Confession

(While I am trying to close this trivial story of student complaint, I receive the following email from the X. With his agreement, I showed the confession here.)

Sir,


I am X, one of the med 5 students that is directly involved in the Hospital Z incident.  Recently, I have heard rumors about the incident and I would like to provide my perspective.

Our group was waiting for the doctor in the conference room for briefing on the first day of Hospital Z attachment.  I was sitting beside one of my groupmates who sat in front of the computer, which was switched on already upon our arrival.  After a while, I decided to find out what he was doing.  He informed me that he found documents on the desktop, so I had a look at them as well.  I scrolled through the documents and realized that they were some sort of notice or memo directed to Hospital Z, requesting them to help recruit cases for exam. It contained contacts of our professors in different sub-specialities should a possible candidate be found, and the ideal number of stations per system.

My groupmate wanted to take photos of them. At that time, I felt that obtaining these documents would not have jeopardized the fairness of the exam, so I did not stop him from taking pictures, nor did I take pictures of them myself.

Hypothetically, if the documents really did contain any information which I felt would have put me in any advantages in the exam, I would not have dared to look any further, because of value and the consequences of breaking rules.

In hindsight, I know I have made a mistake for scrolling through documents which did not belong to me. I have apologized to my groupmates for this incident at the meeting. Also would you kindly forward this message to the owner of those documents as well?  I have learnt my lesson from this incident, and I am sure I would be more capable of handling similar situations in the future.

Yours sincerely, et cetera.

Assignment

(Our secret meeting continued.)


"You can just flip through the pages and would easily spot the problem. These are mostly questions with no answers. On the other hand, some other questions have 3 or 4 different sets of answers - and we cannot tell which one is correct." He explained.

I followed SL's instruction and quickly knew what he meant, "Alas! In that case, my task is...?"

"Find out the correct answer for each and every question." SL said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

"All by me?" I was surprised - there must be no fewer than 1000 questions.

"Yes and no," SL explained, "We have asked TS, WK and a few others to draft up sample answers for the essays and short questions, but we will leave all MCQs to you. When all of us finished with our own assignment, I shall compile the full volume and distribute to the class."

"With such a noble intention, how could I say no?" I smiled and accepted.

PS. In retrospect, the "past-paper" helped very little in our examination, although I certainly benefited a lot from this exercise. The "question bank" that I was asked to prepare sample answer was, as I later found out, past papers of MRCP Part 1 examination.

PPS. SL moved to America after he graduated and became a renowned radiation oncologist. Well, a doctor who could take good care of the benefit of the others got to be a good one.

Cooperate

I must say I learnt the importance of cooperation in the medical school - for an incident very similar to the one that I outlined in the past few days.

It goes like this: Three or four months before our final MB examination, SL - one of my classmates - visited my room late in the night. SL was a remarkable one in my class, famous for his resourcefulness and excellent link with our predecessors. (The timing was in itself remarkable. SL usually slept late and would not retire to bed before night-food at 1 AM - exactly the time when I got up. See http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2009/01/162.html)

He showed me a big pile of papers.

"Man, what are these all about?" I asked.

"Szeto, you know, these are past papers of our final - as well as the MCQ question bank - probably an incomplete one." My friend said eagerly.

My eyebrow rose, "Alas, how do you get them?"

"Secret. It's the work of a few of us. But we need your help to make the best use of it."

"Er... How?"

(To be continued.)

Disappointed

(Our luncheon discussion continued.)

I turned to VW and asked, “It looks as if the issue should have settled by LY. How about JW? He seems very excited on the matter.”

The energetic professor nodded eagerly, “Yes, he is – most disappointed.”

“Why?” I asked.

“The concern of our exemplary teacher is simple. He used to think that anonymous complaint of this kind against one’s colleagues or classmates only exists in that crooked universe with different rules of physics. But, now, looking at our students, they are just the same. Some crave for their own benefit without respecting their own profession. Others just yell when their cheese is moved or pie being taken away.”

I was silent – and could not agree more. In my naïve opinion, studying in a medical school should really be a game of cooperation rather than competition – a student is more likely to pass (and do well) if his friends and classmates also pass with a good grade. We all learn from each other. If you hide some important information private (however beneficial that piece of information is), your classmates will certainly not share what they know with you. The cost is just too high.

