I've got it again! This time round is not outdated information, but rather "pre-dated" unfilled "blank".
Ok, so they have a promotion to ask you to guess the gender, sound like they got nothing better off to do and having this exercise for the customers to kill their time during bored hours in office.
So, I went ahead and see what's the catch, in the terms and condition.
And there you go, could that means that the draw might not even go on? :-D... what a joke for a big corporation!
The DAP, he said, should apologise to the voters for having duped them about not working together with PAS when wooing them before the just-concluded polls.
“The people gave the DAP their trust and this is how the DAP is repaying them – by working with an Islamist party,” said the newly-elected Tanjong Malim MP.
Taken from TheStar.com.my
While many are happy to see and balance of power between the opposition parties versus Barisan National, and even we've seen that basically this election had drawn a conclusion that at least, Malaysian, are going forward as a multiracial society, where the minority agrees that Malays leaders are indispensable in this majority malay country and the Malays had also shown their support to the DAP by simply voting against BN.
The election was indeed transcend races and religion, and yet, we have our MCA uncle Ong Ka Chuan giving such criticizing comment on the election outcome. Isn't this a provoking comment on the social harmony in this multiracial society? Come on, loser don't complains with non-sense and non-constructively. This is essentially why BN had lost, they've empowered themselves at the expense of racial harmony, and bloated themselves with our tax payers money. Get money and get things done is fine, but get money and didn't get the work done, or give the people a lousy work (such as the water leaking root of parliament), that's why you lose the bid.
Stop provoking the races? we are no longer in the 80's era, that no longer work now, even if it work, that's a shame of you!
I got a shock when crossing the custom from Singapore to Malaysia, I choose to utilize the passport reader machine to pass the custom and I couldn't do so.
Usually, there might be problem of infinite waits and I've to go to the counter by then. However, this time round, I've got a different and shocking experience.
It happened that our dear government gave me a new face, new name and new passport with new IC number.
There goes my new face and every other things new. I should have contacted the officers, but I'm in rush, thus, gonna rush off by then. I would be fun to have this reported to them, and I think this is serious!
By the way... another friend of mine, KH even says that he saw before some of these terminal got infected with Virus and windows popup a error screen, having a pinball game installed there!
The election result is (almost) out, with Barisan National winning 137 seats versus the opposition 82 in the parliament. And overall, BN won 309 state seats over 192 by the opposition and 1 independent contestant.
This is a shocking result to both the Barisan National and the opposition. BN suffers a big lost in the election, which even many of the current minister were ousted. And new star like Jeff Ooi, the blogger turn politician and many other opposition contestant won with a beautiful results.
It is well known that there is what was called phantom voters, which refers to people who didn't turn up for voting and yet he is voted. These phantom voters could be deceased, overseas, or just don't want to turn up to vote. Over the news, there is even voters that have fake identity card numbers.
So what is the implication of this? I would say, the opposition really won a very very tough competition and they won really BIG this time. Considering that there is phantom voters and possibly under table work to alter or influence votes, the oppositions have to work double hard to win the bid. And we saw now, perhaps it is too many votes, which it couldn't be faked out to change the result this time for the BN. There was saying that when the opposition seems to be winning, the committee will take another "backup" voter box and count it in, which then BN won eventually. Even the strategy of redrawing the area of certain state territory couldn't save BN for the bid this time.
So after all, the opposition is now in control of 5 of the major states in the country, namely Penang, Selangor, Perak, Kelantan and Kedah. And also occupied 1/3 of the parliament seats. I would look forward to changes that the new parliament and state government made to Penang and Selangor, where foreign investments are likely to have some influence after the election.
Anyway, it is still too early to say how's the future of Malaysia will be, but this is a good new start, and yet, a small step in the very long journey.
I do hope Malaysia really can live up to its slogan --- "Malaysia Boleh!"
