Yawn 41

8 Sep - 30 Sep

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Failing. Need to work around this problem.

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1. Don't run out of capital.
2. Develop value chains 10 times that of competition.
3. Raise or develop capital in excess of type-2 operations.
4. Seek profit.

Ok, priorities checked. Nothing new. Back to work.

Addendum: in the industry some would say, the correct order is 1, 4, 3, 2...

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Pleading the 5th in Malaysia: plead the Penal Code 112.2...

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ok, we've fixed the baguettes

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#budget question, for healthy eaters: How much do you spend on buying / prepping / cooking / packing FRESH food at home every week (RM/WEEK/PERSON, on average)... factor in your cost of time and transport as well?

[I'm trying to figure out how to price a daily / meal plan product against this.]

RM 50 - RM 100
RM 101 - RM 150
RM 151 - RM 200
RM 201 - RM 300
RM 301 - RM 400
RM 401 - RM 600
RM 601 - RM 800
RM 800 - RM 1200
More than RM 1200

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As I train staff: there are a few broad categories into which you can triage the motivations for ineffective behaviour.
(1) stupid (2) lazy (3) evil

Sometimes you just have to live with dumb people. :) But that's more of a Buddhist account - where (2) and (3) are viewed as varieties of (1).

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It's a nice grey day, without any sun. My office has a day off each week, but during emergencies we also operate on the days off. Today there are no emergencies, and on this day off we only catch up on routines. I serviced a vacuum cleaner, washed some upholstery, and travelled across town for supplies. After lunch, I will label and store the supplies, then document their production data profiles for basic quality control. Working 13.5 day fortnights doesn't seem like a normal aspiration to many - but it does seem like the work is quite ordinary to me.

And I aspire to an ordinary life, as I have generally grown up with the understanding that I am a bit of a weirdo. I find human beings easy to understand, and sense experiences largely limited in variety - this comes as a consequence of having both a particular sort of memory, and the inclination to study the shit out of how memory in general works. I find that my rate of computation today is still low, so I adjust my diet accordingly.

Technicalities aside, I believe I should work harder in order to add more value to stakeholders in my business. That is not simply an intuition, but I write this as a point of evangelising a brand that I am not allowed to speak of. On we go...

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Nike wins again. Comms campaign hits the perfect spot. Market getting suckered into it completely. :)

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Following a brief exchange on the subject of loneliness, I guess a chunk of the population interacts with the population without allowing their needs for companionship to be thoroughly addressed on a casual basis. I suppose convolution isn't for everyone, nor is simplicity.

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Living in a world full of caged animals whose visions of civilisation are predicated upon cognitive machinery that is not under their control. Ah, c'est la vie...

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Done with data-entry. Wondering how to optimally spend the evening before 6am shifting.

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Port Dickson - lolmg the punnage could not be more misfortunate.

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zomg, i haven't run a ssh connection in three years...

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I can't believe all the files are still on this server. Recovering now...

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This body is weak. Haven't had enough sleep in a few weeks. Need to heal faster. Checking nutritional inputs.

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Maszlee's move into IIUM is clearly in-line with Mahathir's long-term political motivations and strategies. While he's clearly more moderate than Anwar, the question remains: what happens to Maszlee when Anwar takes over?

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I hope you asshats are happy, when they replace Maszlee with Anwar as the MOE. LOL

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So what are the chances they let protests happen, medium-sized crowds turn up, and then the MOE ignores them? PLEASE LET THIS HAPPEN

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iptables

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Attack.

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Fire pizzas.

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I was thinking about how I generally put people who believe "that ethics should be founded on empathy," into the bucket of "people with religious beliefs that I believe to be unintelligent," when a friend wrote a post talking about being called an angry person. It's part of biology. Life exists only because that whole fear-anger-hate thing, so it's for-granted that people around us will be angry. We don't have to think it is a necessary component of ethics, culture, or civilisation in the future, but it's not going away any time soon, so no use... getting angry, about angry people... 😂

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Tell the truth: Even if it makes you sick and causes you to lose sleep everyday 😜

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People that belive in a definition of love which can't be consciously turned on and off, are jokes. I look forward to their eventual extinction.

