Friday, 7 January 2011

News & Animal: STOP EATING Bluefin Tunas NOW!!!!!

Dead Eyes Open
A bluefin tuna is is displayed after the first trading of the year at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market on January 5. (GETTY IMAGES)

Every year, year after year, I write about how cruel people have been to the sea animals, such as the sharks and the tunas, but year after year, Hong Kong people keep eating. Who is to blame? Ricky Cheng, the owner of Itamae and Itacho Sushi restaurant? Or the blue-fin tuna lovers? For HK$3.07M and an over 20-year-old long-lived, rare-aged tuna fish is dead, eyes opened.

CNNGo reports that 'Taste of Japan chief Ricky Cheng said that he "does pay much attention to protecting the environment"^[1]'.

Protecting the environment? My foot!

People are too short-sighted when it comes to money, and too money-minded when it comes to tunas. Care none about the extinctions of other species. The slicing and the chopping, head and tail, it is almost unbearable to watch!

People do not realise or want to admit that taking away big fish from the ocean will only harm human beings one day. They do not want to stop the killing.

Fishermen do not want to admit that the tunas are dying out fast!

For Mr Yamamoto. the tuna
breeding project is a labour of love
Image from BBC News

Akito Yamamoto, a Japanese businessman, realises this and quickly moved to farming bluefins as a mean to make money as well as saving the wild bluefin populations -- killing two birds with one stone. He started his work of bluefin farming even before 2006 and even though breeding the fish is 'a labour of love', he continues with the business. Likewise the Sojitz Corporation of Japan runs a similar but much larger scale project since September 2008 in "Takashima in Matsuura City, site of Genkainada, one of the world’s
leading fishing grounds,"^[2]in Nagasaki Prefecture where the bluefin tunas have been grown "over the course of two years with the cooperation of local residents, fishing cooperatives, and the local government."^[2]Both Mr. Yamamoto and Sojitz deserve praises and I do hope that they succeed big time for this project! The first batch of farmed bluefins has already been shipped out on the 8th Dec 2010, let's hope that the public accepts it well!

Image from Sojitz Corporation

Starting a wild bluefin saving project is one milestone indeed, but the next big obstacle is the fish-eaters' stereotypical perception of farm fish. Farmed fish aren’t as tasty as the wild ones they say, so why stop catching them in the oceans. Putting it in Mr Yamamoto's opinion, "Farmed fish aren’t as tasty as the wild ones they say, so why stop catching them in the oceans." ^[3]

A Bloody Shame
Image from www.sustainablesushi.net

Image from WWF

What is the difference between wild-catch and farmed bluefin tuna? In Judith Yang's opinion, there is almost none! Then why can't there be more farmed bluefin tunas? Time and money.

Fishermen do not want to wait and neither do the tuna-lovers. As a normal citizen, what we can do is really boycott restaurants which sell these poor, on-the-verge-of-extinction bluefin tunas for now as proposed by the WWF.

Anyway, Itacho and Itamae Sushi aren't tasty anyway in my opinions. I like Sen-ryo much better and they don't sell Bluefins anymore and I don't eat the Yellowfins either! Thumbs up!

I have been a Bluefin Saver for a long time, what about you?

Click here to pledge as a Bluefin Saver too!

"Fish Can't Speak, But You Can!" -- WWF

Actually, FISH CAN TALK!!! They understand how humans are treating them, just that few are listening to them.

If you want to learn more about Tunas and their sustainability, YouTube has a whole channel by the TunaSustainability and there is a website called Sustainable Sushi by ICCAT, both are excellent resources for both knowledge and English learning. Learn them and teach your friends, families and the young generations! This is what I have been doing!

Vocabulary:

My foot! -- informal old-fashioned

used to mean that you do not believe what another person has just told you

unbearable -- (adj) too painful or unpleasant for you to continue to experience
milestone -- (n) [C] (UK also milepost)

an important event in the development or history of something or in someone's life

obstacle -- (n) [C]

something that blocks you so that movement, going forward or action are prevented or made more difficult

stereotypical -- (adj) disapproving

having the qualities that you expect a particular type of person to have

perception -- (n) [C] a belief or opinion, often held by many people and based on how things seem
boycott -- (vb) [T]

to refuse to buy a product or take part in an activity as a way of expressing strong disapproval

informal

used to show approval of something

Wednesday, 5 January 2011

News & Technology: Math That Moves: Schools Embrace the iPad

Too much technological news lately? Yes, I agree, but it seems like this is the biggest war that is happening right now around the world. I say that this is a 'war' for 2 main reasons.

