tin_the_fatty: Social Restructuring

Tue, 28 Jan 2003 22:54:44 GMT

Signing Off

I am retiring my Radio weblog. You are invited to visit my new MovableType weblog.

Sat, 25 Jan 2003 01:16:04 GMT

Big Music Labels Dying

Very interesting commentary. In summary, 75% of music are published by the big 5 record labels and their subsidaries. Last year all of them were either losing money or barely broke even. They blamed music privacy and file sharing. We think otherwise.

This commentary pointed out something new to me. Since earlier 90s all the music labels were pushing those boy bands and girlie bands to teens. None of these bands lasted more than a few albums and music quality were generally rather poor. They could not keep those fans as the fans grew up, and were replaced by other boy bands and girlie bands, which would attract teens then, but could not attract the now grown-up fans. Fans who have grown up stopped buying music, or buy a lot less music than before. The cycle continues, and now there is a whole generation of 20-30s who don't listen to much music. Every few years a new generation joins this class of non-consumers. The situation would only get worse. They say the big labels either radically change their business model, or go out of business, within 5 years.

The situation in Hong Kong for Canto Pop isn't much better. The most successful record companies such as EEG actually act as managers for their artists, and take a big cut from every dollar their artists earn, e.g. TV adverts, product promotion, concerts and shows, etc. I discussed this with a friend, who told me that albums don't sell all that well these days, as a lot of fans just buy cheap pirate copies. It's tough being an artist.

Thu, 16 Jan 2003 09:31:15 GMT

Collateral Damage?

We snapshooters shoot each other. A lot. We also share our pictures. Roy shot Po awhile a go, at a canteen we visit often, and posted the picture on news://news.freeforum.org/interest.photography. Normally this would be total unremarkable.

However, a loser of the name passer-by-02 stole the picture, put a mosaic on Po's face, re-posted the picture onto a web bulletin board, claimed to be the person in the photo and challenged others to break the mosaic. It seemed that this loser also happened to be Public Enemy No. 1(TM), and his post created a lot of responses. The mosaic was broken in no time, and the original picture of Po was reposted. Then other losers started doing the Photoshop jobs and put Po's face on foul things.

Normally this wouldn't worry Po or Roy a bit. However, rumours had it that quite a few folks wanted to get hold of this passer-by-02 to settle some odds. Po was in no mood to settle any odds on behalf of this passer-by-02, so he made an announcement to clarify that passer-by-02 stole the picture, which was taken by Roy, from the freeforum newsgroup, and that he was not passer-by-02. Stupid people are stubborn. Let's say the community of passer-by-02-alikes were so stupid and not convinced. You have to give them credit thou that they came up with the theory that this passer-by-02 had a split personality, and was acting as passer-by-02 and Po at the same time.

Po contacted the operator of the web bulletin board, who agreed to meet Po and Roy at the Police Station, but did not show up, and could not be contacted again. Very fishy I think you would all agree.

The Station Sargent at YT Police Station was very friendly and explained the situation to Po and company from the Police's point of view.

Things have since quiet down. The crowns who wanted to get at passer-by-02 apologized (sort-of) to Po on the web bulletin board. Po is however still pissed off about this passer-by-02 roach. We are meeting tomorrow evening at the canteen to discuss this mess and generally be amused at Po's expenses.

I am classifying this under Social Restructuring, because the behaviour of passer-by-02 and his "friends" were just so appalling. If this is indeed the norm of the younger generation, Hong Kong has no future.

Thu, 09 Jan 2003 03:42:43 GMT

Product vs. Service: VoIP

Interesting story about some big corporation trying to charge a premium for a cheap service. Analogues of telephone companies and WiFi-service providers were drawn. I am wondering whether charges of the various local companies are too high, and why they claim to lose money over local voice lines.

Wed, 08 Jan 2003 23:00:56 GMT

Basic Law Section 23 Legislation Demonstration

I attended the big rally and demonstration a few weeks ago, and bummed into Po, a good friend who is a student at the Lingnan University down the road from where we live. He was helping the Student Association folks (who did some fine work at the rally demo) to take pictures of participants. I received the following email this morning.

