Hacking the Good days…

I pledged to dedicate a blog post on today, the Ada Lovelace Day, and my tribute goes to Dr. Cheng Ha-Yan, Kate, who volunteered to help saved patients inflicted with SARS in Hong Kong and unfortunately contacted the disease and passed away at the age of 30.

Also I’d like to highlight the strength and leadership of Dr. Margaret Ng, another Hong Kong Chinese who led Hong Kong through a really weird period of SARS and continue to keep the world vigilant against aviation flu as the Director-General of the World Health Organisation.

Now to put this achievement in context, we are talking about fight this,

In a city like this,

Source from the legendary Michael Wolf’s protrait of Hong Kong’s density


Where everyone was patrified and did not know exactly what to do (and not to do),

SARS was a bossy, horrible epidemic – 296 people died of the disease and 1,755 became ill [BBC].

I also dedicate this post to everyone who has been through the tough time time – imagine everything holds still in a city and no one knows for certain whether you or your love one still be around the next day…  It is these women and men in the health care industry who work very hard to keep things in check.  People are now comparing the economic downturn with the impact of SARS, but hey, at least people don’t get killed (directly) by the recession… but that’s irrelevant.

What is important is this – Hats off to everyone.  Thank you so very much.

A bunch of Hong Kong Lego fanatics have created miniature Olympics village with Lego,

As the world watches the Beijing Games, enthusiasts from Hong Kong have unveiled their own Olympics — built entirely from Lego.

More than 300,000 Lego bricks and 4,500 Lego people were used to create the display, by the Hong Kong Lego User Group.

The stadium

Even the rickshaw was re-created with Lego – how cute!

Photo courtesy: Flickr images by Dunechaser

For more photos, check out Flickr.  I particular admire this quote from the Lego folks, ‘We believe that creations are not limited by resources, but by ideas.’  I wish more people share that enthusiasm at well not just with lego, but at times with work as well… :)

Go on, Hong Kong Lego Users Group!

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.

From Times Online, Simon Barnes wrote,

A lot of our fear and mistrust of China comes from the fact that it is a one-party state and that political unorthodoxy is discouraged. But it is a reckless misunderstanding to assume that the population are sublimely happy with this, and want nothing more than to serve the state. If that were so, the Chinese would indeed be a sinister lot: but the idea is absurd. I can exclusively reveal that most Chinese people wish to live happy, peaceful and fulfilling lives, to look after their families, to get enough to eat and to get a kick out of life.

Not entirely unlike us, then. So perhaps we should instigate a Cultural Revolution in the head: and look upon China not as a nation, but as place where 1.3 billion individuals happen to live.

Not sure about his emphasis on how ‘beautiful’ Hong Kong Chinese women are, but the rest of the article resonates with what I have been trying to articulate these days. Last thing I would add is, please, people, the notion of ‘Chinese people’ is a contestable one, just like you cannot assume all Americans are the same, as with any nations, not all ‘Chinese people’ are the same. One basic tenet of human rights is to respect people as individuals, instead of just a herd of things that move and feel the same way.

*sigh*

Can’t wait when August is over.