Words to Lyrics Ben Ho's observations from the cloud

6 March 2011

Uni 2, Week 1

Filed under: Rant,Reflection — Tags: , — Ben @ 9:48 pm

It’s Sunday night. My desk is very messy, filled with documents and brochures. There’s almost no control of what’s happening. This is my desk after week 1 at Sydney University.

Here’s the back story if you missed it. It’s been a week at a new university, and I’m exhausted. Three 8am starts, and a 9am start. Thankfully the early starts are gone, more on that later.

If I had to describe my week in one word, it’s ‘chaos’. Most of the time was spent sitting in introductory lectures, and chasing up my credit application. It’s strange to be doing all first-year subjects in my second year of university.

Because I had completed units at Macquarie, I applied for credit at USyd. Who would have thought that this ‘simple’ application would take 5 weeks to process? I got very frustrated at the lack of progress, because this meant that I couldn’t finalise my enrolment. The application was only completed on Friday afternoon, and then I got a clear idea of what to study for this year.

There was something interesting about the outcome. I had been given credit for Accounting 1B, whose prerequisite was Accounting 1A. Naturally you would think that you wouldn’t need to do both subjects, but no, I was told I had to do Accounting 1A. This was because prerequisites are ignored during credit applications. On one hand I thought this was ridiculous, but to put a positive spin on this, at least I could ‘revise’ the things I learnt last year.

Now, the timetable. USyd would prefer to let a computer decide your timetable, no matter how ridiculous it looked. I thought I wouldn’t bother changing my timetable much because I would have to change it again depending on the outcome of the credit application. Part of the reason I was frustrated, was because human-assisted timetable changes closed at the end of last Friday. If the credit application wasn’t back by Friday, I’d be at the mercy of the computer. Luckily I was able to get a human to change my timetable, and now I have three 11am starts, and a 10am start, with Wednesdays off.

I’ve also bumped into old friends, and people I haven’t seen for a long time. At least that’s something good that happened. I’m also liking the longer train trip. At least I can read or sleep comfortably.

The brochure to the French Film Festival remains unread, and that starts this Tuesday! It should be a good lineup this year.

I’d better get back to the readings for this week. So much to read! Talk soon.

27 February 2011

A Reflection of the Holiday

Filed under: Reflection — Tags: — Ben @ 9:22 pm

The long summer holiday has ended. So I ask myself what have I achieved this holiday?

I didn’t get a job.
I made a poor effort to catch up with friends.
I stayed at home for most of the time.
I watched a lot of TV.
I did some volunteer work!

Conclusion: I’ve turned into a vegetable.

Admittedly, I do regret not doing more than I did. Knowing when the postman comes and what’s on TV during the day is good but it doesn’t compare to getting something useful on the CV. Not making the effort to see friends is, well, shall we say unhealthy. Each day became a countdown to the next significant event: the postman delivers the mail, this TV show comes on, the parcel man comes, and so on.

Being a vegetable didn’t do wonders for my health either. I was eating less and less, but at the same time snacking more and more. Getting fat on the couch would soon become reality. I tried to find any errand I could do, just to stop being bored.

I did try to find paid work. I applied for a few jobs, none got back within the summer. One emailed to say they would like to have an interview, but they haven’t called yet. I gave up in mid-January.

On the bright side, I did some volunteering at the Sydney Festival. I wrote a review for one of the events, and I did go on about the Festival a bit on Twitter (I think). I got into the University of Sydney! Looking forward to the new experiences there.

At least the holiday didn’t go to waste entirely. Now I’m off to have an early night; 8am start tomorrow.

18 January 2011

The “Happy Birthday! BH” Phenomenon

Filed under: I Wonder,Reflection — Tags: , — Ben @ 10:38 pm

What do you do when it’s someone’s birthday? Well the least you could do is say Happy Birthday to them. However most people find it convenient to have Facebook remind them it’s a friend’s birthday on a particular day, and simply writing on their Wall is good enough. Some people claim that wishing someone Happy Birthday on Facebook is more important than saying it to them face-to-face, or via telephone.

Not long after I joined Facebook, I began to wonder how I’d wish so many friends Happy Birthday without appearing prejudicial to a particular group of people. After all I wanted to present myself as being equal to all. It’s hard enough writing a card for a special occasion, so why create that same burden online?

My solution was to write a short (and to-the-point) Wall post on each friend’s birthday. This message would convey the message (Happy Birthday) very simply, but also stand out from the many others who wished Happy Birthday as well.

The message is simply this:

Happy Birthday!

