Singaporean and Hong Kong imports and knock off iPhone Minis (O, it’s Malaysia baby, we have it all!), I finally found one, in the hands of a guy who wasn’t gonna cut me any breaks.

The Maxis Apple iPhone 3GS 32GB model retails for RM2,990 (that’s about 863 in USD). I ended up paying RM3,580 (that’s about ThisFoolMadeMeHisBitch in USD).

I’m still reeling!

On the way out of Tech Wonderland – watching my back in case somebody tried to rob me, man – I saw bargain laptops, offered at half the price of what I just paid for a phone. A phone!

Apple’s put out a really great gadget, one that had me on the hunt for most of my precious Sunday. From my first 2G iPhone, though – bound with a contract that signed over my first born to O2 – to today’s purchase, I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that I’ve been duped. It’s the one part of the iPhone experience I really wish Apple would change.

I’ve never had a problem with the “Apple Tax”, having been a Mac user for just shy of a decade now. I was always made to feel as though I came out with the bargain – the quality of the products justified it.

With all three iPhones though, I’ve left the store (two of ‘em Apple’s own) with a bad taste in my mouth. Being a company that places so much emphasis on buyer satisfaction and user experience, you’d think Apple would want to change that.

Mobile phone makers, listen up: I’m looking to break free. I want a phone with a great web browser, IMAP and Exchange, a good media player and a decent interface. Feel free to break the bank. Just treat me better than Apple has.

CNET’s Molly Wood once used the “bad boyfriend” analogy to describe Apple. And that works! Here in Malaysia, we have our own expression for that: “Pisau Cukur“. It’s not too different from Kanye’s Gold Digger. You can’t resist her but it just take too much to love her!

It frightens me a little how dry I am, devoid of copy at the end of a work day. It’s 5am on a Sunday and possibly the only reason why I’m able to string together a sentence is because I’ve been on sick leave since Thursday.

I know some editors do it. Write. I’ve seen it done. So why am I dry? I can caption damn near anything. Write, on command, just to fill space. On Clinton. Kugan. Blagojevich. Britney Spears. Name it mothafraker! And here I sit, completely petrified of my Wordpress login screen.

I’ve swapped designs 3 times since my last post. Editing and coding PHP, but never adding to the pool it would house. So here I am, blogging about blogger’s block. Huh.

And maybe that’s enough to knock the fear out of me.

I’m coming back to see.

Tomorrow.

I dare me!

After a “legal dispute” derailed EMI’s plans to release his new LP, Dark Night of the Soul, Danger Mouse found his own way to fight back.

He was the producing-half of Gnarls Barkley and the genius behind the (in)famous Grey Album. Now his next release will be a collectors boxed-set with detailed liner notes, album art and … a blank CD.

Danger Mouse (a.k.a. Brian Joseph Burton) intends for fans to download/record their own copy of the album (now streaming online through NPR), and burn it to the packaged CD-R.

Just because a label says no why should Burton’s work be confined to torrents and bootleg MP3s? And if my dollar has to go somewhere, I’d be glad to send it the way of a great musician who thinks so far outside the box, the law has yet to catch up.

Also, by putting out a blank CD-R with trimmings, he takes a shot at the business models labels are pursuing online — all born out of a paranoia that if the track goes free, they’re doomed.

Here’s a producer who has a label standing in his way and he manages to figure out how to work the situation to his advantage. Give the music away for free and have ‘em pay for the liner notes.

I hope he tops Billboard with a blank CD. Even if he doesn’t, I adore the guy for trying.

When it has gotten to this point though, you have to ask yourself who exactly are standing in the way of the artist.

Dark Night of the Soul can currently be streamed on NPR Music for free (here).

Trailer:

First 3 minutes:

I had only seen bits and pieces of this video until now.

What stuck it in my craw was the fact that parts of it are downright vulgar but the video remains haute.

The way it’s styled and choreographed is on point. No other Hip Hop or R&B mistress has the confidence to pull those moves off unaffected.

Catch Justin’s face when Ciara goes over the top tho. There’s a very amusing look of fear that grips Timberlake’s cheekbones.

Poor guy.

