Beetlehouse

I was away for a training the whole last week to Kuala Terengganu, 50 minutes by air North of KL. At a beach resort, away from routine work. Peaceful. Refreshing.

Almost right.

The place was Gem Beach Resort. About 40 minutes outside Kuala Teregganu. Quite a decent place, actually -- with only gym, telephone line, entertainment and water pressure, among few other things, missing.

No complaint about gym - haven't been to one for some time now, despite I'm now totally out of shape. *sigh*

Telephone line was probably more of a bad luck. The line was struck by lightning some nights before I arrived. But again, landline isn't a necessity anymore these days, is it?

Entertainment, in the evening that is, posed a bigger problem. When the training ends at 5:30 and sun sets at 7, there are at least 4 more hours to kill. Four channels in a 9" TV certainly doesn't help. No LAN in the room and no phone line (now I miss the phone line) provide no option.

There's also nothing in the surrounding area, other than by-the-street shops selling kerupuk lekor - oily, fishy kind of crackers, and a couple of kedai runcit - a bigger size version of warung in Indonesia.

No one even sells playing cards. I suspect cards are banned in Terengganu.

But that's not exactly true, because they actually prepared an entertainment for our group -- traditional Terengganu performance! Well, not exactly what was expected... Even the trainer, whom I suspect the dance was prepared for, had to be picked up from his room... But hey, anything to kill the time, right? Next time I'll be more specific about what I wish for.

Equally interesting, or sad, was the water shower with terribly low pressure. This, combines with the extra-sensitive water temperature knob, presents a dangerous shower activity. You have to stand so close to the wall so that you keep touching the knob and you instantly get hot water. Ouch!

No fun.

On the other hand, there are other "extras" that wiped "peaceful" and "refreshing" away from this stay: bugs.

Yes, bugs, thousands of them. I didn't take any pictures, but they look like ones in the picture, only a bit smaller.


These creatures would crawl into the rooms. A colleague even claimed to have bugs on his bed! Yikes!

The hotel said the bug attack was unusual and unanticipated. Yeah...

Quite an experience was when I got a call at 2:45 AM in the first night. It was a colleague, male, asking if he could sleep in my room because he got bugs in his room. Fortunately, I've got bugs as well...

It would've been dangerous if the colleague was female. But male colleague? It was scary...

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No pok!

Omigosh, this video made my day. Got it from Treespotter...

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On being a loser

"I just think she made a lot of lucky shots and I made a lot of errors."
- Serena Williams at the US Open news conference after her quarter-final defeat.

Lucky shots? Come on, Serena... You don't win the U.S. Open, and six other grand slam titles, with a lot of lucky shots.

If, however, she really thought that way, she probably didn't have to say it. And further, don't say this either: "I really don't feel like talking about it. It's like I don't want to get fined. That's the only reason I came. I can't afford to pay the fines because I keep losing."

Just don't come to the press conference and pay the fine.

In fact, while Henin made just a little fewer unforced errors, she had more double faults than Williams. That, if the total of unforced errors and double faults are compared, Serena had only one more than Justine.

They made the same number of aces - four.

The difference? Number of winners* (this must be the lucky shots Serena referred to). Justine had almost twice the winners that Serena had (30 vs. 17).

But isn't this Tennis about -- making more winners than the opponent?

In each of the matches from the quarter finals into the final, the match winners always had more winners than their opponents did. But not necessarily fewer unforced errors. In the match between Venus Williams and Jelena Jankovic, for example, Venus had 60 winners (vs. 17 of Jelena) and 56 unforced erorrs (vs. 24 of Jelena).

So Serena, please learn to become a better loser. Specially since you keep losing, as you said.

* Winner – (rally) a forcing shot that can not be reached by the opponent and wins the point; (service) a forcing serve that is reached by the opponent, but is not returned properly, and wins the point

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Getting up early is not healthy?

I've learned what enough sleep is -- around 7 hours a day. And also that sleeping less seems to be better than sleeping more.

I also learned that taking a midday nap helps live longer - based on a study that concludes that drop in deaths ties to a little nap after lunch, specially lowering the incidence of heart attack and other life-ending heart ailments. Well, at least it's true in Greece.

But what is the best time to get up?

"Rising early to go to work or exercise might not be beneficial to health, but rather a risk for vascular diseases," said an abstract of a recent study. It also noted, however, that early risers were usually older.

So get up early put more risk of vascular disease, and at the same time makes us live longer, statistically? Agh...

The question is, what is early and what is late. Is 8 AM early or late? What about 9 PM, or 7 PM, or 6 PM? What about getting up early but not for work or exercise?

