It's no wonder then that the desensitization of violence has breeded a generation of kids numb and indifferent towards violence.
To steal a line from Sir Alex, "football...bloody hell".
Shining a harsh light on modern living, modern society and my life in my society.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Football grooms a society of murderes?
One only need to look at the headlines to conclude that football fans are subconsciously groomed to be serial killers (or to take a more lenient stand towards murder).
"Parker STABS Hammers...", "Ashley Cole shoots Chelsea intern...", "Fernandez FIRES..."
It's no wonder then that the desensitization of violence has breeded a generation of kids numb and indifferent towards violence.
To steal a line from Sir Alex, "football...bloody hell".
It's no wonder then that the desensitization of violence has breeded a generation of kids numb and indifferent towards violence.
To steal a line from Sir Alex, "football...bloody hell".
Price for faster "justice"...er.."audits"
In today's The Star, there was an article which highlighted the possibility of legal fees being increased by 300% to 400%. There were, apparently, a torrent of opposition against this proposed increase. Not mired in legal proceedings myself (at present, at least), and being the always astute and money-minded accountant, I wondered how it would be like if the audit firms made a similar proposal with regards to their audit fees.
I started comparing the work of lawyer with that of an auditor, and found many common grounds (and gripes) between the two professions. So, I copied the article from The Star, and made some appropriate word-replacements, on top of shortening the lengthy article. The following is the end result from this little exercise:
"AUDITORS are not exactly the most popular people around and they are often the butt of jokes.
In many cases, it has to do with the fees they charge.
Most of us would have heard this universal joke comparing an auditor to a leech.
Q: What is the difference between an auditor and a leech?
A: A leech stops sucking your blood after you die.
Jokes aside, companies often complain about having to pay steep audit fees if they have to publish audited accounts, more so if the audits take a long time to settle. Thus, when MIA (Malaysian Institute of Accountants) announced last week that audit fees might go up by 300% to 400%, there was, not surprisingly, a public outcry.
Saying there is a price to pay for everything, MIA justified the rising costs to the better efficiency of the auditing system in completion of audits. He also claimed that auditors would have more responsibilities, spending more hours on audits and taking up fewer audits.
For companies, this is certainly no laughing matter. Audit fees are based on market forces.
P. Sivarajah, CFO of X Sdn Bhd, an engineering company is still bitter over his experience with his auditor several years ago, complaining that he had to spend RM200,000 to get an audit opinion from one of his two accounts.
“They strike you in dire times,” he recounts, adding that his auditor would demand payment just before the signing date.
The auditor, he adds, showed little concern for his company’s welfare and he believes the audit had dragged longer than necessary.
Auditor, *Yaw Koo Lin, however, believes that MIA was only expressing their frustration with the Clarified ISAs (International Standards on Auditing) introduced more than a year ago.
Because of the Clarified ISAs, many auditors claim audit committees are harder to work with.
As N. Surendran claims, auditors are not able to take on as many audits and the ability to make ends meet is reduced.
“So, naturally, they will charge more,” he says, adding that he cannot take up as many pro-bono audit now as a result.
Idris notes that a common complaint among auditors now is that audits are hurried along and dates are fixed without consultation.
“As a result, auditors are saying they are under tremendous pressure,” he says.
He also hopes that people would be more appreciative of auditors.
“People have to understand that behind the five-minute appearance in an audit clearance meeting is five months of work.”
As you can see, this development in the legal world can easily be replicated in the auditing realm. Hence, I suggest that the audit firms around the country rally behind their lawyer friends and push for the proposal to be adopted. Then, once the dust have settled, the audit firms can make their own play for an "across-the-board" increase in audit fees, citing the increase in legal fees as a precedent.
Imagine the favourable impact of such an increase. The recently announced global revenue for Deloitte and PwC of USD 26 million each in 2010 will be immediately increased to USD 78 million!!!
A different strategy may also be adopted, by making such a push for audit fees now, at an increase of less than 300% to 400%, and chances are the corporate world will be too busy fighting the lawyers that the auditors will have little or no opposition.