It being the opening weekend of J. J. Abrams’ Star Trek, I figured we could use an update on super-fast space travel. Apparently Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a Warp Drive might one day become science-fact. Could you ever have doubted it?

Some physicists say the faster-than-light travel technology may one day enable humans to jet between stars for weekend getaways. Clearly it won’t be an easy task. The science is complex, but not strictly impossible, according to some researchers studying how to make it happen. Read on.

Did some casual surfing and stumbled upon this blog. Its owner lives in Mexico and works for the British Embassy there.

We’ve heard so much about the larger impact of the Swine Flu but this…this is an outbreak from one person’s perspective — travel plans, daily grind and rented DVDs.

In times of panic the best of writers can start to ramble but the entries here are genuinely readable. There is also something extremely compelling about having the option to leave but wanting to stay because you’ve made a home where you are.

Definitely worth a click.

I’m a little late to the ball on this one. Fink is a singer/songwriter/producer/DJ from Brighton who has been on the scene since 2000.

To be fair, he’s only had three records out and his first (“Fresh Produce”) really wasn’t my cuppa, fitting more into the Electronic genre. His second (Biscuits for Breakfast – 2006) and third (Distance and Time – 2008) have me over the moon though.

I heard the song above a few years ago, while still in London, but never figured out who it was by. Then “This Is The Thing” was featured in last week’s episode of “Lie To Me” (another new love — a TV show starring Tim Roth), and I tracked Fink and his discography down.

The boy is smooth and has the type of rainy-day soul that, you can tell, was bred in bad weather. It is his sense of rhythm that is so hypnotic and addictive though. He doesn’t let it out for every song but when he does, it reels you in.

For those moments when you’re craving some Damien Rice but don’t feel like slitting your wrists.

#15 Arguing with Judge Judy (Popular Logic)

Found this while surfing around the blogosphere, a countdown of the 15 strangest courses in the curricula of American colleges and universities.

Number 4 does my head in a little, but I think I’d enjoy taking 8, 12 and 15.

Before you laugh these off, think about books like Freakonomics (Levitt and Dubner) and Blink (Gladwell).

Finding new ways to adapt old wisdom has become vital for academics who wish to stay relevant.

Fewer and fewer careers have a conventional path to follow and I’ve found an irreverent approach to a field of study yields a more adaptable grad. You’re taught where the lines are but also that it’s alright to colour outside them.

I respect the older, more established methods of study but find some of these new approaches more appealing and, in their own way, practical.

So, when it comes down to it, what I’m saying is: As long as I don’t make fun of your cravat, try not to mock my skinny tie

The Economist, March 21st-27th 2009

… The rise of China over the past three decades has been astonishing. But it has lacked the one feature it needed fully to satisfy the ultranationalist fringe: an accompanying decline of the West. Now capitalism is in a funk in its heartlands. Europe and Japan, embroiled in the deepest post-war recession, are barely worth consideration as rivals. America, the superpower, has passed its peak. Although in public China’s leaders eschew triumphalism, there is a sense in Beijing that the reassertion of the Middle Kingdom’s global ascendancy is at hand.
Read on…

The cover’s bold. I don’t see things being quite as dramatic as the Economist makes them out to be though.

Yes, America has lost some of it’s edge — being broke will do that to you — but I don’t think we’re quite at seeing the fall of the West. At the same time, I don’t see the problems mentioned in the article as being China’s main hurdles to becoming a full-fledged superpower.

Take the “rumblings of discontent” mentioned (in the 5th para). I don’t think China’s ascent requires a resolution to every national problem. If her economy will hold, her people will.

And when it comes to China’s reluctance to “intervene in other countries’ affairs” (8th para), that is something she’ll get over.

China still needs the cooperation of a West that is already paranoid and looking over its shoulder. A restrained approach to global politics serves the Middle Kingdom well for now, easing the minds of statesmen who’ve rarely been subject to the values of other nations. That will change the moment China is powerful enough to assert her own values.

The thing that the article got right is the question in its title. Yet it reads more like “How Western Countries See China”.

I’d like to know how China’s view of the world will come to impact me, and I think that’s the question on most people’s minds.

No one in the mainstream media has managed to frame this right, and not for a lack of trying. Their titles and opening paragraphs, however, seem to indicate that they’re aware of the questions they should be asking.

