The Star has some news about some popular get-rich-quick investment scheme in Malaysia.

Since high school, I have seen lots of similar schemes, too many of them in fact that distracts students from their studies and destroys relationships.

The classical signs that the latest "investment" fad is a pyramid scheme in disguise:
-Schemes promising 2 to 3 percent interest per day.
-schemes promising 300% or you know, up to 1000% of gain per year. (mind mind, even Warren Buffet, the world's second richest guy has consistantly got returns in the mid 20s%)
-They use bombastic terms like investment consultant, leverage, natural resources play, credit default swip, derivatives, options that basically mean nothing in the context they're using.
-They claim that they are from Swiss/USA/UK/-insert your favourite advance nation- with a professionnel investment team but they actually are just from Malaysia.

If you really want to invest but don't know much about the stock market, bond market; no loads (or rather low fees) mutual funds are the way to go. A very good example is Fidelity (although their performance is not as good as before recently) and for people in Malaysia, TA Investment Bhd (I don't really like their high entree fee though).

If not, if you really want to get rich quick, join the pyramid scheme, but with the condition that you get in early and get out before it collapse. Or much better, start your very own scheme and name if after yourself .
If not, you can join UMNO and get rich quick.too :)


Gavin

I live in Bordeaux and what that surprises me is that the tram here are connected to an overhead power line in certain stations and nothing at all for the others.

The stations whom the tram is connected to an electric source is numbered at around 4 stations while the rest, like 20+ of them is without any connection.

Is this possible given that the on board battery looks inexistant to me?

And after some research: (from wiki)
[quote]
There are other methods of powering electric trams, sometimes preferred for aesthetic reasons since poles and overhead wires are not required. The old tram systems in London, Manhattan (New York City), and Washington, D.C., used live rails, like those on third-rail electrified railways, but in a conduit underneath the road, from which they drew power through a plough. It was called Conduit current collection. Washington's was the last of these to close, in 1962. Today, no commercial tramway uses this system. More recently, a modern equivalent to the old stud systems has been developed which allows for the safe installation of a third rail on city streets, which is known as surface current collection or ground-lev.el power supply; the main example of this is the new tramway in Bordeaux.[/quote]


and http://citytransport.info/Bod.htm

Apparently, the tram here is the world's first second-generation tram that draw's power from the ground, instead of overhead electrical cables. The choice is mainly due to aesthetical reasons (to not distrupt the architectural views) but the drawback includes frequent distruptions (as the techonology isn't perfected yet), which really do annoy people here.
The manufacturer, Altrom signed a contract with CUB (communauté urbaine de Bordeaux) which promises to share future profits from sales of this kind of tram in return for us being the guinea pig.
Recently, the on time rate is getting better and better, and according to a website, reaches 99% already.
Cities like Anger, Reims and Orléans will have this kind of tram soon.

Gavin again

Recent news:

1. Ijok is up for by-election
2. The Selangor government has allocated RM36 million for various development projects to be implemented within these two weeks in Ijok.
3. Our MB, Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Khir said the projects were not aimed to fish for votes as claimed by the opposition as they had been planned by the state government for quite some time.

Hmmmmm...how come I have this feeling that this idiot thinks that we malaysian are stupid and bribable?

Another tragedy of an indian man being seperated from his family (wife and six children) because the local Islamic police thinks that his wife is a muslim. *_* His family is now in a reeducation camp I believe.
How can barbaric things like there still happen in Malaysia?

I quote a well know malaysian lawyer:

Sad as it is, and as difficult as it is to say, we are no longer the learned or mature society that we perhaps once were. In place of sophisticated and objective analysis of crucial issues, there is now a regime of sensationalist ignorance and belligerence.

Worse still, we live in a state of denial, insisting that we are more advanced and intellectual than we really are. Look at the issues that figure prominently in the arena of public discourse. How many of these relate to the fundamental aspects of our lives as Malaysians. Admittedly, civil liberty issues such as nude squats and burial rites are important, but where do a lack of coherent economic policy, a lack of coherent governance, a lack of political foresight, an overemphasis on vested interests, institutionalised and crippling corruption and a lack of direction for this great country of ours figure? They do not, in any meaningful way. In having allowed these crucial issues to fall by the way side, in having allowed ourselves to become more interested in being titillated by insane billionaires, sex scandals, Mawi and Academia Fantasia, we have begun throwing away our future.