Go read The Art of Strategy.

Penalty

After a brief moment of silence, LY explained his conflicting answer.

"In a material sense, we can do nothing and there is actually no point of doing anything. To begin with, there is no victim. Imagine, if the incident at hand were genuine and X and Y did get hold of some confidential information of the examination, the right of other candidates are jeopardized and the two students should be penalized. But this is certainly not the case now. What actually happened is, two naive student made a copy on some tables and text - they believe the information is  related to the case recruited for their examination, but, in reality, those were merely homework of our good old Dr. W. In fact, when I told Dr. W this little story, he made it that he would forgive X and Y for copying his personal files."

"How about the student who made the complaint in person?" I asked.

"Come on, whoever complaints does not appear in the equation: They are not victims - and we are not in a criminal court," my friend went on, "In the civil court, an unaffected bystander has no right to raise a case - and we don't need superheros of justice."

"Quite right. In that case, what supranatural penalty did you give to X and Y?"

"Alas, nothing. I just made it clear in front of their groupmates and class representatives that their suspicious behaviour had stirred up a lot of concerns and rumours in their class, and they should apologize to their whole class for their unprofessional behaviour." LY said with a smile, "I have also told the two of them - as well as their class representatives - that since the rumor spread via some unofficial channel, they should use the same method to spread when I told them so as to clear up the matter."

I nodded in agreement. This is real crisis management.

Progress

It turned out that we did not have to wait too long.

On the next morning, WM rang me up, "A student does come in person and wish to report the incident. What should be the next step?"

"Alas!" I pursed my lips, "In that case, let's be serious and arrange this student to see our chairman directly."

"Right..." WM broke off.

Later that morning, I learnt that our man from Jupiter assigned LY, who is supposed to be in charge of the teaching of our final year students, to handle the matter.

*********************
A few days later, I met LY and VW during lunch. Naturally, I was keen to know what happened.

"Simple, I called a meeting with that group of students together with their class representatives and explained to them the result of our investigations. In short, the so-called complaint has no ground because that incident had never happened." LY seemed to find it difficult to understand why I was interested.

I beamed at VW and said, "Yes, I know that bit. But how do you treat that X and Y?"

The senior professor of hepatology smiled, "Well, nothing, or everything."

Reply

While VW and I were discussing what we should (or should not) do, my friend JW replied to that anonymous student.

Here you go:

***************************
Thanks fellow student for your feedback!

Unfortunately, we are certain that one of the evidence you provided did not happen. This undermines the credibility of the allegations.

We can proceed with the investigations only if we receive the copy of email you have mentioned, or we have received complaint from patient, ward staff or the alleged students’ team-mates, who can give us first-hand evidence rather than rumors.

Please reassured that we will take this seriously once we have got such materials.

Regards, et cetera.

***************************
That evening, I met WM when I left my office. I told her what happened and, similar to VW, she asked, "What shall we do?"

"Nothing. Let's wait and see." I said.

Response

Shortly after the remarkable email, I met VW in the corridor.

Our professor of hepatology was obviously not very happy, "Szeto, I believe you get the same email? I must say the event that this anonymous student described could have never happened: We have not started recruiting cases for final MB yet, and I did not receive any email from Hospital Z recently. If Hospital Z does recruit some cases for examination, the information should have been sent to WM, not me. After all, I talked to Dr. Ω of Hospital Z, who is in charge of the whole business there - and he is sure they have not recruited any case and no email of that kind ever exist."

I nodded. (WM is the executive officer of our department.)

"Szeto, do say something. What should we do?"

"Em... Is there really something that we must do? I'm afraid not. The standard instruction is we do not investigate anonymous complaint." I said slowly, "In fact, since the incriminating event is nothing but hallucination, we only have to put up a polite smile and say nothing. If we appear very excited about it, other students may have the impression that there's some element of truth in this business."

Complaint

(An anonymous email sent to several colleagues of mine recently.)

Dear Professors,

I am a final year student. I would like to report to the faculty about some rumours that has been spreading among our year.

First of all, I would like to state that I did not obtain the information first-hand.

