Earl Ng

Hong Kong Recommendations

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Having lived in Hong Kong for 11 years, you gradually build up a list of places you love and want to share with others. This list is something I built and maintain so that anytime anyone I know is going to Hong Kong, I can share the places and recommendations of the city I love and call my second home.

Things to do

The Obvious Places

Hong Kong Disneyland
Ocean Park
West Kowloon Cultural District
M+ Museum
Museum of Modern Art
Lady’s Market
Avenue of the Stars
Crossharbor Ferry
Shopping Districts
1. Causeway Bay
2. Tsim Sha Tsui
3. Wan Chai
The Peak
Stanely

Off the Beaten Track

Hong Kong Promenade

Connecting Kennedy Town to the west and Causeway Bay to the east on the Hong Kong Island, there exists a fairly recently built promenade that allows pedestrians to walk the entirety of west to east of the Hong Kong Island. Walking this route offers a leisurely walk that allows one a great view of the Kowloon skyline.

Dragon’s Back

Hiking is a very popular Hong Kong past time. Understandably so, with the constant hustle and bustle of a metropolitan city, sometimes you just want to get away from it all and interact with nature. And this is surprisingly easy to do in Hong Kong. Multiple hiking trails dot the territory of Hong Kong. Very well maintained paved ways that are very easy to get to via public transportation. Dragon’s Back is one of the most popular of those hiking trails, and surprisingly easy. If you are curious of the hobbies that Hong Kongers engage in, give this trail a try.

Outlying Islands

There are multiple islands that surround the main Kowloon peninsula and Hong Kong Island. These outlying islands offer a slower pace of life and a peak at a more peaceful version of Hong Kong. They also offer opportunities for some wonderful seafood dishes. Chief among these outlying islands is Cheng Chau Island. Reachable with a short ferry ride from Central.

Chungking Mansions

Hong Kong is often seen as a melting pot of different cultures. One very prolific and prominent example of that is Chungking Mansions, a microcosm of the South Asian diaspora within Hong Kong. A large building complex that has multiple stalls of South Asian food, multiple secondhand electronic traders, and Indian restaurants a plenty. Chungking Mansions is certainly off the beaten path, but it is a must-see for anyone curious about what living in a multi-cultural city is like.

Places to Eat

My favorite thing to talk about. Anyone who knows me knows that eating is always the most anticipated part of any trip. And this is all the more true for Hong Kong. Food and restaurants in Hong Kong will always have a special place in my heart. There is no shortage of amazing places to go here.

Bakehouse

Bakehouse Sourdough Egg Tarts

Egg tarts are synonymous with Hong Kong. And while Bakehouse doesn’t do egg tarts in the traditional way like Lord Stow’s , their sourdough egg tarts are absolutely divine. Most notably, they are the only egg tarts that my wife will line up for.

They also have the added benefit of being easy to find in Hong Kong (rather than have to go to Hong Kong for Lord Stow’s). They have multiple branches including in Wan Chai, Causewaybay, and Tsim Sha Tsui. I’m linking the TST branch below.

Delhi Club

Tucked on the second floor of Chungking Mansions is a wonderfully delicious Indian restaurant called Delhi Club. Specializing in more north Indian food, they have the different naan’s and curries you would come to expect of an Indian restaurant. The must-have is the mutton curry. It is so good, and a friend of mine captured that sentiment perfectly when he says that the “dreams of it daily” when he talks about that curry.

Kam’s Goose

A Michelin star restaurant, Kam’s Goose always has a long line winding outside during lunch and dinner, so if you want to score a table, best to go early (or during off-peak hours). I hazard to say that this restaurant serves the platonic ideal of roast goose at a very affordable price.

Rose Kitchen

The Rose Kitchen is a bit of a hidden gem. Its on the second floor of a fairly innocuous building in Wan Chai it is a great example of a Hong Kong cah chaan teng (canteen). It serves all the typical East-West fusion fare that is so common in Hong Kong. But most amazing about Rose Kitchen is their fried chicken (shown in the picture above). Crispy, juicy, and very flavorful.

Tim Ho Wan

We still go to Tim Ho Wan whenever we have the chance.

Across multiple family trips to Hong Kong one place was always a must-go for us, Tim Ho Wan. Hong Kong and dim sum go hand-in-hand and Tim Ho Wan is a great example of the affordable Michellin star meals that come to define Hong Kong’s food scene. Their roast BBQ pork buns is a must try. So much so that the family always made a point to order extra to bring home.

One Dimsum

There is no shortage of dimsum restaurants in Hong Kong. One Dimsum is another option for those looking for a bit of variety. It has the benefit of being slightly more affordable than Tim Ho Wan.

Beefbar

All you can eat roast beef

This is a bonus one. For anyone that’s willing to spend a little bit more money on food while in Hong Kong, Beefbar is the place I would recommend, especially for their (Saturday all-you-can-eat beef roast menu option)[https://beefbar.com/menus-hong-kong/], its amazing food, good value, and its all you can eat.

I always will be happy to recommend Beefbar’s Saturday brunch because it was one of my first experiences in “elevated dining”. And it has been my barometer for what an elevated dining experience should make you feel. I always try to find an excuse to go back whenever I can.

[EXPLAINER] How Microsoft Copilot can help you write articles, blogs, and reports faster and better

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

If the post How Microsoft Copilot can help you write articles, blogs, and reports faster and better seemed odd to you then it was probably because it was written by Artificial Intelligence. Completely generated by Microsoft’s Copilot with nothing more than a few simple prompts from me.

As the original post mentioned, Copilot is Microsoft’s AI solution. Obviously it is aimed at trying to leverage the incredible hype surrounding AI in recent months. But it is also a very appelaing new commercial offering that could help make AI solutions much more accessible to the general public.

The Copilot-written post is a bit off/out of date in the sense that someone would need to use Visual Studio (a program that not many are familiar with) to use Copilot. The modern iteration of Copilot simply needs the Copilot license and a Microsoft Word application (or Excel or PowerPoint). They have made it ridiculously easy to write posts (or anything really) with Copilot. All you need to do is give it an initial prompt and then based on the output you can give additional prompts to refine it to what you want.

In writing the original post, I just gave Copilot four simple prompts. And it took all of four minutes to create.

Write me a blog post introducing Microsoft Copilot
Focus more on using Microsoft Copilot to write articles, blogs, and reports.
Add a section that explains how a user can use Microsoft Copilot on Microsoft Word
Include a section that explains the benefits of using Microsoft Copilot

How Microsoft Copilot can help you write articles, blogs, and reports faster and better

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

What is Microsoft Copilot?

Microsoft Copilot is a new AI-powered coding assistant that helps you write code faster and better. It is a Visual Studio Code extension that uses machine learning to suggest code completions, snippets, and whole functions based on your context and the code you have already written. It also learns from the millions of open source code repositories on GitHub to provide relevant and high-quality suggestions.

How can Microsoft Copilot help you write articles, blogs, and reports?

Microsoft Copilot is not only a coding assistant, but also a writing assistant. It can help you write articles, blogs, and reports faster and better by generating text from natural language descriptions, comments, or outlines. For example, you can use Copilot to write:

An introduction or a conclusion for your article, blog, or report by typing a comment like “write an introduction that summarizes the main points of this article” or “write a conclusion that calls for action based on this report”.
A summary or a bullet point list of your article, blog, or report by typing a comment like “write a summary of this article in one paragraph” or “write a bullet point list of the main findings of this report”.
A title or a subtitle for your article, blog, or report by typing a comment like “write a catchy title for this article about Microsoft Copilot” or “write a subtitle that explains the purpose of this report on customer satisfaction”.
A paragraph or a sentence that connects or transitions between different sections or topics of your article, blog, or report by typing a comment like “write a paragraph that connects the previous section on the benefits of Microsoft Copilot to the next section on the challenges of Microsoft Copilot” or “write a sentence that transitions from the problem statement to the solution proposal”.

What are the benefits of using Microsoft Copilot to write articles, blogs, and reports?

Using Microsoft Copilot to write articles, blogs, and reports can have many benefits, such as:

Microsoft Copilot can help you save time and effort by writing text for you, especially for common or repetitive tasks.
Microsoft Copilot can help you discover new ways of expressing your ideas, arguments, or insights that you might not have thought of or have forgotten.
Microsoft Copilot can help you improve your writing quality and readability by suggesting clear, concise, and coherent text.
Microsoft Copilot can help you learn new writing skills or techniques by providing examples and guidance.
Microsoft Copilot can help you avoid plagiarism by generating original and unique text that is not copied from any source.
Microsoft Copilot can help you adapt your writing style and tone to your audience and purpose by learning from your text and GitHub.

How can you use Microsoft Copilot on Microsoft Word?

Microsoft Copilot is currently only available as a Visual Studio Code extension, but you can still use it to write articles, blogs, and reports on Microsoft Word by following these steps:

Open Visual Studio Code and create a new file with the extension .md (for Markdown).
Type your text in Markdown format, using hashtags (#) for headings, asterisks (*) for bullet points, and backticks (`) for code blocks.
Use Copilot to generate text from natural language descriptions, comments, or outlines by typing them and pressing Ctrl+Space to see the suggestions.
Select, edit, or reject the suggestions as you wish.
When you are done, copy and paste your text from Visual Studio Code to Microsoft Word.
Format your text in Microsoft Word as you normally would, using the styles and fonts of your choice.

How can I get started with Microsoft Copilot to write articles, blogs, and reports?

Microsoft Copilot is currently in technical preview and available for a limited number of users. You will need a GitHub account and a Visual Studio Code editor to use Copilot. Once you get access, you can install the Copilot extension from the Visual Studio Code marketplace and start writing with Copilot.

Conclusion

Microsoft Copilot is a revolutionary writing assistant that can help you write articles, blogs, and reports faster and better. It is powered by AI and learns from your text and GitHub. It can generate text from natural language descriptions, comments, or outlines. Microsoft Copilot is currently in technical preview and you can sign up for the waitlist at [URL].

Did this post seem off to you? See how it was written in this explainer post !

My CV

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 15:41:28 +0800

Key Skills

Communication	Technical
Project Management	Network Information Systems
Problem Solving	Application Deployment
Public Speaking	Code Testing
Collaborative Storytelling	System Troubleshooting
Agile Development

Software

Hosting Solutions	Data Management	CMS	ERP Systems	Utility
Amazon Web Services	Hadoop	WordPress	QAD	Docker
AliCloud	ElasticSearch	Hugo	MCFrame	Git
On-Premises Hosting	Python	NextCloud		Linux

Professional Experience

Ng Khai Development Corporation

Vice-President of Business Development, August 2021 - Present

Oversea the IT reseller corporate sales teams engagements and account management.
Manage retail operation.
Monitor purchasing, administration, and logistics operations.
Maintain relationships with distributors and principal vendors.
Manage special business projects.

Nomura Research Institute Hong Kong Ltd.

Consultant, August 2015 - August 2021

Facilitated the assessment, customization, and implementation of ERP Software into the client’s operations process based on their needs.
Developed new project management systems and work flows catered to our customers’ needs and procedures.
Prototyped new internal products such as machine learning and Internet of Things solutions.
Implemented our own internal project management software on our cloud environment (Redmine and JIRA).
Managed the development and bug-testing of customized software.
Set up private cloud environments for customers’ software.
Provide ongoing support for customer’s inquiries.

Freelance Writer

November 2017 – January 2018

Wrote articles covering a range of technology topics such as:
- VPN security
- Big Data Analysis
- Trends in Technology

Education

The Chinese University of Hong Kong | BA Chinese Studies 2nd Major in Business Administration
University of Helsinki | Student Exchange
Harvard University | Summer School

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

University of Helsinki

Harvard University

Certifications

Google IT Automation Professional Certificate
Mental Health First Aid
Good with Words: Writing and Editing by University of Michigan

Languages

English (Fluent)
Mandarin (Intermediate)

Hobbies

Tabletop Role-Playing Games
Board Games
Swing Dancing
Blogging
Homelab

Projects

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 15:41:28 +0800

The Global Shapers Community Cebu Hub

The Global Shapers Community: Cebu hub

The Global Shapers Community - Cebu Hub aims to improve the state of Cebu in the areas of Citizenship Engagement, Environmental Conservation, Business Development, and Universal Education (C.E.B.U.).

Founded by the World Economic Forum , the Global Shapers Community is a network of young people under the age of 30 working together to address local, regional, and global challenges. With more than 10,000 members and alumni, the Global Shapers Community spans over 400 city-based hubs in 150 countries.

Learn More

The Glowing Fool

The Glowing Fool team during our charity fund raiser

The world would be a better place if everyone played Dungeons & Dragons. This amazing game has the power to unlock people’s imagination. It has the ability to help us express our creativity and problem solving, serve as an outlet for our individual energy. And it helps bring us together. It helps us build a sense of community. Through the Glowing Fool, I hope to introduce more and more people to this wonderful and crazy game.

Since our inception, we’ve been organizing D&D introduction sessions and workshops. We’ve also generated positive social impact by using D&D to help raise funds for worthy causes in Hong Kong .

Learn More

PowerThru

PowerThru: Finding Yourself Through Collective Storytelling Course

A generation of ethnically diverse PowerHouses. Bringing creative and engaging courses to ethnically diverse secondary school students. I help facilitate PowerThru’s Anime Adventure Club , as well as helping our students Find Themselves Through Collective Storytelling using Dungeons & Dragons!

PowerThru is an innovative education program for ethnically diverse Hong Kongers run by the HK-based nonprofit EmpowerU .

Learn More

The Global Shapers Community Hong Kong Hub

The Global Shapers Community: Hong Kong hub

The Hong Kong hub is committed to improving the state of our local community through grassroots initiatives. Our impact areas range from sustainability, youth empowerment, community engagement to mental health. We accomplish these goals through various hub projects as well as strategic partnerships within the Hong Kong ecosystem.

Learn More

Striving to Be Better

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The challenges of Hong Kong’s education system has always been a topic of conversation between my friends and I. It makes for good conversation fodder on if any of us would ever want to “settle down” in Hong Kong. Personally, I’ve always been averse to the idea; primarily due to Hong Kong’s ruthless emphasis on rote memorization, test-based assessments, and high-pressure education culture. But those conversations had always been hypothetical in nature; a topic of conversation to fill the time. Nothing that had any real impact on what we had going on in our lives.

At least, until recently. The shortcomings of Hong Kong’s education system, particularly on ethnic minority youth, have since became front-and-center for me. The catalyst for this realization was when I joined EmpowerU as an instructor in their PowerThru program developing two courses:

Finding Yourself Thru Collective Storytelling. Using Dungeons & Dragons to teach storytelling.
Anime Adventure Club. Studying mental health, friendships, and storytelling through anime.

Through these two courses we slowly began get an understanding of the struggles that ethnic minority youth in Hong Kong face during their secondary school education. Chief among them being that through their own experiences, these students have been left with the impression that they aren’t expected to participate in the “discussion” of the lesson at all. The education system that these students experience is one wherein they are expected to quietly sit through their lecture for X amount of hours, somehow absorb the material, and their entire grade (and self-worth) assessed solely through written tests. They are neither expected to engage in the subject matter to broaden their understanding, nor encouraged to ask questions should they need something clarified, nor explore other topics that may interest them.

This kind of approach to education puts its students at a disadvantage. Not only does it prevent them from properly engaging in the topic and building up an interest for self-motivated learning. But it also inhibits the development of the students’ own communication and presentation skills, and limits their scope of learning to only what will be included in the test. During our courses, I was shocked to hear that secondary school students were never given the opportunity to make presentations or otherwise develop their public speaking skills. As someone who has been working in the professional world for some time, I can unequivocally say that the ability to properly articulate and present ideas and concepts is invaluable. Not allowing students to build that skill early on does them, and their eventual employers, a great disservice.

That disservice is particularly regretful when you account for the passion, creativity, and energy we’ve seen students be capable of when they are properly engaged and interested in the subject matter. It is exactly that energy that we aimed to harness through our PowerThru courses. Engaging them with topics and discussions that they are interested in; encouraging them to speak their mind, form their own opinions, and present their ideas.