I used to think that this was due wholly to a media block by the authorities, implemented in tandem with a policy of de-education. I have reconsidered my view and believe that a large part of this is due to an inability, and a lack of desire, on the part of Malaysians to articulate themselves anymore. This is why our media is devoted to gossip and our broadsheets reduced to tabloids. We are all to blame.

Malik Imtiaz Sarwar

The least we can do is to voice out our opinion this coming general election.

Gavin

Foreign products

I bought a bottle of hair shampoo and body shampoo back in Prague because I thought that prices were cheaper there. Recently, when I moved house, my current shampoo/body wash was with Adrian, and wanting desperately to clean myself, I took the 2 Czech products and happily went into the bathroom.

The hair shampoo smells weird, and it doesn't produces foams. Ok, nevermind, maybe it is a shampoo for coloured hairs, as it says in it's label: vivid colours.
The body shampoo is even more weird, it smells nice, too nice to be a body shampoo, and mind, it does not spread when you rub it. @_@ I took a better look at the bottle and I saw some polar like house surrounded with ice and hot sun. SUNTAN LOTION!
It took more than 30 minutes trying to rub the cream off my body.

Trust me, it isn't nice at all when you're all smelly and you desperately wants to be clean, next time, don't buy some foreign products if you're not sure if you understand the label.

Gavin

Long time no post already hor

This few photos that I've put are from Nice and Monaco that I went with Wani and Adrian. I didn't take much photo there, not even 1 in Tours for Chinese New Year, maybe I just got tired of snapping photos.

Anyway, will be going to Paris this 22 for a career talk by some Petronas GM, will head to London this Sunday for the annual scholar's meeting. (which in my opinion, more pork barrel spending :p) Seems glamorous? Nope when you have lots of homeworks and tests hanging down your back.

-gAvIn-

I've always loved Italian songs, because you can make up your own lyrics to suite your mood of the day (it works when you don't speak Italian). However, the translation of this song is so very beautiful. (I know it's in french, too bad if you don't speak french :p ) I'm trying to upload to song and link it here, but I kinda forgotten the html codes...

Sarà perché ti amo - Ricci e Poveri

Che confusione, sarà perché ti amo
È un'emozione che cresce piano piano
Stringimi forte, e stammi più vicino
Se ci sto bene, sarà perché ti amo.
Io canto al ritmo del dolce tuo respiro
È primavera, sarà perché ti amo
Cade una stella, ma dimmi dove siamo
Che te ne frega, sarà perché ti amo.

E vola vola si sa, sempre più in alto si va
E vola vola con me, il mondo è matto perché
E se l'amore non c'è
Basta una sola canzone,per farconfusione
Fuori e dentro di te.

E vola vola si va, sempre più in alto si va
E vola vola con me,il mondo è matto perché
E se l'amore non c'è
Basta una sola canzone, per far confusione
Fuori e dentro di te.

Ma dopo tutto, che cosa c'è di strano
È una canzone, sarà perché ti amo
Se cade il mondo, allora ci spostiamo
Se cade il mondo, sarà perché ti amo.

Stringimi forte, e stammi più vicino
È così bello, che non mi sembra vero
Se il mondo è matto che cosa c'è di strano

E vola vola si va, sempre più in alto si va
E vola vola con me,il mondo è matto perché
E se l'amore non c'è
Basta una sola canzone, per far confusione
Fuori e dentro di te.

E vola vola si va, sarà perché ti amo


Io canto al ritmo del dolce tuo respiro
È primavera sarà perché ti amo
Cade una stella ma dimmi dove siamo
Che te ne frega, sarà perché ti amo.
Na na na na, na na na na na na na
Na na na na, sempre più il alto si va.
È primavera, sarà perché ti amo
Cade una stella, sarà perché ti amo
Ed è per questo, che canto piano piano
Una canzone, sarà perché ti amo.
E canto al ritmo del dolce tuo respiro
È così bello, che non mi sembra vero
Se il mondo è matto che cosa c'è di strano
Matto per matto, almeno noi ci amiamo.


