Online education Today I discussed the online education with my friends. My attitude towards the online education is that it is a good supplementary for the traditional education, but it cannot replace the traditional education. The benefits of online education mainly focus on its convenience. People can take online classes whenever they have time. This is especially good for part-time students, most of whom have to work during the day time. With online education, they are able to do their study without disrupting their work. Also, most online classes are in the form of videos. If students cannot follow the lecturer, they can pause the video, think for a while, then continue watching. This enables students to learn at their own pace. However, online education has its limit, because education is more than teaching knowledge. The connection between students is also important. That's why I said it is a supplementary rather than a substitution. By the way, it is a surprise that most Australians have never heard about Khan Academy, which is quite popular in the United States and China.

Can I say a postgraduate student "graduates" from the University? When an undergraduate student finishes his/her study, we usually say "he/she graduates from the University". I wonder if I can apply "graduate" to postgraduate students? Because it sounds quite weird.

My thoughts on AI AlphaGo won again in today’s match against Lee Se-Dol. Many people are worried that the AI will dominate the world one day. But I don’t think this could happen. On the contrary, I believe that if properly used, AI can help us in many ways. Google’s self-driving car is a good example to show how AI can help people’s daily life. We human beings have to take a lot of time to learn how to drive. For example, in Victoria, Australia, people who are new to drive need to pass the Lerner’s Permit Test first, and then practice no less than 120 hours before they are permitted to go solo. This is a huge time waste. By contrast, if people use Google’s self-driving cars instead, they can use this time to do more meaningful things. Furthermore, Google’s self-driving car can tremendously increase the road safety. Firstly, it is reinforced by multiple radars and sensors, which ensures it doesn’t have blind area. The processors used to handle sensor signals are also much faster than human brains, and can make responses instantaneously. Secondly, it can effectively learn from dangerous situations through the network. The reason why human beings need to spend time to practice driving is because we need to get familiar with different complex situations and accumulate our experience. However, it is difficult for us to share these experience to each other. One usually can only handle situations that he or she has met before. When the situations become unfamiliar, people will be panic, leading to traffic accidents. By contrast, Google’s self-driving car are interconnected through the Internet. Data that is collected by one car can be shared to all the other cars. If everyone on earth were using Google’s self-driving car, then it could accumulate thousands of millions of hours of driving experience in a single day.

Hackathon The Codebrew 2016 Hackathon will be held on March 18th. My university is the major sponsor, so I can see many ads on the university's FB page. In the Hackathon, participants will have 48 hours to design and build a software or prototype. People who win the 1st place prize will get $2000, which sounds amazing. I'm quite interested in this event not only because the prize but also because I believe that taking part in Hackathons is a good way to meet enthusiastic programmers. These people might be very important in my future career. More importantly, it's a good way to show my real abilities in programming to potential employers, because building a real software is much more persuasive than just taking an interview. Unfortunately, I can't join the Hackathon for health reason. 48 hours continuous working would be too long for me. If I didn't sleep for 24 hours, I would feel dizzy, let alone 48 hours.

My second year in Melbourne This year is my second year in Melbourne, and I'll finish my Master's degree in this year. I don't know where I will go after I leave school. My initial plain was to stay in Australia and eventually get the Australian citizenship. But immigration is becoming harder and harder now. I don't know if I can make it. Many of my friends suggested me to go back to Shanghai, because Shanghai is a thriving city, and its economy is still growing very fast, which means there are more opportunities in Shanghai than in Melbourne. I partly agree with them. But I also believe that people in Shanghai dedicate themselves too much to their works. By contrast, Melbournians know how to enjoy their lives. Language barrier is still a problem for me to live in Melbourne. It sounds funny but I don't have many chances to speak English here, because there are so many Chinese people. Most of my classmates and all of my housemates are Chinese. I feel it very embracing to talk in English to Chinese people, so I'll speak Chinese at most of time. I hope I can make a difference this year.

I'm suffering from neck and shoulder pain My neck and shoulder pain a lot these days. If I sit in front of my computer for longer than half an hour, the pain will stop me from working, and I have to have a rest for a while. I'm worrying that this symptom would jeopardise my career as a programmer. As you can see, this job is definitely not good for neck health. If I continue to be a programmer in the next 10 years, my neck problem will get worse and this can kill my productivity. I think it's time for me to do some sports like swimming or jogging. They might help me moderate the pain.

Is there any difference between "Bye" and "see you later" We Chinese usually say "bye-bye" to each other. But in Melbourne, I heard that most local Austrailians prefer to say "see you later" or "see ya". Is there any difference between these two expressions?

How to pronounce my Chinese name in Japanese? My Chinese name is 和光 and I'm a boy. If I want to have a Japanese name based on these two characters, what do you think it can be pronounced?

How do local Aussies buy things? I'm going to have further studies in Australia next year. Before I start my trip, I want to know something about Aussie lifestyle. My first question is how Aussies buy things. We Chinese people are accustomed to online shopping. There are quite a few online shopping websites in China, such as Taobao, JD, Amazon etc. The delivery service in China is extremely advanced. For example, if you buy things in JD, you can order goods online in the morning, and then recieve them in the afternoon. Other services can also ship your goods in a day or two. And thanks to the delivery service, there are more categories of goods can be purchased online, even fruits, vegitables and meats. So I really enjoy online shopping these days and nearly buy all things online. I wonder if I can still buy things online in Australia. Are there any alternatives to these websites? Or should I buy all things in malls? By the way, what are famous shopping malls in Australia?