Through our Collective Storytelling course, we used the popular game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) as a vehicle to introduce the ideas of how a group can come together to create their own shared narrative. We highlighted the importance of not only creatively writing a story, but also the importance of collaboration, empathy, and active listening. Our students took an interest in the topic because they wanted to eventually run their own D&D games at home. We endeavored to make the course as engaging as we possibly could. Providing the majority of the course content in the form of online videos and our in-person sessions being hands-on exercises to reinforce the online content.

We started our course by actually playing a one-shot D&D adventure. We tasked our students with creating their own characters on the spot, to imagine what it would be like to be be a fantastical adventurer in a fantastical land. We asked them to imagine and explain to us what their characters looked like, talked like, and how their personalities may be different from their own. On top of being a fun game, this exercise focused on encouraging the development of creativity, empathy, and collaboration through gaming.

Playing D&D during our first session

Playing improv games

Presenting their original characters

In our second session, we played improv games. Giving our students first hand experience at thinking on their feet, expressing themselves, and making their voices and opinions be heard. But at the same time, actively listening to what it was that other people were saying so that they could properly “yes and” their classmates. And then for our last session, we challenged our students in creating their own original character. Complete with goals, fears, backstories, and a supporting cast. Giving them an opportunity to prepare, present, and “defend” a presentation; developing their public speaking skills. To say that we were blown away with the creative ideas and concepts that they presented would be an understatement.

Certificate award day for our 'Finding Yourself Thru Collective Storytelling' course

During our Anime Adventure Club, we focused on a staple in the students’ lives, anime. We asked them to watch an anime series with a critical eye. Thinking about what the morale of the story was, how the characters were portrayed, as well as how the characters’ challenges and difficulties related to their own lives.

With the anime club, we employed a “Socratic Method” approach. Giving the students a series of discussion questions that we wanted them to keep in mind as they watched the anime, and then having them to answer those questions during our live-sessions. Asking a series of follow up questions to encourage them to dive deeper and reflect more on the subject matter. This method helped us in getting the students to “come out of their shell” a bit more. We met them on ground that they were already familiar and comfortable with, and encouraged them to take that extra step at learning/understanding the material beyond just casual enjoyment. We then gave them the platform and opportunity to articulate their analysis in the club, not only to the facilitators, but also to their fellow club mates. Building up their skills and confidence in communication and presentation.

The first online session for our 'Adventure Anime Club'.

Through all of these courses, our goal has always been the same. To engage our students so that they may build confidence in their own abilities, as well as develop an interest in self-motivated learning. But this kind of goal shouldn’t just be limited to extracurricular programs provided by NGOs. We hope that schools will soon see the benefit of adopting a similar approach to engaging students, ethnic minority or not. Education is the bedrock of a successful society. And we should always strive to do better.

Hong Kong's Fifth Wave

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

COVID-19 is a pandemic that has disproportionately impacts those most vulnerable. This is a sad fact that has become increasingly more apparent as Hong Kong battles its fifth wave. Long queues outside hospitals and testing centers, domestic workers being unfairly fired, and rising case counts due to a more transmissible variant; the situation is less than ideal to put it mildly. Government and NGOs are working hard to come up with a tranche of initiatives to help assist those in need.

One of the measures that the Hong Kong government has chosen to take is handing out HKD 10,000 in consumption vouchers . And while I appreciate the gesture, I’m not the one who most needs that money; it would be better served elsewhere. To that end, I decided to donate the entirety of the HKD 10,000 that the government is giving me to these three NGOs that really do need the money. And if you are in the position to do so, I would encourage you to do the same:

HELP for Domestic Workers

HELP dedicates itself to supporting migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. They provide access to financial & legal support, resources, and shelter in a holistic fashion.

HELP sprung into action over the last several days; crowdfunding over HKD 1.2 million to support domestic workers that have been adversely impacted by the fifth wave. They took up the case of a domestic that had been unfairly dismissed due to testing positive for COVID-19; and have continued to provide support to many many more.

I have personally worked with the folks at HELP and can unequivocally say that they are a group of empathetic, caring, passionate individuals focused on their mission.

Donate – HELP for Domestic Workers

Every contribution, small or large, helps us provide crucial support to migrant domestic workers in need. We rely solely on your generosity.

RUN Hong Kong

RUN supports vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers in rebuilding their mental and physical health, uniting as a community, and nurturing one another through food, sports, and mentorship activities.

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A post shared by RUN Hong Kong (@runhongkong)

Donate — RUN Hong Kong

Your donation to RUN will help to empower vulnerable refugees to build a life of safety and dignity in Hong Kong and beyond.

ImpactHK

ImpactHK aims to build a more inclusive Hong Kong by providing support to the homeless. Serving meals, providing shelter, personal outreach, and assisting in finding jobs; ImpactHK takes a holistic approach to their work.

While I have not personally have any direction interactions with them, ImpactHK are a constant fixture in the social impact space here in Hong Kong. And friends smarter than I have nothing but praises to sing of their constant efforts to provide kindness and aid to those in need.

Donate | ImpactHK - Kindness Matters

Empower us with donations and make a difference to the homeless community today

If you would like a more comprehensive list of NGOs, here’s one a friend prepared .

Proof of donation

Cover photo from the SCMP. Photo: Jelly Tse

Typhoon Odette 2021

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

On December 16, 2021 (Thursday) Typhoon Odette made landfall on the southern Philippine province of Cebu; bringing with it torrential rain and maximum sustained wind speeds of over 200 kph.

As of writing, Odette has now moved passed the southern Philippines and is now over open water. But has left the affected areas (including my hometown) severely damaged, most of which can be categorized into three major groups.

Physical debris. The high sustained wind speeds displaced trees, loose structures, and ceilings which led to the destruction of physical property, the displacement of people, the obstruction of roads, and damage to infrastructure.
Lack of power. Due to physical debris, power cables delivered above-ground via poles have been tangled, severed, and/or displaced. Resulting in power not being delivered to homes/offices/buildings.
Lack of running water. As a result of the lack of power, water pumps are not able to function leading to the distribution of running water also being compromised.

The recovery effort is hampered by the lack of power. Cell towers are unable to properly function which makes cellular mobile data (i.e. access to the internet) spotty and unreliable. Some internet cables were left unscathed, but a lack of power means that WiFi routers are unable to properly relay that connection to devices. The lack of running water due to no power makes activities involving cleaning, sanitizing, and hygiene difficult.

For now, the affected population are relying on diesel generators (“gensets”) provided at offices, malls, and government shelters for power; which temporarily solves the problem of water and communication. But this has led to an increased demand for diesel. With long lines forming outside of gas stations for rationed amounts.

Cars lining up for diesel.

Lines are also forming for places that are able to pump water, clean or otherwise.

Adhoc water distribution center

Estimates from the Cebu provincial government put the power being restored to within 3 weeks.

#ReliefPH

If you would like to donate to the relief effort Rappler has compiled a list of verified charities to support .

#ReliefPH: Help communities affected by Typhoon Odette

December 17, 2021

Many Filipinos need help after Typhoon Odette destroyed their homes and communities

In Other Media

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 15:41:28 +0800

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Global Shapers Cebu (@globalshapers_cebu)

Gaming in Migrant Spaces asks how we enter and create communities where we are newcomers in a different country. Experiences in community-building, navigating different narrative practices, and finding places of safe play are explored in this conversation where immigration and gaming intersect."

AI Ethics Statements -- Analysis and lessons learnt from NeurIPS Broader Impact Statements

November 2, 2021

Ethics statements have been proposed as a mechanism to increase transparency and promote reflection on the societal impacts of published research. In 2020, the machine learning (ML) conference NeurIPS broke new ground by requiring that all papers include a broader impact statement. This requirement …

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A post shared by 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗧𝗵𝗿𝘂 (@powerthru_hk)

Preparing a Prepared Speech

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The contents of this article was originally presented as a workshop in a regular meeting of the Chung Chi College Toastmasters Club on November 27, 2021.

Project speeches are the bread and butter of any Toastmasters club. They provide members with the opportunity to flex their writing muscles, discover public speaking skills that they already have, and learn about what skills they need to improve upon. However, writing a project speech, aka a “prepared speech”, can seem like a very daunting task to newer members. This article/workshop is intended to help provide new Toastmasters with a framework and process to guide them through the challenge of writing and delivering a prepared speech.

Preparing a loose framework and draft

When preparing a project speech, the first two factors that you need to consider are your project speech objectives and the topic that you would like to talk about.

Project speech objectives refer to the public speaking skills that the Toastmaster curriculum wants you to focus on/develop for this speech project. The skills that you would be asked to develop can range from vocal variety, to humorous speeches, to the use of props in a speech. The topic refers the subject-matter that you would like to talk about during your speech. Most of the time, topics are based off of personal preference. But it is important to keep in mind the speech objectives when thinking about the topic. Before you start writing a speech; talk to your Vice-President of Education (VPE) to get a clear idea of the project objectives and what topics you can talk about to satisfy them.

Once you have successfully identified your speech objectives and have settled on a topic; you can begin coming up with a loose structure to your speech. Like any written work a prepared speech must always feature a beginning, middle, and end; with each section serving a specific purpose.

Section	Purpose	Length
Beginning	A speech’s beginning has two major jobs. Firstly, it is meant to quickly and effectively catch your audience’s attention. Then it should quickly establish and make clear to your audience what exactly the topic of your speech is going to be about. The beginning should be quick, sweet, and seamlessly transition into the middle.	10%
Middle	The middle of the speech needs to contain your main arguments. It contains all of the content, examples, testimonials, and/or research that will ultimately be used to support your final conclusion. As a result, the middle is the “meat” of your speech, and should be the longest section.	70%
End	The end of your speech must clearly state what your final conclusion is. What are the one or two takeaways that your audience can get from your speech? Why did your audience spend the last 5-7 minutes listening to you? A conclusion must be clear, concise, and memorable.	20%

When starting to prepare the loose framework of your speech it is helpful to think about the topic-specific objectives that you want to be able to accomplish in each part of your speech.

After you have a good idea of those topic-specific objectives; you must then begin thinking about what set pieces you would like to use in each section to accomplish your speech’s goals. Set pieces are the different kinds of forms, structures, and literary tool kits you can use to build out a speech.

The slide below lists out a few example set pieces that can be used. Although this is by no means an exhaustive list.

A list of set pieces that can be used in each section.

An explanation on a few of the set piece examples:

Story – begin your speech with a personal story about the topic that you would like to talk about. This helps inform the audience about why the topic is important to you (and possibly them).
Props – pull out and play with a prop to catch your audience’s attention.
Research, testimonials, and stories – list out and explain any existing literature, personal stories, and/or examples that support your final conclusion.
Call to action – after hearing your arguments, what should the audience go out and do?
Conclusion – in one sentence or less what is the one thing that the audience should remember at the end of your speech?

When deciding on what set pieces to use it is always a good idea to think about them in relation to the topic that you would like to talk about. If you are going to open your speech with a personal story, do you have a story that relates to the topic that you want to talk about, and will it ultimately support your final conclusion?

After you’ve decided on which set pieces to use you will have a loose skeleton for what your final speech will look like. You will have produced a clear roadmap that shows the points that you would like to make as well as how you are going to hit each of those points. The next step would be to then put pen to paper and start fleshing out the speech in its entirety. Connecting various set pieces, deciding on proper word choice, and working on the flow of your speech. Taking it from a loose skeleton of bullet points, to a collection of paragraphs that you may then present in front of your audience.

An example case

Let’s take the above process and apply it onto a more concrete example.

First thing we would have to do is to identify the project objectives. This speech will be used to satisfy the Project #2 requirements, “Researching and Presenting”.

“The purpose of this project is for the member to learn or review basic research methods and present a well-organized, well-researched speech on any topic.”

This means that my topic should be on something that I can research about, and present a well informed argument to my audience. With that in mind I settled on the topic of coffee ☕. For the personal reasons that coffee is something I am very interested in day-to-day life, and that it is something that I know that I can research about. Either how coffee is made (i.e. the manufacturing process), how to make a good cup of coffee, or even what makes coffee good.

With my speech objectives and topic settled, I can then start working on creating the loose structure of my speech; my beginning, middle, and end.

Stage	Loose Structure
Beginning	Why I like coffee.
Middle	How coffee is made. The concerns on coffee.
End	Coffee is a complicated thing. Grateful for coffee.

My current idea is that in my beginning I can establish to my audience that I like coffee and that it is important to me. I can do this in some eye-catching way and it signals to the audience that the topic of my speech will be on coffee. I could then pose the question about not knowing how coffee is made; that transitions into my middle where I elaborate and present my research. I then use the contents of my research to reinforce the conclusion in my end that coffee is complicated, there is more to consider when buying a cup of coffee.

This is a loose structure and can certainly be revisited and revised. But the most important thing is that I have a general idea of what I want to accomplish in this speech and its ultimate conclusion.

I then turn my attention to identifying the various set pieces that I can utilize in my beginning, middle, and end.

A brainstorming mind map on the different set pieces for the topic 'coffee'.

I then pick and choose from this brainstorming mind map the set pieces that I think would fit well with one another in a speech.

Stage	Loose Structure	Set Pieces
Beginning	Why I like coffee	“I am addicted to coffee” Coffee and me
Middle	How coffee is made The concerns on coffee	Desire to learn more about coffee Manufacturing process Fair trade coffee>
End	Coffee is a complicated thing Grateful for coffee	More considerations when buying coffee “Next cup…think about where it’s come from”

Elaborating more on each section of my speech:

Beginning. I begin with a “confession” to the audience that I am literally addicted to coffee (perhaps in a Alcoholics Anonymous style of delivery). I am addicted because unless I have a coffee in the morning; I experience headaches in the afternoon (withdrawal symptoms). I then use this as a springboard to ask the question of “where does coffee come from?”

Middle. From the springboard question; I present my research on the coffee manufacturing process . The concerns around the fact that coffee is under priced . What fair trade coffee is, and why it is needed.

End. I then reflect on why it would be more socially responsible to purchase fair trade coffee. I then commit to being more conscious about the coffee I buy, and I initiate a call to action for the audience to do the same.

This loose structure and set pieces would then act as the roadmap for me to continue to flesh out my speech into a script which I would then practice and polish until it is ready to be presented to the club.

Practice, practice, and practice

After you’ve completed a draft script for your speech, the next thing to do would be to practice and revise the speech. There are different ways to practice your speech:

Read your speech out loud – words that we read in our mind may sound different when we read them out loud. Hearing how your speech sounds will help you catch odd word choices, interruptions to your flow, as well as help you memorize your speech.
Rehearse hand gestures, positioning, and voice – practice giving your speech as if you really were in front of an audience. Find a space that you can stand so you can experiment with the vocal tones you will use, your gestures, as well as your position on the stage.
Memorize and internalize – practice your speech from beginning till end even if you make a mistake in between. By doing so, you are no longer bound by the “script” of the speech. And would allow you some level of flexibility if you were to lose your position in the “script”.

When practicing it would also help to get outside opinion and external feedback. Ask a friend if they would be willing to listen to you deliver your speech to provide advice on how it can be improved. Some points you can ask your friend to keep an eye out for:

Do you understand what I am trying to say?
Are my examples understandable?
Is my flow good?
How is my quality of delivery?

In this instance, you are essentially asking for a “mini-evaluation”. Ask your friend to point out what you did well in your speech, and any points of improvement.

When your friend gives you their feedback consider the the points that they gave to you, and revise your speech accordingly. What did they say you did well? Keep those. For the points of improvement, change where necessary (or appropriate).

Improvements and revisions to a prepared speech is an iterative process. Don’t be afraid to go back and change elements of your script to adjust to the feedback you received. But be mindful of not going too overboard with revisions. Improve it until it is as polished as can be. Or as polished as time allows.

Good luck!

Presenting a prepared speech can be a very intimidating experience, but it can also be very rewarding. By writing your own speeches you slowly improve your communication skills. Being able to weave together various concepts, ideas, and stories to tell a compelling narrative; sharing those speeches in the club meetings also builds up your capabilities as an orator and presenter; building the confidence to talk in front of large groups of people with ease.

CCTM Regular Meeting, November 27, 2021,

You may encounter stumbles, but that is exactly why Toastmasters exists. It is an environment to try new things, experiment, fail, learn, improve, and grow. So let us all grow together.

Best of luck on your next prepared speech. I will certainly be looking forward to it.

A PDF copy of the slides used for the workshop can be downloaded here .

