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The past week has been troubleshooting. The biggest problem was water pouring out of my house's electrical panel, but that's not what this blog post is about. I've been working on bugs in the map generator. There are some bugs I've been putting off because I didn't understand them.
The first problem was that rivers haven't been reaching the ocean. This has been a problem for a while, but I didn't want to fix it until I stopped changing the algorithm. I'm mostly happy with the river algorithm now so I decided to investigate. One thing that the Game AI Summit at GDC emphasizes is building debug visualizations; I'm a fan of that technique and tried it here:
Debugging coastal and river triangles
This uncovered several bugs.
The algorithm uses Dijkstra's Algorithm to search the land for places to put rivers. I had originally started the algorithm on the boundaries of the map. It explored the oceans and then crawled up onto land until it reached the mountain peaks. The problem with this is that if there are disconnected oceans, it would force a path between them. I changed this to start from the coastal triangles. That fixed the spurious ocean connections, but it introduced a new problem: the rivers didn't reach the ocean. This is because the way the rivers are rendered, I draw rivers on each Delaunay triangle. Each triangle connects the inflows to the outflows. By starting at the coastal triangles, there was no outflow, so there was no river rendered.
I need to special case the coastal triangle river rendering. However, for now, I put in a workaround: I start the algorithm on all ocean triangles. That way they will climb through the coastal triangles, and set an outflow direction.
While investigating this I also found that my graphics buffers for river triangles weren't big enough to handle every case. Oops! I was also drawing the entire buffer instead of only the triangles I needed to draw. Oops again!
I also found occasional coastal triangles where they shouldn't have been. The painted input elevations are on a grid. To map this to a Delaunay triangle mesh, I use bilinear interpolation on the grid's pixels. Occasionally the interpolated value would be zero, and there would be a coastal triangle that wasn't generated by my coastal triangle algorithm. I fixed this by forcing all painted elevations to be either land (>0) or ocean (<0), never exactly 0.
Rivers look much better when they reach the ocean!
Rivers coming from mountains
After fixing several bugs I decided I should continue working on bugs. I decided to work on a mountain painting mystery. There are places where no mountains would show up. You could paint repeatedly in that area and there would still be gaps:
Mountain peak locations: random
It didn't take long to understand why. I choose mountain peaks at program startup. The paint operation doesn't create the mountain peaks; it activates the ones already there by mixing them into the elevation. The problem is that the initial peak locations aren't evenly distributed. I picked points on the mesh randomly, which inevitably leads to clumps and gaps. It would be better to pick evenly distributed points, but I didn't have a nice way to do that on a mesh.
I often find that I can solve problems better by approaching them from a different angle. In this case, the problem was that I didn't have a good way to pick evenly distributed points after I had a mesh. So I worked backwards. I picked evenly distributed points and then built a mesh that included those points. That way, I was sure that the mountain peak locations were actually on the mesh!
This was great in theory. When I sat down to implement it, I realized it was slightly more complicated. I actually have a dual mesh. There's a Voronoi polygon mesh and a Delaunay triangle mesh. The mountain peaks need to be on the Delaunay mesh, and the rest of the points need to be on the Voronoi mesh. I ended up picking all the points on the Voronoi mesh, then picking an arbitrary nearby point on the Delaunay mesh when I needed a mountain point. It's good enough for now.
While reworking this part of the code, I also found another bug: there are triangles with zero area. That should never happen! It turns out I had messed up the calculation of the lengths of the sides of triangles, which I then used to calculate the areas using Heron's Formula. I had needed the edge lengths for another part of the code, and ended up reusing them for the triangles. The problem is that every edge in the dual mesh actually corresponds to two line segments in the geometry. One is the sides of the Voronoi polygons; the other is the sides of the Delaunay triangles. I had been calculated the Voronoi side lengths, and then ended up using them in a place where I needed the Delaunay side lengths. This caused the rivers to vary in width more than I expected. I hadn't understood that bug, and I had planned to work on it next, so I was happy to have found and fixed it while trying to fix mountains.
