Tuesday 25 December 2018

Seasons' Greetings

Please accept, and/or renew, without obligation, implied or implicit, the best wishes, referred to as this greeting hereafter, for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, non-specific sexuality, celebration of the winter solstice holiday in the northern hemisphere and summer solstice holiday in the southern hemisphere, practised within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your preference, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. This greeting, without implied obligations also extends to cover a financially successful, personally fulfilling, emotionally enchanting and stimulating, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2019, but with due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures or sects, in a world filled with love, peace, joy, harmony, diversity, tolerant, good will, respect and happiness, clean air and plenty of water, less pollution, reduced green house gases, and having regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith and your preference to the choice of blogging software, RSS reader, email system, web browsers, including but not limited to the free Firefox, Chrome and/or Internet Explorer with due considerations of their respective differences to the interpretation and implementation of W3C web standards, computer platform, brand of microprocessor, type of visual display unit, keyboard, mouse or any other pointing device, operating system, including but not limited to singular or a plurality of variations, whether for a fee or free open source, and Internet service provider connected by modem, permanent modem, broadband, or otherwise, or dietary preference of the wishee.

This greeting must not be read if you do not accept the terms and conditions of this greeting. By having read this greeting so far, you have indicated your explicit acknowledgement of accepting this greeting in the aforesaid manners.

This greeting inclusively, exclusively and non-exclusively cover you, your spouse if any, whether same or different gender and/or whether such relationship is legally recognized or illegal in certain jurisdictions, including singularly and plurally, previous, present or future, your children including natural, adopted, by-law or sponsored, dead, alive, or unborn, and/or your parents, related by blood, by-laws, adopted, or sponsored dead or alive. Upon being covered by the greeting of the aforesaid greeting in the same aforesaid manner, those covered wishees will extend the aforesaid greeting to the same relates they have recursively and infinitum.

By accepting this greeting you are bound by these terms:

* This greeting is subject to further clarification or withdrawal.

* This greeting, including but not limited to all its associated tangible and intangible good will and best wishes, is freely transferable, duplicated, distributed, copied and reproduced subject to the conditions below.

* This greeting implies no promise by the wishor to actually implement any of the wishes.

* This greeting may not be enforceable in certain jurisdictions and/or the restrictions herein may not be binding upon certain wishees in certain jurisdictions and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wishor.

* This greeting is warranted to perform as reasonably may be expected within the usual application of good tidings, for a period of one year or until the issuance or automatic renewal of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first.

* The wishor warrants this greeting only for the limited replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wishor.

* Any proprietary rights associated with this greeting, including but not limited to the intellectual and moral rights, publishing rights including but not limited to publishing via the blogosphere, by email, by web sites, on CD and/or any electronic means, the right to perform in private and in public to a small, medium or large group of present or remote audience and or the broadcast rights to transmit, preserve and retransmit by any physical or electronic means are the property of the wishor.

* This manifestation of the greeting, copyleft under GNU license or other open source license similar to GNU license and or Creative Commons when and if such license(s) is/are enforceable in certain jurisdictions, is freely transferable, duplicated, distributed, copied and reproduced provided that any further addition or alternation shall not impose any limitation beyond those implicitly or explicitly expressed this clause.

* Any alteration and addition, including but not limited to the syntactic, semantic, linguistic, artistic, aesthetic, spiritual and material improvements, shall only be made to the original greeting in the same good faith and honour of any reasonable person.

* Any references in this greeting to "the Lord", "Father Christmas", "Our Saviour", "Santa" or any other festive figures, whether actual or fictitious, dead or alive, shall not imply any endorsement by or from them in respect of this greeting, and all proprietary rights in any referenced third party names and images are hereby acknowledged.

* Any names or terms used in this greeting, whether trademarked, copyrighted, copylefted, patented or have been placed in the open source under GNU, Creative Commons or other open source licenses belong to their respective owners and promoters.

* The wishee expressly agrees, by the acceptance of the greeting, that the greeting is accepted and enjoyed at wishee's own risk. Neither the wishor, its affiliates, nor any of their respective employees, previous or current employers, friends, relatives, spouse past, present or future, agents, third party providers or licensor's warrant that the greeting will be uninterrupted or error free; nor do they make any warranty as to the results and effectiveness of the greeting.

