Job Hunt

Updates on my job hunt, to whoever who wants to offer me a job.

Watson Wyatt - Rejected
Towers Perrin - Rejected
PwC - Rejected
Legal & General - Rejected
MercerHR - Phone interview Thursday Done, Waiting results
Groupama - Yet to submit(Pending email reply from HR)

Oh why oh why so hard to get a job 1? Nevermind, try try again.

Anybody got any connections into the actuarial field?

On Global Warming and Oil Palm

Upon reading Kean-Jin's blog, I came accross his article on Global warming and tropical countries.

Allow me to quote the same Reuters report here again:

Global warming could bring hunger, melt Himalayas
OSLO (Reuters) - Global warming could cause more hunger in Africa and melt most Himalayan glaciers by the 2030s, according to a draft U.N. report due on Friday which also warns that the poorest nations are likely to suffer most. [Source: Reuters]

Well guess what? Have I got a surprise for you, TADA:

Only a few years ago, oil from palm trees was viewed as an ideal biofuel: a
cheap, renewable alternative to petroleum that would fight global warming.
Energy companies began converting generators and production soared.

............................

The four-year study found that 600 million tons of carbon dioxide seep into
the air each year from the drained swamps. Another 1.4 billion tons go up in
smoke from fires lit to clear rain forest for plantations — smoke that often
shrouds Singapore and Malaysia in an impenetrable haze for weeks at a
time.

Together, those 2 billion tons of CO2 account for 8 percent of the
world's fossil fuel emissions, the report said. [Source: AP]

Majulah negara dengan kelapa sawit, potong semua pokok getah, tak guna mia. Oh yea, and I saw an article in the business section of The Star a few days back here. No wonder IOI's stock hit historic high, so much for corporate social responsibility.

p.s. IOI is "world's biggest oil palm planter".

Reference:

1. Global warming could bring hunger, melt Himalayas, Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent, Reuters, 2 April 2007.
2. Palm Oil Failing as Biofuel, Arthur Max, Associated Press, 2 April 2007.
3. IOI plans to return RM1.37bil, The Star, 31 March 2007.
   

Am I eligible to vote?

Upon reading the news that 4.9mil eligible Malaysians who have yet to register as voters, I quickly consider the position I am in. I am a Malaysian citizen who is definitely older than 21 years old, that makes me one of the 4.9mil right?

Am I fully qualified though? I took a detour to check out the official Election Commission website. Here's what I found:
Am I residing in any Election Constituency in Malaysia? For the past 4 years, I've only been in Malaysia for no more than 3 months each year, while most of my time is spent in university here in the UK. I think that makes me disqualified as an elector right?


But the question is am I able to register now as I might be in Malaysia when the General Election is going to be held. Speculations of a few dates are given in my previous post here.

I then googled for the Malaysian embassy's contact number here in the UK. The result was horrifying, either the embassy doesn't have an official website, or the website is probably the worst website I've ever been to. Check it out here.

Nevermind the design which is absolutely bad, there are broken links everywhere and they even forgot to include an email contact address in the front page where they havethe address and phone number.

Horrible? Pathetic? Those are understatements. Please, go experience it yourself.

Dato' Abed Aziz, please please get somebody to sort out the website and ask for Wisma Putra's help if you really need any.

So much for our pride in Informasi Teknologi and VMY 2007.

Guess I have to call the embassy up to get more information about my eligibility to vote tomorrow.


References:

1. 4.9mil yet to register as voters, The Star, 2 April 2007.
2. Election Commission of Malaysia (aka Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya Malaysia)
3. Malaysia Embassy London.

There's no age boundary to blog

I kid you not, check out Real Lao Zha Bor.


She's my grandmother's age and blogs from her apple MacBook. I'm neither laughing nor is this an April Fool's joke.

She's even featured on a chinese newspaper here.

Auntie I respect you. Maybe I should really consider setting up a blog for my grandma.

Question: Do I have enough patience if my grandma asks me to type out all her chants(经) online, hmmm I don't know, maybe not?

Gini coefficient

What is a Gini coefficient?

According to wikipedia(and all your standard macroeconomics textbook), a Gini coefficient is

.........a measure of inequality of a distribution. It is defined as a ratio with values between 0 and 1. [Source: Wikipedia]

To cut a story short, take it that having a Gini coefficient of 0 is ideal, meaning everybody's income in the country is perfectly equal, while having a Gini coefficient of 1 means that all the wealth in the country is controlled by just a single person. So, 0 to 1 means from good to bad.

Now let's take a look at the CIA factbook,

Malaysia - 46.1 (2002)

Not too bad? Let's compare to some of the countries we know that has problems with this area:

Malaysia - 46.1 (2002)
Malaysia - 49.2 (1997)

Indonesia - 38.4 (2004)
China - 44 (2002)
Cambodia - 40 (2004 est.)
Thailand - 51.1 (2002)
United States - 45 (2004)

Certainly we see an improvement from 1997-2002, we had our last general election in 2003, so anybody know of when the latest survey will be carried out? Have we improved? I certainly hope so.

By the way, the figures above are in percentages, so it's still between 0 and 1.

References:

1. Distribution of family income - Gini Index, CIA- The World Factbook.
2. Gini coefficient, Wikipedia.