With the new mountain peak locations, no matter where you paint mountains, you'll get some:
Mountain peak locations: blue noise
Great! But there are some larger consequences to this. First, the blue noise calculation is expensive. I decided to precompute these and save them to a file. Then I load the file on the page and use it to build the mesh. This would've worked better if I had cleaner code, but I have tons of global variables and many of them depended on the mesh to already be there. To keep the code working I embedded the data in a giant string. However that string was way too big so I spent some time refactoring the code to make it not depend on the mesh at startup, and now the code can wait until the file has been read in before it constructs all the global data.
The other big consequence of switching from a jittered grid to a blue noise mesh is that the mesh is far more "regular". The polygon sizes are fairly uniform, which means the river meandering and the mountain appearance is nowhere near as random looking as before. You can see it in the above screenshot but it's much more obvious with a higher mesh resolution:
Mountain peaks are too regular
This is a problem to fix another day. I plan to allocate a week for improving visuals, and will work on this then.
I didn't get a lot of work last week, but it was much needed work. I normally like to fix bugs as I work on the features, but sometimes there's something deeper going on that requires stepping back and looking at the bigger picture.
Note about this blog post: I've been using the original full resolution PNG screenshots, but by reducing their palette to 8 bits, shrinking them to one quarter size, switching from PNG to JPG, and optimizing them, these screenshots are around 6% the original size, from 13.2MB to 0.8MB. Click on them to see the full sized image. I should do this to all my blog posts in the future.
Title: Piczle Colors Developer: Score Studios Publisher: Rainy Frog Genre: Puzzle, Training, Action Price: $12.00 Piczle Colors - If you love Nonograms, look no further. An aggregate 300 puzzles sporting up to 15x10 dimensions await you as you try to correct your mistake and bring back color to the world. As with other games in the Picross genre, you use the numbers on the side of a given grid as clues to determine which blocks need to be left blank and which need to be shaded. There are twists, though: You are likewise required to know what colors to use in the process, and in what order they are applied.
You're right to think you have your work cut out for you with Piczle Colors. In a nutshell: It's hard. Hints are available, but if you're a completionist, the only way you get to unlock all the collectibles is to stay away from in-game help. Under the circumstances, the bright visuals and catchy music tracks are decided pluses. Ditto with the interface, which makes full use of touchscreen functions. On the whole, though, the obstacles can lead to frustration and hinder your enjoyment of an otherwise-competent compilation of picture logic puzzles.
THE GOOD
Stellar number and variety of puzzles
Can be enjoyed in spurts
Touchscreen interface adds to convenience
Unlockables incentivize no-hint completion of puzzles
Player can do many things such as running swiming and jumping.Player has got variety of weapons and he can use them in many situation.Player can use martial arts to fight with enemies.
6waves was in confidential (under NDA) negotiations with us to publish Triple Town at the exact same time that they were actively copying Triple Town. We gave 6waves private access to Triple Town when it was still in closed beta, months before the public was exposed to the game. We believed those negotiations were ongoing, and we continued to give private information to 6waves, until 6waves' Executive Director of Business Development sent us a message via Facebook on the day Yeti Town was published in which he suddenly broke off negotiations and apologized for the nasty situation. His message can be found in its entirety in the body of our legal complaint.
It's bad enough to rip off another company. To do so while you are pumping them for private information (first, our game design ideas, and later, after the game was launched on Facebook, our private revenue and retention numbers) is profoundly unethical by any measure.
So tell me: did Generation Napster have every last trace of scruples removed in between watching Digimon and playing Syphon Filter?