Recently in the group of final year students attached to Internal Medicine Department of Hospital Z, two male students, namely X and Y, had access to an e-mail addressed to Professor VW regarding the patients to be recruited for the upcoming final MB. That email contains information including patient identity and diagnosis. Also, someone took out their phone and took a picture of the above email.

...

I would like to clarify that I do not have any personal grudges against these students; however, as a member of my class, I feel obliged to report such unethical and dishonest behaviour. I would kindly like to urge the faculty to clarify and investigate into the incidents.

Thank you very much for your kind attention.

Yours sincerely, et cetera.

Park

It was an ordinary Tuesday except being Euterpe's birthday.

I took an afternoon off and brought my princess to the Kowloon Park for a walk. (My original plan was to go to the Space Museum, which I later found out was closed every Tuesday.)

Believe it or not, this is the first time I visit the Kowloon Park - not to say also the first of my daughter. The March afternoon of Hong Kong is a perfect weather - faintly sunny with a comforting breeze. The two of us spent some time in the Aviary and then the Birds' Lake, appreciating all kinds of parrots and macaws and pigeons and flamingos and storks with another dozen or so leisured weekday tourists. For the rest of the afternoon, as you expect, we stayed in the Children's Play Area. To my daughter, there was no elaborated game or lovely character of Disney. And, without a sophisticated photographic skill like my friend KM, I just watched. Nonetheless, we were both overjoyed.

Happiness could be very simple.

10.2

(More diary to follow.)

KH feels sick and is admitted. Quite worry. (26 Mar 2003)

All school are closed. What a record.
They just quarrel in the morning meeting. (27 Mar 2003)

KK gets worse. Quite worry. (31 Mar 2003)

Leslie Cheung jumped from Mandarin Oriental. I cannot believe it.
QMH published SARS paper in NEJM. KL keeps murmuring. (1 Apr 2003)

UCH is heavily strike. Really worry for V.
GY has fever again. (2 Apr 2003)

Dream that I have tea at the balcony of Mandarin Oriental. What a surprise. (3 Apr 2003)

About to go back to 8A. I think of KW and people like him - just allocating work to the others. I keep murmuring. (9 Apr 2003)

Dine with V at Hollywood Plaza. What a long month. (16 Apr 2003)

10

It is 10 years after the SARS epidemic, and there are a whole lot of programs and functions that look back on what happened.

I shall follow suit and show you some of my diary during that time.

*********************
Another case of avian flu. Alas... (21 Feb 2003)

Ward 8A closed for the flu. Historic time. (10 Mar 2003)

TC admitted to PMH for flu. We are all dumbfounded - some of us don't even have the nerve to go to the canteen. (13 Mar 2003)

KK was transferred to ICU. Worry. (17 Mar 2003)

GY, GC and CY all deteriorated. Really worry. (20 Mar 2003)

The News Magazine (新聞透視) is about to interview JW and others. Ai... (21 Mar 2003)

William Ho is admitted for pneumonia. We are all surprised.
GY is getting better. What a relief. (24 Mar 2003)

Sunshine. We all rush outdoor. I feel like working in England. (25 Mar 2003)

Origin

I must say I am no expert of computer. (For example, I have difficulty to understand the difference between computer viruses, worms, and Trojan horses.) Nonetheless, I find the story of infectious diseases of electronic systems intriguing.

It goes like this: Although there are hundreds if not thousands of computer malwares around, the ones that trouble us most are macro virus - and almost all of them target against Microsoft.

Who wrote their coding?

Yes, some of them have their creators identified beyond doubt - but how about the majority of them?

By the way, computer virus attracted much less attention in the past two or three years, partly because Microsoft changed the Office so much, and partly because more of us use tablets rather than laptop computer.

Or, was it because people lost their Job?

Stuxnet

Don't come to the conclusion that I have persecutory hallucination when I imply hackers - and, for the same reason, computer viruses - are no doings of isolated persons, but team work with a strong authoritative support.

For example, have you heard of Stuxnet?

Well, in short, Stuxnet is a computer worm that attacked the nuclear facilities of Iran since 2010 (or, actually, maybe much earlier). In biological terms, this virus is highly selective in its host: It spreads via Microsoft Windows but attacks only Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems that are configured to control and monitor specific industrial processes. The remarkable phenomenon is, the virus does not cause any damage to most industrial equipment except several Iranian nuclear plants. Analysis of its coding shows a exceptionally complicated structure, with dedicated segments for replication, spreading, safe-guarding against anti-viral programs, and, above all, a self-destruction element.

