Posts
Persuasion, not compulsion
Friday February 19, 2010
QUESTION TIME
By P. GUNASEGARAM
When federal laws unambiguously prohibit whipping or caning of women, religious laws must not be allowed to do the opposite.
ONE of the small things that I am grateful for is that I cannot be legally whipped or caned for any offence any more. Yes, there are criminal penalties which can specify whipping, but not for those over 50, I am told. Sometimes being old(er) is an advantage.
The other reason that I won’t be legally whipped is that I am not a Muslim and therefore my personal behaviour is not subject to syariah courts, which can hold me liable for offences such as drinking alcohol and have me caned.
For me and for millions of Malaysians of all races and religions, Feb 9, 2010, was a sad, black day in the history of our country. On that day, three women were caned legally for the first time ever in this country. They, all Muslims, were caned for engaging in illicit sex, an offence under syariah law, it was announced.
It is shocking that such sentences are being meted out for such offences. While religious laws may allow for such sentences, it is possible for judges to mete out lower sentences, especially when such “offences” are of a very personal nature and harm no one else.
When there are loopholes in religious laws which allow such punishment out of all proportion to the “crime” committed, and which go against the sensibilities of most Malaysians, then it is incumbent upon the Government of the day to use the legislature to do the needful. Otherwise it abdicates its responsibility.
Illicit sex means sex out of wedlock and if we are all not hypocrites, we will admit that it happens all the time, among both Muslims and non-Muslims. To prescribe caning for such an offence is something that most Malaysians are likely to consider just too much.
It also opens the door for caning for more minor offences in the eyes of religious officials, such as drinking alcohol. In fact one Muslim woman, who has refused to appeal her case, is currently awaiting a caning sentence to be carried out after she was found guilty of drinking alcohol.
That case attracted international attention and made it to the front page of two international financial dailies – The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times – on the same day last year. The current case, announced on Wednesday, is already beginning to attract world attention.
With three women already having been caned for illicit sex, the way has been paved for more caning of women in the future. That will not endear Malaysia to Malaysians, let alone foreigners who are inevitably going to equate us with the Taliban. And who can blame them?
And are we going to go further down the slippery road and cane women for dressing immodestly too, as has been done in some countries?
There are already indications that Malays, especially women, are migrating and leaving their homeland, not because they don’t have opportunities here but because as Muslims, their personal freedom is restricted – and there is danger that it will be curtailed even more.
Yes, it has been said the three women did not suffer any cuts or bruises following the caning but that is scant consolation to those who have to undergo such humiliating punishment on top of the intrusion into their personal affairs.
As if the caning was not bad enough, alarmingly they spent months in prison. One of them is still serving her jail sentence and will be released only in June.
All three were found guilty of committing illicit sex by the Federal Territory Syariah High Court, which issued the caning order between December last year and last month. Perplexingly, they were not made public at that point of time. The public had no idea of the caning before it was done.
Also, it was not clear if the women had exercised their full rights under syariah law by appealing the court’s decision.
These are behaviours which should not be treated as if they were criminal offences; but they have been. The offenders have not only been caned but also jailed, which is rather harsh punishment for something which did not harm anyone else and was done in privacy and behind closed doors.
This is clear indication that there are laws in our statute books – both syariah as well as civil – which are outdated and need to be revised in keeping with the times and the recognition that individuals have personal rights.
Personal behaviour between consenting adults that do no physical harm to them and to others should not be legislated. This is in keeping with the development of personal rights throughout the world, and anything that takes away these rights is a step backwards.
Religion is open to interpretation, man interprets it and man can – and does – make mistakes.
Even if religious rules are flouted, we should have a system which does not mete out punishment for offences, and focus instead on rehabilitation and counselling. That will be in keeping with the universal tenet that there is no compulsion when it comes to religion.
Custodial and punitive sentences by religious courts should be limited via statutes because personal behaviour of adults is often involved and there is no hurt or harm to any others arising from such behaviour.
Religion is about persuasion not compulsion, about faith not certainty, and that is the way we should keep it. Otherwise, bigotry is going to get in the way and we won’t be following the tenets of religion but of those who choose to interpret it the way they want to.
We have all seen what happens when religion – no matter what religion – is carried to extremes and hijacked by bigots. We don’t want public flogging, we don’t want arms chopped off, we don’t want people to be stoned to death, and we don’t want people to be burned at the stake.
