A Tribute: Why King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand is the Best King Ever

King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand passed away peacefully at Siriraj Hospital on 13th October 2016. His Majesty was 88.

At first glance, one may be skeptical towards the the late King Bhumibol of Thailand.

Lang Tengah Turtle Watch (LTTW) Volunteer Program 2016

I've practically given up every ounce of interest in writing down all my thoughts over the past few months. In fact I haven't been blogging as avidly as in the past because, well, I've been rather busy--it's a convenient excuse.

 Anyway, a lot had happened over the past few months, and I've achieved a few of my new year resolution, including an article published in a tier-1 journal (yaayyyy--warning, it's 16 pages long so if you're not into physics/science/nanotechnology/biotechnology/longwindingarticle it's best not to click on that link).

The Annual Haze in South East Asia: Whose Fault Is It?

Even breathing can be difficult nowadays. 

A lot of us are well-informed about the haze that hit South East Asia (SEA) every year. In fact, it's happening right out the window next to me as I type, and if you don't know about it already, you should really go hang yourself outdoor once in while and stop keeping yourself indoor all the time.

My Encounter With Kopi Luwak In Indonesia

It was around 3pm in the afternoon when we arrived at the Ijen National Park, East Java, Indonesia. We were passing through a coffee plantation when Wahid, the driver of our tour suddenly broke the silence.

"A cup of this coffee can make you wide awake at night," he said,

"But that's not because of its' caffeine, but it's because of its hefty price!"

Freedom of Expression

如果你在飞机里生下宝宝，宝宝的国籍将会是....?

想像一下，您是个怀胎九月的马来西亚妇女，就快生了。
你和老公乘搭加拿大航空从新加波出发前往荷兰渡假。在飞往荷兰途中，飞越巴基斯坦领空时，您肚子里的宝宝等不下去了。结果您就在飞机上生下了宝宝。生产过程非常顺利，母子平安。当机组人员和其他乘客向您道贺时，机长给了您一份表格填写宝宝资料，你看了一看表格..........姓名，性别，国籍........

问题来了：
一个马来西亚妇女乘搭加拿大飞机由新加波飞往荷兰在巴基斯坦领空生下的宝宝，是属于那一国的人民？

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Is An Outstanding Fund-Raising Campaign, A Poor Awareness Campaign

My current facebook newsfeed is inundated with videos of people executing in various ways the ALS ice bucket challenge.

Before I start, I have to make clear my stance: I support the ALS awareness campaign. I support all types of disease-related awareness campaign wholeheartedly. I genuinely think that this campaign is an effective way of raising fund to support the research into battling this lethal disease.
However, I can't help but to also feel that the movement is beginning to skew from its original intent of raising awareness of the disease to raising awareness of one’s own altruism and/or attractiveness in a wet T-shirt.

The Evolution of Photography

Malcolm

The Underreporting of the Boko Haram Kidnapping Issue: Whose Fault Is It?

Boko Haram is a militant Islamist group based in northeastern Nigeria. The name comes from the Hausa language, a language spoken by people in Niger, Nigeria and Chad, which roughly translates to prohibited western education or western education is sinful.

Founded in 2002, the organization seeks to establish a pure Islamic state ruled by sharia law.

And on the night of April 14 2014, the group raided a local school and took away 276 school girls. The leader of the group, Abubakar Shekau announced in a series of videos posted online that he will sell the children into slavery. “Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell.”

The leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau. Image: telegraph.co.uk

This news irritates me because I find it incomprehensible that slavery still exists in this era of internet, human rights and iphones. And it irritates me even further that it is again being done under the name of religion. Some reports state that the girls will also be sold as child brides to men in neighboring Cameroon and Chad.