The verdict of computer experts is: The coding of Stuxnet could not have be written by a single person - it got to be the product a team (of 5 to 30) of experts who work relentlessly for at least 6 months.

And, the support behind is...

PS. I am most interested to know who the conclusion would be if they analyze the human genome.

Professional

I shall not tell you directly whom I think have the interest to hack a database website.

But, rather, let's go one step backward and ask: What do you think hackers look like?

Alas, it is a romantic, if not naive, idea to think hackers are computer genius who become university dropouts (they would rather set up software companies or social websites), or autistic youngsters who hide themselves in their bedroom and attack here and there for fun.

But no. I would actually consider it a great relief if hackers are really people mentioned above. Nonetheless, hackers call for highly specialized knowledge and often team work. They are, by all definitions, a kind of professional. Most of them earn their living not by transferring money from your account to theirs without your knowing, but by the very action of hacking per se.

Yes, I said earn their living - they are employers.

Do you see where we are getting at?

Hacker

My argument is simple: If you do not have any particular client in mind to hack, it is quite a trouble to extract the useful information (for example, in this case, credit card numbers, or login and password of bank accounts) from a gigantic database.

Yes, you can set up a search program so that the computer can scan through the database and extract potentially useful pieces of data. I must say it is not technically demanding, and I actually do a similar kind of thing every now and then for my research. (The idea is similar to doing a computer search for the stop co don in the genome of a bacterium, with an aim to identify all open-reading frame.)

The problem is, although very much distilled and concentrated, the search result remains a huge load of information - and you still need to pass through the security check of the bank before getting some money. A hacker who could master all relevant sophisticated technology should go for a bank - preferably focusing on the account of some multi-billionaire.

In that case, who would have the interest to hack a database website - and what is the gain?

Hacked

Many of you may know I am a regular user of Evernote - a program designed for taking notes. Data are stored in a way to allow both on-line and off-line access. I also use it as a simple word processing software for short documents, because I don't need to worry about saving and filing, and it is a lot more easy to find with the built-in search function.

(For example, this blog is actually written off-line on a page of Evernote.)

I must say I never imagine what could go wrong with this friendly program - until its server was attacked by hacker last week, and its all 50 million users around the world (yes, including me) had to reset our password immediately. (Mobile phones of the Android system have to download a new version of the apps to get the program running again.)

Yes, that's a nuisance, but not too much of a trouble. To me, the unexplainable puzzle is: Who on earth would have the interest to hack the site and steal the data?

"That's silly. Some people may put down in the Notes information of their credit card account or password for their on-line banking." You may say.

Alas, this theory is, in the jargon of logic, physically possible. (In fact, I do write down in my Notes the user name and password of all journals that I have on-line access.) Nonetheless, it is unlikely to be the case.

Let me explain tomorrow.

Clerk

As soon as I find the edge of clinician is approaching to that of clergyman, I could not help laughing at the dark humor.

My reaction is simple, and my focus is purely literal. You know, the term clerk actually comes from clergy, because in medieval times, clergymen were one of the few people who could read, and, therefore, were often asked to do bookkeeping and other paper work. As the time evolves, people who do this job are called clerk.

And then it comes the term clerkship in medical eduction. The term is, once again, simple in origin. Before system-based and problem-based teaching methods are widely adopted by medical schools, medical students were largely taught by hands-on training. They were assistants to senior physicians and, as you would expected, the duty of students were largely clerical - they take history from patients for their supervisors (who were, I remind you, practising physicians and not laboratory scientists), document the findings of physical examination, and write up the treatment plan in the record.

With this historical background, I find our time more medieval than ever. For the considerations of risk management and so on, medical students are now forbidden to do clerical jobs mentioned above. Now, clerical tasks are clinical tasks - and, as far as I can see, we are moving to the era that clinical task is becoming clergy's task.

No wonder people believe everything would move back to the starting point at the end of the Big Bang.

Technique

You may think I was exaggerating the problem and, by and large, the medical circle remains highly hierarchical.

