Japan Earthquake - A Singaporean's Point Of View

As we all know, various social media channels and news channels have been filled with horror reports and videos after a 8.9 earthquake striked Japan yesterday. It triggered a tsunami that destroyed a huge portion of Japan's north eastean coastal areas.



Immediately, most of us think of our friends who are in Japan and most of us prayed for their safety. Though I don't have any direct Japanese friends, I am glad whenever I see my friends receive positive replies from their Japanese friends via Facebook.

On the other hand, amongst all news, I also chance upon articles of businesses making opportunities out of this misfortune. For example, Channel News Asia sent out email advertisments asking people to purchase up-to-date news bulletins.

Such news clearly shows how lucky Singaporeans are.

Being surrounded with neighboring countries that can shield us from natural disasters, we live in a relatively safe environment all year round. Death tolls and video images tend to remain just the way they are -- numbers, and another moving image that looks similar to the 2012 movie some time back.  

On the other hand, I can't describe how much I feel for the people there which some, but not majority of my peers feel. The fear, the pain. It is indescribable. Remember the Tsunami back in India, 2004?

In 2005, I went to India as a volunteer and witnessed the aftermaths of the diseaster sites. Though it was an aftermath, the waves were still really huge (at least 3 stories high - just look at a hdb flat to imagine that height), and the people around us told us about their missing family members with tears in their eyes - most were male sole breadwinners of the family being washed away while they were fishing... They are real people, people like you and me and all your loved ones around you. They are not just-another-number.

I just received a tweet from Times - TIME's correspondents face chaos in the orderly nation of Japan | http://ti.me/fwsdFI (via @TIMEWorld). The journalist described this feel really well.

Despite the history of Japanese War etc, after attending Japanese classes this semaster, I got to know a lot more about the Japan culture, people, language and I really like what I see. Most of you have fond memories of animes, dramas, variety shows and mangas from Japan too right?

So. What can we do to help? We can't do much physically, but we can help them financially. There are some avenues I've consolidated below for you, would you donate to help?

Also, before signing off, let's remember to treasure what matters in our lives. If the world ends tomorrow, can you tell yourself that you have lived without regrets?

• World Vision

• Call 1-888-56-CHILD (1-888-562-4453)
• SMS “4JAPAN” or “4TSUNAMI” to 20222 to donate $10
• Visit the website to donate
• Red Cross
• SMS REDCROSS to 90999 to make the $10 donation
•  International Medical Corps (does relief teams, as well as supplies)
• SMS MED to 80888 to donate $10 to emergency relief efforts
•  Save the Children
• SMS “JAPAN” or “TSUNAMI” to 20222 to donate $10
•  GlobalGiving, based in Washington, D.C.
• Text JAPAN to 50555 to donate $10.
• The Salvation Army
• Text JAPAN or QUAKE to 80888 to make a $10 donation
•  mGive Foundation
• Convoy of Hope, text TSUNAMI to 50555 to donate $10
• World Relief Corp. of National Association of Evangelicals, text WAVE to 50555 to donate $10

Source:

Japan's earthquake: How to help - by Suzanne Choney

Please Help Those Affected By The EarthQuake In Japan - by Mr Gadget

 Other sources of info for latest news:

• BBC Live Updates
• Most updated news from mainstream media
• Facebook: Disaster Relief page 
• Has good information
• Twitter: follow #SupportJapan, #japan, #tsunami, #prayforjapan
• There's spam but there's useful sites too. 

CodeCom 2011

Hello all, pardon me for my lack of posts - this frequency really indicates how much work I have in school the past week.

To make up for that, here's a really interesting update regarding a Tri-University competition organized by NUS Hackers last Saturday!

 

This competition is really cool as it is a Ruby programming tournament conducted on Singpath - a game platform designed & developed by my Professor, Chris Boesch, for anyone to learn programming languages like Ruby, Javascript, Java and Python. Try the game to learn a new language if you are free too! Being a student in Chris's cloud computing class, I have learnt the Python language in a few weeks by solving almost all the questions there. If I can do it, so can you. We can discuss about the solutions too! (:

Anyway, I signed up for the competition one day before with practically zero knowledge about Ruby. Knowing at the back of my head that I will be pitting myself up against other more experienced Ruby programmers, I commented on Facebook that I must be insane - well, my competitors are related to 'NUS Hackers' for a reason right? So.. I kept my expectations low, did some practice the night before, went for Japanese class in the morning, and turned up for the competition at NUS Extension after that.

Now then, how did the competition go? To my surprise, my boyfriend, Adrian, and I rocked the first round by completing all the questions in less than 3minutes!! Woot! I guess the weekly Python drilling in class helped, but it was nevertheless extremely exciting yet intimidating at the same time to code in an environment with near 40 people frantically typing on their laptops, all vying to enter the next round.

 

After near 20minutes, the top 20 competitors emerged and we proceeded to round 2. This time I was more afraid as the difficulty of the questions increased, and we had no access to any notes or APIs. Soon, the competition began. 

