The Sun, the Genome and the Internet

This is an interesting and inspiring book written by Freeman J. Dyson. The author believe that technologies in solar energy, board band wireless connection and genetic engineering will be the forces that engender social justice and bridge the gap between rich and poor.

The huge demand for oil has driven the oil price to a record high and posed a risk to the global economic growth. This factor alone provides sufficient incentives for scientists to develop alternative energy technologies such as wind power, geothermal heat, tidal wave and solar power, just to name a few. Among them, solar energy is the most promising candidate of choice. Most of us are familiar with the use of photovoltaic panel to collect sunlight and transform it into electricity. Apart from mentioning this popular use of solar energy, the author mentions the possibility of growing ‘energy plants’. The concept of ‘energy plants’ is not new. In Brazil, farmers grow sugar cane for anaerobic sugar fermentation, which produces alcohol to fuel the cars. The author predicts that in the future, with the help of genetic engineering, we can modify the genes of 'energy plants' to improve their efficiency of generating alcohol or other hydrocarbon products. With the advances in biotechnology, we may drain the products we need from the GM plants directly from the roots without reaping the aerial parts. Would it be a perfect solution to the energy crisis?

The author also mentions the use of photovoltaic panels and Wi-Fi technologies to make board band connection possible in remote areas. The networks mostly serve the rich and are inaccessible to the poor and uneducated, thereby increasing the barriers and inequalities between rich and poor. With the help of technology, villagers can gain access to the Internet and will no longer need to work in cities and this may alleviate the population pressure in most urban areas. The availability of information and communication technology to villagers can significantly improve their incomes and bridge the gap between rich and poor.

The above examples demonstrate how technologies drive ethics. The advances in biotechnology, energy technology and Internet technology are the driving forces to bring more social justice to those who are underprivileged. Technologies can bring us a socially just world if they are properly used by people who have political will and dedicate time and effort to care about the people who have long been forgotten.


21世紀三事 : 人文與科技必須展開的三章對話 = The sun, the genome, & the Internet / 佛里曼.戴森(Freeman Dyson)著 ; 席玉蘋譯.

Available at TKO public library and the call number is 407 3490

Aiplane Models and Flight Sim

The above photos are the Monogram 1/48 F14 A Tomcat I finished in the last summer vacation. This Navy airplane is going to retire this year and the entire squadron will be taken over by the Superhonet F18E/F. If you are interested in building scale models. The following websites are very resourceful.

http://www.hyperscale.com/

I finished the building of 1/700 Bismarck last year. Please refer to the following link for details
http://www.hsgalleries.com/gallery04/bismarckkwh_1.htm

http://www.scaleworkshop.com/index.html

If you are interested in RC airplane models. The following websites are good references

http://www.rcsail.com/ (I joined the 60 ' F3F racing last year but only ranked 15 in the game)

http://home.kimo.com.tw/hsudonghorng/

http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/TCD/Aerodynamic_Forces/overview.html

If you are interested in flight simulation. You may visit the following websites.
http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/

http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds/main/menuchoo.htm

http://www.computerpilot.com/ ( This magazine is available at the Hong Kong Central Library)

Airplane video and Airshow video are available at
http://www.flightlevel350.com/

Attitude counts

I had a brief talk with students who were subject to disciplinary action after being found in infringing the school regulation. They lay blame to the obsolete and unreasobale regulations and should bear no responsbility in their wrong-doing. They gave me the impression that today's young people are unwilling to bear responsibility and they always 'externalize' their problems and never regret their misconduct. I am upset about their irresponsible attitude. This poor attitude seems to spread among the class. Most students of my class always blame their parents, teachers and schools of not doing the right job. They put the responsibility of learning solely on the shoulders of teachers and want to reap the fruits without any commitment and hard work. Their negative and passive mindsets will be the stumbling block on the road leading to life-long learning.

We always make mistakes and sometimes do somthing wrong. Having the courage to admit and reflect on your wrong-doing is one of the essential components that constitutes your integrity, the yardstick people judge whether you are trustworthy or not. I hope my students will learn through mistakes and never escape by blaming others. I want my students to be a courageous and integrity sound person.

After all, it is our attitude that determines our altitude, not our aptitude. You are still young and there is plenty of room for you to perfect your personality and attititude.

