Blog

What is a language?

As time goes, a language develops generation by generation. For example, Tik Tok is no more a time reference in 2022. Tik Tok is a famous social media sharing app for the current generation.

How exactly did a language develop? Who created?

I think this is a question I would like to find an answer. I don’t know if I can find an exact answer but the history tells us that a language developed from a communication tool. The history says a communication tool in Stone Age was signals using different instruments like fire, trenches, stones. But is it true?

I don’t have an answer. I just remembered when I was young. My best friend and I tried to communicate secretly so we created our signal language based on the existing language. It’s like a computer hash key method. We agreed on a number 7, and decided to push each alphabet to 7 places. Thus, hello became “lossv.” Now I look back, I felt like there must be something Stone Age people wanted to communicate as well with their friends and family. They could have agreed on certain signals based on signs. But I am not really sure how they could create a language with a sound for these signals.

There are still a lot of tribes in undeveloped areas, such as Papua New Guinea. They have their own speech when they communicate themselves but they don’t have their own written languages.

How did the very first human language develop and pass to so many generations?

Some thoughts about one’s life

As time ticks to 12:00am, yesterday is gone. It’s a new day.

As last day of a month ends, previous month ends. It’s a new month.

As spring comes, winter fades away. It’s a new year.

As one dies, one’s life ends. Is it a new life? If it is, then who?

My grandfather died few years ago. He is a University psychology professor. I still remember the time we spent together. I still remember he explains psychological books to me. Last year, my son was born. One left from my life, and another arrived in my life.

What’s the meaning of life? What happens when I die? Will I ever find out?

Road to CIPP Certification

It’s been quite a journey to get certified. The initial plan was to take the exam in December during the winter break. However, the whole winter was spent to complete the law review note. It was fun to write the note but there wasn’t time for studying. As the new semester started, the schedule was busier than before due to new job/internship. During the spring break, I thought I would need to catch up with studies but decided to take CIPP first. It needed to be completed sooner or later.

The first step is to pick up the official book to read, and to practice using provided multiple choices. Reading the book was a mundane task as it’s 700 page long. It’s not too bad but it’s just a huge time commitment for me especially. During the week of spring break, I wasn’t able to do much for school work and internship. It’s a big relief after the exam is finished although there were a lot of work/study needed to be done. At least one of the todo list is completed. Therefore, I am over the moon at the moment.

Things I still remember (I always forget most of things after I finish the exam):

Analyzing the law:

Why? The purpose of the law exists.

Who is covered? The individual or entity needs to follow the law.

What is covered? The information that is covered.

Who enforces? The agency or law enforcement party.

What is required/prohibited? Requirement or prohibition that the law includes.

What are consequences? The punishment if the individual or entity is not compliant with the law.

I found this analysis especially useful as it helped me to understand the law better once I went through the process. It’s similar to IRAC system.

Racial Segregation in California Correctional Facilities

Interview with a person, P, on Feb 24, 2021.

P has been working at California Department of Corrections (CDC) for past 10 years in various locations throughout California.

What is the “real” purpose of facility? Remove people from society. Not so much of rehabilitation.

Then, why is the facility named “correctional”? Just to make it sound better.

Who is in charge of each facility? Prison Captain.

Do each facility have different management styles? Yes, mainly depends on Prison Captain. There are better facilities, which provide rich information/knowledge to prisoners to rehabilitate.

Are there a lot of fights between Gang members? Yes, especially in LA area. Bay Area is a lot better than LA area. Prison guards cannot control, and there are spots that camera cannot capture. Prisoners call it “block wall.”

What are Prison guards do? Who applies for Prison guards? Mostly people from army; police. And often time, they do not care as they just stay there for retirement. Normally the ratio is 1 guard to 50 or more prisoners. Therefore, they can’t take care of every fight that happens in Prison. Also, it’s difficult to babysit prisoners as they are all grownups.

Are inmates segregated by Race? Not really by race but mostly by Gang members. However, most gangs are formed by same race. Even if it’s same race, they will be segregated if it’s from different Gang. (E.g. Norteños and Sureños).

If California Law forces facilities to desegregate and mix prisoners, how will it work in the system? It depends on each prison. Each prison is managed by Captain. Captain can decide whatever he wants. And the problem is not really about desegregation.

Then what is the problem? Prisoners can be friends. However, when there are fights, members from opposite gang must fight. If they don’t, they will get punished by gang.

What about people who are not in Gangs? There are repercussions. “Green Light” on people in prison means these people are marked to be targeted by Gangs in prison. Usually, Child Molester and Dropout of Gang are marked with “Green Light.” Prison put these people in protective custodies for safety reasons.

After I had more conversation with P, I Just felt it’s not a single issue in Prison. It sounded like a society problem. Prison is just another reflection of the society as how we live. In California, we can estimate certain populations in certain areas, like Milpitas – Vietnamese; Fremont – Chinese; Saratoga – Caucasian; East Palo Alto – Latinx. Why are there any type of racial segregation in society? Is this something we can even resolve?

And Prison system is another big topic I think. When I look at the Map on CDCR for facility locations, a lot of them are located along with Highway 5, which is out of nowhere. In such an isolated place, it’s really hard to manage these places. It’s more like a little society ran by Prison captain. But again, will any citizens vote for relocation in their areas? I doubt anyone would do that.

In addition, rehabilitation programs in Prison system is another issue. P said Prison captain will allow different organization/churches to provide catalogs and classes to help prisoners but these programs are only selected by Captain not by prisoners themselves. Once people are in the Prison system, it’s a track, which is extremely difficult to derail. What kind of intervention can make people out of that track is one of the biggest problems. Again, it goes back the purpose of these facilities. Maybe it started with a good intention.

First Comment

The Myth of the Privacy Paradox by Daniel J. Solove, George Washington University Law School [Downloaded from Privacy Law Salon]

Professor Solove points out that the privacy paradox does not exist because it’s illogical to generalize from people’s behavior (or risk decisions) involving specific personal data in specific contexts to reach broader conclusions about how people value privacy. It further mentions that the privacy paradox is born out of this vicious cycle when people express concerns about their privacy, are given a dose of privacy self-management in response, fail to succeed at the impossible project of privacy self-management, and then become disillusioned and resigned.

In addition, Professor Solove mentions two sides of responses to the privacy paradox – “behavior valuation argument” and “behavior distortion argument.” On one side, the “behavior valuation argument” contends behavior is the best metric to evaluate how people actually value privacy. Behavior reveals that people ascribe a low value to privacy or readily trade it away for goods or services. The argument often goes on to contend that privacy regulation should be reduced. On the other side, the “behavior distortion argument” suggests that people’s behavior is not an accurate metric of preferences because behavior is distorted by biases and heuristics, manipulation and skewing, and other factors.

I agree with Professor Solove that privacy law should focus on regulating the architecture that structures the way information is used, maintained, and transferred. Privacy regulation often seeks to provide people more privacy rights so that they can protect privacy. However, people don’t know about the data collection nor privacy risks. 

First Post!

I have been thinking about a blog for a while. My biggest concern was the maintenance. I would like to post at least one per week. My initial goal is to post one per week for next three months. We will see what happens.