* The wishee may not without wishor's prior written approval disclose to any third party the results of any benchmark test of the performance of the greeting.

* The wishee expressly acknowledges and agrees that in order to protect the integrity of certain third party mechanism of enjoying the wishes, the wishor may provide for security related updates that will be automatically downloaded and installed on your holiday itinerary. Such security related updates may impair the movement, enjoyment (and any other activities during your holiday which specifically depends on the said wishes) including disabling your ability to laugh and/or smile, i.e. certain way of enjoying a holiday protected by digital rights management.

* The wisher reserves the right, at any time and from time to time, to update, revise, supplement, and otherwise modify this Agreement and to impose new or additional rules, policies, terms, or conditions on your use of the wishes. Such updates, revisions, supplements, modifications, and additional rules, policies, terms, and conditions (collectively referred to in this Agreement as "Additional Terms") will be effective immediately and incorporated into this Agreement. The wishee's continued enjoyment of the wishes following will be deemed to constitute the wishee's acceptance of any and all such Additional Terms. All Additional Terms are hereby incorporated into this Agreement by this reference.

* This greeting will be automatically renewed annually.

Monday 30 May 2016

This is how these students go to school

Somewhere in China (四川凉山), these students risk their life everyday to go to school. Here is a video of them crossing a river by a broken suspension bridge. In the next video, we can see how young primary school pupils need to climb 200 meters to and from school twice every month. If these videos do not inspire you, think again. Education is the only way poor people can escape poverty. To get education, the path is difficult and dangerous, at least for these kids. p.s. I have not updated the blog for a long time. These videos have prompted me to write.

Sunday 28 September 2014

Comment on "Educators need to think long-term about the role of technology in learning"

"The third and final task remains the big challenge for educa- tional technology: personal development via experiential learning." [Source: Scientific American, Oct 2014, page 15]
Yes, there is a way - Role play. By allowing the students to step into the shoes of other in a safe environment, the learning can be vivid and realistic. See my book The Power of Role-based e_learning

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Learn Chinese the Read and Write Way

I have started a series of video on learning Chinese based on reading and writing. The youTube playlist is http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1ieJcgQYaRPB32G4bsr8n8M__k1LgxIL. Please subscribe and leave me comment. At the moment, I have 5 videos starting with telling numbers.

Thursday 5 December 2013

I have started a new blog

I have started a new blog - my view on Australian politics.

Wednesday 31 July 2013

How Was Chinese Kung Fu Useful in a Traffic Accident?

Friday 28 June 2013

Online education

We are faced with a dilemma. Online education is convenient and when is appropriately conducted can be a godsend for busy students. A lot of face to face education institutes actually puts their courses online, either as a supplement for those who may have missed a class or as a general community service for anyone who is interested in learning something. The acceptance of a qualification from purely online education institutions has been mixed. This article describes some of the misconceptions of online education. However the real issue is the prolific number of diploma mills that operate solely online. The quality of education again depends on the certification of the institute, be it online or otherwise.

Sunday 19 May 2013

Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley


Tuesday 23 April 2013

Allow me to hit you at your head first...

My American readers,

Your country is not the greatest country anymore.


The only three things which USA is number one are:
1. number of people in the prisons (per capita),
2. number of adults who believe in a god (by percentage in developed countires), and
3. largest military budget - more than the next 26 combined.

The world is becoming more unequal, unstable and unsustainable. (That's from Bill Clinton)


UK was number one many years ago. She was called the Empire of Never Setting Sun. But she learnt not to be number one and her people is going on fine. As Clinton says so powerfully, we are all on the same boat. We all live on this planet and there is no second planet that we can go to if we mess this one up.

Let me drive this home with this:

Wednesday 17 April 2013

Who ever says science is boring?

This is the best entertainment I have watched for a long while...

Sunday 17 March 2013

Science vs. the Feelies

Thursday 21 February 2013

High speed Ping Pong Ball

Subsonic and supersonic speed of Ping Pong Ball. Do not try this at home

Wednesday 16 January 2013

Arithmetic, Population & Energy

This should be compulsory watching for every student every year to remind us how exponential function affect us *all*.