To read the actual article in The Star, go to http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/2/27/nation/8144096&sec=nation
I started comparing the work of lawyer with that of an auditor, and found many common grounds (and gripes) between the two professions. So, I copied the article from The Star, and made some appropriate word-replacements, on top of shortening the lengthy article. The following is the end result from this little exercise:
"AUDITORS are not exactly the most popular people around and they are often the butt of jokes.
In many cases, it has to do with the fees they charge.
Most of us would have heard this universal joke comparing an auditor to a leech.
Q: What is the difference between an auditor and a leech?
A: A leech stops sucking your blood after you die.
Jokes aside, companies often complain about having to pay steep audit fees if they have to publish audited accounts, more so if the audits take a long time to settle. Thus, when MIA (Malaysian Institute of Accountants) announced last week that audit fees might go up by 300% to 400%, there was, not surprisingly, a public outcry.
Saying there is a price to pay for everything, MIA justified the rising costs to the better efficiency of the auditing system in completion of audits. He also claimed that auditors would have more responsibilities, spending more hours on audits and taking up fewer audits.
For companies, this is certainly no laughing matter. Audit fees are based on market forces.
P. Sivarajah, CFO of X Sdn Bhd, an engineering company is still bitter over his experience with his auditor several years ago, complaining that he had to spend RM200,000 to get an audit opinion from one of his two accounts.
“They strike you in dire times,” he recounts, adding that his auditor would demand payment just before the signing date.
The auditor, he adds, showed little concern for his company’s welfare and he believes the audit had dragged longer than necessary.
Auditor, *Yaw Koo Lin, however, believes that MIA was only expressing their frustration with the Clarified ISAs (International Standards on Auditing) introduced more than a year ago.
Because of the Clarified ISAs, many auditors claim audit committees are harder to work with.
As N. Surendran claims, auditors are not able to take on as many audits and the ability to make ends meet is reduced.
“So, naturally, they will charge more,” he says, adding that he cannot take up as many pro-bono audit now as a result.
Idris notes that a common complaint among auditors now is that audits are hurried along and dates are fixed without consultation.
“As a result, auditors are saying they are under tremendous pressure,” he says.
He also hopes that people would be more appreciative of auditors.
“People have to understand that behind the five-minute appearance in an audit clearance meeting is five months of work.”
As you can see, this development in the legal world can easily be replicated in the auditing realm. Hence, I suggest that the audit firms around the country rally behind their lawyer friends and push for the proposal to be adopted. Then, once the dust have settled, the audit firms can make their own play for an "across-the-board" increase in audit fees, citing the increase in legal fees as a precedent.
Imagine the favourable impact of such an increase. The recently announced global revenue for Deloitte and PwC of USD 26 million each in 2010 will be immediately increased to USD 78 million!!!
A different strategy may also be adopted, by making such a push for audit fees now, at an increase of less than 300% to 400%, and chances are the corporate world will be too busy fighting the lawyers that the auditors will have little or no opposition.
To read the actual article in The Star, go to http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/2/27/nation/8144096&sec=nation
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Why is a Blackberry better than an iPhone?
Dear iPhone-using friends,
I have taken it upon myself to hold your hands and walk you towards the greatest truth, the higher awareness, that realisation that when you are playing Angry Birds on your iPhone, you are a few rungs lower on the social ladder than us Blackberry users.
There are many reasons why a Blackberry is better than an iPhone, and these are the top 4 reasons:
1. We go both ways
One of the widest used application by users of both iPhone (let's call these people "the jesters") and Blackberry (and to keep with the medieval theme, let's call these elite group "the knights") is the free message service Whatsapp. However, knights can switch effortlessly from Whatsapp to BBM (short for Blackberry Messenger), while jesters have to be satisfied with just one miserable free message application.