The Chinaman who made history?
Han Ziwen, the first man to officially buy an iPad in China.
Image from CNNGo

Apple's iPhone, iTouch, iPod and iPad started a massive electronics frenzy that triggered the most hidden and smallest "I-want-one-too" brain cells. CNNGo.com crowned the news iPad hits Asia as the 11th story that changed our world in 2010, just look at the gentleman in the photo above! Since then, companies such as US Google, Korean giants Samsung and LG, Japan's Sony Ericsson, China's Lenovo and Taiwan-based HTC have wanted to give the Apple a big bite with tsunami-style releases of similar smartphones. Oops, sorry, it has already got a bite in its logo! Or is that really a bite in the Apple? Or the Apple biting back?

Pacman eats Apple? Or Apple eats Pacman?
Image from static.artfire.com

Another war which you might not realise nor even feel, happens in the educational field, where the traditional teaching method is fiercely being challenged by the introduction of electronic gadgets into the traditional classroom teaching.

News Article from The New York Times

January 4, 2011

Math That Moves: Schools Embrace the iPad

Joshua Lott for The New York Times

Max Mashal, a sixth grader, uses his iPad at Pinnacle Peak Elementary School in Scottsdale, Ariz.

By WINNIE HU

ROSLYN HEIGHTS, N.Y. — As students returned to class this week, some were carrying brand-new Apple iPads in their backpacks, given not by their parents but by their schools.

A growing number of schools across the nation are embracing the iPad as the latest tool to teach Kafka in multimedia, history through “Jeopardy”-like games and math with step-by-step animation of complex problems.

As part of a pilot program, Roslyn High School on Long Island handed out 47 iPads on Dec. 20 to the students and teachers in two humanities classes. The school district hopes to provide iPads eventually to all 1,100 of its students.

The iPads cost $750 apiece, and they are to be used in class and at home during the school year to replace textbooks, allow students to correspond with teachers and turn in papers and homework assignments, and preserve a record of student work in digital portfolios.

“It allows us to extend the classroom beyond these four walls,” said Larry Reiff, an English teacher at Roslyn who now posts all his course materials online.

Technological fads have come and gone in schools, and other experiments meant to rev up the educational experience for children raised on video games and YouTube have had mixed results. Educators, for instance, are still divided over whether initiatives to give every student a laptop have made a difference academically.

At a time when school districts are trying to get their budgets approved so they do not have to lay off teachers or cut programs, spending money on tablet computers may seem like an extravagance.

And some parents and scholars have raised concerns that schools are rushing to invest in them before their educational value has been proved by research.

“There is very little evidence that kids learn more, faster or better by using these machines,” said Larry Cuban, a professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, who believes that the money would be better spent to recruit, train and retain teachers. “IPads are marvelous tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning.”

But school leaders say the iPad is not just a cool new toy but rather a powerful and versatile tool with a multitude of applications, including thousands with educational uses.

“If there isn’t an app that does something I need, there will be sooner or later,” said Mr. Reiff, who said he now used an application that includes all of Shakespeare’s plays.

Educators also laud the iPad’s physical attributes, including its large touch screen (about 9.7 inches) and flat design, which allows students to maintain eye contact with their teachers. And students like its light weight, which offers a relief from the heavy books that weigh down their backpacks.

Roslyn administrators also said their adoption of the iPad, for which the district paid $56,250 for the initial 75 (32-gigabyte, with case and stylus), was advancing its effort to go paperless and cut spending. In Millburn, N.J., students at South Mountain Elementary School have used two iPads purchased by the parent-teacher organization to play math games, study world maps and read “Winnie the Pooh.” Scott Wolfe, the principal, said he hoped to secure 20 more iPads next school year to run apps that, for instance, simulate a piano keyboard on the screen or display constellations based on a viewer’s location.

“I think this could very well be the biggest thing to hit school technology since the overhead projector,” Mr. Wolfe said.

The New York City public schools have ordered more than 2,000 iPads, for $1.3 million; 300 went to Kingsbridge International High School in the Bronx, or enough for all 23 teachers and half of the students to use at the same time.

