Innovation - an extension from an existing idea

My nephew Yoga Nadaraajan (my elder brother's son) who is studying Form 4 (10th year of studies) in a well known St. John School in KL was featured in a local language monthly Magazine called "FOKUS SPM". (Yoga is the one on the top right).

He and his team of 3 "bubbly" guys (except Yoga) made a protoype system using "LEGO" sets and other materials. The LEGO set is an advance set which consists of motor systems, programming units, sensors, actuators and so on. It is indeed an advance automation system.

It is interesting to see the kind of effort put in by these guys. Although I don't know about the other 2 guys, but whenever I talk to my nephew Yoga, he will be always saying something about his project and his 2 friends. At a time where friendship is just found in SMS, I saw the automation project bound all the 3 and their schoolmates very closely.

The project they were engaged in was (I think) an innovation from the existing SMART tunnel in KL (refer below link). These guys incorporated the traffic problems as well as the environment protection, energy conservation and others in their project.

The article is in the local language (Bahasa Malaysia). Therefore if anyone wants further details, please contact Yoga at yogaanna@gmail.com

Creativity and Innovation are inter related, there could be many definition for innovation, one of it is; Innovation is an extension from an existing idea. The SMART could be great but these guys' SMEPP will be greater.

http://www.smarttunnel.com.my/smart/index.html

Subra

Salute to the Sun - A rise with no end

YOGA, apart from being the names of good people like my son (S.Yoga) and nephews (N.Yoga & S. Yoga), is an ancient form of exercise developed for the human body, mind and soul. One thing, if you try to analayse the concepts developed in India, you will find that, on the surface it may say everything is one but on the underlays, it will say there are many. Not to go very deep, let's just touch a little; God is one but has many forms in order to serve the many needs of all the creatures. Hope I apprehended myself from being pulled into deep soul searching arguments. Similarly, many Yoga postures were developed to serve the many needs of all creatures (actually I mean human only).


I am not going to defend Yoga or promote the benefits of Yoga, I am just going to tell you that, there are many information found in the internet and you can choose to practise on your own will.


One of the most basic (again, this is my guess) Yoga exercise is the "Surya Namaskaram" or in English it is called as "Salute to the Sun". It is a 12 position cycle. Give and take, each position will take about 5 seconds, 60 seconds (1 minute) for every cycle and 12 cycles every morning (12 - 15 minutes) will give you fantastic health and a body of your dream. Other important things are : you should perform these exercises early in the morning (sunrise - morning radiation from the sun is good) and you must also follow the breathing technique.


Anyhow, those with disc slip problem like me, are advised to get doctor's advise prior to performing Yoga...........now I got you, you cannot ask me "You talk so much, do you do Yoga?"......you see, I wanted to do Yoga but I have disc slip problem.


Anyhow please seriously consider on taking up this Yoga exercise, you will be surprised to see how you sweat when you reach 3rd, 4th cycle. You should be able to reach a complete 12 cycles after 1 week. Keep the progress slow and steady. Don't press yourself too much.

Why salute the sun? It is the one thing that will keep on rising every morning and gives us hope of a fantastic day ahead. Salute to the Sun, a rise with no end.


http://www.suryanamaskar.info/suryanamaskar.htm

Subra

To SMS or not to SMS, that is the end of English !

Last week I received a SMS from a friend called Lily.

The SMS reads as follow :-

Evry tear is sign of brokenes,
Evry silence is sign of lonelines,
Evry smile is sign of kindnes,
Evry SMS is sym of rememberance.

I almost killed myself trying to read this SMS, but consoled myself and replied with below SMS :-

Every SMS is a sign which says "Death is not far for English". To which she replied, "This normalah".

Even my daughter laughs at me when I type a SMS with complete spelling.

Lately, I am also receiving emails in SMS format. I have to figure out myself what each word means. I know good English is dying but I never thought it will be killed in this manner.

If Shakespeare lived in this world now, he would have written his famous words as "To SMS or not to SMS, that is the end of English".

Subra

916 - in the eyes of man and woman

Very interestingly Ms. Choo pointed out in her blog http://mommyscchoo.blogspot.com/2008/09/916-gold-or.html that 916 is seen as gold by women and 916 is seen as a political restructure by men.

Indeed, could 916 start the re-structuring of political fundamentals in Malaysia?

Maybe Malaysia is ready to take on the new era of understanding among the multi racial society.