Nowadays we heard of many scams in the news that people are being conned for money. One of the oldest scam is perhaps those unsolicited emails that always end up in your junk mail folder (gmail filters that all the time, but yahoo and hotmail doesn't seems to do the job as good).
So email is one way that these scams will come to you, by saying that there is this fella had passed away and his cousin/son/relative who cannot inherit its funds in the Swiss Bank due to legal or tax reason. And to work around that is to transfer/remit those funds to overseas to avoid the huge amount of tax and such. And you had been referred or recommended to assist him, and rather you are the lucky one that he had picked up to contact with. The catch is, you need to first transfer some money, say about a few thousand to his account, so that he can use the fund to work things out and also for him to believe that you are trustworthy. So, basically many people actually fall into the trap for a very simple reason -- greed.
There are many more different scams over email, but then, that won't last long, as majority of users using email are educated to identify such scam over time. The next channel these scammers try is, to call you directly, on your fixed line or mobile line.
This is how it works, one of the actual case in Malaysia, some one was called and saying that his son was being kidnapped and command the parent on the phone to quickly go to the bank and transfer a big sum of money to the scammer's account. While on the phone, this father couldn't make another call out to verify that, or if he is able to do so, his son's line might had already been engaged by the scammer, probably talking about the same thing about his parents. And the scammer actually warned the party on the other end of the phone, not to make police report or try to be funny.
This is rather a mind twisting game, it challenges the victim on the urgency of the matter. To make it more realistic, the scammer might had already done some prior social engineering to figure out his household information. Such social engineering are pretty simple thru telemarketing tactics. You might receive a call saying that you are being invited to an exclusive showcase on some product, as part of their company new launch in the area, or you might got calls that say you won a lucky draw that you've never put your name on.
I've received such calls before, and they are quite "high-tech" I would say. I was being called and mentioned that the handphone company wanted to launch their product here and now calling up to survey. And they happen to have a talk/show on the coming saturday, at Johor Ah Fook Street, and I'm one of the VIP invited. Ofcourse, I'm not going to attend that, but well, the operator was polite and say that's fine, she'll keep me informed of the updates.
So one week later, she called again. I was told that I won a lucky draw on the day itself, but because I'm not able to attend, the prize wasn't given to me. But well, so they reserved the prize for me. And next, trying to lure me for another talk/show and such, and demand more of my information in order to verify and check my details so that the prize could be sent over to me. So that really alerts and annoy me, as it seems like it was purely a cold turkey call, where by all the operator know initially was only my number, not even my name and age. So of course, I refuse to give more details and say I'm not interested after all. And then the sales tactic came in, I was being questioned of why? since she did not even sell me product, but just that I won a prize! I really feel pissed off and she got it off the line with a bit of anger that I'm weird and stupid.
Just the day before, I receive a similiar call again and this time round, I manage to record this really boring or funny conversation.
So, what does all these things tell us? --- TO BE ALERT ALL THE TIME!
Social engineering had proven to be the weakest link in any security channel. No matter how secure your system or procedure is, there is always a way to social engineer thru it and break in with full trust.
With today's technology, there is ways to fake incoming call number, so the first line of defend of checking on the incoming call number is no longer a very trustworthy indicator of authenticity. And we really got to rely on our gut feelings and also experience, plus alertness.
When you receive a call today, if it says that it is from the bank and need to verify with you on your details and mother maiden's name before carry on, you better stop there and ask if you can call back to the bank via their main line and asked to redirect to the same operator. This is a real life 2-way handshake protocol that you can establish the authenticity of the connecting party! (our major computer network protocol TCP which all your web surfing is running on is based on this). If not, you better challenge the banker rather than having only the banker challenging you to authenticate you over the air.
I think the bank will start to get crazy on this very soon as scammers tap on advanced technology to fool users. And who knows, the next call the you receive from the bank requires you to tell him your 2nd factor authentication code, which you need 1 min or so to dig it out from your bag and press the little button on it and read it out. Beware! never do so for now at least, since the bank didn't instruct so publicly, it could just be yet another scammer holding your credit card or bank user name and password, but just need your authentication code to access your account.