We have already moved way past that. Let’s not allow a small number of religious bigots to take us back into the dark ages. And for that, we all need to stand up and speak up when our individual rights are trampled upon.
Managing editor P. Gunasegaram is appalled by the number of sins committed in the name of God.
Don’t turn on Content Network in Google Adwords
I experimented for two weeks with Google Adwords for my freelance copywriting business.
I won’t go into much of the details, but I was quite happy with the results. It gave me a lot of enquiries, most of whom turned out to be genuine paid work.
I targeted not just on keywords, but also on location (Malaysia) and age (20-60 years).
What I was terribly disappointed with was the Content Network. Google Adwords shows a list of where my ads showed up on. The network performs on the basis of opt-out.
You never know which websites your ads will appear until they do. So when someone clicks on an ad, you end up paying for the click, even though you never paid for the ad to appear on that website.
I found that 30% of what I paid for were on the websites of domain squatters. No content whatsoever.
60% were on websites belonging to truly desperate people who are more keen on collecting micro-payments than actually producing worthwhile content. In other words, your run-of-the-mill blogger.
Only 10% of the ads ended up on websites of adequate quality and of relation to the ads.
I don’t know whether that 10% was worth paying for because Adwords doesn’t track a clickthrough to the goal. Or maybe it does, but Google Analytics doesn’t show it.
In the two weeks, I ended up paying nearly 50% of the spent budget on clickthroughs from the Content Network. 90% of which I doubt were worthwhile.
So my recommendation is: don’t turn on Content Network. Keep it off. Save your money.
Extended Menu Joomla hack for bad homepage alias
The Extended Menu module for Joomla 1.5 is both really useful and really popular for creating dropdown CSS menus. But it has a problem if you have a homepage link as a menu item.
Extended Menu always adds the homepage alias as a suffix rather than linking directly to your root. ie http://yourdomain.com/home instead of http://yourdomain.com.
(The standard Joomla Main Menu module doesn’t have this problem.)
Here is the hack to solve it.
1. Open /modules/mod_exmenu/exmenu/view/menuview.class.php in your editor
2. Find
default: // formerly case 2
// open in parent window
3. Append after those lines
if($menuNode->link == "http://yourdomain.com/home") {
$menuNode->link = "http://yourdomain.com/";
}
Voila! Works for any troublesome link. Sent to me by Richard Biddle.
I am switching to PC
I’m one of an old dying breed. I am a pre-iMac user. One of the oldest in existence. I began 20 years ago in 1989 when I was introduced to the Apple LCIIs in basic Journalism class.
But Macs are no longer for me.
I’ve owned 5 Macs. Each one lasting a good 4 or 5 years. One upgrade was prompted by a hard disk crash. One was prompted by the new look of the colourful lozenge iMac (and also because Apple stopped supporting OS9). One was prompted because I needed a laptop rather than a desktop. The last one was by the theft of my iBook.
I don’t upgrade out of habit every couple of years. But it seems Apple doesn’t want those kind of customers. They make decently-solid computers that do seem to last many years. Mac users also tend to treat their computers well which also lengthens their lifespans.
This time, I don’t need to upgrade. But Apple is demanding that I am, even though my iBook works perfectly fine. They stopped making spare parts like batteries and power supplies for my iBook a long time ago. At the same time, for the second time, they stopped supporting my operating system (OS 10.3.9).
Being unable to get a replacement battery or power supply is a really ridiculous reason to have to invest in a new laptop. But that’s Apple for you.
The only way for me to continue using a Mac is to buy a new one. And I am refusing to play this game.
At least Microsoft tries to make their operating system backward compatible. And there are a lot more software companies willing to ensure their products work with older PCs. But Apple and their suppliers will cut you off, perhaps in the belief that they are doing you a favour by making you get a superior product.
There are things I like about Macs that I will be looking for in my new PC.
I want a small sized PC laptop (around 12″ inches), a solid feel like my iBook, no DVD player, something lightweight like the Air, with a nice GUI and with a Firewire port as standard.
I can’t say it hasn’t been disappointing. It’s been a bit like finding out you married for love and she married for money. Then again, there were plenty of wonderful years.
So long, Apple. It was good while it lasted. No hard feelings.
I now work with Joomla, finally
After such a long time, I’ve finally broken my Joomla cherry.
I’ve begun creating Joomla templates and using Joomla as my defacto CMS when making websites.
My new personal business website is at http://copywriter.my/.
