Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by mooz

City Hybrid I-DCD

mooz — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 21:22:02 +0800

I'm considering to get a 2018 City Hybrid I DCD to replace my old junker. Prices so far hovering around 56k - 59k with around 60,000 km mileage. Any owners can give review or worth it to get this model at this price range?

Master's degree in Malaysia

mooz — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 18:35:43 +0800

I was wondering, is a master's degree useful in Malaysia?
There's the old education vs experience debate, but I would like to know what you guys think.
Especially if there are any HRs around here.
Most engineers I've met said experience/professional cert is better though.

BMW E36

mooz — Sun, 13 Jul 2014 00:19:00 +0800

Hi guys. I need some advice.
So my cousin is selling his old BMW E36 318i. The car's manufactured in 1994, and he didnt use it much for long distance with only around 80,000 km on it. I know the maintenance for a beemer would cost me a bomb, especially since it is an old model.

However, the mechanic that used to take care of the car told me it runs quite well and still in a good condition. My dad asked for a second opinion from his mechanic friend, got the same response.

So is it worth the purchase? FYI, he's selling it for RM15000

RAM help

mooz — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 16:53:54 +0800

Just bought a 2GB ram for my laptop.
So now my current configuration is 2 + 2GB.
But the problem is my laptop can only detect 2 GB of ram.
So /k pls help

Malaysia is famous on teh internetz

mooz — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 07:02:34 +0800

BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray today drops news that a number of people writing for a whole host of websites across the political spectrum were doing so on behalf of the Malaysian government. And for their work they were paid handsomely. In other words, they were secretly pawning off talking points from the Malaysian government as their own in exchange for money. This is how some journalists get paid now.

In 2011, then-Politico political reporter Ben Smith accused conservative writer Josh Treviño of working on behalf of special interest groups in Malaysia. Trevino fired back, "I was never on any 'Malaysian entity's payroll,' and I resent your assumption that I was."

Fast forward two years, and today we have Treviño's Foreign Agent Registration Statement [PDF], filed in late January, which states clearly that from 2008 to 2011, Treviño received hundreds of thousands of dollars from "the Government of Malaysia, its ruling party, or interests closely aligned with either." In return, Treviño offered blogging services at a now defunct website, MalaysiaMatters.com, and the promise to "generate and secure placement of opinion pieces in US media." Also named in the filing as "independent contractors" were people like Ben Domenech and Rachel Ehrenfeld, who were paid $36,000 and $30,000, respectively, for "opinion writing." These independent contractors were tasked with writing freelance pieces that propagandized for the Malaysian government and attacked opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, and then publishing them in places like the National Review and the San Francisco Examiner and the Huffington Post.

Treviño lost a column with the Guardian last year for his ties to Malaysia, but both he and Domenech allege there was nothing too underhanded about what they were doing (emphasis ours):

QUOTE

"It was actually a fairly standard PR operation," Trevino told BuzzFeed Friday. "To be blunt with you, and I think the filing is clear about this, it was a lot looser than a typical PR operation. I wanted to respect these guys' independence and not have them be placement machines."

Trevino said neither he nor the client knew what the writers were going to write before it went up.
"I provided a stipend to support their work in this area and they would just ping me whenever something went up," he said.

Domenech, a former Washington Post blogger who runs a daily morning newsletter called The Transom, said he "was retained by Josh's Trevino Strategies and Media PR firm in 2010 with the general guidance to write about Malaysia, particularly the political scene there."

"I did not ever have anyone looking over my shoulder for what I wrote, and the guidance really was just to write about the political fray there and give my own opinion," Domenech said. "Of course, Josh picked me knowing what my opinion was—I stand by what I wrote at the time and I continue to be critical of Anwar Ibrahim, who I think is a particularly dangerous fellow."

Sosej

Borderlinx problem

mooz — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 00:10:43 +0800

Hi. I purchased a few items from USA through borderlinx.
However, when I want to make purchase, it says authorisation is rejected due to Malaysia is ranked high fraud country.
They say maybank is accepted, but every time I try to make payment shows the same authorisation rejected page.
So now I cant pay, and for every day that I dont, they charge me 5 dollars.

Contacted the customer service already, but they say i need to find someone else with a maybank card.
No one in my family does
The card need to have the cardholder name on it.

North Korea's satellite is out of control

mooz — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 07:13:30 +0800

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

After failing miserably on numerous occasions, North Korea has finally put a satellite in orbit. But according to US officials, it is now "tumbling out of control." This is bad news, and more bad news, covered in a double layer of extra bad news.
NORAD detected the launch yesterday at 7:49pm Eastern Time. The rocket passed over Japan on its way to orbit. Its first stage splashed down into the Yellow Sea, while the second one fell on the Philippine Sea. Soon after that, the United States and most countries with space tracking capabilities confirmed the launch success: whatever it was carrying, it reached orbit. According to Kim Jong-Un's regime, it's a "weather satellite" on a polar orbit, going in the same direction as an Earth meridian.

Except it's really going any which way: talking to NBC News, US Officials are saying that the "space object" is tumbling out of control.

Why it is bad news for everyone
The most obvious bad news is that this is quite dangerous, as this object has now become a collision risk to other satellites.

The first collision between two satellites happened in 2009, when an American 1,235-pound Iridium communications satellite—launched in 1997—collided with a dead 1-ton Russian satellite launched in 1993. At the time, NASA blamed the Russians.

The collision wasn't only bad for the functioning Iridium, but also to everyone else. Space is a big place, but it's full of trash. And like that accident proved, collisions happen.

We can track small pieces of debris, but space crashes generate particles that we can't monitor. The thousands of objects that may result from such an accident put other satellites, spaceships and the lives of astronauts at risk.

The other bad news is that, while nobody really knows if this is a satellite or not, all countries are assuming it has been an attempt to disguise the test of a three-stage intercontinental ballistic missile. One that can easily reach the United States or Russia. And it worked.

The only bit of good news is that the lack of precision that probably led to a spinning satellite is proof of North Koreans' ineptitude when it comes to design and control these long-range weapons. Putting an ICBM in space is not all you need to, say, drop a couple of nuclear warheads over Los Angeles. You need precision guiding systems for that, something that Kim Jong-Un's boffins don't seem to have mastered quite yet.

But then again, a nuclear warhead falling anywhere will definitely be very bad news anyway, no matter how precise it is.