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McD's MY sues BDS MY for RM6 mil over Israel boycott. Powerful 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit Japan, tsunami warning issued. Global politics, economy - what lies ahead in 2024?
The Coffee Break
January 02, 2024
Before we start the issue today, we would like to thank the journalists and news portals that have made this newsletter possible. These people go to lengths and take risks to report news, expose scandals, and ensure netizens get the information they need. We just summarise their good work. So, thank you!
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1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈
Information as of closing 2023
2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢
598,635 road accidents were recorded nationwide from 1 Jan to 30 Dec in 2023, an average of 49,886 cases per day. Of this, 12,417 involved fatalities - a death rate of 2.07% and an average of 34 fatal accidents per day. Selangor recorded the most accidents, with 173,129 cases, followed by Johor (87,3700 and KL (72.701).
At 99 meters, Sarawak’s newly launched flagpole has made it into Malaysia’s Book of Records as the tallest one in the country and Southeast Asia. This flagpole cost RM30 mil to build. Not sure if this is an achievement to be proud of or money well spent.
570 GB of data obtained from books, web texts, Wikipedia, articles, and other pieces of writing on the internet was used to train GPT3.5, the large language model that powers the free version of ChatGPT. To be even more exact, this data involved a whopping 300 bil words fed into the system. GPT3.5’s capability is limited to language. The more powerful paid version, GPT4.0, can recognise images, talk in 26 languages, and ‘hallucinate’ less or produce fewer factual errors. A simple and interesting read on large language models here.
498,540 Chinese tourists visited Malaysia in the first 6 months of 2023, almost a third of pre-pandemic levels. Neighbour Thailand expected 3.4 — 3.5 mil visitors from China in 2023. As Malaysia strives to attract five mil Chinese tourists this year and in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of China-Malaysia bilateral diplomatic relations this year, Malaysia recently announced that tourists from China would be able to enter the country visa-free for 30 days, a move mirroring Thailand.