Tuesday 15 January 2013

This was from 2008 and the situation has worsen

Extreme Weather Events! (October 2012 Edition)

Evidence Of The Extreme Climate Change

2012:The Year Climate Change Got Real

Wednesday 26 December 2012

To all my American readers, please DO something about this video

Please watch this very saddening video and then tell your government how you feel. Killing someone else is NOT a game and it is NOT for fun. Indiscriminately firing at civilians is WAR CRIME and should be treated as such even if it means you are reporting other Americans.

Tuesday 25 December 2012

Is human culture unique?

Culture is defined as behaviour acquired from learning from the peers. In this case, chimpanzee societies cultures. Also published simultaneously at Atheist Bible Reading and Forum

Friday 21 December 2012

Season Greeting

Please accept, and/or renew, without obligation, implied or implicit, the best wishes, referred to as this greeting hereafter, for an environmentally friendly, socially responsible, politically correct, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, non-specific sexuality, celebration of the winter solstice holiday in the northern hemisphere and summer solstice holiday in the southern hemisphere, practised within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your preference, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. This greeting, without implied obligations also extends to cover a financially successful, personally fulfilling, emotionally enchanting and stimulating, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2013, but with due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures or sects, in a world filled with love, peace, joy, harmony, diversity, tolerant, good will, rational thinking, respect and happiness, clean air and plenty of water, less pollution, reduced green house gases, and having regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or dietary preference of the wishee. This greeting must not be read if you do not accept the terms and conditions of this greeting. By having read this greeting, you have indicated your explicit acknowledgement of accepting this greeting in the aforesaid manners. This greeting inclusively, exclusively and non-exclusively cover you, your spouse, whether same or different gender and/or whether such relationship is legally recognized or illegal in certain jurisdictions, including singularly and plurally, previous, present or future, your children including natural, adopted, by-law or sponsored, dead, alive, or unborn, and/or your parents, related by blood, by-laws, adopted, or sponsored dead or alive. Upon being covered by the greeting of the aforesaid greeting in the same aforesaid manner, those covered wishees will extend the aforesaid greeting to the same relates they have recursively and infinitum. By accepting this greeting you are bound by these terms: * This greeting is subject to further clarification or withdrawal. * The wishee expressly agrees, by the acceptance of the greeting, that the greeting is accepted and enjoyed at wishee's own risk. Neither the wishor, its affiliates, nor any of their respective employees, previous or current employers, friends, relatives, spouse past, present or future, agents, third party providers or licensor's warrant that the greeting will be uninterrupted or error free; nor do they make any warranty as to the results and effectiveness of the greeting. * The wishee may not without wishor's prior written approval disclose to any third party the results of any benchmark test of the performance of the greeting. * This greeting is warranted to perform as reasonably may be expected within the usual application of good tidings, for a period of one year or more until the issuance or automatic renewal of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first. * The wishor warrants this greeting only for the limited replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wishor. * This greeting, including but not limited to all its associated tangible and intangible good will and best wishes, is freely transferable, duplicated, distributed, copied and reproduced subject to the conditions below. * This greeting implies no promise by the wishor to actually implement any of the wishes. * This greeting may not be enforceable in certain jurisdictions and/or the restrictions herein may not be binding upon certain wishees in certain jurisdictions and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wishor. * Any proprietary rights associated with this greeting, including but not limited to the intellectual and moral rights, publishing rights including but not limited to publishing via the blogosphere, by email, by web sites, on CD and/or any electronic means, the right to perform in private and in public to a small, medium or large group of present or remote audience and or the broadcast rights to transmit, preserve and retransmit by any physical or electronic means are the property of the wishor. * This manifestation of the greeting, copyleft under GNU license or other open source license similar to GNU license and or Creative Commons when and if such license(s) is/are enforceable in certain jurisdictions, is freely transferable, duplicated, distributed, copied and reproduced provided that any further addition or alternation shall not impose any limitation beyond those implicitly or explicitly expressed this clause. * Any alteration and addition, including but not limited to the syntactic, semantic, linguistic, artistic, aesthetic, spiritual and material improvements, shall only be made to the original greeting in the same good faith and honour of any reasonable person. * Any references in this greeting to "the Lord", "Father Christmas", "Our Saviour", "Santa" or any other festive figures and fictional characters, whether actual or fictitious, dead or alive, shall not imply any endorsement by or from them in respect of this greeting, and all proprietary rights in any referenced third party names and images are hereby acknowledged. * Any names or terms used in this greeting, whether trademarked, copyrighted, copylefted, patented or have been placed in the open source under GNU, Creative Commons or other open source licenses belong to their respective owners and promoters. * The wishee expressly acknowledges and agrees that in order to protect the integrity of certain third party mechanism of enjoying the wishes, the wishor may provide for security related updates that will be automatically downloaded and installed on your holiday itinerary. Such security related updates may impair the movement, enjoyment (and any other activities during your holiday which specifically depends on the said wishes) including disabling your ability to laugh and/or smile, i.e. certain way of enjoying a holiday protected by digital rights management. * The wisher reserves the right, at any time and from time to time, to update, revise, supplement, and otherwise modify this Agreement and to impose new or additional rules, policies, terms, or conditions on your use of the wishes. Such updates, revisions, supplements, modifications, and additional rules, policies, terms, and conditions (collectively referred to in this Agreement as "Additional Terms") will be effective immediately and incorporated into this Agreement. The wishee's continued enjoyment of the wishes following will be deemed to constitute the wishee's acceptance of any and all such Additional Terms. All Additional Terms are hereby incorporated into this Agreement by this reference. * This greeting will be automatically renewed annually. [2013 edition]