印度--后记....India--An Epilogue

一时的冲动，一生的故事。

印度给你的印象是什么？

你对世界上最大的民主国，第九大经济体，十二亿人口国家了解有多少？

2013年七月二十七，我从新加坡飞往印度新德里，再从新德里飞往阿摩达巴，为期一个月。

The Problem With Rape

On 16th December 2012, a 23-year-old girl was gang-raped, beaten, mutilated, and thrown off a bus in India's capital New Delhi. The case sent shockwaves across the world. 
Angry civilians poured onto the streets of India for the next couple of days to demand stronger actions against rapists. The poor girl died of her injuries two weeks later. The six men who committed the atrocity have been charged with murder. But is that enough to prevent similar tragedy from happening in the future?

Why Are Wedding Dresses White?

Have you ever wondered why are wedding dresses white? Why not blue, green, yellow or red? 

The World's Longest Diary

We take photographs and write diaries to document our lives.

By looking at a person's diary or photographs, we can roughly setup an imaginary personality of an individual, though the results of our imagination may not hold water.

Scientists Aren't Smarter

Scientists are not special bunch of people. They defecate, eat, sleep, and have sex like everyone else.

Very often, the reaction I get when telling people that I'm a research student in Physics "Wow! Physics!"

Image: scienceworld.wolfram.com

No boy, that doesn't help.

现代天才，古代天才

我一直都有个问题；古代的天才和现代的天才，谁比较强？比如拿 Da Vinci, Plato 等人和 Stephen Hawkings 和 Roger Penrose 等人来比较，谁比较聪明？如果有时光机，我们把古时代的天才（牛顿，孔子，华佗等）带到现代，他们能够学习用手机吗？如果我们把现代人带回古代，我们真的能变成当代最聪明的人吗？那如果牛顿出生于2012 年而不是 1643 年，在这科技发达的时代他还能脱颖而出吗？

这问题我想了很久。牛顿等人毕竟脑力过人，观察力强，学习能力一定很强，那学习用手机应该没问题吧？

牛顿。Image: ultimateuniverse.net

首先，请不要认为这问题是不切实际。因为这关系到我们如何看待其他人。我相信如果给于足够的时间，所有人都可以变得一样聪明，只是一些人知识吸收的比较快，一些人比较慢。

You're Not Stupid. Nobody Is

The recently announced Nobel Prize winner in medicine, Sir John Gurdon was considered "too stupid" by his science teacher during his days at Eton College.

He ranked last out of the 250 boys in his school at biology when he was 15, and didn't do well in other science subjects either. He still has the school report from his master sit on his desk at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge.

Gay and Lesbian Guidelines?

The entire Facebook community country was stunned by the news of Ministry of Education publishing guidelines to identify symptoms of homosexuality among youth. The purpose of the guideline, according to officials, is to help parents identify signs of homosexuality in their child.
The news was featured in newspapers in the UK and a talk show in the US, severely damaging the image of Malaysia.

Unusual Names of Places

These places are named after some of the most absurd words in the English language.

1) Fucking (German pronunciation, [ˈfʊkɪŋ]) in Austria, for example, has suffered road-signs theft by tourists for years until they were modified to be theft-resistant in 2005.

Image: en.wikipedia.org

This village of 104 has been through a number of name changes:

BERSIH 3.0

Let the pictures do the talking shall we?

Which Is More Important: Human Welfare VS Animal Welfare?

When a tiger starts killing people, regardless of how endangered it may be, it has to be put down. Similarly, if the extinction of a particular species could ensure the survival of mankind, hand me the shotgun please.

Of course, thing has yet to go that far. We're not facing some kind of apocalypse, and certainly not extermination by aliens so we can still work on sustainable development to achieve a win-win situation. But some people, and I seriously mean some people, emphasize the well-being of animals more than the well-bring of their own kind. And I'm not talking about the Japanese-hunting-whales-thingy. I'm against that, too.

Please stop whaling. Image: sustainablesushi.net

Some animal rights activists had recently pressured airlines and ferry companies against transporting animals to the UK for research purposes.