Andre

Kids lack pc education

andre — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:57:02 +1500

Friends gave their children (11 & 3) a pc, loaded with daddy's download tools, no (child) protection other than some hacked anti-virus and firewall but they expect the older kid to use the pc for studies. Furthermore, they expect the school to teach about how to use a computer - not only to turn it on but also to stay safe. Of course they also complain that the kids spend too much time playing online games - the 3year old can't read yet but navigates around the web like an adult.

No matter if the schools offer appropriate computer teaching or not, the problem is the combination of parents' lack of knowledge and/or interest about the relation of their kids with computers as well as the well too frequent lax attitude towards illegal copies. Asking for a 200HKD complete computer protection is already too much.

My experience of most parents' lesson to their kids: "get cheap pc, don't pay for software, download illegally, no need to protect, discover by yourself".

Parents and (many) schools play a convenient game of pushing the ball about who to charge with teaching "Internet"; same as they do with "sex ed". The punchline here would be that both actually must go hand in hand for some chapters. Reading recent Hong Kong news like "School sees red at little boy blue" are quite disturbing.

Even if parents are capable of teaching everything they should, there is still to consider the "time versus convenience". When the choice comes down to kids vs. TV drama, you may easily guess what the preferred choice is. This isn't just a problem in Hong Kong: I remember when I was in primary school, one teacher always complained parents abusing the school as a daycare center.

Parents, schools and kids are a doomed triangle: everyone is expecting the other one to do everything but nobody is doing anything what they are supposed to do.

Follower or Friend?

andre — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:12:54 +1500

A thought about "followers" on Twitter versus "friends" on about most other social (network) services.

There is something seriously wrong with the usage of "friend" when people clean up their social lists by removing 100s of "unknown friends". If those you follow on Twitter become real friends, it's because you have learned something about them or have communicated with them first.

You "follow" people/services because you are interested in their updates. I personally don't believe in the blind following out of courtesy. What I like about Twitter is that it is about "followers" and not like other sites where the whole world is your - often unknown - "friend".

"Thx for follow" tweets can be annoying but when they are links to "thx for follow" pages with video and plenty of ads, it becomes terrible.

You can follow me on Twitter - and just maybe we might become friends.

Public privacy

andre — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 05:45:10 +1500

Some people still don't understand that there is no such thing as "public privacy". Opening online banking accounts on a public terminal such as in coffee shops is NOT a good idea, despite the acces code generator (Security Device) required for logging in and executing transactions.

Dude, where's the pool?

andre — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:05:25 +1500

Poor people of Tung Chung: sweating away in the hot summer temperatures, they are too far on the outskirts of Hong Kong and their place is too young (not taking into account the tiny fishing village it once was) as a town to have a public swimming pool; the nearest public one would be in Tsing Yi. Locals have resorted to play in the CityGate Outlets' shopping mall fountain and (most) children come fully prepared with the right swim gear.

To seemingly taunt them even more, each time the Tung Chung population decides to visit the city by MTR, they will pass an Olympic swimming pool mock-up in the Central MTR station:

However, a public pool project is under way for Tung Chung so in just a few years time - eternity for a child - cooling off options won't be limited to in- and outdoor shopping mall activities anymore (poor parents).

The Dark Knight-mare

andre — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:16:12 +1500

I had a chance opportunity to watch the latest Batman movie The Dark Knight in a Philippines shopping mall theatre. Happy about this and excited to see what everyone's talking about, the afternoon turned into a nightmare to the point of ruining the movie experience. I shall never set foot into a local cinema again, given I was assured there's nothing unusual about all that I experienced.

In short, throughout the movie I had to endure:

Most of the audience were children aged anywhere from 5-10, having a blast like it would be their own McDonald's birthday party (forget about any movie rating whatsoever);
People chatting like at a bar on a weekend evening;
People coming and going like in a train station;
Mobile phone lights like in a disco (surprisingly no ringtones though);
The couple next to me was exclusively playing for the first 2/3 of the movie with their mobile phone and then left, not looking once at the big screen;
People standing up for no reason;
It was a lot colder than even the freezing Hong Kong theatres with occasional wind blows matching a typhoon.

In addition to that, there's the inconvenience of registering and giving up at the security check-point any picture-taking device (though mobile phones seem to be ignored). I'm not in favor of movie piracy but I think I'm not wrong in wondering why a country like the Philippines has such strict measures when the movies sown there are already available in DVD quality both on the Web and on the street markets. With today's high expectations of the quality of illegal copies, I doubt there's any market left for hand-recording movies already on sale.

Lack of seat selection (first comes, first served), no staff monitoring the audience for their behavior, no blanket rental, are only a few of the many other inconveniences.

At least I was told there are better places to enjoy a movie.

Off the grass

andre — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 14:08:36 +1500

Hong Kong's relation with grass could be summed up in the widely used line "Off the grass!" despite having a lot of nature - obviously the problem is that people prefer to stay within the city and thus don't see the nature, even less so actually touch it. So what's wrong with the picture below?

The pictures show an art exhibition at Times Square's mall which includes a big carapet of fake grass and some stones copied from a Japanese garden.

It's heart-breaking to anyone who appreciates the touch of real grass to see how children glow up in jo, throwing off their shoes, running and jumping on the carpet like Donald Duck's uncle Scrooge McDuck taking a money bath.

By the way Disney characters, Hong Kong Disneyland's Inspiration Lake Recreation Centre features a lot of freely accessible grass to step, walk and sit on; you can even have your picnic there.

Total temperature confusion

andre — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:53:07 +1500

It's 20something degree Celsius outside, a bit of wind, perfect to go to the beach with high waves and a sea temperature of 25C. The problem with this scenario: it's November and we're in Hong Kong.