Model airplane

I have just finished the 1/72 P51 Mustang. If you are interested in building scale model, please feel free to contact me.

新的文盲階級

學者Tong Pont 發現，在西方文藝復興時代，社會平均每一百年才會變化一次，到了十八、十九世紀的工業革命時代，己經縮短為四十年左右，二十世紀中期是二十年，但今天己經大大減少到不足五年。預計在二十一世紀，社會轉變期將會是不足三年。美國國家研究委員會的分析亦支持這一論點，他們發現半數的勞工技術在三至五年內就會變得一無所用。

社會轉變需要新的知識和新的思維。在未來世界，知識在平均每三年便要更新一次。令天，當你取得一佪學位、一個專業資格或一門技術，三年內不繼續進修的話，你所得的知識可能要報廢，若再追不上時代步伐的話，基本上你與文盲沒有多大分別。

今天，當一個學生走出校園時，實際上只掌握到日後所需要知識的極少部分，絕大部分生存所需的知識技能必定要邊做邊學。終身學習是發展所需技能必須的手段，是人由出生到死亡時持續不斷的必經歷程。

未來的文盲不再是那些不會閱讀書寫的人，而是那些不知如何學習的人。

終身學習不僅是為了興趣，而是為了生存。

Importance of developing Information Literacy

Last week, one S7 student asked me questions about the concept of grafting and cloning. I couldn't find the details from textbooks so I turned to the Internet and tried 'Wikipedia'. I keyed in the key words like 'grafting' and 'cloning' and located the information I needed. I thought this website might be useful to our students and introduced it to S4 students. When I demonstrated in the class how to use the website to locate information related to osmosis, diffusion and active transport, students were not amazed. I asked them why and their responses were "We can't understand the language and We don't know how to spell the key words in English". This drew my attention to the concept of information literacy that I came across in some training workshops. The most often quoted definition of information literacy was articulated in the Final Report of the American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy (1989):

To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information... Ultimately, information literate people are those who have learned how to learn. They know how to learn because they know how knowledge is organized, how to find information, and how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them.

The major barrier of developing information literacy among students in Hong Kong is not on infrastructure and computer skills because opportunities of gaining Internet access and the computer skills of young people in Hong Kong are among the best in OCED countries. The actual hurdle is the problems with the overall English standard. Just a glimpse of a few homepages informing us of world news like CNN and BBC can tell us the importance of mastering English as a second but world language. The gradual fall of the English standard makes our government's ambition of turning HK a regional hub for innovation, technology and communications absurd. Integrating the elements of information literacy into our school curriculum should be a pressing issue deserving a high priority in the agenda of education reform if we want our students to survive in the information age. However, The chance of success is slim if the English language standard of our students keeps on declinning.

成功者態度

社會上成功者只佔20％，失敗者卻佔80％。引致成功與失敗同聰明無關，反而係做人態度。
　　成功者態度：一、他們夢想成功。二、做事有目標。三、只處理重要的事，不浪費時間在無謂事情上。四、建立良好人際關係。五、勇於行動。
　　失敗者態度：一、他們喜歡混日子。二、喜歡無所事事。三、逃避承擔責任。四、喜歡睇電視、八卦周刊、吹水。五、把自己失敗的理由推到別人身上。
　　成功者情緒：情緒低落時不將它誇大或重複，通常第二天便恢復正常。數數自己所獲恩典，而非抱怨自己不幸。少吃糖及煎炸食物呢類可令你吃時高興但吃完後整天情緒低落東西。記住3C（不批評criticize；不指責condemn；不投訴complain）。如事情太多，將它們列優先次序，先做最重要的事。
　　失敗者情緒：令自己陷入不必要困擾。易煩躁、焦慮及疲乏。把努力放在無關重要項目上。挑撥離間、搬弄是非。過分相信運氣而唔相信因果。
　　失敗者最好以一個成功人士為學習對象，學習他的思想、學習他的行為，結識多D成功人士亦可令你成功。社會上多一個成功者，自然少一個失敗者。

Sickle cell anaemia

Sickle cell anaemia is caused by the mutation of a single defective gene. If a patient inherits the recessive gene from both parents, he will develop the full-fledged form of the disease. If a patient only inherits a recessive gene from one parent and a dominant gene from another, he will not develop the full-fledged form of the disease and the heterozygosity may confer him immunity to blood-borne parasitic diseases such as malaria. All S7 biology students should be familiar with the above information. However, you may not know how the life a man is totally devastated by one infinitesimal defective gene. Patients afflicted by sickle cell disease are more likely to get infection especially pneumonia and experience severe pain because of the blockage of blood vessels by clumped blood cells. Lack of blood supply to organs like spleen is the culprit of susceptibility to infection. The following anecdote is a vivid illustration of agony suffered by a sickler.

