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WARNING! NEW VIRUS CIRCULATING! A new virus has been found and is known by multiple names, but it is best known as 'work'. If your boss or your direct colleagues send you e-mail containing 'work' or 'assignments' either in the subject or message body, DO NOT TOUCH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! This virus will take your private life completely. When you encounter this virus, please do the following: 1. Put on your coat 2. Find at least two colleagues 3. Go to the nearest pub 4. Order some beers and enjoy them together After repeating the fourth point several times, your system will be cleared of the virus. Please be so kind to send this warning to at least 5 friends. If you cannot find 5 friends to warn for this virus, you are probably already infected by this virus and it is progressively taking hold of your private life even more! (This warning comes from a country that produces the happiest kids , pot-smokers, and seemingly, workers too!) Latest news: Beware of thi...

Germany doesn’t pause for Chinese New Year of course, but my boss seemed to know something about it and called for a meeting with my lab team today. The timing gave me an impression as if the meeting was some kind of an end-of-year review. I was in fact quite glad to sit down and talk to him, as this was only the second time in my first year of work! While most people would be quite sick of seeing, dealing with or arguing with their bosses or supervisors on a daily basis, our boss is hardly a visible figure. He spends a good part of his time travelling to all corners of the Earth, for different kinds of conferences and meetings with collaborators. And when he’s finally back in the home base, he’s too tied up with outstanding work. So unless he has to meet other big guns of the research institute, host important visitors, or deal with urgent grant applications or publications, he would much rather retreat into his own office. It’s actually a rarity to be able to meet and greet him aroun...

I recently read a book from Hong Kong called The Doldrums of Hong Kong. The main message is that present-day Hong Kong is in the tight grips of the baby-boomers, who continue to occupy the upper echelons and exert their influences on the whole society. In contrast, the 30-somethings are finding it increasingly difficult to make breakthroughs in their lives and the society – much more difficult than the baby-boomers, in fact. This is perhaps just part of a world-wide phenomenon. The middle-aged in Australia may not feel the same frustration as their Hong Kong counterparts, but those coming out of university in recent years may find the world in front of them much tougher than their parents’ days. One of the many big factors is the house prices. Back in those days, their parents might well be able to afford to own their own dwelling not so long after the start of their careers. The much-inflated prices these days, however, make the housing dream much harder to be realised by many of the ...

Once in a while, you are supposed to have bought a particular type of fish or ordered it from a restaurant, but what you get may be different in terms of taste, texture etc. Normally this is just a relatively minor nuisance … But in one of these whacky stories from Hong Kong, about 14 people complained over the last 6 months or so having consumed some ‘cod fish’ from a supermarket. Some of them even complained about excreting oil! The authorities were pretty puzzled, until they discovered that the ‘cod fish’ was not what it said to be, but rather a totally different type of fish called ‘oil fish’. This oil fish is normally not recommended for human consumption, and its main use is for extracting oil for industrial purposes. (One of my colleagues remarked that, since we all don’t have a mechanical stomach, little wonder we can’t digest the industrial-grade oil …) How the oil fish made it to the supermarket shelves was indeed a most interesting question. The supermarket did eventually of...