Philip Khor

This is one for the history books:

Today, 20 December 2011 I had chicken rice at Bentong for lunch, two chicken drumstick for tea at 3pm and now 9pm dinner at a restaurant nearby Chicken Rice with roast pork.

Hope it is not detrimental to my health. I need more variety in life!

Rationale for Celcom’s iPhone Data allocation is quite puzzling!

celcom iphone data

I have quite shallow understanding of pricing in terms of Marketing but here are my thoughts:

For the i68 plan, why offer 800 MB of data when Digi and Maxis are offering 1GB?

Of the three comparison tables, it looks like the winner for the most CONFUSING table of information goes to Celcom!

Celcom appeals to a certain demographics, which is quite facinated when they’re presented with ALL the information. Ok, I might be overstereotyping here, but think about it. It is usually the manager and business people who love factsheets before they buy.

I’d say Maxis plans are the most cunning. Pinch penny users go for Digi naturally because of their lower numbers, but if you consider living out your entire 12 or 24 month contract with a carrier, it is neck-and-neck between Digi and Maxis. As a Digi user myself, I’d give Maxis a shot if I were to re-commit to another smartphone contract. Digi just plain suck. The network sucks — data is unavailable all the time.

Back to the original argument, why does Celcom offer 800 MB?

The answer (I speculate) is that … their demographics would think 800 MB is greater than 1 GB.

And guess what, people will ask this to their sales people when buying the phone “Eh, why Maxis one gee-bee, and Siau-com got 800 emm-bee?!” More opportunity for sales people to confuse, make a pitch and close the deal.

Smart move, Celcom. Hats off.

Links to iphone page: Celcom | Maxis | Digi

I love this ted talk by Daniel Wolpert:

So for example, if you put your hand under a table and try to localize it with your other hand, you can be off by several centimeters due to the noise in sensory feedback. Similarly, when you put motor output on movement output, it’s extremely noisy. Forget about trying to hit the bull’s eye in darts, just aim for the same spot over and over again. You have a huge spread due to movement variability. And more than that, the outside world, or task, is both ambiguous and variable. The teapot could be full, it could be empty. It changes over time. So we work in a whole sensory movement task soup of noise.

Now this noise is so great that society places a huge premium on those of us who can reduce the consequences of noise. So if you’re lucky enough to be able to knock a small white ball into a hole several hundred yards away using a long metal stick, our society will be willing to reward you with hundreds of millions of dollars.

Wow.

Full Text / video at their ted.com site

On 25th Nov I received news that I am being transfered to another team, also within the same area of business, just 5-steps away from my current desk, as a matter of fact-ly.

From the land of the rising sun and the pearl of Asia (HK?) now I would be serving the European and African markets. Challenging yes. Am I up for it? Ask me in 2 months time. Kthxbie.

Recently I recall reading something about Performance Management. I can’t remember what issue or topic discussion it was about, could have been technology related, could have been comparison of a product or performance of employees. But the lesson I got out of it was a quote:

“This product is terrible not because it is terrible. Because it was pitted against the almighty [more superior product] and when compared against a giant, it looks pathetic.”

To simplify, I think “in order to fairly compare one to another, it must be done through the correct perspective“. Which leaves me to this deceptive advertisement found on a Nissan car.

Latio deceptive Ad

5 star is the gold standard in most ratings. Eg. a 5-star hotel like Marriott or Hilton is 5-star because they’re the best! But then, when Marketing people run out of creative original ideas, they bullshit their way through. Take the Empire Hotel and Country Club in Brunei Darussalam for example who once claimed to be a 6-star hotel. Sure it’s nice (and if you haven’t been there, you should.. it’s worth the experience!) Then there’s the Burj Al-Arab in Dubai – 7 freaking stars (although Wikipedia rightly points out that this rating is misleading)

The people coming out with proposterous claims back themselves up by saying that ratings are subjective and that there is no one agency charged to regulate how people rate things. Sure, there are ‘bodies and associations’ backed by big corporate giant $$$$ who give themselves awards and recognition.

Which reminds me of Stephen Colbert’s Grammy performance; somewhere when the iPad 1 was introduced he smugly said, “And now… let’s give ourselves some awards!”. Who operate the grammy’s? Who makes the decisions on who to get awarded? Who operate and run the awards that your companies get? “Recognised bodies? Congolmerate of special interest groups?” Pe-tuuui!

I think awards are as useless as it doesn’t solve the world’s problems. Kids in kindergarden and pre-school get awards for everything. There are 40 students in a class… there’s always 100 over awards throughout the year to give out. It is frustrating as these children grow up to expect things to be given down to them.

Back to the issue of comparison, I thank God for the freedom to choose whether iWant an iPhone or Android or WinMo or BB. Often times as they are substitute products for each other, people often compare the awesomeness of their Blackberies to the Android cocktail of devices to the niche Windows Mobile (at version 7.5 already although they’re so new in the market) and the benchmark of today, the iPhone.