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Forum comment on pros and cons of your current country residence:

" Malaysia.

Cons
1. Low levels of education.
2. Banana republic governance.
3. Asians.

Pros
1. I have citizenship here... 🤔 "

Happy September 16 errone.

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Annnnnnnouncing, the CHALLENGERRRR formally known as YOUTIUPPPP versussssss the TWOOOO time DEFENDANTTTT liveEEEEEE #PORTDICKSON2018

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I'd never done so much art before running a restaurant. I was having a chat with a singer about performance art, and thinking that the culinary art performance is not less, but more ephemeral the aural and visual arts. (This is somewhat related to my studies as an undergraduate.)

We have for long, known how to completely digitise, store, and replicate optical and aural data structures at a resolution beyond what most people would consider to be lossless. We're getting there with haptics, and we'll get there before taste and olfaction achieve these technological targets.

Meanwhile, the culinary performance is wholly consumed upon delivery. Poof. It's gone. You still, cannot losslessly replicate a single performance of any food or beverage item, which you have ever consumed.

Maybe that's why the kitchen attracts those of a carnal and cynical nature. I didn't seek to be a chef of restaurateur, but it is a role that I find thrust upon me.

Dude's gotta eat :P

Addendum: I suppose, on the scale of focus between [supply/production-chain management] and [design management], if you skew towards the former you are regarded as "artisanal" (individual products have a higher variance within a population), and if you skew towards the latter you are regarded as "commercial" (individual products have a lower variance within a population).

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Enforced bedtime 😐

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Heartfelt outrage. Kill it with fire.

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Forum comment: "Islamic studies are a major component of Malaysian culture, why not? The MOE's portfolio involves setting the policy on what culture to propagate in Malaysia. Maszlee's position is already more secular and sophisticated than that of his predecessors. If you're not happy with small steps forward, it will be amusing if eventually they get rid of him, and you see greater movements to divide Malaysians between secularism and conservative Islam. It is better to move the narrative towards moderate Islamic culture for all Malaysians in general."

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As soon as a leader claims to "deserve" reward, for enduring "suffering", you should vote against them. That is all. This is an anti-pattern that is built into religions both old, and new. Evacuate them all.

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(This is a note on meta-ethics, so you should probably skip over it unless you enjoy dissecting language, culture, and economics):

Zooming out for a second, it appears that economically, "reward rights" tend to behave similarly to "property rights" and may be conceptually reduceable to the same thing... (will have to think about this some other time. Real work is sucking up my schedule..) also, "punishment obligations" are in the same category for discussion,

I guess the thought, broader still, is that trading in general is a negotiation of norms. It's not very useful to talk about the objective value of a thing, as there are no objective values of things without specific subjective owners or users of such things. So discussions about trade are discussions about normative ethics - "what you should get, X, if you Y,"-type questions. This gives us an approach for squarely (formally) placing trade regulations under the domain of law.

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It's a bit strange being one of those people, who doesn't regard emotions as valuable or meaningful, regardless of their intensity and consumate control over the human experience. In fact, the opposite is true: the more intense the emotion, the more I short the stock. And in my personal life I work towards a future civilisation that has eradicated this component of the human psyche. The things which are meaningful to me are mostly structural. 😎

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On Linus' taking time off: Generally, one does not apologise out of contrition. We generally don't care about your feelings, but we acknowledge that apologising will help you to cooperate with us...

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"off"-day. Enforced waking, more work! 😐😉

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(Azizah's ministry) Where are your official press releases? How can you be slower than the media outlets which you allow to misquote you? Of all the Harapan ministers under attack, most of their problems appear to stem from shitty press management. MoE, MoF, and this...

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There are... very few men or women whom we consider truly admirable. Most political campaigns are about focusing ambient hate that has collected around an incumbent, than in raising up those we deem to be truly virtuous. The following statements will probably put me on whichever blacklists I'm not already on:

- Reformasi'98 was about Mahathir being an ass
- GE14'18 was about Najib being an ass
- Port Dickson'18 will be about Anwar being an ass

That's all I see from a lay-person's point of view.

