Hacking the Good days…

I did a lengthy post for YDN links here.

For those who’re interested in the presentation on Wikipedia’s Community deep dive, check out the deck here:

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It’s been almost 4 years since I started observing and learning from the growth of the Wikipedia community… so the deck is actually pretty dense, and I’ve been too swarmed to do any fancy ppt magic – forgive me!  Any comments/questions, just give me a shout!

Oh and Rain requested me to post a photo of me playing with Diablo under Ian’s patient instruction,

Incidentally the one and only one computer game I was addicted was Diablo I – I killed Diablo when I was 14! Probably more than just once as well.. Thanks Ian for bringing back my Über geek memories…

If there is only one track of song that you can choose as your favourite, what would that be?

There are many people who have asked this questions, and I was also told that it is almost impossible for any music lover to come up with only one. Incidentally I was chatting with Blackdown (who would be playing at Fabric this Sunday) about Chinese music, and how they incorporated Chinese Zither into their music, check out ‘the bits’. (love them btw, and tracks are available for purchase here)

Of course I have more than one favourite tracks, but the most symbolically important track of mine is probably liangzhu – ‘the Butterfly Lover’ [1],

The Butterfly Lovers or Liang Zhu is a Chinese legend about the tragic romance between two lovers, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, from whom the name of the legend is known in Chinese (梁山伯與祝英台, pinyin: Liáng Shānbó yǔ Zhù Yīngtái, often abbreviated as “梁祝”, Liáng-Zhù). The legend is sometimes regarded as the Chinese equivalent to Romeo and Juliet.

I bag to differ that The Butterfly Lovers is equivalent to Romeo and Juliet per se – I’m sure the latter one has its own appeal, but The Butterfly Lovers is about how a young woman, being disguised by her family as a boy so that she could go to school, fell in love with a lower class young man. Not only it touches on gender and class, the struggle between being true to your heart or to your obligations, it also relates to the audience by gently revealing Chinese way of how love unfolds – very subtle but yet powerful – ultimately tragic, and supremely timeless.

It is in this context [2],

The legend had been adapted into traditional Chinese opera in several local varieties, as Liang Zhu in Yue opera (also called Shaoxing opera, not to be confused with Cantonese opera) and In the Shade of the Willow (柳蔭記, Liǔyìn Jì) in Sichuan opera. The Shaoxing opera version was made into a colour motion picture in the 1950s ([2]) in the PRC. The filming by the Ministry of Culture and the East China Military and Political Commission took place in Zhu’s legendary home town of Shangyu.

Thanks for Baidu search, the track can be downloaded here (25 minutes long).

What is this Chinese fascination about butterfly? Perhaps is only when we become butterfly, we are truly free?

from IHT:

One of the strangest exhibits at the opening of “Design and the Elastic Mind,” the very strange show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York that explores the territory where design meets science, was a teeny coat made out of living mouse stem cells. The “victimless leather” was kept alive in an incubator with nutrients, unsettlingly alive. Until recently, that is.

My usual response to outside-the-box ideas that blend arts and science by default, is in awe. But this feels too weird – (a) mouse + (b) living cells that keep on multiplying + (c) shapes like a coat but is living…..

/yike

[Hong Kong only]

We lost our cute puppy, Coco – please help us find him:

Small White Male Dog with White Curly Fur 白色捲軟毛男小狗

Also Black Collar Little Bell

Last Seen on Friday May 16TH AT 9AM
ON DES VOEUX ROAD WEST, SAI YING PUN
星期五(16/05)最後到見在德輔道西. 西營盤

[Update: We found Coco!!] Yaya!!!!

I know you feel this, too.

You might have noticed that earthquake has shaken SiChuan, China, and thanks for those who raised their concerns. I have no families and friends who are affected as someone from Hong Kong, but looking at the devastating state of situation, I want to show you why we’re working in an industry that is bigger than just figures, but also meaning and promises to peoples’ life.

To date [BBC News],

About 10 million people in Sichuan province have been directly affected by the 7.9 quake that flattened entire villages, state media said.
Nearly 15,000 people are known to have been killed, and another 26,000 are still trapped in the rubble.

Figures are figures, you might want to see the videos (notes: unpleasant images) of the rescue effort.

On the blogasphere, at least two prominent figures on China, Elliot Ng and Rebecca Mckinnon, founder of Global Voices immediately started mobilising other bloggers and connected individuals through their blogs, twitter, and facebook.

A great example of how technologies break down bystander apathy (i.e. it’s your problem) is Pledgebank, where Rebecca promises that she will donate $500 more to Chinese earthquake aid when 500 more people donate at least $20.

What can we do?

Do it and share it @Pledgebank.

Web 2.0 minus the hype also means that aggregated effort matters – do put the link on your IM status (Y!IM, GTalk, Skype, Adium…etc), your twitter, forward the link, or to put that on your blog or simply track back to this post or pledgebank.

I have also cross-posted this blog post as email to people I work with.

This is the time where I’ll think of Marshall McLuhan,

“We have be-come irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other.”
The Medium is The Massage, Marshall McLuhan p 24

“As technology advances, it reverses the characteristics of every situation again and again. The age of automation is going to be the age of “do it yourself”.” 1957
Edited by Eric McLuhan & Frank Zingrone “Essential McLuhan” Routledge 1997 ISBN 0-415-16245-9 page 283.

And finally,

“Today we are beginning to notice that the new media are not just mechanical gimmicks for creating worlds of illusion, but new languages with new and unique powers of expression.” 1957
Edited by Eric McLuhan & Frank Zingrone “Essential McLuhan” Routledge 1997 ISBN 0-415-16245-9 page 272.