Malaysians O Malaysians…

Newspapers these days sure are interesting. I saw this news on the newspaper and I thought it was interesting so, I decided to find a digital copy of it and share it with you guys here. Anyway this is not just a mere hijacking. So read on.

Wednesday June 25, 2008

Drivers fume

GEORGE TOWN: Motorists throughout the country were left fuming and confused on Tuesday, all because of the push by petrol station owners to ensure that their profit margins are maintained.

> 400 petrol stations in the northern region decided to stop accepting payments by credit card by today,

> Motorists are angry that they have to pay by cash, especially when they are now paying more for their fuel,

> Chaos broke out in several towns in Sabah and Sarawak as panicked vehicle owners rushed to petrol stations to fill up after receiving irresponsible SMSes that petrol stations were closing for three days,

> Vehicle owners in the peninsula were also worried after receiving similar untrue SMSes of petrol stations closing.

Source : The Star Online

So what I would like to highlight here is this,

> Chaos broke out in several towns in Sabah and Sarawak as panicked vehicle owners rushed to petrol stations to fill up after receiving irresponsible SMSes that petrol stations were closing for three days,

> Vehicle owners in the peninsula were also worried after receiving similar untrue SMSes of petrol stations closing.

Malaysians O Malaysians. I am really speechless over this. Sometimes to the point it made me laugh my butt off. I just don’t understand why some people can believe such SMSes. First of all, we don’t even know where the SMS came from ( yes I know its from your friend or family members! What I meant here is the source of the SMS), but still we choose to believe it without doing a little investigation. I believe all of us have the internet, so a quick google search would reveal a lot. And if you don’t have the internet, I believe by following the latest news, you will dig out a lot of info too.

How many times have we Malaysians fall for this kind of rumors? If I am not wrong, countless times. May it be through SMS or verbally. Remember not so long ago people were rushing to buy cooking oils because there are rumors about a of lack of supply? And remember the SMS about the 11p.m phone radiation which I have also wrote something about it here?

The SMSes seems harmless actually, but hey look what happens when lets say everyone of us sent these SMSes to just 3 of our friends. In a matter of just minutes, it would have spread to thousands of people. And it won’t take long before a panic starts. And actually it is quite interesting in a way. Look at it like this. Lets assume the SMS originate from Sabah. And with the same spreading pattern, it spreads even to the Peninsula. It just goes to show how well each of us are connected. The 6 Degrees of Seperation theory might just be true! LOL

I am not a business student or anything but I think a panic buying can drive prices up as there is a sudden surge in demand given a constant amount of production. Perhaps thats the true motive of the SMS? We’ll never know..

Anyway I hope we Malaysians don’t fall for this ever again. And let’s keep our fingers crossed that this kind of SMSes will always stay as rumors! Cheers!

How to Start A Carpool

I thought this would be quite interesting and helpful with the current rising fuel cost that is killing us(or have actually killed us). So read on. This might benefit you and save your hurting pockets some bucks to get a coffee from Star Bucks. ^^,

How to Start A Carpool by Jessika Toothman

Source : HowStuffWorks

You leave your driveway in the best of moods, happily ready to face a new day. But something you hear causes you to shudder and cringe — the ominous traffic report. In a few moments, you’re transformed into a white-knuckled, foul-mouthed driver, stressing about making your big meeting on time.

People in big cities expect traffic jams and must plan their schedules around these annoying delays. A 30-mile (48-kilometer) commute can regularly take more than an hour in bad traffic.

N. Beckerman/Stone/Getty Images
Filling the extra seats in your car means there are fewer drivers, and thus fewer cars crowding onto the roadway. The more people who carpool, the smoother the ride into work.

As the traffic congestion in a city worsens, people begin to look at different options to decrease their commute time. The option we’ll discuss in this article is carpooling.

Carpooling, which falls under the ridesharing umbrella and is closely related to vanpooling, is simply when a group of people decide to ride together. They usually share the cost of the trip and take turns driving. Often, carpools are formed by commuters who want to avoid driving during rush hour. In a small way, these commuters help to alleviate that traffic. Carpools are also formed by parents who want to divide the task of driving children to and from school and extracurricular activities.

Now that we know why people form carpools, let’s find out how they should go about creating them.