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Being a centrist that channels extremists in irony is always more amusing than being an extremist. This is patently dehumanising of those who can't tell the difference. But those who can't tell the difference are often the reason why the form of extremism, regardless of the intent behind such forms, will generally be sufficient to convict an actor of extremism, by law. Such is the nature of ethics among simpletons. But as always, the needs of the many, indeed, outweigh the needs of the few.

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Horrrrrible performance. First thought: ban sleep. Wait, that's not exactly right.

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Comment on how much hawkers should be expected to work per day for X monthly profit:

"As a restaurateur, I believe that artisanal food and beverage production should be coordinated a the level of cities. Surveys of demand (quality, and quantity), plans for general improvement of communities, supply chains (for goods and labour), real estate rentals, regulatory compliance, and administration services, should all benefit from economics of scale. This is one of the key opportunities for the industry, which encouraged me to get into the business. It is a weak industry, which has not fully reaped the benefits of cutting-edge commercial optimisations."

Maybe one day, I take it up with, or run for KPDNKK...

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Yeah, start with a wobbly model of "personality", and figure out that "xyz illness" is actually a "personality" with bigger wobble. I so dislike the state of psychology when it's approached through a culturally anthropomorphic lense. This kind of research finding is annoying because it just reminds me of how much money is spent on validating/invalidating bad ideas.

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Edited forum comments, on how many members of republics did not RTFM, and therefore still do not know how to operate the machinery that implements their democratic rights:

" Summary: if you really want an elected official to do something specific, you may or may not be already pressing the right button, just by making public comments in public spaces. Keep it up. Good intentions usually get somewhere eventually.

Development: (Regarding the comment that "elected officials should immediately enact ABC official policy, because elected officials are supposed to speak for citizens,") well that would be easy if there were no citizens with views opposing the ABC policy. Clearly the DPM has to speak for your views, and the others as well? I think the effective way of [getting a specific view to become policy] takes a bit more work than electing a party that seems to broadly agree with XYZ lifestyle, and then assume that each {A: member of XYZ} is going to agree with each {B: member of the electorate} on each {C: policy item}.

If there were only two members in each of those three sets, that would already be like 8 relationships to manage (2 x 2 x 2), and if you consider [10 million supporters x 10 highly visible ministers x 10 talking points/issues: just, wow].

Usually for citizens to get specific views to become public policy, we have to apply special efforts to produce documents that lobby, per issue, per [Member of Parliament/Minister], explicitly placing one's support for that issue on the record. This works when thousands of citizens do it, whether it is coordinated or not. It also helps to get peers (other citizens) involved in such specific actions on issues which are worth being active about.

Perhaps community spaces like these message board comment threads are indeed the correct place for persuading peers to actively lobby on issues, to elected officials, in a formal way. Even in that light, I suppose the main concern I have is seeing the policy opinions at informal forums being directed at the officials (who will not have time to read all informal public comments, until we have comprehesive state surveillance of social media, lol), instead of being directed at peers (other citizens) to convince peers to produce formal documents lobbying officials through official channels.

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Technically, we may be a republic (as opposed to a direct democracy)... so once elected, the officials don't have to ask the electorate for permission before doing things.

But that's precisely why the electorate has to exert political pressure along formal channels in between elections... "

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Forum comment, on whether I'm happy with Azizah's work on the child-brides issue (you may find this offensive, whichever camp you belong to):

"So far, yes, I'm happy that the DPM makes efforts to ensure that (1) her party is supported by the rakyat, (2) that the constitutional framework of federal and state legal jurisdictions is abided by, (3) that rules are not broken to deliver short term happiness to a shrill minority at the expense of long term organisational stability, (4) that the welfare of child brides is monitored by civil servants with intervention at non-zero frequencies, (5) that there is a policy direction for reducing injuries to women/children/humans/whatever in future legislation through formal processes, (6) that we don't provide conservative Islamicist with a vector to dominate the federal government in future elections.

I think she is doing a fairly admirable job."

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THANK YOU PUTRAJAYA. KEEP IT UP
(I know, i know, they have ulterior motives for making the voting age "18".)

