1. it gutted me to the fullest extent, hearing the landslide tragedy occurred less than 48 hours ago, which happens less than 10 miles from my apartment.
2. it gutted me, that we had a similar tragedy exactly 15 years ago, that we faced exactly the same incident. and it takes 15 bodies or more, and that's just reported, to essentially sacrificed themselves to death , all for nothing.
3. are we stupid, or just plain ignorant. somehow i can conclude that lives are cheap. for a developing country, lives here are cheap. since we can say malaysia is acceptably peaceful, but it's the easiest country to die in.
4. we are not intellectually challenged people as compared in the 70's , 80's . in fact, we are much more complex, educated, and should learn from past tragedies. yet we still allow these tragedies to happen.
5. do we blame god for the landslide ? for the love of god, no . god does not clear trees or put piles for development. god is not a civil engineer. god is too great for that. we, at least for the past hundred years of intellectual evolution, should have understood or at least predict this tragedy at least in the engineering scale.
6. i'm not a geologist, but i can observe by common sense that these can be predicted by simply prevention. i've been to the site (bukit antarabangsa) before, and i can just say it is simply risky. i had a chat with one geologist said to me that ampang hills is the most unstable structure within klang valley. and terrifyingly it's just not only bukit antarabangsa.
7. from an engineering point of view, by geographically bukit antarabangsa is just a part of the hills among the hills that houses the largest water supply in the klang valley, or the langat river. knowing that malaysia is the most wettest country in the world (and it rains almost every day) , that's a lot of liquid to store. generally, it does't just rain and stores to the river like a bath tub, actually it requires a network of hills to catch rainwater so that it will converge to a group of water paths to flow what we essentially know as a river.
8. hills typically need trees to support them structurally and provide flow pathways to allow the catchment waters to flow gravitationally down. owing to the condition whereby trees' roots are naturally branches into large networks, it is naturally the best path providers to these waters to flow.
9. what happens if these trees are idiotically cut down? i'm not a tree hugger but i do know that we should not cut trees without knowing the consequences. if the trees are cut down, these root branches would eventually die, and leaves and branches would not able to absorb the drop intensity of rain to allow it to absorb in the soil more effectively.
10. the porosities and permeabilities of the soil structure would dangerously be blocked. due to the overburden weight of the underlaying soil on top, these soils would compacted to behave as clays. the top soils would absorb a lot of water, while the deeper layers would not. these top soils would be very unstable, as it stores a lot of water, and behave like a really thick mud. you would not realize it because it does not look like mud. in fact it looks exactly the same soil as you would look everyday. with some grass, you would be fooled totally.
11. these mobile wet soil layers would just take only time for it to be physically active. until a certain water saturation, these soil layers would not move. but then, the more frequent the rain pours, the higher the water saturation and higher the chances for these soil layers to move.
12. until come a perfect day, where in fact it doesn't rain that much but it has triggered the 'critical water saturation' soil structure for it to become mobile. when it happens, that's where we know it as a landslide. as you know, it behaves like an avalanche: the movement of the top soil would typically accumulate gravitationally until its energy become large enough be come destructive, destroying everything that comes to its path. that includes expensive bungalow lots.
13. i dare say that the landslides can be prevented way before until it takes body counts to occur. yes, some people or readers would say that why should they care, or why am i so interested in landslides. well, for me it can happen to anyone. what if, somebody you know or care, died instantly during a landslide ? how would you react. the poor departed souls would be fucking pissed if they realized that they died out of somebody's wrong doing.
14. i wish that the departed souls would come back haunt these corrupt officers starting from the jabatan tanah, and all the way up to the politicians. let them haunt their souls and torture them out of their very lives.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
hard times to come
1. it is already december 2008. we've got less than a month before a new year steps in. 25 days to be precise, if this post is dated. to some or many, this is a month of reflection. a month of reflection of how are things been done, and what are the outlooks for the next year.
2. it's been a tough year. very colorful inside out, just like the sixties and seventies. all wrapped up within one year. i can safely conclude this is due to the technology we enjoy in, due to infinite access to information into almost immediately, or 'real-time' as somebody else would proclaim it.
