Philip Jong - www.philipjong.com

Full Moon On An Eerie Night

2008-07-01T01:01:00+00:00

Leaving My Digital Footprint

2008-06-01T01:00:00+00:00

Having recently celebrated my birthday, I reminisced about the memories of my own childhood in Hong Kong. After searching long for old personal memorabilia, I only found a handful of dated photographs taken of me as a baby and a young boy. The colors in the pictures had mostly faded, and many of the prints were badly cracked. There were no negatives kept for these photos because of the added film expense at the time. Looking back, I regret for not having kept a better pictorial record of myself—not for reasons of vanity, but for the prosperity of my family in the future.
Today, it is much easier for anyone to create and keep a record of one’s life (even after one’s death). This “digital footprint” can take the form of digital photographs, digital recordings of audio and video, digital scans of handwritten documents, personal blogs (such as this blog I am now writing), personal websites, and many other online presence. As technology and the internet continue to grow, so will our footprint left in this digital world. Unlike our ancestors, our legacy will not be pieced together by morsels of rotting artifacts buried in the earth but by streams of bits and bytes of digital information perpetually stored for eternity.

Should Public Transit Be An Essential City Service?

2008-05-01T01:01:00+00:00

Last month, the Amalgamated Transit Union of the Toronto Transit Commission staged a rapid strike after its union workers failed to ratify a tentative deal that was negotiated in good faith between representatives of the Union and the Commission. The strike effectively halted the entire public transit system for the city of Toronto (where I live in Canada) and left many in the public stranded suddenly without any transportation. The news brought on an immediate denouncement by the Mayor, who criticized the Union for failing to give due notification to the city which it had promised previously before striking. In response, the Union cited concern over the safety of its workers from possible public retaliation for its last-minute decision (I found it strange that the Union would had not anticipated this before) to proceed with the unannounced job action. While such concern was undoubtedly valid, it also ignored the equally important concern of the larger public who had no choice but to rely on public transportation to travel safely around the city, particularly at night. The controversial strike ended only when the Province of Ontario passed back-to-work legislation that effectively restored public transportation to the city.
Understandably, this fiasco had angered much of the public and reinvigorated the debate on whether or not Public Transit should be deemed as an essential service, similar to the Police and the Firefighters, for the city. As both a user and a believer of public transportation, I fully support such a consideration if a fair compensation can be ensured to all parties who participate in the change; to do so otherwise ignores the balanced responsibility that our government has to all the people who use the system and all the workers who work hard to maintain it.

Urban Decay Of Our Language

2008-04-01T01:01:00+00:00

Having English as a second language, mastering its massive vocabulary and awkward syntax in everyday speaking and writing has always been a personal challenge for me. It is a language full of neologisms, slangs, jargons, slurs, and colloquialisms: rules that make little sense to any outsider (including me) not familiar with the cultural context from which their uses are derived. Those who practice these rules argue that it is in the nature of our language to evolve and to adapt to the changing needs of its users. While I concur that a language needs to be “living” to remain useful, I too argue that modern English is currently suffering a rapid decay rather than enjoying an enlightening renaissance. This “urban decay” (a takeoff of “urban talk") of our language, as I call it, liberalizes words and idioms to carry a wide array of nonspecific (more often nonsensical) meanings that are uttered without any due consideration of their true intent. To have a single cuss word (yes, it is that word) that is a noun, a verb, an adjective, and an adverb all at the same time is neither hip nor trendy. Rather, it speaks only to the laziness of its users failing to be precise, leaving the audience to guess (often wrongly) its intended meaning. We must act to preserve the richness of our language—not to regress it to a collection of monosyllabic sounds.

When Is A Holiday Not A Holiday?

2008-03-01T01:01:00+00:00

Last month, the province of Ontario (where I live in Canada) held the first ever Family Day, a statutory holiday created by the Liberals back in October 2007 as part of the government’s election promises from the last provincial election. The goal of Family Day (the third Monday in February each year) was to give Canadians more quality time to spend with their families. Sadly, like many other social agenda put forth by the government, the inaugural Family Day was a near failure in practice. Many employers were unaware of (or chose to ignore) this new holiday, leaving many in the workforce still on the job for this weekday. Worse yet, many civic agencies, including the police, had no opportunity to establish a holiday schedule for the day for its workers. In the end, the hastily planned holiday created more of a nuisance than a blessing for Canadians living in Ontario, many of whom were unable to enjoy the holiday with their families who ended up working on that day. Poor planning of the holiday’s arrival had largely ruined this opportune celebration.
I was among the fortunate few who got to enjoy Family Day. Many Ontarians, however, were not.
Then again, there is always next year…