The early days in Kanto were tough. I didn't have enough money to survive on my own for long. What little money I did have I spent on food, lodging and a meager collection of Pokéballs. Aside from my companion, Rascal, that's all I had. Even though I had a Pokédex on loan from Professor Oak, I was still a long way off from building the Sanctuary and filling it with Pokémon from all over the world. I remained in good spirits, but I had to make some tough financial decisions. I knew that Pokémon trainers dealt primarily in PokéDollars which were universally accepted, but in order to earn some I'd need to find other trainers interested in competitive battling for prize money. Losing was not an option, because the risk of losing money to another trainer would doom the entire adventure. Winning a competitive match certainly meant bolstering my team, so while I waited patiently for the Viridian Pokémon Gym to reopen its doors to the public, I set out to capture new companions. Rascal was really thriving due to our training. He had grown much stronger from our first encounter in the fields beyond Pallet. His progress filled me with confidence. West of Viridian City in the foothills of the Indigo Plateau, we encountered an aggressive, little Nidoran. As absurd as it may seem, I think the Nidoran was weaker than Rascal when Professor Oak and I first caught him. He was puny and feeble, but he made up for it in sheer enthusiasm. I named that little fellow Nibbles and we began training as soon as he was rested. Nibbles was always eager to train and never shied from a challenge. Now, I do recall the Pokédex made the distinction that Nibbles was male. I remember clearly because I pondered this several times throughout my journey in Kanto. Pokémon gender at the time was nothing more than hypothetical conjecture. There was no definitive study on the subject, and Professor Oak's Pokédex entry on the Nidoran species compiled by me and other contemporary Pallet Town trainers would spark a more conclusive investigation in the near future. I used the computer in the Viridian Pokémon Center to email Professor Oak several times about Nibble and the Pokédex entry. He requested I find a female variant of the species, but in all my searching of Kanto that year, I was never able to capture one. The closest I came to a female Nidoran was in trainer battles which collected a good amount of data, but unfortunately not as much as I'd be collecting on Pokémon directly in my care.
Training Nibbles was a lot of work. In those early days, he was pretty useless in a battle. We relied heavily on Rascal to teach him how to handle himself and get him ready for competitive battling in the future. Some days we were out in the south training against wild Rattata and Pidgey. On other days we made our way into the shadow of Indigo Plateau to the west and were fighting Rattata and other Nidoran. Eventually, Nibble's aggressive and enthusiastic nature paid off and he was able to protect me from all the wild Pokémon we encountered. He was ready, but unfortunately the gym was still closed. So we ventured to the north side of Viridian City for the first time to see what we could find, capture and study there. On Route 2, Nibbles pinned down a Pidgey which I expertly captured. Kiwi was a welcome addition to the team. Kiwi was the strongest wild Pokémon we'd subdued so far, possibly stronger than both Rascal and Nibbles combined when I first met them. This made him a lot easier to train. He was able to steadily hold his own against wild Pokémon right away. The four of us continued to train around Viridian City until my two weeks worth of paid lodging expired. At that point, it was time to move on. There were no trainers to fight in Viridian City and I had given up on the gym reopening in time to rescue me from my financial crisis. I would have to take the team north through the forest to Pewter City and hope the competitive Pokémon scene was better. I packed my meager supplies into my backpack and headed out the north gate. I would have been well on my way down Route 2 toward the Viridian Forest, except I had happened to overhear a conversation between two children. They noticed the Pokéballs holstered to my backpack and began excitedly chatting. They found it coincidental that I happened to be leaving just as a new trainer was arriving. I casually approached the children, trying to pretend I wasn't eavesdropping, but soon was crouched down beside them. With wide and eager eyes and perhaps a hint of desperation in my tone, I asked them where I could find this new trainer in town. They began jumping up and down in excitement, asking if we were going to battle. Laughing, I told them it would be up to the other trainer, but I was hoping to challenge him. The next thing I remember, all three of us were rushing through the city streets toward Route 22. My heart was pumping at the thought of my first trainer battle. My finances were completely forgotten, too. My brain was a complete blur. The only thing I could think about was the challenge and the thrill. Despite building and training my team for two weeks, I really wasn't prepared for what we would find on the road to Indigo Plateau.
Current Team: Attacks in Blue are recently learned.