Wednesday 19 December 2012

Learning Technologies 2012 - Ray Kurzweil

Tuesday 27 November 2012

Suspension Bridges from Ancient Times

Inca Grass Bridge [Actual footage starts at 0:20] Meghalaya's Living root bridges

Friday 23 November 2012

How I started a sanitary napkin revolution!

Don't worry, this is about innovation and philanthropy.

Thursday 8 November 2012

Monkey Intelligence

Is this monkey at the same intelligence level as human's ancestor thousands (or tens of thousands) of years ago? How long ago?

Tuesday 6 November 2012

How to walk a 10 feet tall, 5 ton Moai

Don't under estimate the power of human ingenuity.

The first years to walk and talk, the rest of the childhood to stop and shut up

Friday 2 November 2012

An Amazing Experiment

I invite you to try this. 1. Hold a piece of paper with some written words on it in front of you. Shake the paper horizontally and try to read the words. Can you? 2. Hold the same piece of paper steady in front of you. Turn your head sideways while trying to read the words. Can you? Our vision system is really amazing, isn't it? Source: BBC Prehistoric Autospy Episode 2. (14:30 minutes into the show)

Monday 29 October 2012

How to photograph a water droplet

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Learning Technology in the Classroom

Khan Academy

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Bird goes fishing

The use of tools is obviously not a unique human ability.

Thursday 28 June 2012

Eagle hunting a goat

Wednesday 27 June 2012

There is still hope for mankind

The final act of a police officer before he was gunned down was to buy an unknown kid some cookies... On Jun 20th, 2011, a 16 years old boy tried to commit suicide at a bridge in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, China. A brave young lady walked by and started chatting with him. As she shared a similar life experience, she understood this young boy. Watch the video and this is story comparable for a fairy tale. A life saved by a stranger with a kiss ... Another amazing rescue...

Tuesday 19 June 2012

Input Director - for Wins only

I wrote about the benefit of multiple computers working together before. Here is a donate-ware which may do just that (unfortunately for Windows only) http://www.inputdirector.com/.

Monday 16 April 2012

My father

父親出生於印尼,在祖父回鄉退休時,排行最小的六伯,七伯和父親,隨祖父回鄉。中學畢業後,任教於梅縣城中學。中日抗戰期間,投筆從戎,畢業於黃埔軍校,多次勝戰,官至少校。

在抗戰行軍時,爸爸看見路旁有ㄧ位垂死的老人向途人乞求ㄧ口水渴,心生憐憫,停下來給老人一些水,之後這老人堅持要父親收下了一只玉。爸爸隨手把這玉放在胸前的衣袋。那天晚上,父親發現胸前的口袋有ㄧ個被子彈打穿的洞,原來袋裡的玉救了父親ㄧ命。小時的我,常常見到爸爸和他的朋友間的互相幫助,一碗飯,兩份吃的事例,非常之多。