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 15:41:28 +0800

Contact Me!

Augmenting Reality

Sun, 22 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Projects can come from the weirdest places at times. In this case it was a friend’s random offhand comment, “it would be cool to have an AR app that would help customers visualize having our products in their homes.”

There must be something like that floating around the internet, right? An opensource augmented reality (AR) project that could be modified to use different, custom, 3D models. A quick google search later, and lo and behold such projects do exist . And modifying them has proven to be surprisingly easy.

Out of the four listed projects, I decided to go with AR.js . It seemed the simplest and most straightforward tool to implement.

For this AR implementation I focused on “marker tracking”. The camera/computer scans for a specific marker; usually a barcode, QR code, or distinct logo. It then superimposes the 3D model over that marker. Using the marker’s size and position as reference for the size, orientation, and position of the 3D model.

A marker tracking AR.js service can be deployed to a browser with a few lines of HTML code. Whenever a desktop or mobile user (the “client”) wants to use the AR service, they can use their browser to access a URL of the “server”. The server then responds with an HTML file that serves as instructions for what the client machine’s browser should do to provide the AR service. All of the computation and data is processed on the client machine (your desktop or mobile phone). All the server does is provide the HTML instructions.

With all of that set up, it would look something like this:

Quick and dirty proof of concept.

Diving into the technical details of it, the HTML script (ar.html) I used for my proof of concept is:

<html>
    <script src="https://aframe.io/releases/1.0.0/aframe.min.js"></script>
    <!-- we import arjs version without NFT but with marker + location based support -->
    <script src="https://raw.githack.com/AR-js-org/AR.js/master/aframe/build/aframe-ar.js"></script>
    <body style="margin : 0px; overflow: hidden;">
        <a-scene embedded arjs>
        <a-assets>
            <a-asset-item id="man" src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nicolocarpignoli/nicolocarpignoli.github.io/master/ar-playground/models/CesiumMan.gltf"></a-asset-item>
        </a-assets>
        <a-marker preset="hiro">
            <a-entity
            position="0 0 0"
            rotation="0 0 0"
            scale="1 1 1"
            gltf-model="#man"
            ></a-entity>
        </a-marker>
        <a-entity camera></a-entity>
        </a-scene>
    </body>
</html>

Identifying the most important parts of this code¹:

Code	What it does
`<script src="https://raw.githack.com/AR-js-org/AR.js/master/aframe/build/aframe-ar.js"></script>`	We import the `AR.js` libraries for marker tracking and location based AR to the browser.
`<a-asset-item>`	We define what the 3D model is called (`man`), and where the client can find a copy of the 3D model file (`src`).
`<a-marker>`	We define what marker the camera should look for to impose the 3D model. In this case we use an `AR.js` preset called `hiro`.
`gltf-model`	For the given marker, `hiro`, we specify the 3D model we want to have imposed, `#man`, previously defined in `<a-asset-item>`

This HTML code then sits on a server behind a reverse proxy that serves it whenever a client device contacts it through the specified URL. In my case, I used an nginx reverse proxy to serve the HTML file. Here is a (modified) example of my nginx configuration²:

server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name test.domain.com;
ssl_certificate /path/to/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/privkey.pem;
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
ssl_ciphers 'EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM:AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH';
location / {
    root /path/to/directory;
    index ar.html;
    try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
}

The important fields to note in this configuration are root and index. root is the directory on the server where the HTML file that is intended to be served resides. In this example, nginx is being told that the file resides in path/to/directory And index is the actual name of the HTML file in question, in this case ar.html.

All of this then allows any user to access the AR app by going to a specified URL on their browser. Companies could then prepare QR codes on A4 sized paper and distribute them as free PDFs. Simply print the PDF, place them in the space you you would like to see the product, go to the URL, and it appears through the lens of your phone. “It would be cool to have an AR app that would help customers visualize having our products in their homes.” It would be very cool indeed, and very possible.

For more information on how to use AR.js please refer to their official documentation ↩︎
For more information on how to use nginx please refer to their official documentation ↩︎

This Is How the World Will End

Sun, 25 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

It is no secret that I am a big fan of technology. I recently had a conversation with a friend where she was recounting to me an incident where she left her phone at the gym, walking away for a good 20-minutes before she realized what she had left behind. My immediate response to that was “I am amazed that people can leave places without their phones.” Asked to explain that sentiment, I elaborated that I do almost everything on my phone. I use it to listen to music, it is my source of news, and it is the multi-factor authentication key to all of my accounts. My friend’s only comment at all of that was just that she didn’t like how we have all become so reliant on our phones.

Unfortunately though, like it or not we have become reliant on our phones. And as the world continues on this path of digitization, we will continue to become more reliant on our phones, computers, and technology in general.

But in an age where headlines frequently consist of companies being hit by ransomware attacks , products being exploited , and new zero days being found ; we need to be conscious of the risks to this trend. As well as what we can do to mitigate them where possible.

This is what Nicole Perlroth’s book, "This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race ", seeks to accomplish. In it, Pelroth undertakes the herculean task of disentangling and explaining the opaque zero day cyberarms market.

A “zero day ” is a "[vulnerability] in software that is unknown to the vendor. This security hole is then exploited by hackers before the vendor becomes aware and hurries to fix it." Zero days are valuable because they can give bad actors (i.e. hackers) the ability to access any target system remotely, and do whatever they want within that system.

Think of everything in the world that runs on a computer. Hospitals , power generators , dams , nuclear reactors , and nuclear missiles. Now think about what would happen if even one of these things were hacked and were to go awry in some way shape or form. The scary truth of the matter however, is that these things have already happened (click on the links). And that we are lucky that the damage hasn’t been as large as it could have been. But our luck could eventually run out.

Pelroth’s deep dive into the murky world of cybersecurity is both illuminating and absolutely terrifying. Up until reading this book I did not fully realize the size and dynamism of the zero day exploit market. Think of any piece of technology, and dollars to donuts, someone has probably developed an exploit to hack into it. And depending on the specific piece of technology, that developer was probably paid anywhere from a few thousand to a few million USD for that exploit.

This is the zero day market. And in her book, Pelroth goes into detail as to the origins of this market; one that was almost single-handedly developed by the US government. The new players in this market; Russia, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Iran to name a few. The full extent and impact of a zero day exploit on everyday people; a huge of impact. And the level of understanding and control that those wielding these cyberweapons have on their own stockpile; not a lot. Perhaps the most terrifying revelation is that it is easily believable that any state could accidentally start World War III following an “oops” moment due to an unforeseen behavior in their own exploit.

The book is simultaneously informative and a cautionary tale on the dangers of technology. And I would definitely recommend it for anyone that is looking to get a better understanding of how the cybersecurity to our 21st century infrastructure works.

As far as the implications of what Pelroth’s book go. As a tech-head, after reading this, I am definitely much more conscious about what data I put out there in the world, even on my own systems. But it isn’t enough to get me to forsake technology. Technology is the way forward. But we need to be responsible and secure in the way that we use that technology.

What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Digital’ Business?

Sun, 04 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft. These are the names that most come to mind when people think about “digital businesses”. They are companies that produce digital tools, but they do not have a monopoly on the concept of being digital businesses.

Every company can be a digital business. And in fact, if COVID-19 has taught us anything, in the 21st century every company must become a digital business to survive and thrive.

Digital businesses are those that leverage technology and information systems to drive effectiveness, resiliency, and security.

Effectiveness. Technology can help businesses reach new heights in the value that they are able to offer their customers. But this does not mean that every business must suddenly become a technology company. Rather, the strategic implementation of digital tools can have a multiplier effect on a company’s core competencies. “Disney+” is an excellent example of this. They took advantage of their existing core competency (film and media) and combined it with digital tools (streaming), to create a new powerhouse in the market.

Resiliency. Technology can help overcome adversity. Companies can leverage digital tools to transform old analogue methods into more flexible and resilient digital processes that can stand up in the face of unexpected events. During COVID-19, use of online tools ensures not only that the business keeps operating when employees work from home, but that open lines of communication are maintained for collaboration, insight, and employee wellbeing . Reports have shown that organizations that digitized their businesses prior to the pandemic were better able to cope when it struck .

Security. Technology can be a double-edged sword, however. It generates value by allowing companies to deliver their services to customers effectively and resiliently. But it also introduces a wider attack surface that makes systems more vulnerable. This is evident with the ransomware attacks on the Colonial Pipeline in the US that compromised the distribution of oil and similar attacks on the Health Service Executive in Ireland that endangered their COVID-19 vaccine rollout . Companies that prioritize security ensure that they continue to deliver value to their customers.

Any business can be a digital business. They can leverage their technology to provide better value to their customers; they increase their effectiveness. They can use technology to endure adversity; they become more resilient. And above all, they make sure that their systems, data, and customers remain safe from threats; they remain secure. This is what it means to be a digital business, a business in the 21st century.

Love

Sun, 20 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

For all of human history we have sought to understand love. It is an emotion. It compels us to greatness, but it can also lead to ruin. It can be tragic, but also irreplaceable. It is simultaneously universal, but also ineffable. One thing is for sure however, love comes in many many different forms.

Family. Friends. Partners. Love has woven itself into the very fabric of society.

And with this, you would think that the ability to love whomever we wanted would be a given in day-to-day life. Sadly, we are not there yet. But we are working towards it.

For proof of that, I look no further than myself and my own learning experience. Growing up, I didn’t think of love beyond that of love between a man and a woman. My parents, family, and friends; that was all that I saw, and so that was what I thought the norm was.

This was certainly evident with how my friends and I treated the word “gay”. Growing up, being called gay was considered an insult. It was thrown like one. And because of that, it was received as such. I’m ashamed to say that I participated in that practice growing up. I contributed to a culture that degraded being gay and created an environment of fear around being gay.

I was wrong, short-sighted, and mean. I caused pain by saying those hurtful words. And for that, I am sorry. I can be better than that.

And I think I’ve made progress. Which is what gives me hope.

I have had the pleasure of interacting with the LGBTQ+ community. I’ve made friends, some of whom I would count as my closest of friends.

It is through interacting with them that I have come to understand the challenges they face. As a cisgender heterosexual Asian male in Hong Kong, I have enormous privilege. I can be myself in public. I can walk down the street hand-in-hand with my significant other, give them a kiss, and no one would give us a second glance. That is a privilege that not many of my LGBTQ+ friends can say they have.

The ability to live and love life to the fullest, regardless of who you are. Ultimately when we talk about equality, acceptance, and inclusion; I think this is what it boils down to. It’s an over-simplification, and a lot of work still needs to be done. We have a long, arduous, and complex journey ahead of us. But together we can get there, and I genuinely believe that we will be better for it.

There was an exchange I saw, that I think captures this sentiment especially well:

Essek: “This world was so much easier when it was black and white.”
Beau: “But it’s so much more beautiful in all the shades of colors.”

And what could be more beautiful than love? ❤️

Hugo Pride Shortcode

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This is a quick tip on how to apply a “pride” font color on to text in your Hugo sites. The shortcode will apply a rainbow font color on to the specified text. A sample would look like this:

And what could be more beautiful than love?

In order to accomplish this, you will need to create a pride.html shortcode file in the \layouts\shortcodes\directory.

The contents of pride.html would be:

<style>
    .multicolortext {
        background-image: linear-gradient(to right, #e40303, #ff8c00, #ffed00, #008026, #004dff, #750787);
        -webkit-background-clip: text;
        -moz-background-clip: text;
        background-clip: text;
        color: transparent;
    }
</style>

<span class="multicolortext">{{ .Inner }}</span>

In your markdown pages, you then use this shortcode as:

{{< pride >}} YOUR TEXT HERE {{< /pride >}}

Happy Pride! ❤️

Employment in the Age of AI

Sun, 13 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Pandora’s box has opened. We are past the point of no return. The world turned upside down. Whichever way you want to describe it, our world broke in 2020. Individuals, companies, and countries scrambled to deal with a constantly shifting and uncertain environment. Thankfully, with vaccines now being rolled out, a return to some form of normalcy is on the horizon. But a return to normalcy does not mean a return to business as usual. The pandemic has fundamentally shifted the way we do business. One of the biggest shifts being in companies’ digital transformation. And the adoption of new tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The Davos Lab initiative was born out of the pandemic. Created as a Global Shapers Community (GSC) initiative, it aims to facilitate dialogue among the youth to help society recover from COVID-19. As part of that initiative the GSC Hong Kong Hub had organized a number of outreach events to gather insights into how we can build back better. One of the topics that we chose to engage in was in Digital Literacy. With a specific focus on the impact of AI on employment and the future of work.

To that end, we organized a town hall where the public could voice their views and concerns on the topic, and discuss these concerns with a panel of experts. We were fortunate enough to have a diverse panel joining us. Representing fields ranging from academia, to public policy, to the HR industry:

De Kai, AI Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, HKUST
Charles Mok, Former Legislative Council Member in IT functional constituency
Janet Pottinger, Managing Director, Adecco HK & Macau
Ivan Wong, Public Sector Head, Linkedin HK＆ Macau
Anna Wu, Former Executive Council Member & Former Chairman, Equal Opportunities Commission

A star-studded panel for our Davos Labs on AI.

The discussion was both informative and insightful. The main takeaways from the entire discussion centered around three major points:

The concern of biased AI models
The importance of re-skilling
The importance of humans as final decision makers

Biased AI models. You do not need to look far to know that there is concern on AI being biased. The news is rife with examples of bias and attempts at rectifying them . Work needs to be done to try and minimize that bias as much as possible.

AI models are created when we feed data into algorithms; mathematical instructions you give a computer to process data. Algorithms by themselves are not biased. It is biased data that produces biased models. So great care needs to be taken in ensuring that the data we feed into AI algorithms are as accurate, fair, and inclusive as possible. Creating an AI model can be likened to educating a child. It is more art than science. We need to ensure that the right values, lessons, and skills are imparted onto them. One of the main suggestions by our panel to combat this issue was on making good data a public resource and open to scrutiny from the public.

Re-skilling. The experts on our panel made one thing very clear. AI is here and it is here to stay. It is no longer a question on if AI will take over jobs, but a matter of when, what jobs, and how it will occur. Therefore significant efforts need to be placed in properly re-skilling the labor force so that we may be able to cope with this technological shift.

The consensus is that the introduction of AI will be able to create a lot more jobs than it will replace, and an economic opportunity for many. The implementation of AI tools means that there is growing demand for individuals with practical industry experience that can use those tools. It is also far more cost-effective to re-skill and re-train an existing employee than to replace them completely.

However the effort is not without its challenges. Loss of dignity and hesitancy are major concerns when it comes to adapting to AI. Re-skilling needs to be seen as a top priority. There was widespread agreement that it is the responsibility of government, with input from the business sector, to come up with an inclusive re-skilling program that can accommodate the needs of the economy with the needs of the individuals that are looking to be re-trained.

Humans as final decision makers. Ultimately, humans still need to be seen as the final decision makers. This was one point that our panel was very adamant about. AI is a tool, and it should be viewed as such. It is a tool that compliments the existing efforts of a human, but doesn’t replace them.

This is an approach that many companies are engaging in right now. Brands like Google, Renault, and Nutella have started leveraging AI to augment their design process. Human designers provide “empathetic context ” to a problem; they identify the problem and frame it. Then the AI does the computational heavy-lifting.

Ultimately, we are facing a crossroads. De Kai, one of our panelists, had a especially poignant comment on AI and its integral role in the “Fourth Industrial Revolution ”:

“The phrase “Fourth Industrial Revolution” is comforting. Because it implies the idea of “we’ve already done this before.” But that is not what we are facing right now. The previous three industrial revolutions were revolutions in physical power. Replacing muscle with machine. But this is a revolution in intellectual power. We’ve never encountered anything like this before.”

AI represents a plethora of new opportunities for us. It represents new and exciting ways for us to tackle old problems. But it also represents a challenge. How can we use this new tool for good? How can we use it to help our fellow man? How can we use it to improve the state of the world?

It is how we answer these questions that will ultimately define employment, and our lives, in the age of AI.

Getting Vaccinated

Sun, 30 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Last April 23, I let out a loud WHOOP!!! 🙌 throughout the office. I had just booked my two vaccination appointments, and I was absolutely ecstatic.