It’s amazing to me that they can’t even extrapolate the view from someone else’s window, being too tied to the view from their own.

stream the video

Apple gave the press a sneak peek at their 3.0 software update for the iPhone. They’ve finally put up the video stream of the presentation, which you can get at by clicking here.

The shocker for me was MMS. They missed the curve on that IMHO and it’s one of those features iPhone users have learned to live without.

Turn-by-turn and cut, copy, paste were long overdue and I’m glad they’ve finally rolled those out. I’m also happy to see landscape-mode for typing in Mail, SMS and Notes.

Here’s a rundown of all the new features in the 3.0 update. It will be available as a free download to iPhone users “this Summer”. iPod Touch owners will have to pay US$9.95 to upgrade. Same fakakta accounting excuse.

• In App Purchases
• Peer to Peer (P2P) connectivity
• Accessories API
• Maps API in Apps
• Turn By Turn (GPS)
• Push Notifications
• New APIs allow more access to hard/software for 3rd-party Apps
•       This includes 3rd-party App access to your iPod library
• Bluetooth Connectivity
• Cut, Copy and Paste (THANK YOU! FINALLY!)
• Landscape Mode for typing now in other apps (eg: Mail, Notes, SMS)
• MMS (Really? Now?)
• Voice Memos
• Search feature in apps like Mail, iPod, Calendar
• Spotlight
• New Home Screen
• Stereo Bluetooth headphones support
• Tethering Support (to use your iPhone as a modem for your computer)

Only a true geek could put this much love into a flowchart!

Recipe by Alie and Georgia.

Ingredients:

2 McNuggets (plus more for snacking)
1 tub McDonalds Brand Barbeque Sauce (plus more for licking off pinky finger)
1 lg. Mcdonalds Brand Chocolate Milkshake (plus more for bringing all the boys to the yard)
1 bottle Vanilla Vodka (recommended brand: Absolut)

Mix three or four shots of vanilla vodka in the McDonalds Brand Chocolate Milkshake, followed by one shot each directly into your mouth.

Rim each martini glass with McDonalds Brand Barbeque Sauce, and pour milkshake/vodka mixture into the glass. Garnish with a McNugg (which is to be swiped along barbeque sauce rimmed glass after the milkshake has been finished, and consumed with pure, unadulterated glee).

Now, I’ve dipped the occasional french fry into a milkshake — and I’ve defended it, because french fries go well with a shake — but this is just straight up nasty.

The barbeque sauce on the rim of the glass, the salty-pretending-to-be-chicken nugget in with the milkshake — it’s just wrong.

So why am I blogging this? Because the next time we’re at some greasy joint and I dip an unsalted french fry into my chocolate shake, I don’t want to hear a word from any of you. Yeah. I went there.

I want you to picture being the friend of this misguided duo, invited over to watch them sip barbeque sauce with vodka-laced milk and thank your lucky Hamburglar that the most outrageous thing you’ve ever seen me do with a milkshake, is dip a fry in it.

Leave me and my french fries alone! — Wow, never thought I’d say that post-Bush!

As for Missies Alie and Georgia:
I think it’s extremely healthy that you’re confident enough, in yourselves, to post your recipe on the world wide frakking web. But there is something really wrong with minds that could take staples of precious childhood memories and concoct with them a vomitous (I’ve always wanted to use that word) alcoholic beverage.

You’re nuts. Love that you own it, but would prefer if you cured it.

I don’t know whether it wears that title well. I wouldn’t put on a Ms. CleoPod for any amount of money. But this prototype is an astounding leap forward in computing that had this techie in glee.

“This demo — from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine “Minority Report” and then some.” (from TED.com)

Bobisbankrupt, a Californian film sound editor, filed for Chapter 7 in September of ‘08 and has decided to take his readers along for the ride.

He has worked on films like JFK, Heat, Courage Under Fire, Godzilla, The Patriot, The Bourne Supremacy, Van Helsing, A Civil Action, The Island, and 21. In his words, “Due to film industry contraction, bobisbankrupt’s assistant sound career evaporated…”

While this blog isn’t exactly a mainstream entity, I think it’s safe to say that economic woe has already made its dent on the culture — or did you miss Hugh Jackman’s Oscar opening number?

