In My Mind

KWN

My daughter Nurul Hafizah attended the KWN workshop organized by Panasonic from 24/5/2007 until 25/5/2007. The workshop is to prepare the students for making videos for Kids Witness News (KWN) competition. The trainers were Habsah Hassan, Othman Hafsham and others from the film industry. The kids had really fun-filled 2 days of training.

I will post some of the photos later.

posted by InMine @ 11:00 AM 1 brickbats

Bloggers United and Band of Bloggers

I put up Bloggers United logo about a month ago as a sign of support for the ideas propagated by the bloggers. Now we are being introduced to anothe brand called "Band of Bloggers". The BoB is introduced as follows;

Band of Bloggers is a loose grouping within those who subscribed to the Bloggers United movement, which has agreed to carry the same story / news from slightly different angles, perspective and/or flavour, to suit the widespread spectrum of political and satirical blog audience in the infinite world of blogosphere, which has taken a new place in the lives on internet savvy Malaysians, home and abroad.


Why? We have decided to work together on the common cause that we stood for. The parallel direction is to provide the readership with some degree of uniformity on the issue, principle and context of the major story, at hand. For example, this suit by NST and the Gang of Four against renowned fellow journo-blogger, Ahiruddin Attan and Malaysian political blog pioneer,Jeff Ooi.


The spectrum of this loose movement is really interesting. At one end there is pro-Keadilan online news provider Raja Petra Kamarudin, where as at the other end, former BN backbencher Chairman and former political secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister, Dato’ Ron Ahmad. Of course there is a stream of colourful blogosphere personalities, in between.


This is gaining more attention. By fellow bloggers, the internet savvy readership and not forgetting, the authorities.

I left a message below at kickdefella;

inmine // Feb 28th 2007 at 3:17 pm

Let me try to understand this;

“Band of Bloggers is a loose grouping within those who subscribed to the Bloggers United movement, which has agreed to carry the same story / news from slightly different angles, perspective and/or flavour, to suit the widespread spectrum of political and satirical blog audience in the infinite world of blogosphere, which has taken a new place in the lives on internet savvy Malaysians, home and abroad.”

Band of Bloggers is a sub-set of Bloggers United?

To be honest, I don’t see the need to have subset of Bloggers United.

And I received the reply below;

zorro-unmasked // Feb 28th 2007 at 5:24 pm

The tag Band of Bloggers was never meant to be a sub-set or whatever. When I first began blogging in end Jan. I was thinking of the Band of Brothers. Instinctively and periodically I used it to call bloggers to rally around Rocky and Ooi. Rocky, if I remember made a comment on this. I did mention to Sheih that a poster on this would be a plus in our effort to get support for Bloggers United. I was pleasantly when RPK introduced it and then Sheih put on another one. So there is no sub-set or this one superseding that one. We, Bloggers United have one specific agenda.

in turn I again responded;

inmine // Feb 28th 2007 at 5:41 pm

I got those write up from this URL: http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/band-of-bloggers/

After I read the introduction, the first thing came to my mind was Parti Negara, Berjasa, Hamim, S46 those were the splinter parties of either UMNO or PAS.

Originally all of them subsribed to the common ideology of the bigger group but later drifted apart and ended up setting up a sub-group which ended up being a splinter group.

Bloggers United is only one month old. Build the Bloggers United image first do not go out of focus by creating another image.

p/s: I prefer to learn from history.

And another fella (the guy who created Band of Bloggers) replied;

Biggum Dogmannsteinberg // Feb 28th 2007 at 6:05 pm

“….which has agreed to carry the same story / news from slightly different angles, perspective and/or flavour, to suit the widespread spectrum of political and satirical blog audience in the infinite world of blogosphere…”.

That’s the key word!

Those within the Blogger United who translate the same story, from their own angles, at their own interpretations BECAUSE each bloggers have their own readership domain and catchment from the entire bloggosphere. They are cyber celebrities of their own right and style.

The whole purpose is to disseminate the right information, as widely as possible.