Let's say 7 PM is not early, and 7 hours is the best quantity of sleep. Does it mean 12 AM is the best way to go to bed?

If getting up early is not good, is waking up late (or later) more healthier? I don't think so. But if this is true, sleeping at 4 AM and wake up at 11 AM is better than sleeping at 11 PM and wake up at 6 AM. Unlikely...

Unfortunately, the world today doesn't really allow us, well - most of us, to get up not early. To get to work by 9 AM most likely means to wake up by or, very likely, before 7 AM; unless we work night shift or extremely flexible hours. More alarming is students or school hours.

Anyway, we probably should expect the next study to figure out whether getting up later is better for health.

But remember, to stay healthy we need to wake up not early, sleep for around seven hours (or less rather than more), and take a midday nap. Thinking about capable of doing so will make us a bit healthier already...

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Just add water...

This is from a couple months ago. Some Dutch students have developed powdered alcohol, which was part of their final-year school project.

What a surprise, eh.

They plan to price the powder, called Booz2Go, quite aggressively. It is said that a packet would cost $1.35 to $2. Assuming each packet can make a 24 oz. (~720 ml) drink, its equivalent alcopops, Smirnoff Ice for example, also cost about the same - around $2.20. If, however, a packet can only make 12 oz. drink, popular alcopops would be relatively cheaper at $7.99 for six-pack.

Since Booz2Go is likely to be exempted from tax, this looks like a quite profitable business.

So it's clear that Booz2Go has a niche market that will pay the premium. Like those who can't buy alcoholic drinks.

Like kids under the legal age of drinking.

"Because the alcohol is not in liquid form, we can sell it to people below 16," said project member Martyn van Nierop.

Poor youngsters - early exposure to alcohol.

Anyway, assuming this product will take off, what else can we expect the demand to increase? The complement goods - water. Or perhaps soon grape and orange juice...

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How I chose which b-school

It's time of the year where I usually get a few emails and questions about MBA schools, especially about getting into one.

The most basic question is perhaps why get an MBA? A question that, thinking back, I probably didn't really have the answer until I graduated. I can probably share why and why not get an MBA now, but not exactly back then.

Also popular, is the question of why you chose this or that school. One that I know the answer is my thought process getting into that decision: How many schools to apply > Which schools to apply > Which one is the school.

Disclaimer: these are all personal experience - by no means the right and only way to making the choice.

How many schools to apply.

My goal at that time was clear: get into a top b-school. So I had 15-20 schools to play with. But how many to apply?

This is probably a question of expected outcome/value. All the stats are available out there, specifically (1) acceptance rate, (2) application fee, and (3) current students' background (e.g. GMAT, work experience, industry background). What's also important is the expected time to complete a good application for admission, and how much time is available to work on it. I also thought about my own learning curve, i.e. which nth school would I expect my application to be competitive. This includes interviews.

Collecting all the information, let's say I concluded that my average chance of admission was 25%, I had slightly less appealing background, the average application fee was $100, and it took three weeks to prepare a good application materials for each school. I also estimated that I would need the first two applications to learn the whole nine yards about MBA application.

Based on all these, I decided to apply to eight schools (I was willing to let go the first two, expecting I would get at least one from the remaining six), committing $800 for applications and half a year to prepare and go through the application process.

Which schools to apply.

This is where I put more personal details and criteria into the stats, such as school-specific chance of admission, concentration/strength, student background, location (weather, big/small city), and probably some other things. I crossed schools out based on this. I also decided that I would apply to two top 5, four from those ranked 6th to 15th, and two from 16th to 20th.

At this stage, some of my considerations were post-MBA career (I wanted to go back to Asia), family (adapting to a new place, moving in/out, family/spouse activities at the school), and the learning process (competitiveness among students, case/lecture type).

For example, I crossed out Columbia because it's in New York City, Stanford because I just didn't think I would get in, Dartmouth because it's located way too North.

Which one is the school.

There were many things happened getting to this stage. School visits, meeting with Admissions Committee and students, attending informational session, sitting in a class, and interviews. It helped make the whole picture clearer.

Seeing is believing. I saw how technology-advanced was one school compared to the others, how the canteen looked like, where to park, the classroom, the library, and school vicinity. I got the feeling how safety the school and the area surrounding it was. I got some ideas how serious and formal, or how easy going and informal, the students and professors were.

I visited five schools, attended four informational session in Detroit, and interviewed with seven out of the eight schools I applied. Some really got me excited, some others left me with a bit of goosebumps.

As expected, although hard to take, the first two results were a ding and a waitlist. A couple of admits and dings, and another waitlist followed. At the end, I got three admits, two waitlists, and three dings. Better than the previously calculated chance.