Whether your phone is 3 star, 5 star or no star, a smartphone without an internet connection is a dumbphone. I’m looking forward to the day 4G LTE capable smartphones become a common place. Digi 3G right now is just miserable when (if and rarely) functional. On the road (especially the highways on long trips), I just couple it with Yes 4G mobile broadband.

This December, I hope you have a good time. Work hard, party hard. And as the economy and the world around us crumble, hang on to your faith. Hang on to your belief (the stuff that kept you going for the past 5 years) because I forsee troubling times ahead!

Planning to host an event in Kg Tun Sardon, near Lunas, Kedah. Somewhere in march 2012.

Aim is to raise money for charity (education in rural Kedah)

Aim is to gather . Influential Penang tweeter users and meet up in real life.

Here are some thoughts in my head:

Twestival Penang 2012
1. Get yes4g to come
2. Spend 100gb in 4 hours (5-8pm) pay to charity.
3. 50 mbit/sec available to use
4. Finger food+ tent + power + transport + beer
5. Tweet in the jungle!
6. We pay for your use challenge! YTL pays for your usages.
7. Gathering of tweeter users from Kulim, Bukit mertajam, prai, butter worth and anyone out of town

Event finish at 8pm before proceed to auto city for after-party / proper boozing, etc. just 30 min away via Butterworth Kulim highway.

Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on what I can be thankful of. There are many things that I am thankful of. But this year I wanna highlight my top 3 things I am thankful for. Yours may differ, and I’d like to hear what’s yours.

1. Food on the table.
In essence, I am thankful that I have good food. I have choices on what I wanna eat, when I wanna eat and who I wanna eat with. Many people in poorer places either have no clean food, problems with drought or flooding affecting their crops, or harsh dictatorship and unjust governments. Not that Malaysia is near perfect at all, but at least I have good food on the table. I’m really thankful for that.

2. Good health
Often times I take good health for granted. We only notice this blessing once we fall ill. Working in a dense office environment, packed public transport in an immigrant filled metropolitan area of Kuala Lumpur, being healthy itself can prove a competitive advantage!

3. Freedom
I say this freedom on a personal level. I describe this freedom as the lack of restrictions while living under your parent’s roof in high school / college years. Not that I am a rebel, but having boundless freedom comes with the responsibility of keeping alive, staying alive and not fucking up.

All in all, looking at the bigger picture, there’s nothing worth mentioning of what there is to complain about. A lot of “issues” in my life are mere inconveniences. All problems have their solutions. It hurts me when people want to fuck their own lives (FML); feeling ungrateful for what they have. Although I must admit to coming to your senses and realising your life is so so much more awesome than you think, it takes time. It takes time to appreciate your haves and numbing your have nots.

Have a good thanksgiving day and if you’re shopping for holiday gifts on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, happy shopping!

14 months 15 days — that is how long I had my iPhone 4 in Malaysia before the new one is publicly available.

Rumour has it that the 4S is being released on Friday 16 December 2011. I got my black iPhone 4 on 2 October 2010. So that’s just about right.

I reckon if you bought yours on launch day MALAYSIA, chances are the iPhone 5 will be announced July 2012 available somewhere Sept/Oct 2012 — just about time when my subsidized 2 year contract with DiGi ends.

love it!

As part of my postcrossing.com  project, I wrote a card to Italy, this guy living near AS Roma’s base about our passion for Football!!

writing to italy

This weekend is gonna be mad.

Across the weekend, the whole family will be at Kampar for my bro’s in-law’s wedding ceremony. Swiftly after that, it’s a quick stop in Penang for the foodie and then boarding a little ship for a one night cruise. Not sure what the fuss is, but there are gambling tables and other “entertainment” abroad. I guess I need a getaway after working non stop for close to 4 months straight without any holiday.

AS 2012 draws near, my colleagues and I get to chart out our annual leave. The only two Chinese in the group *should* get the full 2 weeks of CNY holidays. Then I’m thinking monthly one day leaves from March – year end to enable me to visit my hometown Bukit Mertajam.

I keep telling myself that planning ahead is great, but let’s just take one day at a time. Starting with, today’s Biggest Loser Competition final weight in! I started at 95 kg, dancing around the the low 90s, and I hope I end with.. 90.0 kg. Tough ask, but dreams don’t turn to dust! =P Some say I look slimmer. Problem is, the mass just got shifted, some to the muscles, mostly to the thighs, but strictly speaking my weight did not disappear. It took a different shape or form!

Lastly, as we look around the world today we see problems. The Greek and the other PIGS in europe have the financial crises. 1/5th the world have food and sanitation problems. Many have job problems due to emerging economies and outsourcing, or simply the crash of a particular industry. Steve said “As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. don’t settle.” It is a bit hard to swallow and digest in these times of, great depression of sorts. And not to mention, mother nature is hitting us hard, subtly! Look at the weather and the adverse effect on us. Thai flooding means higher rice prices and hard disk and car prices (haha!) The jolting of crusty the Earth crust, means a chain reaction of uncertainty. Either people get sick of the temperatures, or sick worrying!

So how has your 2011 been?

Sorry for the terrible audio quality: will put more effort in 2012.