Scuba diving in Tenggol
I must remember never to dive with a newbie and non-photographer group ever again. This is the second time I’ve made that mistake. They tend to go to very safe and shallow areas and move far too fast for patient photography.
So I didn’t get much photography done. Especially since the first day was overcast and I don’t have strobes. I also didn’t get to return to the part of the Sri Nakhoda wall that has all the nudibranches.
The visibility on the third day was very good and the first wreck in Tenggol bay was the clearest I’d ever seen it. Here was the giant moray hidden inside.
How to box-in a speeding driver
Once in a while, every driver will have the experience of having an aggressively-speeding driver tailing him or coming up too fast from the rear.
Two of the more common ways of dealing with such a driver is either to give way or to make a hard brake. The first is passive and doesn’t do any good. The second is inappropriate and downright dangerous.
Here is how I deal with speeding drivers: I execute a two-lane block to box them in. It’s a safer alternative and it gives me a warm feeling inside.
(The scenario I am about describe assumes that both you and the speeding driver are in the fast lane.)
- With the speeding driver tailing you, increase your speed until you approach another vehicle that’s ahead in the same lane. The speeding driver will continue to tail you, thinking that he is pushing you faster.
- Signal to move into the slower lane, if the slower lane is clear, then move in. The speeding driver will then speed up a bit to take your place, tailing the other vehicle in the fast lane.
- Increase your speed a bit as soon as you are in the slower lane. You will now be blocking both the vehicles in the fast lane from moving into your lane. The speeding driver is now effectively boxed in.
- Revel in delight at his pain. Every moment that you box him in will be agony to him. But do not make eye-contact with the speeding driver, not even in the side-view mirror. Or else he may figure out that it was all part of a plan.
At this point, one of three scenarios may play out.
- The vehicle that’s ahead of the speeding driver in the fast lane will speed up and pull into the slower lane to let the speeding driver pass.
- If you are on a highway that has three or more lanes, the speeding driver may execute an over-take from the slowest lane.
- If an approaching vehicle looms ahead of you in the slower lane, try to speed up and over-take both vehicles in the fast lane. Then continue to put some distance between you and the speeding driver. By the time the speeding driver has come up to your rear again, you will be in the correct position to execute another box-in. Repeat from Step 1 until you’re satisfied.
How to hide your Facebook friends list and status updates from everyone
Every day, the Facebook Help Center gets asked questions about hiding the friends list and status updates. But they nearly always go unanswered. So I’m providing the solution I use.
The trick is to operate a white list, not a black list.
- Create a new “Friend List”. A “Friend List” is what Facebook calls a sub-grouping of friends. Click on the Make A New List button in the Friends section. Let’s name the new list “Blocked”.
- Add all your friends to the new “Friend List”. Although there isn’t a “Select All” option to select all your friends at one go, Facebook makes creating a “Friend List” quite easy. Even if you have a few hundred, it takes only a few minutes to add all your friends by clicking on each picture. No need to type their names.
- Add the “Friend List” to Limited Profile. Go to Profile Privacy, scroll down to the Friends section, click on the Edit Custom Settings link. Type “Blocked” in the text box underneath Limited Profile. Then click “Okay” and “Save Changes”.
- Repeat Step 3 to hide your status updates. Under the Status Updates section of Profile Privacy.
The Caveat. This isn’t a perfect solution because Facebook isn’t designed to operate white lists. For instance, when you add new friends, they’ll be able to see your entire friends list and status updates until you manually add them to “Blocked”. So they may realise that you are hiding stuff.
But in most cases, it works. So give it a try.
TV commercial blog
My experiment with locating TV commercials around the internet to create blog content is working out surprisingly well. At first I thought I’d be posting a few a week. But it looks like there are so many good TVCs around the web that I can promise to post three new ones every week day. And I’ve been running it for over two months already. Of course it’s only my opinion of what is a good commercial. Feel free to submit your own, I’d love to find out more about what’s out there.
Wifi phones
This news about Philly’s metropolitan wifi LAN (MOWLAN) experiment isn’t new news. They’ve been talking about it for years. I came across the story a few years ago when I was researching a new idea that has yet come into fruition.
My idea was to eradicate cellphone networks and replace cellphones with wifi phones. Phones that work using VOIP.
I was inspired by the development of MOWLANS in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where there is currently the world’s largest MOWLAN. Wifi phones would allow calls to other wifi phones to become absolutely free and calls to land-line phones or cellphones anywhere in the world to be cut as much as 50%. Wifi phones use practically the same technology to communicate by voice as you do using Skype.