The reason for my excitement was not lost on anyone who had talked with me within the last 2 weeks. The topic of vaccinations had managed to make its way into everyday conversation with me. It was an absolute fixture in my mind. It was all I could talk about. And when they announced that I would be eligible to get a vaccine, you could be damn sure I would be at the front of the line.

And now here we are. It has been 2 weeks since my second dose. I am now officially fully vaccinated.

First Jab. April 26, 2021

Second Jab. May 17, 2021

Unfortunately, there is still a long road ahead towards Hong Kong achieving herd immunity¹. Vaccine hesitancy, for a variety of reasons, has become a major stalling factor in the vaccination effort. And so it is my hope that by sharing my experience in getting the vaccine and why I chose to get it, I can help encourage you to do the same.

What was it like getting the vaccine?

Surprisingly smooth.

In Hong Kong, it is incredibly easy to schedule a vaccination. It takes less than 5 minutes to do it. If you are eligible for vaccination², all you need to do is:

Go to the Hong Kong government’s vaccination portal .
Choose the vaccine that you want³.
Input your personal particulars (i.e. Hong Kong ID (HKID), Date of Birth, etc.).
Select the dates for your first and second dose.
Select the vaccination center .

After all of that, the website should confirm your appointment and you will receive an SMS confirming the booking.

On your appointment date, once you arrive at the vaccination center:

The attendants will confirm your vaccination appointment with your HKID and the SMS you received.
You will be asked to read a vaccine information packet.
You wait in line for a vaccination booth.
You receive your jab and be given a vaccine record.
You will be asked to wait for 15 minutes, post-jab, for observation.
You are free to go!

The entire process inside the vaccination centers is really efficient. And unless the center is at full capacity, you can expect to be in-and-out within 30 minutes.

After each shot, you will be given a vaccine record.

What were the side-effects afterwards?

I chose to take the BioNTech/Fosum (Comirnaty) vaccine. As far as side-effects go, beyond the feeling of having a sore arm, which is pretty standard for me with any vaccine, I mostly just felt hungry and tired following both jabs.

The hunger didn’t stay long. I just indulged in whatever craving popped into my head, using the vaccine as a very convenient excuse.

Jollibee Chickenjoy cures all side-effects.

The fatigue disappeared after a good night’s rest. Perhaps the worst side-effect I encountered was just feeling chilly the day after the second jab. That could have been the vaccine; or it could have just been Hong Kong offices, where air conditioning is always on full blast.

Overall the side-effects were quite mild for me. Which is consistent with the expectations from the clinical trial results for the BioNTech/Fosum (Comirnaty) vaccine . The most prevalent side-effects being fatigue, headaches, and chills⁴.

When I had scheduled my vaccine appointments, I purposefully took them on weekdays and had preemptively arranged to take leave from work on both days. You don’t really have to do this. You can take the vaccine before or after work; several of my friends did just that. I just saw the vaccine as a nice excuse to practice a bit of self-care. Get the vaccine and protect myself from COVID-19, and then relax the rest of the day eating fried chicken.

Why did you decide to get it?

I got the vaccine because I want things to go back to normal.

Professional, social, or personal, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge for everyone on a whole number of fronts. A year and a half of restrictions, isolation, and fear has left its mark on all of us. And I am just so tired of it all. The post-COVID world, whatever it is, will be very different to life from before the pandemic. But it will be better than the experience we are all living in right now in the middle of one. I want things to go back to some form of normalcy, whatever “normal” is.

And I just don’t see any other way we can return to normal without everyone being vaccinated. We’ve tried practicing social-distancing. But it was only really a method to reduce the damage. It was never meant to be a long-term solution to COVID-19. The last year and a half, and four waves made that abundantly clear. The only way out of this pandemic is through the vaccination effort.

To me, getting vaccinated means being able to go out and freely see friends. Getting vaccinated means being able to travel home to see my family in the Philippines. Getting vaccinated means we stop living in this heightened state of fear, and we can return to looking forward, rather than back.

I am looking forward to things being better. I am looking forward to being able to go out with friends again to make bad decisions in bars. I am looking forward to being able to just hug people again.

This is why I got vaccinated. To have something to look forward to again. ❤️

70% of the population getting vaccinated. ↩︎
As of writing, any Hong Kong resident aged 16 or above. ↩︎
As of writing, Hong Kong residents have a choice between the Sinovac or BioNTech/Fosum (Comirnaty) vaccines. ↩︎
The occurrence of fever is relatively rare at only 16% occurrence following the second jab. ↩︎

Marvel T.V.

Sat, 24 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Like many many millions of nerds I have been thoroughly enjoying Marvel’s new TV shows, WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. They are very welcome additions to the “Superhero TV Show” genre, a genre that is admittedly saturated with entries; to name a few:

DC Superhero Shows	Marvel Superhero Shows
Arrow	Daredevil
The Flash	Luke Cage
Supergirl	Jessica Jones
Legends of Tomorrow	Agents of SHIELD

Out of this plethora of choice, WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier stand out. And I don’t think that is by accident. I think that it is the result of Disney learning from their past mistakes, the mistakes of their competitor, DC, as well as leveraging their unique business position in the market.

Learning from Past Mistakes

Disney’s first foray into the superhero TV show genre was with Agents of SHIELD in 2013. Hot on the heels of The Avengers, Agents of SHIELD was meant to act as a spin-off TV show within the same Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). A show that was intended to act as a “glue” and bridging tool in between the various MCU movies being released; using the narrative lens of the titular agents of SHIELD. Unfortunately, this purpose was short-lived. Only a year after debuting the show’s premise was dismantled by the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014. Eliminating the show’s integration and connectivity with the greater-MCU. Agents of SHIELD continued their run to ultimately end with 7 seasons, but their impact on the events of the MCU had been insofar, non-existent.

Other forays into integrating the MCU with TV came with Disney’s partnership with Netflix to produce The Defenders TV series, which included Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Punisher. And while most of these shows were critically acclaimed, they also suffered from a similar problem as Agents of SHIELD. They inherited the events of the MCU, but they failed in having any discernible impact on the MCU itself. Another major problem being the cancellation of the Disney-Netflix partnership .

The problem of integration for Marvel TV shows doesn’t just stop there however. Despite being part of the MCU, Marvel TV shows don’t benefit from the access to any of their big names. Protagonists of their early shows are characters that are entirely original to the TV shows they come from. And the best that they can expect in terms of participation from the greater-MCU is just a cameo from some of the MCU’s lesser known characters. Ultimately the problem for Marvel’s early shows are ones of integration and access. All of which leaves the impression that Marvel’s early TV shows were viewed as “second-class citizens”. They are allowed to exist in the MCU, but in every respect they are inconsequential to the development of the world they inhabit.

Learning from DC’s mistakes

In the early days of the “franchise wars” between Marvel and DC the prevailing wisdom was that “Marvel’s got movies, but DC’s better TV.” And with the early success of DC’s Arrow, and the expansion of the Arrowverse in the form of The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow vs. Marvel’s lone Agents of SHIELD, the prevailing wisdom seemed correct.

But, what was once seen as DC’s strength, their large TV library, eventually became their weakness. The problem with TV shows is that, unlike movies, they are ongoing. There is financial pressure to continuously churn out season after season of a successful show. And this can be to the detriment of good storytelling, where less is more. From a writer’s perspective, it is often better to write a nice, tight, and concise plot for maximum effect. The need for additional seasons (or sequels) can disrupt that. Especially if the additional seasons are purely due to a financial motive, and where there is no more story to tell. This forces the introduction of convoluted, contradictory, and often counter-intuitive story elements, just to keep a show’s plot going. At their peak, DC had 6 superhero TV shows running concurrently, with 32 seasons between all of them. And all of them suffered similar storytelling problems due to their extended run times:

Lack of development. Interesting stories require conflict. A story is compelling because it introduces a problem that requires the protagonist to learn and grow in order to overcome. This can work within a self-contained story because there is a defined beginning-middle-end. But when you are expected to churn out a story, season after season, subsequent conflicts have the potential to unravel development that had previously happened, regressing development that a character’s already undergone.
Recurring plot elements. The need to produce story after story with the same characters is a difficult proposition. And you will reach a point wherein you simply run out of new ideas, so you must re-visit old ones. The DC shows are particularly guilty of this, whether it be the Flash’s main antagonist being a speedster 3-seasons in a row, or repeating a “will-they-won’t-they” romance sub-plots with the same characters season after season. Repeating plot points are rarely interesting, because more often than not, they will resolve the same way.
Threat inflation. The way TV series plots are structured is fairly well understood. Within each season there is a large over-arching plot. And it usually revolves around some form of “central tension”. Something that needs to be resolved. The problem is that season after season, the stakes need to be increased. For no explicable reason other than to make the new season’s problems seem bigger and more dramatic than the last. Which leads to the need for the audience to suspend their disbelief. A TV show that once started as a grounded-gritty archer fighting mafia bosses, ends up with the same guy armed only with a bow and arrow (and no powers!) running across dimensions to save the end of the multiverse.

Leveraging Uniqueness

So with all of this, in order for Disney’s plans of its new slew of TV shows to be successful they had to accomplish (1) a closer integration with the MCU, (2) tell great, complete, and compelling stories, and – most importantly – (3) be financially lucrative.

How could Disney accomplish all of this? With Disney+.

At face value, Disney+ is Disney trying to get a piece of the USD 342.44 billion streaming pie . But it is much deeper than that. Disney+ is the culmination of Disney’s unique positioning within the entertainment industry. Whereas Netflix started as a media distribution company that has expanded into content creation, Disney is a content creation company that has expanded into media distribution. This means that not only does Disney have an entire backlog of content to make their offering more compelling. But it also has the production-channels in place to be able to tell more engaging one-off stories and TV shows that tie into an existing franchise.

Because Disney has an existing lineup of blockbuster MCU movies, they are not financially pressured to churn out season after season of the same shows. And that frees them to use these TV shows as add-ons to compliment their movies. They can tell stories that further develop characters that would otherwise not have the opportunity to take center stage. WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier are two very clear examples of that. Like most fans, I couldn’t care less about Wanda, Vision, Falcon or Bucky when they first came out in the movies. But after having watched these shows and learned more about these characters, seeing their goals, fears, and trials, I am now more excited than ever to see them on the big screen.

My favorite example of this is the characterization of Baron Zemo. When he first appeared in Captain America: Civil War, like most people I was confused, and at best, indifferent to the motivations and characterization of this villain. But following his appearance in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier I have been convinced that he has the potential to be an absolute show-stopper of a villain. This show did such a good job of explaining Zemo to the fans that they are now debating his morals and convictions. 6 million people (myself included) are willing to spend an hour watching the man dance. Suffice it to say, I am very excited to see Baron Zemo in an upcoming MCU movie.

And at their core, that’s what these shows are meant to do. They are an expansion of the pre-existing MCU. They offer an opportunity for character development to occur, and then to send them right back into the main movies with new powers, new suits, and a larger fan-following than before. No need for another season, the next movie is the next season.

Disney+ is the next major piece in Disney’s plan. A platform that they control that allows them to tell great stories. Stories that are not beholden to the pitfalls of having to artificially extend themselves to fit a seasonal television cycle. It is a new and innovative approach to developing a franchise. And it is an approach that Disney is trying to replicate with Star Wars. The Mandalorian. Ahsoka. The Bad Batch. These are all shows that utilize, impact, and expand on that franchise.

Popular franchises. Good content. It’s own controlled distribution channel. These are all the elements to Disney’s master plan of winning the culture war. But hey, if it means that I get to continue to enjoy good television, well then, I shall welcome our Disney overlords.

Am I Good Enough? Yes I Am.

Sun, 11 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I have never been a huge fan of biographies. Having read a few in the past featuring “big names” like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs; they are good books on interesting people but I always seemed to walk away with the same inclination. That these people were special. That from a young age the idea that they would go on to do awe-inspiring things was just a given; either because of their intellect, circumstance, or the fact that they were just somehow different than everybody else.

Reading their stories the main takeaways I always got was more on the de-mystification of their rise to power; rather than being able to understand them as people. Purposefully or not these books always seemed to elevate their subjects beyond the mortal realm, situating them among a pantheon of technology-gods.

That was not the inclination I got when I read Michelle Obama’s Becoming. Her book reads differently. Beyond the obvious fact that she is not in the tech-industry, in her book she comes off as more personable and relatable. The apparent purpose of the book not being to praise her laurels – of which she has many – but rather to offer her perspective on what it was like to be the first African-American First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS), the events that led up to that, as well as the aftermath since she’s left the White House.

It may seem childish to say; but when you think about famous and successful people, you never really give much weight to the problems they face. You often come off with this impression that they have no problems and that they are just successful by default. Of course at an intellectual level I know that these people must have encountered challenges along the way. But it always seemed more like minor inconveniences rather than major roadblocks. These problems never really had the potential to fully stall the subject of the biography; rather it was just another thing that they had to do.

In her book, Obama goes into vivid detail on all of the challenges she’s faced. From growing up in the south side of Chicago, to going to an Ivy League school, to working up the corporate ladder as a lawyer. And doing all of this while being both Black and female in a world dominated by old White men. As a result of this, one one of the main through lines in Obama’s book was her constant grappling with the concept of being good enough. Whether it was attending high school, being one of the few Black women at Princeton, or balancing the responsibilities of being both FLOTUS and a mother; Obama kept facing the same question, “Am I good enough?”

The inspiration from reading Obama’s book doesn’t come from the fact that she’s overcome these obstacles. But it’s the vulnerability of sharing the fact that these were not easy obstacles to overcome. She needed help overcoming them. It is a direct antithesis to the concept that we have to always be “OK all the time”. It is alright to not be OK. It is alright to need help. By taking the help and support of those around us, we can be stronger. So when faced with these challenges, and faced with this question of “Am I good enough?” It is because of a combination of friends, family, and hard work, that the answer can be “Yes I am.”

Obama’s journey through public life has not been easy. As she writes in her book it was rife with challenges and obstacles. Some that simply come with being married to the “Commander and Chief”, and others that are unique to her experience as being the first Black FLOTUS. And that is one thing that I appreciate about how Obama chose to depict her time in the White House. In her book she writes with a level of vulnerability and openness that you don’t often see. Acknowledging that sometimes things got to her. She is not infallible. She made mistakes. But that despite those mistakes she still picked herself back up and committed to doing better.

In some ways, I see a lot of myself in Michelle Obama. There are definitely a lot of things that are different about us – I for one, will never know the pleasure of being married to Barack Obama – but I feel like we have more similarities than differences. Which I think is the main ethos of her story. While she has had a unique life, she still went through multiple experiences that everyone goes through. She tells a story that asserts that there is more that unites us than that which divides. While her experience is different, deep down, she is no different than anyone else.

After reading Obama’s book, I then took the plunge and listened to her podcast that she released on Spotify. In it she covers similar ground to which she described in her book, but she does so with the benefit of various guests. Her husband, girlfriends, mentors/mentees, brother, and mother, all make appearances to add an extra bit of color and perspective.

I would highly encourage you to check out her podcast!

In both her book and podcast there are moments of vulnerability, of pain. Obama concedes that she is not perfect. She has suffered and felt anguish. She faltered. And she writes and talks about it. She sends the signal that it is ok to have problems. It is ok to have moments of weakness, but they do not define us. It is how we overcome and get back up that defines us. It is how we persist despite our weaknesses that define us.

Funny story, the entire reason I read this book was because I saw an interview between her husband, Barack Obama, and Stephen Colbert. I found it funny when Obama commented that because publishers were bundling his new book with his wife’s it had become impossible for his new book to ever outsell hers . I got a nice chuckle out of that and decided to buy her book. That was ultimately a good decision.

Machine Writing

Sat, 03 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Inferring the correlation between X and Y, or writing an article in a magazine. Between these two tasks, which one can only be done by a human, and which can be done by a machine? It would seem like the answer is fairly straightforward isn’t it? Inferring a correlation between two variables is math. Of course a human could do it. But that would be tedious and time consuming. It would be easier to just let the machine do that, because it can. But writing an article? That is an art. It takes creativity and imagination to write, surely only a human would be capable of doing something like that? Oh how far technology has come.