Preserving Human Knowledge In The Digital Age

2008-02-01T01:01:00+00:00

Our desire to preserve the sum of our knowledge in writing begun with the birth of the human civilization. Before the invention of paper (by the Chinese), writings had to be inscribed into stone, clay, bone, wood, wax, papyrus, parchment, and even metal. Reproduction had to be done entirely by hand (wherein the transcription of a single scripture might take up to years), meaning that only a few copies of any work could ever be produced for safekeeping. The advent of the Gutenberg printing press in 1440 (notwithstanding the fact that block printing was already in use by the Chinese before) finally made it possible to mass reproduce copies of printed books for both distribution and preservation. Today, electronic archiving is fast replacing traditional methods of preserving our knowledge previously stored in books and other physical media. Unlike prints, these digital copies are perfect reproductions of the original that will not deteriorate (and thus be prone to be lost) over time. By recording our knowledge in the digital language of 0’s and 1’s, we can assure ourselves that our wisdom will be forever available to benefit generations to come.

The Fallacy Of Prediction

2008-01-01T01:11:01+00:00

It is human nature to think we can predict the future. Perhaps out of our own arrogance, we seek to put order into chaos and uncertainty, however unsuccessful our effort may be. Yet, the “art” of making predictions had been a pervasive practice throughout human history. In 1555, Michel de Nostradamus published Les Propheties—a compendium of self-proclaimed prophecies which predicted many catastrophic world events that were to come true supposedly since then in some cryptic fashions. Even to this date, Nostradamus’ words continue to fuel endless strings of urban myths, grand conspiracies, and fraudulent hoaxes in popular culture. This is despite the fact that reputable scholars have universally discounted these prophecies to be both unprovable and prone to misinterpretation.
Today, we continue to make lofty prophecies, only in more subtle forms. We cleverly disguise our guesses by relabeling them as predictions, prognostications, and forecasts, in a vain attempt to fool ourselves in believing that our foresights are superior than those of our ancestors. Worst yet are individuals who misuse science to defend their claims and to capitalize them for financial, political, or religious gains. After all, human nature rarely changes—we seek to master what cannot control and benefit from it.

Commercialization Of Our Holiday Spirit

2007-12-01T01:01:00+00:00

As the Christmas holiday season fast approaches for those who choose to celebrate this festivity, so does another busy holiday shopping season for many business merchants. Sadly, the commercialization of the holiday season is not new. Even the custom of sending holiday greeting cards, which once began as a personalized exchange of messages of goodwill that dated back to ancient Chinese times, was commercialized by the modernization of the printing press and the development of lithography that eventually led to the introduction of the first commercial Christmas cards in England in 1843.
Last month, while many in the US celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday, most US merchants were busy striking sales deals on the following Black Friday, a secular non-holiday invented solely in the age of commercialism. In Canada (where I live), many retailers have already started their Christmas sale last month and some have even advertised their Boxing Day deals a whole two months early! I cannot help but chuckle each time I walk by a large sale sign advertising Boxing Month sale—not Day, not Week, but Month! Unfortunately, this is irrefutable proof that our holiday season has been lost deep in the black hole of modern commerce, in an age when we choose to celebrate not the holiday spirit with our family but the best deal we can find with our shopping.

Ontario Election 2007: Illusion & Disillusion

2007-11-01T01:01:00+00:00

Last month, the province of Ontario in Canada held its general election for a new government. In the end, the incumbent Liberals won another majority government, while other parties, including the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats, all lost after disappointing supports from voters. Regardless of one’s political affiliation, however, the biggest disappointment for Ontarians of this election was the poor rate of voter turnouts that barely hit over 50%—the lowest in history for a provincial election. This was despite that the fact that this year’s election also included a historic general referendum on electoral reform that would have replaced the existing First-Past-the-Post system with an alternative Mixed Member Proportional system (the latter was ultimately rejected in the referendum). As a proud Ontarian (and Canadian), I take pride in exercising my right to vote freely for my electoral representative and voice my opinion on the choice of an electoral system. Yet, with so many Canadians now disillusioned of our political system, I fear that someday our government and politicians will no longer truly represent the majority of the people’s interests. Protecting our political freedom and liberty must not only be a right, but also a responsibility, for all of us.

