Day: September 8, 2013

– Sakmongkol
The Malaysian Insider
September 08, 2013

Apa sudah jadi kepada pemimpin Umno? Respons mereka terhadap isu-isu yang dibangkitkan sejak akhir-akhir ini dibuat dalam keadaan hysteria.

Dua minggu lalu, bila Anwar Ibrahim mencadangkan perbincangan meja bulat, cadangan tersebut dibaca sebagai cadangan menubuhkan kerajaan perpaduan.

Anwar Ibrahim mengajak pemimpin Umno yang bengap untuk berbincang mengenai polarisasi kaum, mengenai rasuah, mengenai pengurusan ekonomi negara, mengenai jinayah dalam negara dan perkara2 umpanya.

Perkara yang mudah ini pun pemimpin Umno tidak faham sebab diserang penyakit sawan babi dan hysteria.

Pemimpin-pemimpin PAS pun saya harap fahamlah dahulu cadangan Anwar itu. Ini bukan kerajaan perpaduan.

Bukan untuk bergabung dengan Umno. Tak ada orang hendak bergabung dengan Umno. Umno parti fiudal, rasuah dan rasis dan zalim kepada orang Melayu.

Kita bukan ingin bergabung, kita hendak lawan Umno sampai Umno kalah. Kita hendak memerdekakan orang Melayu dari perhambaan Umno yang feudal ini. Continue reading “Setpol Encik Lim Kit Siang dan UITM”

– K Ranga Krishnan
The Malaysian Insider
September 06, 2013

A few weeks ago, as I was preparing to welcome our new batch of students to Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, I came across a wonderful and thought-provoking paper by Abraham Flexner — the educator whose report a century ago revolutionised medical education worldwide — titled The Usefulness of Useless Research.

I was struck by the clarity of the paper’s exposition on how research driven by curiosity leads to unexpected advances.

Flexner wrote this article in 1939 to address the growing discussion on why research has to be useful, a discourse that is happening to this day.

He recounts an illustrative interview that he had with George Eastman of Eastman Kodak fame. Flexner asked him who he thought was the most useful worker in science. Eastman said Guglielmo Marconi, the man credited with using wireless waves to produce the radio.

Flexner then pointed out to Eastman that the real credit belonged to James Clerk Maxwell, who predicted and developed the underlying principles of electromagnetism, and others like Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, who detected and demonstrated these electromagnetic waves.

Neither of these men had any thought about how their work would be useful. Continue reading ““Useless” research — the seed of great breakthroughs”