The Reader

How do you eat an elephant?

This question was posed to the participants of my project management course that I conducted with my fellow lecturer.The class,including me,was puzzled and intrigued by the question. To my mind, I have never eaten an elephant before and it is a huge animal that none can finished eating alone.

When everyone just stared without an answer,he told us that the answer was : "A bite at a time!".

That is a lot of lessons in the above statement.Below are some examples but you can add on your own from your experience:-

1.A project got delayed for three months did not happened over-night. It happened a day at the time.
2.The belly size of obese people did not grow instantaneously. It took 30 years from a size of 28 inches to 38 inches.(No offense if it applies to you;-)
3.My friend's company overhead has increased from RM100,000 to RM1,000,000 a month within 40 years.
4.A national debt of a country increased from millions to billions in less than 10 years..and many more examples.

By the way, have you heard a story of a frog as narrated in Peter Senge's book entitled The Fifth Discipline?
If you haven't ,it goes something like this..

What would the frog do if we thow it into a boiling pot of water?
You know the answer. It will jump out as soon as it touches the hot water.
But, what if you put the frog in a pot of water and put it it on a hot stove. The frog won't jump-it stays there and began to enjoy the warm of water as it is being heated.The frog did not sense any danger because the heat came slow and steady, but as time went by the frog gets roasted and died..

Well, we may say the frog is stupid but similar things happen to many of us individuals, companies, organisation and even nations.

On the other side of the coin, we may also achieve great things or overcome great hurdles if we make a continuous and a consistent effort to achieve our goals and objectives.

Note:
1. To all Malaysians, may I wish Selamat Menyambut Ulang Tahun Kemerdekaan Negara Kita.
2. My 'sabbatical' starts tomorrow,so my blogs will be interrupted for the next two weeks. I will try to write as and when I am free and the Internet connectivity is available to me.
3. You are also welcome to read short notes I wrote in 'weekly notebook','cerita kedaikopi' and 'cara bicara' at my old homepage called The Perigi.

Tazkirah: Listening to Qur'an

Recite the Qur'an and listen to whenit is recited,you will find happiness,peace, and tranquility. The Messenger of Allah used to love to hear thre Qur'an being recited by his noble companions.

You should also allot a few minutes of *everyday* to listen Qur'anic recitation,from radio,taperecorder etc.

The noise you hear in the streets, at work,or in the office are sure to bring you vexation,so take time out to give yourself comfort by reading your Lord's book:

{{Those who believe(in the Oneness of Allah-Islamic Monotheism) and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah,verily,in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest}}-Qur'an 13:28

An authentic hadith relates that,

"The Messenger of Allah ordered Ibn Mas'ood to read from'The Chapter of Women'(An Nisaa') from the Qur'an. He raed until the Prophet's tears began rolling down his cheeks,and he said: 'This is sufficient for you(for now)."

{{Say: If the mankind and the jinns weere together to produce the like of this Qur'an,they could not produce the like thereof,even if they helped one another}}-Qur'an 17:88

Excerpt from page 294-Don't be Sad

The Reader ask: How about music?

Visibility of The New Moon-Rejab

Tomorrow is the 1st of Rejab,1424.
This image is taken from http://www.moonsighting.com

Beauty lies..

As they used to say,"Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder".May I add,the pun is intended.Just take the case of the moon.Most poets talked about its beauty and young men(in love) referred to the beauty of their beloved like the beauty of the moon. When I saw Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, the place did not look beautiful at all;-)

What I understood, the physical eyes( eyesight) only see the visuals, but the mind and the hearts that make the difference.Just look at the sun.If we were to look at what the sun is, it does not look great to me. But,a little bit of knowledge about the sun that it is the greatest nuclear reactor around our galaxy that produces enegy,heat and light through the conversion of Hydrogen gas to Helium gas made me think it is a beautiful creation by God Almighty to serve our needs on the planet earth.

Planet Mars looks beautiful from a distance.On the surface of it, I don't know.But if you compare the composition of the atmosphere of the planet Earth and the planet Mars, it looks like the opposite.It has very little oxygen( about 0.3 %) and too much carbon dioxide( more than 97%). What I can conclude is that God created everything with specific features and for a particular purpose.One thing I am sure, we homo sapiens are not suited to live on Mars and we men DON'T come from Mars!

Before, we come down to planet Earth, let me take you to explore the beauty of mathematics.But then, only mathematicians and mathematical minded people will appreciate it.Just take Einstein General Theory of Relativity and Fermat Last Theorem.The mathematical expressions are so short and simple but yet a few handful of us only understood Eintein's theory and it took hundreds of mathematicians over 300 years to prove the Fermat Last Theorem.Now, beauty *really* lies in the eyes of the beholder!

[Just remember two more mathematicians-John Nash and Paul Erdos,but don't worry-I am not going to bore you with their works]

Before I get lost in the stratosphere and get TAKEN by foreign aliens,let me get back to Mother Earth quickly...

Ten years ago, I made my first trip to The Land of The Rising Sun.There, I discovered another form of beauty-the simplicity is a beauty by itself. Just look at Japanese garden,their packing of products and their sushi -just to mention a few...

Talking about The Beauty,it also reminds me of The Beast.Next month, when I am in Paris(insyaAllah), I would love to visit The Church of Notredam.Who knows ,he might still be there..but I am more interested to see The Beauty and not The Beast.What says you Penawan in London?