In May 2020 researchers unveiled the latest advancement in Natural Language Processing (NLP)¹. Dubbing it Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3). In technical terms GPT-3 is “an autoregressive language model with 175 billion parameters”. In kinder terms, it is a machine learning model that has been pre-trained using a large dataset to “learn” how to write like a human (autoregressive language model). And It has a lot of parameters that can be finely tuned by a user to speak in a very specific way (175 billion parameters). So once given a prompt, like a question, GPT-3 is able to return a response that would sound like it is coming from a human. It has become so proficient at this that authors, and multiple reviewers, have asserted that it is almost indistinguishable from a human response.

It is worth noting though that GPT-3 is able to accomplish this feat because it has analyzed the frequency of how certain words appear next to each other. As an example, GPT-3 may “know” that the word “grapes” is frequently used with words like eat, sweet, fruit, purple, and/or wine. But it doesn’t actually fully comprehend the fact that a grape is a sweet purple fruit that we can either eat or turn into wine.

But despite these faults GPT-3 is making great inroads. And a whole crop of different applications that use it as a foundation are cropping up. I was recently made aware of one such new application called Headlime . A company that is using GPT-3 to help companies produce articles for publication.

So I thought we could have a bit of fun with this new application. The way that Headlime works is that the user is meant to give the GPT-3 model a few keywords and a prompt to get started. And then using that as input, Headlime will then produce a few model-generated paragraphs as output. What would those output look like compared to a human writing from the same prompts?

To find out, I asked a friend of mine to give me a prompt. I will then pass this prompt to the GPT-3 model to write a few paragraphs on the topic; while I will also be doing the same. We can then compare the two and see which one is better.

In the interest of fairness I wrote my paragraphs immediately after seeing the prompt, and finished within 30 minutes. I’ll then post both outputs, but I won’t say which one is which. And then we can vote on which one is the better written paragraph.

So this is the prompt (c/o my friend Paul Sedille):

Keywords: AI safety.

Description: AI safety, once an obscure branch of computer science, has grown into an essential part of the AI research world. They have their own panels in all the major AI conferences, and the world’s leading universities and research institutes have all set up dedicated teams to explore the subject, from Open AI, a non-profit research laboratory founded by Elon Musk, to Stanford’s Center for Human Aligned AI.

What concerns and developments have fueled the field’s rise to prominence?

Output A:

AI safety has gone mainstream.

The field of AI safety has come a long way since its inception in the 1980s. At first, it was just a tiny branch of computer science that most experts didn’t take seriously. Nowadays, AI safety is mainstream and becoming an essential part of the world’s leading universities and research institutes as well as many industries such as health care.

What are some key concerns or developments that have fueled this rise to prominence? More importantly, can it meet the rising challenges surrounding AI today?

Only a few years ago, concerns over biased data, unaligned machines and other AI-powered catastrophes were at best the subject of idle conversation among AI researchers. On September 28, 2018, IEEE held a symposium on AI safety and ethics at New York University in the USA. In this event, they discussed what some of the challenges are that need to be overcome for future progress in AI research and development as well as how to integrate it into our daily lives. There are many different concerns about biased algorithms with unbiased data because these biases can negatively affect humans’ decisions or even restrict their abilities.

At present, many people have a lot of concerns about bias-free algorithms with unbiased data because these biases can negatively affect humans’ decisions or even restrict their abilities.

Output B:

Whether we know it or not, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of our day-to-day lives. Whenever you open up Facebook, Twitter, or whatever other social media platform, you are being fed content that is curated for you by an AI. When you walk through an airport, more often than not, you will be scanned by a facial recognition program that is powered by AI. When you go to ask a loan from the bank, apply for a job, or even make a Google search, you are interacting with an AI in some way, shape, or form.

So it is unsurprising that there is now increasing concern on how AI works and behaves. Since its inception, the field of AI study has mostly been focused on getting the AI-concept to “work”, to spit out an answer. But now, we are seeing more and more focus being placed on getting AI to “work well”, to spit out a good answer. Getting to that point means having algorithms that can account for the messiness of the real world. Concepts such as racial and gender bias, insufficient data, or outlier events.

Progress is being made however. Researchers are no longer satisfied with the “black-box” nature of AI systems. At every major AI conference you will see panels on AI safety. Organizations such as OpenAI and Stanford’s Center for Human Aligned AI have been created to ensure the ethical and safe implementation of AI algorithms.

Which one was written better?

Free Survey Maker

Click to see which article was written by whom

The algorithm wrote A. I wrote B.

GPT-3 is being heralded as the next great leap for NLP technology. But it is not without its risks. Like any tool NLP has the potential to be misused; so much so that the authors of the original paper that introduced GPT-3 spent a considerable section of their paper talking about possible misuse of their algorithm, as well as its biases that could negatively impact different demographics².

Moving forward we need to be conscious of how new technology like GPT-3 can impact society. We need to be aware of how tools like these can be used to cause ill. But we also need to work towards making the tool itself more equitable for all.

Technology has the potential to be a great equalizer in society, but it also has the potential to further grow inequality with misuse. So let’s make sure that it is for the former, rather than the latter.

Banner image credit to mikemacmarketing

The study of getting machines to understand and produce text like humans. ↩︎
The NLP model was trained using data parsed from the internet. So its predictive text is indicative of that. ↩︎

Keeping in Good Health

Sun, 28 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Maintaining good personal health has undoubtedly been on many people’s minds over the last year. COVID-19 has led to many reflections and realizations about how we keep ourselves physically healthy. But prolonged isolation and anxiety has also helped spark a discussion about how we keep ourselves mentally healthy as well.

Physical health and mental health are two sides of the same coin. One can not exist without the other. Both good physical and mental health are needed for us to lead a happy and healthy lives.

And yet unlike physical health, whenever we talk about mental health we always approach it with an emphasis on the illnesses that surrounds the topic. Depression, suicide, or anxiety, to name a few. But just like how physical health isn’t defined by its maladies, nor should mental health. Physical and mental health should both be defined by the activities that allow people to maintain good personal health.

As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Maintaining good mental health is just like maintaining good physical health. Just like how your body needs you to exercise, stay active, and maintain a balanced diet for you to remain physically healthy. Your mind also needs exercise to help keep it healthy. But as opposed to physical exercise, mental health exercises take on a much more ephemeral nature. These can include meditating, taking breaks, talking with friend, keeping a journal, or any number of positive mental health activities .

Personally, over the course of COVID-19 I’ve taken on the habit of maintaining a journal. In part because I had heard about the benefits of keeping a gratitude journal and also because it seemed like the easiest and most productive exercise for me.

Unsurprisingly, I went with the more technological approach to journal keeping. Eschewing the traditional pen and paper, for a journal-application called Monica that I could host on my homelab . Using Monica I log daily entries; what happened during the day, how that made me feel, as well as what I am grateful for. I can also enter more in-depth entries, as well as log my social activities with friends.

Monica is an open-source personal CRM.

Having kept this journal for six months now, I feel mentally lighter. A bit more nimble, ready to take on the world.

There is a calm when you commit feelings to paper. Chaotic emotions and disparate thoughts become focused. They no longer feel like a jumbled mess or an unpredictable storm inside your mind. Writing down what we feel, finding the vocabulary to articulate our feelings help us face them. They are forced into becoming coherent concepts with clear through-lines the moment they move from our brain and onto the page. They transform into concepts and ideas that we can then logically follow, assess, and evaluate. Rather than being a murky feeling in our heads (or hearts), they become real. They become understandable and defined. No longer are they just feelings but actual thoughts. And once our thoughts become clear, they allow for further introspection and reflection.

I have found keeping a journal particularly helpful in the event of failure. When I fail, or experience a setback, I tend to get lost in that failure. It becomes an all encompassing dark cloud that makes it hard to keep perspective. I can’t think about anything except the failure. But when I write it down I acknowledge that the failure happened in more concrete terms. I am able to set aside the idea of failure and look beyond. OK I failed. What other opportunities have opened up as a result of this? How do I to continue to move forward?

But journaling also has its benefits during success as well. By recording the times that things went well, not only are we able to relive the happiness that came with that success, but we are also able to take a step back and see what led to that success. And how we may replicate it in the future.

I would certainly encourage people to take up journal keeping. Whether traditional or electronic, the mere act of writing what we feel onto a page can have a profound impact on how we see the world. And brings us one step closer to leading happier, healthier lives.

What Do Bill Gates and Kaiju Have in Common?

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

They both want you to think about climate change.

Climate change isn’t sexy. Despite its massive importance to the survival of our species, talking about the climate isn’t fun. Any utterance of carbon dioxide, reflected sunlight radiation, or a 2°C increase in global temperatures will, more often than not, elicit a reaction similar to the prospect of watching paint dry. That is also the complete opposite reaction you would get when a giant monstrous creature from the depths of the sea the size of a building is stomping towards you. And yet, they both represent the same thing. An existential threat to the human race.

I am not the first to observe that the Pacific Rim’s kaiju are an allegory for climate change . In fact, kaiju have been used as representations for “larger than life” problems that have scared humanity since their inception .

Yes. This is a movie about climate change. #GoBigOrGoExtinct

In Pacific Rim the kaiju are specifically named and categorized by number. Exactly like how hurricanes are named and categorized in real life. And in the movie there is even a scene where they realize that the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is what finally prompted the kaiju to start appearing. Starting to sound familiar?

Where the movie and real life diverge is in humanity’s response to threat. In the former, the world comes together and creates the jaegers 🤖 to fight the kaiju. In the real world, we have people throwing snowballs in a legislature .

Thankfully society has come a long way on the topic of climate change. We seem to be less intent on disputing its existence, and more focused on finding ways to manage it. But much like a kaiju, the size of the problem can be intimidating.

Enter stage-left: Bill Gates and his latest book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.

Gates is not the first person to talk about climate change. By all accounts he is incredibly late to the party with this book. But he does introduce – and really hammers in – a concept that wouldn’t be out of place in Pacific Rim. Creating technological solutions to fight the problem.

In his book – and really most of his work – Gates espouses a philosophy of “innovating our way to a solution”. And that despite the magnitude of the problem that is climate change, the human race is completely capable of coming up with innovations to solve it. Unfortunately Gates is not suggesting that we build giant robots 🤖. But he does offer interesting – realistic – solutions, that if successful, would rival the awesomeness of jaegers.

Gates forecasts that in order to avoid a “climate disaster” the entire world would need to become carbon neutral by 2050. Through the course of his book’s 12 chapters, Gates works through how we can accomplish that with the precision you would expect from a computer programmer and data nerd.

He starts with a clear understanding of the problem. Climate change. Specifically, carbon emissions. What activities are the major contributors of our carbon emissions? From electricity generation, to how we make things, to how we grow our food, to how we transport ourselves. Gates works through each of these categories and talks about what exactly causes the carbon emission, and what can be done to reduce them to zero.

All throughout the the book Gates provides a plethora of data, analysis, and innovations that he’s personally seen and researched. Sprinkling in the occasional story to remind the readers that climate change is not some abstract concept. It is happening. And it has real impact on real people.

However, the book is not without its faults. Reviewers have (rightly) critiqued Gates for overemphasizing the role of technology, and discounting the adverse impact of politics and vested interests on combating climate change. Other criticisms hit a bit closer to home as they admonish Gates for being behind the curve on knowing how far green technology has already come.

This book is not going to be the be-all-end-all- bible for combating climate change. But it is still worth reding. The book is full of data relevant to the topic of sustainability. And offers insight on multiple different innovative solutions that we can use to continue to improve our quality of life without sacrificing the environment. I would say that it is a good primer for anyone that is not as familiar with the topic of climate change or sustainability but wants to learn more (like me).

The main point that Gates ultimately wants to make is valid, however. We can accomplish net-zero by 2050. Governments are making progress in that direction. And for their part, private companies are no longer seing investments in sustainable technology as just “doing good”; they see them as good business too . Like Gates, I’m optimistic of our chances.

We can come together. We can innovate solutions. We can fight the hurricane, and we can win 🤖.

Your Meta-Data

Sun, 07 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This website has been up for a while now, and I can genuinely say that I have been very happy with it. Hugo has shown to be a wonderful static-site generator. And at this point, if I had to choose between it or what I use to run The Glowing Fool website , WordPress, I think I would go with Hugo nine times out of ten.

When you are running your own website though it can be very easy to get hung-up on the stats. How many people have visited? How are the posts performing? How are people discovering the site? Perhaps this is just a personal issue, but once data is presented to me, I can get lost in them. On WordPress, site stats are presented very clearly. It’s one of the built-in standard functions. But that functionality is just not available when you use a static-site generator. That’s not to say that the data doesn’t exist. Whenever any one of us visits a website, that traffic is always going to be logged. It is just a matter of what logs it, and how it is stored.

In the case of this website, logs are stored by a reverse-proxy called nginx .

A reverse-proxy is an intermediary server that sits behind a firewall, and acts as a go-between clients (you) and applications (this website). Routing to the requested applications based on what clients are asking for.

An nginx server re-routes users to what they are looking for.

As shown in the graph above, any traffic that accesses any of my applications would need to go through nginx. And nginx has a logging function that takes note of the meta-data that is transmitted.

Meta-data is “data about data”. It doesn’t pertain to what is actually being transmitted – the “data” (i.e. the contents of a message, an image, a video, etc.) – but rather, the meta-data focuses on the data about the data that is being transmitted. Examples like when the data was sent, how big the files were, etc. Each time someone accesses an application a meta-data entry is created and stored somewhere for later reference.

So what does this meta-data look like? A default nginx meta-data entry for a single interaction would look something like this save in a log (usually a text file):

14.0.152.0 - - [01/Feb/2021:19:02:39 +0800] "GET /post/password-manager/ HTTP/1.1" 304 0 "https://www.linkedin.com/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G9XXX) AppleWebKit/537.00 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/88.0.4324.00 Mobile Safari/537.00"

This log occurred when I accessed this website via my mobile phone. And this information could be interpreted as follows:

Data Type	Description	Example (taken from above)	Inference
`remote_addr`	The IP address that made the connection to the server.	`14.0.152.0`	This is a Hong Kong IP address, so the client is connecting from Hong Kong.
`remote_user`	The user name if any login information was given on the page.	`-`
`time_local`	The time of access	`[01/Feb/2021:19:02:39 +0800]`
`request`	The content that was requested. Usually the web page.	`"GET /post/password-manager/ HTTP/1.1"`	The client was looking at the “Use a Password Manager” post
`status`	The HTTP request code status	`304`
`body_bytes_sent`	The total size of the file sent.	`0`
`http_referer`	The referring website. The website that sent the user to this page.	`"https://www.linkedin.com/"`	The client found this post through LinkedIn
`http_user_agent`	The type of device, OS, and application that the requester is using.	`"Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; SM-G965F) AppleWebKit/537.00 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/88.0.4324.00 Mobile Safari/537.00"`	The client is using a Samsung phone and Google Chrome to access the site.

If I were to collect all the entries that nginx logs over a period of time I would be able to theoretically analyze:

What content people are looking at on my website.
When people access my website.
From what country/continent people access my website.
With what OS/device people use to access my content.
What sites referred people to my site.

And then using a tool called GoAccess I can create graphs that chart out this information for me. Some examples are here:

Number of hits in a day.

Countries of visitors in a day. Based on IP address.

OS used by visitors.

All of this is data that a host is able to gather whenever you visit their website. It is unfortunately just another aspect of browsing the internet. The “price of admission” so to speak. And outside of using a privacy-centric browser or a VPN, you can’t really mask your presence on the internet.

But on the bright side, the meta-data that is logged is not truly personal, nor by itself can it be used to identify you as an individual. The most identifiable piece of meta-data you hand over when you visit a website is your IP address. But your IP address changes depending on which network you access from. If you browse a website from a coffee shop the IP address that is logged belongs to the shop. And even if you access a website from home, most home internet plans don’t have fixed IP addresses. Which means that your IP address rotates/changes every so-often anyway.

That being said, it is just handy to know that this is information that websites collect on you whenever you visit them. Knowing what information you hand over to companies is the first major step in maintaining good cyber hygiene.

Moving for Mental Health

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I am an indoor person. Exercise – and the outdoors really – are not my favorite things. I would go out for a run every so often, just to keep a certain level of fitness. But I would much rather run around a city in a video game, than do so for real.