In the future, there will need to have a way to authenticate both parties on the line and this will not come cheap nor that very soon. At the bottom line, we ourselves are the one that need to do things that technologies couldn't help us to do so, especially in security.
Yesterday we've talk about wax on apple, and this evening we was talking about apple skin. There is saying that says apple skin with wax is really harmful for the body and one should never eat apple nowadays without peeling of its skin. We've burst the myth about wax on apple yesterday, and today is about apple skin.
My mummy says that the best of apple lies on its skin, well, true or too good to be true? After some conversation with my brother and my wife after dinner, I decided to continue on apple skin here. Just after a few clicks on google, I've got many sites about it, it was mentioned that:
Apples are a source of both soluble and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber such as pectin actually helps to prevent cholesterol buildup in the lining of blood vessel walls, thus reducing the incident of atherosclerosis and heart disease. The insoluble fiber in apples provides bulk in the intestinal tract, holding water to cleanse and move food quickly through the digestive system.
It is a good idea to eat apples with their skin. Almost half of the vitamin C content is just underneath the skin. Eating the skin also increases insoluble fiber content. Most of an apple's fragrance cells are also concentrated in the skin and as they ripen, the skin cells develop more aroma and flavor.
As far as what I've experience, I don't really agree with the picking apple tips which says the shiny ones mean better, as I like royal gala le crunch much more than Washington, but its appearance is not shiny as compare to Washington ones, not to mention also the pinky apples which tastes great but doesn't shine at all.
So, this will be my first post of the year, a lazy blogger that only update his blog once a blue moon and during the time when he is too free or too crazy.
We have some Washington apples in the refrigerator and that's those shiny appealing apples as compare to other pinky ones from another side of the world. A couple of days ago, my brother was given a task to cut the apples into pieces for our dessert. Well, at the end, he peel off all the skins, including the pinky ones.
The fact is that, there's wax on the apples, you can easily verify that by using a sharp knife to strap on the apple's skin. And voila, that's wax!.. looks scary. I wonder if these wax are really harmful and whether it is eatable and whether it is natural in the first place!
Nowadays, Google is my best friend to find out anything from the deep sea to the sky above. So I've found this article on Washington apple website. It says that those wax are actually eatable and safe (as approved by the US FDA), usually are carnauba or shellac (what? I suppose it is not the shellac that we used on wood furnitures). It does mentioned also that there is natural wax on the apple as well.
Interesting enough, when I'm doing a cross reference for verification on the Apple wax on wikipedia, in the wiki there isn't even a word on "wax". So, I suppose there isn't any wax or maybe only valid on some specific species and after all it is very insignificant. Interesting fact from the wiki that's apple seed is toxic, but not to worries, you probably won't be able to eat that many apples (with its seeds) that will make the toxic level enough to kill you.
And China is the largest producer of apple, follow by US Washington and the rest. Just to mention also about my apple "experiences", personally I love Royal Gala ones, they tends to have good apples. We've ate Japan apple before, which was bought from Cold Storage, probably the cheapest Japan apple, but still very pricey, it taste great, and I wonder if they "inject" honey in there.
That's all my sharing on apples for the day! and remember, an apple a day, keeps the doctor away! (ofcourse, too good to be true, but it do make your healthier)
ps... interesting enough, there's wax apple, now only I came to know it is called wax apple in english. (I like wax apple too, but good ones are pricey also).
Ok, so they have a promotion to ask you to guess the gender, sound like they got nothing better off to do and having this exercise for the customers to kill their time during bored hours in office.
And there you go, could that means that the draw might not even go on? :-D... what a joke for a big corporation!
I was arranging my GIRO for my forever forgetting credit card. And happen to see the "Cash In Hand Promotion" announcement.
Follow the link to it... it had already ended in 31st December 2007! which is 3 months ago and it is still there in their internet banking.