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Loizos, seems to miss the point that Thiel makes. I hope that is intentional, but in case it is not:

Thiel says that the risk-levels prescribed as reasonable by centralised institutions will tend to be more conservative than the risk-levels assumed by non-institutionalised individuals. This applies to both business risk (risk of losing money), as well as epistemological risk (risk of knowing the wrong thing). This isn't to say that all education is bad - rather that the mode student at any institution is made mediocre in terms of the risk tolerances above.

It's not "anti-intellectual," as much as it is "anti-empathic." Whereas in some circles, intellect and empathy are framed as a bifurcating dichotomy... sure, they don't actually have to be mutually exclusive categories.

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Someone was asking why some Malay leaders treat their people-group as an endangered species. My comment:

"The funny thing is, if you define the group as "one that needs affirmative action despite being in the majority," then over time there are fewer and fewer people who believe in that myth, and they dissociate with that identity, so yes... the ones who still believe it are right if this is what is happening, indeed their identity is in crisis. But maybe it is not happening - how would I know... "

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Enforced waking. Doop de doop.

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Policy activists are admirable people. However, whenever they claim moral authority, all their actions become suspect. This is because public policy in a republic is built on the realpolitik, around the sum of its citizens' acceptences. Why any citizen accepts or denys any morality is a matter of personal conviction, not a concern of the secular state. That is one matter on its own. A second matter is when those who have been silent for the longest time claim, today, moral authority for speaking up, today - hey, not bad, but not a lot of goodwill is due, either.

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Oh, "JJ's daughter was with Leissner," pulak. Dramaaaa-nya, buku mas-ni. Come on TV3...

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Why are prison department / cops sometimes seen wearing manbags in Malaysia? My implausible response:

"This began with the VCD sellers. Then the Special Branch started to match for camo. Then... "

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Of course, there is no manual. That's why Maszlee really needs to fix the middle- and high-school civils curriculum.

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Ate infrequently and was overstimulated by hobbies. In other parts of life, took too many risks. Bad.

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Comment in the ongoing discussion on what we should, or should not be demanding of Azizah:

"(for the purposes of this discussion) I don't profess to believe in right or wrong, and therefore I won't profess to believe in right-or-wrong thinking :D. Also, the term politician is not useful - all people are politicians, so I'll turn back to her formal role.

In the cabinet, DSWA is an executive, and cannot make laws or interpret them with the greatest of force (her role as MP is separate, and she does have to interpret laws to a limited degree in order to enforce them.) What's left to be demanded is, as you say, to lead in the most abstract interpretation of that word... to provide some sort of visceral comfort and in terms of conversation and narrative, and it does seem that her talking points are weak.

I use the term talking points because I profess a model that doesn't necessarily equate the thoughts and beliefs of a person with what they say.

I think helping her to put her beliefs and thoughts into coherent talking points is part of what a press officer is supposed to help her do. (Not all leaders are good orators, she's definitely not. Fight me on that :P)

We should demand more of her talking points. Because that's all we can demand of executives."

I think the main takeaway is:
- DON'T bother DSWA about the nature of the law
- DO bother DSWA about her (WEAK!) talking points (she is an executive, it IS her role to lead conversations)
- DO bother the state-law- and federal-law-makers about the nature of the law... only they can fix it, ultimately.

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Generally, I'm an anti-charismatist. I will tend to sell-down my credibility or fit because I want to test the nature of the counterparty. But maybe only half the time. What?

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Today's mote of self-control. I've seen enough Azizah bashing. I will not engage in Latheefa bashing. I have already documented a few thoughts on the subject without knowing of her existence anyway. I am certainly more concerned for victims of abuse by media trial, than for victims of child marriage. I have a brand to build. Actually two brands, but I can only talk about one of them.

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If the media coverage does not appear to blatently assume a misogynistic orientation against any female minister that speaks on this, I don't know what press you've been reading.

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This is just sad. And so many card-carrying feminists are suckered into the narrative.

Addendum from comment: "My reading is that Azizah and Hannah are trying to play defense when they should be playing offense; they may have been briefed by Mahathir and Mujahid to leave the men to play offense, but this is clearly not working in the favour of the ladies."

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Late

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Moral absolutism is so boring. But it remains a fantastic false-flag strategy.

