Last week took place the last debates between french cadidates about the europeans elections. These debates were empty and boring except the one between Daniel Cohn-Bendit and the useless François Bayrou, it was quite hot (but still empty and meaningless) and our last oponent definitely lost his "round" (and the election) when he found nothing but talking about a scandal (about some child abuse thing) involving Daniel Cohn-Bendit in 1975...

The funny thing is that these two people know eachother very well, DCB talks to FB in a VERY familiar manner (Tu instead of Vous) while FB tries without success to step back. Now we know the results and François Bayrou got severaly beaten by the UMP and DCB's party, Charlie Hebdo (a french satirical newspaper) proposed one of its best cover since longtime :

Most of you know that (as I already mentioned it on Twitter, thank you all for your congratulations messages) but the Hong Kong Immigration Department finally agreed to let me work despite the fact that I am in a student status. They totally refused in a first time, but thanks to the Ogilvy's HR department and Thomas Crampton's Assistant, we finally found a clause (written in very small at the bottom of the page...) issued in 2008 saying that "non-local students of full-time locally-accredited programmes at degree level or above can engage in employment between 1 June and 31 August without any limit in relation to work hours and location".

Therefore I started to sit in my new desk (just beside Tim Ho and in front of ViannaK) last wednesday, way to early to give any comments but, so far it's is already beginning to be very interesting. Friday before leaving the office (for the Tian'anmen Massacre 20th Anniversary), I took a short video from the windows. It's not very interesting but my mom was curious to see the view, there is it mom :

...To commemorate the action of hundreds thousand other 20 years ago. We were 150 000, 150 000 Chinese, Japanese, Korean, American, European, African, young, old, students, geeks (a lot of twitterer), salary men, office ladies, CEO's in Hong Kong's Victoria Park to think, to talk, to sing and finally shout to the Chinese Communist Party that no, 忘不了, that can't (and won't) be forgotten.

I was impressed by this rally that brought so many people in a so "small" place, someone on Twitter told me that some people couldn't reach the park and had to remain at Causeway Bay. It was a really impressive and strong moment, I'm proud to have participated and no, 我們忘不了 !

I provide you some videos and photos, but as I used an iPhone, don't expect a good quality. You can see a better one by the BBC over here

 

EDIT : Another video from SCMP is available : 

For this episode, I have chosen to turn back in time and visit my so missed high school years (2000 to 2003), my friends and I called this period the "Radio Star Period" or sometime the "300 Period". Indeed, in my hometown (Marseille) there was (still existing nowadays) a very cool radio called Radio Star that was broadcasting all the latest trendy music, often months before that they appear on national radios. 

The "300" was the former name of a famous nightclub now called "The Bazar", they used (maybe it's still going on) to organise parties on the Saturday afternoon...it was ALL like a night club (bouncers, DJ's...) except that it wasn't at night and no alcohol was served. For us (we were between 13 and 15) it was the occasion to have some quite funny afternoons and also a good way to train our "skills" with girl (we're not very proud about how we did it though).

I think that these following songs (only 3, I whish I could post more) summerizes perfectly this period, it's quite hard to define as it's a stench of the 90's Dance Music with the premisces of what will be the 00's house and electronic music.

The first thing I've downloaded and played with when I receive my first Mac (a 24' iMac bought in early 2007) was Adium. For those of you whom never heard about this software, just know that it's a simply multi-network (MSN, Gtalk, AIM, Yahoo...etc) IM client, based on Pidgin and highly customisable. I lately realised that I had the same contact list, the same icons, the same sound for more than a year and I decided to change it while keeping the same minimalist spirit that I've always loved.

 

The reason why I started to tweet more seriously (in 2007) it's because I realised that I was suddenly able to reach some important people (CEO's, Bloggers) sharing quite interesting and very valuable piece of information/advices (while I'm a mere student). Lately we saw the arrival of many celebrities on twitter, some just talk to themselves but some really interact with theirs fans !

Today I was replying to a twitter friend who currently lives in Taipei about Coco Lee, a Hong Kong model and singer whom I was listening songs when I was in high school back in France :

@AlexTrup : "Stay with me tonite" is the only one @cocolee117's song that I can sing KTV (I still need some beers though)

cocolee117 @Tortue Hey I'm gonna sing that song at Disney Hall!

@cocolee117 I wish I could be there :) Thx for the reply ! Stay with me toniiiiiiteeeeeeee tututututulutuuuuu :p 

cocolee117 @Tortue u sounded good!!! Haha!!! 

My department at the University of Hong Kong organises two or three time per semester public seminars designed primarily to keep students and alumni of our programme up-to-date with the information technology and electronic business. They invite eminent overseas instructors (from Havard, CMU...etc) and distinguished guests to give the public address, which forms an important part of the learning process, and also facilitates our programme participants to network with local industry and business leaders. Instructors and guests can also present unusual topics they are passionate about or which they think deserve more public attention.