As Adrian had some background knowledge in Ruby, he solved the questions in top speed, 'blazing ahead of us', and completed real fast. As for me, I was stuck at question 11 as I did not know the for loop syntax for Ruby. The only for loops i knew was  for(int i=0; i<n; i++) or for i in range(0,len(n)), for i in x. How to write it in Ruby??! The clock ticked, I was back to back with 2 other competitors. I could not search Google for the syntax. Seriously, I almost fainted. -- After LOTs of trail and error + squeezing my brain cells to recall the ruby syntax, the solution for i in a..b worked! Then, seconds later, the API could be accessed by everyone! Oh my I really sped up like crazy and wooolala! I got second! Yes! Guys don't look down on girls. Girls can code too! (:

So with that, I am a happy girl with a new 19" LCD ViewSonic Monitor.

What an adventure. We had fun, made new friends, more details can be seen here. In summary, it is really worth it to do something insane once in a while.

Life is short, live it to the fullest! (:

Business Analytics + SaaS

Other then being excited about a mini blog experiment project i'll embark this weekend, here's one intriguing mind titbit from Mr. Lau Shih Hor, CEO of Elixir Technology, in a seminar today:

Do you ever wish you can predict the future?

In reality, huge companies with large pool of resources have been investing heavily to do this via Business Analytics (BA), and they can to some extent read, analyse, and predict behaviors of their customers and inventory levels etc. They purchase this capability via established BA vendors like SAS, the company that gave me a scholarship which I will soon intern for.

However, what happens to smaller companies in Singapore with limited resources? Is there really no avenue for them to tap on such intelligence for themselves? This remained as a question until Mr. Lau shared with us his current quest to create a world where Business Analytics meets SaaS to serve SMEs in the long tail.

Though he could not disclose the specifics of his projects due to NDAs and various confidential experimentations, he shared enough to explain how BA SaaS work. Being someone who likes to pick up knowledge on any new technology and fires up with passion once these dots are connected to deliver business value, I can deeply relate to this subject matter. (Some past 'dots' I have explored - Technical: Done a scalable project with A* IHPC, cloud project on Google App Engine, data warehouse project on school facilities, data mining research on huge traffic data Business: Developed a simplified trend analysis tool for a local food chain to understand their business needs)

Thus, I am now constantly thinking of the mechanisms behind this new business model. It seems like in near future, this market will go through some vast improvements, and like how I am currently intrigued by the mechanisms of Social Media, I am also intrigued by the thought on how BA SaaS will work out. -- Just imagine, what will our world be like if in the near future, every food outlet/ retail outlet you go can predict and recommend accurately what you would like to eat and what products you'll buy based on your past habits?

Ok, that's all of my scratching-on-the-surface thoughts on the subject matter, any further elaboration will make this blog post a report. :P. For the benefit of those of you who may be lost with all my jargons despite the wiki links, here's a simple diagram I drew out to try to explain everything(will make it better resolution after class later) so that you don't leave this post empty handed:

Have a great day! :)

Happy Rabbit New Year!!

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR EVERYONE!! :D

Ok, I know some of you must be thinking of whacking me now as this greeting seems wayyyy overdue, but hey! It's only day 7 out of our 15 days of new year, CNY is not over yet! Also, since today is 人日(human's birthday in the chinese tradition), happy birthday to all of you! :)

Anyway, the main purpose of this post is to let you know that I am still alive, just that I disappeared a few days to reflect on how to go about delivering the best content for you. On one hand, I would love to update daily to share my everyday thoughts, on the other hand the following phrase: "So if you're just churning out the same-old same-old content, stop it! Think about how you can make sure that you're keeping social media the way it's supposed to be: fun." -- from a really interesting article on learning about social media via angry birds got me to think about my approach...

To sum things up, here's one good news: I do have a few ideas I want to share you, and I will do it really soon. Watch this space for more updates!

And here's a photo of the bunnies pasted at the wall of my house holding signs to wish that you'll have luck, fortune and a harmonous family this coming year. Have a great new year! :)

Living in a Grateful World

Recently, most of us in school have been really busy with multiple project deadlines, quizes, endless readings etc, all amplified and compressed due to CNY being around the corner. With stress, fatigue and many unexpected reasons, if you happen not to receive support from your loved onces, it is natural to think that the world is a dark, lonely place.

For my friends who fall in this category and is distracted from your goals, do remember that just as the cup is half empty, it is half full too. There is always two sides to a coin. Don't doubt yourself unnecessarily. Here's a poem which have brought me out of my darkest moments in the past. Have you counted your blessings? (:

Living in a Grateful World

Be grateful to - those who have hurt or harmed you,

for they have reinforced your determination.

Be grateful to - those who have deceived you,

for they have deepened your insight.

Be grateful to - those who have hit you,

for they have reduced your karmic obstacles.

Be grateful to - those who have abandoned you,

for they have taught you to be independent.

Be grateful to - those who have made you stumble,

for they have strengthened your ability.

Be grateful to - those who have denounced you,

for they have increased your wisdom and concentration.

