Sunday 21 February 2016

Dunning-Kruger Effect



It is ethically not good to call people “stupid”.
People are not stupid.
People are just suffering from Dunning-Kruger effect.
So the next time you see someone being stupid, just pity him/her for experiencing Dunning-Kruger effect.

from Wikipedia :-


The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which relatively unskilled persons suffer illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately. Their research also suggests corollaries: highly skilled individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others.[1]

The phenomenon was first tested in a series of experiments during 1999 by David Dunning and Justin Kruger of the department of psychology at Cornell University.[1][2] The study was inspired by the case of McArthur Wheeler, a man who robbed two banks after covering his face with lemon juice in the mistaken belief that, because lemon juice is usable as invisible ink, it would prevent his face from being recorded on surveillance cameras

Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:[4]
  • fail to recognize their own lack of skill
  • fail to recognize the extent of their inadequacy
  • fail to recognize genuine skill in others
  • recognize and acknowledge their own lack of skill, after they are exposed to training for that skill

Dunning has since drawn an analogy – "the anosognosia of everyday life"[5][6] – with a condition in which a person who experiences a physical disability because of brain injury seems unaware of, or denies the existence of, the disability, even for dramatic impairments such as blindness or paralysis: "If you're incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent.… [T]he skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.

Remember,

People are not stupid.

People just suffer from Dunning Kruger Effect.



One fine example of Dunning-Kruger Effect happening at my beloved Malaysia country is as below news.


KUALA LUMPUR: God did not create marijuana to harm people, Umno TamanChempaka branch information chief Syed Rosli Syed Harman Jamalullail has said in defence of the plant’s benefits.

He was responding to an open letter by Dr Nadiah Norudin, a medical officer and member of the Muslim health activism group I-Medik.

“This doctor is insincere and is not speaking truthfully. She’s a peddler of Western synthetic drugs,” he said in a Facebook post this morning.

Syed Rosli accused Nadiah of only getting her knowledge from academic journals written by people he said that “may only ruin the reputation of Allah’s creation, cannabis, to sell their synthetic medicines that only harm people in the long term.”

“So let’s keep cigarettes and alcohol as our alternatives,” he said sarcastically.

“She hasn’t criticised cigarettes and wine which are clearly dangerous, addictive, and haram under Islam.”

“The Netherlands is one of the freest countries with marijuana, and they have some of the world’s best architects. This doctor has never been to the Netherlands, nor has she stayed there,” he said.

He challenged her to go to the Netherlands and see for herself whether they had become “insane, stupid, or forgetful because they legalised marijuana.”

In the media yesterday, Syed Rosli was reported as saying that the Federal Government should consider allowing Malaysians the freedom to consume marijuana by amending existing legislature banning its cultivation, use, and sale.

“I’ve been raising this issue since last year,” Syed Rosli said in an Astro Awani report yesterday.

“Cigarettes and vape pose great health risks to the public, but marijuana on the other hand is proven to calm the nerves and can even lead to a reduction in the crime rate.”

Dr Nadiah however had criticised Syed Rosli for his advocacy of the decriminalisation of marijuana, saying that marijuana carried with it dangers to the public’s psychological and physical health.

She cited an article published by The New England Journal of Medicine in 2014, which she said showed that marijuana carried dangers of addiction and that almost half of daily marijuana users would be addicted, with one in six teens on marijuana, succumbing to addiction.


Shaped thus, shipped'em out
a new deal to flog and flout.
Buried up to the neck in socio-aggregate;
Twist an arm and drag it back.

Infiltraitor reclaims the rhetoric.
Infiltraitor turns the kindness milk.
Infiltraitors!

A now and later policy
suits privileged contingency.

A now and later policy
crowns privileged contingency.



Wednesday 17 February 2016

Walden - living a life in a desolate way

I remembered the night my father passed away, alone at UM General Hospital.

I was there with him earlier that night, he asked of my mom, but I couldn't answer.

I went back around 11pm that night, then around 3am in the morning I received a call saying my father was in critical state, or what Malays call as "nazak"

By the time I arrived, he was gone.

I sat alone beside his deathbed, that time I wasn't feeling sad, but instead I feel some sort of morbidity.

The possibility of dying alone, amidst of having possessions and loving family.

-------------------- 

When I was studying at UM, I wasn't a smart guy. I nearly got expelled.

What happened then, I become more reclusive, yet maintaining close friendship with guys I knew with.

-------------------- 

Then around the final years, I read Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

The same time, I was also joining Islamic Tabligh but I think who I am now, were shaped by those moments when I reached for my small self, during the final years at UM.

It was this time, I read Ihya Ulumiddin by Imam Ghazali, Tanbihul Ghafilin by Abul Laits As Samarqandi.