各位朋友：

你好, 我地係學聯社會運動資源中心(簡稱8樓)呀！…
上次係反對23條大遊行中，我地攪左個影流，大家寫左留言，
我地幫大家影左相！
D相已經晒好喇！
我地打算送返比你呀！
日期：11/1/2003/1/9 [Ed: 11/1/2003]
時間：大概下午5:30
地點：九龍旺角西洋菜街(行人專用區)我地有街站
做咩：羅相、同大家再傾下計、同其他行人傾下23條？？？無所謂
有咩打比彩鳳96240117 / 27873551

彩鳳

費用全免 歡迎捐獻 
查詢電話: 27873551 , 73022646 蘿蔔糕 
電郵 : smrc (AT) sinatown.com 
主辦 : 學聯社運資源中心 
地點 : 旺角彌敦道739號金輪大廈 8/F A 

(太子始創中心斜對面, 隧道比鄰,煎釀三寶隔離)

Not that I didn't shoot myself on the day...

I'll try to attend their "debrief" session. The least we could do to support these fine young people.

Fri, 25 Oct 2002 21:39:34 GMT

I feel that I must blog this piece.

Basic science research.

Thu, 10 Oct 2002 00:20:31 GMT

First they came for the Communists,
  and I didn’t speak up,
    because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
  and I didn’t speak up,
    because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
  and I didn’t speak up,
    because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
  and by that time there was no one
    left to speak up for me.

by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

Sun, 22 Sep 2002 03:48:34 GMT

Many Health Supplements to be Banned in UK. While in the US, Microsoft is still fighting off the dissenting States over remedies for its antitrust violations, a far more sinister oligopoly is working in the EU and internationally to strangle its competition - and not only are the EU governments not acting to stop it, the European Parliament is actually a key, if unwitting (half-asleep?), instrument of this assault on consumer rights and public health. You've heard of the War on (Some) Drugs... well this is a War on Alternative Remedies and Supplements. [kuro5hin.org]

This is bad news for the bio-tech-wannabes companies in Hong Kong, who rely on concepts of researches into Chinese herbal medicines. The thing is the majority of resulting products will be herbal extracts, i.e. food supplements, rather than drugs. It looks like one big market will be gone for these companies.

So much for the "Chinese-medicine Port" concept of TGW's government.

Wed, 18 Sep 2002 13:44:27 GMT

Hong Kong tops mobile internet league table. Finland marked down on broadband [The Register]

The head of OFTA only just went thru crap this week, for the slashdot-like effect on our lane-line and mobile network during the day of typhoon. Nonetheless he should now be pleased. Still much to do thou.

Broadband Internet access is cheap, reliable and highly available. Wifi is getting there, althou I don't see it being utilized as much as I would like. Really can't complain.

Sat, 14 Sep 2002 01:50:13 GMT

According to some research, Hong Kong has the third highest percentage of broadband internet access users in the world. This should be something to be proud of, but no. The research also says that most broadband users use the Internet to do email, ICQ, download MP3s and surf. Basically, mostly for entertainment and amusement.

One doesn't need broadband to do ICQ or email. Web-surfing is much nicer with broadband, but one can survive with a 56K modem dialup. Basically, most folks are just not using broadband to its full potential.

Po stopped using Radio since his copy expired. He said he was too cheap. Different priorities, fine. (But then one doesn't need broadband to do weblogging, especially w/ Radio.) I must say I am a bit disappointed thou.

The fine folks at Netvigator offers this value-added service . Knowing that most folks have nothing to say and even less to express, I wonder how popular this service is.

Broadband has become a necessary tool for software development. I have linked to them before. Check out these folks.