I decided that 2013 would be the year I would focus on my Mercenary collection. I've had my Mercenaries for a long time now and it started back when Mk. II was still really fresh and I loved the idea of the Broadsides Bart theme force - a bunch of Mariners with their ship guns blazing away was just too awesome to pass up! I shelved them for a while and later picked up Fiona because I thought she was cool and I thought that she'd be quite powerful if I focused my efforts on her. Last year I came up with a list I was pretty proud of and playtested her a little, but she never got the focus she deserved. I decided at the end of last year that I would focus on my Mercs for 2013 and that I would further keep a log of my games so I could accurately reflect back on my gaming experience for the year. Well, it's been 3 months so far and I figured it was time to analyze my results so far.
Abstract: In quite a few video game set in Hong Kong, we can find secret agents from around the world executing various kinds of secret operations in the city. In this article, we will go through them one by one, and explain why they are not mere coincidence but the consequence of the actual city's uniqueness.
Secret agents and operations in video game Hong Kong
In video games set in Hong Kong, one can found secret agents from local and around the world. Hired by individuals, criminal organizations or governments, these agents carry out various secret missions in the virtual city.
In quite a few cases, these agents are acting as spies, infiltrating into their target organizations silently in order to collect and report information on the activities, movement, and plans of enemies or competitors.
Inspector Tequila Yuen (right) talking with Jerry Ying (left) who has infiltrated into the Dragon Claw triad group in Stranglehold (Midway Games/Success. Microsoft Windows/PlayStation 3/Xbox 360: 2007)
Undercover Wei Shen (middle) talking with inspector Teng (left) in Sleeping Dogs (Square Enix. Microsoft Windows/PlayStation 3/Xbox 360: 2012)
Undercover Kit (right) talking with police officer Victor(left) to exchange news of a triad in Jet Li: Rise to Honor (Sony Computer Entertainment America. PlayStation 2: 2004). At the end, Victor revealed that he was the mastermind of the triad.
Sometimes, these agents trespass on the hideouts of these organizations right away to collect information about the target or steal sensitive materials. The hideouts could be restaurants, bath houses, offices, factories and even embassies. While many of these hideouts are merely for their members to gather and discuss matters, some others are where we can find various secret operations. These operations could be typical illegal businesses such as drugs, smuggling and human trafficking, while others could involve surprisingly advanced technologies such as a high-precision diamond cutter, a virus that could kill all people in the world, the DNS sample of the world's leaders.
A secret agent infiltrating into a building of a private biotech company in Hong Kong in Deus Ex (Eidos Interactive. Microsoft Windows/Mac OS/PlayStation 2: 2000)
The factory of Hong Kong-based Identicon, a botanical research firm thought to be a possible front for a weapon-smuggling ring, in 007: Agent Under Fire (EA Games. PlayStation 2: 2001, GameCube/Xbox: 2002). A CIA agent infiltrating into the corporation was discovered and captured. James Bond thus trespasses the factory in attempt to rescue her., while at the same time retrieves a courier case.
In Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix (Activision. Microsoft Windows/OS X/Xbox: 2002), a mercenary is hired to deal with an international gang who is developing a virus with the aim of threatening the world.
In Scenario B of Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions (Activision. Xbox/GameCube/PlayStation 2: 2002), the player plays as a pair of spies hired to take down the head of the Hong Kong Yakuza.
The CIA agent Sydney Bristow secretly getting into the secret laboratory of an embassy in Hong Kong in Alias (Acclaim Entertainment. PlayStation 2/Microsoft Windows/Xbox: 2004)
If needed, these secret agents are ready to carry out armed missions such as street chases, kidnappings, assaults, assassinations, and even city destruction.
James Bond involving in a street chase to disable an armored van of a weapon-smuggling ring in 007: Agent Under Fire (EA Games. PlayStation 2: 2001, GameCube/Xbox: 2002)
In Wet (Bethsda Softworks. PlayStation 3/Xbox 360: 2009), the player acts as a mercenary who is hired to kidnap the head of a drug ring in Hong Kong according to the order of another gang.
