Today I watched Obama’s inaugural on the news. Washington is very crowded. According to the news, there are two million people witness the ceremony. It is a historical moment to the Americans. Many people compare Obama to John F. Kennedy. When JFK was elected US president in 1961, he is the Catholic president. In 2008, Obama becomes the first black president. Both of them breaks White Ango-Saxon Protestant male’s monopoly claim to the presidency. We already got a Catholic, a black, what’s next? It is just a matter of time before will be a female president. Hilary Clinton almost become the first female president if she didn’t lose to Obama. After a female president, the next one on the line is probably a gay president. There are gay governor already. It may take sometime before the American consider voting for a gay president. By that time, probably computer is so advance that we have AI smarter than people. If the American willing to vote for a gay, they must as well vote for a robot. Having a robot president is more defining historical moment than having a black president. On a second thought, why don’t we call the robot president Skynet.
All posts by hevangel
Box Kleenex is gone, what’s next?
In a recession market, it is understandable for a company trying its best to cut its budget in order to stay afloat. However, cutting the supply of box Kleenex to the employees is way too cheap. Not only the box Kleenex won’t save the company much money, it also send the wrong signal to the employee. There is a fine line between financial conservative and simply stingy, cutting the box Kleenex definitely had crossed the line.
Now box Kleenex is gone, what’s next? I am pretty sure the company is seriously considering cutting the toilet paper. Maybe that’s why they send us to India, prepare us for a paperless toilet. Instead of having toilet paper in the toilet, they will put a small bucket in each stall like in the Indian office. After you done your business, you can fill up the bucket with water and then use it to clean your bottom. Then maybe they will cut the utensils in cafeteria. Why waste money on plastic forks or money to wash the metal forks. We can eat with our hands too! The only thing that you have to remember is the left hand is the toilet hand, the right hand is the eating hand. Don’t mix up!
Romanization of Chinese
Romanization is a way of writing non-English languages using English characters. There are many ways to romanize Chinese. It is very confusing, since there different spelling of a Chinese term in English. People grew up in China use Pinyin, which is the standard romanization based on Mandarin. Older translation uses the Wade-Giles system, which is popular in most of 20th century and still used in Taiwan. The major problem of the Wade-Giles system is that it is not very accurate. In some cases, it cannot distinguish similar pronunciation and create confusion. On the other hand, we can tolerate the lack of accuracy. I found the Wade-Giles system is easier for English speaker to pronounce and remember the terms. Maybe Wade-Giles is designed by Englishman, the spelling looks more like a normal English words. Pinyin is more accurate in phonetics, but the j, q, x, z looks odd in spelling.
Hong Kong has its own system of romanization, or should I say lack of a system of romanization. The HK government has a table of commonly use Chinese characters, but there is no coherent rules in the table. Some characters, such as tree, has two different correct spelling in the table. Most people in HK don’t know how to romanization Cantonese. If we have to romanize any characters, we simply do it in an ad hoc way. On a second thoughts, HK is a bilingual city, most people know Chinese as well as English. There is no need to romanize Chinese, we can simply use English instead. Maybe romanization is only helpful to foreigners who wants to learn Chinese.