Example is the A319CJ airplane issue. MyKMU.net the first to write about it, Malaysia Today also wrote about it, then Kadir Jasin, then Sheih came with the “Soul Plane”, I wrote it as “The plane, the plane!” and later Dato’ Ron’s “Belon, belon!”. Its the same story, it has the same objective, only writtenby different bloggers from different flavours.

Blogger United got together for a common cause/s. Band of Bloggers defined the selected specific stories in uniformity and parallel direction.

No over-lapping there. No confusion there.

No need to be suspiscoius of the Band of Bloggers…..

And finally I sarcastically replied;

inmine // Feb 28th 2007 at 9:31 pm

Biggum;

After reading your explanation, now I understand.

Just to use analogy, it is not enough to be known simply as Malaysian. We need to classify further as Malay flavor, Chinese flavor, Indian flavor and Others flavor.

The same with Bloggers United. It is not enough just to be identified as Bloggers United but need also to be identified which Band of Bloggers. Band to the left or Band to the right.

“At one end there is pro-Keadilan online news provider Raja Petra Kamarudin, where as at the other end, former BN backbencher Chairman and former political secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister, Dato’ Ron Ahmad.”

So from these exchanges I still do not see the need for Band of Blogger. It serves no purpose except to muddle the focus of bloggers. To undermine the bloggers' fight. Maybe it is not done intentionally but that is effect of this Band of Bloggers.

I concluded as follows;

1. It is not a good move to introduce another brand when the original brand is still new. BoB basically take away the focus on Bloggers United.
2. We, Malaysians will always go back to the tried and proven collaboration formula propagated by BN where instead of integration of ideas and ideologies, we just tolerated different ideas.
3. Bloggers and more specifically, Bloggers United does not have a concrete strategy on how to make itself a credible entity.

So I do not subscribed to Band of Bloggers and If I were to be the driving force behind Bloggers United, I would follow this development very, very, very closely.

posted by InMine @ 3:12 PM 0 brickbats

Open Sesame...

You Are 78% Open

You're a pretty open person - and you don't mind sharing the good, bad, and sometimes ugly. And while sometimes you do catch yourself blabbing on, you usually exhibit restraint. You're openness is quite refreshing, and it encourages other people to be open with you!

posted by InMine @ 10:47 AM 0 brickbats

Miami

Never lived in other cities except Miami - for six years in 1984-1990

American Cities That Best Fit You::

70% Austin

65% Miami

60% Seattle

55% Honolulu

50% Denver

posted by InMine @ 10:45 AM 0 brickbats

INTP

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTP)

Your personality type is goofy, imaginative, relaxed, and brilliant. Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 6% of all men You are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

posted by InMine @ 10:38 AM 0 brickbats

Not That Weird After All

I was classified as a wierdo in school but ....

You Are 30% Weird

Not enough to scare other people... But sometimes you scare yourself.

posted by InMine @ 10:32 AM 0 brickbats

Nerd? No, not Me

I am not that nerdy after all....

You Are 36% Nerdy

You're a little nerdy, but no one would ever call you a nerd.You sometimes get into nerdy things, but only after they've become a part of mainstream culture.

posted by InMine @ 10:27 AM 0 brickbats

EID MUBARAK

SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDIL FITRI kepada semua kaum muslimin daripada kami (Eid Mubarak to all muslims from all of us).

The photo of my kids and their grandma was taken during our visit to my sister's house in Bangi.

The guy with the skull cap must be me then?

This is the photo of my youngest brother, my mother and my only sister (same-mother-same-father that is) together with my mother and my two youngest daughters.

My other brother (also from same father and same mother stock) is celebrating hari raya in Kelantan.

(Note: I have 13 brothers and sisters all together, the eldest is 62 years old. 4 had passed away)

posted by InMine @ 3:44 PM 2 brickbats

NCAA Football Is Here Again

University of Miami started its 2007 campaign on a low note by losing to Florida State University 14-10 on September 4.

This year I am not going to post as many as last season. But I still post a few scores.

posted by InMine @ 9:52 AM 0 brickbats

At Last - Completed

I am pretty quiet lately.

