Fourteen years ago tonight, I went out on New Year’s Eve for the last time. That was the year I spent New Year’s Eve in Hong Kong’s Central district. The area was packed with people, and most restaurants and bars were too crowded to admit more patrons by the time I arrived. So, I ended up ringing in the new year at the Foreign Correspondents Club, a cozy, private space situated in a former ice house. Meanwhile, a couple of blocks away, on Lan Kwai Fong — the center of Hong Kong’s nightlife for hip expats and locals alike — the crowd continued to grow. By some estimates, it reached 20,000 people, all crammed into a tiny, steep street that was once a nondescript row of seedy tenements and vegetable stalls. At one point, people began to slip on the pavement, which was wet with rain, beer and champagne. Someone jostled someone. Someone else pushed back. Suddenly, what had started as a peaceful New Year’s Eve celebration turned into a panicked mob, with all 20,000 souls rushing to get off of the street. When the melee ended, 21 people were dead and more than 100 were injured.

Two blocks away, I might as well have been in another world. When I left the FCC to head home, the streets were still packed with people, most of them oblivious to the nearby tragedy. But the next morning, the tragedy was all over the news, and for a very short while, Lan Kwai Fong became synonymous with death. However, in Hong Kong as elsewhere (or as nowhere else, perhaps), life goes on, and Lan Kwai Fong continued to thrive. Today, it remains a centerpiece of Hong Kong nightlife, albeit with a strong police presence on occasions like New Year’s Eve. For me, however, it cast a pall on the very idea of going out on New Year’s Eve. Three years later, I was living in New York, close enough to Times Square to hear the midnight revelers if the night was still and a window was open. The idea of joining the throngs never occurred to me.

It’s been a while since I thought about Lan Kwai Fong, but I was reminded of it when I decided to write something up about New Year’s Eve safety for the CR safety blog. In scouring the web for information, I found plenty of references to the tragedy, but very little practical advice for people who might want to exercise a little caution while still going out on New Year’s Eve. The best tips I found came from the office of the Mayor of London — not surprising, since that city’s New Year’s Eve party brings in as many as 200,000 people. But I was disappointed to find that that cities with even larger celebrations, such as New York and Sydney, don’t offer similar advice. That’s too bad. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world will go out tonight. Though a repeat of Lan Kwai Fong is unlikely, and many cities (including New York) have superb crowd-control measures in place, a little advance planning can go a long way when it comes to personal safety. That’s as true today as it was 14 years ago, when I was lucky enough to wander away from Lan Kwai Fong — and away from the hubbub of New Year’s Eve for years to come.

Fourteen years ago tonight, I went out on New Year’s Eve for the last time. That was the year I spent New Year’s Eve in Hong Kong’s Central district. The area was packed with people, and most restaurants and bars were too crowded to admit more patrons by the time I arrived. So, I ended up ringing in the new year at the Foreign Correspondents Club, a cozy, private space situated in a former ice house. Meanwhile, a couple of blocks away, on Lan Kwai Fong — the center of Hong Kong’s nightlife for hip expats and locals alike — the crowd continued to grow. By some estimates, it reached 20,000 people, all crammed into a tiny, steep street that was once a nondescript row of seedy tenements and vegetable stalls. At one point, people began to slip on the pavement, which was wet with rain, beer and champagne. Someone jostled someone. Someone else pushed back. Suddenly, what had started as a peaceful New Year’s Eve celebration turned into a panicked mob, with all 20,000 souls rushing to get off of the street. When the melee ended, 21 people were dead and more than 100 were injured.

Two blocks away, I might as well have been in another world. When I left the FCC to head home, the streets were still packed with people, most of them oblivious to the nearby tragedy. But the next morning, the tragedy was all over the news, and for a very short while, Lan Kwai Fong became synonymous with death. However, in Hong Kong as elsewhere (or as nowhere else, perhaps), life goes on, and Lan Kwai Fong continued to thrive. Today, it remains a centerpiece of Hong Kong nightlife, albeit with a strong police presence on occasions like New Year’s Eve. For me, however, it cast a pall on the very idea of going out on New Year’s Eve. Three years later, I was living in New York, close enough to Times Square to hear the midnight revelers if the night was still and a window was open. The idea of joining the throngs never occurred to me.