More than 200 Chicago public schools applied for 23 district-financed iPad grants totaling $450,000. The Virginia Department of Education is overseeing a $150,000 iPad initiative that has replaced history and Advanced Placement biology textbooks at 11 schools. And six middle schools in four California cities (San Francisco, Long Beach, Fresno and Riverside) are teaching the first iPad-only algebra course, developed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Even kindergartners are getting their hands on iPads. Pinnacle Peak School in Scottsdale, Ariz., converted an empty classroom into a lab with 36 iPads — named the iMaginarium — that has become the centerpiece of the school because, as the principal put it, “of all the devices out there, the iPad has the most star power with kids.”

But technology advocates like Elliot Soloway, an engineering professor at the University of Michigan, and Cathie Norris, a technology professor at the University of North Texas, question whether school officials have become so enamored with iPads that they have overlooked less costly options, like smartphones that offer similar benefits at a fraction of the iPad’s base cost of about $500.

Indeed, many of the districts are paying for their iPads through federal and other grants, including money from the federal Race to the Top competitive grant program, which administrators in Durham, N.C., are using to provide an iPad to every teacher and student at two low-performing schools.

“You can do everything that the iPad can with existing off-the-shelf technology and hardware for probably $300 to $400 less per device,” Professor Soloway said.

Apple has sold more than 7.5 million iPads since April, the company reported, but it is not known how many went to schools.

The company has been developing a school market for the iPad by working with textbook publishers on instructional programs and sponsoring iPad workshops for administrators and teachers. It does not, however, appear to have marketed the tablet as aggressively to schools as it did its early desktop computers, some of which were heavily discounted for schools and helped establish a generation of Apple users. School officials say that Apple has been offering only a standard educational discount of about 10 percent on the iPad.

About 5,400 educational applications are available specifically for the iPad, of which nearly 1,000 can be downloaded free.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which developed the iPad algebra program in California, said it planned to compare the test scores of students using a textbook in digital and traditional book formats. The iPad version offers video of the author solving equations, and individualized assessments and practice problems.

Many school officials say they have been waiting for technology like the iPad.

“It has brought individual technology into the classroom without changing the classroom atmosphere,” said Alex Curtis, headmaster of the private Morristown-Beard School in New Jersey, which bought 60 iPads for $36,000 and is considering providing iPads to all students next fall.

Dr. Curtis recently used a $1.99 application, ColorSplash, which removes or adds color to pictures, to demonstrate the importance of color in a Caravaggio painting in his seminar on Baroque art. “Traditionally, so much of art history is slides on a screen,” he said. “When they were able to manipulate the image themselves, it came alive.”

Daniel Brenner, the Roslyn superintendent, said the iPads would also save money in the long run by reducing printing and textbook costs; the estimated savings in the two iPad classes are $7,200 a year.

“It’s not about a cool application,” Dr. Brenner said. “We are talking about changing the way we do business in the classroom.”

Opinions:

Does iPad really work in classroom learning environment? Some teachers say yes, some teachers say no. After doing a literature review for my Master's degree assignment, which I will publish here on my blog in the near future for those of you who are interested in IT in education, I say that it is really a good idea, but at the end of the day, a device is a device, what really makes things work all depends on the teachers who plan, deliver and monitor the lesson. If you have a good teacher, your kids will learn well even without an iPad, or an iPhone?

What do you think?

By the way, rumours/Bloomberg Businessweek said iPhone 5 -- Verizon will be launched this month! Those of you who have recently joined SmarTone or 3 for your iPhone 4 plan, have you refilled your wallet yet?

Vocabulary:

frenzy -- (n)

[C or U]

(an example of) uncontrolled and excited behaviour or emotion, which is sometimes violent

crown -- [T] If an event or achievement crowns something, it is the best or most successful part of it

tsunami -- (n) [C] an extremely large wave caused by movement of the Earth under the sea, often caused by an earthquake (= when the Earth shakes)

gadget -- (n) [C] a small device or machine with a particular purpose

embrace -- (vb) [T] formal to accept something enthusiastically

complex -- (adj) difficult to understand or find an answer to because of having many different parts

portfolio -- (n) [C] (plural portfolios) a collection of drawings, documents, etc. that represent a person's, especially an artist's, work

fad -- (n) [C] a style, activity or interest which is very popular for a short period of time

rev up -- phrasal verb to become more active, or to make someone or something become more active

initiative -- [C] a new action or movement, often intended to solve a problem
tablet computer -- See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet_personal_computer
extravagance -- (n) [C] something you buy which you do not need and which costs a lot of money

emeritus -- [before orafter noun] no longer having a position, especially in a college or university, but keeping the title of the position

versatile -- (adj) approving able to change easily from one activity to another or able to be used for many different purposes

grant -- (n) [C] a sum of money given especially by the government to a person or organization for a special purpose

advocate -- (n) [C] someone who publicly supports something

enamored -- (adj) formal liking a lot

fraction -- (n) [C] a number that results from dividing one whole number by another, or a small part of something

off-the-shelf -- If a product can be bought off the shelf, it does not need to be specially made or requested