That may be true. But my impression is that system of hierarchy is now sustained largely by administrative and resource considerations rather than clinical experience or capability, and the field of clinical medicine is moving towards an M-shape society at full gear.

*******************
How about mastering some exotic treatment technique? Wouldn't it be an edge or, in JW's term, give a good premium?

Very true. I have actually discussed this point some time ago with VW, (see http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2010/04/technology.html) and will not repeat my points here. My worry is, if you take a wider perspective and consider the medical profession as a whole (rather than the income of a few specific doctors), acquiring exceptional treatment skill would not protect our premium - because the treatment of most of our patients does not depend on a legendary dexterity. For that few who have acquired some glamorous handicraft, yes, they would certainly be very well paid. But, for the others, they treat their patients with simple basic remedies. The diagnosis of their patients is governed by technology. They do not have to make treatment decisions because that's dictated by some existing guidelines. The real premium that they add is, therefore, some human touch...

...like what clergy offer to their followers.

Expert

Do you see what I worry about? Before air travel and email connect the world, we seek advice from a local expert. From an ordinary patient with the bread-and-butter disease (I mean diabetes and lipid problem) to an exotic one with a rare cancer, we ask for advice from the slightly more experienced doctor next to us, and we follow obediently.


But now, we have international treatment guideline and practice standard on almost every topic. In general, these recommendations are put up by a renown experts (not necessarily in its strict literal sense - that's another story), and, with the advance in information technology, the supposedly best possible treatment option is readily available to anyone who could read.

You see? For that reason, the "middle class" - I mean the immediate seniors and local experts - of medicine vanish. Once again, we see an M-shape society: There are a few experts that put up guidelines, and the huge group of practitioners, senior and junior, as followers, willingly or not. Experience does not count much unless you become one of the elite group. Junior doctors, as long as they could read (not all of them could, I know), could also look up the latest guideline and challenge their seniors. Since everyone should be following a well-defined protocol to treat their patients, the added value of an experienced clinician is small.

Treatment

With all my concern about clinician as a diagnostic tool, you may come to the conclusion that doctors use their expert knowledge and skill to treat patients, and medical profession should not be too worried about competition with advances in technology.

On this, once again, I beg to disagree.

As to how we treat our patients, there are, of course, two aspects to be considered: knowledge and hand-on skill.

For knowledge, I consider an ordinary doctor nowadays loses in a fierce competition - not with the advances in medical technology, but with globalization - that is, the world is flat.

Oh, no. I am not referring to the fact that many of our patients go to the Internet and read up from Wikipedia about the up-to-the-date treatment of their problem and, in a sense, become part of the physician for themselves. Yes, that causes some inconvenience and embarrassment to us every now and then. But, to me, that's less of the evil, and may actually sometimes do good.

I actually mean the easy availability of opinion from international experts - in the form of guidelines and recommendations.

Bias

You see my worry with basic medical research? When experimental methods are limited to radioimmunoassay and western blotting and qualitative polymerase chain reaction, a medical scientist needs to have a thorough understanding of the field that he is working on and then formulate a research hypothesis. Then he conducts experiments to prove (or disprove) that hypothesis.

But, now, with genomics and transcriptomes and proteomics and all similarly complex methods, medical research leaps to a new era: Scientists don't need a hypothesis to start some work (and, for that reason, they may not quite understand the field that they are working on). Proponents of this approach claim that it is hypothesis-free and therefore bias-free.

Well, that may be true. Bias requires neuronal activity to develop. For sure we will not have bias if we don't use our brain.

Or, is it the real meaning of Great intelligence may appear as stupidity (大智若愚)?

Shotgun

What I was trying to get at, from the previous discussion, is simple: In the old days, when technology is limited, physicians need good clinical skill to formulate a hypothesis - to make a diagnosis that and there, or to determine what (targetted) investigations are necessary to do so.

But, when technology has become sufficiently sophisticated and is cheap and readily available, you don't need a hypothesis to start with - a shotgun approach is simple and practical: Whatever the symptom is, put the patient through a whole body CT (computer tomography) scan or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) or PET (positron emission tomography) or any other autopsy-equivalent investigation and you will know what's wrong.

In other words, we are almost coming to an age that we may not need a brain to become a physician.

But, what may skip your eyes is: The same phenomenon happens in medical research.