It’s been a while since I thought about Lan Kwai Fong, but I was reminded of it when I decided to write something up about New Year’s Eve safety for the CR safety blog. In scouring the web for information, I found plenty of references to the tragedy, but very little practical advice for people who might want to exercise a little caution while still going out on New Year’s Eve. The best tips I found came from the office of the Mayor of London — not surprising, since that city’s New Year’s Eve party brings in as many as 200,000 people. But I was disappointed to find that that cities with even larger celebrations, such as New York and Sydney, don’t offer similar advice. That’s too bad. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world will go out tonight. Though a repeat of Lan Kwai Fong is unlikely, and many cities (including New York) have superb crowd-control measures in place, a little advance planning can go a long way when it comes to personal safety. That’s as true today as it was 14 years ago, when I was lucky enough to wander away from Lan Kwai Fong — and away from the hubbub of New Year’s Eve for years to come.

Back when I was at Engadget, one of the things that took some getting used to was the 24/7 nature of the site. But the fact is, news happens around the clock, and tech news often breaks first on the other side of the globe, when most people here are sound asleep. And in the hypercompetitive world of A-list blogging, you have to be at the top of your game every day to stay on top of the heap. So, the surprise today isn’t that 8 of the top 10 blogs were updated on Christmas. It’s that two of them—Lifehacker and PostSecret—weren’t. PostSecret is so unique that I suppose they can set their own rules. And Gina did go ahead and warn us that she was going to use Xmas to unplug and enjoy. But while she was doing that, Peter, Ryan & Co. posted a dozen entries. And judging from the response—their annual “What did you get?” post has over 200 comments as of this writing—plenty of people were happy to spend their holiday with the Engadget crew. So, Merry Christmas, Pete, Ryan, Evan, Paul and the rest of the gang. Hope you had time to hoist a few egg nogs while showing us amateurs how the pros get things done.

Back when I was at Engadget, one of the things that took some getting used to was the 24/7 nature of the site. But the fact is, news happens around the clock, and tech news often breaks first on the other side of the globe, when most people here are sound asleep. And in the hypercompetitive world of A-list blogging, you have to be at the top of your game every day to stay on top of the heap. So, the surprise today isn’t that 8 of the top 10 blogs were updated on Christmas. It’s that two of them—Lifehacker and PostSecret—weren’t. PostSecret is so unique that I suppose they can set their own rules. And Gina did go ahead and warn us that she was going to use Xmas to unplug and enjoy. But while she was doing that, Peter, Ryan & Co. posted a dozen entries. And judging from the response—their annual “What did you get?” post has over 200 comments as of this writing—plenty of people were happy to spend their holiday with the Engadget crew. So, Merry Christmas, Pete, Ryan, Evan, Paul and the rest of the gang. Hope you had time to hoist a few egg nogs while showing us amateurs how the pros get things done.

I posted something on the CR Shopping Blog today about where to shop for gifts on Christmas Day (hey, some of us really can’t get it together until the last possible minute!). One of the options I included was Chinatown, and I decided to do some realtime fact-checking this morning, with a trip to New York’s Chinatown for dim sum. And I definitely have to concur with CR’s fine writer (heh, heh). Chinatown is a great place to spend some time on Christmas. Most of the restaurants and shops are open, and the streets are much less congested than usual—though the dim sum place was packed by 11:00 am; I was glad we got there by 10. It’s not quite the same as Christmas in Hong Kong; I used to love the elaborate Christmas lights that all of the office buildings would put up every year. But it’s a lot closer, and I don’t have to worry that my pidgin Cantonese is going to result in a plate of chicken feet when I really want har gow!