Fri, 13 Sep 2002 14:55:05 GMT

I was listening to my favourite radio programme the other day. Apparently the fine folks at VTC has an opening for a "Technician II" and put up an advert. The ideal candidate should have licenses to practice electricity works and water works, and preferably with a gas works license. He would also need to be proficient in installation and testing of equipment and machinery, audio-visual equipment and computers. He would have to work shift till 2300 hours.

The best part is, the salary is HK$7k per month.

It would be difficult to find someone who are qualified or proficient in all of the above. Even if such person exists, no way this person would want to work for such poor salary. However, this is not the point. The point is, the fine folks will eventually take on someone, and this technician may know little about certain things, e.g. audio visual equipment or computers, yet he would be expected to work in these fields. He is going to muck it up. The managers will blame incompetent employees, or inexperienced employees, but the sad fact is they have themselves to blame for they were trying to cut corners.

Another sign of the downward spiral of our society.

Sun, 28 Jul 2002 17:36:52 GMT

The K Chronicles. Dear world: Sorry about all this. Most of us didn't vote for him. [Salon.com]

Does this not sound like our Chief Executive?

Sat, 15 Jun 2002 16:21:53 GMT

Tourist-friendly London

There is a reason why London is one of the most tourist-friendly cities in the world. Doc seems to be enjoying it. I am talking about this.

Broadband Internet in Hong Kong is cheaper than anywhere else in the world. 802.11b equipment are selling like hotcats in Hong Kong. Yet of today I have still not heard of any local community wireless network efforts. Is it because we just don't stay outdoor for very long, and would rather stay in air-con'ed buildings?

Fri, 14 Jun 2002 14:24:43 GMT

Ken's friend Wah Chai was kind enough to share this website with us. From our reliable source, it is brand new. However, it feels like we are back to 1995! Truly amazing.

This is a neat trick: On the front page, click either "English" or "Japanese" (let's not worry about there is no Japanese on this site, yet) then click on "English" or "Japanese" again. Keep clicking. Yes, eventually you get shut out on your browser. Cool or what?!

Feel free to browse around this site. The PR text reads like monkeys wrote them. The graphics flash like the red-light district in Mongkok. Mind you, althou the photos of the dressing model are badly done, the model is actually quite nice.

I could go on, but I am suddenly feeling very sad. I thought it was funny and something for us to laugh at, but it is not. The fact that a web designer these day is doing such crap work, and worse, the client is willing to accept such crap work, is really depressing.

And the folks who own this website are supposed to be tasteful designers!

Mon, 10 Jun 2002 07:42:45 GMT

It's cheaper on a CD!

An article/weblog on physical object vs online distribution.

When I wanted to install Mozilla on my old man's computer (no broadband access, only 56K dial-up), the solution was so obvious: download it to one of my computers via broadband, and burn a CD. The blank CD costs about HK$1.5. Okay I waited about 10 minutes for the CD to burn, but that was all. Couldn't imageine how I would do it otherwise.

Sun, 09 Jun 2002 00:28:18 GMT

I send this in order to have your comment.

Good read about the fun that comes with Windows viruses.

Sat, 08 Jun 2002 15:55:56 GMT

If you read it on the Internet, it must be true!

Beijing Newspaper Spoofed by The Onion [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]

The Reuters story is here, and the original Onion story is here.

Tue, 04 Jun 2002 17:41:16 GMT

The organizer's figure of participants this year is 45,000. The police's figure is likely to be about half of that. Respectable turn-out I suppose, despite the World Cup going on.

Number of participants seem to have stabilized over the last few years. Headache for the SAR government and our CE Mr Tung. Mr Tung wants us to forget about Tiananmen. However, in the foreseeable future, on every 4 June tens of thousand of people will gather to remember the dead.

Folks say the Hong Kong people are practical, forgetful and forgiving. Not on the matter of government brutality we are not.

Tue, 04 Jun 2002 17:22:42 GMT

For the last thirteen years,

on every 4 June in Victoria Park in Hong Kong, lots of people join together and light up candles.

I was there a few hours ago.

I had my Nikon 5000 and my Hexar with me. Took ~130 pictures with the DC, and 1 roll and a bit of film with the Hexar.