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Forum comment:

"It's shrill season in Malaysia. Going to be for a while. Going back to my own wall now to complain about the two evils of moral absolutism and heartfelt moral outrage. I was going to throw in a gripe on empathy driven moralities, but I think the main issue that I have with those goes back to faux-empathy driven moralities.

There's a reasonable argument for treating an individual, X1, in one way, if the individual wants to be treated in that way; generalising from that to saying all Xs look like X1, and therefore should be treated like X1, is evil. (Too often) that is the modus operandi of the heartfelt morally outraged activist - clumsiness and stupidity.

Empathy is supposed to be a form of intelligence, but these people shit on it in the name of moral intuition..."

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Can't wait for the upcoming EC/SPR press releases - PLEASE MANAGE THE MEDIA LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING.

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What's the cheapest rent these days, for a drumkit in a room for an hour?

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$ bonds --issue -mm 4 MYR -maturity 10 -structure zero

Permission denied. Try running this as the root user.

$ _

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Tomorrow: memorise the supplier's pastry catalog.

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She: So there are these guys on Tinder who are like, "Hi, I like you very much. We can have conversation! And then you can be my friend."
He: Well, if you really wanted to troll them, you should be like, "I have better idea. We can have sex, and if I don't like, I call police?"

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Wolf of Wall Street: Got suckered into watching some pleb movie. 😂


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restaurant service charges:

(a) just ban it, it's confusing
(b) leave it alone, it's fine, and provides fun options like selling food near to Cost-of-Goods Sold and itemising the entire wage bill
(c) write a robust, but elegant, formula for allowed tag-on fee structures, and regulate it properly

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Public policy PR: commentary on (public policy) work is froth and mostly helps the public feel 👍 or 👎 between elections. Only a small lie.

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#triggerwarning I'm going to attempt a compatibilist solution.

I'll play hardball and say, we should support child marriage, as long as Syariah lawmakers enact bylaws to require:

- compulsory dissolution of a Syariah marriage if any (adult or child) partner breaches any Act A1511 of the non-Syariah law of Malaysia (A1511 requires no sex before the age of 18);

- compulsory continuous education / counselling / support of each child partner in the marriage, on a monthly basis, with regards to the right to divorce (annul/dissolve the marriage), until the child partner reaches the age of 19 (legal plus one); this functions to counteract concerns for child sexual grooming; approach can be further refined;

Furthermore:

You don't need Syariah law to require prosecution for breaking A1511, that is supposed to happen anyway, regardless of Syariah law, via police reports and the Public Prosecutor/s - and if this is not clear by law, then the law governing the separation of State Syariah laws from the Judicial Powers of the federation (article 121(1A)) needs to be revisited by parliament, (and while they're at it, they can revisit the entirety of 121, which has been weakened significantly since independence).

🙃

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"Tun wanted a knowledge economy, instead he got a 140 metal workers."

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If I could find people more interesting, I would bother with travels. But as it is, the people I meet near and far are all very interesting and yet boring in that they appear to mostly share a very boring set of traits.

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Enforced feeding. Yawn

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The idiocy of being understaffed is that you I end up rotating around business functions so much - to the extent that I started designing a menu in 2016, and ended up ordering something from that menu only in 2018, because I forgot it was there.

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I don't recall talking to any 14-year-olds about sex, but now I'll make a mental note not too because of sensitivities. When I was 14, a good number of the women I admired were 4-6 years older, i.e. above the legal age, and it would have been terribly annoying to be avoiding them. Oh well, 14 is pretty much where my brain got stuck, so here we are, 14 fo lyfe, perhaps.
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I tend to feel frozen in time. I was at a local fair with a girlfriend, when I bumped into an old crush from the 90s. The last time we met up, her daughter was in a baby chair. Her daughter is now going to college.
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Inside my head, everyone just has a number floating over their heads, with a pointer to a local law, that says legal / not legal...

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Role optimisation:
- you shouldn't have a model of [untrained > trained > trainer] staff
- you should have a model of [untrained > trainer], where the definition of trained, is demonstrated by the proven ability to coach peers

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In a democracy, you don't argue with a facist majority. Unless you enjoy fisticuffs...

