Internet Blackout Day, Malaysia - Stop 114a

I am going to briefly speak about this because I took part in the "blackout" by adding a pop up to my blog and also refraining from using any social media sites. Refraining from using social media was just an optional thing I wanted to do to show my solidarity to the cause. The black out was on the 14th of August 2012. There were some who misunderstood that they should stay off the internet which is not exactly the point. The blackout was actually to raise awareness of the amended section 114a which allows a site owner, victims of identity theft or victims of other forms of mischief such as tweet-jacking to be held responsible for slander, defamation, etc.

Briefly, what it means that if someone were to make a slanderous comment on my blog or on my facebook wall, I will be held responsible for that comment and I am considered guilty unless I can prove otherwise which is a blow to the fundamentals of justice which is innocent until proven guilty.

It does not stop there. The article also allows for someone to be tried if their internet has been leached. Say someone is using my wifi with or without my knowledge to post something slanderous/defaming using an anonymous identity and the person who has been defamed lodges a report, then a trace is done to the IP of where the post came from. Once they have identified the source, the subscriber of the internet account will be held responsible. In this case it would be me although I did not commit the crime nor did I know about it, I would have to prove my innocence.

I will leave you with the link to learn more about section 114A here. Know your rights. Support Internet Freedom!

The Vege-Mon is Back

Bird Eye Chili

It has been some time since I have blogged about my vegetables. About a year ago, I started a small patch in my porch to grow vegetables such as brinjal (eggplant/aubergine/whatever you want to call it), tomatoes, chili and lettuce. So today I am going to share the progress of it one year on.

The vegetables that made it:

1. Brinjal - I honestly did not think this guy would make it because the plant looked so frail and the stems were turning brown
2. Chili - I have 3 variations now namely bird eye chili (cili api/cili burung), your normal green chili and also a smaller version of the green chili (I think it is different from the green chili because the plant looks different and the size is slightly smaller)
3. Spinach - this guy is slow and steady. Not enough leaves to harvest yet but looking good

The vegetables that did not make it

1. Cherry tomatoes - It bore fruit for a while then it died because I went on vacation and nobody was around to care for the plant. Also, I never had a taste of it because this god damn tupai (squirrel) kept getting to the fruits before me.
2. Lettuce - technically, it made it but harvested only once and it is the first of my produce that I consumed. I need to go buy new seeds now.

The plants that suddenly appeared

Chili

1. Different variations of chili - these plants grew as a result of me using the leftovers of vegetables used for cooking for compost. The seeds were not separated and they managed to thrive.
2.  Pumpkin - this guy did not make it but looked promising. another result of seed not being removed from the compost. It died about the same time as the cherry tomatoes.
3. Turmeric/cucumin - growing out of the blue because my mother just threw it into the pot and miraculously started to grow. But again, I cannot really say if it is turmeric, ginger or galangal  because they all look the same and this plant just started to sprout. All these plants belong to the same family by the way. Other close relatives include heliconia and banana. They all grow from rhizomes and belong to the order of Zingiberales

The brinjal and chilies

Last weekend I managed to harvest the brinjal and my mom made curry out of it. I did not know when to pick the fruit but a good way to estimate is to see if it shines. If you leave the vegetable too long, it will taste bitter and have too many seeds. I have two variations of brinjal, one is the purple brinjal and the other is green.

To summerise, I now have only the plants from the nightshade family, brinjal and chili. All I need now is tomato to complete the family :). Not all plants belonging to the nightshade family are edible namely belladona or commonly referred to as deadly nightshade. Deadly nightshade does have it's benefits in small quantities such as the extract is used to give clear eyes hence the name Bella Donna which means beautiful woman in Italian. Other plants belonging to this family are tobacco and potato.

Note:  All these vegetable have been grown organically with no pesticide whatsoever and fertilised using only leftovers from vegetables and fruits such as potato shavings, onion skin and garlic skin leftover fruits such as bananas, apples and tomatoes. Once in a while it is also advisable to pour the water in which you cleaned your fish before cooking. But do please avoid including the guts of the fish... not a good idea.

Chili

Green Brinjal

Brinjal again

After a good hike!

Taken at Restoran Sri Paandi