I even found there are points in the Ihya Ulumiddin which are agreeable and reflected again in Thoreau's Walden, i.e. about the 4 basic necessities of life and how 
governance flourish from small communities into big state.

I bought many philosophical books during this time, either Islamic or Western ones.

--------------------

I went to Dubai straight after UM, I think the spirit of self-reliance and self wander-ment helps a lot being alone at a country far away.

After the economic crash of 2008/2009, I went back to Malaysia and went to Bintulu, far away from my hometown Kajang.

Even though I'm getting married, I think that small space I create for myself, and only for myself, is crucial.
--------------------

Morbid Angel - Desolate Ways 


Morbid Angel - Desolate Ways (Piano) 


Morbid Angel - In Remembrance




Apologies for typo errors and grammatical mistakes in the first draft of this blog that causes your cell brains to be cancerous.


Long Live Grammar Nazi!
 

Friday 12 February 2016

Megadeth - Dystopia / Slayer - Repentless

Finished work early today.

Rushed to Amcorp Mall at PJ, KL, Malaysia.

Bought Megadeth - Dystopia and Slayer - Repentless

Went to nearby A&W to explore the goodies while munching Golden Burger plus 2 large A&W Rootbeer.

Fiancee screamed at me for not taking care about diabetes. I just "OK OK OK", since I'm too happy like a kid who got Santa Claus present.


Yeay!



A. MEGADETH - DYSTOPIA

















This is posted for you to realise what a great album it is, and to motivate you to purchase the original CD.


B. SLAYER - REPENTLESS













This is posted for you to realise what a great album it is, and to motivate you to purchase the original CD.

Sunday 7 February 2016

cheong hei writing before CNY

A. Personal stuff

Man proposes, God disposes

 http://miorhimself.tumblr.com/post/130808650803/spent-rm60-here-im-fairly-broke-right-now-but

 I wanted to go to this bookshop. But I didn't. Instead I went to Amcorp Mall and bought these.
(below photos)

The reason of going to Amcorp Mall : I'm looking for Megadeth's latest album, Dystopia. From what I've heard online, it's an outstanding record.

A great album. Seriously.

Unfortunately, the record have not reached Malaysia yet at this time of writing. 
I think the record will reach Malaysia by March 2016, maybe earlier.

Man proposes, God disposes.

 Kajang town
 Kajang town
Kajang town



B. Two Things you shouldn't tell and comment specifically to anybody. 

B1. Your salary
B2. Your political affiliations

B1. Salary and Empathy

The concept of "those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind" applies here.

Those who are dear to you, shouldn't matter how much money you make in real life. If they do, then they are not dear to you.

And I lost a friend, whom I knew online (a blogger whom lived on northern region of Malaysia), due to this.

Actually I just had an opinion that she should just continues doing her professional work. But my stupid act of voicing out my opinion screws our relationship.

From then, I learnt to keep my mouth shut, especially on money issues.

No matter whatever I think, it's up to each people how to manage their affairs, i.e. you have to put your feet in their shoes to understand it, and since it's troublesome to understand that, let alone your own problems, just have empathy and shut your mouth off.

Man proposes, God disposes.

The benefit of that conflict was, I learnt to shut off my mouth, and have empathy.

As time passes by, this skill of shutting off your mouth enables me to undertake great responsibilities in my job, and it helped me on my romantic one as well, to the extent that I'm getting married this year.

I just shared you one stupid story that happened last Friday.

I just bought a Proton Waja car earlier this year, and somehow to execute the change of possession, you have to send the car for Government inspection, PUSPAKOM.

I applied for an inspection, unfortunately, the inspection was scheduled last Friday. At 3 pm.

And my office hold Chinese New Year lunch for the staff last Friday.

So, I had to go for the office lunch, greet my bosses, then after a short lunch, quickly made my exit to reach Bangi for the Puspakom inspection.

That means I had to skip Friday prayers. Yup.

And I planned to do a Jamak Zuhur prayer and combine it with the Asar prayer.

What happened was, when I made my exit, one of the Muslim staff, suddenly ask me to join them to go to Friday prayer.

When I apologises, he went on a sermon-mode, advising me that prayer is much more important than the whole world, with a loud voice that the whole office can hear it.

I just keep quiet.

What amazes me that, the group that wanted to go to the Friday prayer, instead of making a quick walk to the mosque nearby, they just went down and waited for the prayer calling, while puffing cigarrettes.

What came to my mind was, "Shit, you just now talk about sin of leaving obligation, but you yourself also commit sin", because most Islamic preachers condemns smoking to be unlawful.

I just went on. I didn't preach to them what I think.

I had no time. But even if I have time, I wouldn't preach. Because I knew, quitting smoking is hard, even though I did it.

