Billibala

Teaching… it’s freaking hard man!

Started teaching in HKDI on an iOS development course. They, weirdly, call it iPhone apps creation.

I railed about the architecture of their build before. This post has nothing to do with that.

So, teaching… it’s hard. Freaking hard.

Problem: You mix a bunch of adults with different background. Make them sit in the same class and, hopefully, make them be able to develop iOS application without having to spend much effort apart from attending class.

I segment my students into 3 major categories…

1. Designers – they know design. Maybe some HTML and Javascript. But they are definitely not the type of designer who would read A-List-Apart.
2. IT professionals – they had some formal technical education before. They know some kind of programming languages and they’ve probably written some code at some point in their life
3. People from nowhere – they can be a clerical worker, admin officer, like a random person you encounter on the street

I had 2 classes already. In the first class, I know nothing about the students. Got some basic understanding about them. And got a better understanding about myself as well.

Second class… I started explaining Obj-C and doing some coding with the students. It’s hell difficult to get everyone in the same page.

Those who understand coding… they fell asleep once I began the basics… types, variables, control flow (conditions, loop). Those who don’t get it… they fell asleep as well.

Fuck! I am one of those boring teacher incapable of explaining things and keep students interested in the subject! (Actually, it’s not that bad. But definitely need to better prepare for class)

I need to fix this.

3 problems:

1. How to give interesting lecture?
2. How to make those smart guys interested in the topic? And, at the same time, …
3. How to keep those random people on track and learn something?

Gotta think through this tonight. Had 4 shots of coffee. It will be an enjoyable night of thinking.

If you’ve got advice for me, let me know!

SF Design Week 2011 – Tue Studio Visit

So fired up after the SF Design Week studio visit this evening! All those studios, while they made beautifully designed and well thought out products/services, the more important thing is, they are all great story teller. They tell stories with authenticity and passion.

Examples:

Industrial design Matt at fuseproject – Two dollar frame for kids in Mexico

The, kinda, idea wall at Idea Couture

Illustrating scenarios at Adaptive Path for Global Pulse & Hunch Works

I still remember my mum telling me her childhood stories how she and my grandparents got to Macau to get away from of the 2nd World War and the civil war between Communism and Democratic parties in China, how they made a living by making fireworks…

That’s what I wanna do with my products. It’s a story as sticky, as authentic and as inspiring as the stories my parents told me. Stories that define human and push us to pursue a better world.

Poverty in Hong Kong – the rich mate

Make no mistake, the one in photo is really our ex-KCR chairman 田北辰. He and a bunch of rich “elites” are the cast of the new RTHK documentary show – 窮富翁大作戰II.

Look forward to the season.

To infinity and beyond!

Visited HKDI for the first time. Stayed a few hours. Left the place not feeling good…

Modern architecture is about building landmark. The more “modern” the look is, the better – aluminum plated wall, glass surface, steel frame…

What about building an escalator that stretches 5, 6 stories? Hm… That would let us set the record of campus in this world having the longest escalator!

“Imagine… riding on the escalator, raising higher and higher, let those on the ground stay on the ground, we are the superior ones, we are above you all…”

Not sure if that’s the design pitch the architect made in front of the board of IVE. I only know this thing and the whole campus cost $1.2 billion HKD.

My message to IVE…

You are hopeless (period, end of message)

Here’s my personally recommendation to everyone in the IVE board (if you wanna save yourself). Spend a day of your life to do something intellectual. Read a book by David Kelly or Tim Brown or Noam Chomsky or Paul Rand or watch some TED talks… Afterwards, answer these questions:

What makes design design?

What makes education education?

What makes us human?

Err!! I am furious!

Construction sites on Caine Road – an unofficial statistics 堅道地盤非正式統計

Caine Road in numbers (I mean unofficial numbers):

Length: ~1 km

Number of construction sites: 11 (only those with work undergoing)

On average, there’s 1 construction site every 100 meters. The section around the corner of Castle Road is worst. The Swire Group latest residential project - AZURA is happening right on Castle x Seymour Road. At the same time, 2 old buildings next to it on Seymour are preparing to be demolished. To make it worse, the hugh block on Castle x Caine (right opposite to Wellcome Store) has been emptied only with bare concrete structures ready for demolishing machines any time.

To those living on Caine… save money in Fung Shui master visit or Chinese new year decoration. No matter what you do, it is hell living on Caine in 2011.

祝各堅道街坊 心平氣和 合家平安

What technology wants – Kevin Kelly

Couldn’t join my buddy Jason and Kevin for Kevin Kelly’s book tour in Beijing for the Chinese translation of one of his earlier work “Out of Control”. Sigh… What can I do? Well, watch some of his talks in Youtube and have a snip of KK.