The significance of this blog and its blogger Bob comes, ironically, from his lighthearted approach. Bob’s jovial take on his situation hits right at the heart of the ignominy of bankruptcy.

For a while now American capitalism has left many — for the lack of a better word — screwed. The moment an American consumer loses his/her spending power, he/she falls out of the “rational consumer” category and becomes excluded from most of the community’s considerations.

I’ve always wondered when the script would flip and the “screwed” would become the majority. Whether a society Edward Bernays helped transform into a “desire-based” culture could go back to being “needs-based” — and how they’d do it.

By making it a little less shameful for one to do without and making it a little more acceptable to say “I can’t afford it”, or, in Bob’s case, “I AM BANKRUPT!”, you pave the way for a return to common sense.

Joking about bankruptcy in these times actually helps to shape a more financially responsible culture by making the subject a little easier to broach.

To jest with wit about a social ill or grievance minimizes the weight it carries and the pressure it places on the society party to the joke.

Jesting pushes that wall of ignominy out of the way so you can think clearly about what you need to do to no longer be Ginnie Mae’s b*tch!

The stigma against unemployment and financial ruin will be pruned by men like Bob, making statements like these and I say more power to ‘em!

Just make sure you buy food before you pay for hosting. Food for thought don’t mean a damn thing when the belly can’t power the brain.

And Bob, since your bankrupt, don’t you think bobisbankrupt.wordpress.com would’ve served you just as well? Bob had to get himself a .com, didn’t you Bob? Better hope it doesn’t count as an asset when they do your audit!

Elizabeth Wong is a State Assemblywoman and an EXCO member of the KeADILan party (opposition).

Last week nude photos, taken of her in the privacy of her own home, were leaked and distributed without Wong’s consent or knowledge.

She resigned earlier today, stating, “My personal life and privacy has [sic] been violated.” Wong also stressed, in her statement, that she has done nothing wrong and was not ashamed of her sexuality as a single woman.

More power to you! Lord knows this society wields shame like a weapon.

The only thing I found reproachful was the invasion of Wong’s privacy — and possibly, I’m ashamed to say, the fact that she used “has” instead of “have” in the statement above. But that’s not why I’m blogging about Wong, and so I’ll digress.

In researching her today, I stumbled upon her Flickr photostream, one of the first things that pop up when you Google her name.

Her photos are really great to look at and they broke that wall I usually place between myself and any story.

She is a really great photographer. And I hope this unfortunate incident doesn’t put her off the practice altogether. It really would be a shame.

I’m putting this up in the hopes that when you talk about her this week, you remember that’s she’s not that different from you or someone you know…who’s also on flickr.

Official write-up:

The sequel to Fahmi Reza’s cult favourite 10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka, Revolusi ‘48 chronicles the largely forgotten armed revolution for national liberation launched against British colonial rule in Malaya 60 years ago. This documentary tells the untold story of those who struggled in the anti-colonial guerrilla war of independence, during the Malayan Revolution of 1948.

This is the best documentary I’ve seen from a Malaysian filmmaker. It was directed and edited by Fahmi Reza. I’m a little late to this one. I believe it’s a year old. Glad I found it though. Rather late than never.

So much of our history isn’t taught to us and films like these help reacquaint Malaysians with the parts of our past that we’d do well to remember.

We brush off and make light of the inherent flaws in our political system, jokingly saying that “it’s Malaysia” — with a tone of voice that volunteers the “What can you do?”. Behind that are managed expectations and ideals that would never dare extend past the conservative.

Just to know that there were once Malaysians who had bold national ambitions and a set of values similar to mine, lifts a weight off. All from a video on Vimeo. Bless.

As far as I’m aware this documentary was mainly distributed online. Circulated through links and seen through YouTube and Vimeo squares like the one above you.

The smart editing choices make the piece versatile enough for this medium and also attest to the competence of the filmmaker.

I’m gonna stop here with the gushing. Watch the documentary above and post your own REACTion to it, if you feel so moved.

Fahmi has a second documentary up called Revolusi ‘48. I’ll post that too, once I’ve watched it.