datacrush.info

A little over a month ago I went on a road trip in peninsular Malaysia. The entire journey spanned close to 800 miles and over 22 hours of driving.

Starting out in Kuala Lumpur, I went up north to Penang and Kedah before heading eastward through a mountain range to Kelantan, Terrenganu and then Pahang before completing a loop back towards my point of origin.

And I immediately found a novel liking for life on the road. If anything, it taught me that truck drivers are not necessarily grouchy all the time. Life on the move — literally moving — can be enjoying especially in the hills and countrysides.

En-route to Kelantan from Kedah — the road least traveled — I almost drove into a herd of cows. They were huge. Maybe they were buffaloes, I couldn’t tell. When my car stopped, one of the animals looked at me straight in the eyes, and I stared back. They gathered in pack right in front of my car. A sane person would have pressed the honk but it was the last thing on my mind. I enjoyed my little communion with the animals, and it seemed like a minute passed before they cleared the road.

…

I encountered interesting caution signboards in these remote places: Livestock crossing; Wild boar crossing; Deer crossing; and Elephant crossing. Like, seriously, they had an image of an elephant on the signboard! Wish I could’ve caught a glimpse of an actual elephant crossing the road. That would’ve been something.

I started out on the journey with no intention of going east coast. The Malaysian east coast highway is not as developed as its western coast; journey times are longer through the eastern route to anywhere with exception for Kuantan in Pahang, but I’ll get to that later.

What started out as a weekend break in Penang Island and rendezvous with couple of old friends turned to be an escape from the office for me. I developed suicidal thoughts after what could possibly be my 200,000th line of codes and had a glimpse of defects in the Matrix world we live in. I thought for the first time that everything can be easily explained if the following statement is true: God does not exists and humans are basically evil.

Let me first explain the number. Assuming I work 5 days in a week for 11 months in the past 7 years, I would have written 130 lines of codes daily on average. This is a logical figure since many programs that I work with in a day would have around 200 lines of codes written. I could be wrong, but this blog entry doesn’t call for precision.

Now let me explain the statement. It isn’t true. There are times I wanted to believe that God does not exists — purely because then I could choose to do whatever I want — but my firsthand experience with the unexplained, unseen, supernatural dimension has taught me that certain truths are undeniable even with science. There is definitely something out there and cognitive dissonance doesn’t go along with evidence.

Penang is a beautiful island city. I went to the beach and tried the local food for which Penang is legendary. The island could have been like Singapore if it wasn’t for the federal government of Malaysia’s armpit treatment to every other state that is not within its political party’s wing. For all it’s worth, Penang is still one of the relatively nicer state.

…

Allow me to explain a little on Malaysia’s muddy political state of affairs. It is a racist state; one that the government denies but continues to improve. How could one race be given special rights and privileges when others in this multi-racial country sweats and bleeds for the real improvement of the nation? The Malays did not win their independence, no; The British liberally granted it, with condition of power sharing among the races. Yet today, a capable Malaysian Chinese or Malaysian Indian will not even be given the second post in command.

It is something that many Malaysian has possibly come to accept. Reluctantly. Citizens with rights, has given up hope to fight for such a cause seeing that the present day government liberally amends the Constitution to keep themselves in power; over 600 times in 40 years. In comparison, United States in its 200 years history only has 27 amendments.

Freedom of religion? They can throw that page in the gutter. A Malay cannot officialy embrace any religion other than Islam; which is funny. While they claim there is no compulsion in Islam, one cannot leave the religion without getting thrown in jail or receiving death threats. And these are not even the extremist among them. The victims are people with basic human rights, born into a Muslim families and were never asked to choose. It is a shame that Malaysia designed its flag based on the Star Spangled Banner, because they do not imitate the very cradle of freedom and justice that United States represents.

And we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

There may be no end to this inequity; Malaysians are after all, in my encounters, peaceful people. The only way this nation would heal is that, if one day the Malays wake up from their slumber and realize their actual worth: Less. Japanese came to invade and they couldn’t defend. The communist took over and they couldn’t fought. The British came and liberated Malaya. The Malays don’t deserve this country to themselves; they owe it to everyone else. Simply, what one cannot defend one do not own. Then maybe, just maybe, they’ll stop bickering for welfare treatment, get smart, see the world, acquire wealth instead of spending it, and start treating others as they’d wish to be treated.

I digress. Normally I would restrain from political comments, but having been here long enough and losing all faith in the conscience of men, certain things must be said. A friend of mine said, “the world needs a good spanking” and everyday I see this proves to be true. Our society is not so different from the Romans whom fed gladiators to the lions purely for entertainment. Even people whom are perceived to be cultured, driving Mercedes and Jaguars displaying success, spits and throw garbage out their car window and occasionally fails to flush the toilet. This is mankind’s endsville. Monkeys in pants and suits.

The journey from Kuala Lumpur to Penang is a little over 4 hours. Kedah to Kelantan close to 7 hours, and for 2 hours I drove through the mountain range in rain, fog, and complete night darkness of the surrounding. Not a gas station in sight. If I busted my wheels and stopped, I would probably be raped by some giant chimpanzee for invading their turf.

…

All the time I was heavily relying on my Garmin GPS loaded with maps from Malsingmaps.com website. I had an external high-gain GPS antenna placed on the car’s rooftop and that got me through all the way.

Without my GPS, I could have taken a wrong turn and ended in Thailand. At one point the GPS showed that I was only 13 kilometers away from the border. Since Kedah and Kelantan borders with southern Thailand, I guess it’s possible that one could enter Thailand through the dense jungle. One thing for sure, it won’t be like crossing into San Diego from Mexico.