That all got turned upside down last month. It all started when a friend sent this message into a group I was in:

Hi! Mind HK is hosting a 50km challenge this Feb through work - feel free to sign up!! It’s free, you get discount codes on registration and a prize or two if you finish 50km: www.moveithk.com

I don’t like exercise. But like any gamer, I do like achievements (or trophies for PlayStation players). And this seemed like a good an achievement as any to work towards. At the very least it was a good excuse to try and be a bit more physically active than the sloth-like state that COVID had left me in. And so I committed myself to taking on the “50KM Nature Challenge”.

And boy, did I surprise myself.

There’s an interesting adage, “it always seems impossible until it’s not”.

A lot of things were suddenly becoming possible in February. I am not a complete stranger to going on runs. On-and-off over the last 2 years I’ve been running on a fairly frequent basis. But these runs would typically be no more than 2km at a time. And often I would “cheat”; half walking by the end of the run itself.

But during one of my first runs in February I just decided that I would go farther. Rather than run my pre-established 2km route, I would push for more. Taking a detour that opened up into a larger promenade along the water. I don’t know what spurred me on to run more. Perhaps it was curiosity. Or perhaps it was the calculation that if I only ran 2km every other day, I wouldn’t be able to hit my 50km goal for the month. Either way I ran further that time. And just kept running. I ended covering 5.3km, double my usual distance. And the next run after that I went for a full 6km.

My first full 6km run.

And again, and again, and again. Running 6km on alternating days. I’ve managed to reach a point where I can now run that entire distance non-stop. And I’m now averaging 7 minutes/km.

And I feel great.

Back in high school, I joined my friends in running a “marathon”. I signed up to do the 7km with them. I didn’t so much run the marathon, as I did wheezing, walking, and barely finishing. For the rest of the day after that my feet hurt so much that I could barely stand. The level of personal fulfillment and satisfaction that I am getting coming from that, to running 6km every other day is indescribable.

The actual run itself has slowly become more enjoyable. And I now actually look forward to doing them on my run-days. As I go out for a run I start to project this mental image of an anime hero going out for training. Which is reinforced by the epic anime soundtrack that is now part of my running play list. And then once you finish, there is a gratifying endorphin-rush and sense of personal accomplishment. The wave of relief and relaxation that comes after the post-run shower and sit-down is a very nice cherry-on-top.

Nothing quite makes you feel like a hero than a hero soundtrack.

And it wouldn’t really be a nature challenge in Hong Kong if we didn’t sprinkle in some hikes. Intentional or not, I found myself roped into a lot more hiking excursions that I am typically used to. Going on a grand total of 3 hikes in 1 month. And this is coming from a track record of 1 hike every 3 months.

Over February my friends and I conquered:

Suicide Cliff
Lion Rock
Dragon’s Back

In that chronological order. And – to my chagrin – starting with the most difficult, to the easiest.

Suicide Cliff. Don’t let the name fool you. Despite its moniker Suicide Cliff is quite safe. That’s not to say that I always felt safe during the entire way up. It was a climb to get to the top. I wouldn’t call this excursion a “hike” as much as I would call it outright rock climbing. It also didn’t help that going in, I had absolutely no idea that it would be this difficult.

Pro-Tip: If your 'hike' begins with climbing rope, it's not going to be an easy hike.

But after an arduous climb we eventually did reach the top. And we were rewarded with a wonderful view over Hong Kong. And a reminder of just how much we managed to accomplish during our almost 5-hour, 10km climb.

The view from our hike to Suicide Cliff

With the benefit of hindsight it almost seems poetic that we conquer a trail named Suicide Cliff on a nature challenge advocating for mental health.

Lion’s Rock. I’ve trying to be more open to spur-of-the-moment suggestions from my friends. What fun is there to life if there aren’t a few surprises? This hike definitely qualified as a surprise. What was supposed to be a “hang out at their place, drink wine” visit suddenly got morphed into a 2-hour, 6km hike up to Lion’s Rock.

There was still wine, to be sure. But it came after the hike. And I think it was well-earned.

Dragon’s Back. After my two previous surprise-hikes I was intent on not being caught off-guard anymore. We organized this hike well in advance, and I specifically asked my friends to choose a path that wouldn’t be too difficult. They mercifully chose Dragon’s Back. One of the most, if not the most, popular treks in Hong Kong.

I went up with my friends from the Global Shapers Hong Kong hub , and we had a leisurely trek (3-hours, 6km) up to this stunning view.

With views like this, sometimes you just forget you are in Hong Kong.

Over the last month pursuing the 50km goal; across my hikes and runs, I managed to cover 101.17km.

You can see there was a bit of a mad dash (hehe) towards the end to make sure I hit 100km.

I am not going to lie, I am personally very proud of myself for being able to accomplish this.

As to the idea that increased physical activity outside has positive benefits to your mental health and productivity; I totally buy into it. During this entire month I’ve felt mentally lighter. Energized to take on the day’s challenges without missing a beat. I even got the occasional jolt of inspiration as I was out on my runs. The majority of this post was even written immediately after one of my runs.

Beyond February, and even without the motivation of a “challenge” I am hoping to hold on this habit of being more physically active outside. My running and jumping won’t be confined to video games anymore.

I would highly encourage everyone to go outside, and move it!

With all of the running, hiking, and physical activity; this post had a working title of “My Friends Are Trying to Kill Me”. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

Forget Facebook

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Social media censorship has been a hot topic as of late. Politicians have been banned by social media platforms and whole websites being de-platformed by their hosting providers . The power that a select few internet companies possess has taken center stage in our social discourse.

Do these companies have too much unfettered power? Should they have the unilateral authority to de-platform individuals from their communities? Should they be more heavily regulated? Perhaps broken up?

I do not have the answer to these questions. And I think that is a good thing. Because these are big questions. And it should take the entirety of society to have that discussion. But a pre-requisite for that discussion to happen is for everyone to be informed. Unfortunately Facebook has chosen ignorance over information. At least in Australia.

Last week, Facebook rolled out a change that blocked all news sources from being posted on its platform , affecting over 25 million Australians. 40% of whom use Facebook as a source for news .

Facebook unleashes the nuclear option in Australia: The company just announced it will block Australian news publishers and Australian users of Facebook from posting, viewing or sharing any news content whatsoever
— Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) February 17, 2021

This censorship of news outlets on its platform is Facebook’s response to the News Media Bargaining Code put forward by the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) that would have required it to pay for news posted on its platform.

I won’t get into the merits of the proposed regulation. But Facebook’s reaction to it is irresponsible at best, and outright malicious at worst. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Facebook is using its dominance in the market to get what it wants, regardless of consequences. Behaving like a petulant child throwing a tantrum because they didn’t get their way.

But this behavior shouldn’t be surprising. In the entirety of its existence Facebook has been able to skirt responsibility for its actions. Rarely being held accountable by consumers, and even more rarely by regulators. Facebook behaves like it can do whatever it wants and get away with it. Remember Cambridge Analytica ? The 50 million-user security breach ? Or when they were found to be conducting psychological experiments on their users ?

Facebook has an astonishing amount of staying-power. They have been able to go from scandal-to-scandal and still retain the position of being the dominant social media network in the world. Perhaps that is a testament to how effective their algorithm is in feeding people content they want to see. Or perhaps it is the sheer dominant-player advantage that they have accumulated over all these years.

For my money, I think it is more of the latter. Take a look at a list of every other major social media application. More often than not Facebook either bought it or made a serious attempt to.

Twitter - 2008, attempted acquisition
Instagram - 2012, purchased for USD 1 billion
Snapchat - 2013, attempted acquisition
WhatsApp - 2014, purchased for USD 19 billion
LinkedIn - 2016, attempted acquisition.
TikTok (formerly Musical.ly) - 2016, attempted acquisition

With a market valuation north of USD 700 billion and close to 70% of the global social media market share, Facebook has a lot of weight to throw around. And they do so with a scary-level of efficacy. Essentially buying up anything that could even remotely pose as a threat¹. Or dedicating significant-resources towards cloning the value proposition of companies they couldn’t².

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Social Media Market Share

Facebook is huge, powerful, but worse of all, fickle. If it can just decide – by itself – that its willing to cut off 25 million people from news sources on it’s platform and then just does it. That is genuinely scary.

Perhaps it is time to quite Facebook for good. But it is definitely time to hold them to account.

They bought WhatsApp for USD 19 billion. A company that was making a net loss of USD 232.5 million at the time . ↩︎
Instagram stories is a clear clone of Snapchat. ↩︎

RSS Readers

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Lately I have been trying to stay on top of the news more. Despite 2020 being “the year everyone stayed put” a lot still happened. And I have been frankly embarrassed at myself for not being able to keep up more with what’s going on in the world. I would read the occasional headline on the South China Morning Post or browse through Reddit’s top page. But that has only produced an opinion that is wide but not deep, and a far call from being fully informed.

This came to a head with the recent controversy over WhatsApp’s new privacy policy where I had only managed to scratch the surface of the issue and had not really dug deep enough to fully appreciate the significance of the shift. It took a friend of mine, who reads far more news than I do, to explain to me just how impactful this new privacy policy could be, and how I was wrong to make light of this issue¹. As a self-proclaimed technologist this was more than embarrassing. So I committed to being better. I needed to read the news more.

But doing something like that is often times easier said than done. The news cycle in the 21st century is fast. And it comes from all multitude of different directions and outlets. Each outlet having its own website that I would have to navigate, and it has these “personal algorithms” that they use to serve you the news that it thinks you want to see. All of which only perpetuates the problem of echo-chambers. No thanks.

What I wanted was one place that had all the news that I needed to read, sorted either based on recency or (ideally) relevance. I imagine that this is what many others look for as well, and can be used to explain the popularity of social media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.). The sheer convenience of having everything in one place is hard to beat.

But I didn’t want to use social media. I want out of the echo-chamber. I want to from as close to the source as possible. So what is the best way out of this? And that’s when I remembered about RSS.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) , is a standardized format websites can post their content on that allows applications to pull and display on feeds². Websites could post snippets of their articles on their RSS feed with a link to the whole thing, or they could just post the entire article to the feed. First introduced in 1999, RSS was quite popular for a time (I remember my Dad fiddling with his RSS feeds to get them just right). But they’ve fallen to the wayside with the popularity of social media feeds.

RSS has been really useful in helping me stay informed in the last month I have been using it. I found an open-source RSS reader, FreshRSS , that I am able to host on my homelab . And I have loaded it up with as many RSS feeds from reputable news sources as I could find, sorting them by territory.

To my surprise, the majority of the English-language news sources here in Hong Kong support RSS.

My Hong Kong RSS news feed as of February 3, 2021

So now rather than having to go to multiple different websites, having to grapple with their interfaces, and sorting through what I’ve read or not read, etc. I can just open up my RSS feed, scroll through the headlines and click the articles that interest me. And once I’ve read through the article, my FreshRSS marks them as read and hides them.

Not only have I now been able to keep up with the news better, I’ve also had the opportunity to read more hobbyist and personal blogs. Keeping up with what’s going on in the Linux world , Dungeons & Dragons blogs , or what Bill Gates is up to offers a refreshing break from the (often bleak) news.

Despite RSS being “old tech”, I think that it still has a lot to offer. There is a reason that many modern websites still support the format. It helps us stay informed in a convenient way. If you want to give RSS readers a shot you don’t even have to self-host your own RSS reader. Here is a list of the top RSS readers you could consider .

And if you are going to give using an RSS reader a shot, then maybe you could even add this blog’s feed to it 😉.

I knew that WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, so I didn’t think that letting Facebook access that information was so bad. But I failed to account for the meta data that WhatsApp collects. When, to whom, and how frequently you send messages to a contact, all that information would be shared with Facebook. ↩︎
Technically speaking, websites would post their content in something like an xml or atom format. Which readers would regularly parse to pull information for their feeds. ↩︎

Use a Password Manager

Sun, 24 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you are anything like me you have a lot of accounts to keep track of. Email. Social Media. Finance. Work. The list is endless. Each of these accounts all do different things. But despite those differences they all share one thing, you want to keep them secure. You want to make sure that only you have access to these accounts.

Typically the best way to secure your account is to make sure that you have a good password. Ideally across your different accounts your passwords should be:

NOT password12345 (or any other of the most common passwords )
Different for each account
A decent length (at least 8 characters long)
Complicated (using lowercase, uppercase, numbers, and special characters)
Bonus: Random

But following these recommendations poses a problem. If you have so many accounts and each account needs to have a different complicated password, how do you remember them all? This is where a password manager becomes very helpful.

What is a password manager?

As the name suggests, a password manager is a software or service that keeps track of your passwords for you. It accomplishes this by helping you document what your password is for each individual account. And it keeps these records in a secure manner behind a “master password”.

A password manager allows you to maintain complex, random, and different passwords for each of your accounts without fear of ever forgetting what those passwords are. And all you have to remember is the master password that you need to access the manager.

Another way of thinking about it is that your account passwords are your “treasure”. They are precious and should only be accessible to you. Your master password is the “key” that you use to unlock the chest to get to the treasure. Only you know the key, so only you can access your passwords.

Screenshot example of LastPass

Here’s an example. Let’s say that you have taken the plunge and adopted a policy of using a password manager. Each of your account passwords is now a 16-character long string of random characters, all of them are different. And you want to log into your Reddit account. In order to get your Reddit password you open up your password manager and type in the master password (the one password you need to remember!). You look for your Reddit password and simply copy-paste it into the login page. And you’re done!

Why use a password manager?

Because it is secure. The strength of a password manager is that it allows you to use different random passwords for each of your accounts. In doing so you are able to quarantine an account if the password for that specific account is compromised.

Let’s assume that you use the same password for all of your accounts (which you really shouldn’t!). You use P@55w0rd for everything. Facebook, Twitter, GMail, Bank Accounts, etc. And then Facebook gets hacked or they made a mistake and left passwords unencrypted (which has happened ). Now your password to not only Facebook is compromised, but all your other accounts as well.

But if you used different passwords for each of your accounts, at the very least your problems would only be limited to Facebook.

But all my passwords are different! I have a formula!

Yes, password formulas are a trick to make different passwords easier to remember. But as experience has shown us they are not particularly adept at fending off would-be hackers .

I can just write down all my different passwords in a notebook

You could. But then the longevity of your passwords would only be as good as how well you can take care (and not lose) that notebook. Not to mention that your security is only as good as how well you can keep that notebook hidden from prying eyes or a stray photo camera. Not to mention the inconvenience of having to (1) carry that notebook wherever you go and (2) visually copy a hand-written password on a notebook to a computer each time.

A password manager is ideal because while the manager itself is accessible on a computer, it is locked by your master password (which only you should know). And that it can be accessible so long as you have your computer or phone.

And if you have a complex enough password it can become nigh-impossible for a hacker to ever access your account. Modern cryptography (the study of securing information) has reached a point wherein the tools used to protect passwords are close to unbreakable. When trying to “hack” an account, criminals (bad actors) no longer target the software, but instead engage in activities such as social engineering or phishing. If someone wants to hack into your account their best means of accomplishing this would be to either trick you into revealing your password or trying to guess it outright.

How secure are complicated passwords?

A password is only as secure as the number of times it would take to guess it. If a bad actor wanted to gain access to your account via your password and they were unsuccessful in tricking you into revealing it, then their only recourse would be to try and “brute force” their way into your account. Randomly guessing different passwords until they found the right one.

Brute force tactics are made possible by high-speed computers. A modern desktop computer is capable of guessing 588,235 passwords per second ¹. Bad actors could also string together a network of thousands of computers to work on a single job to increase efficiency. They could for example create a botnet of 100,000 computers to increase the number of guesses by that multiple to 58.8 billion guesses a second.

A password is only able to hold off such a brute force attack if it is sufficiently complex. There are two factors that go into a password’s complexity, its length and the character set used. A password’s length determines how many characters make up the password. While the character set determines how varied those characters are. Different character sets can range from the inclusion of lowercase characters abcde, to uppercase characters ABCDE, numbers 012345, to special symbols !@#$%^.

Mathematically the number of possible password combinations for a given length and number of available characters is: $$ combinations = {x^{y}} $$

where: $$ x = \text{number of possible characters} $$ $$ y = \text{length of the password} $$

So for example if you were to have a simple password that was 9 characters long and only consisted of numbers (0-9), you would have a password that could have close to 1 billion different possible combinations ($ 10^9 $). A simple computer given enough guesses could find that password in 15 minutes².

