Blurb

I have been delaying posting because of various reasons... mainly because I have all these grand schemes to make a great blog of this heroic travellor in Malaysia, taking pictures of food, people, culture, maps, environment, infrastructure, sounds of music....etc...

Following the Japanese style of TQM -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_quality_management

- I've decided that something is better than nothing.

So I thought I would share my thoughts on Web 2.0.

What took so long? It wasn't technology.. the fiber-optic cables have been in place for some time now. But of course now that Web 2.0 is here, technology is increasing at an incredible rate.... but I don't need to tell you about economic drivers.

What I would like to talk about is people. Us. We are what stalled the internet. Why? Because people got fed up.
I can't help reminiscing on that eerie sound of the first modems when they 'dialed-up' to the network. How the combination of modal, bi-modal, unharmonic frequencies made it actually sound like we were connecting to something live... matrix anyone?

So what happened when the .COM boom came? We became obsessed with this new thing. A place where you have complete and absolute control over communications... television, phone, telegraph no more was the promise. We were racing to get their faces seen. We were spending nights chatting to people anonymously as dream people. (n/s/l?) We were looking at dirty pictures. We were racing to make money.

Then what happened? The .COM bust. Everyone almost all at once decided they were fed up with the internet. Not necesarrily computers, unfortunately we couldn't sever ourselves completely, microsoft had to good a hold on us with office productivity and all that jazz.. plus our schools and corporations new that IT would make a come-back and the fear of failing due to being left behind in the dust over rided the fear of being consumed.

But seriously, am I right? Was the .COM bust a victom of people just deciding they had had enough? I think so. I think if anything, its a valid and important question. Especially for anyone thinking about making a career in web technologies. What was the reason for millions of dollars to be gained and lost literally over night?

What 'caused us to get fed up? I can think of two reasons. Firstly, our economic machines, the same people that didn't give a crap about the people they were offering a service too, just making a quick buck. Spam emails (which we still get), pop-ups (thank god for pop-up blockers), invasion of privacy... the list goes on.

Second, our fear of being consumed by technology. When .COM came, it came so fast that people were overwhelmed. They said, hey, wait a minute, I don't like staring at the same computer screen for days on end. I would much rather go back to staring at television screens.

oooh ooh.. idea.. maybe for old people its an inferiority complex. yes I definitely have something there

Thats okay. The web wasn't wiped away. We didn't burn a bunch of papers. We didn't delete all of our files on all our web servers. People got realistic. People started providing service and waited to reap the rewards (google). People were slowly enticed, lulled, wooed whatever you want to say.

People are hooked again. Some people are wooed by the prospect of contributing their ideas to a bigger picture (open source projects like wikipedia) some people just like communication, whatever it is... I know I am back.. and hopefully this time it is to stay.

Batu Caves and Palau Ketemon (Crab Island)

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooookay

so i'm back

I haven't posted for ages.... yikes... okay so i have to use this thing more.... i never understood how I could be so bad at keeping a journal... i do realize the importance.. i mean without memories whats the point? so here are some memories

Today I had a fairly eventful day. It is February 1st, thursday and a public holiday. There was this event at the Batu Caves, very big hindu religious ordeal... the believers started out at one point of the city sometime late last night.. and arrived at this place called batu caves this morning... they carried milk, and had many many piercings, which they punctured by some priest while in a trance... they also walked up these crazy huge steps.. which we didn't do because it looked like it would have taken forever... but I would like to go back to the caves sometime.. supposedly they have nice outdoor climbing.. but thats not the point

my personal experience?
well i went to KL station at 5:30 am in the morning so I could tag along w/ some people (Lu, Florine and Lu's boyfriend Edwardo... nice people.. Lu and Florine both work at ARROW) since I didn't want to go alone.. i got to KL sentral station at 5:30 on the dot.. but the ticket counter wasn't open! i was counting on it being open! i didn't even know what ticket to purchase... so I had to buy some stuff from the 7/11, break my 50 ringitt to change, try out some 1 dollar bills on the machine, didn't work, buy more stuff from 7/11 to get coins, finally get to the platform at 5:45, no one is there... i thought thaaaats great.. i missed them... trying not to be upset.. i decided it was good 'cause then i could go do my own things... wait around for mcdonalds to open... have a nice breakfast... in the process of waiting i run into them... all was good.. until i had to use the washroom during the train ride... that became a little unpleasant but i got there... without doing anything embarassing.... we walked around.. watched the stuff... smelled lots of incence.. heard lots of beating drums.. watched lots of people get tranced and pierce themselves... then went home


i get home and Dr. Dion et family decide to go to paula kretemon (crab island) so I decide to go with (after a short nap) that was peaceful, quiet.. nad interesting.. their boats are cool... very low to the water... and the island was cool.. it was a fishing village... and all the huts were right on the path... life seemed so simple there... no worries thats for sure
you have money you had food on the table thats all that matters kind of thing

so my first public holiday... it was pretty good

i'm really looking forward to going to langkawi for chinese new years

and thats a wrap