My Mighty Canadian Dollar!

2007-10-01T01:01:01+00:00

Rightly or wrongly, the prowess of a country is often measured by its financial wealth. In today’s global economy, the strength of a nation’s currency against another is a common source of pride for its people. Even the Canadian dollar is a descendant of the Canadian pound (in use until 1871) which has its roots in the mighty British pound that has long been a symbol of British colonialism.
Last month, Canadians saw the rise of the Canadian dollar that momentarily reached parity against the US dollar (and even exceeded it) for the first time in 31 years. While this was largely attributed to a weakening of the US economy rather than a strengthening of our own, many Canadians saw the opportunity to proudly proclaim that this was the proof of our financial independence as a nation from the dominating US. As an average consumer, I must admit that it is more of a source to boast my national pride for my country than a real monetary growth in my own wealth. For a brief moment, at least, I can proudly waive my Canadian dollar (which is actually a coin now and not a bill anymore) south of the border and proclaim a win of our mighty loonie over the withering green buck!

Reflection In The Pond

2007-09-01T23:01:00+00:00

A Global Individual

2007-08-01T01:01:00+00:00

Years ago, I chose to register my own name as a .com domain. At the time, I did it more for novelty than for a need to secure an identity for myself. For most people, the need to establish oneself as a global individual seems both superfluous and egotistical. Yet, as we choose to increasingly congregate in this global village (both virtual and real) of ours, we are also unwittingly forfeiting our individual identity to exist in this shared space. This is because, in the history of civilization, societies have never seen a need to establish a global system to identity their citizens. Such identities are not meant to be exploited by a government to control its people. Rather, they are meant to liberate the people to exist with a global presence so that any oppression of an individual can be openly challenged. Much like a global corporation that struggles to keep its brand, a global individual must fight to maintain a distinct identity. We cannot afford to be lost in this world, and the world cannot afford to lose us as individuals.

Video Game Addiction: A Phantom Disease?

2007-07-01T01:01:00+00:00

Last month the American Medical Association (AMA) rejected a controversial proposal to classify video game addition as a mental disorder. As both an avid gamer and a health professional myself, I applaud the decision by the AMA to instead recommend that more rigorous scientific research be done to study this phenomena (or epiphenomena). I make no claim to have any medical knowledge on addiction; still, I find it troublesome to label the overuse of video gaming as an addiction akin to alcohol or drug addiction. This is because the mere overuse or overindulgence of an activity, such as video gaming, cannot by itself define it to be an addiction. Not only such an act wrongly promotes a societal stereotype (of a video game “junkie"), the act of labeling (someone to have a disease when there is none) may even be medically harmful. It may lead to a misdiagnosis of an underlying illness (mental or physical) for which so-called video game addiction is simply an epiphenomena or a mere sign of an undiagnosed disease. Undoubtedly, there are rare cases of individuals (particularly adolescents) reported by the mainstream media in whom playing video games has led to addiction-like behaviors. In these cases, however, it is more (or equally) likely that these individuals are suffering from some other legitimate mental disorders for which playing video games has simply become a platform for the underlying disease to manifest. In other words, until science can validate such claims, diagnosing video addiction today may be akin to diagnosing “female hysteria” centuries ago, a practice that once led to the ludicrous use of pelvic massage to treat a phantom disease.

Green Leaves

2007-06-01T01:01:00+00:00

Addicted To Technology: BlackBerry Or CrackBerry

2007-05-01T01:01:00+00:00

Last month Research In Motion suffered an unforeseen system failure that caused an interruption of its email service to all Canadian users of its BlackBerry devices. BlackBerrys are mobile devices widely used among business executives, professionals (including doctors and lawyers), and even politicians. Despite that the service interruption lasted only less than a day, the outage made much news in the mainstream media which reported many users to be suffering from the so-called CrackBerry withdrawal during the service outage. As a longtime avid technology user, I have been mindful not to let myself to grow addicted to using such a device, regardless of the potential great convenience that the device seemingly offers to its users. I believe that we must only use technology to enrich the lives we live but not to let technology dictate instead how our lives are to be lived daily. In this extreme, it is distributing to see that we can grow so attached on such technology, as if it replaces all real forms of human interactions in our desire to communicate. Rather, we must learn to detach ourselves from becoming the slaves of such technology, for otherwise we may find ourselves one day unable and unwilling to live our lives any other way without it.