Whereas if you had a more complex password that was 12 characters long and included numbers, symbols, uppercase, and lowercase characters (62 possible characters), that password would have 3 sextillion possible combinations ($ 62^{12} $). A simple computer would take well over 86 million years³ to guess that password. A supercomputer bot-net would take 869 years⁴.

For more details on the math, check out this write-up from a user on Quora. As well as this blog post .

So what does this mean for me?

Use a password manager. It is costly enough to lose an account because it has been compromised. It would be catastrophic if all of your other accounts were lost as well because they shared a common password. There is no reason why you shouldn’t at least consider using some form of password manager. In fact, here is a list of password managers you could consider.

There is a fair mix of online and offline password managers here, as well as free vs. paid.

Which password manager do I use?

The option I have been using for the last 2 years has been KeePass . It is a free open source password manager. It works by storing all of my passwords on an encrypted file that I can save on my computer. You need to install the KeePass program into your computer, but after that it works completely offline. All data is stored on my computer and is not stored on any other external third-party databases.

For added convenience I save my encrypted KeePass file on my file server so I can easily access it across my different devices. While KeePass does take some getting used-to, I can highly recommend it. I can’t imagine how I would handle my plethora of passwords without it.

Bonus: Whenever you have the option, always enable Two-Factor authentication !

Alternatively, 0.0000017 seconds to calculate one password ↩︎
$ \dfrac{0.0000017*{10^9}}{2}*60 $, where we assume that the system has found the password after it guesses 50% of the possible passwords. ↩︎
$ \dfrac{0.0000017*{62^{12}}}{2}*60 $, where we assume that the system has found the password after it guesses 50% of the possible passwords. ↩︎
$ \dfrac{\dfrac{0.0000017*{62^{12}}}{2}*60}{100,000} $, same assumption as above. And assuming that a bot-net supercomputer is 100,000 times more powerful than a regular desktop. ↩︎

The Age of 5G

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A friend of mine recently called asking for my help with something. Their long time roommate was moving out and they needed advice choosing a new home internet plan (their current contract was under their roommate’s name). My friend was unsure on what different options they had and knowing me to be a huge nerd for this type of thing, decided to seek my opinion on the matter. I knew that my friend was less than happy with their current internet plan’s performance, so I suggested that this was the perfect opportunity for an upgrade. Promising to help them through the process of sifting and picking through the different options and helping out with setting it up.

But unfortunately for my friend, after a bit of canvassing for different options we found out that their building was far too old, and thus did not have any proper fiber-optic or broadband wiring for conventional home internet plans. However, one telecommunications company that we canvassed suggested an alternative to “wired connections”. They suggested that we consider a 5G internet plan.

What is 5G?

5G has been a headliner topic lately. From promises of revolutionizing the technology industry to debunked conspiracy theories that it caused COVID-19 , there is no shortage of news about this new technology. In technical terms, 5G is the fifth generation standard in cellular broadband communication technology utilizing two sets of frequency bands (450 MHz to 6 GHz and 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz). Using these higher frequency bands 5G is able to provide vastly faster internet upload and download speeds compared to 4G (the previous iteration), with the potential to achieve theoretical maximums of 20 Gbps (Gigabits per second) download and 10 Gbps upload.

It is because of that higher network performance that 5G is seen to be revolutionary. The promise of a high-speed low-latency “Internet of Things” (IoT) network over a large geographical area could have a multitude of different impactful applications. Not to mention the possible implications on projects such as self-driving cars.

But for the average consumer, 5G also holds the promise of another revolution. Upturning the status quo on home internet plans.

5G at home

Internet access is a very infrastructure-heavy endeavor. For a building to have access to the internet, traditional methods call for an internet service provider (ISP) to lay cable to connect that building to their network. They would then have to wire up the entire building so that each unit would have their own dedicated port to connect to that network. In this traditional method cables would preferably be laid down in an unobtrusive way. This means they would either need to be kept underground and built into a building’s walls. This all culminates into a very labor and cost-intensive process.

A simplified ISP network (traditional wiring)

5G has the potential to upset that paradigm. Since 5G data speeds are comparable to a wired fiber-optic internet connection, ISPs have realized that rather than invest in costly projects to connect individual buildings and units to the internet through wired-cables, they can instead promote 5G as a viable alternative. In a 5G arrangement the only infrastructure an ISP needs to consider is setting up the various antennas to broadcast a 5G signal. They would then sell 5G routers to users, which would connect to the network through the wireless cellular signal (instead of wires).

A simplified ISP network (5G)

Home internet provided through a cellular network wasn’t a concept that was introduced by 5G, but only made more viable because of it. Prior to 5G the closest equivalent consumers had access to were the pocket WiFi “eggs” that could be used to “hotspot” an internet connection. These would use the 4G broadband connection and would only have a real-world connection speed of up to 100 Mbps . The faster connection speeds offered by 5G has now made home internet provided by a cellular network more viable.

Pocket WiFi 'eggs'

Challenges for 5G

The roll-out of 5G will not be without its own challenges. Since 5G employs a higher frequency band their effective range is much shorter compared to 4G. Which means that telecommunications companies will have to invest in building more 5G antennas to provide adequate coverage over a wider geographic area.

5G Antenna

Full 5G coverage in Hong Kong still leaves a lot to be desired. nperf.com tracks 5G network availability within the city, and unless you live in a high-traffic location, chances are that you still do not have full 5G coverage and thus can not enjoy full 5G speeds.

5G Coverage of Hong Kong from nperf.com

This limited geographic coverage is one of the major obstacles that prevent 5G from seeing widespread adoption. But this will hopefully be something that will soon be rectified as companies invest more in building out their 5G networks.

Another major challenge that stands in the way of 5G adoption is its limited track record. While on paper 5G looks like a very attractive value proposition, it will need to stand up to real-world scrutiny and use cases before it can be accepted into the mainstream. It will need to prove that it can indeed deliver promised speeds and reliability over traditional wired cabling. For niche cases like my friend whose building is too old to support such traditional methods, 5G is a viable alternative to adopt now. But for individuals like myself who host a homelab that heavily relies on a stable internet connection, the 5G experience still requires additional study.

Colonizing the Red Planet

Mon, 09 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The evening’s festivities have concluded. It is the dead of night, and you are walking back home. The sky is clear, and you decide to look up. There’s the moon, tranquil and calming as ever, illuminating your path with it’s light. And then, there’s something else. It’s small, and you never really noticed it before, or maybe you just never gave it much thought. But it’s there. A small red dot in the dark evening sky. Mars.

The red planet, and our planetary neighbor, Mars has been the subject of much discussion in recent years. In no small part to a certain billionaire’s stated obsession of getting there . Despite his, eccentricities, it is a valid goal however. Humans are aspirational. We have always been dedicated to the idea of “what if?” and pushing the boundaries of what is possible. It’s one of our species’ most inspiring traits. And for many, building a martian settlement is the next challenge for us to overcome. To colonize mars, to gain access to its resources , serve as a catalyst for future technological innovation, and (perhaps most importantly) turn the human race into space-faring civilization. Mars is only a stepping stone.

But before we can even think about reaping the benefits of a settlement on Mars, we still need to get there. However, the challenges don’t just stop at transporting people, we also have to think about feeding everyone, once we get there.

To understand how a settlement can be established on Mars, it helps to look back at history, and see how similar settlements were established in the “new world” by European colonizers. The Kurzgesagt youtube channel made a video that made this comparison (between space and colonial exploration). They broke up the establishment of a settlement into three phases.

Phase	Description
Phase 1	Exploration
Phase 2	Initial settlements
Phase 3	Thriving colonies

In a nutshell, Phase 1 was about being able to chart out, and actually travel to the target land (or planet). In Phase 2, you then start to build up initial settlements. These settlements will attempt to produce what is necessary for their own survival. But they will still need support from their motherland. And then Phase 3, wherein the settlement manages to become self-sufficient, and starts sending wealth back towards the motherland.

For our eventual settlement of Mars, we are still in the process of Phase 1, but it is Phase 2 that could prove to be the ultimate challenge. For the one simple reason, that it is very difficult to grow food on Mars.

Contrary to what we may have seen on The Martian, growing potatoes on Mars isn’t as easy as adding poop to Martian soil. There are major obstacles to food growth, primarily they involve (1) an inhospitable atmosphere, (2) Martian soil devoid of nutrients, and (3) weak gravity (which negatively affects the plant growing process). Growing food on Mars is proving to be such a huge problem, that one scientist had even commented that it would be more energy efficient to simply transport food from Earth to Mars. Which, at its shortest, is a distance of at least 62.07 million kilometers, which only occurs once every two years .

Unfortunately, colonizing Mars is not as easy outside of the movies. Source: The Martian

The difficulty and near impossibility of growing food on Mars poses a challenge that humans have never really encountered in previous colonization attempts in history. As the Kurzgesagt channel suggested, once settlers arrive, and start Phase 2 of the colonial process, while the majority of colonies would fail, some would eventually succeed in building thriving settlements because they would eventually become self-sufficient food producers ¹. This was in no small part because the land that they were colonizing, was a fertile, bountiful, and already capable of producing it’s own food (albeit not quite to European tastes). And these are note exactly similar conditions to what we see on Mars.

However, despite the challenges, not all hope is lost. Work is already being done to research means by which we can start to grow food on the red planet. Researchers are already identifying vegetables that would thrive on Mars². Fields such as astrobiology are now focusing their efforts on identifying means by which humans can live on non-Earth planets.

The story of the human race has been one of overcoming hardship. Repeatedly we have faced challenges, roadblocks, and threats that make us question or own capability. But every time, we have said “No, we can overcome this.” And the journey of reaching Mars will be no different. We can overcome this, and we will.

This is part of my Random Writing Rodeo challenge. The topic was astronomy.

The ability for New World settlements to accomplish self-sufficiency was due in large-part to the practice of indentured servitude and slavery. It goes without saying that these practices are abhorrent, and have no place in a plant-spanning human civilization. The human race will settle Mars without the need to resorting to such barbarism. ↩︎
dandelions, microgreens, lettuce, arugula, spinach, peas, garlic, kale and onions. ↩︎

Editorial Management

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s funny how you manage to pick up interesting skills in the unlikeliest places. More so than any class, online course, or mentorship program, the website I created for the Glowing Fool is probably the biggest contributor to many of my most marketable skills today. It served as a very practical introduction into network administration which spawned my many homelab projects , as well as a return to form for much of my writing . But perhaps most useful of all is that this website has given me ample opportunity to learn a bit more on how to manage people.

My initial vision for the Glowing Fool website was two-fold. It was to serve as a source of information for anyone interested in the initiative. If someone was looking for an opportunity to play Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) in Hong Kong, this website would serve as a beacon for those individuals to find us (and learn a little bit more about what we were doing). But the website also served the secondary purpose of being a repository of tips, tricks, and insights on how to play/run/enjoy D&D games. And this would come in the form of the various blog posts that have come to populate the website.

At first these blog posts were almost exclusively written by me. But there is strength in diversity, and I knew that if this blog was to be successful, it needed different voices, not just my own. So I went to work recruiting my friends to contribute content to the Glowing Fool. Thus, I went from being the sole writer for this blog, to it’s editor. And with it, a new host of challenges.

The Glowing Fool wouldn't be where it is today without the support of some awesome people.

The Glowing Fool is not a business, it’s a passion project of mine, something I do on top of my professional career. So to my friends, writing for the website is not so much a job or obligation, as it is a personal favor to me (and perhaps an outlet for their own creative energy). So how do you “manage” this type of arrangement?

I’ve found that the most pleasant (and effective) experience getting my friends to contribute to the website, always involved these three things:

Be clear about what you want.
Where do they fit in the story?
Set deadlines.

We are going to take a look at each in turn. And while these are in the context of writing contributions for a website, I don’t see why they can’t be applied to other types of volunteer activities as well.

Be clear about what you want.

When I’m asking a friend if they would be interested in contributing to the Glowing Fool blog, the absolute worst thing I can do is simply ask “Hi friend! Would you be interested in writing for the blog?” This is because such a simple open-ended (and vague) request fails to properly convey what it is I want from them, and thus fails to give them an idea of how much time and effort helping me would entail.

I have found that whenever I for assistance, it pays to be as specific as possible. This includes laying out exactly what I want them to do, and what I want to achieve. In the context of the Glowing Fool website blog entries this meant coming to them with:

The exact topic that I feel they would be able to write about.
The approximate length of the article itself.
Why I felt they would be a good authority for writing such an article.

The reason for doing this is so that I can make it as clear as possible to my contributors what my expectations are, and it helps them understand exactly what kind of commitment they are making. Clear expectations and goals also makes it easier for my contributors to produce their deliverables.

Clearly communicated expectations is critical. Image Source: Wikimedia

A good example of clear expectations on the Glowing Fool website is the Player Profiles series. Each time I reached out to a friend to contribute a profile, I made it clear that the purpose of the post was for readers to see that D&D players can come from all walks of life. The primary focus would be on highlighting the diverse background of the contributors, as well as showing the different ways D&D can be enjoyed. And as part of the “ask” for writing an entry, I gave them a clear format for the article (with the additional request that each article be approximately 700 words.):

Tell us about yourself, what’s your background?
Tell us about your D&D character.
Why do you play D&D?

Communicating expectations and setting clear goals and deliverables has the ability to make every project easier to accomplish.

Where do they fit in the story?

In D&D, the story of the game can go in any number of different directions. These are all dictated by the players and what they contribute to the story. But the Dungeon Master (DM) should at least have some idea of what loose themes they want to achieve as the story unfolds. The same could be said in editing a website. Contributors offer their own flavor of writing, their own perspectives, opinions, and experiences. And this all coalescences in the article they provide. But a good editor (like a good DM) should be able to weave these different contributions into a compelling story across the different entries in the website.

One way of accomplishing this in D&D is for the DM to share with their players the general idea of what kind of story they want to tell. Doing so gives the players the necessary information to weave their characters’ stories in any way they want, but also helps them help the DM keep the story on track.

As an editor of a website, I can do the same thing by telling my writers what larger goal I want to accomplish with their articles. One example of this are a pair of posts that we recently published on the website, “What a DM looks for in a Good Player” and “What Players Look for in a Good DM” . These two posts were written by two different authors independently. But when I had first reached out to each of them, along with laying out what kind of article I wanted, I also told them that an “inverse” article would be published at around the same time. If you read these two articles, they each highlight their respective author’s individual style, but still accomplish the shared goal of a holistic set of posts.

It is always important to emphasize why the work someone is doing is important. By sharing the “story” (you could also read it as “strategy”) behind their work, it serves the dual benefit of letting them know the significance of their contribution, as well as let them cater it to best meet your needs.

Set deadlines.

“Would you be able to give me a draft of your article within the next 2-weeks?” Believe it or not, but the inclusion of this request whenever I ask a friend to contribute to the website is often times the difference between having an article to post or not. Whenever I ask friends to contribute a post to the Glowing Fool website I will often set the arbitrary deadline of 2-weeks. Not necessarily because I need to post the article by then, but just so that there is a deadline for it’s own sake.

From my experience, the inclusion of a deadline helps make the request concrete. Rather than being some ephemeral idea, a task to eventually do, the deadline makes it clear that the task should be done by this time. And that usually drives action and initiative so that the article may actually be written.

Bonus: Show gratitude.

Regardless of what it is your are doing, it is always a good idea to show gratitude and appreciation to the people who have helped you. Acknowledge that the work that went into helping you must not have been easy for them. They took time out of their busy schedules to help, and any show of appreciation will certainly go a long way. And besides, keeping good relationships with the people who can help you will certainly make them more willing to help in the future. 😉

One of the ways I showed gratitude was commissioning someone to draw my friends' characters.

Picture Perfect

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Urban. Sleek. Metropolitan. These are the words that often come to mind whenever we think of Hong Kong. But that is only one of this city’s many faces. Hong Kong is also home to picturesque landscapes, beautiful beaches, and unbridled nature to those willing to seek them out.

Admittedly, despite my years here, this was a side of Hong Kong that I’ve only recently been acquainted with. It was introduced to me by my fellow Shapers from the Global Shapers Community Hong Kong hub . As means of escape from the strict confines of the city, we decided that a group hike was the perfect way to stretch our legs, get some fresh air, and to commune with nature and each other. Thankfully a few of the Shapers were already experienced hikers, and were very familiar with the hiking paths. They chose a relatively easy trail for us to take for this particular hike (in consideration of less experienced outdoors-people like me).