Again, the school visits helped. I easily got down to only two admits and one waitlist based on the visits, and further decided not to pursue the waitlist, despite the school was ranked higher than the other two.

At the end, I opted for Duke.

Not in order of importance, the final considerations were ranking, culture and students, program curriculum, family-friendliness, and location.

What others may also consider.

While I had my priorities, so did others. They may include things like specialization or specific courses, specific industry strength, financial assistance, time commitment (e.g. 1 year- or 2 year- program), school reputation/name, and perhaps some more.

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On hawk-eye and challenge system

When Hawk-Eye technology entered tennis, it was amazingly cool. At that time only TV stations used the technology in their broadcast. We could precisely see how close a ball was in or out. Whether the linesmen or the referee made a good call or not.

But when the rule was modified to allow players to challenge the call, tennis has become different.

Recently, hawk-eye technology was introduced in Wimbledon to allow for player's challenge - meaning only French Open has not introduced the challenge system out of the four grand slams.

At the final, though, I felt that the challenge rule did not entirely work.

A couple of challenges from Nadal really let Federer down (okay, I'm a Federer fan). In one play, the ball was totally out if observed with naked eyes. There was no way that particular ball would be called in. However, the hawk-eye reply showed, or concluded, that the ball was "in". It barely touched the line - if fact, most people probably couldn't see that the ball touched the line from the reply. Perhaps only millimeters in.

"How in the world was that ball in?" said Federer.

I've seen other sports using the challenge system. (American) football is one that I'm quite familiar, and I totally agree with its challenge system. Why, because the calls usually do not interfere with the play. The challenges could be whether a ball has crossed the line, fouls, or other things. But, again, usually they don't interfere with the play.

In tennis, however, these calls can pretty much interfere with the play. A player's judgment or decision to hit a ball depends on the linesman's call. A player may decide not to return the ball when she hears a foul call from the linesman. So when the the opponent challenges the call and hawk-eye shows that the ball is in, it's unfair to the first player if the opponent gets a point. At the least, the serve should be replayed.

However, it's different if it is the receiving player who makes the challenge. She may feel that the ball is out, although it's not called. It is her decision not to hit the ball.

In other words, it's only fair to use Hawk-Eye technology to challenge an "in" ball out. Or better yet, use the technology for all calls, and forget about the challenge system.

For this reason - not interfering the play, football (soccer) should adopt the same system. Scope of the challenge must be defined correctly and fairly. One thing for sure, it must help the officials to determine whether a ball has crossed the goal line.

Latest incident, last week, was David Healy's "goal" against Middlesbrough. A clear one, but missed but the officials.

Not that I'm a Fulham fan, but I had David Healy in my fantasy team. That was seven points missing from Healy...

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Holy cow!

This term is not considered to be very popular among teenagers, and most teens claim it is definitely not a very popular phrase. (wikipedia)

Whatever.

But seriously, holy cow! I didn't write (and read) any blogs for the past four weeks. I guess I'm neither a blogoholic nor a blogophile. The truth is, a lot happened and I just naturally decided not to get close to any blog-related activities. It kinda felt good, though :)

Business planning
This was the root cause, definitely. Somehow Asia Pacific region does their business plan just at the start of the 2nd half. Ridiculously way too early. No wonder it has never been accurate. But you know Asians, they like to put a bit too much in their pockets. Anyway, I probably spent too much time given the craps our business partners put in. At the end, though, it seemed to be a big win for Malaysia.

Single life
This has also become a once-a-year routine, during the kids' school holiday in July-August. This year's highlight was sweeping the floor. Having not done it for so long, I found it very difficult to clean just an apartment unit. The area I just swept instantly got dirty again! I felt like Tom, with Jerry kept teasing me... I could've thought about checking the sweeping technique.

24
Finished season 5 and season 6. I feel like I know Jack Bauer inside out.

Negaraku rap
I'm pretty sure tons of blogs out there talked about this short clip by a Malaysian student in Taiwan. I wonder how most Indonesians will react if this was done to Indonesia Raya...

When everybody knows your name
I didn't do much cooking during this period. Two places I visited frequently for the take-away food were Burger King and SOULed OUT - their pizzas are good! Towards the third and fourth visits, the servers and I were like buddies. Well, I doubt they really know my name, but it has reached a different 'level' in my limited social life. To me SOULed OUT is now among places like Prambors Cafe (used to be in Blok M), Champions Cafe (was in Kemang), and O'Hara (this is where RIF used to play) in Bandung. The first two are now history, physically. Not sure about O'Hara...

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows your name.
(Cheers)

Business, not results
Spent an evening with a colleague from Thailand and we agreed that the reason we exist in a corporate is to deliver business, not only results...