2. We don't do queues
Everytime a new model of the iPhone is launched, there will be the usual Mardi Gras-like festivities and marketing scams, and the jesters fall in line to buy the phones, even resorting to spending the night in shopping malls just to ensure they are one of the first to own an iPhone. What inevitably follows is that just a few weeks after the launch, when the hype dies down, one can just walk into any dealer during your lunch break and make a purchase. Lambs..
3. We are anti-government
What does a middle east dictator fear more than an uprising or protest in a neighbouring country? Citizens with Blackberries.
In 2010, UAE and India announced that they are contemplating banning the usage of Blackberries because the emails and messages that are transmitted through these devices are "highly secured" and its "proprietary data transmissions mechanism" is centered in the soviet-like secretive state of Canada. What does all this mean? I don't know myself, but all I know is that if there ever is a World War III, the knights will be in the control room sending out encrypted messages to allies, while the jesters will be sent out to the front line as human ammunition.
4. Only the cool people get it
I have taken it upon myself to hold your hands and walk you towards the greatest truth, the higher awareness, that realisation that when you are playing Angry Birds on your iPhone, you are a few rungs lower on the social ladder than us Blackberry users.
There are many reasons why a Blackberry is better than an iPhone, and these are the top 4 reasons:
1. We go both ways
One of the widest used application by users of both iPhone (let's call these people "the jesters") and Blackberry (and to keep with the medieval theme, let's call these elite group "the knights") is the free message service Whatsapp. However, knights can switch effortlessly from Whatsapp to BBM (short for Blackberry Messenger), while jesters have to be satisfied with just one miserable free message application.
2. We don't do queues
Everytime a new model of the iPhone is launched, there will be the usual Mardi Gras-like festivities and marketing scams, and the jesters fall in line to buy the phones, even resorting to spending the night in shopping malls just to ensure they are one of the first to own an iPhone. What inevitably follows is that just a few weeks after the launch, when the hype dies down, one can just walk into any dealer during your lunch break and make a purchase. Lambs..
3. We are anti-government
What does a middle east dictator fear more than an uprising or protest in a neighbouring country? Citizens with Blackberries.
In 2010, UAE and India announced that they are contemplating banning the usage of Blackberries because the emails and messages that are transmitted through these devices are "highly secured" and its "proprietary data transmissions mechanism" is centered in the soviet-like secretive state of Canada. What does all this mean? I don't know myself, but all I know is that if there ever is a World War III, the knights will be in the control room sending out encrypted messages to allies, while the jesters will be sent out to the front line as human ammunition.
4. Only the cool people get it
Look around you. Think about the coolest friend that you have. Chances are you are thinking of me. Now, look at the smartphone that I am using.
Now, think about the second coolest person in the world. Chances are you are thinking of Barack Obama. Try and guess which smartphone he is using.
Finally, think about Justin *brrrrr Bieber. Imagine sitting among his fans in his concert. 90% of those fans will be using iPhones. They will also be screaming his name, proclaiming their love for him. Now, would you want to use the same phone as them? I didn't think so.
Regards,
Sir Justin
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Gamble on a life...yours.
Being alive don't mean you are living, but it does put the odds in your favor. So, go ahead, place a bet, take a gamble. Chances are you'll end up winning.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Voting : What's the point?!
In a matter of a few days, we have seen the different manifestation of democracy both on the global as well as on the local front.
The recent developments in Egypt had most of the talking heads, well, talking, while locally, the ruling government retained their seat in the Tenang by-election. There is also rife speculation that general elections will be called before the year ends, and one of the questions that I get asked with increasing frequency is, "Will you be voting?".
Voting is Cost > Benefit
In an article by the authors of the best selling Freakanomics, Steven B. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, published in the New York Times in November 2006 entitled "Why Vote?", they argue that:
The recent developments in Egypt had most of the talking heads, well, talking, while locally, the ruling government retained their seat in the Tenang by-election. There is also rife speculation that general elections will be called before the year ends, and one of the questions that I get asked with increasing frequency is, "Will you be voting?".