Resources:

20 Stories that changed our world in 2010 @ CNNGo

http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/stories-changed-our-world-2010-694444?page=0,1

Lenovo shows its first tablet, the LePad @ ComputerWorld

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9203298/Lenovo_shows_its_first_tablet_the_LePad

Math That Moves: Schools Embrace the iPad @ New York Times

Message: Locky's English Playground is Now on Twitter and Facebook

The Facebook 'Like' buttons can't satisfy our readers, nor can the Google Connect and RSS Feeds that have been keeping you updated of the updates of my blog, so I'm offering you more options.

First, I'm announcing the official launch of our Locky's English Playground on Facebook. There you will be able to get instant notice of the latest articles once they are posted on this blog. There will be web links that you take you back to the articles you want to read on this blog. You can also share them with friends that you know on Facebook. Do add it to your bookmark!

Locky's English Playground @ Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lockys-English-Playground/189147484429273?v=wall

Then of course, I won't forget those of you who might use another social networking platform, Twitter, so I have also added a Locky's English Playground Twitter page. What you will see on the Twitter page should be exactly the same as what you will see on the Facebook page, so you can go to either Facebook or Twitter.

But that doesn't mean the Twitter page is pointless.

The advantage of the Twitter page over the Facebook page is that you can see the people I follow on Twitter. They are my masters and teachers in many aspects of life and their work is always enlightening to me, thus I hope they can influence you too.

These pages took me more than 2 hours to figure out how to link up, so... hope you like them!

Locky's English Playground @ Twitter

http://twitter.com/Lockyep#

Enjoy learning while you are Facebooking and Tweeting!

Locky

Monday, 3 January 2011

Movie: Karigurashi no Arietti (借りぐらしのアリエッティ)

The Borrower Arrietty in English, or Karigurashi no Arietti (借りぐらしのアリエッティ) in Japanese, is definitely one of the must-watch movies this Winter, whether you are a Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎駿) fan or not. It is worth every cent to watch, not only for it is the debut animation directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi (米林宏昌), the youngest director for Studio Ghibli, who set an all-time record in Japan for a movie with a first time director with 7.5 million people saw the film in theaters^[1], not for the amount of artwork and time spent planning and producing this movie since July 2008^[1] but also for the important messages that this movie is trying to send out to the world, which makes it a great movie for children to watch.

I first heard of this movie when I was visiting Tokyo's Ghibli Museum in summer 2010. As you may know that there is usually a very lengthy delay in the release date of Japanese movies in Hong Kong, most people can easily download Japanese movies from the internet long before the movies actually come to the local cinemas. I didn't do that for any animations produced by Studio Ghibli, because that will terribly ruin the big surprises that Miyazaki wants to bring to the audience as well as the chance to watch the movies on the big cinema screen and to be a part of his fantasy, his dream world.

Image from chibisimo

Image from tokyoq.com

At that time, I could already see some of his hand-sketch of this movie in the museum, though I didn't know what the little girl's name was, I knew it was definitely a movie worth anticipating for. The museum taught me how immensely difficult it is to create an animation and how many thousands of hours' work is needed to produce it -- an absolute product of passion, manpower, sweat, teamwork, perseverance and sleepless hard work. The depth of research on the natural environment, machinery, physics of motions and facial expressions was already enough to stun any visitors, let alone the creative breakthroughs the team has to make every single animation they produce.

Image from Wikipedia

Adopting from English children book author Mary Norton's The Borrowers series, Karigurashi no Arietti sets stage in 2010 in Western Tokyo's neighborhood of Koganei, where Studio Ghibli actually locates in real life^[1]. 14-year-old Arrietty lives secretly in the human world with her miniature Borrower parents under a human family's house, sustaining their living through "borrowing" food and other things from human while keeping their existence unknown to them. During herb picking, she is discovered by a sick human boy named Sho who later raises suspicions of his Aunt Sadoko that the Borrowers do exist. Sho's friends-making with Arrietty has caused troubles and even danger to the Borrowers family as he accidentally leaves traces for Aunt Sadoko to investigate, leaving the Borrowers with no choice but to leave. The original novel by Mary Norton was quite a sad ending, as the Boy (who is Sho in the movie) never got to see Arrietty before she left, while Miyazaki and team changed this ending.