Fantasy football and Premiere League
New season has started at Yahoo!Fantasy Sports.

IKEA ads
Tidy up! Some hilarious commercials from IKEA.



Gwen Stefani
Gwen Stefani stopped by in KL, the last city in her Sweet Escape Asian tour, despite protests from student groups in Malaysia, claiming that "the concert would clash with local values". What a great performance from Gwen, and totally different audience (much better than the ones at MLTR's concert)! Most importantly, I feel much, much younger... :)

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The science and business of bra

This is probably one of scientists' wild dreams: mathematical equation to determine new bra-sizing system.

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk

But now researchers in Hong Kong have come up with a different mathematical equation which they say will produce shapelier outlines and greater comfort for Chinese women. If successful, their bra-sizing system could be adopted across the globe.

Further in the article, a report points out that as many as 70 per cent of women in Britain are wearing the wrong-sized bra as a result of inappropriate categorization of breast size for bras (in the current system - A cup (youthful); B cup (average); C cup (large); and D cup (heavy)). The bra sizes, the researchers say, should be based on a new depth/width ratio (DWR).

The new system is based on 3D geometry, with more than 100 key measurements. It follows 3D scanning of 456 Chinese women. There's a catch, though, in following measurements of Chinese women, because another article also reports that Chinese women need bigger bras due to improved nutritions.

Should we expect a 'boom' in bra business with this perfect-fit type of bra?

In China itself, it is said that underwear market is set to grow 20% a year over 10 years. A report mentions that bras accounted for 56% of the total value of the lingerie market in 2005.

Another brief writes: "28% of respondents said they choose a bra solely on cost, while another 38% said they aggressively seek out deals. Brands that consumers crossed their hearts and said they were most true to included Playtex for fit/comfort, Bestform for pricing and Victoria's Secret for style."

So how true is it?

Take Limited Brands, Inc., the parent company of Victoria Secret. It's share price today is 68% higher than it was exactly five years ago. Total return in five years is a bit lower than that of S&P 500, but not that bad.


You never know how the shareholders meeting is like... perhaps the models of Victoria Secret's will be there... hmm...

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Superlative, record-breaking country

It all started when I teased my colleague about the trashing of Malaysia football team by China and Uzbekistan at the AFC Asian Cup. He started to complain that football here is too political, about being the best only at drinking teh tarik and watching TV, yada yada yada...

Then I realized that here people are, as they seem to me, so into record-breaking. There's barely a day without a record being broken - I'm exaggerating, but it surely feels that way.

Like the Petronas twin towers, which are now the tallest "twin towers" after they were surpassed by Taipei 101 as the tallest building. Hmm, right. If another twin towers come around, they will become the tallest with bridge between the building. And so on...

Don't get me wrong. I admire the twin towers. They're awesome and breathtaking structures. It's the claim that makes it funny.

There's also this Malaysia Book of Records, a book that "recognizes recordholders, recordbreakers and recordcreators in the country". The outstanding achievements include:
- The Highest Can Stacking Event with the record of 26 cans stacked in 10 minutes
- First Malaysian to sail solo around the world. Started from Pulau Langkawi on February 2, 1999
- The Biggest Dinner Gathering on July 16, 2001 at Dataran Ayer Keroh, Melaka. 25,000 people attended, launched by Prime Minister
- The World Longest Coin Line created by 524 volunteers from WWF Malaysia and Dumex Sdn Bhd. Using 2,367,234 pieces of 20 cents to construct the 55.63 km line
- The Longest Malaysian Flag Displayed on the Great Wall of China, by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia students on October 1, 2000
- The Most Number of Trees Planted in One Minute, 110,461 trees planted, involved 152 locations around Peninsular Malaysia on October 15, 2000
- The Biggest 'Teh Tarik' Event with a total of 314 participants. Organised by F&N Dairies Group, held at Central Market on August 27, 2000
- The First Malaysians to Walk the Last Degree to the North Pole. Began on April 12, reached at 7.27am on April 19, 1999

No doubt some these achievements are impressive. Some others are just ridiculous.

Most faces captured on a phonecam... the longest buffet line on the beach... the world's biggest lemang...

(Longest waiting time for banking service could be the next world record...)

Maybe this whole record-breaking is the right thing to do (we can argue that it can help improve confidence of the people, we can argue this will keep most people too busy to think about politics, or any other speculations). Perhaps it helps to get the world know the country.

One has to do what one has to do, right? Boleh lah...

Other articles about Malaysia and record-breaking:
The World Record-Breaking Capital
Malaysia's Record-Breaking Obsession

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