Comic book (15 January 2010)

The idea of publishing a consultation comic book by the financial secretary is innovative and interesting. On one hard, I like this idea very much. On the other hand, the down side of this is that in the long term the general public would lose interest in reading any boring consultation documents not printed in the form of comic books. It is only the papers that printed in the standard text form carry the precise information. Comic books convey preliminary ideas only and are unable to include any logical arguments or precise details. Also, they are subject to individuals' interpretation and focus can easily be diverted. That could have another danger that the format of the consultation paper, text or comic, controls who the readers are. As long as we are still insisting on reading the boring standard text form and not giving it up, it should be alright. Can we do this ?

Diary (30 December 2009)

I have stopped writing my diary for some time. The reason is that I decide to let my feelings during this period of time be forgotten. 2009 has been an interesting year in the sense that I have an opportunity to reflect my past and to prepare for my future. Starting from 2010, I will write my diary again. In the past, the purpose of the diary is to record my feelings. But it will soon become my driving force. I have to do at least one interesting or meaningful thing a day so that it can be recorded.

Diary (5 March 2009)

I decide to write my diary again. I wrote my diary when I studied in England and I put down my feelings during that period of time. The first page was written two weeks before I left Hong Kong. When I come back to Hong Kong, I stopped writing my diary. Why am I picking this up again ? Perhaps I want to recall feelings at this moment which I don't want to be forgotten in future. There are too many things happened in the past that have been forgotten; some should be forgotten and some should not have been.

Windows 7 (8 January 2009)

Microsoft will launch Windows 7. Vista is bad. Windows 7 gives us some expectations. But history has told us that it is possible that some successors are worse than their predecessors. I don't know how much resources would be wasted due to this, but I know that I have been told to send my usable computers to the trash again. I don't understand why we are not allowed to keep the old computers instead of throwing them to the landfill. Perhaps, there are people who don't appreciate antiques nor any old systems, so that they must tear down everything before their era. I am not against having new innovations and I love having new stuffs. But if it is possible to keep both the new and the old, why can't we have them in parallel, instead of forcing us to demolish and distroy the old ones ? Are they knowing in advance that the new ones would be inferior to the old ones ?

Happiness (13 December 2008)

What a surprise to see a birthday cake in the middle of a meeting ! That is a truely remarkable birthday. Thanks Jessica, Rosie, James, Stuart and Cannie. Attending meetings is now a substantial portion of my job now. The main issue is whether we have anything achieved. I like working with talented people, especially on my birthday :) We know the main issues immediately. No need to waste time on illiciting the details. We could understand each other's viewpoint quickly. No need to repeat and repeat. Although there are many challenges ahead of us, I am confident that we could overcome all of them. The subsequent lunch in the best restaurant in town and the gathering with my family are also highlights of the day. There are people who bring happiness and joy to others. In this competitive era, I am afraid many have already forgotten the importance of bringing happiness to others. The happiness does not need to be materialistic. Caring words, gesture or even a smile from the heart would do.

More on Ideas, Things and Other People (9 December 2008)

I don't think it matters if we talk about ideas, things or other people. What matters is the intention behind the discussion. We may not be badmouthing when we talk about others. Talking about others may have the intention of caring about others. Talking about ideas or things may have a malicious intention of hurting others. Similarly, there is always an intention behind a new policy. What matters is the intention behind. One could assume others are innocent until proven guilty, or one could assume others are guilty until proven innocent. We aware that there exist cases of gun shooting in campus, but it does not mean that we have to introduce body search when we enter the campus. We aware that there exist fraudulent cases, but we need not to assume that everybody wants to exploit others or the system. Over-doing that would only bring inconvenience and grievance.

Farewell to My Old Computers (1 Nov 2008)

I am the type of people who hardly buy new mobile phones, computers and PDAs. The main reason is that I don't like spending time on installing new softwares, importing old data, working out the compatibility between new software and old data, and working out ways to get round the problems created by any difference in software versions. It is fun to do all these if I have free time. But with a hectic schedule, I rather to spend my precious time on reading, sleeping, exercising or spending time with my family or friends. So I normally replace my computers and PDAs when they are becoming obsolete or missing some new functions. However, I prefer to retain the old machines if they are still usable. I have the experience of breaking the screen of my new notebook once. While I sent it for repair, I used my old one without the hassle of installing all software and data. Besides, there are always some functions that the old one has but not found in the new ones. I don't know why. Well, this convenience would be gone as the department decides to recall all my old machines. Where would they go ? Scrapyards I believe. To me, they are usable machines. To the department, they are junks. But this is life, I have to hand in the usable machines to someone who regards them as junks. Policies !! Policies !! And more new policies !! What can I say ? Bye bye my old friends !! Rest in peace. I like XP more than Vista, in much the same way as I like (some) old policies more than (some) new policies. Resources wasting and time wasting are the problems. Throwing bananas is not my style.

