Watch “Revolution Trilogy” 睇「革命三部曲」

Director/producer/independent reporter Kempton Lam has made three full-length documentaries from 2004 – 2015. (Cantonese with English subtitles 廣東話、英文字幕) Collectively, the three documentaries are known as his “Revolution Trilogy” 「革命三部曲」. Kempton’s debut documentary Long Hair Revolution 「長毛革命」 has been collected by the Canadian National Archive since 2009. You can watch the three films at this YouTube Playlist (projected on your big screen HD TV or on your computer here). Enjoy!

Long Hair Revolution 「長毛革命」 (full-length 2005) (read film & Canadian national archive info)

HKtv Revolution 「香港電視革命」 (full-length 2015) (read Director’s Statement)

Umbrella Revolution: History as Mirror Reflection 「雨傘革命實錄：以史為鏡」 (full-length 2015) (read Director’s Statement)

The Future of Go Summit: Ke Jie & AlphaGo

“Master” is the new version of “AlphaGo” which Demis Hassabis stated, in the post game press conference with 9 dan Go player Ke Jie (柯潔), the details will be published for others to study similar to AlphaGo’s Nature article.

Wired, “An Improved AlphaGo Wins Its First Game Against the World’s Top Go Player”

“Last year, in South Korea, AlphaGo topped the Korean grandmaster Lee Sedol, becoming the first machine to beat a professional Go player—a feat that most AI researchers believed was still years away, given the extreme complexityof the ancient Eastern game. Now, AlphaGo is challenging Ke Jie, the current world number one.

According to Demis Hassabis, the CEO and founder of DeepMind, this time out the machine is driven by a new and more powerful architecture. It can now learn the game almost entirely from play against itself, relying less on data generated by humans. In theory, this means DeepMind’s technology can more easily learn any task.“

MIT Technology review, “Intelligent Machines A Stronger AlphaGo Defeats the World’s Number One Player”

The Future of Go Summit, Match One: Ke Jie & AlphaGo

P.S. Bonus. The Official AGA Youtube Channel – “Join Myungwan Kim 9p as he guides us LIVE through the first historic game of AlphaGo vs. Ke Jie 9p! The best-of-three match will be live at 9:00PM PST on Monday, May 22nd.”

Air Passenger Rights Advocate interview re Passenger Bill of Rights

The following is my video interview with Dr. Gabor Lukacs, Air Passenger Rights Advocate, to talk about the new Airline Passenger Bill of Rights (Bill C-49).

Air Passenger Rights Advocate interview re new Passenger Bill of Rights

Legal References:

• Bill C-49 (An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act) (first reading)

Dr. Gabor Lukacs, Air Passenger Rights Advocate (FB page), notes references:

• Myth Buster: Air Passenger Bill with no Rights
• 5 Reasons not to Trust the Canadian Transportation Agency

News References:

• CBC News, “New passenger bill of rights spells out compensation for air travellers – Minister says airlines must find volunteers to deal with overbooked flights – or up the ante on compensation“
• CBC News, “Passenger bill of rights will set national standard for air travel Legislation for air travellers part of minister Marc Garneau’s overhaul of transport regulations“
• Global News, “Passenger bill of rights to outline what airlines owe you for travel disruptions“
• Toronto Star, “Ottawa calls for compensation for air travellers who suffer delays, cancellations – Airline passengers who suffer delays, cancelled flight and lost bags will have a greater ability to get compensation from airlines under legislation introduced Tuesday.“
• Toronto Star Editorial, “Air passenger bill of rights long overdue – Just don’t expect an end to the headache of being bumped from a flight.”

Government news release References:

• Transport Canada news release: Minister Garneau introduces legislation to support Canadian travellers and promote economic growth
• Transport Canada news release: Air Passenger Rights (Backgrounder From Transport Canada)

(May 16, 2017 CBC News Live video, Transport Minister Marc Garneau takes questions about the government’s air passenger bill of rights bill)

Enjoy the process of your search – New Quotes I Love

I’m adding this to my long list of Quotes I Love,

“Enjoy the process of your search without succumbing to the pressure of the result. Trust your gut. Keep throwing darts at the dartboard. Don’t listen to the critics and you will figure it out.” – Will Ferrell (1967- ) 2017 USC Commencement Speech (with video)

Will Ferrell USC Commencement Speech | USC Commencement 2017

P.S. For the record, Trump gave a commencement speech at Liberty University today. Totally day and night with the comedian giving the much more insightful speech of the day.