Be grateful to those who have made you firm & resolute

and helped in your achievements

Author: Unknown

Twittermentary

One interesting thing that happened today was that I had the privilege to meet director Siok Siok and team who gave a special screening of Twittermentary followed by Q&A.

Not too long ago, I was one of those people in the world who saw no value in Twitter. I simply could not understand how much can a short 140 character long micro blog do other than to gather people who shares with the world about their day-to-day routines. Given that I do not want to share such mundane stuff with others, if not for a past IT assignment where I programmed Twitter to link up with PayPal to make micro payments, I did not bother to use it at all. Till recently, I had a paradigm shift. Pretty late, but better late than never :)

Anyway, I was thinking that yes, Twitter as a tool has limited value. However, huge value comes when people use it in a meaningful way. This is due to the formation of a 'digital community' where a huge amount of people in the world can be much closer with each other in a way that they would have limited chance to do so in a physical world. It is a place where people can exchange ideas, thoughts and feelings with strangers, it is a place where relationships and trust can be built.

For example, from some influential people I followed, I got to know about the egypt incident way before reading the newspapers. Also, my classmates and I had a platform to continuously share and discuss about topics related to the digital media 24/7. We would otherwise never have been able to do so as a class other than the limited 3hrs weekly.

In fact, I was reflecting on the key takeaways of the Twittermentary Q&A today, and realised that my Prof and classmates have done all the key summary for me! Furthermore, I could personally thank the main speaker hours after the event ended. How rare is that? Thanks Twitter (:

Key Takeaways from Siok Siok:

'I wanted an outcome I did not expect.' Maybe this is the mindset we need when we deal with new/digital media. - @trixiayong

'The test of a good idea is whether or not the kernel remains true when others start developing the idea further.' - @communicateaisa

'Crowdsourcing is harder than it seems. You need a very large user base to make it work' - @communicateaisa

'Twittamentary lesson. Twitter for crowdsourcing is the execution side of a good idea. U can't just sit at home tweeting' - @communicateaisa


Side Note: Teaser on Twittermentary 

What Will Matter

Today, I chose to live a life that matter. I took one day off my computer to celebrate my best friend's birthday, bought chinese new year clothes with my boyfriend, and spend long hours chatting with my family members. Though I feel slightly guilty for not doing any work today, it is overcomed by happiness as I think that this is a perfect day. I believe that there is no limit to the amount of work I have to do, but there is a limit to the amount of time I have with my closest ones. I will catch up with work after this blog post. (:

To sum things up, here's one of my favourite poem to share with you today. When was the last time you spent quality time with your precious ones?

 What Will Matter

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.

So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won't matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success, but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.

Author: Michael Josephson

The Most Influential Universities in Singapore on Twitter

Inspired by a post on The Most Influential Colleges on Twitter, here's a consolidation of the most influential universities in Singapore on Twitter for your reading interests. Enjoy! (:


#1 - @NUSingapore

#2 - @ntuadmissions

#3 - @smuadmissions

Appendix

NUS

NTU

SMU

Overcoming Inertia

It has been eight years since I last posted in a blog.

Back then, I was a young teenager who rode on the blogging hype and blogged about everything and anything under the sun. It was fun as I used to think that a blog is a brilliant avenue to pour out raw emotions and thoughts, no different from a diary - in fact, I thought that it was better than a diary as I could set a javascript password to protect my blog, sharing secrets only to my closest friends. This blogging habit lasted 2-3 years till I got to learn more about data security and privacy on the internet, and then realized that my simple javascript password protection can be easily bypassed and allows my blog to be accessible by the general public. Since Blogger did not have a user friendly functionality of setting a blog private then, I stopped blogging for good.

Even though good blogs do tempt me to contribute my own content at times, I never had a strong enough circumstance that push me back to this digital media world. I always used the lack of content inspiration or my limited command of the English Language as an excuse to remain hidden in the shadows. Eventually, this inertia became subconsciously too huge for me to overcome.

Now then, WHY have I created a blog and start blogging once again?

Yes, being able to submit something for my Digital Media Benchmarking Assignment could be a contributing factor, but knowing myself, it is insufficient a reason to get me cracking. Fundamentally, I will only put in effort in doing something which I believe there is value, and no, grades have never been large enough a motivation for me.

So what value have I seen?

I have seen the power of personal branding, wow-ed at discoveries like the law of emergence, gotten really amazed by the power of weak ties through a case study on Twittamentary (I even developed a prototype web application here that could be a platform for everyone to do projects in a decentralized manner), seen new perspectives to corporate communications via Bob's speech... -- all these happened within 4 weeks ever since I took a module with Prof Michael Netzley.

Finally, I have broken the ice with this blog post. Being overwhelmed by 'new' tools like RSS that feeds me 1000+ news daily, never ending tweets at twitter, and blog posts by my peers with near perfect writing styles will not hinder me any longer. This marks the beginning of my exploration of the digital media, and I eventually hope to be able to figure out the best type of content I can gather, sieve, and share with every one of you.

Let the journey begin!