Secret agents planning to kidnap an agent of the private conspiracy group Beholder Initiative in Phantom Doctrine (Good Shepherd Entertainment. PlayStation 4/Xbox One/Microsoft Windows: 2018). Appeared as a US lobbying firm that conducts business internationally, it is indeed steering politics to their will through underhanded means and toxic influence.
Secret agents shooting a guard of the Hong Kong restaurant which is the target's hideout in Phantom Doctrine (Good Shepherd Entertainment. PlayStation 4/Xbox One/Microsoft Windows: 2018)
A hitman is sent by the International Contract Agency to Hong Kong to assassinate the Triad leader Lee Hong in Hitman: Codename 47 (Eidos Interactive. Microsoft Windows: 2000)
A former MI6 agent being employed by an international criminal organization to assassinate his rival Dr. No. in GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (EA Games. GameCube/PlayStation 2/Xbox: 2004, Nintendo DS: 2005)
Secret agents from governments in the world coming to Hong Kong to assassinate an international trader who is in a global corporation that is weakening the power of the governments in Rouge Agent (Jorge Aires. Microsoft Windows: 2018).
In Näkemiin, Hongkong (T&T-Soft. Commodore 64: 1989), a British secret agent gets into Hong Kong which has been handed over to China in 1997. The agent is trying to destroy the city with a nuclear bomb.
To support these secret projects and armed missions, hi-tech equipment are smuggled into the city.
The spies in Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions (Activision. Xbox/GameCube/PlayStation 2: 2002) could use a tank to hit their rival Yakuza members in a dock of virtual Hong Kong.
The modified BMW 8Z smuggled to Hong Kong for James Bond in 007: Agent Under Fire (EA Games. PlayStation 2: 2001, GameCube/Xbox: 2002)
The special equipment of the modified BMW 8Z smuggled to Hong Kong for James Bond in 007: Agent Under Fire (EA Games. PlayStation 2: 2001, GameCube/Xbox: 2002): forward-mounted rockets, retractable machine guns, dual-side vent-deployed missiles, titanium armor, a rocket boost concealed behind the real license plate, and of course a refrigerated beverage holder
The former MI6 agent will be provided weapon for the assassination of Dr. No. in Hong Kong in GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (EA Games. GameCube/PlayStation 2/Xbox: 2004, Nintendo DS: 2005)
One thing to note is that while most of these secret missions and operations are criminal in nature (among individual entities in society, or between individual entities and law enforcement organizations), there exists few that are political which means among governments.
The plot of Rouge Agent (Jorge Aires. Microsoft Windows: 2018). While it appears to be an cooperation of governments, the fact that the agents are also allowed to kill the agents from other governments, which is the hidden agendas of these governments to attempt to take control of the whole world.
Another thing is that video game Hong Kong is not only where secret agents work but also flee. The game Snowden Run 3D is based on the real case of Edward Snowden, a former CIA worker, who ran away all the way from US to Russia via Hong Kong.
Helping Edward Snowden to run through obstacles and collect items on Hong Kong streets in Snowden Run 3D (MTS Freestyle. Android/PC/Mac: 2013)
Secret agents and operations in actual Hong Kong
Game developers don't and can't come up with the above secret agents and operations from pure imagination. They are likely to be based on the stories they learn about secret agents and operations in actual Hong Kong.
For spying activities,
In 1960s, John Tsang Siu-fo (曾昭科), the highest-ranking Chinese member of the Hong Kong police force in colonial Hong Kong at that time, was believed to be a spy working for communist China. He was then deported after he was suspected (蕭少滔, 2013, June 25; Wikipedia, 2018, October 28).
In 1997 when Hong Kong was handed over from Britain to China, quite a lot of spying devices were found in the various garrisons and Governor's House (now the Government House) when these facilities were taken over from the British colonial government (Chen, F., 2014, July 21).