BH

While it has done the aforementioned job very well, what I didn’t expect to happen was this message to be a small phenomenon. There’s been lots of good and bad criticism, as well as numerous imitations.

It’s been said that the message is too short. Although I admit that it is shorter than most other messages, it is still better than those that write “happy birthday” or (the worst case I have seen) “hbd”. Then again, I’m usually not the most important person in their life, so why should they waste their time reading a message from me? Wouldn’t it be better spent reading the message of their significant other?

On the flip side, when some see my message, they value it over some others. I feel honoured by this, but it goes to show something simple has the potential to make a larger than intended impact.

I have no plans to stop what I am doing, and I hope this has answered some of your questions about why I do what I do.

29 December 2010

Week 26 of 90+

Filed under: Forward Thinking,Reflection — Tags: , — Ben @ 9:40 pm

At the beginning of this year, I wrote about the new challenge of beginning university after 13 years of primary and secondary education. Now that the first year is complete, and the results are in (after some pushing and shoving with the unions), I’m very happy to enjoy this long summer break.

As some of you know, Macquarie University was my second preferred university. I’ve been working hard this year to achieve good results that would yield the best chance to transfer to the University of New South Wales (UNSW).

I thought I’d write about it here because as the day that UAC release offers draws closer, there’s been a lot of interest about my situation (and I don’t want to sound/feel like a broken record)!

This is what I know, and please seek independent advice on admission requirements if you are in a similar situation. I won’t be held responsible for information which I believed to be correct, that turned out to be wrong. (Disclaimers FTW!)

My marks this year were quite good. A GPA of 3.25, average 72. From what I have heard, a credit average is sufficient for an external application into UNSW. Therefore the marks should be OK.

I’ve also spoken to a university staffer who handles admissions, and she said that for domestic applications like mine, university marks are considered first, with the ATAR possibly contributing very little in this process.

At Macquarie I studied a Bachelor of Commerce – Professional Accounting (that’s the name). At UNSW, I intend to study the double degree Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting)/Bachelor of Science (Computer Science).

Once there, I should be able to get credit for my study at MQ, thus eliminating the need to redo first year Commerce subjects. I find out on 19 January whether I receive an offer, just like every year 12 who applied to UAC.

In my opinion, my application is looking good.

Happy holidays everyone.

12 September 2010

Election Night

Filed under: Attended,Reflection — Tags: , , — Ben @ 10:13 pm

On 21 August, Australia went to the polls to decide who would govern for the next three years. There was no clear result, only the outcome of a hung parliament.

During election night, you will have no doubt seen the television coverage at some point from the National Tally Room in Canberra. I went to visit the tally room that night, and I was met with this:

The Queue

Yes, there was a queue outside in the cold. Dad and I waited for an hour snaking around the courtyard before we got to the front entrance. Only  a limited number of people are allowed in at one time. Luckily the ABC had a TV outside so it wasn’t all that boring. One unique feature of Australian federal elections is the atmosphere of the coverage, the excitement associated with the result if you will. (This YouTube clip of 2007 election coverage will demonstrate this point, as well as Kerry O’Brien’s famous gaffe). During the last few minutes of waiting, I noticed this placard on the fence:

Media Placard

Yes, that’s the Chaser’s Craig Reucassel with Senator Conroy in the top left corner. The AEC took the opportunity to tell everyone how good they were at administering elections and the media are an important part of the process.

(If you don’t know the rest of the media personalities on that poster, they are clockwise: David Koch, Tom Gleisner and Santo Cilauro, Kerry O’Brien, Ray Martin and Laurie Oakes, Mark Riley, and Alan Jones)

Media Tally board

Once inside at about 8pm, the tally board of all 150 House of Representatives seats spans an entire side of the hall. The numbers are manually updated throughout the night by AEC workers. On the other side are the TV media sets. Ten, Seven, Sky, Nine and ABC were there with almost every news personality sitting behind a desk. Politicians were moving between sets to do numerous interviews. Between the public area and the TV sets were representatives from political parties and other media interpreting the results.

A few electorates

Probably the other highlight of the night (besides the hung result) was the surprise visit by Greens leader Bob Brown. I was standing behind the Channel Nine interview of Warren Truss (yes, that’s the one highlighted by the Chaser) when Brown walks in to cheers and the large media pack. With me being me, I got nowhere near, but I did catch these shots:

Warren Truss with Allison Langdon Bob Brown adressing media

If I ever visit the tally room again, I’d better bring a larger camera. Dad and I left at about 11pm, and the next day I drove a long way.