Value

You may argue we still need a good doctor to make the decision that a CT scan is needed, to interpret the result when it's available, and to give the appropriate treatment.

I must say I am not put at ease with these answers.

My worry is simple: When a previously expensive and sophisticated technology becomes cheap and easily available, there is no need to make that very first decision. For example, a patient with tummy ache will just go for a CT scan before consulting anyone. That's exactly what happened in VW's story.

**********************
You may think the lack of added value only affects the lot of brainless doctors who think by only one synapse before ordering all tests and investigations.

The sobering truth is: Good doctors (in our traditional sense) are not spared.

The explanation could be put simply: The lay public could not discern good clinicians from lousy ones easily, and, therefore, they have to compete by their price. (The traditional scenario used in game theory is taxi driver: You cannot tell a good driver from a bad one before taking the ride. As a result, no taxi driver could mark up their own price - otherwise, any potential passenger would choose a cheaper one. The more important implication is: No taxi driver would have the incentive to improve their service!)

There is a more convoluted and elaborated way to give the explanation. It goes like this: The public is not only incapable of discerning good and bad doctors. Lay people are tempted to make the wrong judgment in this matter. For example, does a doctor - when every other aspects are equal - appear more reassuring if he send a patient with tummy ache home after a normal CT scan, as compared to another who just palpate the patients abdomen and send the latter home? In the matter of diagnosis, the lay public is most unforgiving. You score no point by making a diagnosis of normal abdomen in one thousand patients (in fact, patients like normal study results), but your name would be condemned if you miss a single case of, say, Merkel's diverticulum. In other words, it is for sure a losing battle to compete the diagnostic yield of our clinical skill to the advancing technology.

Diagnosis

My concern goes like this: In the early days, X rays, funny biochemical tests, and other sophisticated gadgets are meant to help clinicians, not to replace them. Two key roles of physician emerged in those days were selecting the appropriate diagnostic tests and, when the results are available, interpret them. Senior physicians used to laugh at their juniors when the latter used a shotgun approach and ordered a whole panel of (to the former, useless) tests. Any investigation, as simple as a tiny finger prick or X ray, involves risk, discomfort, and, above all, cost, and should only be ordered when there is a reasonable indication.

For example, when a man has tummy pain, he can have a CT scan to find out what's wrong. If that costs HK$5000, and, the alternative for him is to consult a doctor (who could also tell him that much), the doctor could - by simple economic analysis - also charge the patient for the same amount. (In theory, the doctor should charge slightly higher because exposure to radiation is avoided, and, more importantly, there is a human touch - a factor we should take aside for the time being.)

But time has changed. If the cost of a CT scan comes down by 80%, interpretation could be outsourced to some exotic country (see Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat) or even automated by artificial intelligence, the consultation fee of that poor doctor should drop by the same extend. To be even more drastic, if the doctor always asks for a CT scan after clinical assessment (exceedingly common nowadays), he really adds no value on this tummy matter what-so-ever - all he charges now covers the cost of medico-legal responsibility and the provision of a human touch.

Competition

Recently, VW told a story that he learnt from JW - it was about a man who seek a second medical opinion north to the Shenzhen River. (See http://vwswong.blogspot.hk/2013/02/premium.html) Both friends of mine were alarmed by this little incident and worried about the standard of Hong Kong medical graduates in the future.

I must say I see the story rather differently. I am equally worried - but on a different matter.

My concern is simple: Rather than losing our edge over our colleagues from another universe, I believe we clinicians - in Hong Kong, China, or wherever - are losing in our competition with technology.

The argument is simple: Ten, twenty, or fifty years ago, technology was limited. Diagnosis of any disease depended largely on the clinical (that is, personal) skill of physicians, and choice of treatment hinged on their professional opinion. Now, we move to a new environment that we neither expect nor are familiar with.

Let me start with diagnosis tomorrow.

Samsung

At the end of the day I bought a Samsung.

You may wonder why I change from Apple to Android, and there must be a whole lot of difficulties. In fact, Vivian warned me that much, and I was slightly ambivalent to begin with.