All the while we have been thinking that Malaysians are still living in a strongly knit racial divisions and in general claim that we are multi racial. March 8, 2008 showed all of us that we are no believers of race based politics. We saw people from all races voting for people from all races based on their political principles. (Although I still say that people voted on the basis that they wanted to teach a lesson to the present ruling party, I tend to agree in general that we are about to leave the race base politics).

Today is 916, there is something big going on. What will be next is not a surprise. All Malaysians (almost all) know what are the possible options.

1. Snap Election
2. Mass arrest under ISA
3. Opposition party forms the new government.

Till now I am still unable to make a guess.

In a remote part pf my brain, I see that there could be a change in the leadership within the ruling party and this will make all those from the ruling party who wanted to defect to think twice before crossing over. If such thing happens then, all the 3 options will never take place.

No matter how 916 is seen in the eyes of man and woman, we sincerely hope it will churn out golden opportunity to all of us and to our country.

Subra

Should we speak....I mean can we speak?

The latest ISA arrest (3 people - 1 was released within 24hours) instills fear. Lawfully speaking, ISA is supposed to instill fear in "bad" people and create safe feeling in "good" people.

Without any doubt, the ISA has instilled fear and the safe feeling among the people. The only problem is, we do not know who are the bad people and who are the good people.

If there is a terrorist roaming around the country and pose a threat to the safety of the people and the security of the nation, then the arrest of this terrorist will create safe feeling among the people and instill fear among other terrorists.

What happened in Malaysia on the 13th September 2008, made me wonder who are feeling safe now and who are frightened now?

Freedom of speech and freedom of information are inter related. When someone wish to express himself, it is called as freedom of speech. When someone wants to know what was said, then there comes the freedom of information. The media acts as the conveyor. The claims of misinterpretations are baseless because, if it can be misinterpretated, then the information was not spoken clearly. Simple Murphy's Law - If something can go wrong, it will go wrong.......if something can be wrongly interpreted, then it will be wrongly interpreted.

Same like many others, I too think that we have freedom of speech and freedom of thoughts but.......the question is ............Should we speak....I mean can we speak? I don't even know whether we can ask?
Subra

Sin Chew reporter released
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/9/13/nation/2022372&sec=nation

The least respected colour in Malaysia

All of us travel a lot on the road everyday. We come across many traffic lights. Traffic lights are a communicating tool. The colour of the light indicates to us on what to do. Simple enough, "RED" means we should come to a complete stop before the line marker or right behind the vehicle which is before the line marker. "GREEN" you can move your vehicle to your desired direction. Sometimes you will see arrowed "RED" and "GREEN", which means the same except it only applies to the direction indicated by the arrow.

Then there is another colour called by so many names.... "AMBER", "ORANGE", "YELLOW" and so on. We name it as "YELLOW". This yellow comes after the green. It means, slow down your vehicle and get ready to stop. In some places, yellow comes after the red too. It means, get ready to move your vehicle.

Anyhow the "YELLOW" that comes out after the green has been abused terribly. Once we see the green vanishing and the yellow emerging, we press the accelerator harder that anything and we usually beat F1 drivers' over-taking speed. Even some of us have "turbo-charged" engine that cannot be stopped once we have pressed the accelerator. In aviation it is called as "V1" signal ; take-off cannot be aborted. Most of the traffic light system doesn't have the yellow coming after after the red (or before the green). Most of us will look for the yellow on the other side's traffic light. Once we see the yellow light for theother lane, we start to move our vehicle (not getting prepared to move the vehicle but move the vhicle itself).

We will come to an understanding that we will be ready to forgive the abuse of the "YELLOW" when we see how the "RED" is disrespected totally.

In today's situation in Malaysia, the "RED" light in the traffic light system means,

• Stop or
• Slow down
• Look for any policeman, if none, proceed to go
• Strictly don't bother about the road user who has the "GREEN" traffic light signal

You can see this happening at almost every traffic lights, regardless of heavy traffic or not. Motorcyclists have never been bothered about the "RED" light at the traffic lights. Nowadays, even car drivers are also following this trend. Just try to count the number of happenings when you are on road today.

The worst which I cannot digest is the one at Jalan Heng Choo Thian & Jalan Bagan Luar junction. The Butterworth Police Station is just adjacent to this junction and yet many motorist beat the "RED" and move on. It seems that none are bothered about the police station nearby.

Anyhow, I think that the police are still respected in some way but the least respected colour in Malaysia is RED light.

Subra