In 2003, Cai Xiao-hong (蔡小洪), a communist Chinese official stationed in Hong Kong, was accused of transferring confidential Chinese government information to Britain during the handover period from 1990s to 2000s (Wikipedia, 2018, July 11).
When Edward Snowden stopped by in Hong Kong in 2013, he claimed that his former employer, the US government, was secretly collecting info from communications around the world, including those in China and Hong Kong (Greenwald, G., MacAskill, E., & Poitras, L., 2013, June 11).
In 2017, Jerry Lee Chun Shing (李振成), a former CIA who later resided in Hong Kong, was accused of passing classified US national defense information to China, leading to the breakdown of the US spy network in China in the 2010s (Mordock, J., 2018, January 16).
From time to time, there are news reports on police successfully taking down illegal businesses of the triads with the help of local undercover police officers (鄧栢良、楊婉婷, 2017, August 08). There are also conspiracy theories that CIA of the US and MI6 of Britain are operating branches in the US Consulate and British Consulate in Hong Kong (羅先亞, 2013, September 16).
The Consulate General of the United State, Hong Kong and Macau on No. 26, Garden Road, Central, Hong Kong. Source: Wikipedia
The British Consulate-General, Hong Kong on 1 Supreme Court Road, Admiralty, Hong Kong. Source: Wikipedia
For secret operations, it is believed by some that certain illegal businesses are running in the background of actual Hong Kong.
The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed Hong Kong in "Tier 2 Watchlist" in 2017 (U.S. State Department's Office, 2017).
The U.S. Treasury Department claimed that certain commercial Hong Kong-based companies were disguises of underground businesses such as money laundering (Berlinger, J., 2018, November 06).
From time to time, we can hear news stories on smuggling sensitive technologies via Hong Kong (Griffiths, J., 2018, October 02).
Street chases, kidnappings, assault and assassinations are indeed quite rare in actual Hong Kong. Nonetheless, every time when a case exposes, the media headlines are occupied for several days.
Lee Hysan (利希慎) was shot on a street in the Central district in Hong Kong. Some believed the assassination was due to the conflict he had with the Macau government over the right to sell opium in Macau (Wikipedia, 2018, October 21).
In 1955, the Kashmir Princess aircraft departed from Hong Kong was bombed during its flight to Jakarta. Originally planned for carrying the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai (周恩來), it was widely believed that the bomb was placed on the plane in Hong Kong by some Taiwan special service organization. (Butt, R., 2010, January 2; Wikipedia, 2018, January 18)
In 2002, businessman Hot-lit Harry Lam was shot dead while eating breakfast in the Hong Kong famous tea house and dim sum restaurant Luk Yu (陸羽茶室). The murderer was rumored to be due to a business disputes (Hu, Y., 2007, July 10).
In December 2015, Lee Bo (李波) mysteriously disappeared from Hong Kong territory and later reappeared to be in mainland China. Many feared that he may have somehow be abducted by mainland China's public security bureau and brought to mainland China (Wikipedia, 2018, November 22).
Lee Hysan (right) with his son (left). Photo source: 立場新聞
A Lockheed Constellation similar to The Kashmir Princess. Photo source: Wikipedia
Zhou Enlai, the supposedly assassination target of The Kashmir Princess bombing. He was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China serving from 1949 to 1976. Photo source: Wikipedia
Lee Bo being interviewed by media in mainland China after his mysterious disappearance from Hong Kong and later reappearance in Mainland China. Photo source: 立場新聞
You may be surprised by the pieces of smuggled hi-tech equipment that Hong Kong Custom and Excise found in cargoes in the past years (杜宗熹, 2016, November 24):
Year 2000: an armored vehicle from Italy, intended to go to mainland China.
Year 2004: 2800 real guns from Malaysia, intended to go to US.
Year 2006: a former Soviet-made MiG 29 fighter jet, from Ukraine, intended to go to US.
Year 2010: a tank from Saudi Arabia, intended to go to South Korea.
