There I said it. If you watched it last night then do drop a note and tell me what you thought. Will update with youtube links once they are up.

Briefly, LGE opened with a flurry of accusations, touching on 5-6 “land scandals”. As the night went on though they focused on one particular scandal, the “40 million loss” related to the awarding of land to a private quarry contractor.

Koh managed to defend himself very well imo. His points were:

- The root cause of the confusion was a slipup made in the land dept 40 years ago.

- He had not met with the government privately to discuss the issue as they were constantly “going public” with new claims of “land scams”

- The “40 million” figure was merely the court amount. The contractor is apparently willing to settle for 1.5 mil.

- He had not fired the individual involved, as he had ordered investigations not once but twice against him but there was no concrete proof that  there was criminal intent involved. The new government had not fired the official either.

- He had not gone public as the case was in court and he would be committing subjudice.

LGE made glaring errors in the debate:

- During the cross, Koh pointed out that the contractor was willing to settle for 1.5 mil; presumably the new Govt knew this as well. He asked why the 40 mil figure was constantly bandied about when the case was still being contested in court. LGE didn’t answer the question but did some pandering instead.

- Koh pointed out that the new govt had earlier accused of having come into an empty office with the state documents missing, but in fact while the office of the CM itself was free of documents, they could all - “thousands and thousands of them” - be easily found in the private archives on the same floor. LGE didn’t respond directly to this.

LGE did a lot of pandering to the crowd, which I thought was a waste of time. It made him look as if he were running for reelection. The constant tirades against the old govt instead of focusing on the topic at hand made Koh’s points seem more valid.

Koh on the other hand only focused on the 40 mil issue. Although he handily rebutted LGE’s accusations on that issue and definitely came out looking good, I would have liked to hear about PGCC.

For my part, the debate did a lot to convince me that the current govt is going down the wrong path in constantly going after the old administration. I remember after Koh’s gentlemanly concession in March, they were initially planning to consult him on governing the state. Gerakan was once an opposition party, and recent events hint that some within the party are dissatisfied with BN. I’d try to build bridges, not burn them.

[update]Lim Guan Eng also made an extremely bold statement during the debate: that his government would eradicate hardcore poverty in Penang within one year. That’ll definitely come back to bite him if he doesn’t deliver.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Lim vs Koh, tonight 9pm TV9 ( repeat at 12.30 am). Don’t miss it!

Popularity: 8% [?]

Well now seriously. When Khalid Ibrahim made his suggestion for 10% of UiTM placements to be opened up to non-bumis, who did you think he was looking out for? The non-bumis? When was the last time you heard Chinese or Indian students clamouring for UiTM allocations? A degree from UiTM is probably worth less than a good private diploma (outside the govt sector that is).

Yes it’s true that the majority of (private) university and college students are non-bumi - but the solution isn’t to cloister yourselves up in a bumi-exclusvive institution. Degrees are only worth as much as the university behind it: from the university’s own site, half of its “international achievements” come from those dubious Geneva exhibitions we heard about last year.

As Education Malaysia points out, it’s pretty hard to see how UiTM is justified as a university, aside from its name, when it’s non-selective and mono-ethnic. “Charity school funded by taxpayers” is a more apt description, or perhaps “Umnoputera factory”.

The political response is also telling:
- The Higher Education Minister Khaled Nordin reads the suggestion as an “insult to Malays”.
- UiTM vice-chancellor Ibrahim Abu Shah called Khalid a “traitor to his race” (Education Malaysia dug up an interesting profile on him as well ).
- “Prime Minister for all Malaysians” Abdullah Badawi vetoed it saying Khalid had “no power” to implement such a thing.
- Toothless MCA and Gerakan pay lip service to Khalid’s suggestion (or maybe not?)
- Malaysian Muslim Consumer’s Association director Noor Nirwandy Mat Noordin had the most insiduous comment of all:

“If something like this is allowed to happen, then there will be a worrying situation where many Malay institutions will crumble and be ‘Malaysia-nised‘.

