Hacking the Good Days... » china

Profoundly moved..

cathyma — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 12:41:06 +0000

by Liu XiaoBo’s speech in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize 2010, with exerpts below (more about Liu),

On ‘I have no enemies’,

“Hatred can rot away at a person’s intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation’s progress toward freedom and democracy. That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as i look upon our nation’s development and social change, to counter the regime’s hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love.”

On mutual respect between Liu and the Chinese officials whom imprisoned him, and why he has faith in China,

“Although I continue to maintain that I am innocent and that the charges against me are unconstitutional, during the one plus year since I have lost my freedom, I have been locked up at two different locations and gone through four pretrial police interrogators, three prosecutors, and two judges, but in handling my case, they have not been disrespectful, overstepped time limitations, or tried to force a confession. Their manner has been moderate and reasonable; moreover, they have often shown goodwill. [...] It is precisely because of such convictions and personal experience that I firmly believe that China’s political progress will not stop, and I, filled with optimism, look forward to the advent of a future free China. For there is no force that can put an end to the human quest for freedom, and China will in the end become.a nation ruled by law, where human rights reign supreme. I also hope that this sort of progress can be reflected in this trial as I await the impartial ruling of the
collegial bench ‑ a ruling that will withstand the test of history.”

And finally, on love,

“If I may be permitted to say so, the most fortunate experience of these past twenty years has been the selfless love I have received from my wife, Liu Xia. She could not be present as an observer in court today, but I still want to say to you, my dear, that I firmly believe your love for me will remain the same as it has always been. Throughout all these years that I have lived without freedom, our love was full of bitterness imposed by outside circumstances, but as I savor its aftertaste, it remains boundless. I am serving my sentence in a tangible prison, while you wait in the intangible prison of the heart. Your love is the sunlight that leaps over high walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window, stroking every inch of my skin, warming every cell of my body, allowing me to always keep peace, openness, and brightness in my heart, and filling every minute of my time in prison with meaning. My love for you, on the other hand, is so full of remorse and regret that it at times makes me stagger under its weight. I am an insensate stone in the wilderness, whipped by fierce wind and torrential rain, so cold that no one dares touch me. But my love is solid and sharp, capable of piercing through any obstacle. Even if I were crushed into powder, I would still use my ashes to embrace you.”

Dear Google, why do you want me to be scared of you?

cathyma — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:52:18 +0000

A great slideshow on all the privacy-related quote from the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, and I thought I was the one that can get caught for saying the ‘wrong thing’. Coming from a Hong Kong Chinese background means that I am particularly sensitive to governmental access to personal data for the use of ‘security’ or censorship, or even just plain monitoring. Hence page 7 of Schmidt’s quote,

“In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you,” Schmidt said at the 2010 Techonomy conference, arguing that there were dangers to having complete anonymity online and that governments may eventually put an end to anonymity. “We need a [verified] name service for people,” he said. “Governments will demand it.”

really made me jumped. What would happen if user data is to be centralised and processed and used for ‘the greater good’? Who would have access to these data? How, as an individual, do we protect ourselves? I wonder if any users ever imagine whether it is possible that a super admin who works for a big information corporation (be it Google, Facebook or mobile operators or even the company you work for) would have access to open your profile and go through what you’ve been through. Perhaps the best way to handle this is for someone to never become famous, or ‘important’ enough that your personal information becomes valuable enough.

I had a discussion with my fellow researcher friends whose focus is on censorship in China and it’s Great ‘Fire Wall’ (a pun to the great wall). I have heard numerous feedback that having a firewall that blocks access to certain ‘sensitive website’ is a disgrace. I do not contest with that. But I would challenge anyone that psuedo-openness is even more of a disgrace, to Boyd’s point,

The battle that is underway is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It’s a battle over choice and informed consent. It’s unfolding because people are being duped, tricked, coerced, and confused into doing things where they don’t understand the consequences. Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely unfair. It gives users the illusion of choice and hides the details away from them “for their own good.”

We are keeping our eyes open while injecting lots of valuable user data into sites like Facebook. What I like is the paradox that Facebook’s official line is about openness which is almost the polar opposite to the discourse of the Chinese Internet. However I argue that at least in China, people are *aware* of censorship, and there workarounds. As Andrew puts it,

“China’s users are too busy enjoying the Internet they have, rather than lamenting the one they don’t.”

Welcome to moral dilemmas of the twenty first century.

Ada Lovelace Day – Tribute to Dr. Kate Cheng

cathyma — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:57:26 +0000

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.

Aw… Lego for the Olympics

cathyma — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:00:27 +0000

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!

On China earthquake | the magic of the web

cathyma — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:18:34 +0000

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.

Finally, an article that makes sense

cathyma — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:03:00 +0000

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.