For most people in Hong Kong, the mainland China national holiday on October 1 (also a public holiday in Hong Kong) marks the day they switch from summer to winter clothes; no matter the weather outside. It's a day off work and no duties like ancestor worship to do. One can't wait until Christmas (public holiday in Hong Kong) to switch clothes, or even worse, actually do it on a weekend or any given evening (watching local TV dramas is way more important - to the point that most restaurants feature flatscreens in every corner).

What makes me question the mental state of these people is:

It's hot (25C-30C) and lifeguards are on duty at the beaches until October 31; why is October considered winter? For those who don't know it yet: Hong Kong is located in a subtropical climate.
Why dressing in the full set of winter clothes? Is it necessary to run around with a scarf and hat?
Often, it is much cooler indoors than outdoors. While buses, fast-food chains, offices... usually hoover around the 20C setting (although the government recommends a more healthy and energy-saving 25.5C environment), people nevertheless take off all their winter clothes once inside. Then they wonder why they are sick (sweating outdoors in the clothes and freezing indoors without the clothes).
Many show a total lack of common sense: jogging around in oversized winter training clothes and shouting to friends "so hot, so hot".

Got cash?

andre — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 04:05:36 +1500

People keep trying, no matter how many times others have failed before. Not even to mention that their trials are so flawed it becomes amusing just to read how they failed.

Once again, an international counterfeiting gang tried to con a large bank out of more money than they'd possibly have in stock, with a method so commonly known as the Nigerian Letter. Targeting the Bank Of England, a group of 6 posing as fake lawyers and representatives of Chinese families from the preCommunist era who owned the money and wished to exchange it, came up with a story of 6 owners (aged 109 to 116) of special bank notes who'd like to cash them in before they'd die.

The problem was the bank notes were thousands of "special issue" notes of £500,000 and £1,000. Some of the flaws in this plan:

a £500,000 note never existed
the £1,000 note had not been legal tender for more than 60 years
they referred to the bank in documents as the “England Bank”
they did not correctly forge the signature of Sir Jasper Quintus Hollom, the chief cashier of the Bank of England
the money they claimed to possess - £28 billion - represented more than two thirds of all sterling in circulation

How could someone possibly expect to get that much money without anyone wondering? Furthermore, how could the spell the name of the bank wrong when all lived in the London area?

Reckless behavior

andre — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:31:14 +1500

It never ceases to horrify me how reckless people can behave, totally ignoring their environment and other people's feelings. In Hong Kong, with a smoking ban (in most places both in- and outdoors) enforced and heavy fees for spitting and littering, bad behavior is gradually (though slowly) becoming a bad memory. While older ones are more difficult (sometimes impossible) to convince, many "traditional" behaviors are received with a feeling of disgust by the younger generations.

Forgiving the occasional faux-pas and with mainland (China) busloads of tourists being tought "how to behave" (at least that is for those with destination Disneyland), the remaining nuisances are now mainly the road traffic (why honking when it doesn't move anyway?), the government's historic buildings demolishing plans, and young own-the-world-and-don't-care-a-dime backpackers.

The bloke below was resting on the MTR train's floor at the wheelchair parking lot and posed a public hazard for everyone. While it may be funny to imagine in a cartoon style someone jumping through the closing door, stepping on this gweilo and crashing the opposite door's window (what a face that would be), it's nevertheless just plain reckless.

Rescue the stupid

andre — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:54:40 +1500

It always amazes me anew how stupid people can be when it comes to their personal safety and that of others who have to rescue them.

However, there were those who couldn't resist to swim to the rafts. That may not be a difficult task at normal sea, it proved too hard for many today. Several people never made it there and had to be pulled out of the water deeply exhausted while others made it to the raft but then remained stranded there.

This photo above was taken at Shek O beach which had some nice 2-3m waves. Some guys actually managed to stand up on their surfboards. Others enjoyed catching the breaking waves and get flushed to the beach back and forth. So far, so good. No harm done, nobody in trouble and everyone was happy. If there wouldn't have been the rescue syrens every 5 minutes.

Hong Kong people have a history of putting their own life in danger because they don't know anymore when the danger starts and that they might not get rescued on their first call. The Hong Kong government goes great lengths to keep people safe and while that is applaudable, the down-side is the resulting lack of safety awareness.

Going for a hike and get lost? Call for help and a rescue unit is on their way.
Going for a hike and get tired? Call for help and a helicopter picks you up.
Stuck at the beach's raft? Shout/wave for help and a jetski picks you up.
Problems during the swim? Not one but several guards come to your rescue.

The list goes on for pages but you should get the picture by now. This over-protectiveness makes people week in danger assessment but strong in rescue expectation.

The majority of those taking ferries regularly don't know how to swim despite the occasional accident. Everytime I have been to the beach, I've both seen others and at least one in our group who doesn't know how to swim (at least properly) but still goes out to the rafts, trusting their life onto a floating device designed for playing in shallow waters.

There is only one suggestion which makes sense in terms of keeping rescue standards high and public education: penalties. With flexible penalties, many rescue missions would become a bad memory of the past.

Charge all those swimmers who can't swim or depend on floating devices if rescued from such obviously wrong locations like out at the raft; of course don't charge swimmers able to take care of themselves when they get a cramp or so. It's not that difficult to differentiate between swimmers and non-swimmers.
Charge the full rescue costs for those who went on a hiking trip with the wrong gear. A high-heel lady on a mountain, the sporty guy without a map and compass, and so on. There are basic hiking rules and they should become mandatory.

Watching the development of the local rescue competence and the growing demand for it, it becomes clear that the public thinks more and more about the rescue services as a convenient public service similar to a bus ride versus taking a walk.