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Saturday, June 16, 2007

I finally finish reading Xun Qun Ji, direct translation will be The Tales of Finding the Qin Emperor. There is a HK drama serial that is starred by Louis Koo and Raymond Lam on this show quite some time back. To me, this is another great work by Huang Yi besides my all-time favourite Da Tang Shuang Long Chuan.

The story on Xun Qun Ji is basically about this guy call Xiang Shao Long, who is a special task force in Hongkong during the 21st Century was sent to a time machine as a guinea pig and travel back time to ancient China. However, something went wrong with the time machine, the result being the timing is not right. By right he is suppose to witness the time where Qin Shih Huang Ying Zheng ascend the throne, but he ended up in a era that is much earlier, which is Qin Shih Huang still held hostage in Zhao. So his mission is to find Ying Zheng, save him from Zhao and escort him back to Qin. Due to some surprises, he find out that Ying Zheng is already dead. Therefore, he actually make his disciple, Zhao Pan as Ying Zheng.

You might have wonder how come I suddenly talk abt this story. Actually, after reading the whole novel, I sort of realize one thing. When it really comes to personal gains and benefits, people can be really selfish and would not bother how much you have done to help them in the past. The story goes on to how "Ying Zheng" really become Qin Shih Huang. The only threat to him is Xiang Shao Long who know his real identity. Even though, Xiang Shaolong had helped him countless time and already state that he is not interested in power, nevertheless, Ying Zheng still want to silence him. That's the cruel reality. In future we would also have to face this sooner or later one day. Come to think of it, only children have the so-called purest heart. At least they would not put on a mask. When I was young, there is always this little-game between individuals, like I don't friend you this type of thing. When I get older, I sort of think it is childish. Now at least for them, they say don't friend means don't friend, when they got friends, that means those friends are really friends. Not like now, you don't even understand are they friends or not friends.

If really want state an example, I would say this situation occurs to me many times. The most obvious one is me and clement. Clement, I don't know and don't care whether you got read this anot, but I just wanna say it out. Clement and me on the surface seems really good friends. We got common topic like SP, accountancy, ACCA, stocks. But underneath, he know that I don't like him, I also know that he don't like me. Sometimes, he will like ask me go swimming, or ask me go gym with him. Seriously, I don't really understand. But, I still manage to so-called maintain a good relationship with him, at least on the surface. I admit that I backstabbed him quite a few times because sometimes, the things he do really make me blood boil. But what I can say now is that now we already ORD, just bury the hatchet and start afresh. That's all I have to say. In fact, I wanna tell you this yesterday, but I just dunnoe how to start.

"Desperate People have desperate measures"

Now this is something describe me. Somehow, I begin to face the reality and understand that this world is being shaped like that. Though very disappointed, but no choice cos life has to move on. What I can do now is to take desperate measures, in fact not really desperate yet. Kevin got the same plan as me. Seems that he also quite desperate... Haa... For me, I still quite in a relax mood, cos I know there is no point for me to rush. But that does not mean I am less desperate than him. I already have some plans in mind, but shall not reveal it until the time is ripe. I do understand that planning dn always lead to action, somemore is in me, which is always been the case. But this time round, I am serious, cos I am really desperate. Just wait and see.

Recently, there is quite some noise make over the increase in price of SCV. I am not a customer of SCV, so I am no right to complain or what. But I just wanna say one thing. Starhub is a profit-making organization. Simple economics model would state that when the demand is inelastic, they should increase price. Since starhub want to raise price, I don't understand what's there to argue about. If you talk about those in contract. Come on, when u sign the contract, u receive some benefits. Let say you wanna break the contract, there is of course penalty to be pay. This is fair and square. In the first place, you shouldn't expect the price to stay the same, unless they specifically say that your price will always remains, for e.g. Singnet.

Next, I saw the article of Islamic finance and SP actually allow students to take Islamic finance as an elective or dunnoe what. In my opinion, the place where the islamic finance will be useful should be somewhere in middle east, or maybe malaysia, but definitely not in Singapore. So unless Middle East become the next China, which would probably need around maybe 40 - 50 years, there is still no chance for Islamic finance to bloom in Singapore. Singaporeans don't need Islamic finance. The traditional banking and financial system that is in place for nearly a century had not posed much problem. There is no reason for muslims to change to Islamic Finance. Even if they do, the only reason maybe is more benefit, not because it is consistent with their religouous belief. Then this does not make any difference between Islamic Finance and tradtional finance.

Lastly, I wanna end my blog with a story named Prisoner's Dilemma which I have taken from another blog:

Prisoner’s dilemma involves two suspects, A and B, who have been arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, after separated both prisoners, offer each the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both stay silent, the police can sentence both to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each will receive a two-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. So the question this dilemma poses is: What will happen? How will the prisoners act?

The dilemma came about when one assumes that both prisoners only care about minimizing their own jail terms. Each prisoner has two options: to get a light sentence by cooperating with the police by betraying his accomplice, or to stay to the pact and keep quiet. The outcome of each choice depends on the choice of the accomplice, but the player must choose without knowing what their accomplice has chosen to do.Let’s assume prisoner A is working out his best move. If his partner stays quiet, his best move is to betray as he then walks free instead of receiving the minor sentence. If his partner betrays, his best move is to betray, as by doing it he receives a relatively lesser sentence than staying silent. At the same time, the other prisoner’s thinking would also have arrived at the same conclusion and would therefore also betray.If reasoned from the perspective of the optimal outcome for the group (of the two prisoners), the correct choice would be for both prisoners to cooperate with each other, as this would reduce the total jail term served by the group to one year total. Any other decision would be worse for the two prisoners considered together. When the prisoners both betray each other, each prisoner achieves a worst outcome than if they had cooperated.

The moral of the story is that action that appears rational from a individual perspective sometimes become foolish when viewed from a group's perspective. And this also can be in a situation that is vice versa. I find this quite interesting. Just wanna share with those few people that read my blog.

Note: I have take the story from http://berkshireh.blogspot.com/. This is to declare that I only want to share the story and not purposely wanna claim the full credit for this story.

The-One-and-Only, nthock @ 11:55 PM