It's late in the morning. I'll upload more pictures later. Meanwhile, you might want to check out this. Usual warning: get your Quicktime player from here.

Mon, 13 May 2002 00:15:06 GMT

What a coincident! I came across this piece.

We did a demonstration of our WebCM package to a travel agency a couple of weeks ago. They used to be hosted at a web-hosting company specialized in serving travel agencies. The web-hosting company went busted and were bought by another travel agency. This is bad for our potential client because their competitor may then have access to their website visitors' profile and possibly, other important data.

Our potential client although well impressed with WebCM, was however reluctant to commit. During casual telephone conversation with one of their senior employees, he indicated that they would wait and see what would happen with the existing supplier. Corporate suicide?

I see small to medium size travel agencies doomed in the next two to five years. Plane tickets are a commodity: one Cathay return ticket to London is identical to another, and whoever sells it cheaper would sell more. Potentially noone could sell Cathay tickets cheaper than Cathay itself, and Cathay could easily wipe out all the Cathay agencies overnite by selling cheap tickets direct from its own website. All the other airlines will follow suit eventually. And then there is Li Ka Shing's latest venture priceline.com operation in Hong Kong. Whatever Mr Li is involved in, all the small independent traders tend to be marginalized. I expect small and medium travel agencies to be driven out in the future just like your local butchers are being driven out now. Bigger travel agencies who organize their own local and foreign tours may survive, on thin margin as today, but even this is uncertain. Cathay organizes their own packages, and so could priceline.com. They could easily enjoy a bigger economic of scale.

The Post Office offering a clearing house service for online transactions seems to be a good way to go. It is difficult to do ecommerce in Hong Kong, because none of the banks and credit-card companies are cooperating. I have been told that to get a bank to handle your online transaction, you need to put HK$2M on account. There are other folks who would do it for you, but they charge an expensive monthly fee, plus a high commission, which virtually wipe out any competitiveness you may have gained by going online.

The Post Office could easily become the saviour of the small online traders by handling both the delivery and the transaction. Since it can make profit out of the delivery service, it can also keep the transaction commission relative low. The Post Office may be in the prime position to move into this new business model.

Sat, 11 May 2002 01:48:23 GMT

News from Faraway, and Observation on the Media

Interesting essay here about The Big Lie. This illustrates the power of blog. Formally putting something on the record is easy with blog.

The problem with soapbox-for-everybody is that it might get highly confusing. Read this article and see if you agree. Most people want life to be simple. Most people want to be spoon-fed. It is easier to follow the flock. I don't think that the blog scene would go down well with the local folks. Most folks here still think that if it is printed on a piece of paper, then it must be true. They are refusing to learn the lesson from the local tabloid weekly magazines.

Tue, 07 May 2002 12:51:25 GMT

I am hired because I know what I am doing, not because I will do whatever I am told is a good idea. This might cost me bonuses, raises, promotions, and may even label me as "undesirable" by places I don't want to work at anyway, but I don't care. I will not compromise my own principles and judgement without putting up a fight. Of course, I won't always win, and I will sometimes be forced to do things I don't agree with, but if I am my objections will be known, and if I am shown to be right and problems later develop, I will shout "I told you so!" repeatedly, laugh hysterically, and do a small dance or jig as appropriate to my heritage.
--Abigail's Oath for Sysadmins

Is this the right attitude? Or should we be the Yes-Man? Do other folks question our integrity and suspect our hidden agenda that does not exist?

Sun, 05 May 2002 09:19:36 GMT

For no special reasons, I am receiving more spam than usual these few days. Have to work on better spam filter rules.

Came across this interesting story.

Ken's acquaintance Ah Keung bought some spamming software to promote his poster-printing service. Apparently quite a few stupid morons call up to enquire, so there are sad cases who actually read spam! The problem with these gullible dummies is that they keep the spammers alive.

Yes, we have been trying to get Ah Keung to show up at our office so that we can waste him. So far he is not tempted.