21 July 2010

Again on Facebook: The Friends List

Filed under: Rant,Reflection — Tags: , — Ben @ 10:06 am

This is another post about what I think about Facebook. Previously: this post of general thoughts.

I noticed that my intended use of the Friends List had changed this year. Now, on the surface, the List is exactly as it says it is; a list of friends made on Facebook. But you may or may not know about the extra functionality of creating groups of friends, that also extend to Chat (function of hiding from these groups of people).

In other words, the core purpose is to list out your friends, or more accurately, your personal connections (you will see why later).

But this isn’t the point. I want to focus on who makes up your Friends List, not how many.

Now, Facebook has default groups of friends by network. If you think about it, you make friends at high school (one network), at university (another network), and at each workplace you work at (yet more networks). It is fair to say, that the social nature of each environment is different. Hence (if you have one), the criteria of whether someone is your ‘friend’ or not differs between networks.

Using my criteria as an example, someone who graduated with me from high school (i.e. same Year 12 group) will have more chance of being my ‘friend’, than someone who I met once at uni. My previous criteria was that only people I associated with regularly were ‘friends’.

Obviously, the more social experiences one has, the more friends there should be. But from the example above, be aware of who you friend and what you share with them. I have found that there are people who you would want to ‘friend’ due to the value of a personal connection with them. But be aware, there are some statements that shouldn’t be made public, because there are people who do not deserve to know/care.

We can also extend this thinking to family members on your Friend List. There has been lots of debate about whether one should friend their parents/relatives. A general rule is if the relative lives overseas or is of similar age, then it is acceptable for them to be added. But for those that are older, some caution must be taken.

The lesson to take away from this, is to be careful who you ‘friend’ on Facebook. Unless you want to become a news story.

8 June 2010

I do and don’t like Facebook.

Filed under: Rant,Reflection — Tags: , — Ben @ 4:24 pm

So, today I have completed the marketing exam. My mind is still quite focused on concepts (and my performance in the exam), so in the little ‘power-down’ period I have, I thought I might write a few thoughts on a service we all use so much that it is now ubiquitous: Facebook.

Facebook now has hundreds of millions of users around the world. It has been described as a ‘meta-layer’  (BOL podcast, within the last 2 weeks) of the internet. This is easily seen in Facebook Connect and Instant Personalisation functions. These extend your Facebook account identity to third-party websites, and personalise the content of said website according to what you have in your profile.

These functions are also common functions of social networks which include the Wall (public messages), groups/pages, events pages, photo/video sharing etc…

Now, don’t get me wrong. Facebook is fantastic at keeping in touch with people you haven’t spoken/seen in a long time. As people’s contact details change their Facebook presence is constant, regardless of whether they have updated it with their new address or not (in most cases). It makes easy to arrange events at a moment’s notice, share media, tell your friend that they’re cool, and so on. That’s why I like Facebook, now here’s why I don’t.

Facebook has moved into a position where it wants to be a central repository for your identity and content. Because all your information (including page, group data etc) is on the site and organised (in most cases) by you, this potentially makes it easy for them to share this information to advertisers and third-parties. Subsequently, marketers can segment down to your interests what you like, and serve up super-relevant ads. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder) said at the recent D8 conference that the world will move towards applications designed around people and the nature of what people do, not software.

What is also noticeable, and mentioned by Zuckerberg, is that new Facebook features are almost always protested, because an engineer has found a new way to present information. Take a look at News/Live Feed. It was met with intense criticism initially, but now it is standard and quite useful.

Now here is what I prefer to do. I’m not a fan of signing up for services that duplicate functionality I already have. I share my photos on Flickr. I try to use email as much as possible (minimise Facebook messaging/wall posting). But note, this doesn’t mean I’ll stop using Facebook. (Actually, maybe this will)

22 April 2010

Birthday Stats and Messages

Filed under: Reflection — Tags: , — Ben @ 8:43 pm

Like I did last year, I’ve compiled a set of statistics about my birthday. So here goes:

Statistics

Birthday messages
Facebook messages – 65
Face to face greets – 4
Text messages – 4
Tweets – 1

Frequency of Facebook messages vs. Time (i.e. when was the message posted)

(Time in 24 hour format i.e. 0 is 12am, 22 is 10pm)

Comparison of AEST and UTC:

AEST 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
UTC 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Number of people who attempted to use my ‘initials’ signature – 11
Number of people who used it incorrectly – 3
Facebook email lag* – 11

Amount spent on scratchies – $10
Amount lost – $10

Cash received as gifts – $364.2

*Every time I get a wall post, an email is sent to me. This is the number of emails it did not send me.

