recordtv vs mediacorp
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 (7:40 PM)
i admit, i don't like mediacorp one bit. having witnessed and heard how the people work in the organisation, i have this impression that they are simply stuck up. yes, i also admit committing the mistake of judging the entire organisation by a small sample size because i have yet found evidence to the contrary. in spite of that, i believe my argument today is not biased. it will be based upon logical reasoning.
i just read on the papers that recordtv and mediacorp are having a lawsuit because mediacorp feels that recordtv has infringed on their copyright. also, mediacorp is challenging recordtv's claim that they are stifling the progress of an innovation. everything else aside, whether it is "a new innovation" or not, they are all committing a fallacy. they are arguing about something that is irrelevant to the more important issue - copyright.
i'd like to make an audacious assumption that mediacorptv just likes the idea by recordtv and wants to get rid of them before setting up this very same service themselves. yes, monopoly has resulted in this form of greed and arrogance. but to protect myself from any lawsuit, i still have to say that this is not necessarily true because it is afterall my groundless assumption.
back to the more important case, i think it is silly or plain dumb to be suing recordtv over copyright infringement. the case is simple. according to the report, recordtv's service allows users to record any program for up to 15 days. isn't this form of recording similar to the use of vcr, vcd recorder, dvd recorder or wintv? the only difference is in the way recording is executed. besides, the recordings online will be made inaccessible after 15 days as compared to the more traditional media, which can be saved, kept or even distributed. not that i am interested in keeping mediacorp programs anyway. to be honest, i really loved mediacorp's programs in the past. but while time has improved, the standard of the programs have stood at a standstill. look at chestnuts' musical for 2009 and you will understand. yes, chestnuts made fun of their unchanging script ideas for the past n years. but i digress.
if recordtv can be sued over copyright infringement just because it allows users to record tv programs, then they probably should start suing panasonic, thomson, sony, akira, hitachi, pioneer... because they all produced recording machines. worse, theirs can only be erased at the owners' own will. 15 days? even 15 years isn't a problem.
i hope they can step aside from the silly argument on whether or not it is a new innovation and get back to the crux of the matter. and i sure hope mediacorp realises this is but one silly case to be fighting.
disclaimer: i am not a recordtv user and neither should the above content on the lawsuit be taken as truth. it is only a personal opinion.
peter pan
Sunday, June 28, 2009 (11:17 AM)
when i first heard the news of michael jackson's death, it felt so surreal i didn't have any thoughts or feelings about it. some days later - today, when i picked up the papers and read about him again, it felt like something was very wrong. no, i wasn't such a huge fan though i really admire his performances. i own 2 copies of his works.
not really.
one is an interview called "living with michael jackson". the other is "ghosts". i would love to have had a chance to catch his performance live when he was at his peak, but that wasn't much of my musical inclinations then.
the emptiness and disbelief didn't stem from my position as a fan. as i've already established, i'm not a huge fan of his. but the magnitude and charm he exudes on stage as i recall on mtv awards some many years ago during his anniversary made me fall in love with his onstage charisma. it was a total different person. and it was amazing. kinda like the beyonce-sasha-fierce vibe except way greater. he created a musical world of his own. but one thing i still cannot imagine...
how can the boy who refused to grow up die? how can the boy who lived in neverland die? how can peter pan die?
as i think about it, it felt like he didn't live a very happy life. made to enter the entertainment industry at a tender age of 6, he fell victim to the monstrosity of the complex world of entertainment. he seemed to have had the best things but he also had his worse. kidnap, paedophilia, endangering the life of his child, nose job, fair skin... it is as though no part of his body has not been a victim of tabloid.
he never knew what it was like to be normal. he never knew what it was like to have no cameras ambushing him everyday. less than 1/10th of his life anyway.
so perhaps it is time he gets some rest...
rest in peace, peter pan.
beware of yourself and more...
Saturday, June 20, 2009 (10:05 PM)
the racism of yesteryear has spilled over even till today but we have become so used to it, many a times, it unknowingly slips off our tongue and out our sinful mouth.
while on the bus back today, a little boy was making a hell lot of noise. not that i know how noisy hell actually is. a number of people were looking over at the boy including one indian. there were also two other indians sitting beside the boy minding their own businesses.
as the parents tried to silence the boy to no avail, the father decided to use the tactic our parents used to use on us: 等一下 ah neh neh 抓你啊!
i was a little taken aback. with the indians at such close proximity, he actually blurted out "ah neh neh." i understand that they most likely do not understand mandarin. i also understand that "ah neh" in tamil means "brother" but those acclimatised to our society would've understood that "ah neh neh" is a pretty unflattering term.
underlyingly, we are still bred into the idea that the ah neh nehs are bad people who will kidnap us if we misbehave. and things like that cause racism to spread without our conscious knowledge of it. that is dangerous.