It’s exactly 2 weeks before Merdeka Day. I find it hard to celebrate.

Popularity: 16% [?]

(This is an entry for this).

First thing I did with my first few months of salary was to finally buy myself a gaming PC so you’d probably know, I love games :). And not your average junkie too: I really love them, have played many many games, and find it puzzling why people can spend Ks on a gaming rig, or a car, or handphones, but find the concept of actually buying an original game - prices have dropped a little because of the weak dollar - completely alien.

That’s a discussion for another day though, since I’m writing this to share my favourite game of all time. You’d think it’d be a recent whizzbang shooter like Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, or maybe Half Life 2 - all fantastic games in their own right. After all graphics have improved to such realistic levels titles even a few years back can sometimes look positively outdated.

But yet I feel the best game of all time is Baldur’s Gate 2 (and its expansion Throne of Bhaal ), released a full 8 years ago in 2000 by the now-defunct Black Isle studios.

Granted I’ve always leaned towards RPGs rather than FPS. The former tends to be more story-centric and involving, rather than a twitchfest - although the lines are beginning to blur nowadays. But I think BG2 was one of the few games to have a perfect combination of action, gameplay, story, setting, and even decent multiplayer.

The freedoms given in the game, set in the Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms setting, still puts many later wannabes to shame. After an intriguing introduction where you fight your way out of a dungeon and watch as a childhood friend is kidnapped, you are free to explore Amn and its surroundings as you please, though the game reminds you about your main quest every now and then. And no mere Fed-ex side quests these; the game throws at you pirates, vampires, werewolves, djinni, liches, and even dragons! Indeed, it’s been observed that the second chapter of BG2 is practically as fleshed out as the entirety of some other games.

And when you finish with that, you find out that it’s just the beginning as you travel over the seas and into the Underdark.What completely separated BG2 from other games though was its gameplay - due mostly in part to its Infinity Engine. I still haven’t seen an engine, 3D or otherwise, that has been as able to capture epic, spellslinging battles as Baldur’s Gate did. And these battles were hard too, even on your second or third time through, which gave you all the more satisfaction as you finally downed that dragon or mind flayer.

It was also one of the few games - then and since - which had interesting companions, all of whom would change your party’s playstyle, and how you experienced the game. All had their own storylines and subquests and there were more enough combinations for multiple playthroughs.

In 2001 came the expansion Throne of Bhaal, and it brought the game to dizzying heights of epicness - up to that point most studios had never done a DnD game with characters levelled so high. And somehow it all still worked, timestops, comets, devas, fire giants and all, and it still captured the adventuring spirit of the series.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve played through BG2 (4? 5?) and I find that as I write this I’m tempted to pick it up and try a new character and party build :P. I’m not alone either: there’s still a thriving mod community centered around the game. If you like RPGs and have never played this, you aren’t a true RPG fan :).

That’s it for my favourite game of all time!

Popularity: 17% [?]

…getting a girlfriend/boyfriend - it seems as though all the good ones are either taken or don’t play in your field (if you know what I mean).

Seriously though I didn’t think it could be this difficult. Could it be the quality of our universities?

The first question I always ask in an interview is “Explain to me what a Unix timestamp is” and I have yet to have a local - some headhunted, some from Jobstreet - are unable to answer this question.

I get the “Oh I don’t know the answer but I would just look it up” waffle a lot - there was even one guy who was Googling during his phone interview - but there are some questions you can’t just shrug off. I don’t claim to be a programming guru, but the Unix timestamp is the base of every time-related function in PHP, MySQL and Linux; if you are a “Web developer” who doesn’t know what it is, you have either never used a single date-related function or you have been cut and pasting code without knowing what it does - I’m not sure which is worse. And if you marked “Advanced” for MySQL or PHP; or “3 years of experience” then there’s not much to say.

/rant

Popularity: 25% [?]