Empathy.

Thanks to God, the Puspakom car inspection went well.




B2. Your political affiliations

First, we have to have empathy for the normal people., or so to understand this point.

In general, most people, whether natural, pro-Government or Anti-Government, are critical of Governments. Doesn't matter if the Government is perfect or not.

Simply because people want things to improve from the current condition.

But the problem is, politics is not about improving things. Politics is about gaining power to rule, and methods of execution for that particular purpose.
And in gaining power, there got to be losers and winners. It's a bloody war, whether you like it or not.

It's a conflict to gain power and influence.

And so, politics will impose people to belong to 3 side.

Either you are with me, or against me...or do not belong to anybody.

And so, it's Politics that imposes labelling.

If religious people resorts to labelling, know that that guy is playing politics.

Since Malaysia is still a country with a third world mentality, I think it is best not to belong to any labelling or sides.

If you have anything to say, try your best not to belong in any group, and do it with the intent to
improve from the current condition.

What Malaysians and other parts of the World that engulfs in conflicts, do not realise is, you do not have to belong to anyone or any group to improve the world.
Like what Hassan Al Banna said, if you want to see Islam in your reality, build Islam inside your life. Be a better person then the world will be better.

As what Michael Jackson sings, to improve your world starts with changing the man in the mirror, i.e. your self.


 

C. About Work

I learn one thing from this political issue I read this morning. https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/3862390

If you want to build a good relationship with your boss, do not ask questions or favours which you know will be difficult for your boss to approve.

I do not wish to judge right or wrong about the Kedah's political conflict. I'm more interested to learn things which I can pick out from the incident to make my life better.

Basically, what the Ahmad Bashah asks is something that the PM can easily approves. When the PM approves it, the PM can feel satisfied doing his obligations and so the move can enhanced their relationship. It shows that something is getting done, and the PM is one of the element of getting it done.

Whether it's right or wrong that is for you to think for yourself. I'm an engineer, I'm more interested in the technique, i.e. the way of executing things.

I realised that before this, most of my mistakes involves in causing my bosses in predicament without me realising it, i.e. to give favour/solutions which caused the boss to step in into the problem.

And that's why I stayed in junior positions for quite so long in my working experience. Even though I knew a lot of technical shit or so.

The current project, with me being the acting PM, taught me many things. One of it, is this lesson.

This cheong hei writing is not intended for preaching.

It is here for me to remember later. I hope this lessons can be remembered because it is important.

Whether you agree or not, that's not for me to decide.

The summary of these lessons is, Empathy works. Empathy works even in professional life.







Perspective




PERSPECTIVE

It take thousands of years after Euclid, for Man to finally realise that Euclid’s Fifth Parallel Postulate might not work after all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Euclidean_geometry

Even though I was raised in my religion, but I’m lucky to grow up in Kajang and to mix around with non-Malays during my teen years.

One of my Chinese friends, once told me about Mao Zedong’s quote:-

“It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice

I realised one thing between people who were taught in Abrahamic faiths, ie. Christianity, Islaim, Judism, and the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.

In Abrahamic Faith, there is a line between bad and good. The Line is always clear. The religion dictates it.

Chinese, (those whom I grew up with), Korean, Japanese (those whom I worked with), whether raised in Buddhism, Confucianism, etc; their thinking does not necessarily put a line between bad and good. The action might be bad, or it might be good, depend on situation, people, etc. The result matters.

That’s why, I can see it in Malaysia, the Chinese will vote for an Islamic Party instead of the Government party if the overall result is beneficial to them, or vice versa. Even the previous Malaysian Premier Dr. M felt that the Chinese are more pragmatic, and most are not easily swayed by emotions of anger by racial or religion-istic issues.

To me, my personal opinion is, in life, you just work the best of what you know, whether it is best or good, God, History and life will determine its outcome.

In life, I try my best not to judge or comment issues even though it might look wrong, because mathematically, our knowledge is not infinite, and so

“Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true,but not provable in the theory.

- Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems

Since our knowledge is not infinite, there are gaps which we do not know, henceforth our knowledge is not complete.

Hence, our self belief based on our knowledge might be shown, not to be consistent all the time.

If a migrant Pakistani or Bangladesh workers did some mistake, Malaysians are seen to be easier to make a split decision smack their head and to curse them.

It is because in Malaysian people perspective, those people are low-grade scums.

But if the same worker happens to be some Englishmen, Koreans or Japanese, Malaysians will take a step back to think.

But those are the same foreigners that came to Malaysia for earning money.

