H to H

I may be putting it too harshly, but I guess many of you will agree.

Hell to Heaven

Famous beach in Mumbai - taken last week

Toilet that cleans my ass in Hotel Okura Tokyo - taken 1 hour ago

Seems like I'll be flying for at least a few weeks.

Oh, not again!

Mumbai, vis Singapore this time.

Pro: better timing (don't need to catch 5:30am flight back)
Con: 3 hours transit wait

One of 2 new books bought in Changyi Airport, and a bad glass of Carlsberg, weird taste
Jazz band playing in the sport bar in T2 Changyi Airport

Second time feeling: intoxicating

Protégé 門徒

我還是不能承受戲中之震撼。

看著女主角受海洛英之折磨，尤其她死前那一幕，迫真和壓力讓我完全透不過氣來（我沒有讓Bobo看，怕她發惡夢）。

一齣完全關於毒品的電影，由拆家、買家、用戶、用戶家屬、輯毒組、批發商、管倉的、管混合的、種鴉片的、出口商… 希望它帶出的信息會令吸毒者反省。

Bobo 說，劉德華當該片之主角除了因他演技出眾（完全同意）和或有份投資外，更可能是因為他的號召力會令更多觀眾入場，看這齣充滿教育意義的電影，從而更有效地令更多人認識毒品的禍害。

有誠意、有意思、有社會責任的作品，誠意推薦。發惡夢可不要怪我。

News

Had a discussion with a colleague afterwork today. She did journalism/communication for university. We talked a little bit about news.

I don't remember how we started. She was saying Reuters isn't non-biased as she thought, because it's a business in the end ie. profit oriented. But state-owned media agents are not that great too. In an imperfect world, Reuters may be doing very well.

Then we moved on to how everyone should receive news. Today, I happened to have a Metro newspaper in my hand. She said many people now rely on these free newspaper as their only sources of news. If one only read one paper, then he/she may only get what that paper says. This is not only the point of view of a particular story, it could be that this paper does not tell him/her some news at all, simply because this paper does not include/cover them.

It is the case if you only read the UK version of BBC News. You'll find out how much you miss by reading the international version. It's because the UK version puts a lot of UK-related news first. Or, if you only read Apple Daily in HK, you will (very likely) miss a lot of key stories, because they don't "attract" readers.

I watched a TV program on the flight from Sydney last week. It argued what would happen if Google grows further, and become a monopoly in information. If it's biased (which is really hard to judge, mmm~~~), then people will never get what they are really looking for. One simple example, try searching "truth about holocaust" in google.com (or here). Amazingly, the first result is a website which doubts the generally recognised facts about Holocaust. Officials in google of course tried to say how everything is done by algorithms, but on the other side of the argument, algorithms are designed and written by individuals, who are biased in some level.

Indeed, monopoly or a sole provider of anything can't be a good thing.

The point is, in order to read "news", one should read from as many sources as he/she is allowed to (physically-wise, time-wise). Read more than one piece of newspaper, watch TV news roundup by more than one channel. Ironically, that was exactly why Google News was born. It was designed to put together many news articles about the same topic and present them nicely and quickly to users, to allow them to read the different views and let them to find the truth. Of course you can argue that google controls which ones to present to you afterall.

Tell me what you think.

February

What an eventful month. Started in London, ended in Cairns, Australia, with bloody Chinese New Year night market in between. Looking forward to a normal March.

Trip to Australia was better than expected. Fantastic 3 bedrooms apartment in both Sydney and Cairns, clean and tidy streets, well-treated wildlife, snorkeling, hot-air ballooning, driving, clean and fresh seafood...

Sydney Bridge and the Opera House