Ideas, Things and Other People (3 Nov 2007)

John Tsang used the quote on talk about ideas, things and other people to answer a question in his talk yesterday. This triggers me to ask the following questions. How much time we spend on each of these topics in our conversation ? How much time we think about these topics in our mind ?

Reading or not reading (31 Oct 2007)

I read an interesting article suggesting why undergraduates don't like reading. It has something to do with the pace of modern life, the use of computers and their sense of values. The pace of life is so fast that students are impatient and they prefer to get instant knowledge. They prefer materials that are simple and easy to digested, such as comics. They prefer acquiring knowledge which the immediate return is obvious or could help them to make quick money.

Creativity and independence

Creativity is an element that we should treasure. Without creativity, we will not have any new computer games, movies, and other interesting toys. The whole world will not advance without creativity. I like crazy ideas and I especially like my students to have crazy ideas. It is too boring if everyone is following the same pattern. A creative person is often a person with an independent mind. When you have the tendency to follow others, you will not form any independent thinking. I was lucky enough to learn this when I was in primary one. While all forty classmates voted for the same answer in a Maths class, I felt puzzled when I was the only one who voted for a different answer. Finally, I was happy to learn that my answer was right. That requires an objective judgement and the courage to express your unique opinion. It won't hurt at all when we express a wrong answer in classes. It won't hurt at all when our answer is different from others. So why not practise our own independent thinking in classes. I do make mistakes. But I learn from my mistakes and get encouragement for my correct judgement. It is a win-win situation.

Importance and trivial

When I was a fresh Ph.D. student, I searched the documents in the university to look for the expected requirement for granting a Ph.D. I anticipated to see something like some original ideas and significant contributions in the research area etc. To my surprise, I found the statement of "to distinguish the importance from the trivial". It strikes me. This criterion sounds simple enough but not many people can achieve it. This ability is so powerful that I am practising it and testing myself many times a day at work. The whole world is flooded with many different voices everyday. Some are useful and some are not. Similar to data mining, it is important to identify the relevant input data, generalize them and obtain some useful knowledge. All my previous training in Mathematics, deriving equations, modelling and their solutions, History, Geography, Economics, Literature, Physics, Chemistry and Biology boil down to the same objective, i.e. to train a person who is able to collect objective facts, analyse the data from different angles and produce ones own opinion and judgement. It is trivial to memorize an algorithm, but it is important to understand why it is proposed and its usage. It is trivial to memorize the name of a king, but it is important to know the implication on his policies. History was the subject I regarded as useless and just facts memorizing when I was at school. Ironically, I am reading a lot of history books nowadays as I understand that we have plenty to learn from history. In retrospect, it was immature for me to make a judgement that some knowledge or skill is useless. No one knows when the knowledge (such as Maths, History or any Language skill) is needed in future, and you may regret for the ignorance when that moment arrives.

Teaching and Learning

It has been a long time that I want to write something about teaching and learning. All professors have their own idea of teaching and learning. In a faculty of 100 professors, we could have about 150 different opinions on this topic. Don't feel surprised that the ratio of opinions to professors is more than 1. The reason is obvious.

For the teaching part, we have to note that "TEACH" is composed of "T" plus "EACH". Each person is different. So it is important to bear in mind that we have to apply a different approach to each individual. One approach works on some students, but not on other students. If we don't do the teaching properly, TEACH might become "CHEAT", which is more or less the reverse order of a fragmented "TEACH". Sadly, in the modern era of much emphasis on efficiency, cost effectiveness, research performance measures (to the professors), it is hard for professors to spend much time on each student to inspire them. The education system in Cambridge let small groups of students (usually 2) have plenty of time to discuss the course material with their supervisors during the weekly supervision.

Learning, on the other hand, is also an interesting subject. Applying the same trick, we have "L" plus "EARN" for learning. You learn and you earn. So, don't miss any learning opportunity. You will never know when the knowledge you learn would be applied. Even if you have zero chance of applying that knowledge the learning process itself would help you much in future to learn other new knowledge effectively. This is learning to learn. Knowledge is different from skill in this sense. Many people put too much emphasis on learning skill, rather than knowledge. If you miss any learning opportunity, you may regret for this later. My name, Lauren, is an anagram of "LEARN U", means learn from you. Every person is a subject for me to learn :)

Last updated : by Laiwan Chan.