TEDxAmsterdam: Kevin Kelly from TEDxAmsterdam on Vimeo.

More of his talks here.

Hm… I should start reading his new book – What technology wants. Damn… I still have The Grand Design in my pipeline…

BODW 2010 == 2 kg of junk

The BODW week is over. Don’t wanna talk about the conference content. It’s generally OK. There are a handful of inspiring talks – the Nikon one, the Milk Design one…

I wanna talk about the conference package.

The moment after registration, I was given the conference package.

Boy, it’s heavy! it weighs over 2 kg according to the balance in my neighbor laundry shop.

Here’s what you get inside…

A bunch of brochures, postcards, design course prospectus, the event program guideline, the DesignSmart Initiative program book, the Inno Design Tech Expo exhibitor directory and a photo book about Wanchai.

This is ridiculous giving out 2kg paper garbage to every single conference attendee. I wear the bag with me the whole afternoon in the first conference day thinking about returning the whole package back to the reception. But, NO. I’m gonna blog about this.

To BODW organizer,

Stop handing junk to people. I know you guys are extremely old school and adhere to “normal” practice. Let me tell you… People don’t want this. Just give me a well designed web site with all up-to-date information there. Don’t hand me extra junk that are unrelated to a good conference experience.

The exhibitor directory weighs like 1 KG by itself. Who the hell in the conference would find that directory useful? Who the hell still read paper directory?

Instead of spending time preparing all these printed materials, getting them all inserted, transportation and stuff… why don’t you guys just pay attention to make one good program guide of the event. Just one… Make it optional. I don’t think every single person need a paper guide. Spend your other effort make a nice iPhone/Android app for the conference to help people get around.

It’s pretty ironic when almost all speakers in the event talk about minimal design, green design, respectful design, smart design. Looking at the conference package… it’s a piece of junk that weighs 2 KG. The paper exhibitor directory… it’s pathetic.

To My Dear Designers,

This is your conference. Can you fix this? Make some change, won’t you?

Living with less

NBC News has an interesting about living with less.

But I guess no one can beat the ultimate minimalist…

“This was a very typical time. I was single. All you needed was a cup of tea, a light, and your stereo, you know, and that’s what I had.” Steve Jobs, 1982

Well, my place… ahem… I gave up a long time ago

Hong Kong’s got its own Monocle shop

Hong Kong has got its Monocle shop  It’s opened on 21st July 2010 (when I was still in Taipei).

Go check it out!

Prof Noam Chomsky in Taipei

Believe it or not, I had the chance to see Prof Noam Chomsky in person!! He was in an academic exchange trip to Taiwan in the week of August 8th.

I attended one of the two public lectures in Taiwan – the one held on 9 Aug in 中央研究院.

The lecture is classic Noam Chomsky. If you follow his work, you probably have seen some of his talks on the internet. On one hand, that actually means it’s not a big miss if you didn’t attend the lecture. You can find most of the points he covered in the lecture in his books and other videos. On the other hand, it’s a once-in-my-life experience to be lectured by Noam Chomsky.

I am not the right person to give an excerpt. But, for the sake of recalling my memory, I still wanna try…

Topic of the lecture: Contours of World Order: Continuities and Changes.

He first stated that 2 recent events set the world’s contour lately – the Copenhagen Climate Conference and the UN Nuclear Conference. These two events are about the two main threats faced by human species: natural catastrophes and nuclear threads but both events virtually made no progress towards solving the problems.

In the lecture, Dr Chomsky put proportionately less time on the natural catastrophes as he thinks natural disasters caused by climate change is very obvious. He cited a few quotes from scientists and cases of recent natural catastrophes to back his argument.

On the nuclear threats front, he probably spent 40, 50 minutes relating nuclear threats to weapons of mass destruction and a wide spectrum of issues in middle east and the US trying to maintain its influence in different regions in the world.

If you follow his writing and talks, you probably have heard of his views and analysis to the situation about the war in Iraq and other issues in the middle east. Do a search in Google or iTunes. You can find tons of his work around.

In the middle of the lecture, the room was completely submerged into his intelligence. He threw in a bucket of world issues – Iraq war, Iran’s nuclear threat, Israel not adopting Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, NATO expansion, rising China and India, allocation of world’s oil reserve, etc… He related and reasoned them as the US and Western trying to maintain imperial power because of institutional facts… The response from the floor, as what I observed, people were either suffocated by his immense intelligence, or, fell asleep.

Again, it’s not a big loss if you missed the lecture. It’s the fact that I can see this man standing in front of me explaining what he believes. That’s the big deal!

I am so inspired…

If you wanna have a glimpse of his thought, you can check one of his documentary films – Manufacturing Consent. You can get it from Amazon and iTunes (DVD, streaming rental, digital copy, etc)

You can also check a recent speech of his in Democracy Now!.