Instant Pot DUO-60/DUO-Plus-60 Design Flaw

Let me make a few things clear. I enjoy cooking with my iPot (Instant Pot). I even admire the inventor/entrepreneur/company that makes iPot (have a read of this enjoyable and insightful 30th Jan, 2017 Globe & Mail news article “Ottawa entrepreneur’s Instant Pot has attracted a devoted following of home cooks“). I think it is awesome to see Canadian inventor/entrepreneur making a name and money from a great product in US, Canada and around the world.

At the same time, I think it is important to point out problems, or design flaws when we see them. Customer feedbacks are good ways for companies to learn to improve their products over time.

I talk about a design flaw for my Instant Pot DUO-60 in the following video. And then I realized Instant Pot had come out with a newly designed DUO-Plus-60 around April 2017 which unfortunately has the same design flaw (based on unboxing video I watched)  I identified in the video. It is a bit disappointing the design flaw isn’t fixed with the new DUO-Plus-60.

Instant Pot DUO-60/DUO-Plus-60 Design Flaw

Arrival – my random thoughts

If you haven’t seen Amy Adams & Jeremy Renner‘s Sci-Fi film Arrival directed by Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners (2013) and Sicario (2015)), go watch! I’ve written an extensive post with many video links here.

Here are my random thoughts:

• A good Sci-Fi story/novel/movie will get you thinking. And Arrival (based on Ted Chiang‘s short story Story of Your Life) sure got me thinking long after I left the theatre.
• If you can see the totality of time, what would you do? How would you behave?
• I LOVE the movie so much that I ended up reading Ted Chiang‘s Story of Your Life to try to enjoy it on a deeper level and to try to understand how the story got adapted into a movie.
• There were, in hindsight pointless to me, “outrage” in Hong Kong at the ‘Arrival’ poster skyline blunder that was reported by BBC, The Hollywood Reporter, Guardian, and CBS News (with some reference tweets). It has not lost on me that the film deals with the difficulty in communicating in an alien language and troubles we humans can cause each other if we don’t communicate well.
• While not explored in the film, we can all play “thought experiments” and imagine on our death beds, what would we have wanted to have done with our lives “looking back”?
• Denis‘ next film will be “Blade Runner 2049“. It will be awesome to see what he will do in it!

Your Name (君の名は) by Makoto Shinkai

**SPOILERS WARNING** **SPOILERS WARNING** Some interesting clips.

Your Name (君の名は) by Makoto Shinkai is one of my most favourite recent Japanese anime films. In an NHK interview Shinkai stated, “I just wanted to pack the film with everything I had ever felt over the course of my life.”

Excellent film review (with pix and gifs) here by Joshua.

(NHK News), Making of “Your Name” – Makoto Shinkai

Makoto Shinkai Q&A following “your name” screening in Los Angeles, CA

Alzheimer’s patients treated with focused ultrasound

Have a watch of the three video clips and read of the CTV News report, “Alzheimer’s patients treated with ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier”

“Canadian researchers have taken a key first step that could potentially lead to a whole new way of treating Alzheimer’s disease.

The researchers from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and University of Toronto are using focused ultrasound to safely open the blood-brain barrier in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, with the hopes this will help clear the brain of toxic plaque.

It’s an “out of the box” approach using patients like Karen Hellerman. The 62-year-old from Chatham, Ont. was diagnosed with early stage dementia.

Hellerman is losing her short-term memory and her ability to process complex tasks.
“Sometimes I can get it out, and sometimes I can’t and that disturbs me. “ Hellerman told CTV News. Her husband Neil knows there are no drug treatments to effectively slow or stop the disease.

“As her dementia gets worse, her physical state will get worse…it’s not a good thing. And she’s young, she’s gonna miss part of her life,” said Neil.

She is patient No. 3 in a group of six people with early Alzheimer’s disease, participating in the first study of its kind.

One of the biggest challenges in treating brain disease is getting drug therapies past the blood-brain barrier, which is like a protective “wrap” that surrounds even the tiniest blood vessels in the brain and acts as a “gate” to protect the brain from toxins and proteins that could enter through the bloodstream.“

CTV News, “A group of Toronto doctors are trying to break new ground in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Avis Favaro has exclusive video.”