by Owl Order

Last October, I went to the library and found an unattended cellphone.


It was a Nokia N70, grey in colour. I sat beside it for a good half hour, but nobody came to pick it up.

So I did. By going through the phone's messages, I discovered the guy's name, let's call him Raj, and his call logs indicate that he is not a local student. Then I contacted the last local number he called, hoping that the number brings me to a UNMC student.

And it did. Some time later Raj's friend came over and pick up the phone. And some hours later, I received a message from Raj, thanking me for my honesty.

I chatted with my friend over the internet about this event.

Me: I can't believe I returned a phone I found today. After months of wanting a better phone!

KS: How's your phone-shopping coming along?

Me: I nearly bought a Sony Ericsson P1i yesterday. Luckily I didn't! P1i's Wifi may not be compatible with UNMC's.

KS: See? Your honesty has paid off. That's karma!

Well that's not really what I call karma. Instead of two phones, now I get none?

Fast forward half a year. Last week after returning home, I realised that I didn't have my thumbdrive with me. Dang! Must have left it in the computer room.

The thumbdrive itself isn't that valuable. It costed over RM100, but that was more than three years ago. It's 512MB capacity isn't appealing either. What mattered was its contents. In it I had some past year questions, soft copy of notes, lab reports (I left my thumbdrive attached to the computer after printing these), and my programming codes for the electron...

Damn. I spent a whole 10 weeks programming for that electronic project. What's more, it's a group work, and my friends are relying on that piece of code for our entire module!

I immediately rushed to the computer room in the middle of the night, attempting to retrieve it, hoping against hope that it is still there.

But it wasn't. I inquired about it with the security guard, and waited while he contacted the main guardhouse.

And waited.

And waited.

"Long, black, Apacer thumbdrive?"

"Ah yes!"

"Go to guardhouse 1 to claim it."

I thanked the security guard, trying hard to hide my glee while rushing to the said guardhouse. Sure enough, my thumbdrive was waiting for me there. After filling in a report, I gladly went home with it.

That, my friends, is what I call karma.

PS: To whoever helped passing my thumbdrive to the security guards, thanks a million!

Recently, there have been a few events held at Nottingham University Malaysian
Campus. These events would involve contestants to be in a competition. The major
criteria for winning would be to gain the approval and support of the audience
after they present their performance of skill and ability. The audience would
then translate their support into votes for their personal favoured contestant.
Sounds simple enough?

However votes are bought. This is a mere understatement. In fact, the votes are bought without limits. With this fact, the integrity of the competition is
jeopardized. Below is an example of how unlimited buyable votes would work
towards degrading a competition into an auction for victory. It is a bit
technical, so feel free to skip it, if you feel threatened by the words and
numbers.

Let's say A and B each has 10 supporters. As normal supporters of A they would
probably drop in 1-3 votes which are affordable yet show their appreciation of
A's performance. As a rough total, A would get 20 votes. B however, has a friend
as one of his/her/their supporters and perhaps due to an act of
"devotion/loyalty/camaraderie" drops a stack of 50 votes into the voting box. We
shall let B have a total of 69 votes (19+50).

The current situation is 20 VS 69. Where A and B supposedly have performances of
equivalent quality and supporters of equivalent quantity, A's votes is squashed
to 28% of B's total votes. This is only a simple example. Imagine if a
particular contestant has hundreds of dollars invested into his/her/their
"quality" performance, would it not, reduce the other financially-scarce
contestants’ votes into a minuscule 5% and below?

Would the contestant with highest votes get the full points under 'Voting score'? If so, then the judges would be not so significant. Imagine where the judges vote account for 50%, but a particular winning contestant is able to
squish his foes into a few percents just because the “vote winner’s” total vote is used as a maximum measure to compare to other votes. How saddening is that?

Such a flawed system can only benefit two parties. The winning party, since they
get what they paid for. And the event hosting-party, as they gleefully see
supporters tear each other apart only to channel more "dough" into their
coffers.

As a fellow human, I cannot just brood over the idiosyncrasy, so I offer some
obvious solutions. One vote per person. Votes are sold along with entrance
ticket. Either student numbers are required or voting tickets are given upon
entry, how simple is that?

I hope you have enjoyed this piece that I have written. Perhaps there are those
who think alike, and perhaps there are those who would agree after reading. I launch not an attack, but offer a word of opinion towards the things I see
around.