I posted something on the CR Shopping Blog today about where to shop for gifts on Christmas Day (hey, some of us really can’t get it together until the last possible minute!). One of the options I included was Chinatown, and I decided to do some realtime fact-checking this morning, with a trip to New York’s Chinatown for dim sum. And I definitely have to concur with CR’s fine writer (heh, heh). Chinatown is a great place to spend some time on Christmas. Most of the restaurants and shops are open, and the streets are much less congested than usual—though the dim sum place was packed by 11:00 am; I was glad we got there by 10. It’s not quite the same as Christmas in Hong Kong; I used to love the elaborate Christmas lights that all of the office buildings would put up every year. But it’s a lot closer, and I don’t have to worry that my pidgin Cantonese is going to result in a plate of chicken feet when I really want har gow!

According to Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff, sales at the iTunes Music Store have dropped 65% since January, and the average transaction size has dropped 17%. Seems pretty bad, but does it really matter? Not to Apple. The company makes a pittance from iTunes; the profits are in the iPod (iTMS is important for Apple as a selling point for iPods, but not as a major source of revenue). But it certainly matters to the record industry, which needs to get more consumers shopping online if they want to make up for the continued decline in CD sales. And it certainly matters to everyone else operating an online music store, from the PlaysForSure groups to Microsoft. After all, if the average iPod owner is only spending about $9 a year on iTunes (according to Forrester), paying $15 a month for a PFS subscription doesn’t seem like such a great deal. Sure, I think PFS is great (or, rather, Rhapsody is great; the others all have serious usability problems), but that doesn’t mean these services are resonating with the great unwashed. The real question raised by the Forrester study is, where are people getting all the music that they’re loading onto their iPods? Especially the teenagers. Oldsters like me may have hundreds of CDs that they’re ripping, but what about the kids? When I was a teenager, I made weekly forays to records stores like Sounds on St. Marks Place, where I could get used records for as little as a buck, and new ones for about $5. If today’s kids are anything like I was, they should be buying the equivalent of at least one or two albums a month. Since they’re not buying CDs, and they’re not buying from iTunes, the obvious answer is that they’re still pirating a lot of music. Which is actually good news, since it shows that the record industry’s obsession with DRM hasn’t paid off. CD sales are down 20% over five years, and if the average consumer is only spending $9 a year online, that certainly isn’t going to pick up the slack. If the record industry wants to improve those numbers, it’s time to stop spending on suing grandmothers and start selling DRM-free music. Yes, DRM-free music will be pirated. But that train left the station a long time ago, and if the industry wants to catch up, it’s time to stop treating customers like criminals, and let them buy, keep and play music any way they want to, just like they did (however reluctantly) back in the days of vinyl.

I stopped in at the Apple Store at a local mall today to pick up a new USB cable for the old iPod mini I use to listen to podcasts in the car, and was reminded what a truly unique environment the Apple Store is. Mind you, this wasn’t the glass-encased Fifth Avenue flagship; it was just a run-of-the-mill mall version. But the Apple Store really is a retail experience like no other, and truly does an amazing job of creating demand. Part of it is the open, airy feel of the place, and part of it is the high staff-to-customer ratio, which means that you never have to wait more than a few seconds to get help. But the main thing is that all of the company’s products, from the tiniest shuffle to the biggest Mac Pro with 30” Cinema Display, are out there, completely touchable. Compare shopping at the Apple Store to any other consumer electronics chain, and it’s like night and day. While other stores keep high-end and highly pocketable products behind glass, forcing you to ask a sales clerk for access, you can go hands-on with everything in the Apple Store, and spend as much time as you like trying out the gear. I swear that I almost walked out of there with one of those 30-inch displays and a MacBook. But, of course, as seductive as that retail experience is, it also helps to provide a reality check. As much as I like the form factor of the MacBook, I could never see myself buying one—that thing’s got the worst keyboard I’ve seen on a computer since the PCjr, and having the time to try it out in-store only helped to confirm that. And the 30-inch display only served to remind me of how lousy those iTunes Store videos look on a big screen (plus it was $2K, which is a little more than I can spend on a display right now). Still, I did leave seriously wanting an 80GB iPod—though the fact that I left without it should be considered some kind of victory. I left the store carrying nothing but my $19 USB cable, and I’m happily filling that old mini with podcasts right now.