The Long Tail – Chris Anderson
Wired雜誌的老總Chris Anderson﹐在2004年寫了一篇文章﹐探討因互聯網而興起的新經濟模式﹐並把他的發現稱為長尾理論。在傳統的零售市場中﹐大部份交貿集中在熱門商品上。長尾理論則指出﹐冷門商品雖有交貿不多﹐但是不論幾冷門的東西也有人賣。正所謂山大砍埋有柴﹐冷門商品的種類繁多﹐雖然每種只能賣出少許﹐但若果把它們的收入加起來﹐卻會成為是一個很可觀的數目。事隔兩年作者把他那篇文章發揚光大﹐加入更多內容出版結集成書。不過可惜此書甚為長氣﹐大部份時間只是不斷重彈老調。
作者用了超過一半的篇幅﹐不繼提出長尾的例子﹐妨忽死怕讀者不相信真的有長尾。也許在互聯網興起前﹐很難預期長尾經濟模式的出現﹐但對於互聯網長大的新一代﹐網絡長尾的特性差不多已成為常識。作者從Sears的郵購目錄開始﹐一路講到Amazon﹐ eBay﹐ iTune﹐將長尾的歷史娓娓道來。其實每次也是重覆同樣的經驗﹐當貨品種類大幅增多客源上升﹐便會發生經濟規模的威力﹐原本蝕錢冷門商品也可以帶來利潤。在傳統的經濟模式下﹐商店能夠提供的貨品種類﹐受到商品陳列物理條件的限制﹐冷門商品沒有足夠客源去維持。到了互聯網時代﹐增多一件冷門商品的成本接近零﹐同時又打破了地域限制﹐把客源拓展至全世界﹐於是以前蝕本的冷門商品也能維本。加起來的數目實在很大﹐可以比媲熱門商品的營業額。而冷門商品的競爭相對較少﹐甚至比競爭激烈熱門商品有更可觀的利潤。
長尾的出現為消費者提供接近無限的選擇﹐而然太多選擇會讓人花多眼亂。甚至有學說指選擇太多反而不好﹐會令人感到沮衰和不快樂。作者很老實地承認長尾雖長﹐但有當中很多大部份是垃圾﹐至少對不感興趣的人也與垃圾無異。於是如何幫助消費者從長尾中尋寶﹐是新經濟模式能否成力的關鍵。互聯網科技的發展﹐正好提供消費者在長尾中找到心頭好的指引。強大的搜索引擎﹐同好者的網上聊天室﹐網絡上各式的排行榜和評論﹐網絡商店從顧客的歷史中﹐找出相似品味作推介﹐均是替消費者過濾長尾的好幫手。作者亦引用心理學研究﹐發現原來選擇多會讓人感到更開心﹐只要其選擇受到別人的肯定和認同﹐而又能很有系統地找出想要的東西。
有些人擔心長尾現像會令社會分化﹐人與人之間再沒有共同的話題和文化。作者指出熱門現像並不是常態﹐只是二十世紀後半葉﹐廣播和娛樂工業興起後才出現。每個人的品味本來就很多樣化﹐大部份人只在膚淺的層次有共通之處﹐深入的趣興因人而異﹐越深入更是越趨少眾化。只是因為受經濟和物理因素所限﹐大部人不得爾才接受大眾平庸化的熱門商品。熱門商品是從上而下的推廣﹐業界專才賞試預測大眾口味﹐希望可以打造出能吸引最多人的商品。長尾商品則是橫向推廣﹐本來名不經傳的冷門﹐可以在網絡社群中﹐以人傳人的方式建立口碑﹐在小眾市場站穩陣腳後﹐更可以衡出長尾反攻主流成為熱門。
我想這本書的主要讀者群﹐應該是那些還未懂新經濟的傳統人。長尾理論聽起來疑似很高深的學問﹐說通了不過是經過學術包裝的網絡常識。這本書寫於零五年﹐才不過短短三年時間﹐書中的例子已顯得十分過時。當年還未有Youtube和Facebook的出現﹐書中不斷用Google Video和Myspace作例子﹐聽起來好像是說史前恐龍的故事。今年作者推出新修版﹐更長尾巴的長尾理論。我上Amazon打書釘﹐看了新增的那一章﹐講述車廠如何用Web 2.0去推廣新車。汽車廣告與長尾理論風馬牛不相及﹐夾硬把兩者拉上關係好像有點牽強。可惜作者再一次失手選錯例子﹐他拿來當例子的車廠可是現今瀕臨破產的GM。噢~ 或許他是故意用這例子也說不定﹐GM汽車沒有人會買﹐當然是長尾的冷門貨了。
The greatest Indian + Japanese + Canadian fusion idea.
We were talking about single engineers at work are having a hard timing finding girlfriends. They are distracted from work for looking for a mate, so they are not performing at their peak productivity. Here we come up with a great idea to solve this problem. Arranged marriage is popular in India. Most of my colleagues in the India office met their wives through arranged marriage. It is obvious that arrange marriage is benefits boring engineers who lacks dating skills but somewhat appealing to the parents. On other hand, Japan does not have arranged marriage, but it is common for Japanese companies match making their employees.
Maybe we can combine the two systems, the company can simply arrange marriage its single employees randomly. Now, the single guys has found their other half, they don’t have to worry about finding a wife, so they can concentrate on work. However, gay marriage is legal in Canada. In order not to discriminate against the homosexual, the company should ignore the gender difference when arranging the marriage. After all, we are an engineer firm with more male than female, we don’t have enough single female for the single male, so some guy will end up pairing up with a male wife.
Indian arranged marriage + Japanese corporate match-making + Canadian legalized gay marriage + a company full of single male engineers = ?