Traduction:
Quelle confusion, ce sera parce que je t'aime
C'est une émotion qui grandit doucement doucement
Serres moi fort, et viens plus près de moi
Si je suis bien, ce sera parce que je t'aime
Moi je chante au rythme de ta douce respiration
C'est le printemps, ce sera parce que je t'aime
Une étoile tombe, mais dis moi où nous sommes
Qu'est ce que ça peut faire, ce sera parce que je t'aime

Et on vole on vole, on le sait, on va toujours plus haut
Et vole vole avec moi, le monde est fou parce que
Et s'il n'y a pas d'amour
Il suffit d'une chanson, pour faire confusion
A l'extérieur et à l'intérieur de moi.
(bis)

Mais après tout, qu'est ce qu'il y a d'étrange
C'est une chanson, ce sera parce que je t'aime
Sl le monde s'effondre, alors on se déplacera
Si le monde s'effondre, ce sera parce que je t'aime

Serres moi fort et viens plus près de moi
C'est si beau, que cela ne me semble pas vrai
Si le monde est fou qu'est ce qu'il y a d'étrange

Et on vole on vole, on le sait, on va toujours plus haut
Et vole vole avec moi, le monde est fou parce que
Et s'il n'y a pas d'amour
Il suffit d'une chanson, pour faire confusion
A l'extérieur et à l'intérieur de moi.

Et on vole on vole, on va, ce sera parce que je t'aime

Moi je chante au doux rythme de ta respiration
C'est le printemps, ce sera parce que je t'aime
Une étoile tombe, mais dis moi où nous sommes
Qu'est ce que ça peut faire, ce sera parce que je t'aime
Na na na na na na …. on va toujours plus haut
C'est le printemps, ce sera parce que je t'aime
Une étoile tombe, ce sera parce que je t'aime
Et c'est pour cela que je chante doucement doucement
Une chanson, ce sera parce que je t'aime
Et je chante au rythme de ta douce respiration
C'est si beau, que cela ne me semble pas vrai
Si le monde est fou qu'est ce qu'il y a d'étrange
Fou pour fou au moins moins nous nous nous aimons

-gAvIn-

Our Diet habits

Since when do we human beings look at intangibles like carbs, fats, protein, beta carotene, vitamin when choosing our foods? Are they even food or simply edible food-like substance? Confused about which diet to follow, or which food actually brings us benefit, which doesn't? The New York Times has a very pertinent article that everyone is highly encouraged to read, even if you are a lazy teenager, a busy adult or whatever… (Ran out of ideas of example…)

Here’s the link to it.

Here are some rules of thumb, according to the author, to follow when choosing our food.

1. Eat food. Though in our current state of confusion, this is much easier said than done. So try this: Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. (Sorry, but at this point Moms are as confused as the rest of us, which is why we have to go back a couple of generations, to a time before the advent of modern food products.) There are a great many foodlike items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn’t recognize as food (Go-Gurt? Breakfast-cereal bars? Nondairy creamer?); stay away from these.

2. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They’re apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best. Don’t forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim that it was more healthful than the traditional food it replaced, turned out to give people heart attacks. When Kellogg’s can boast about its Healthy Heart Strawberry Vanilla cereal bars, health claims have become hopelessly compromised. (The American Heart Association charges food makers for their endorsement.) Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about health.

3. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number — or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.None of these characteristics are necessarily harmful in and of themselves, but all of them are reliable markers for foods that have been highly processed.

4. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. You won’t find any high-fructose corn syrup at the farmer’s market; you also won’t find food harvested long ago and far away. What you will find are fresh whole foods picked at the peak of nutritional quality. Precisely the kind of food your great-great-grandmother would have recognized as food.