Best Mars pix I have seen

Tuanku Bahiyah

Al-Fatihah for Tuanku Bahiyah,the Sultanah of Kedah.She passed away yesterday.(26/8/2003)

When I was serving as a JKR engineer in Kedah in 1981, I was summoned to the Istana Anak Bukit where she lived.I went there to check on some repair work that need to be attended to. While I was there for about a few minutes, she walked by and we acknowledged one another. No words were exchanged. What suprised me was her simplicity- she was wearing a baju kebaya and a batik sarung!

May I add: She is one lady who had beauty,grace,simplicity and very,very patient!

My doa: Ya Allah,Terimalah hambaMu ini dan masukkanlah beliau dalam golongan orang-orang yang Soleha.

The Month of Rejab

If you ask any muslims what is the date and the month according to Islamic calendar, only a few can answer.We are so used to Georgian calendar that we only refer to Islamic calendar when the events are related to our religion. If not because I carry a palm pda, I wouldn't know either. This posting is to remind myself and other muslims of the coming month of Rejab.

According to a website http://www. moonsighting.com,the first Rejab,1424 is on 29th August,2003 and you can read the benefits of ibadah in the month of Rejab at this website:(It is wriiten in Malay)

http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/4328/rejab.htm

Whatever reference I quoted above is a guide only.Please refer to qualified authories on the subjects matters.

Again, reminding myself first and others not to let the month of Rejab passes by without our ibadah sunat-irespective whether you are old or young.

Being digital..

I read the famous architect Nicholas Negroponte's book Being Digital in early 1996. He was then MIT Media Director in Cambridge. During my short visit to Harvard Business School , I stopped at his office just to say hello,but he was not around. In fact, I just paid my visit there through a Malaysian contact who was doing his Masters in mechatronics.

If I remember correctly, the major issue is about the change over from atoms to bytes or bits!Whether we accept it or not,whether we like it or not, it has encroached into our personal life and working life.Most of us are deep inside the waves;if not managed well ,we will get drowned by it.Many books have been written about it and I am not qualified to add anymore.

I got my frist email address from JARING on 24th July,1995-quite early for Malaysians of my age group(40+ then).If it is not due to the Internet, I don't think I could have written 54 "weekly notebook", 100 "cerita kedaikopi",about 10 "cara bicara" and a few tens of blogs to-date!All these short write-ups are stored at geocities webservers and blogspots. Now, I shifted my blog to typepad.com.The technology facilitated the creation of "writers" among us.

My first experience of "being digital" is when I got my first digital watch,then we have digital phones ,then many,many other things...and as they say, the rest is history.And yesterday I got my new digital camera.
That is why you can see many new photos uploaded to my albums located at this blog.

After we are being bombarded and flooded by digital technologies and contents,we are now worrying about digital divide in our coummunities ans well as misused of technologies.Technology is a double edge sword-it solves problems and at the same it creates new problems!

Now,mobile phones are just an ordinary item we carry in our pockets everyday.It is so common that no one notice if you carry one.But I will notice if you carry two mobile phones;-) One day, I confronted a friend why he carried two handphones? He came close and whispered," I got two wives!".Oh!?

The technoly has changed tremendously over the years, but ,yes there is a BIG BUT. Have we change to adopt and adapt the technology?What efforts have we taken to improve human-technology interface? Just look at the many computers sitting on the desks of many senior officers either in government and private sectors? To what extent have they used ICT for the benefits of their business and services?One day, the Land Office(pejabat Tanah,WP) officer came to my house asking me who is the owner/resident of my house? When I asked him why did not he ask DBKL or Telekom or JBA,he confided to me that his department could NOT get the co-operation from other government agencies.In my simple mind, why can't they have shared database?

IMHO, technolgy is just technology.The minds must be knowledgable and the hands must be skilled to make full use of technology for the benefits of mankind.For that matter, it applies to all-digital or non-digital technology.

iChat with Martian

Here is a copy of my iChat with someone from planet Mars. He called himself Martian.Btw, my screen name is Man:-

Martian: Greetings from planet Mars!
Man: Salam from planet earth.

Martian: We are now approaching earth.By late afternoon (5.52pm) this coming Wednesday, we will be closest to earth since 60,000 years ago.We will be about 55.7 million km away. You are welcome to look at us.Please inform your friends that I could only be this close in the year 2287. By the time,all of you will be quite dead;-)
Man: Thank you for the invitation,Mr Martian. InysyaAllah, I will try to see you through a telescope wherever I can get hold of it.I can tell my friends but only a few will take time and effort to see you. Many men claimed that they came from Mars, but honestly I donot believe them. Do you know why? They know very little about Mars..and they love this earth so much.

Martian: How is the weather there?
Man: In Malaysia, it is quite hot.However,Europe is hotter.
Martian: Down here, it freezing cold. No man can survive..our temperature ranges from -85 to -29 degrees Celsius!
Man: Now, it confirms my belief that no men came from planet Mars.All of them came out from Mother Earth.

Martian: That suprises me ,really. I donot know that men came from Mars.Only Martians live here.Btw,can you switch on your iSight(ie Apple video conference gadget)?I love to see how you men look like?
Man: Sorry, I cannot do that now. My streamyx broadband went kaput.You only can see lines and dots. I am worried that you get the impression that we look like lines and dots.
Martian: Okay then, we can try again tomorrow.
Man: I cannot rely on streamyx -it is quite sentimental sometimes.The telco didnot bother to replace my modem I reported kaput weeks ago.May be , next month I can hook to Jaring satellite broadband,provided it does not carry any virus.

After a long pause....

Martian: If you happen to be looking at Mars on Wednesday ,I am the one who sits at the corner of a cafe,blogging his way using iBook .
Man:Me too,Cheers!

TEST:Posting from w.bloggar

This is just a test of the software to facilitate my blogging.
Time 10:55pm 23/8/2003