3. good things would happen almost immediately. but what about bad ones ? thinking about it, back in the 80's, the crisis took for some years to happen. but look at us now. last few months in july we were totally okay, but less than 3 months we are in the brink of recession.
4. " so what ? who cares ? " , as what normal people would say. normally people don't care if it doesn't affect to their normal daily lives. so who cares if there's corruption, money-swindling, tax manipulation. as long it's not touching my pocket, i do not care. this is a classic third world country thinking and i am not surprised that first world thinking people share the same attribute.
5. so what if banks in the united states are bankrupt ? who the fuck we care ? banks here are stable. we can still shop, get paid monthly, and all sort of things we normally do. but be prepared: things will get rough. being in the oil industry, we are already facing and suffering from this crisis. i even worried if i'm going to get employed, let alone a pay cut. debts are not reduced that much either. it's going to get even worse. i had literally had calls from the ever efficient credit card to remind me to pay up my monthly. see, that's just from my side.
6. i'm predicting life would be tough, testing the human survival to the fullest extent.
7. how would you respond to it ? can you at least financially survive if let's say a 25% pay cut ?
imagine how things we usually enjoy would be essentially be lost , can we respond and adapt to that mentally ?
8. what about others ? have you thought people that has odd-jobs would survive. what they earn RM800 per month to feed their families would be either facing half of their pay, or worse, nothing at all. how are they going to survive to even get a descent meal.
9. the way i see it, if economy is in ruins, poverty will rise and by virtue political instability and crime rates would definitely without doubt will increase exponentially.
10. this is definitely a tough time. this is the only time where talent, the human spirit and humanity must work together to get out of the recession. what has worked before may not work again, hence new methods must be brainstormed and applied before things getting a bitch worse.
11. wage earners in the government or institutions may not feel the pinch, but business people, sales would fucking do.
12. maybe, just maybe with bright minds we can get out of this recession as fast as we got into it in the first place. personally i don't see m'sia is getting out that fast. they are denying rather than working out of solution. it's really disappointing.
2. it's been a tough year. very colorful inside out, just like the sixties and seventies. all wrapped up within one year. i can safely conclude this is due to the technology we enjoy in, due to infinite access to information into almost immediately, or 'real-time' as somebody else would proclaim it.
3. good things would happen almost immediately. but what about bad ones ? thinking about it, back in the 80's, the crisis took for some years to happen. but look at us now. last few months in july we were totally okay, but less than 3 months we are in the brink of recession.
4. " so what ? who cares ? " , as what normal people would say. normally people don't care if it doesn't affect to their normal daily lives. so who cares if there's corruption, money-swindling, tax manipulation. as long it's not touching my pocket, i do not care. this is a classic third world country thinking and i am not surprised that first world thinking people share the same attribute.
5. so what if banks in the united states are bankrupt ? who the fuck we care ? banks here are stable. we can still shop, get paid monthly, and all sort of things we normally do. but be prepared: things will get rough. being in the oil industry, we are already facing and suffering from this crisis. i even worried if i'm going to get employed, let alone a pay cut. debts are not reduced that much either. it's going to get even worse. i had literally had calls from the ever efficient credit card to remind me to pay up my monthly. see, that's just from my side.
6. i'm predicting life would be tough, testing the human survival to the fullest extent.
7. how would you respond to it ? can you at least financially survive if let's say a 25% pay cut ?
imagine how things we usually enjoy would be essentially be lost , can we respond and adapt to that mentally ?
8. what about others ? have you thought people that has odd-jobs would survive. what they earn RM800 per month to feed their families would be either facing half of their pay, or worse, nothing at all. how are they going to survive to even get a descent meal.
9. the way i see it, if economy is in ruins, poverty will rise and by virtue political instability and crime rates would definitely without doubt will increase exponentially.
10. this is definitely a tough time. this is the only time where talent, the human spirit and humanity must work together to get out of the recession. what has worked before may not work again, hence new methods must be brainstormed and applied before things getting a bitch worse.
11. wage earners in the government or institutions may not feel the pinch, but business people, sales would fucking do.
12. maybe, just maybe with bright minds we can get out of this recession as fast as we got into it in the first place. personally i don't see m'sia is getting out that fast. they are denying rather than working out of solution. it's really disappointing.
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