5. Pay more, eat less. The American food system has for a century devoted its energies and policies to increasing quantity and reducing price, not to improving quality. There’s no escaping the fact that better food — measured by taste or nutritional quality (which often correspond) — costs more, because it has been grown or raised less intensively and with more care. Not everyone can afford to eat well in America, which is shameful, but most of us can: Americans spend, on average, less than 10 percent of their income on food, down from 24 percent in 1947, and less than the citizens of any other nation. And those of us who can afford to eat well should. Paying more for food well grown in good soils — whether certified organic or not — will contribute not only to your health (by reducing exposure to pesticides) but also to the health of others who might not themselves be able to afford that sort of food: the people who grow it and the people who live downstream, and downwind, of the farms where it is grown.

“Eat less” is the most unwelcome advice of all, but in fact the scientific case for eating a lot less than we currently do is compelling. “Calorie restriction” has repeatedly been shown to slow aging in animals, and many researchers (including Walter Willett, the Harvard epidemiologist) believe it offers the single strongest link between diet and cancer prevention. Food abundance is a problem, but culture has helped here, too, by promoting the idea of moderation. Once one of the longest-lived people on earth, the Okinawans practiced a principle they called “Hara Hachi Bu”: eat until you are 80 percent full. To make the “eat less” message a bit more palatable, consider that quality may have a bearing on quantity: I don’t know about you, but the better the quality of the food I eat, the less of it I need to feel satisfied. All tomatoes are not created equal.

6. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves. Scientists may disagree on what’s so good about plants — the antioxidants? Fiber? Omega-3s? — but they do agree that they’re probably really good for you and certainly can’t hurt. Also, by eating a plant-based diet, you’ll be consuming far fewer calories, since plant foods (except seeds) are typically less “energy dense” than the other things you might eat. Vegetarians are healthier than carnivores, but near vegetarians (“flexitarians”) are as healthy as vegetarians. Thomas Jefferson was on to something when he advised treating meat more as a flavoring than a food.

7. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. Confounding factors aside, people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are. Any traditional diet will do: if it weren’t a healthy diet, the people who follow it wouldn’t still be around. True, food cultures are embedded in societies and economies and ecologies, and some of them travel better than others: Inuit not so well as Italian. In borrowing from a food culture, pay attention to how a culture eats, as well as to what it eats. In the case of the French paradox, it may not be the dietary nutrients that keep the French healthy (lots of saturated fat and alcohol?!) so much as the dietary habits: small portions, no seconds or snacking, communal meals — and the serious pleasure taken in eating. (Worrying about diet can’t possibly be good for you.) Let culture be your guide, not science.

8. Cook. And if you can, plant a garden. To take part in the intricate and endlessly interesting processes of providing for our sustenance is the surest way to escape the culture of fast food and the values implicit in it: that food should be cheap and easy; that food is fuel and not communion. The culture of the kitchen, as embodied in those enduring traditions we call cuisines, contains more wisdom about diet and health than you are apt to find in any nutrition journal or journalism. Plus, the food you grow yourself contributes to your health long before you sit down to eat it. So you might want to think about putting down this article now and picking up a spatula or hoe.

9. Eat like an omnivore. Try to add new species, not just new foods, to your diet. The greater the diversity of species you eat, the more likely you are to cover all your nutritional bases. That of course is an argument from nutritionism, but there is a better one, one that takes a broader view of “health.” Biodiversity in the diet means less monoculture in the fields. What does that have to do with your health? Everything. The vast monocultures that now feed us require tremendous amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to keep from collapsing. Diversifying those fields will mean fewer chemicals, healthier soils, healthier plants and animals and, in turn, healthier people. It’s all connected, which is another way of saying that your health isn’t bordered by your body and that what’s good for the soil is probably good for you, too.