The Different Flavors of Traffic Jam People who live in metropolitan centers are familiar with all the ways traffic jams can manifest. The patience of even the calmest of drivers is tested in bumper-to-bumper traffic: when you drive a few feet, halt, drive a few more feet, halt … you get the idea. Or what about coasting at an extremely low speed, riding the brake for miles (the fun only gets better if your car is manual). The stickiest traffic jam of all is the dreaded gridlock, defined as “a traffic jam in which no vehicular movement is possible, especially one caused by the blockage of key intersections within a grid of streets” [source: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language].

Find a Carpool

The Internet has forever changed how a commuter can find a carpool. By accessing various carpooling and ridesharing Web sites, commuters can easily find their perfect carpools. The more traditional ways to find a carpool — through clubs, PTAs and other social networks — still exist for those who prefer a more personalized search method.

Some of the Web sites that are particularly useful for finding fellow commuters are eRideShare.com, CarpoolConnect.com and SwiftCommute.com. Some sites target specific areas, like metropolitan hubs, and others focus on one-time, long-distance ridesharing opportunities.

The process of starting a carpool through a Web-based service may include:

• Registration: You register and provide information about where you live, where you work, your work schedule, and other important details.

• Follow-up Information: You may include additional information and ask questions to tailor your potential carpool. (Or, you can wait until you have some possible matches and discuss your preferences directly with them.) Additional questions may include: Will the carpool members take turns driving or will one person chauffeur and the rest pitch in for gas? If the carpool pitches in for gas, will it be on a weekly or monthly basis? Will smoking be allowed? Is there a gender preference? How flexible is the carpool’s schedule? What happens if someone must work late? How long will the carpool wait for late people?

• Communication and Etiquette: After you get in touch with future carpool partners, take some time discussing what you think is proper car etiquette. Can passengers read, talk on the phone or listen to music, or does the driver expect some interaction? How about eating breakfast — can passengers or the driver eat in the car? Must the driver have a clean driving record before getting behind the wheel? Does the driver choose what goes on the radio, or does the choice rotate? Can carpoolers use their cell phones during the ride?

Finalizing these issues is one of the most important aspects of forming a successful carpool. Making sure you have a solid match will ensure you don’t have to start the whole process all over again within a few weeks. Don’t give up if the first few weeks are a bit bumpy — it takes a while to work out all the kinks.

Carpooling for Kids To set up carpools for shuttling children, a Web site like DivideTheRide.com might be just what you are looking for. Divide the Ride is a carpooling network specifically created to help parents arrange ride schedules needed to deliver their children to different lessons and practices. The Web site can send e-mail and cell phone reminders to keep parents in touch with the status of the carpool. It also helps resolve any last-minute cancellations and eases the adjustment process if someone must quit the carpool.

Before starting a carpool, make a list of priorities. Figure out what’s most important to you and in what ways you can adjust. Then, all that remains is to settle procedural basics, like creating a backup plan in case that day’s car breaks down.

It’s pretty easy to start a carpool, although there are some challenges in ensuring a good setup, as well as keeping the carpool functioning over the long term. Let’s find out what motivates people to start a carpool and what the benefits are.

Carpool Benefits

Commuters can take advantage of many carpool benefits. Perhaps one of the most important benefits to commuters is that carpooling saves money. Sticker shock at the gas pumps has many people trying to cut down on the amount of fuel they use — joining a carpool is a great way to share the energy burden. Other vehicle-related savings shouldn’t be overlooked either. If you have a long commute, the wear and tear on your car can really add up.

VisionsofAmerica/Joe Sohm/Digital Vision/Getty Images
Seeing this nightmare day after day really makes you reconsider how you get to work.

­Sharing the cost of gas isn’t the only way carpoolers save money. Many organizations, like the Clean Air Campaign, offer reward programs to local carpoolers. You can log your carpool commute with these organizations and get cash in your wallet. Some insurance companies offer discounts to people who rideshare, and sometimes carpoolers receive access to special parking spots.

Another big reason folks are starting to carpool more is traffic congestion. The more cars on the road, the worse congestion gets. If people can fill the empty seats in their cars with other riders, the smoother the drive becomes for everyone. Local economies also benefit from less traffic congestion. Good traffic flow is one of the deciding factors when companies look to relocate or expand in certain cities.

Leaving the car at home once in a while helps to decrease levels of air pollution. These levels can be especially high in urban, traffic-congested areas.

