Results tagged “internet” from Volume of Interactions

It's getting really frustrating, even for me. I'm the sort of guy that tries to see the best intentions in everyone, the silver lining in every cloud. When Tun M went ballistic with his "meritocracy is racist" blurb, i took his side. When Israel killed those 9 Turks aboard the peace flotilla, i considered theirs an act of self-defence. 

• Hassan Skodeng is facing jail time for satire. God, if comedy is a sin, then my drama must be an outrageous sin. The whole charge is so ridiculous, i would scream my head off in hilarious laughter if it wasn't deadly serious.
• Namewee is scared, the threat of punishment is very real for him. All because of something innocuous he put up on YouTube? You hear more racially charged statements during UMNO Youth gatherings.
• Let's not forget that RPK will probably not be allowed back into the country as long as BN rules.
• The Government making all sorts of grumbling noises about "sensitive" content on the Web. What does "sensitive" even mean? Some people are "sensitive" to just about everything. If we were to pander to the lowest common denominator, everyone should just shut up -- it would be a world where no one could say anything in fear of "hurting someone's feelings". 

This article by Wired is destined to be an all-time classic. A milestone of reality, when we realized that what the Internet means to us as human beings has irrevocably changed.

You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad -- that's one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, and The New York Times -- three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix's streaming service.

You've spent the day on the Internet -- but not on the Web. And you are not alone.

Just downloaded Google Chrome. IE7 is such a dinosaur.

I'm beginning to like this fellow. Brave chap.

Information Minister, Datuk Shabery Cheek, announced that 30-min LIVE shows of Parliamentary proceedings will be broadcast on RTM1 (a reason to actually tune in to this channel again!).

On feedback from MPs over the live telecast, he said many welcomed the move, saying that it was a new era for the democratic parliamentary system and the media.

"This is the real reform mentioned by the Prime Minister. Although it is a small step, we hope the people can start accepting it."

He said although some people were still asking for a live telecast for the full one-hour question time, the cost was too high.

The only problem is that the Information Minister is still thinking in 2-D, when talking about this problem. TV broadcast costs are high, but internet broadcasting costs are not. Why not make full use of web 2.0 technologies to make the impossible, possible?

IDEA: Create a website, a Youtube-clone, if you like. Upload, full, unedited, uncensored footage of each day's Parliamentary Q&A sessions. People can visit the website whenever they want to view the videos, and browse the Archives of past sessions. Extremely low-cost (relatively speaking), extremely convenient (for 9-5 office workers who cant watch RTM during the day), and extremely documentary (archives of previous sessions are worth their weight in gold).

BONUS IDEA: Build a community around the videos. Allow for, unedited, uncensored comments and discussion on each video. Build a forums around the website to allow ppl to debate, discuss and analyze the videos. You want democracy? Freedom of speech is the way to go.

PROTIP IDEA: Get political analysts to be gratis contributors to the website, let them make the analysis of the videos, so that people (the common, lay Malaysian), can understand in plain English (or BM) what it means to the rakyat. In short: get the analysts to blog about the videos. You want an educated society? Help them understand what is going on.

Such a website should cost about less than RM50,000 to setup, and perhaps another RM200-300k a year to maintain (mostly bandwidth costs?). Less than the (probable) cost of a single 30-min LIVE episode on RTM1.

Shabery, you wanted to be forward thinking and progressive and practice the "principles of democracy"? I've just handed the idea to you on a platter.

I'll be forwarding this idea to the esteemed Minister. Lets see if he reads his emails.

A lot has been said about the GE2008. Petaling Street was been afire with incoming pings over the last couple of weeks. One thing i noticed has been how, almost universally, bloggers are writing in support of the DAP, PAS, PKR, and very much anti-establishment.

You just have to wonder on the possibilities:

1. Do bloggers represent the sentiments of Malaysia's internet users? Or are they just the most vocal component?

2. What sort of influence do bloggers have on voters during polling day?

The answer to the first question is impossible to determine without a wide-ranging survey.

The answer to the second is, probably, quite considerable.

Is it a surprise that the states that BN lost also happen to be the most advanced, tech-wise, in the country? Its reasonable to assume that the 5 states which contribute 60% of the nation's GDP will also have the largest user base of Internet users in the country.

The Internet is nothing more than a giant repository of information. And, information, or rather, in this case, the access to information changes the way people think, influences them to make informed decisions.

The availability of anti-establishment information on the Internet (whether true or not, is another matter altogether) will have most definitely influenced the results on polling day. Malaysiakini, Malaysia Today, the influential and charismatic, Jeff Ooi -- are just a handful of examples of internet resources that are unbound by the traditional pressures faced by traditional, establishment-aligned media (read: newspapers, radio and TV).

The question, really, is not whether the Internet played a role in the "defeat" of BN this past election, the question should be, what was the quantum of influence? 2%? 5%? 10%? 15%? of the votes?

Only way of knowing with any degree of accuracy is a proper exit poll study, something i think that is either not done in Malaysia, or its results are simply not published (i think its the former, to be honest).