The Kafkaesque

Pat Gelsinger, who has been in charge of Intel’s core chip businesses, will leave Intel for storage giant EMC, according to reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Intel reportedly will announce Sept. 14 that Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of its Digital Enterprise Group, is leaving the company.

The New York Times is reporting that Gelsinger’s departure will put in motion a number of other executive moves. As Mr. Gelsinger departs, Sean Maloney, Intel’s head of sales and marketing, will take on an even larger role at the company, the people said. All of Intel’s major chip businesses, including its PC, graphics and server chips, will fall under Mr. Maloney, while Dadi Perlmutter, the head of Intel’s laptop chips, will now oversee engineering for all the chip divisions.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Gelsinger is moving to storage giant EMC, where he will be in charge of that company’s storage products operations, as well as some software businesses. The Wall Street Journal said EMC CEO Joe Tucci had gotten to know Gelsinger in recent years as EMC switched over to Intel processors and away from chips supplied by IBM.

The following article is a work of fiction and any resemblance to people still living, already dead, or about to die is purely coincidental.

NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Bangun!

All rise. The judge walks in and takes his seat.

Duduk!

All sit down again.

Case number 1651/09, the Shah Alam High Court, Public Prosecutor versus Mohd Azmir Mohd Zin, Ahmad Suhairi Zakaria, Mohd Hilmi Ni, Eyzra Ezhar Ramlz, Ibrahim Sabri and Ahmad Mahayuddhn Abd Manaf. Will all the accused please come forward and enter the dock.

The six enter the dock.

Okay. What is the charge? Please read out the charges to all the accused.

Yes, your honour. You, Mohd Azmir Mohd Zin, Ahmad Suhairi Zakaria, Mohd Hilmi Ni, Eyzra Ezhar Ramlz, Ibrahim Sabri and Ahmad Mahayuddhn Abd Manaf, are accused of dragging a cow’s head after Friday prayers on…….

Hold on. What are they being charged for?

Sedition, your honour.

Sedition? How come I don’t get to hear sodomy cases? I want to hear a sodomy case. Is there any sodomy involved here?

No, your honour. Only sedition.

How did they commit sedition?

They dragged a cow’s head to the Selangor State Secretariat building.

How can they commit sedition against a cow? Dragging a cow is not seditious.

It was not a cow, your honour. It was a cow’s head.

Of course you have to drag a cow by the head. I know that. You can’t drag a cow by the tail.

Continue reading here ...

Easily 'Up' could be one of the most watchable movies for 2009. An animation movie suitable for both kids and adults, it is a tale of a senior citizen and a Asian-lookalike boy (supposedly) on a helium-powered-house soaring on unimaginable adventure.

Kids will be fancied by the colorful balloons, the talking dogs and Kevin (the colorful tropical bird); adults will be moved by the movie's core concept. 'Up' is reminiscence of 'Wall-E', comprising strong and powerful storyline, generating genuine emotion and exuding logic of dream and fantasy.

'Up' does many things well. You just have to watch it to appreciate more. To me, the quality that stays longest is its fearlessness in the face of emotion. It is such a quality film that sincere enough to restore one's faith in whatever needs restoration.

Carpe diem!

By the way, Rotten Tomatoes has a 97% positive rating, stating: "Another masterful work of art from Pixar, Up is an exciting, hilarious, and heartfelt adventure impeccably crafted and told with wit and depth."

The tragedy of Kampung Buah Pala
Himanshu Bhatt

JUST a few days before bulldozers showed up at Kampung Buah Pala last month, in what turned out to be a failed attempt to demolish the village, an emotional resident showed me an old crinkled photograph of her great grandmother, who had lived in the settlement about a hundred years back.

Little would the guileless young woman with a haunting expression in the picture have known that her descendants would one day have to fight a pitched battle to defend that very ancestral land that she had toiled on.

Much has been said about the Kampung Buah Pala crisis. But a problem in this whole affair is that it is swamped in a morass of political chest-thumping and technical legalese that it is difficult for the general public to appreciate, let alone understand, the intrinsic dilemma of the villagers.

Those who have witnessed the audacious stance the villagers put up to protect their homes may better perceive the impulse that drives these descendants of planters and cowherds to literally face death in such a manner.

theSun Daily on Kampung Buah Pala, read it more here

Directed by Tan Chui Mui, this short film entitled '1 Future', in my opinion, is one of the best videos published in 15Malaysia.com thus far.

Stated in the website, '1 Future', an edgy and powerful science fiction, bearing the relatively loose censorship in World Wide Web brought a new dimension to fellow Malaysians unusually. Chui Mui pours her clever notions into an unfamiliar mold: A story of a society with perfect lives, perfect families, perfect jobs (?), except no one is allowed to SPEAK. An astonishingly impactful story line, don't you agree? It enkindles huge room for imagination and thoughts in everyone...

One thing for sure, 15Malaysia project has re-introduced Tan Chui Mui, hitherto a little known name to most Malaysians in a most successful way!