Some time last week, Jeff Ooi, one of Malaysia’s foremost blogger, got into trouble. He was not the source of the turmoil but rather, the source was an unsavory comment left on one of Screenshots’ entry, Jeff Ooi’s blog that, as some would say, degraded Islam.
A pro-government national paper caught up the news and sent a pretty calm crowd to indulge in a massive session of duckspeak. Shortly afterward, somebody in Ministry of Internal Security said that the Internal Security Act (ISA), an act that essentially allows detention without trial, could be utilized against the author of Screenshots for instigating racial harmony. While this happened, support for Screenshots was mounting from the blogosphere. Some of the support came as far as the other end of the planet. The famed Slashdot posted something on this too. Reason is, if ISA were used, the freedom of speech is being threatened yet for another day. More importantly, if a blogger is going to be arrested under ISA, it would be an unprecedented move in suppression of free speech. Well, not unprecedented. China has done that.
Luckily, the hoo-ha died out but, I notice something else.
Take note that, all the while this all happened, Screenshots was and still is rallying for a fundraising effort. In particular, observe at the figure of the fund. The fund was first officially announced by Screenshots on September 27th this year. The intention was probably first brought up on September 21st or earlier. Now, bear with me while I puke out the boring details.
Around the same day that the comment that caused the uproar was made, which was September 30 — of which I believe the water was still as calm as Lake Tahoe — the fund stood at RM818.68. A day later, the fund grew almost 100%; to be precise it was at RM1570.96.
Screenshots usually receives a lot of visitors per day by some standard. I would say the average, discounting the absolute maximum was around 3500 visitors. This rough estimate could be easily obtained from Screenshots.
Two days later, the fund stood RM0.69 short of RM2000.00. On the same day, the number of visitors was significantly different from the Screenshots’ average of visitors for about 30 days. It was approximately 9000 visitors though I don’t know whether that 9000 represents 9000 unique people. From my experience, the counter that Screenshots is using doesn’t differentiate the same IP after some period of time. However, assuming that the 9000 visitors are indeed unique and on average, there are 3500 unique visitors, with the difference from the average and the actual visitor on each of those 30 days is less than 1000, 9000 is absolutely big and unusual. Screenshots refers to that 9000 as abnormal traffic. More data here.
On October 2nd, Screenshots was brought to national attention. With this, it is sensible for anybody to expect a spike in the number of visitors and this definitely explains, as a statistician would say, the error in the statistical model, if a statistical model were to be constructed. On the normal curve, that abnormal traffic figure will be at the very end of one tail (well, not really at the end of the tail for the mathematics junkies but you get the idea. The t-test is huge.).
Then the fund lingered at RM4181.61, another 100% increase. Looking back in time, that is a 400% increase from September 30.
According to Screenshots on September 5th, the number of visitors was greater on September 5th than the day before. As of today, the fund grew by about 50% to RM6779.37.
Now, there is a relationship with the number of visitors and the number of fund though my professor always asserts correlation is not causation. But if a statistical model were to be constructed, I strongly believe there will be a strong positive correlation between the two variables. More importantly, I don’t think anybody needs any lesson in econometrics to realize good marketing brings large customers and large customers translate to large sale. In this case, large contribution.
Now, consider a conspiracy theory.
Let’s say Jeff Ooi knows this. Also, let’s say Jeff Ooi has a friend at Jalan Riong (the location where the national paper resides in the real world. You see that something outside the window? That’s the real world. And no, not MS Windows you bastard, the window!), of which I am sure he does; a little bird at the very least.
Now, let’s think. Does it make sense for a national paper to care so much for the blog that, that particular national paper ran an article concerning that blog on the front page?
Rayden would say, I don’t think so. Well, it is possible for a blog to get onto a national paper, as proven by Instapundit. Instapundit got onto the New York Times but it was hardly in the front page. I mean c’mon, front page? Don’t you have any other f-news? If Harakah did it, it’s understandable but Berita Harian? Dude, you need to uphold some of your reputation! (I’m not saying that Berian Harian has a lot of reputation to start with.)
A part of my want to say, some little bird at Jalan Riong wants to help Screenshots’ fundraising effort. So, a little publicity doesn’t hurt, especially when the firm at Jalan Riong is one of the most influential (despite being excessively biased) media in Malaysia.
Either that or the people at Jalan Riong hate Screenshots so much that they really are trying hard to pin Jeff Ooi down to the ground, which seems to be apparently true and would probably explains the front page. Pure hatred is strong enough a reason to verify the front page.
If latter is true, then the plan is backfiring. Instead of pinning Screenshots to the ground, it only helped the fundraising effort by at most 720% increase from RM818.68.
Oh, well, met my academic advisor yesterday. She asked me whether I have anything after graduation or not. I said not yet. She then said, if you want, you could take a class in the B-School next semester. Sounds like a good plan for me. Maybe I could even convince my parents to sponsor me into B-School. But in any case, if I still can’t find anything, I’ll stay in school for one more semester. Graduating in December is boring anyway. It’s too cold and too early to graduate.
And yeah, the last time Minnesota met Michigan, Minnesota faced a rheumatic arrest after seeing Michigan rallying from a loss to a win in the fourth quarter. Tomorrow, Minnesota (ranked #13, one rung above Michigan) will get a heart attack immediately in the first quarter.
Go Blue baby!
p/s – I meant cardiac arrest, not rheumatic arrest.