Thu, 02 May 2002 15:14:59 GMT

I received a call from a Netvigator (one of the two ISPs I use) salesperson about half an hour ago, about my ADSL broadband subscription (HK$298 for around 50/100? hours a month).

It appears that my commitment contract has expired. I am now free to discontinue the service. They would however be glad to sell me another contract of 14 months for HK$298 per month unlimited usage. In additional, it will be free for four of these 14 months.

I told her that I thought 14 months of commitment was just too long, and other ISPs were doing much better deals (I was pulling her leg of course. i-Cable and HKBN are both cheaper, but as a part-time SOHO I wouldn't want to be with them), and she immediately went on to another option: 12 months contract, HK$198 per month unlimited usage, also with some free months thrown in.

I immediately complained that it wasn't the right way to do business and I felt cheated. I have been with Netvigator BB for over two years now, and since it goes onto my credit card, I haven't missed a single month of subscription, so I consider myself a good customer. As a part-time computer consultant myself, I value customer relations highly. I am more willing to give my good old customers special deals and bend over backwards for them than newer customers who are not as committed. Quite the reverse with Netvigator. If I had accepted their first offer, I would have accepted the less-favourable offer.

So I called up the fine folks at HKNet (the other ISP I use) and signed up for the special offer of a 12 months contract for upgrading my line to 3MB.

Wed, 01 May 2002 16:45:30 GMT

I have been checking out the website of the Hong Kong Public Libraries. The Chinese version of the website has one major problem: it doesn't contain the proper encoding type, so non-Chinese browsers would see lots of garbage on the website unless the character encoding is manually set. Silly mistake. However, I'll leave the general layout/organization and usabilty comments for another time.

The library system itself is quite impressive, and is a very valuable resource for self-improvement. In the Tuen Mun Public Library there is a computer room with about a few dozen Internet-connected computers for public access. This is a good thing(TM). However, it is so popular that the room is always full.

I think the Chief Librarian should consider installing 802.11b wireless ethernet in all public libraries. Laptops are getting cheaper these days and the cost for a 802.11b wireless ethernet card is very reasonable. A lot of people could afford them. It would not be unreasonable for someone to walk in a public library with his/her laptop and start working, taking advantage of all the resources the public library has to offer. It would be good if this person could access the Internet from his/her laptop.

A good reliable access point with an omnidirectional antenna is around HK$2.5K to HK$3K. I suspect that 2 access points would be good for covering the whole area of one floor of the Tuen Mun Public Library. We can have as many as 253 computers attached to the library wireless network on each floor, and the total cost for the installation should be no more than HK$10K for the two access points for each floor. HK$10K would buy two new computers, but we all know that the maintenance for public-access computers are expensive: keyboards don't last very long, and they go obsolete relatively quickly. OTOH maintenance for the wireless network should be easy and inexpensive, and the network itself should have a much longer life.

A wireless ethernet network at the Public Library would no doubt strengthen it as a centre for self-improvement.

Public access computers should of course still be available for those without laptops, or under-privileged folks.

Who do I speak to for this?

Wed, 01 May 2002 15:53:16 GMT

The Guardian is a very high quality paper. Despite being in one of the most right-winged universities, I was a regular reader of this socialist paper.

Recently it has this story: The reason for this is that corporate America now no longer principally seeks to create value by building businesses over time through marshalling human capital, investment and innovation. Instead it tries to extract value by financial engineering and sweating assets in an increasingly feral form of capitalism.

It is just as true in Hong Kong. Yes we are on the same wave length, I am talking about PCCW. Although I do not hold any PCCW/HKT stocks, too many folks got seriously burnt, and to a large extend, Richard Li was responsible. It was a big financial engineering exercise that went horribly wrong (at least to some people), and we now have the first negative-equity corporation ever in history.