父親戰後隻身來到香港,本來計劃這只是ㄧ短暫的立足處,後來從鄉間接來母親,我們六兄弟姊妹也就在獅子山下出生。這個暫時的家,結果成了我們長大和發展的基地。

在我和芳妹出生之後,我們是住在荃灣山邊的木屋。在ㄧ個年三十日,媽媽到市場買年貨,您留在家中照顧我們,鄰居打反了火水爐,引起大火。槍林彈雨您不怕,我們兩兄妹的安危反而使您受了驚怕。您ㄧ手ㄧ個把我們救離火海。以後,爸爸ㄧ直對火災留下陰影。

爸爸,您以前照顧我們的生活瑣事,點點滴滴存在我們心裡。記得我們幼小時,您用手掌來量度我們的小腳,就可以替我們買得合穿的鞋。

我們也不能忘記您在黃大仙做生意時的那ㄧ段時光,您早上ㄧ天亮便開舖,下午我替您工作二三小時,讓您可以小休ㄧ會,然後您工作至午夜才回家休息。您為了我們,實在是太辛苦了。

父親,我們六兄弟姊妹在你和母親的愛護和關懷中長大了。我們成長的環境雖然品流複雜,但兄弟姊妹們都能以您作榜樣,奉公守法,抬頭直腰的為社會出一份力。我們家境清貧,爸爸沒有怨天由人,努力工作,教導我們要傲骨而不自棄,不貪不義之財,腳踏實地的做ㄧ個正直人。您對我們的教育,極為重視,您對我們的教導,嚴格中充滿慈愛。如果不是您和母親,我們那有今天。自小您已教導我們不可以坐在印有文字的書刊上,這種尊重文化的態度,我們是永不會忘記的。您絕不重男輕女,對我們每一個都ㄧ視同仁,這種公平的原則,奠下我們公平處事的態度。爸爸,多謝您。今天,我們每一個倘算學有所成,六兄弟姊妹共獲得七個碩士學位,正在不同的位置上為社會服務。爸爸,請安心,我們總算沒辜負您的期望。

爸爸給我的名字是榮忠,忠心的忠,弟弟榮信,人言為信的信。這也代表了爸爸的ㄧ生做人的宗旨。早幾天我們整理您的物件時,發現了您寫的ㄧ段話,「生活必須向前,生活就是ㄧ連串的學習,人活著必須向前,別以為能夠保持原狀,便可以萬無ㄧ失,久而久之,則變成了倒退。這是我的ㄧ點人生哲理,我ㄧ直都認為自己不足,學術與做人是感到貧乏,所以我就力求補救,不灰心,盡自己所能,這樣感到無愧於心。」這段話說明了您的哲理,使我們深深體會到做人不能氣餒,盡力而為,謀事在人,成事在天的道理。

爸爸,您其中ㄧ個最大的成就,是把我們這六條「化骨龍」撫養成人。您幼時盡孝,服侍祖父母,青年盡忠,為國效命,壯年盡愛,為我們的家奉獻了一切。爸爸,沒有您,沒有我們。我們不能和您的偉大相比,但會學您教導我們的方法來教導我們的子女,您的精神將永遠留在我們的心內。

爸爸,我們愛您,敬仰您。我們知道您以我們為榮,我們一直是以您為榜樣,以後我們還不會忘了您的教導,團結一起,盡我們之力,做我們應做的事。

Thursday 8 March 2012

Why a continuous personal video recording system is a good idea

If the story of the passenger was right, a personal video recording would have proven her innocent.

Sunday 22 January 2012

Big History - Story of Human evolution

Monday 16 January 2012

XO 3.0

Tuesday 3 January 2012

Blog-o'-the-Month

As this blog has been selected as the Blog-o'-the-Month at STE Island's Bloggers Hut in Second Life, I welcome some new readers to my blog.

I will try, in this month, to post my feelings of using virtual world and to a more extended way the use of role-based learning. To start off, here are some posts I have written on the subject.

Second Life as a potential learning platform

Virtual World and Real Life

Role Play and 3-D Virtual World

Ten commandments of role play simulation