-gAvIn-

1. What does your name mean?
Gavin
origin: Welsh
meaning: White hawk (though I don't think my parents were even aware of this :)
Hunn 汉 : man (yeap, that's right, in a good sense)
Jinn 仁 : benevolence; kindheartedness; humanity; sensitive (that's true :D )

2. What's your current problem?
Finance, relationship

3. What's your middle name?
I still don't know what a middle name is...

4. What is your current relationship
status?
Single ;)

5.Honestly, does your crush like you
back?
hmm...aucune idée

6. What is your current mood?
Upbeat

7. What do you love most?
Em..hehe :D

8. What makes you happy?
Accomplishing little things in life

9. Are you musically inclined?
Yes, but I'm not that mainstream

10. If you could go back in time, and
change something, what would it be and
why?
Braver when dealing with members of the opposite sex :)

11. If you had to be an animal for one
day, what would you be?
I don't even want to think of it

12. Ever have a near death experience?
yeap :(

13. Name something you do a lot.
surfing, reading *cough*

14. What's the name of the song that's
stuck in your head right now?
Il mio canto libero - Laura Pausini (Io canto) + Juanes
It's a reprise of a 70s song by Lucio Battisti, simply sublime.

15. Who did you copy and paste this
from?
Zarf's blog - thanks ye

16. Name someone with the same b-day
as you.
Qi Ting..wait, but I know plenty who are 1 week within my birthday

18. Have you ever sang in front of a
large audience?
yeap, when I was like...4 years old, trust me, it didn't went well

20. What's the first thing you notice
about the OPPOSITE sex?
cute ke tak

25. Do you still watch kiddy movies or
TV shows?
Yes :)

26. Do you have braces?
Nope

27. Are you comfortable with your
weight?
Yeap

28. Do you speak any other languages?
Malay, penang hokkien, chinese, french and a bit spanish.

29. What's your favorite smell?
Nasi Masak Merah

30. Who do you think will re-post this?
On s'en fout cette question :)

-gAvIn-

Accounting in china, from the economist.

An equally large problem is the lack of accountants to process the raw numbers. In no other place in the world, and probably at no other time in history, have accountants been so sought-after as they are in China. By even the most generous reckoning, the country has fewer than 70,000 practising accountants, trying to do the work of anything from 300,000 to a million bean counters. To be an accounting student at a reputable school is to have a good job waiting. But even after several years of education, accountants require an apprenticeship, especially if they are to get to grips with international standards based on intellectually demanding principles rather prescriptive rules. Accountants in Britain, acknowledging the difficulties, are helping with the training.

Conclusion? It is good to study accounting.

-gAvin-

From Gary Mankiw, a harvard econ prof
Once you read this, you'll understand why econs is called the dismal science. They analyse too much ;)

Case Study
Gifts as Signals

A man is debating what to give his girlfriend for her birthday. "I know," he says to himself, "I'll give her cash. After all, I don't know her tastes as well as she does, and with cash, she can buy anything she wants." But when he hands her the money, she is offended. Convinced he doesn't really love her, she breaks off the relationship.

What's the economics behind this story?

In some ways, gift giving is a strange custom. As the man in our story suggests, people typically know their own preferences better than others do, so we might expect everyone to prefer cash to in-kind transfers. If your employer substituted merchandise of his choosing for your paycheck, you would likely object to the means of payment. But your reaction is very different when someone who (you hope) loves you does the same thing.

One interpretation of gift giving is that it reflects asymmetric information and signaling. The man in our story has private information that the girlfriend would like to know: Does he really love her? Choosing a good gift for her is a signal of his love. Certainly, the act of picking out a gift, rather than giving cash, has the right characteristics to be a signal. It is costly (it takes time), and its cost depends on private information (how much he loves her). If he really loves her, choosing a good gift is easy because he is thinking about her all the time. If he doesn't love her, finding the right gift is more difficult. Thus, giving a gift that suits the girlfriend is one way for him to convey the private information of his love for her. Giving cash shows that he isn't even bothering to try.

The signaling theory of gift giving is consistent with another observation: People care most about the custom when the strength of affection is most in question. Thus, giving cash to a girlfriend or boyfriend is usually a bad move. But when college students receive a check from their parents, they are less often offended. The parents' love is less likely to be in doubt, so the recipient probably won't interpret the cash gift as a signal of lack of affection.


-gAvIn-