At last, I have completed my PhD proposal and submitted for evaluation before going for Comprehensive Examination.

IIUM's PhD in Engineering program is a bit wierd, before students can proceed for proposal defence (i.e., comprehensive examination), we need to discuss 5 topics with 5 different potential PhD supervisors - eventhough we already have our main topic to do research on. So, if we want to do a proper job, we need to at least do some research (i.e., literature review) for each five topics. I did that and took me some time to complete.

If approved, I will be sitting for my Comprehensive Exam by end of September 2006 and if go through I will start my research immediately after that. In order to get some sponsorship for my research, I need to complete my TechnoFund application by September 12, 2006.

My area of research? Well, it has to do with Real Time Object Detection, Object Tracking and Activity Recognition in Video Image Sequence. The application can be in surveillance system such as at airports, can be in automatic film censorship and rating system, and many other areas such as in medical and Military. My interest is more in Military applications.

posted by InMine @ 9:20 AM 1 brickbats

Kakak's Golf Tournament

Kakak (pic: most right) competed in the MSSK (Majlis Sukan Sekolah-sekolah Kelantan) Golf Tournament on 28-29 March 2006 and got Third Placing. She did not get to represent Kelantan (MSSM Golf competition will be held in Melaka) due to her score (eventhough qualify to represent Kelantan, but it is better for her to wait next year - even if selected she would have to miss it due to her prior commitment to represent her school in Public Speaking Competition which to be held almost at the same time in Pahang).

The competition was her first time and for the first round she did very bad due to unfamiliarity with the course and also new golf clubs used (also it was the first time where she had to cart her own golf bag and no caddie). For the second round, I decided to be her caddie. She did well for the second round but her tee-off let her down.

Top two players were already represented Kelantan last year and both of them will again be playing for the state. The winner Siti Salbiah (pic: most left) is a very good player even my own golf buddies could lose to her ;-)

What was in the bag?
Driver: Callaway Steelhead 11 degree
Fairway Woods: Callaway Great Big Bertha II #3 & #5
Irons: Mizuno Mira #4 - PW, SW
Putter: Odyssey White Steel 2-Ball Blade

After the competition I took Kakak back to KL and decided to have an hour lesson with Coach Tony.

I also got her a new driver. What is in her bag currently: Let see....

Driver: Callaway X460 11 degree with Fujikura shaft
Fairway Woods: Callaway Great Big Bertha II #3 with Grafalloy Prolaunch 45 shaft & #5 with GBB gems shaft
Irons: Callaway Steelhead X-14 #3-PW, SW all with Grafalloy Attacklite shaft
Putter: Odyssey White Steel 2-Ball Blade

posted by InMine @ 9:19 PM 1 brickbats

Swing Analysis

Kakak went for a one-hour golf lesson with Tony on Sunday 12/3/2006. Tony was pleseantly surprised with Kakak's swing mechanics even though Kakak stopped going for lesson for the last two years.

Tony asked Kakak to hit a few balls so that he can video tape the swing and load the video into the computer for analysis (to compare her swing with Tiger Woods and Ernie Els). Photo below showed Kakak and Tony during the swing analysis.

The photo below showed the swing sequence with some marking made by Tony to point out some areas which need improvement.

The first frame (top) showed Kakak's arms were close together and this need to be improve. The first frame of the second row showed her "casting" problem where the arm is not corked enough which result in early release.

In the next swing sequence, Kakak was taped from the side.

In this sequence Kakak was shown to have problems in gripping the club (second frame top - her finger was shown to be dangling) and the hip was not pependicular to the target line (second frame bottom) which indicated she did not rotate properly during impact.

posted by InMine @ 8:38 PM 1 brickbats

Play Golf

I played 27 holes of golf last Friday.

In the morning, I played 9 holes of golf with Kakak. We paid for 18-hole but since Kakak's game was not up to my expectation, we decided to stop half-way.

After Friday prayer, I played 18-hole of golf at Monterez with my group of high school friends kopo, aeyol, and juki. My game was bad except for the last few holes.

posted by InMine @ 8:32 PM 0 brickbats