Wifi phones aren’t new. Currently, they work exclusively with hotspots like the ones at Starbucks or the ones being established by more and more offices. There are two things holding back the development of wifi phones.
First, there is the lack of network coverage. But with the creation of MOWLANS, this is becoming a moot point. Already, MOWLANS have been established in small towns in the US where cabling is harder to setup and maintain than an internet connection via satellite.
Second (and this was the problem with the establishment of wifi phones in Malayia), the cellphone companies are too powerful. They blocked any talk of wifi phones and the spread of MOWLANS using threats of legal action.
So far, the Philly story hasn’t spoken a single word about wifi phones. But I’m pretty sure that VOIP companies like Vonage are already on the ball.
Iamspeechless.com
You know what would be a really cool name for a blog about comment spam? Yup, Iamspeechless.com (or the other four-word variation Thismakesmespeechless.com). I get dozens of these comment spams a week with just those three words and a bunch of irrelevant links.
Akismet.com
I’m really happy that Ozh recommended Akismet.com to me. It’s a comment spam catcher for Wordpress. For the past couple months I’ve been getting more and more comment spam every day — the kind that looks like it was sent by a real person and doesn’t use any of the comment blacklisted words.
Akismet caught 26 for me in the last 24 hours. Zero false positives. If you aren’t using Akismet yet, all you need to do is sign up to Wordpress.com.
Theme feedback
If you tried the Problogger Clean theme for Wordpress and you had problems with it, please do leave us a comment.
We have had some comments by email about problems with IE. But we’ve had inconsistencies with replicating the problem. The comments have revolved around the sidebar being misplaced in the single post pages.
If you have had this problem, please let us know the browser and platform you are using. A screenshot would be most helpful. Thanks!
Immedi.at offers IM alerts for new RSS content
I thought this was pretty cool. But I was expecting Microsoft to be the first to introduce this feature. Immedi.at gives you a bookmarklet which you click on when the website you want has a auto-discoverable RSS feed (or click on the bookmarklet when you are on the actual feed url). But I find it inconvenient that Immedi.at doesn’t save my IM settings so I have to re-enter them every time I want to bookmark a new feed for IM alerts.
immedi.at helps you to keep track of online information as it changes. It sends you an instant message whenever any RSS or Atom feed you want to monitor changes. immedi.at works with all major IM carriers including MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Jabber, and AIM/ICQ.
Problogger Clean Theme for Wordpress
This theme is based on my own blog design. But in many ways, this theme release is better (and with neater mark-up too). It has been tested on Firefox, Safari and Windows IE. Seven things are significant and quite unique about it.
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Monetised
This is one of the first Wordpress themes that comes with Adsense blocks built in. The adsense blocks have been tested to have optimised positions and optimised colours.
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Featurised
Unlike other themes which come sans-features, this one has built-in features using a single functions file that comes with the theme folder. So it does not rely on any plugins.
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Corporatised
It is a bit of a serious theme with a very corporate colour scheme, not usually the kind preferred by personal bloggers.
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Search engine optimised
Heavy interlinking for search bots to easily find pages. And page titles are automatically customised to the post titles.
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Promotion optimised
There are a few features that allow you to promote yourself and allow visitors to the site to share it with others if they find it interesting.
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Stickitised
Ok, that’s not a real word, but it simply means particular attention was paid to the internal navigation. Links to other posts are placed prominently and throughout all the blog pages to invite visitors to click on them.
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Prioritised
The positions of the sections, colours and font sizes have been prioritised to the immediate communication needs of the first time visitor. The theme is space sensitive and is thus very content focused, keeping much of the important details at the top or near the top of the fold.
And those are also the reasons why the theme is called Problogger Clean. If you choose to use this theme, please do email me or leave a comment about it on the support forum. We’d really like to see how you use it so that we can get more ideas on improving themes.
Proceed to download Problogger Clean or view the documentation.
Openomy launches
I just received an email telling me that Openomy.com has launched. Openonomy gives its users the ability to store files of up to 1 gig total on its servers. (There’s no copyright policy on the site that I found so I assume it can be used to store all kinds of video and audio files.) You can add tags to them to describe each file.
But Openonomy isn’t just a file system with tags. If it was, it would just serve as your own private online file catalog. Openonomy also allows its Ruby-savvy users to write applications to manipulate and present the tag data from your file system as well as the file systems of other users. It’s kind of like Ning.com in that sense, but only with the ability to manipulate file tag data.