Voting is Cost > Benefit
In an article by the authors of the best selling Freakanomics, Steven B. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, published in the New York Times in November 2006 entitled "Why Vote?", they argue that:
- Voting exacts a cost - in time, effort, lost productivity - with no discernible payoff except perhaps some vague sense of having done your "civic duty.
- Statistically, the odds of your vote affecting the outcome of an election is very, very, very slim.
They also wrote about the results of an experiment in Switzerland where voter turnout is among the highest in the world. However, when postal voting was introduced as an alternative to making one's way to an actual voting booth, voters turnout decreased drastically. The researcher who did the experiment, Patricia Funk, concluded that the incentive of actually being seen voting by other people, an incentive which was absent in postal voting, was possibly one of the main reason why people were encouraged to vote.
What this translates to, is:
PEOPLE VOTE BECAUSE THEY WOULD FEEL ASHAMED IF OTHERS KNOW THEY DIDN'T, AND THEY VOTE BECAUSE THEY CAN THEN JUDGE OTHERS WHO DIDN'T VOTE!
The Star Newspaper recently interviewed the Malaysian Election Commissioner Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof and he said that an EC survey "surprisingly" found that the highest number of unregistered eligible voters resides in the most cosmopolitan of cities, like Kuala Lumpur and Putra Jaya.
I hardly find this "surprising", considering the findings in Switzerland. In a city like Kuala Lumpur, where one hardly knows his own neighbour, the veil of social invisibility makes it easier to avoid having your political apathy known to others.
But even in a city like ours, we may occassionally find ourselves cornered by a friend or relative, and we may be forced to either go into a long debate about why it doesn't make sense to vote, or (the easier option) just lie about having already registered/voted.
A few tricks that I learned from watching a very entertaining news parody "The Onion" to give the impression that you are well-informed and political savvy:
- When you guests over at your house, leave the news channel on, and when they are just about to sit, turn off the TV and say, "I'm sorry about that. I promise, we will not talk about anything relating to politics tonight. I bet we can all use a break from politics at least for a night".
- Draw a stick figure on an art bloc, and color it as if it had been done by a primary school student. Then bring it around after election day and say "Well, I just couldn't resist tearing this off the school wall where the election center was, it is just so darn cute!"
- Blame others of being politically uniformed (great way of appearing informed yourself).
(For a full clip of The Onion and more tips, please click on the following link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXY_8cJlGMc)
On a localised level, I laugh at the people of Perak who voted in one government, and yet ended up with another. There is even a book written on the state's constitutional crisis called "Perak: A State Of Crisis". One of the more remarkable rumour (and I emphasise, this is just a rumour), was how one of the elected representative who decided that she wasn't too old to play leap frog, was seen driving around town in a new Mercedes Benz soon after her defection.
Then there is the constant tug-of-war between the federal and the state government of states not within BN's control? The Kelantan oil royalty, the Selangor water stand-off, and now, Penang's claims of a lack of support from the federal government in the economic development of the state. The futility of the entire voting process, from the consequences of voting which isn't always in sync with the voter's intention, to the lack of a viable party with untainted leaders, seems pretty apparent.
So, to quote the authors of Freakanomics (and also Super-Freakanomics), why vote?
Friday, January 14, 2011
Religion
Overheard a conversation between two associates a few months ago.
"There must be a reason why it was done like this last year. I don't know the reason, but there must be a reason why it was done this way, and why we should just do it the same way this year."
Then, silence, and everyone went back to their work.
There was no further inquiry as to what that reason might be.
There were no further discourse as to whether someone should investigate the matter further.
Now, isn't this the same for religion and how the majority of people take the same approach towards their religion?
"There must be a reason why it was done like this last year. I don't know the reason, but there must be a reason why it was done this way, and why we should just do it the same way this year."
Then, silence, and everyone went back to their work.
There was no further inquiry as to what that reason might be.
There were no further discourse as to whether someone should investigate the matter further.
Now, isn't this the same for religion and how the majority of people take the same approach towards their religion?
Monday, January 10, 2011
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