Drowning in a Carpool Some of the drawbacks of carpooling include a lack of privacy and complications associated with people running late. It’s difficult to maintain a carpool, and there’s always the chance a prospective member drives a lemon.

Concerns carpoolers should keep in mind are some of the new initiatives created to help calm traffic in some cities. Some of these initiatives seek to transform underused High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes to High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes in an attempt to tackle gridlock and move traffic.

Some cities are converting HOV lanes into HOT lanes, then charging tolls to use these lanes. Different places settle on different formulas, but generally, buses and vanpools can zip past electronic tolls without paying anything. Even three-person carpools might be able to get through. But two-person carpools and single drivers might be charged to use the lane.

The tricky part is, as the level of traffic increases, so does the toll fee. Cars are alerted to the current charge at the lane’s entrance, regulating the amount (and therefore speed) of traffic in the HOT lane. A single driver in rush hour pays more to use the lane than a car with two people at rush hour and more than a driver who accesses the lane in the middle of the night. The goal is to keep that lane’s traffic moving and allow people the option to use the lane if they’re willing to pay. This helps to balance the level of traffic in all the lanes.

People who carpool with multiple members will be ahead of the game if HOT lanes start popping up in their city, but two-person carpools may want to add members. People who live in cities with these controversial HOT lanes seem to cough up the money, and in return, these commuters get a more reliable trip time.

I hope we all can learn and benefit from this article.

Double Fueling System?

I just heard it over the news just now that we would have a double fueling system. I can’t find any information online but once I do I will update it here.

From what I heard earlier on the news, the system would be that locally registered cars will pump government subsidized fuel while foreign registered cars will have to pay the market prize for the fuel. So meaning we would pump RM2.70 and the foreigners will pump whatever the market price is.

They said that this system would have 2 advantages. One is that the the government would benefit financially and the second is that, we as consumers know the real market price.

Well for me, I seriously think that the second advantage is not really an advantage. The only thing that we will know is how much the government is subsidizing. So how is that a advantage to us consumers? But seriously, I think this system is a good good one. But it is only good if it is not subjected to fraud.

I see that there are loopholes in the system itself. First being, how are we going to monitor the pumping process? We need a good monitoring system so that foreigners don’t “accidentally” pump our subsidized fuel. And secondly, what will happen if that “accident” does happen. Also, there might be possibilities where unscrupulous people with foreign registration number car may try to pump subsidized fuel by changing their car registration number prior to entering a petrol station.

But anyhow, this is just what that come to my mind when I heard the news earlier as there were not much information released. I believe the government will throughly look into this matter and will implement this system as soon as all matters are sorted out. It is a good system but its execution must be flawless or it will hurt our government’s already bad reputation. And with the current political turmoil, our government is threading a dangerous path.

UPDATE :

Monday June 23, 2008

Separate pumps for foreigners

KUALA LUMPUR: The Government has agreed to implement a dual pump system at fuel stations in border areas so that foreigners do not buy fuel at subsidised prices.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said, under the separate pump system, local citizens buy fuel at subsidised prices while foreigners had to pay current market prices.

“The system has two benefits; foreigners will pay for petrol at the current price and Malaysians will know the actual market price of petrol,” he said.

Najib said the system was based on Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad’s suggestion.

Shahrir said the fuel station operators were agreeable to the new system. – Bernama

Jokes!

This joke is hilarious! I hijacked it from this blog! Its a great blog in my opinion! You guys can go check it out and in the meantime this is the hijacked joke :

Out Somewhere Expensive

When I got home from work last night, my wife demanded

that I take her out to some place expensive…………….

 

… So I took her to a petrol station

Link to the original joke —-> here

Petrol Price Hike

Source from TheStarOnline:

Petrol to cost RM2.70 from midnight

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Wednesday announced that the new price for petrol is RM2.70 a litre, effective midnight tonight. The price goes up by 78sen from the current RM1.92, a hike of 40%. Abdullah also announced that the price of diesel would be increased by RM1 from RM1.58 to RM2.58.

And the following photo shows the mayhem near my house’s petrol station :

Look at all the cars! Panic panic all over! And its not just petrol. Electricity tariff is going up as well! Its too sudden, that I agree, but this will is what that will happen sooner or later. Lets keep our fingers crossed!