Having said the above, the corporation itself is not in such a poor state. Okay they get the special treatment from the idiots at OFTA for being the 600lb gorilla in the market, but still they own the majority of cables that carry signals under Hong Kong. They have the expertise, the manpower and the financial backing to run a top-notch telecom company, and it would be difficult to argue otherwise that they are a top-notch telecom company. Their mobile network is just better than everybody else, and Netvigator as an ISP is arguably second to none in the territory. It would not be fair to say that they are not trying to create value through investment and innovation.

I surely hope Richard has learnt his lessons.

Thu, 25 Apr 2002 03:38:33 GMT

In this age, everything is commoditized. Employers willfully take on a bunch of drones, without brains or creativity. Nope, creativity isn't even actively encouraged. It's all done in the name of downsizing and cost-cutting, so noone expects quality anymore, as long as we can get by. Sigh.

Wed, 24 Apr 2002 13:58:37 GMT

Excellent story about a 5 year old kid here.

It's not that this 5 year old kid of Doc is a super-kid. It's that Google has become a part of people's life. When you need advice or knowledge, ask Google.

I told the Lady this story. She asked, "What's Google?"

China might have the 2nd biggest population of Internet users. However, most of the juice is in English. We could put in a lot of resources to translate all the knowledge old and new into Chinese and bring it to the masses, which won't work very well because of the gigantic effort required to hit a forever moving target, or get the people to learn English, which a lot of the Chinese are doing it anyway.

Tue, 23 Apr 2002 00:37:34 GMT

I have a credit card from these folks. They started charging handling fees for paying credit card bills at the counter. I found out about this last time I was at their Central branch. "No worries," they said, "as you may use the deposit machine in here." Oh well that was actually quite convenient. Nothing to complain about.

Or so I thought. Yesterday I went to their branch in Tuen Mun Ferry Pier. Despite being at the Western end of Tuen Mun, it is actually one of the most populated areas in Tuen Mun. You would have thought that the branch there would offer the full range of services. Not quite: the ATM machine outside that branch didn't take desposits, and there was no deposit machine there. So I couldn't pay cash for my credit card bill there w/o paying the nasty handling charges. The cashier suggested me to pop over to their branch in New Tuen Mun Centre where they have a deposit machine.

If you don't know where New Tuen Mun Centre is, well, it's the private housing property opposite to the golf driving range. It's pretty much isolated on its own, and non-residents just don't visit. It simply doesn't make sense to open a full-service branch there, yet neglect the branch in the Ferry Pier. Stupid Management.

Fri, 05 Apr 2002 04:32:12 GMT

Language Negotiation

A former client's new website is back up. The one we did for them had a nice virtual tour of the place, movie clips of shows, photos of the excellent bands and singers who were just natural performers, a user-updatable "latest news" system in three languages, a working enquiry form, and automatic language negotiation. The new site has none of these neat features.

The colour scheme of the old site is actually quite similar to the new site. Whether the design of the new site is better is highly arguable. We are still on good terms with this former client. The new site couldn't be free, and would certainly cost more than paying us to migrate the old site to the new server/ISP of their choice.

I don't understand it. Pay-more-get-less-go-back-to-square-one. Maybe the client want to take the simplistic approach?

Enough whining about former clients. It's language negotiation that I want to write about.

Language negotiation on Apache is hard to use. Different browsers also have slightly different ways to tell the webserver about what languages they understand. It just doesn't work very well as the RFCs suggested. However, we figured out a straightforward way to do it, so with the old club-bboss site, a Japanese browser would see the Japanese version of the site, an English browser would see the English version, and a Chinese browser would see the Chinese version, all automagically without the user needing to select the version (extra clicks are bad for usability.) There were of course links to the other versions on the web pages for the user to overrid and choose another language. This is a unique feature that we are quite proud of.

Ken recently did this. His initial plan was to do automagic language negotiation. Ridley insisted that he wanted the tunnel page as it is now, and forces the visitors to do that extra click to choose the language of the site. Maybe Ridley is trying to convey the good message: P.E. is good for you.

I think language negotiation is a good thing(TM). Clients are not convinced. Hmm...