Observations

Some observations about the graph I’d like to point out. (Yes! I get to nerd out now.)

I would have expected a normal distribution (bell-shaped curve) which meant that the majority of responses were in the middle of the day. But as the graph shows, it is quite evenly distributed.

The unusual concentration at 12am-2am is the result of people who (I think):

  • wanted to be the first to wish me Happy Birthday (at 12am)
  • were studying late (all-nighter)
  • (in one case) was overseas (from the raw data, one message was from a person in the UK, hence the local time would have been 5pm)(London is UTC+1)

My other prediction is that the ‘spike’ at 6pm is due to people coming home after a day at uni.

Now, about the initials. For those who don’t know, I write the same thing for each person’s birthday. I sign with my initials, BH. This statistic shows that the trend of signing with initials was popular with some of you. Also, three of you managed to use my initials instead of your own! Well done.

Next, Facebook email lag. This is an interesting one. It shows that Facebook’s email servers can’t keep up with the posts of my wall, hence, I wasn’t sent emails about wall posts for 11 people.

Messages

OK. That’s enough of the stats, now the personal messages. You know who you are.

To those who are overseas, I miss you too.

To those who signed with initials, Thank you. BH

I do miss French, as well as the free hugs.

Merci beaucoup.

Cale, FAIL! (Now that rhymes!)

To everyone else, Thank you, keep in touch, and see you soon.

28 February 2010

Week 1 of 90+

Filed under: Reflection — Tags: , , — Ben @ 11:25 am

13 years of Primary and Secondary education is hardly worth blogging about, but the first week of university after 13 years of the same thing is undoubtedly interesting by any scale.

And so my first week of university concluded yesterday (Friday). It is always a little hard to get back into a weekly routine after three months of well-deserved vacation. And also, the first lectures in every subject are about the same introductory information. The first week is also a great time to join an interest club/society, meet new people, and to explore the campus.

Macquarie Uni is right next to the shopping centre, which makes it easy for me to walk right over and have cheap lunch. Also good for killing time between lectures.

And to sweeten it all, I have Mondays off. Which makes it very convenient to cram study in catch up sleep.

I hope 2010 goes well for all of you.

20 February 2010

Location Social Networks

Filed under: Reflection — Tags: , , , , , — Ben @ 9:41 pm

Recently there’s been lots of commentary and criticism about location social networks and services such as Google Latitude, Foursquare and Loopt. A website called Please Rob Me set up this week has aggregated users’ tweets from Foursquare and reported these users as not being at home. The point they are getting across is that when one broadcasts their location, they also tell their followers that they are not at home.

Initially Foursquare has responded to the site with this blog post. The main point it tries to convey is that your data is only broadcast within your group of Foursquare friends, unless you choose otherwise. Many users choose to broadcast their locations on Facebook and Twitter, which is the feature that Please Rob Me is trying to exploit as the weak point of one’s privacy.

I’d like to point out a few things about the use of these social networks that emphasise users’ control of their own data.

First, it’s pretty obvious that you are responsible for what you put on the internet, and that when information is public, it is effectively out of your control. You have the choice of revealing your home or not, obviously. Thus this is where Please Rob Me fails. If people don’t share their home information, then telling people where you are is not a problem.

Second, and to build the case against Please Rob Me, you can control what your network of friends can see. Facebook allows you to control what information is seen by who. Foursquare gives you the option of broadcasting your location to Facebook friends and/or Twitter followers. It is up to the user to decide how comfortable they are with sharing their location. It surprises me how much people are sharing about themselves unknowingly.

On a side note, someone asked me whether I trusted everyone in my Facebook friend list. Well the answer is yes. The reason is, that I don’t add ‘randoms’ and I know exactly who is on my friend list. I have a policy when it comes to adding friends on my list, and I do trust them with my location information.

This forces the user to be aware about the information they share, and be smart about it. For example, I know exactly how many people have access to my home address. Please Rob Me essentially is a wake up call to those who share liberally.

But let’s look at the other side of this argument: the benefits of location social networks.

The obvious benefit is that you are able to see whether your friends are near you, so you can meet up and do cool stuff together. Foursquare’s points system encourages you to explore your city, and meet up with friends too.

Another reason who location social networks are useful, is to let someone know where you are. I have used Latitude for this purpose before.

So to sum up, the user is in control of their information, it is up to them to decide how comfortable they are sharing different types of information, and also to be aware of who the information is reaching.

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »