EmmaGoodEgg

Electric Dream

Mass produced electric cars have always seemed like a dream often delayed and pushed back by economics. For years now nothing has come close to transporting the masses quite like the petrol driven internal combustion engine. An electric car to me was the stuff of the Jetsons, the popular space cartoon of my youth, where people zipped (zip seems to be the imperative word when describing driving electric vehicles) around in compact car with large windows. Aside from the odd resort buggy on quiet resort roads, I have never driven a car running solely on electric power before. So when I saw the Mitsubishi i-MiEV (pronounced i-meev) electric vehicle parked under the eaves of the GM of Mitsubishi Corporation garage, I grabbed the wet toaster with my metal tongs and asked whether I could test drive it for a couple of days. The kind gentlemen of Mitsubishi Corporation obliged.

The i-MiEV I had on loan was decorated with bubble gum pink and orange decals indicating that it had zero CO2 emissions. Futuristically done in a Japanese “cho kawai” style, it had a Harry Potter scar sticker where you plug a nozzle (connecting to your ordinary 3-pin power socket at home) to charge the battery. It was like the Jetsons’ car; compact, with large windows, a full on electric dream. Whilst its name left something to be desired (Apple have cornered the lower case i in front of every high tech- high design apparatus haven't they?), it drove like a futuristic dream.

Silent from the time you turn on the ignition, it has a special sound effects button to give the car some noise so that it's not a danger to pedestrians. It accelerates reasonably well, like any compact car, to a comfortable cruising speed of about 80km/h. Instead of a rev counter, a digital gauge tells you whether your power use is economical or wasteful.  Driven with care, the vehicle will travel about 160 kilometers on a full battery, but you won’t get this if you regularly max it out at 110 km/hr. The battery charges at home from empty in about 8 hours, there is also quick charger, but this needs special equipment.

The batteries and electric motor are kept low and in the rear and they drive the rear wheels. Given that it is also designed to be light, this gives it a sporty feel. It has a radio with a front-loading CD, a chilly air conditioner, a few knobs here and there for adjusting mirrors and suchlike. Its a bit bare for an approximately USD35,000-00 car but one thing it does do is that it doesn't compromise on being a car. It even has proper air bags for all passengers, including the ones at the back.

Will the average Abdul on the street buy them? I reckon affluent trendsetters and early adopters will snap up the first electric cars on the market, but most people are naturally skeptical about new technology. The electric car has come a long way but there's still the limited driving range, the lack of public recharging stations and relatively high initial costs.

I maxed it out a couple of times zipping down the highway towards Mentiri from Beribi and got a kick out of bearing down and overtaking an older petrol car that was belching black smoke. Songs on the radio, my daughter in her car seat, boy was I ever a trendy mommy. Upon reaching Mentiri, the battery indicator showed me that I had used up a quarter “tank” of electrical power. Being the kind of person who brings along her phone charger everywhere for fear of a dead phone, I immediately recharged the car at my mother's garage. Therein lies the first problem. If I had an electric car, I'd like to have charging stations around. If not I'd be mapping my routes keeping in mind who will be kind enough to let me use their electricity.

It takes a slight shift of mindset to come home and plug your car into a socket to charge up the battery. There is an argument against electric cars in that the electricity used to charge the car would be more expensive than filling the car with petrol.

I hope my calculation is correct, but here goes: -The battery is rated at 16 kilo/watt hours meaning it stores 16 kilowatt hours of energy. At 7 cents per kilowatt-hours according to the new home electricity tariff, this means that it costs you $1.25 to charge in full and to travel 160 kilometres. A petrol compact car will use up 5 litres of petrol to travel the same distance, which at 53 cents a litre, amounts to $2.60. On this, it would seem that the electric car is cheaper to run by half (but don’t take my word for it, I was definitely arts stream at school). There are other factors to consider though, such as maintenance, (cheaper for the electric I reckon) and battery life. 

There is also nothing "green" about electric cars if the electricity to power these vehicles will be generated with fossil fuels. The sustainable way forward is to consider the whole power generation infrastructure and also to introduce quick charging stations powered by renewable energy sources –wind, sun or water. Tenaga Suria, the Mitsubishi Corporation research facility on solar power and our higher learning centers would be well suited to doing research into these.

I reckon if the authorities were committed to reducing carbon emissions by putting more electric cars on our roads, they could. Money would have to be spent on infrastructure such as quick charging stations at various points across the country and in car parks. Ideally, these would be powered, in part or in whole, with alternative fuels or renewable sources. A tax incentive or subsidy for electric cars? Financial institutions could join in the fun by providing lower rates for loans on electric vehicles. Surely if more people adopt the electric way, the economies of scale will translate into lower costs over time.

I can envision a Brunei known for being a country that is committed to reducing its carbon emissions. We lie after all within one of the greenest parts of a fairly polluted globe, with a lush and beautiful rainforest we are proud of. I can see us slowly, but surely, killing off the dinosaur that is the internal combustion engine and embracing the electric or ecological vehicle. Let's take this thought and zip around with it folks.

@emmagoodegg

Illustration by Cuboi Art.

For the online version click here.

We Are Not Robots

Brunei held its first ever social media conference on Friday this week. The seed was planted last October at the Borneo Colours event in Sabah specifically for Borneo online geeks where several Brunei online folks attended. Thereafter some of us from Brunei's online universe wanted to jump on the bandwagon of having our own social media conference; conferences the world has already seen many times over. What would be our angle we all wondered? It has all been said and done before.

Unless you've been living underneath an unconnected rock, we all know that social media is not a new thing. It is a widely accepted fact based on numbers and figures that social media is no longer a fad but is here to stay. At the Asia Inc Forum's THiNKBiG Forum held the previous day, we heard from YB Pehin Abdullah, Minister of Communication, that as of June 2011 there are 214,120 Facebook uses in Brunei. That's half of our population folks. I'm sure if a survey were done on Twitter users in Brunei, you would see the numbers increasing to match that of Facebook. Anne Burgraff, one of the speakers at the conference told us that social media has overtaken pornography as the Number One activity on the Internet. The forum held annually had a session highlighted innovation and social media in Brunei for the first time.

Brunei, in line with His Majesty's vision of innovation and creativity for the country, was ripe and ready to have a get together and discuss social media issues. Social media is not a new thing, but for the country to acknowledge that it plays a large part in our society is. The need for that acknowledgement became the primary angle for Brunei's first social media conference. Another angle came through a few weeks before the event.

Haji Rozan Yunos, or Mr. Brunei Resources (Mr. BR) as many online fondly know him, has been a big part of Brunei's blogosphere for many years. Mr. BR has consistently soldiered on to "help foster a better informed Brunei Society" as his blog postings are notably known for. Whilst a few years earlier, Mr. BR has embarked into the social media sphere like many of us did, he did not delve in further and we all wanted to know why. A few months ago another notable figure in the form of Dato Timothy Ong came onto twitterverse. What made him do so we all wondered? And why did he, when many of those in his age group feared social media? Could Mr. BR and Dato be convinced to join the bandwagon?

Nothing quite like having the aforementioned 2 prominent figures help answer these burning questions, and when they both agreed to speak and moderate, gave credence to Brunei's first social media conference. You can find a recording of their enlightening and stimulating session, 140 Characters or Less: Why Join The Twitter Conversation? at cornergeeks.com.

Aside from learning why Haji Rozan was reluctant to come on Twitter and why Dato Tim did, we also discovered that of the many avenues for social interaction on the Internet, there are horses for courses. People will connect on different types of platforms, be it blogs, twitter, Facebook for different purposes and to reach different audiences. What was also interesting was the topic raised by the local technoprenuers, who are finding news ways for people to connect and interact.

Together with the social media angles, I personally felt that one more important aspect of events like these is to get off your backside and get involved in your community. As residents, we must take responsibility for our society and encourage the spirit of togetherness. And that is to me the beauty of social media, the general good that can be done by cultivating social networks, large and small, through IT.

The final word however, is that in spite of all of this IT, it is important to actually make human contact, to sit in a room, in a group and hear one another speak face to face. To paraphrase one prominent speaker, it is what makes us human; we are after all not robots. 

@emmagoodegg

Illustration by Cuboi Art.

For the online version click here.

Apple Juice

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

-Apple’s Think Different Commercial, 1997.

It is also a fitting (but at the time premature) tribute to the recently departed Steve Jobs. The individualistic rebel who turned corporate culture on its head and who helmed what is today the most valuable company, by share value, in America - Apple Inc.  

Apple products are now just about ubiquitous. Everyone and his cat owns either, or any number of - an iPod, iShuffle, iPhone or iMac. This column itself is picked out on an iPad every week. The iPhone introduced the world to the smart phone; the hand held personal communicator/computer with a limitless number of functions and applications that thirty years ago was the stuff of science fiction. 

But it was not just Apple. Fortune Magazine has named him in a list of 'Influential businessman on earth'. He reshaped three different industries; that of computers, music and mobile phones.

The iTunes store, in countries that are more protective of intellectual property at least, has changed the way that music and films are consumed. In these countries, the music store as we know it has almost been wiped out.

Also, one must not forget that he was a founder and major shareholder in Pixar, the ground breaking studio responsible for such animated productions as the Toy Story trilogy, Oscar winner Finding Memo, The Incredibles, Cars, and Wall-E.

Other bon mots show that he was responsible for the computer fonts that we use today. One of his many patents includes the design of a glass staircase. Commonly used office gear like the mouse and lanyard? He designed those too.

His life and career path was obviously not typical.

Born in San Francisco, California in 1955 to a Syrian Muslim father and an American mother. 

In 1973 he dropped out of college after just one semester, and only attended classes that he was not supposed to, such as calligraphy. In his twenties he fathered a daughter whom he would not admit to having even when everyone else around him knew that she was his.

After founding Apple Inc. with Steve Wozniak in 1976, Steve Jobs was kept out of the company he started in a reorganization of Apple’s management in 1985, only to be begged to come back in 1996.

It is the time in between 1985 and 1996 that shows how he thumbed his nose at corporate America. After leaving Apple, he set out to build his ideal company, and managed to hire the best and brightest even when they didn't know what they were going to produce.

This new company neXt, bucked the traditional notions of what a corporate culture should look like. In organizational hierarchy (flat versus tall, casual versus formal attire, etc.), things were different. No management car parks, only two pay grades.  Steve Jobs often walked around the office barefoot. He wanted his company to have a campus style, complete with a gym and cafeteria catered by one of the best Italian restaurants in the Valley. It was designed to be comfortable and encompassing and above all to promote a culture of individuality and excellence.

Which was so contrary to big staid corporations like IBM in the early 90s.

Think of an IBM employee and what comes to mind?

Short sleeved shirts, standard issue dark suit, and thin tie. Neatly combed hair. Harassed, 'we must work we must work' look.

Did these traits help in differentiating Steve Jobs’ company from others? It sure did.  

Apple's high-end design and its intuitive user-friendly technology have made it dominant in consumer computing. Not to mention that by all accounts Steve Jobs was an all round nice guy and good to work with.

The irony is, given the trail blazing individuality of the man, that we now all own one of a sameness. The question that we all ask is whether Apple will remain the same on the passing of its guiding light, or will it become one of the staid and unyielding corporations that it skipped passed on its way to the top?  

@emmagoodegg

Illustration by Cuboi Art.

For the online version click nowhere because it's not up yet.

Call Of Duty

"The prescriptive formula for what the concept, structure or content of a National Service must be determine base on her Political-Socio-cultural heritage and the views of all stakeholders."

I reckon you need to be salary scale B2 and above to understand that statement. I found it on the web in a 2005 paper entitled "National Service Brunei Perspective", while trying to find stories on National Service in Brunei. Some serious and lengthy thought seems to have been exercised then.

A national service programme for a country is not unheard of. Austria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Israel, Iran, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Finland, Taiwan, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland and Turkey all require one type or another. A compulsory programme of military service, most countries require their conscripted citizens to participate for a year. Cowboys in America began theirs around 1861 and were first deployed in the American Civil War.

A few days ago His Majesty the Sultan of Brunei in his titah at the National Youth Day 2011 announced a National Service Programme or "Program Khidmat Bakti Negara" for the country planned to be launched at the end of the year.

The "Program Khidmat Bakti Negara" (there's a song in there just waiting to come out), or "PKBN", is a 3-month Outward Bound meets Civics Class meets MIB programme for Bruneian male and female 'O' Level school leavers between the ages of 16 and 18.

So for us there will be no M16s, only visionary and polite youth.

There are counter arguments about a national service programme that does not provide basic military training. A military trained service will develop citizens that have learnt how to defend their beloved country. There will be a deeper sense of duty and participation. A vested interest in one's homeland is always good, you may just value it more.

Having a military trained national service also means you're less likely to get pushed around. It creates strength throughout a nation. If push comes to shove your neighbours will think twice about doing so. Singapore adopted a military national service, which was pretty intense, from its early days. As a result, while being a small country, it deals with the nations around it on an equal footing that is not just as a result of the community of nations but in a real physical sense.  

Basic military training or "boot camp" transforms civilians into military personnel and has been described by military historian Gwynne Dyer as a form of conditioning in which inductees are encouraged to partially submerge their individuality for the good of their unit.

I think that an important aspect of a national service, with or without weapons, should be that at one point in our lives, everyone, from all parts of society are on the same level, experiencing the same thing, giving up individuality for the good of the unit.

Also importantly is that it instills a sense of duty to the nation. It will be good to expect duty and service from our youth, we should not encourage a culture of benefit and entitlement. The benefits of being a citizen of the nation must be counterbalanced with a sense of duty and service throughout society. 

So let us not pray for easy lives. We hope that National Service will endeavour to provide a tough, puts hair on one's chest programme, for our young men and women at the prime of their youth.

Incidentally I figure more Bruneian boys need an outlet, some direction. For example, the number of lady professionals in some sectors outweighs the men. The Attorney General's Chambers has more women lawyers than their male counterparts; I read in Friday's papers that there are more female UBD graduates this year than male, 728 to 305. That's less than half dudes.

Is it possible that a new form of National Service could be implemented to produce a disciplined, skilled and duty bound youth of tomorrow? A programme without real guns but a tough and robust boot camp?

I think so. And we're about to embark on it because perhaps at the end of the day a country need not be defended with guns but with a brave heart and unity of purpose.

@emmagoodegg

Illustration by Cuboi Art.

For the online version click here.