We are pleased to invite you to attend a public seminar hosted by the Programme Office of the MSc in Electronic Commerce and Internet Computing and HKU SPACE.

"User-Controllable Security and Privacy: Are the Expectations Realistic?”

Date and time: 9 June 2009, Tuesday, 7:00pm – 8:00pm

Venue: ADC315, 3/F, Admiralty Learning Centre I, HKU SPACE, Admiralty Centre, 18 Harcourt Road, H.K

 

Speaker:

Prof. Norman Sadeh

Director, Mobile Commerce Lab, Carnegie Mellon University

Director, e-Supply Chain Management Lab, Carnegie Mellon University

Co-Director, COS PhD Program, Carnegie Mellon University

Visiting Professor, Department of Computer Science, HKU

 

Abstract:

Increasingly users are expected to configure a variety of security and privacy policies on their own, whether it's the firewall on their home computer, their privacy preferences on Facebook, or access control policies at work. In practice, research shows that users often have great difficulty specifying such policies. This in turn can result in significant vulnerabilities.

In this presentation, I will provide an overview of findings from research conducted over the past several years in the area of user-controllable security and privacy. Our work, which has been conducted through the deployment and evaluation of a series of mobile location sharing applications, combines user studies with the development of novel policy authoring and auditing technologies aimed at mitigating the gap between what application developers expect users to be able to do and what users show us they can actually do. In the process, I will also discuss what we have learned when it comes to better understanding users' privacy preferences when it comes to sharing their locations with others.

 

Yesterday was held the first "Hong Kong Tweetup" under the code name "Geeks+Club" with the presence of few guys I met at Ogilvy (Tim Ho, Yardley Luk), some bloggers, consultants (Ben Li) and other guys (only one girl) interested to meet other people with more or less the same interests.

At the beginning it was just a small meet-up between guys who met each other during the Ogilvy thing but after a single tweet about, it became bigger than we thought. As it was quite sudden (the Wednesday for the overnight) and poorly prepared (my mistake -_-), many people who were interested couldn't make it (they lived quite far from Central). The night begun quite late by an usual meeting in front of a beer where we talked about ourselves, social medias, mobile news, people we know/follow on Twitter...etc.

I came to Hong Kong not only to pursue my study over here but mainly to follow an old dream, but I'll talk about that in another post.

When you arrive in Hong Kong for the 1st time it's quite difficult to find a clean room to rent (unless you have plenty of money, which wasn't my case) at descent prices. The best way is to go to some serviced apartment (kinda hotel but for six or twelve months stay) to share with some roommates, you have modern fully furnished apartment (with Spa, Sauna, Swimming Pool and Gym) without having to pay any agencies or give deposits.

I was lucky enough to find one in Hung Hom (just in front of Wanchai on the opposite bank) in quite a high building (It was a premiere for me, I always lived in 1st floor !) with marvelous view in every room (North Point for the living room, Wanchai for the bedroom one and Central for bedroom two). It was really nice, but I stayed there one month only ! Why? No 7-11, no bars, no clubs, no buses or MRT (had to walk 15mins) and almost 1h and half to reach HKU !

Once I got sated of one of the greatest appartement I ever lived, I just asked to move in a HKU Hall (St John's) (it was in November). Yes it's smaller (but big enough for one guy) but still with a great view (Long Fu Shan Mountain, where you can have some hiking or footing), much more friendly and it comes all the amazing facilities provided by HKU (Squash, Swimming Pool, Gym...etc).

OMFG BBQ ! 3 songs ? JF you are fantastic !!

Today I'm gonna present you a group that I'm following since the last summer : Jupiter with two songs I really really like : Starlighter and Chips. I have very few information about the group (except a messy and poorly informed MySpace (just like 99% MySpace in the world...) where I just read that they are French) but their music is nice mix of modern melodrama melodies with a really awesome 80's-ish touch (especially with this kind of guitar/keyboards (forgot the name) made by Yamaha) that give you as much energy as you need whether to go clubbing or just before to go to work, out loud in your Popod!

(download)

(download)

The second group introduced here is usually not the kind of music I use to listen, but when I started to listen that song, just like the "Proust's Madeleine" instantaneously brought me in some other places...except that I don't exactly know where ! The music starts with notes that are not totally 80's-ish but rather 90's with a deep touch of japanimation/old RPG's, suddenly starts drums that once again brings you back in the 80's as they are the same that Kate Bush used in her song "Runnning Up That Hill". Then, the singer starts and all the mix become a quite usual English pop song...very strange as the band seems quite young.