This is why I still think Seth Godin’s a genius. His latest business idea: making the now-ubiquitous CAPTCHA a free, ad-supported service. Instead of hazy and difficult to decipher alphanumeric strings, ad-supported CAPTCHAs would sport sponsor logos, which the visitor would have to identify. Of course, the system would have to have a huge number of sponsors in order to be able to replicate at least some of the randomness that makes CAPTCHAs effective against comment spam (either that, or other variables would have to be introduced, such as “McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets with Hot Sauce”). But the idea is just perfect for 21st Century America; after all, we live in a culture where children recognize corporate logos before they learn their first words. Yes, I think it’s a reprehensible concept; should I really have to type in the name of a brand or product in order to access a completely unrelated site? But I also think it’s inevitable, and someone is probably already working on a business plan based on Seth’s post. I just hope that someone is also working on a reliable, non-commercial, open-source CAPTCHA system as a response.

Yesterday, Engadget had a scoop that I suspect will be picked up widely over the next few days, and may well lead to boycotts of a major consumer electronics company. The post was about BenQ’s new ad campaign, apparently running in Asia, which includes the image above. That’s right—they’re using a picture of a teenage kid standing among the smoldering wreckage of the World Trade Center in a campaign to sell MP3 players. The misspelled tagline: “I belive, music makes hope.” This is beyond reprehensible. BenQ will inevitably say that the company didn’t know how offensive the image is; those claims should fall on deaf ears. Yes, it’s not unheard of for one culture to inadvertently use images that are considered offensive by others. I’ve seen Nazi imagery used in Asia,  and motifs reminiscent of Stalinism and Mao’s Cultural Revolution used to move product in the west (And, according to Consumerist, Wal-Mart is still selling a t-shirt with a Nazi-based graphic). However, in all of those cases, the events being referenced happened at least a generation ago. One can imagine a young, rebellious, clueless designer wanting to appropriate images from the past, without fully grasping what they symbolize to others (that doesn’t make it right, of course—only somewhat comprehensible). But 9/11 wasn’t a generation ago. BenQ’s designer had to have some inkling of how offensive this image is and the reaction it would provoke. I certainly won’t be buying any BenQ products at any time in the near future, and I suspect I won’t be the last person to make that decision.

I should mention that I’m aware that BenQ isn’t the first entity to use 9/11 imagery in a crass and inappropriate manner (that honor would undoubtedly fall to the Bush administration). And, certainly, other companies have profited from the tragedy. In fact, by coincidence, just as Engadget was running this item, I was finally watching “United 93,” a film I couldn’t bring myself to see on the big screen. And the movie may well qualify as the least exploitive film about a national tragedy ever made. It was an incredibly sober and moving portrayal of one aspect of 9/11, and it managed to resist all of the easy memes, from demonizing the hijackers to portraying the UA93 passengers as gung ho, patriotic heroes (the “let’s roll” line, so widely used as a rallying cry by the right, was almost a throwaway, and certainly wasn’t the cri de cœur of the passenger rebellion that it’s been painted as elsewhere). For me, though, the film’s most heart-rending moment actually occurred during the credits, when I saw that several of the air traffic controllers in the film were actually played by themselves. That’s when I lost it. Those “As Himself” credits were a stark reminder that this movie was about a real event, not just some imagined disaster. While watching a movie like “United 93,” it’s almost possible to forget that and get caught up in the narrative. Those credits bring the movie back down to earth, and remind even the most witless viewer that this was real—and is still very real for thousands of people who were directly touched by it, and the millions of others touched indirectly. It should be required viewing for everyone at BenQ.



Update: They’ve apologized and removed the ad. Good for them. Especially since this didn’t gain any real traction with the MSM, so they really did this in response to the blogosphere uproar. Score one for citizen media!