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The point is clear. Adults shall abort all undocumented communications with young people. Remember, the sex of each party doesn't matter. If you happen to date later, it'll just come back as a criticism later. Minimise speech with minors.

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10:30am. Weekly day off. I am preparing myself, with an examination of my state of restedness, and with the outstanding work the remains undone at the office. I hope to enforce food, and then work, following a shower and a change of clothes. This is what I view as a fairly simple MO, but it is of course, unrelatable to people who desire more from their day to day existence.

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Middle-aged manservants: This social enterprise addresses the changing value of labour in the light of contemporary technologies. I like it a lot. Time to incorporate Jerng's Gigolos Inc...

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Recommendation:

Who is Stevie Chan? What we do know: he tweets, photographs his food, and portrays a family life which many would consider admirable. Well, I barely know him better than you do. We may have had a couple of coffees here and there, but that's about it.

I think, it doesn't matter who Stevie Chan is. I think, it matters more what the Stevie Chan campaign stands for. It doesn't put down its opponents, but it raises up the democratic rights of all Malaysians to represent their peers in the continuous improvement of our laws. We are all Stevie Chan.

Stevie for parliament!
#ubah #chan #ge23 #portdickson2018

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From a comment on a comment, on the use of the word "pervert" in conversation:

- It's not (typicallly) illegal to have any preferences, as (mental events are typically) not the domain of law.

- The domain of law is typically to govern actions that occur regardless of mental events; that being said, of course, there are laws that account for mental events as a secondary criteria for determination of infringement upon a law.

- (We) are free to call anyone a pervert, based on personal acceptance of their mental or physical activities. (For example, I consider it a perversion of civilisational objectives, that we place much value on human emotions at all.)

- We are also free to express sadness at the preferences of others

😂"

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Sweep, vacuum, mop, paint, calibrate coffee, update logs, report errors, admonish colleagues, test, unmount, unscrew, cut, patch, clean, store, demolish, mix, mortar, brick, measure, level, drill, hack, screw, unscrew, ziptie, murder (plant!), Sigh. A productive day off...

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Teaching the "right" way: sbab "left" haram di tanah melayu; and whatever you do, don't press "⌘+←" or Anwar Ibrahim will appear in your Touch Bar™ and make ccrraazzyy eyes, at you.

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Wow, if this is the cutting edge of classification... I must be the third kind, which emulates the first two kinds out of sheer boredom.

(On high performers either being OCD or insecure.)

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About three years into a new venture, a dozen or so untapped markets have been opened up by competitors (retail, zero-waste packaging, protein top-ups for beverages, sandwiches, pizzas, etc.). Which is great - at least the market isn't stupidly boring. I find myself still working on fundamentals. Let's see how long this goes.

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I have heard people say JJ knew too much. But was he just collateral damage? Well, this is exactly what they want you to think: based on what they say in public.

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Putrajaya should make a statement, and ship that plastic back to New Zealand. Great PR/IR. #senditback

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Late, but not so late. Probably in need of more excercise. Need to configure alarms with spoken reminders to raise room temperature and drink water.

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I, on the other hand, can be cuddly, but being polite may be well beyond my means.

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Shall we take bets on Anwar pulling a "gotcha" and staying off the Port Dickson poll?

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It's called the New Malaysian Trilogy (and it starts with the Wolf of Wall Street).

(CRA, Billion Dollar Whale)

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Push comes to shove, I'd admit that I vote for the demolition of the discipline of Psychology as most (not all) practitioners understand it. It encourages lazy reasoning, and fudgy concepts, and while it does an excellent job of helping people to cope (read: make sense of the world, since they can now identify with being "academic"), it has no long-term future until they clean up the methodologies.

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Look man, I grew up in the Malaysian 80s-90s. In my worldview, Mahathir is Voldemort. He's not a bad person, and I do quite like him, but he is powerful, and scared, and dangerous. Looks a bit mellower now, but still, come on!

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Forum comment on rhetorical strategy in identity politics:

"I don't think logic is the issue. I mean in the broad sense, yes all human disagreements depend on "logical" disagreement.