An armored vehicle found in Kwai Chung container port of Hong Kong in 2000. Source: Appledaily
The MiG 29 fighter jet found in Hong Kong container port in 2006. Source: 聯合影音網
What brings secret agents and secret operations in?
As for why real Hong Kong attracts secret agents and secret operations from all around the world, I believe it is due to the unique geographical location and political position of the city.
Unique geographical location
Excellently located at the heart of the Asia Pacific region, Hong Kong gradually becomes a logistic, trading and finance center after Britain took over the place and set up a free port in the 1840s. Attracted are not only legal businesses from all around the world, but also the underground ones, thereby the illegal operations that need to be kept secret. To collect information on these secret activities without catching targets' attention, sending spies out is the only way.
Always associated with businesses are disputes. Sometimes, people may decide that doing nasty or shady things to settle the disputes. Secret agent is the only way to do them without leaving obvious fingerprints.
As a popular transit hub with millions of visitors and goods transiting at Hong Kong every day, it is not surprising that some people try to smuggle through the city.
Unique political position
In 1949, mainland China was taken over by the communists. As a free port located right next to this key communist country and handling the in-and-out of thousands of mainland Chinese and foreigners every day, Hong Kong became a prime location that both the Communist block and the Western bloc shall station secret agents for information collection and possibly secret operations against each other.
After the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to mainland China, foreign political secret agents appear to remain intact. Quite a few people have expressed their discontent with it and would like to pass the national security law in the city as soon as possible so as to provide legal basis to handle these agents if needed. However, there are practical considerations such as the potential opposition from the citizens, and whether the legislation would provide an excuse for other countries to sanction mainland China for reducing the freedom enjoyed by the people in the city.
The website conveying the Hong Kong government's proposals to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law which expects Hong Kong to enact laws on its own to protect national security. The implementation is indefinitely postponed due to its a great controversy and a massive demonstration on 1 July 2003.
Nonetheless, it was the Chinese rule over Hong Kong that contributed to the dramatic flee of Edward Snowden. Hong Kong authorities said that Snowden had not been detained for the U.S. because the request had not fully complied with Hong Kong law, and there was no legal basis to prevent Snowden from leaving (Hong Kong Information Services Department, 2013, June 23; Hong Kong Information Services Department, 2013, June 24; Chen, F., 2014, July 21). The government would not have been that confident not to detain Edward and make such responses if the city had not been ruled by China who thought herself increasingly comparable with the Western bloc.
Final Remarks
There are good reasons for Hong Kong to be popular among secret agents and operations. The unique geographical location of Hong Kong contributes to the establishment of a free port and later a logistic, trading and financial center in the city, which has brought in local and international criminal organizations and hence illegal operations running secretly. Whether you wish to collect insider information about these secret operations, or do nasty things against your rivals, you need secret agents to get them done secretly. Meanwhile, the unique political status of Hong Kong in both British colonial era and Chinese rule era has also made the city a platform of dramatic political espionage activities between governments.
While many of us are complete outsiders of these ongoing espionage activities, we are all surprised and excited whenever any of them is exposed to public, and be reminded of potentially hundreds or even thousands of secret agents that are running in the background every day.
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Quando os meus olhos te tocaram Eu senti que encontrara A outra, metade de mim Tive medo de acordar Como se vivesse um sonho Que não pensei em realizar E a força do desejo Faz me chegar perto de ti Quando eu te falei em amor Tu sorriste para mim E o mundo ficou bem melhor Quando eu te falei em amor Nos sentimos os dois Que o amanha vem depois E não no fim Estas linhas que hoje escrevo São do livro da memória Do que eu sinto por ti E tudo o que tu me das É parte da história que eu ainda não vivi E a força do desejo Faz me chegar de ti Quando eu te falei em amor Tu sorriste para mim E o mundo ficou bem melhor Quando eu te falei em amor Nos sentimos os dois Que o amanha vem depois e não no fim André Sardet
Collide
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Howie Day
Everything
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