How is the ending changed? You will need to see for yourself. After watching the movie, you are suggested to read this lengthy review by Studio Ghibli team themselves. But I definitely want to talk about the messages the movie conveys.

In the part which Sho finally gets to meet Arrietty face-to-face for the first time, Sho talks about the situation that the Borrowers are facing. He says that the Borrowers is an endangered species of this planet, and just like many other minority species, he only gets to read about them in books, many of which only exist in books by the time they are discovered as they are already extinct, which is due to the fact that human beings have grown to such a big number and they destroy their environment. Having heard that, Arrietty fights back and says that even though they are facing extinction, they will continue to bravely strive for survival.

Up to this point, what is in your mind?

Image from Myspace.cn

Immediately, I was reminded of the Pteroptyx firefly that first appears in Nam Sang Wai, Hong Kong. They are unique to Hong Kong and is the first type of such firefly ever recorded in China. Yet the land they live in is privately owned by the famous "Uncle 4' Dr. Lee Shau Kee of Henderson Land Development, who has the rights to build golf courses and 2,500 housing units^[2]. No matter how many people protested in Nam Sang Wai ^[3], how many people want to save the wetland, how WWF tries its best to protect the habitats ^[4], Nam Sang Wai's fireflies and many other minority living species could not escape from numerous forest fires that broke out continuously on the same piece of land coincidentally in 2 consecutive days ^[5]. Well, the air is so DRY that the same piece of WET-land was burnt to ashes, no doubt about that! Poor fireflies, the Nam San Wai's Borrowers......

If we don't conserve and protect, who will?

Here I round up with the Japanese theme song of the movie sung by French-Brettone singer and celtic harpist Cécile Corbel, which you should be hearing once you come visiting this page. Although I don't know the meaning of the song, but her voice is just miraculously smooth and only someone who is an expert in the Japanese language and produce that mellow yet jumpy singing with controlled twitches at perfect places. Listening to this song, makes me want to protect everything on this planet and to love everything.

Grave of the Fireflies
Image from i1.cvimage.cn

Hope you do too!

KnA teaser

Uploaded by manuloz. - Watch original web videos.

Vocabulary:

coincidentally -- (adv) happened by chance

miraculously -- (adv) very effective or surprising or difficult to believe

mellow -- (adj) smooth, soft or developed; not too sharp, bright, new or rough

twitch -- (n) [C] a sudden small, usually unintentional, movement of a part of the body
harpist -- (n) [C] a person who plays the harp, the musical instrument Cécile Corbel in playing in the above MTV

Resources:

Hiromasa Yonebayashi @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiromasa_Yonebayashi

Hayao Miyazaki @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayao_Miyazaki

Studio Ghibli
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Ghibli

Ghibli Museum
http://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en/004518.html

Mary Norton @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Norton_(author)

The Borrowers by Mary Norton @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Borrowers

Koganei @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koganei

Borrower Arrietty Trailer
http://borrower-arrietty.movie-trailer.com/

Kari-gurashi no Arietti @ IMDb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1568921/
[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1568921/trivia

Anime News Network
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=11212

ROME 2010: STUDIO GHIBLI'S KARIGURASHI NO ARRIETTY REVIEW

http://twitchfilm.com/reviews/2010/11/rome-2010-karigurashi-no-arrietty-review.php

Hong Kong Biodiversity @ Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department Newsletter

http://www.afcd.gov.hk/tc_chi/publications/publications_con/files/IssueNo19.pdf

[2] Hong Kong Planners Deny Henderson Land Delay on Site, RTHK Says @ Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-10/hong-kong-planners-deny-henderson-land-delay-on-site-rthk-says.html

[3] Nam Sang Wai @ WWF Hong Kong

http://www.wwf.org.hk/en/news/?3383/WWF-opposes-to-the-Proposed-Integrated-Conservation-and-Development-Project-ICDP-in-Nam-Sang-Wai-and-Nature-Reserve-in-Lut-Chau

[4] Hundreds for wetlands protest @ The Standard

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=4&art_id=105873&sid=30582678&con_type=1&d_str=20101210&fc=7

[5] No eyes in skies as hillfires rage @ The Standard

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=106487&sid=30757805&con_type=1&d_str=20101229&sear_year=2010

Nam Sang Wai @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam_Sang_Wai

Nam Sang Wai @ Hong Kong Wetland Park
http://www.wetlandpark.com/en/tour/nsw.asp