I reached Kota Bharu in Kelantan past midnight. My original route when I started deviating off-course was from Kedah to Dungun in Terrenganu, but that journey itself would take another 4 hours. I had driven over 6 hours without food and rest. I had to check-in for the night.

The following day I plotted my course back to Kuala Lumpur on my laptop. I was shocked to find that I had a 10 hours drive ahead of me. I immediately regretted not heading back south from Penang, but the sigh over didn’t last long. Driving had become a passion.

So, 6 hours into my journey from Kota Bharu I made a stop in Teluk Chempedak in Kuantan. The beach is small but clean. There are some restaurants but primarily McDonalds and KFC with outside seatings.

The east coast roads thus far had been country roads or local trunk roads serving as primary north-south route, but from Kuantan south-westward to Kuala Lumpur it’s a nice open highway. I left Kuantan around 9pm and cruised at 120kmh to reach my destination just after midnight. And I even raced with another vehicle on the highway for about 30 minutes! I’m too chicken to drive beyond 140kmh, so in the end I had to let the nincompoop drove past me by.

And oh, I played country tunes and truckers’ songs like East Bound and Down for most part of the trip. I feel like a semi-truck driver!

Epilogue.

Having returned safely from my road trip, I examined two facts that came prominently to my mind: (a) I traveled alone; and (b) I pondered about life. While I did not hear from God as I hoped I would, I remember a poem I drafted last year. It’s really about God.

Your words are like the depth of Uzboi Vallis,
In the broad of Crater Holden on Mars,
Your words they can take me to my knees,
In the broad of horizon into the stars.

Ironically, I wrote it when I was courting a girl whom couldn’t appreciate anything at all. Not flowers, nor diamonds, nor gifts.

And being alone with my gadgets isn’t as fun as it used to be.

I think it’d be really nice if I can take someone with me next time on my road trip. Someone whom shares the adventure, time spent together, and hopefully money for the gas tank too.

The universe and its matrices,
A marvel feat of creation,
It is never short of vexes,
One simply need to find a vocation.

I’ve gone places in my youth,
Been both a shrewd being and a fool,
I’ve met people whom are uncouth,
But they drive cars that makes me drool.

I’m attracted to the unattainable,
Being drawn by intimidation,
Trying to piece together the unsolvable,
Stumble and setbacks by inevitable frustration.

I’m weary of the unfathomable,
Anxiously endure the wily and shady,
Resigning to my fate is not acceptable,
Never before find myself so needy.

I recently came across a pristine rose,
And for a moment I wanted to believe,
That there is a purpose in life I suppose,
Even if it seems impossible to achieve.

I have seen much and I have grown,
Time to mend my hurt and set out to atone,
Yet I wish I have someone to call my own,
No one should be cast down and alone.

I live a life that keeps me on my toes,
Knows not what lies ahead in this journey,
Guess I’ll have to see how far it goes,
In the mean time I could really enjoy a turkey.

After dozen of interviews I’ve come to the conclusion that it is not legal to enjoy interviews. It leads to frustration, disappointment, evil loads of paperworks, and the birth of a black hole.

I’ll get straight to the point.

There are times when you meet a reputable candidate. The kind that claims to be able to write in 5 different languages (one of it is Klingon), a little hubris on the technical end with some sweet gravy when it comes to economic sense, but insist that it only takes one byte to store a pointer! Just where in the world did you get your degree from?

I was about to close a deal one time, and this chap seemed like a nice kid. He talked about his church, his grandmother, and how hard he works in his present job despite being underpaid. Then I asked the magic question: “Can you work late and occasionally travel around the region?”, to which he replied, “I got to be home by six to feed my dog.”

Another example. I interviewed this girl that seems to have it all; the brain, the looks, the brawls. She’s any typical male geek dream girl. The cutest moment was when she said, “If I don’t get this job, I probably won’t be applying anywhere else.” Hiring her would probably mean distraction for most programmers and would lead to productivity breakdown. But she got hired, performed her duties, and excelled in her own domain. The decisions that an interviewer has to make gets tougher everyday.

So they’re not all bad encounters with the Darwin-kind. If humans are indeed God’s big budget sequel to the monkeys, they ought to be endowed with something more than just charisma to make up for their inability to walk around naked and carefree among their own species. It’s so important that it distinguishes us from apes in pants. Ready for it? It’s called a brain.

I’m looking for someone who can deliver codes, not just copy it from the Internet. I want someone with enough initiative to learn new skills without being told. I need someone to get off their programming seat once in a while and ask the other guys whether they have a need for new tools or complex solutions. And then code it!

So here’s what I’m concluding: Try not to interview experienced programmers. If they’re on the job market, the chances that they’re worthless is 70% (a figure plucked from the wind) of the time. Good programmers are usually harvested fresh from colleges and do not remain on job market often because they have a goal of where they want to work. And they’re usually well taken care of by their employers too.

If you really have to interview experienced candidates, do it first over the phone. This will save your time and theirs. Try to gauge whether this guy or girl is really the material he or she claims he or she is by asking down to earth technical questions. If that works out all right, then call the candidate for a face-to-face interview.

Real programmers are not intimidated by hard facts. They love statistics and raw codes.

Personally I enjoy hiring fresh graduates more. They can be trained and they’re always eager to please, which leads to them taking more initiative than their experienced peers.

There’s this tale about a senior engineer and a newcomer. The senior engineer was given a task and said it can’t be done. The newcomer on the other hand, has no previous experience to say it can’t be done, so he just took it and worked on it. And he did it!

A lesson out of interviewing programmers is the same old sound wisdom our K12 teachers taught us: Do not judge a book by it’s cover. I’d say, do not judge a candidate by their talk but by their codes.

Lesson learned.