Soe's explorations http://soeim.posterous.com exponential explorations posterous.com Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:22:00 -0800 We'll see http://soeim.posterous.com/well-see-10 http://soeim.posterous.com/well-see-10

A farmer had only one horse. One day, his horse ran away.

All the neighbors came by saying, “I’m so sorry. This is such bad news. You must be so upset.” The man just said, “We’ll see.”

A few days later, his horse came back with twenty wild horses. The man and his son corraled all 21 horses.

All the neighbors came by saying, “Congratulations! This is such good news. You must be so happy!” The man just said, “We’ll see.”

One of the wild horses kicked the man’s only son, breaking both his legs.

All the neighbors came by saying, “I’m so sorry. This is such bad news. You must be so upset.” The man just said, “We’ll see.”

The country went to war, and every able-bodied young man was drafted to fight. The war was terrible and killed every young man, but the farmer’s son was spared, since his broken legs prevented him from being drafted.

All the neighbors came by saying, “Congratulations! This is such good news. You must be so happy!” The man just said, “We’ll see.”

A close friend of mine used to talk about it (in her personalized format). She told me at least twice. It stays in my memory well because of special situation I was going through.

In life, we dwell on options that come into our lives too much that we forgot to live.

Do live and we'll see.

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Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:22:29 -0800 It is also true http://soeim.posterous.com/it-is-also-true http://soeim.posterous.com/it-is-also-true In my whole life, I have never seen much more than what I have seen in the last year...

The more I put more effort to look, the more I see others' perspectives and the more I understand others... but where is the limit I should set to settle with my own perspective?

I guess it is not about setting limit but having wisdom to judge and decide.

Interesting talk about how different views can be in different societies or even in the same society.

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Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:25:37 -0800 Visualizing fall of empires http://soeim.posterous.com/visualizing-fall-of-empires http://soeim.posterous.com/visualizing-fall-of-empires I guess fall of empire is fine example of a type of failure. I am pretty interested in learning the rise and demise of powerful empires.

Here is a nice video of visualizing fall of four maritime empires

more info here:

Living in an ancient city of Angkor, being surrounded by its remnants, I wonder how exactly it fell. 

Once upon a time, Khmer empire grew; empowered by its impressive water management systems which are still functional to date. The city now has problem controlling its sewage system.

Another empire I am interested in is Mongol empire which occupied half the world at its height.

There are a lot of things to learn from history. One thing I learn is the certainty of impermanence.

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Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:59:00 -0700 security update http://soeim.posterous.com/security-update-30 http://soeim.posterous.com/security-update-30
putting across humorously... below is an email i sent out to my office team this morning...

i aspired to be a professional comedian anyway... :)
dear team,
thanks for staying put through all these attacks. I hereby would like to make update on security issues to address concerns you might have.

#1 websites - i am highly confident that the same nature of attack will not bring us down again

#2 Pdrive - service interruptions are caused by a virus launching an attack on our server... the antivirus we have on our Pdrive faithfully stops the network to protect our sacred files (i am running updates and hopefully it will fix the problem) - so please don't use the computer itself, you may access Pdrive from your computers... and if it is down, just give me a ping

#3 tuesday - today our super police is not around, so remember to lock the door when you go out in the evening... don't leave your laptops around unattended as researchers have allegedly hypothesized it to be the main source of getting infected... so keep them safe and stay healthy...

cheers,
soe

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Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:25:00 -0700 Fixing flaw in capitalism http://soeim.posterous.com/fixing-flaw-in-capitalism http://soeim.posterous.com/fixing-flaw-in-capitalism

Perfection is almost unattainable. Capitalism has pros which other political systems such as communism and socialism might not have.

I have come to realize that outcomes of overhauling a system to fix some cons in it are dramatic. It is evident in devastation of Cambodia back to Year Zero when communism was implemented during Pol Pot regime to replace colonialism/capitalism. It doesn't necessarily mean communism is evil.

Change needs patience. Change needs insight of the existing system and the next system. Change happens at the time when tipping point is touched. It is very evident in how Mr Obama came out to be the US president.

Capitalism, as of now, won't change in few years to come. However, the poor who has fallen out of the system can be saved. Dr Yunus has proved his point - empowering credit to the poor who otherwise won't be able to participate in capitalism.

Rather than waiting for the change to happen (which might now come in near future), it is important to see how to fix existing problems within existing system.

(It is always exciting to work on new system. However, 80/20 rule applies. Now, change which Mr Obama offered to the voters might not be as exciting as before. Some are apparently getting fed up. However, the beauty is in seeing and working through the last 20%.)

So how to fix existing problems without overhaul?

Poverty
Educate people about financial system: not to be taken advantage of, not to be nakedly swindled. It would be interesting to do a survey on how many people with a bachelor degree know about naked short selling.

Democracy (in Cambodia)
Though there are a lot of complaints about how shady Cambodia political system is, it is evident that NGOs are operating quite freely within the country. There is relatively so much freedom in civil society space. Don't believe? Compare it with its neighbor, Burma. Through vibrant civil society, democracy will surely be attained. But, obviously, it will take a long time.

Look a problem with another perspective. There might be more pragmatic and meaningful solution. 

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Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:53:00 -0700 Starting with failure - another side of failure http://soeim.posterous.com/starting-with-failure http://soeim.posterous.com/starting-with-failure

Finally, I am starting my blog. I will be writing on various topics but with focus on failure, entrepreneurship and activism.

My first post will be about one of my favorite speeches. It is by JK Rowling who wrote top hit Harry Potter series.

I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

Full transcript here: http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

Failures are usually ridiculed instead of being embraced, especially in Asian society. As a result, consequences of a failure are exaggerated exacerbated.

As Ms Rowling has pointed out, there is silver lining in a failure, there is another perspective to a failure. Only through failures, lessons are learned, skin is thickened, excess is shed, and stamina is toughened.

Fear for failures would be counter-productive. As long as failure is not embraced, we would be just prisoners of this fear.

I have learnt it with a serious setback. Failure - here I come.

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