Posts from — October 2007

WELCOME TO NATIONAL ANGKASAWAN PROGRAMME

The Angkasawan Programme is the Malaysian national programme to send the first Malaysian to space. The Malaysian will join two other cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz space craft that will rendezvous with the International Space Station, which is in orbit around the Earth at an altitude of approximately 360 km. The Angkasawan will carry out scientific researches on board the space station.

Maybe this is not the official Malaysian Angkasawan website since it’s develop by emedia.com.my. But it’s contain with lots of information like photos, video clips and also news update. You can visit the website here http://angkasa.emedia.com.my or you also can visit here http://www.angkasawan.com.my.

YouTube finally rolled out the long-awaited technology that automatically remove copyrighted clips, hoping to solve the movie and television studios fed up with the website’s persistent piracy problems. The filtering tools are designed so the owners of copyrighted material can block their stuffs from appearing on YouTube, which has become a havoc in its two-year existence. The tools also give the owners of copyrighted material the option to sell ads around their material if they want the clips to remain available on YouTube. To find and remove copyrighted music, YouTube already uses separate filtering tools developed by Los Gatos-based Audible Magic Corp.

As the YouTube’s traffic getting bigger, movie and TV studios became increasingly frustrated with the rampant piracy fuelling its popularity, although YouTube said it has followed copyright laws by removing any protected video upon request. YouTube’s critics have argued that the site turned a blind eye to flagrant piracy so it could show more appealing material to build its audience and pump up its value. Google prized San Bruno-based YouTube so much it paid US$1.76bil to buy the site 11 months ago and after that YouTube has been working with Google engineers ever since to develop the tools needed to flag copyrighted video, said David King, a YouTube product manager. Google and YouTube began promising the new copyright protection technology six months ago.

It’s still too early to tell how YouTube’s new filtering system will affect the Viacom suit, said Mike Fricklas, Viacom’s general counsel. “We are delighted that Google appears to be stepping up to its responsibility and end the practice of infringement,” he said.

YouTube’s previous lack of copyright protections for video content prompted Viacom Inc to sue it for US$1bil (RM3.4bil) for showing thousands of clips that the New York-based company owned.

Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor’s dream came true when he finally blasted off into space, and hoping that he would be just the first of many more Malaysian Angkasawan to come.

“I’ve dreamt of this since I was 10 years old, and now I am living the dream of all Malaysians,” he said, just hours before launching into space.

“I want to inspire them as the first Malaysian in space, just like Yuri Gagarin (the first man in space) and Neil Armstrong (first man on the moon) still inspire many today.

“I hope to make them believe in their capabilities and get them interested in science, mathematics and engineering.

“Hopefully after me, there will be more Angkasawan in the future,” he said. The orthopaedic surgeon, however, admits he expected to be the chosen one.

“To be honest I was not really surprised because I worked hard, was focused and motivated. I sacrificed everything – my life, surgery, business, my loved ones and modelling,” he said.

“More important is what I can contribute to Malaysia, such as the technologies I learned from Russia that I hope to share with our scientists. I hope Malaysia will rally to enter a new era and one day, we’ll have our own space rocket and become a leader in the aerospace arena,” he said.

Dr Sheikh Muszaphar, however, believes that his trip to space is secondary to what he will learn and bring back from the experience. On a personal level, he looks forward to the life-changing experience in space, including gaining new spiritual experience in the skies.

“I want to share my experience of fasting and praying in space with Malaysians and all Muslims. I think space will change my life perception,” he said.

He spent his time reading the Quran and conducting sembahyang hajat, and calling his family and loved one. He wants to succeed in his mission so as not to let down the scientists who had spent three years preparing for the experiments he will conduct. For the record, this ‘Mission’ is inspired by the former Malaysia Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Muhammad.

1. You don’t fit in. Your values don’t match the company’s. If your colleagues are dishonest and focused on getting ahead regardless of legal or moral barriers, it’s time to quit before scandal sinks the company.

2. Your boss doesn’t like you and you don’t like him or her. If your boss never asks your opinion, and never wants to chat or have lunch with you, and if you disagree with her/his agenda and dislike her style, your are doomed.

3. Your colleagues don’t like you. Feeling isolated, gossiped about, and excluded from the inner groups of the organization is a very bad sign, as is feeling that you’re not part of the team and wouldn’t socialize with your colleagues even if they asked you.

4. You don’t get assignments that demonstrate the full range of your abilities. Just watching all the good assignments go to others, while you’re given the ones that play to your weaknesses or are beneath your professional level, should tell you something, you’re in trouble.

5. You always get called upon to do the “junk job.” Everybody has to take on a dull or routine task now and then, but if you are constantly being singled out to do the work no one else wants, alarm bells should ring.

6. You are excluded from meetings where your colleagues are invited to. If it’s painfully clear that your ideas aren’t valued, why stick around?

7. Everyone on your level has an office. You have a cubicle in the hallway.

8. You dread going to work and feel like you’re developing a cancer. Ah, here’s another of your symptoms, a particularly nasty one at that.