P.S : Getting out from my place now is nearly impossible. My dad took 30minutes just to get from the junction to my apartment. =.=|| And sorry for the poor picture quality. Took from my apartment, so gotta zoom in which results in this. ^^,

Bumpy Flight Ahead for MAS and Me….

As usual extracted from TheStarOnline:

ISTANBUL: Malaysia Airlines is bracing for tough times ahead due to rising fuel prices.

In view of this, its managing director/chief executive officer Datuk Seri Idris Jala said MAS had introduced cost-cutting measures and put off all unnecessary spending.

Saying the situation would be “even worse than SARS or the time when the airline nearly went bust three years ago,” he said he had met unions and other workers associations to inform them of the situation. The warning comes in the midst of jet fuel prices reaching US$171 (RM550) per barrel.

Analysts said the alarm bell raised by MAS was significant because the airline was one of the better performers in the industry over the past two years. The airline made almost RM1bil in profits last year.

The freeze on spending include freezing all recruitment and training (except with MD/ED approval), review of loss-making routes and flights, prioritising projects and expenditure.

Idris, who was speaking to Malaysian

journalists covering the International Air Transporters Association annual general meeting here, said the cost-cutting mea-sures were necessary until the situation improved.

“This time last year, jet fuel was at US$80 (RM258 ) per barrel and we made a profit of RM133mil for the first three months. This year, fuel prices have reached US$171 per barrel and yet we made RM120mil.

“If not for the fuel prices, our first quarter profits would be about RM800mil.”

He expressed confidence that MAS would survive the crisis because “everyone had been through it before”.

He pointed out that at least a dozen airlines in the world had folded up because of the oil crisis and he expected this figure to rise.

He confirmed that MAS fares would increase between 3% and 20% on all routes and that the Everyday Low Fare campaign was a success with MAS netting RM23mil in profits in its first two weeks.

Freeze recruitment and training?? Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!! *melting slowly*

Fuel Alert!

Fuel is a very very important commodity for us but it is sad to say no matter what happens, fuel prices will always continue to skyrocket! Thats a fact. No matter how much we complain to the government or how much we plea, fuel prices will always go up! There is not much the government can do. They don’t control the oil prices.

In Malaysia, we are very very lucky. Our fuel is actually still very very cheap compared to other countries in the world. That is the reason why people from Singapore and Thailand still wants to come into our country to fill their tanks! Now that the government is revising a new subsidy scheme that will take effect in August, most of us speculate another price increase but by how much, we don’t know. But when I saw what the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad said, I know its not going to be a small hike. Shahrir said the subsidy revamp could result in petrol pumps selling fuel at market prices.

I think what we can do now is change the way we live our lives! And I need not say much here. You guys know the drill. From carpooling to the switch to public transport. From driving to a grocery store to walking to it. From everything and anything we do that can reduce fuel consumption. And by reducing fuel consumption, it helps in reducing global warming too! I know there are rich people out there earning lots of dough a month. And the price hike probably will just cause an itch to them. Or maybe they will just live the day like any other day as if nothing has happened. But from what I personally think, this is no longer a money issue. We are running out of fuel fast, and if we all don’t reduce consumption, we could run out of fuel before an alternative is found and fully implemented. What do I mean by the phrase fully implemented? Well, when an alternative is found, mass changes would occur. First cars would be refitted, then pumping stations changed, storage facilities rebuilt. Imagine how long that would take. And not forgetting the cost of the changes. It can easily take up to 20 years.

I know we have many alternatives now like the Natural Gas, Hydrogen and water as fuel. And then we also have the air-powered car and the electric car. But its still not as widespread as the petrol cars! And how many of you actually know that an air-powered car exist? How many of you know that we have NGV (Natural Gas Vehicles) in Malaysia and that there are natural gas refueling stations in the Klang Valley? Or that electric cars has been used in America during the 90s only to be brutally murdered by automakers because petrol cars rake in the most dollars! And then there are people who said “Huh!? Electric car ah? Jalan that time ma like ah mah!” and as always my reply to them “Please read up before making any comments. Or you will just make yourself look like an idiot”. I just sincerely hope that everyone of us can work together to reduce fuel consumption and gives us humanity more time to come up with a new fuel that works. Everyone saves a little and it adds up to a lot.