But when it comes to identity politics, reasoning with "what people say they believe," is jumping the gun, because often enough the speakers are not super technical, and they are verbalising to their best efforts what they feel... and their verbal models can be quite clumsy.

To dig under the verbal froth, there's an approach that calls for appeals to empathy first, before verbiage. I believe this is systematically useful. However, often enough I run into activists who believe that empathy-first is the only strategy that matters... and then now it has become their religion! Lol.

Anyway, not to get too far ahead of myself here.

I am going to pause for a coupla hours and see how other people engage with this topic... "

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Now we have the cast of Sodomy 2, an AVN alum, PAS, and ex-MB, looking to duke it out at Port Dickson. God. Where are the women?

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73rd UN General Assembly: Mahathir committed in his speech (around 05:00-08:00) to human rights issues, immediately backtracking/qualifying, as he says it is difficult for Malaysians to do so due to its diversity, and that ultimately it will be decided by democratic process (meaning that you have to persuade a majority of Malaysians to vote for XYZ rights, for Malaysia to commit to them at the international level).

" The new Malaysia will firmly espouse the principles promoted by the UN in our international engagements. These include the principles of truth, human rights, the rule of law, justice, fairness, responsibility and accountability, as well as sustainability. *** It is within this context that the new government of Malaysia has pledged to ratify all remaining core UN instruments related to the protection of human rights. It will not be easy for us because Malaysia is multi-ethnic, multireligious, multicultural and multilingual. We will accord space and time for all to deliberate and to decide freely based on democracy.*** " (*** Emphasis mine.)

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Ten ways to amuse yourself, and annoy your neighbours, #11: walk around talking loudly on the phone with a lab technician, asking for quote on STD tests. Come on people, it's public health. (Also I think my exposure to biological concerns is rather much greater from cleaning public toilets, than from Tinder, etc.)

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14!
Actually, I was arguably peaking at social climbing at 14. This is when I started to get bored of it.

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You either get transcendental idealism, or you don't 😛

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Tired and sleepy. Generally reminding myself not to tolerate the things which I do not value:

- naive aestheticism
- empathy or human rights oriented religions
- weak talent

One should not give oneself too much reason to be content, or else, one gets lazy and stops working.

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Chored. Need to sleep. But will enforce feeding and journaling first.

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Civics Education in Malaysia

In conversations after GE14, I blogged a recommended strategy for reforming education in Malaysia. Now, a few months later, I would like to refresh that thought, with an observation about how Malaysians often present the wrong branches of government with demands for solutions, while ignoring the appropriate branches.
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The Problem:
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Malaysians mostly enter adulthood without knowledge of how to operate our republic. The reason for this, is that past leadership repeatedly consolidated power in the executive branch of government, and so the headlines for 35 years (50?) spoke mainly of executives as agents of change.
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Now when a citizen wants change, they complain about executive inaction. The citizens only know how to vote in general elections, and then they are dismayed when their ideal public policies do not easily come to pass. This is foolish. Sic.
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The Way Things are Supposed to Be:
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A general election elects Legislators (L) to legislative assemblies (Dewan Rakyat; Dewan Undangan Negeri). The Ls in turn elect a Chief Executive (E) who in turn appoints other members of the executive branch. Then the Ls go about their pedantry of MAKING LAWS. The Es don't get to make laws; someone can be an L, and an E, but these are different roles. After laws are made, LAWS ARE INTERPRETED by yet another party in the administration of justice, the Judiciary (J). The Es don't get to make legal judgments; the Ls don't either. Again someone can be an E and a J, or a L and J, but the roles are separate, even if the actor is the same. After laws are made, and judgments are formed, only then do the Es OPERATE ACCORDING TO THE LAW, or above it.
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The Recommended Approach to Solution:
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The Ls, the Es, and the Js, and the Council of Rulers (C), each have different roles. The executive in charge of national education needs to implement drills among children, to ensure that they understand these levers before they become qualified by age to cast votes in the general elections.
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This is why we require reform in civic education. So that citizens may appropriately direct their wrath an E, J, L, or C, based on the nature of the change that is required. We must stop this nonsense of blaming and praising only the Executives on matters of reform.