Restart Blogging

Restart Blogging

I hadn't restarted blogging until the middle of this US trip. It's been a whole year since my last post. Two weeks later the subscription of the domain "ewangenius.com" will be renewed for the second time, and I feel that I owe it a lot - the site should have been there before I came back from Ireland. The only excuse is that I was too busy with my two startups; I was indeed, though.
Two years ago, I chose "Another Version of Excellence" because I simply thought there couldn't be only one kind of excellence, achieved in only one way, and judged by only one set of criteria. I still firmly believe so. Then I can't help but ask myself the question time and again:
What is my version of excellence?
Honestly, I don't know. An explicit definition might be either unnecessary or simply ridiculous - it goes the opposite way to my belief that everyone deserve their own versions of success, and elites have no monopoly for this.
But I do know what i should do for my vision of excellence; the Chinese title says it all: "the wise always feel happy; the explorers never reach the end of their journeys". Our Chinese ancestors taught us to "read tens of thousands of books; travel tens of thousands of miles". Prof. Otto Lin told me the same when I was to leave for Europe. It must be true. When one is travelling, he or she opens their eyes to the outside world, and their minds to other's cultures. This is not fiction - some research shows that those who have the experiences living or travelling abroad are generally more creative and open-minded. Certainly when i say travel, I mean staying some places for a while, talking with different people, exchanging different ideas, experiencing different cultures and societies, perhaps sometimes backpacking sometimes urban hiking. Those who don't speak local languages, only go to "tourist attractions" and travel one city a day do not count.

特别的生日礼物 / A Special Birthday Gift

我刚收到李露送给我的特别的生日礼物。她是我在高威的房东Angela的女儿。谢谢你，李露，我很喜欢这张卡片，我今年最难忘的生日礼物了。

啊，是啊，今天是我的生日！谢谢你们的祝福，谢谢你们我的朋友、同学，哈，还有我的妹妹和父母！开心？太普通的用词了。 I just received a special gift from Li Lu, the daughter of my landlady Angela in Galway. Thank you Li Lu, I like the card very much, just lovely. It is absolutely the most unforgettable birthday gift I have ever had this year.

Oh, right, it is my birthday today! Thank you all for your greetings and bless. Thank you, my friends, classmates, and surprisingly, my sister and my parents! I can't feel happier now.

读书笔记 / Reading Notes: Cyberactivism

抱歉，暂无中文版本

Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers (eds) (2003) Cyberactivism: online activism in theory and practice.
Chapter 3: Vegh, Sandor (2003) Classifying forms of Online Activism: The Case of Cyberprotests against the World Bank
Vegh classify online mobilisation channels into three types:

• Alternative channels for offline actions, mainly communication;
• More efficient channels compared to traditional offline ones;
• Unique channels for activities only possible online.

Although the first two are very important, the third really catches the media and our eyes, especially when hackers and hacking are involved. As Vegh noticed, people tend to dramatised it.
Vegh further classifies online conflicts into three categories below "by examining the identity of the perpertrators and the target, the method and frequency of occurrence, the goal to be attained, and the damage caused":

• Cyberattack (isolated);
• Cybercampaign (coordinated, part of an identified conflict);
• Cyberwar (sustained mutual engagement).

As Vegh explained, although usually in the spotlights, cyberattacks conducted by individuals or civil groups rarely cause damage or direct loss to the international organisations such as the world bank. What they directly fight against is computer security experts and IT companies. This is like a gun-armed civil group against their mighty well-equipped national army. However, hacktivism does have strong meida effects which bring media exposures the organisations like. It also could, sometimes, change the aganda of big international organisations by mobilising people. But most of the time, it is questionable how effective "virtual match" or "virtual sitting in" could be.
However, it is no surprising that the protesters went online and invented all kinds of creative ways to continue cyberprotest. There are some personality links. Those people are usually open-minded anti-traditional and anti-authority - perfect fit for technology pioneers. Also the budget constraints make the "time- and cost- efficient" Internet the perfect tool for those protestors and convert them into "cyberprotestors".