Yet they are treated differently.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfTLMSbqON8

(regarding this video, I've no comment. I didn't know why he was so pissed off. I didn't say his action is wrong, or good. But his statement is "You come to Malaysia to work, respect Malaysians" made me thinking, since there are numerous incident where I see Malaysians bowing their head down to Foreigners, especially Westerners)

Even though most Malaysians are brought up in Abrahamic Faith, and religion teaches them to be good to others;;... most of the time, It’s about perspective, i.e how people look at things and people and whatsoever.

Every day, every words, every knowledge learned, and yet usually it takes a different perspective for us to progress and unbound ties that bonds the problems.

Happy Chinese New Year to all.








Note : All videos not by me, I found them in Youtube. Click the link for the source.

Monday 1 February 2016

blessing in disguise

A. Ceremony of handing over Wedding dowry to bride's family

Dowry handing over ceremony was done in a simple manner on 31 January 2016.

The dowry money is in the blue envelope.

My fiancee's niece, Sabrina, 3 years old, whom didn't care about the serious conversation of adults taking place in the living room, and just played with her Barbie dolls with "no-give-a-damn" attitude.

The bride's family treat us with delicious curry mee. The photo above taken while the curry is still being heated, hence the curry dish not in the picture.

 Pony bag belonging to Sabrina. Now I know why my fiancee keep insisting Pony items as gifts.

B.  Counting of blessings

I'm a romantically hopeless person. 

First thing, I didn't look for her. She looked for me instead.

Our family knew each other before that. She had a relationship before and it screwed up.

Then what happened was, my mom got the invitation to visit Mecca two years ago. Mom was in dire straits, difficult situation with family, job, etc. It was a surprise that Tabung Haji selected her for 2014 Hajj.

And so we held a little ceremony for prayers, and of course, most ceremony in Malaysia had buffet course for those invited in.

She came in with Sabrina.

I think I spend a fun time with Sabrina back then. We danced merrily, played jokes and stuff, I think we clicked in, maybe because both Sabrina and I had a similar 'don't-give-a-damn-about-others' attitude.

A week after mom came back from Hajj, I got a Whatsapp contact from her.

Then the rest is history.

Earlier in 2015, I got promoted with salary increment. My boss told me to be "Acting PM" for the current project while maintaining Project Engineer title and salary in the company.

Even though the salary is higher, the work and the pressure came with it is so tremendous. Those who are closed to me can testify of how many times I told them that I want to resign from the job.

And yet here I am still working my ass of in this Project.

Even up to this moment, I feel like resigning. 
But somehow, I got too busy handling stuff that I got tired when I got home.

We got engaged on 8th of August 2015, sometime after Hari Raya.

I was a 120-kg guy, but on August, I weigh about 80-kg. 

I'll tell you my weight loss secret.

The weight loss is due to diabetes. I was diagnosed with diabetes and high blood pressure on February 2015.

One thing diabetes affected my body, is, when the sugar count is high, my body will just shit away all the food I eaten with all the fuid taken, just few hours after eating.

 I remembered that I had an accident, where my car smashed into a Honda City.

The car issue was setttled sometime in June-July 2015, then only we proceed to hold our engagement.

The beauty of this is, since the bride's family sympathised with me of the car incident, they agreed for a simple engagement party.

I had just few weeks to prepare, but thank God, it was a success.

To be honest, I'm still unable to say that my life's getting better although, it is.

Because it got better thru a lot of shit and difficulties, and yes, there are sweet favours and sweet time in it too.


You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in fields of gold

So she took her love
For to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in fields of gold

See the west wind move like a lover so
Upon the fields of barley
Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth
Among the fields of gold

I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I've broken
But I swear in the days still left
We'll walk in fields of gold

Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold
You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold


C. Man and Polygamy

I repeat this again. I'm a romantically hopeless person.

I was a bald guy who dreamt of being Phil Anselmo, yet after getting serious, I changed my appearance.

I finally had a boyish hair-cut. I wear perfume. My clothes are now ironed.

I think after getting engaged, I'm more eye-pleasing. And the confidence that comes with it, attracts.

I'll be damn honest. 

As time goes by, you will see better girls or boys, better in terms of physical attractiveness, romantics or whatever shit it is. You will see. It will pass in front of you.

It is your choice either you want to proceed with being romantic with another person, or you just proceed with other things in life.

I now understand why married people tend to have affairs and scandals.

The key to solve this is, to realise your time is short, and as you age, your physical body gets weaker. Your responsibility will be much more than yesterday.

Those people who went for affairs and scandals, I think that they are either too free with their time, or they live quite a problem-less life.

And so they went for affairs and scandals.

The shit starts to hit the fan when problems starts creeping in their life. Either in money, time, health or work.

And so, it is best to avoid scandals even though you feel romantically attracted to it.

Because time is short, and your capability in life, no matter how great, is limited to money, time, health and work.

So count your blessings and be the best in your life.