It is almost hard to believe that this is Hong Kong

Our chosen path started in the Sai Wan Pavilion in Sai Kung, and had us follow the Maclehose Trail to the east. During the hike we managed to see the eastern rivers, hills, and islands of Hong Kong. It was a great experience to be able to see the more natural part of this city. But to a certain extent, it was also completely unbelievable. And more often than not, I caught myself being completely flabbergasted at everything I saw. It was the shear beauty of it, and the idea that all of this was just right next door. Along the trail, we had come across a running freshwater stream, and I lost myself just looking at it. Admiring the clarity of the water, the smooth rocks beneath, and the schools of tiny fish that swam within.

I am unashamed to say that the reason I don’t have many pictures to share, is because I quite literally forgot to take any because I was admiring everything so much.

The Global Shapers Community: Hong Kong hub hike to Ham Tin Beach

Our hiking trail ended with us arriving at Ham Tin Beach. All told, the hike was about 5 km long and took us 2 hours to complete. Our efforts were rewarded with a hearty lunch, and a wonderful afternoon laying in the pristine white sands of the beach, as we were tucked away in a little paradise of our own.

A wonderful reward sight after 2 hours of walking

It’s sights like these that make you forget where you are. As our day came to an end, we opted to take the speed boat back to Sai Kung. And suffice it to say that the boat was another experience in of itself (who needs Ocean Park when boat trips like those exist).

After the hike, I was actually surprised to learn that contrary to what you may think, nature comprises the vast vast majority of Hong Kong. The government reports that only 25% of Hong Kong’s land is developed. With an additional 40% of Hong Kong’s total land being some form of country park or natural reserve.

And that because of this, Hong Kong’s position is very unique. Despite being a large metropolitan city, there is easy access to hiking trails. And I’ve only realized this recently, but this is a luxury that not many other cities can make a claim to. The ability to get on a MTR/bus/taxi (or even walk) and be at a hiking trail within 30-minutes to an hour, do a hike, and then be back by mid-afternoon, that is not something you can do in most other places. And it is because of this easy access to hiking trails that an interesting “hiking culture” has developed within Hong Kong. To the point that in a city of 7.5 million there were over 13.3 million hikes done in a year .

This entire experience served to show me that while you can live somewhere for close to 9 years, there will always still be pleasant surprises to be found. Such is the spice of life. Hong Kong may be a prime example of an urban jungle, but it is certainly also a jungle in the more literal sense of the word. And that regardless of where you find its beauty, either in the city center or in its natural landscapes, Hong Kong is certainly picture perfect.

Come and see the other side of Hong Kong!

This is part of my Random Writing Rodeo challenge. The topic was postcards.

Puppet Education

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

When I had first conceived of the idea for the Random Writing Rodeo my initial though process behind its use was as motivation to learn something new. And this certainly became my immediate reality when the random draw produced puppets as the first topic for me to write about.

Admittedly, I had no prior knowledge about puppets. I knew of stop-motion movies like “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, as well as ventriloquists such as Jeff Dunham. Both of which would comfortably fit within the topic of puppets. Ultimately however, it was a random search on YouTube that produced the true inspiration for this particular entry. As the results introduced me to a show that is, appropriately enough, entitled “Puppet History”.

The premise of the show is simple enough. It is “a winding look at yet another chapter in the heavy, heavy book we call history.” Simply put, prior to the show, “the Professor” (the main character of the show, and a puppet) would conduct deep research into a very specific event/person/point of interest in history. And then he (it? they?) would present this research to two guests whom are coming in “cold” (i.e. no prior knowledge of what is going to be discussed). The show would then feature the guests slowly learning about what the Professor has researched, offering their own colorful commentary, and competing for “history points” (for the title of “history master”) by answering questions throughout.

Personally, I’ve found this series to be highly entertaining, binging the entire backlog of episodes within a week. The historical research is well-done, and the guests’ genuine surprise to the (often crazy) real-world events mimic my own. History is full of people doing crazy things. This is in stark contrast to the “boring” and “dusty” impression I had of history while in school. Puppet History brings significant value to the table, since it makes subjects like history become more accessible. By making it entertaining, they are able to introduce a topic that would otherwise be ignored by the general population.

It is shows and educational content like these that make me continue to think that we do need to re-conceptualize our idea of education away from the “standard classroom” format we’ve grown so used to. Research has already shown that flipped classrooms can be more effective than traditional ones, since they can produce a higher level of commitment and satisfaction from students. By making the educational content more enjoyable to consume, or more interactive, it’s easy to see how this can produce a higher level of engagement from students.

Source: Wikimedia

And this is also consistent with my own experiences. As I’m working towards my professional certificate in IT Automation on Coursera , I have found that since the content is served in tiny and digestible segments, I can watch on my own time and at my own pace, which has been very helpful. It is also further supported by the fact that Google (the course creator) went to great lengths to make their videos very engaging and “punny”. What has been most impactful with the “Coursera-model” is that it allows for failure. In a traditional classroom, students fear failure. They are afraid of getting a low score in a quiz since it would serve as a permanent negative mark on their final score. To them, failure is the end result, there is no coming back from it.

But in Coursera (or any student-led environment), failure isn’t the end, it isn’t feared. In fact, it’s encouraged. Because as real-life has shown us, we learn from failure. This is exhibited perfectly in the way Coursera handle’s quizzes and graded assessments. They serve as a challenge to the student, an opportunity to apply what they’ve learned. If they get the answers correct, great! They may move on. But if they get it wrong, they’re given a hint as to what they did incorrectly, and are encouraged to try again, this time with a new approach. And they are not burdened by a permanent blemish on their record.

There is still a lot that can be done when it comes to the future of education. Thankfully, it does seem like significant progress is being made in this direction . And while this work is great, I am sure that the innovation of education can be pushed in so many more other ways. And who knows, perhaps in the future, we will all be taught by fuzzy little puppet professors.

Puppet History - The Professor by: Cassandra Ng

This is part of my Random Writing Rodeo challenge. The topic was puppets.

The Random Writing Rodeo

Fri, 25 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I recently met up with a new friend for dinner. During the course of the conversation they confessed that they were very passionate about Philosophy. They were intrigued about the “realism” and “logic” of the world, and how it operated. They talked about various different philosophers, their theories, and perspectives about how to perceive the world. As my friend put it, “this is what I think about while on the bus.” Admittedly, during this entire conversation, I was a bit lost. Philosophy is not my strong suit. Nevertheless, I was fascinated by what my friend had to share. Towards the end of the night, I was probably no more enlightened than when it began, but I did start thinking about how refreshing it was to be exposed to something completely different and gain some new information on a completely unknown domain.

At the same time, I have been also thinking about what to do about this blog. Writing is a muscle, and like any muscle it needs to be exercised to develop. I want to write more, and while I occasionally have a good idea about a post, more often than not, I am faced with writer’s block.

That’s when I realized that this blog could be a means of exploring new domains. Enter the Random Writing Rodeo. A challenge to myself to both learn something new, and write more.

The premise: Identify a series of random topics , and use those as springboards for blog posts. This should then give me motivation to research these new topics, try new experiences, or reflect on my previous experiences from a new perspective. Then use that newfound perspective to write something interesting, and worth posting.

Rules:

Make a blog entry about a random topic every 2 weeks.
Each entry should be a minimum of 700 words long.
The entry doesn’t necessarily have to be about the topic itself, just inspired from it.

Topics:

Week	Topic	Post Date
1	puppets	October 12, 2020
2	postcards	October 26, 2020
3	astronomy	November 9, 2020
4	balloons	November 23, 2020
5	elephants	December 7, 2020

As a pilot for this idea, I’m going to try and commit to 5 bi-weekly posts. I am hoping that by publishing all of this, I can hold myself accountable to this experiment I’ve conjured up for myself (and the faint hope that if anyone else wanted to try, they would have a guide to do so).

Shaping our Future Together

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I have had the pleasure of being part of the Global Shapers Community for the last two years. And during this time, it has been an a lot of fun. There is no shortage of colorful characters here in the Hong Kong hub, and together we’ve organized panels, meet the leader sessions, fund raisers, and retreats. Covering topics from sustainability, mental health, asylum seeker-refugees, and basically any other topic in-between. We’ve laughed, cried, and played. And I’ve made friends in this group that I hope will last me for a very very long time.

And unsurprisingly, this extends to the greater community as well. Last month 9,600 Global Shapers from around the world gathered for a 5-day virtual summit, to report, plan, and exchange different ideas on how we can all work towards further improving the state of the world. We heard about the various initiatives covering topics such as Mental Health, COVID-19 response, Diversity and Inclusion, Refugee Empowerment, and Sustainability. This was the first Global Shapers Annual Summit (GSAS), and it was a testament to the power of youth towards making an impact.

Mental Health

Shapers from different hubs are all too aware of the importance of addressing and destigmatizing mental health in our local communities. And this has typically taken the form of separate ad-hoc activities and initiatives started by different hubs. However, this is soon to change. During the GSAS 2020, the Global Shapers Community Mental Health Steering Committee unveiled their plan for a global coordinated effort towards the goal of making it easier to have the conversation about mental health. This plan would involve preparing and releasing peer-reviewed training material on topics such as mental health first aid, destigmatization, and mental health awareness.

Shapers working on a global mental health initiative

This initiative draws heavily on the expertise and experience of Shapers from different hubs, and is serving as an amazing example of how Shapers are able to transcend borders in pursuit of a shared goal.

COVID-19 Response

2020 has not been easy. The world essentially ground to a halt due to COVID-19. Cities went into lockdown, trade and commerce staggered, and we fell into the greatest health crisis in recent memory. As the pandemic continued to shift and burden our local communities, Shapers answered the call for help.

Global Shapers Community COVID-19 KPIs as of September 1, 2020

Reported during the GSAS, across our 431 hubs, Shapers engaged in food and donation drives, volunteer activities, information/education campaigns, and public health outreach programs in our local communities. And continue to do so to this day.

Diversity and Inclusion

With hubs in over 400 cities in 148 countries, the Global Shapers Community pride ourselves in our diversity. But as we are reminded with the “Black Lives Matter” protests, there is still a lot more work that can be done. I am proud to say that the entire Shapers community has shown to be very passionate at pushing diversity and inclusion, not only within our hubs, but within the local communities that we operate in as well. Which is why it was an amazing experience to hear from Sarah Kate Ellis, founder of GLAAD , on the strategies that they employ for their diversity and inclusion campaigns.

Storytelling & messaging are very important in a campaign.

Sarah Kate highlighted the importance of being able to form a cohesive narrative through storytelling. She also highlighted the importance of collaboration within all sectors of society. With the ultimate goal of applying continued and sustained pressure to facilitate positive change.

Refugee Empowerment

In 2018, the Kakuma hub became the first Global Shapers Community hub to be opened within a refugee camp. The Kakuma hub is comprised of intelligent, passionate, and driven young people, whom were unfortunately displaced from their homes due to conflict and instability. But even then, they continue to work tirelessly to improve the lives of the 200,000 other refugees whom also reside within the camp.

During the GSAS they debuted a music video that they co-produced with Yo-Yo Ma, encouraging everyone to practice positive personal hygiene to help fight COVID and flatten the curve.

Sustainability

The GSAS was capped of with a “Meet the Leader” session featuring Former Vice President Al Gore. His initiative, The Climate Reality Project has been a long time supporter of the Global Shapers Community. They have regularly opened up their training sessions for Shapers to participate in. And for the end of the first annual summit, Al Gore himself shared with the Shapers his thoughts on the ongoing fight against climate change.

Former Vice President Al Gore discusses climate change

During the session, he shared with us the challenges that we are facing, and the need for more urgent and aggressive measures to combat climate change. But he also struck a very optimistic tone about the direction the world was going in. He highlighted how renewable energy was becoming more affordable, and is increasingly becoming a job creator. He talked about how businesses are slowly realizing that it is not only responsible to be sustainable, but profitable as well.

These are the highlights from the GSAS. It was a great experience to be able to interact with Shapers from around the world. While it is not a perfect substitute for true face-to-face interaction, the variety of topics that we covered, the initiatives discussed, and the sheer calibre of speakers more than made up for it.

Author’s Note: This article originally appeared in the Global Shapers Hong Kong Hub Medium page .

Picking up Something New

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A friend of mine recently shared this article . Google has started offering multiple online “Career Certificate” programs on Coursera, and has stated that they will “consider [the] new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree.” This wasn’t all too surprising. Having done several technical online courses myself (learning AWS, Machine Learning, ElasticSearch), I personally saw that online courses can be very effective in helping people acquire additional technical and software skills.

So with my curiosity piqued, I decided to look through what certifications Google had to offer. Currently, it seems that the choices are an IT Support Professional Certificate and an IT Automation with Python Certificate .

While the IT Support course was interesting, looking through the syllabus, it did seem like the majority of the content were things that I already knew, or practiced (things I picked up building my homelab ). The other course, IT Python automation, seemed useful. Admittedly, I have a love-hate relationship when it comes to learning Python. Over the last decade, I’ve probably started several different Python courses with the goal of mastering the language. I would make considerable progress each time, but without a project or use-case to motivate me, the course would be left unfinished once the content go more complicated. However, this did leave me with a good basic understanding of how Python worked, to the point that I have been able to come up with some rudimentary scripts for certain tasks. But it was never at a level where I could produce anything overly complicated.

But now that I am managing my own home server network, and I have access to additional compute resources, I thought that perhaps now would be the best time to properly pick up the Python language. My thought process being that once I properly understand Python, I can then take advantage of the plethora of machine learning python modules, and start some interesting projects at home.

So I’ve gone back to learning Python, again, for the nth time. I enrolled in the “IT Automation with Python” course-circuit (taking advantage of Coursera’s free trial). The syllabus comprises of a circuit of six separate courses, each of them 6 to 8-weeks long, starting from a crash course on Python, to solving real-world IT tasks with Python. Up to this point, I’ve managed to breeze through the introduction course to Python, finishing the 6-week coursework in about 4 days (possible only because I learned Python previously). And I’m now starting the second course in the circuit that looks at how Python can be used to interact with different operating systems.

I’m not expecting to be able to finish the subsequent courses at the same rate as the first one. But I am very excited to learn more on what I can do using Python. From past experience, I’ve always been an “object-oriented learner”, I would only really learn something because it related to some goal that I had to achieve. In this case, learning Python at a more in-depth level, the approach is a bit different. I’m not learning it with an explicit goal in mind, but I’m learning it to see what new goals I can set for myself. I am hoping that with each new course that I complete, I can learn a bit more about what can be possible, and then that will lead me to new goals and projects.

Whatever comes out of it, I think it’s going to be an interesting journey, and I wonder what I’m going to be able to do once I come out on the other side.

Homelab

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 12:04:28 +0800

[hom-læb] (n): a laboratory of (usually slightly outdated/second-hand) servers, hosted in the domicile.¹

My personal definition: a very very deep hole I have found myself in.

My homelab diagram. Naming convention inspired by my (slight) obsession with Dungeons & Dragons.

It all started with a cursory interested in Amazon Web Services (AWS). It was something that came up at work as a possible point of interest for us, so I volunteered to look into it. Next thing you know, I’ve suddenly invested time, effort, and money into setting up my own hybrid-home network that includes 4 servers at home, and 1 server on the cloud².

I’m particularly proud of my homelab, because to me, it represents my ability to learn and adapt³. Prior to diving into this rabbit hole, while I considered myself tech-literate, I wouldn’t have ever called myself a technologist. But after repeatedly going through the cycle of (1) wanting to do something cool, (2) learning how to do it, and then (3) actually pulling it off, which is how my homelab was birthed. It just reinforces the idea that I can do anything if I put my mind to it.

The actual lab. With most machines being second-hand PCs.

Most recently though, my homelab has joined in the fight against COVID-19 by participating in the decentralize computing project, Folding@Home .

The /r/homelab subreddit . ↩︎
All used for various fun things like hosting my own Minecraft server, task management, media, git server, and even this website. ↩︎
Albeit, with some help from friends. Thank you Dhesant! 😄 ↩︎