' A kid with sickle cell always feels different - deprived. I couldn't do the activities the other kids did, especially sports. So I tried to excel things like drawing and artwork, where there was no exertion. I was mostly a loner because I couldn't run with the crowd.
I had some crisis before, but the first time I remember getting pain medication was born when I was eleven. The introduction of the pain medicine into my system - man, it felt so good for the pain to stop, you know. It was Demerol they gave me, and after that I had a lot of hope that I'd be able to stop the pain when it came. From then on, I knew I wouln't have to be in pain for a long time - when I had an attack, all I had to do was go down to the hospital and get some medicine and it would stop the pain...............It was hard for me to keep up with classes when I got to high school because I was sick so much. I was very thin and it was a bad thing to be real skinny. I couldn't gain weight. So I withdrew from people and that's why I became a loner.'

The patient also described the pain he suffered.
' It feels like someone has a handful of my intestine and he's squeezing it like at a pulsing kind of rate thing - just like a pulse. It can be to the very mild or to the very extreme. I've had pain so bad - you know, I just wanted someone to kill me and get it over with, it hurt that bad. I've had mostly the regular things with sickle cell, like my gallbladder operation and the pneumonias and the abscess in my neck when I was in my early twenties. I had hepatitis B, too, but that was from the intravenous street drugs. I was so sick that time that the doctors were telling my parents they'd help with the funeral arrangements and everything.'

When we study sickle cell disease in our biology class, we may not have this deep feeling. One day when you receive medical training, you have to think from the point of view of a patient and understand the disease not only from scientific but also from social and personal aspects.

Reference:

Nuland (1997), How We Live, (p. 112-114), Vintage, U.S.

實現夢想

信報「投資者日記」作者曹仁超先生對年青人如何實現夢想有一番的想法，希望以下節錄對同學有所啟發。
‘每個人年輕時都有夢想，但好少人可以夢想成真，點解？分別係你對「人生目標」有幾認真。為達致夢想，你必須學習某方面挑戰，你必須知道某方面知識，你必須做D事，一步步將夢想變成真，日復一日年復一年。朋友！你夢想係乜？告訴你的戀人或太太，然後遵守諾言，每天向人生目標進發。千里之行始於足下，每天花幾小時在自己夢想上，天下無難事，只怕有心人！不要空談夢想而一D事都唔去做，愈早開始愈好。夢想係目標、時間係工具。無論健康、財富與知識，只要訂下目標，再利用時間，持之以恒，少有達唔到。成功與失敗分別唔係有冇夢想，而係你願意為夢想付出幾多代價。’

善用時間才可完成夢想
　　許多人有夢想但冇時間完成，理由係唔懂善用時間。唔少人離開學校日仍有夢想，但十年後60％人忘記自己理想，理由係「俗務纏身」。如果你唔安排時間，多多時間唔夠用！離開學校二十年，能夠過自己想過生活人只剩下10％；離開學校後三十年，達致自己夢想只佔3％，點解咁少？因為破壞達致夢想事實在太多，例如：一、飲酒；二、睇電視；三、睇小說；四、行街買；五、約朋友吹水；六、諸事八卦（睇八卦周刊）；七、好管閒事；八、冇恒心一曝十寒。除睡眠、食飯、返工等，每天真正自己可以支配時間其實唔多，一般只有兩、三小時，好容易無無謂謂便浪費掉。其實，決定你將來便是如何善用每天呢兩三個鐘頭，聚沙可成塔，聚雨可成河，每天花一兩小時為自己夢想而努力，十年後可見成績，二十年後夢想已在望，三十年後通常夢想已成真！