To my surprise, the changeover was amazingly easy. (I hold the belief that these operating systems are meant for people with an ordinary intelligence and should be simple to master. This is yet a good example of George Soro's theory that belief affects the objective truth.) Further, I have an edge of using Samsung: I am a big fan of Google (I started using the traditional Google as my homepage since 1998 - long before the company was listed), and the only problem of accessing Google service via iPhone is you have all the problems. When it becomes Android, everything come to my fingertip as soon as I sign in my account - mail, contact, cloud drive, bookmark, calendar (although I don't use it any more), and what not.

PS. Of course Samsung is not flawless. For example, the battery life (or the lack of it) is a pain in the neck - or you may have even a lower opinion of it.

Whatsapp

I bought a new mobile phone recently.

The story was simple. I was using the old iPhone 3 for nearly four years. (See http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2009/05/iphone.html when I bought this gadget as a bargain from Apple and Orange - what a combination!) The world changed fast since then: Jobs become C(r)ook, Who is succeeded by She, and people turn from BRIC to MIST.

And, to me, my lovely mobile becomes so outdated that many apps, when they need to be updated, no longer support the old operating system...

... including Whatsapp.

When problem first appeared, the interesting phenomenon was I could see the message that people Whatsapp me, but I could not send out any message. I had a feeling of wearing the disappearing gown of Harry Porter in the electronic world, so that I could see people around but no one notices me. The bad thing was, I counted on my wits and tried to re-install the old program - the system collapsed that and there.

And it is close to a disaster. Whatsapp is the main channel of communication between Vivian and I. (In fact, other than my wife, hardly anyone else Whatsapp me.) For that reason, she urged me to buy a new phone for quite some weeks. Naturally, I have to comply.

Apartment

(Conversation between a mother and her son - a junior secondary school student - overheard by my sister Jenny - with seasoning by a malicious nephrologist.)

"Mum, do you remember my classmate Peter? His father really loves him. You know, his father bought an apartment and reassured him that this new flat will be left for him, so that Peter will not have to worry about his living when he graduates!"

The mother was dumbfounded.

But she was also quick-witted. In no time, she pulled herself together and said, "Really? That's brilliant. My dear, that's why you must study well and work hard - so that you can afford buying an apartment for your son in the future!"

Second

My recent leisure reading is Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de 2 (推理要在晚餐後2) by Higashigawa Tokuya (東川篤哉).

Yes, this is the second of the series by Tokuya, and I must say I am not particularly impressed with the first. (See http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2012/12/blog-post_15.html) Just that it is the turn of a detective fiction and I randomly pick this one from my shelf.

And I am happily surprised. Contrary to the usual happening that sequels suck, this second collection of short stories Reiko Hosho (寶生麗子) is amazingly better than the previous one. The plots are more solid, and deductions more cohesive (if I may use the adjective that way). I am particularly impressed by how Kageyama (影山) deduced, in Don't Forget the Hat During Murder (殺人時請勿忘了帽子), why all hats of the victim disappeared. The way that Kageyama presented his logic reminds me of Ellery Queen. (By coincidence, the first fiction that brought Ellery Queen under the limelight was The Roman Hat Mystery.)

But, the lesson is profound. There are so many people who could make an impressive beginning but their success could not sustain. To make some real achievement, it is more important to endure difficulties and continue to improve.

As the old Chinese sayings: 靡不有初，鮮克有終。

Or, in English sayings: No one can go back and make a brand new start, but anyone can start from here and make a brand new end.

City

After a moment of post-ictal stupor, the farmer found his voice again, "Sir, that's difficult."

"Man, I know you are under-paid, and you do not have enough people to work for you," the landlord tapped on the farmer's shoulder, "I shall give you all money you need to run the farm and hire more people."

"Sir, it's not a problem of money or how hardworking we are. The nature dictates that wheat is grown yearly and we could only harvest once every 12 months." The farmer said, "Of course, you can double the yield if you agree to pay for a huge sum to buy another piece of land, but that's beyond the point. My humble opinion is, Sir, there are just too many people from the city!"

"You may be right, but the Mayor is schizophrenic at the moment," the landlord continued with his expressionless tone, "On one hand he doesn't want to see too many people in the city - he has his own business here and is making big money. Newcomers will make the competition fierce. On the other hand, the Mayor is repeatedly accused by the public that he should delay no more and loosen up the regulation of immigration into the city so as to meet the need of industrial revolution!"