CategoryMisc

Just a collection of stuff (mostly from my old blog)

The WhiteHouse Petition, and what it means

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The US Government host a really cool website called “We the People”, that let’s users petition the US Government for various things. It’s a cool website, because you get really cool request on it. For instance, in 2013, more than 34,000 people petitioned the US government to  “Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016″, which triggered a...

All Air Pollutant Index (API) readings in Malaysia for 2014

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I’ve stopped scrapping the API readings for Malaysia, as the MET department have stopped publishing historical readings on their website. The data has been updated to include all API readings up to 01-Sept-2015, and then from 28-Sep-2015 to 03-Oct-2015. The ‘gap’ in the dataset is because the MET department changed their webpage and removed the legacy data before I could get my...

Watch SuperBowl in Malaysia

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Got this email from the people over at Unotelly: I want to inform you that UnoTelly will allow people stream the NFL Super Bowl for free on Sunday, February 1, regardless of where they live or whether they are UnoTelly subscribers. We are offering free access to media stations (NBC Sports, Channel 4 and more) that will be broadcasting the Super Bowl for free. Visitors will not be required to sign...

Phishing by the Bank–Maybank that is

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Recently I received a phishing email from [email protected] telling me that Maybank had installed new security features and that I need to validate my details on the Maybank2u web portal. The email was marked as SPAM by Gmail, and trying to visit the site further sparked more warnings from Firefox AND my anti-virus. But I was curious as to what the link would entail, in much the same way I was...

Censoring bomb making websites: NO

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The Star reports that : Malaysia Crime Prevention Foundation vice-chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye called on the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to block bomb-making websites. “We live in a troubled age. Previously, it was unimaginable, but now even from your home, you can make a bomb. The MCMC must do a comprehensive check to see how we can block sites that are harmful to...

Malaysia vs. America : Who has the biggest IT fuck-ups?

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A while back, I wrote about how the Government blew nearly RM 1 Billion ringgit on the MERS 999 system. A system that soaked up nearly Rm30 Million in consultancy cost alone–yet failed. The biggest issue I had with the MERS 999 system was that the government had a similar system called MyDistress, which not only worked well in the Klang Valley, but was given to the government free of charge...

Why the 3-D printed gun is an overblown concern

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, you’ve heard about the 3-d printing. 3-D printing is supposed to be the next ‘big’ thing in technology, it allows anyone the ability to physically ‘print’ 3-dimensional objects like cups, toy models, even car parts from ABS plastic (that’s the same plastic used to make Lego pieces), in...

Why the ban on Uber means more than just Taxis

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Uber, a company that connect passengers with drivers of vehicles for hire and ridesharing services–is now banned in Malaysia. The Uber service was viewed as a god-send by citizens of KL simply because the existing taxi service in the city–is Shit! So why did the Government choose to ban a service, that was improving public transport in KL? For the small matter that it violated a...

What do ISIS and Genghis Khan have in common?

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I thought I’d take a break from writing about Tech this week, to focus on where the worlds attention should be–Iraq and Syria, and the existential threat that is besieging the middle-east, a threat we’ve come to call The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). ISIS may have started of an off-shoot of Al-Qaeda, but they’ve evolved to be much more, they’re so far...

Who are you trusting online?

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When you get behind the wheel of your car, and hit the road–you’re implicitly trusting ever other road user to play by the rules.  You trust no one will go out of their way to crash into you, or that no one would swerve into you for an insurance claim, you even trust that pedestrians won’t hijack your car as you stop at the red light. Sometimes you mitigate these risk, by...