this very same incident also made me realise that the way our parents used to teach and discipline us is the very cause of our impulse to feel like hitting or slapping someone when they get on our nerves. whenever we did wrong and they do not like it, they whip out the cane and start whipping our asses. if i were a potato, i would've been sent to kfc long ago. this gave us the idea that violence is the solution. which is also why children under abuse have a higher tendency to grow up violent.
and yet another note, i was pretty "unautomatic" (buay zi dong) today. at the takashimaya basement, the kfc and macdonalds were side-by-side and we wanted to eat kfc. but kfc had no seats left and macs still had a few. also, we noticed a number of people eating kfc food at macs with only one macs ice-cream or regular drink on the table. so we decided to follow suit, except that we didn't bother to buy anything from macs. until a macs staff came over and helplessly tell us, "are you eating macdonalds? this is kfc the tables are over there..." and his tone was so helpless. you can really tell he is unhappy about it but at the same time, he can't scold us because of his position as a service staff. so i went to buy a mcflurry and sat down. i thought about it and i know that if i were in his position i would be so damn pissed off with us, i'll keep complaining and cursing and i'll post it on my blog. so after we finished our kfc stuff, we promptly cleared the tray in the kfc bin and before we left, i apologised to the staff for our inconsiderate act.
i'm really sorry...
yet another note. today i bought a new phone. the samsung jet. i was flipping through the user manual and found this... (click to see a larger image)
O_O!!!
the most heartwarming reason for quitting 4D
Friday, June 19, 2009 (9:03 PM)
today i was chatting with a colleague and the topic on 4D came up.
he said he hadn't bought 4D for over 10 years already and it was because of a dream some 10 years ago. he dreamt that the devil gave him 4 numbers and told him, "go buy these 4 numbers, and if you strike, you must give me your daughter's life."
although it's just a dream, for some reason, it was kinda chilling and since then, he gave up on 4D altogether.
overwhelmingly heartwarming.
i love this reason...
even juicier news
(3:02 PM)
remember the juicy news i posted some time ago?
even after having browsed the photos, i didn't realise till now that the girl's current boyfriend was a very good friend of mine in secondary school. yes, he changed that much, i didn't realise at first sight.
what a small and crazy world...
singapore knows
Monday, June 15, 2009 (10:02 PM)
as soon as i opened the front door to my home, i see mum and sis reading a letter. mum immediately told me she asked sis to open my letter in case it's from the army. i was confused.
i looked at the envelope and it read "on government service". i seriously thought it was a call to return to the army. then i looked at the letter. it's from mcys in a partnership with the moe to offer me a 1-year complimentary membership to the sdu. now known as sdu-sds.
so, the government does know that i still am single.
sawat dii khrap
Saturday, June 13, 2009 (10:15 PM)
i've finally gotten my digicam today from the pc show. the crowd wasn't as bad as i had expected. i guess most people were grossed out by the last IT show in march. the crowd was so bad, i felt like throwing up... so everyone would move to the side and let me through.
going back to the topic, i'm planning to leave for thailand in september. if things go well, which is that if my boss allows me to take 1 month unpaid leave, then i would be spending that 1 month in thailand. 4 weeks to be exact, so i'll be back in the last week of september. but i'm kinda worried about my boss' reaction because i'm the only one doing what i do. my department only has me although i do have someone sometimes helping me out but his main job is still an editor.
i'm sure my parent company would be very pleased to hear of my decision since everyone is trying to cut cost and they actually sent out emails asking people to volunteer giving up their leaves, taking unpaid leaves or simply clearing them.
on a side note, after checking on things, i found out that i can actually work till july next year if my company does extend my contract at the end of this year. so hopefully, my contract gets extended! even though i've been saying i'll quit at the end of the year... = = but that was only because i had thought that the other plan would require me to fly over by early next year.
so let's all pray hard for my smooth unpaid leave application.
where's my memory?
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 (10:46 PM)
i actually had a couple - in this case, two exactly - of comments about serious stuff to write today. they came to me while i was at work but i can't recall what triggered them and what they were though i thought it would be interesting to write them down. it's been really long since i last wrote something interesting and i had to lose them! argh!
i seem to have lost my crazy memory to something. maybe there's a worm in my mind replicating itself taking up all my memory space. so now, instead of something intellectual, i'm going to do something a little more shallow.
i intend to get a digicam. yes, i've said it before but in between all that, i actually thought of getting a dslr. nikon d5000 to be exact, but i prevented myself from an impulse purchase, thought it through and decided, i need a camera that is easy to bring anywhere and one that can record unlimited video length. one that helps me capture my memories, not art.
so a compact digicam it is.
not canon ixus100is though.
why do you have beer belly?
Monday, June 01, 2009 (8:05 PM)
when we sit up from bed, we flex our abs.
when we laugh, we flex our abs.
when we gek sai, we flex our abs.
our abs is one of the most worked-out body parts. so why do you have a beer belly?