Gucci Proxy

being late

2012-01-19T00:26:00.000Z

"if 10 mins late is late, so be it"

yes, i always not in time. it is because i have no control of time. moreover, i care my time, more than others's time. people can name a lot of reasons that you should not be late. that's OK. just like people have a lot of reasons to believe in god. just a point of view.

now, what i want to say is, the reasons for being late.

first, the price for being on time is huge, especially for those who define "late" is within 10 mins. why? i found that, to be on time, we usually, and actually, have to arrive earlier. i don't know anyone who can always exactly ON time, within 1 min. they spent many time for waiting to be on time.

2nd, there is always accident, say, the last meeting was prolonged. traffic jam, stomach rush, etc. so, who can guarantee that? to be 10 mins, 20 mins late is acceptable. by the way, now we can tell people about our accident. but even in some condition that no communication is possible. i think it is fine. my world will not stop for you. i can do many things.

3rd, i believe, people being late must have their reason. say, over sleep, have other business, etc. you don't know and cannot assume that he/she being late is that he/she mean to do it. some people even take it very personal that he/she was dis-respected. i think it is too crazy and self-centered.

4th, if we forcing people be on time, in his/her standard, i think that does not help anything, it simple create a pressure. (oh, some people use it to build up authority, that they think it works) a 70% wake up people do more harm than contribution. that i don't want.

5th, something people may think that, being late is not taking the thing seriously. i want to know, on what earth that being on time mean seriously?? and on what reason that doing a good job is strictly related to time??

by the way, we all knew that being on-time is not a pressure, not an enjoyment. why we have to forcing ourselves and other to be on-time??

at the end, i am not encourage people to be late. i just want to say, 10 to 20 mins late is acceptable. of course, there are many cases that, being late will be disqualify. say, in Olympic game. in some situation. but that are well-known. what i mean is, unless you mentioned being late will be disqualify, you should be blame, and no right to blame people who being late.

beyond bipolar

2012-01-09T08:48:00.003Z

i still remember in a primary philosophy book, Francis Bacon said something like, " by solving any contradiction, a new idea or theory will be formed. ".

in other word, in order to solve a contradiction, we need something new, somewhat a bigger picture.

for example, a common question on " if egg first, or chicken first. " we knew, that , there can not be both first by definition. and there "must" be something happen first, by instinct. after many years of biology advancement, now, scientist knew that, in some sense, egg (a general egg) comes first, while in other sense, chicken (a general animal ) comes first. This is based on genetic study and evolution.

another example may be "when observation is not fit theory". it seems that there is no contradiction at all, eventually, the observation is the truth, while theory is just a description. However, when a theory was confirmed by many many observations while suddenly a new experiment violate the theory, then it is a big deal. as the recent "hyper-speed neutrino".

in order to solve a contradiction or a conflict in general, the easiest way is choose a side. that means, against another. a trivial example is "believer of Bible" and "Believer of Koran". or " free-market and small government" vs "regulated market and big-government".

but there is a third choice, or even fourth.

the bipolar and beyond

the third one is comparatively easy. this is nothing new but "depend on given conditions". i think HK A-Level students are well trained on this option. say, "should or should not take drug/ medicine for exam? " then, students are typically say, it depends. if you are sick, then it is ok, since it help to to perform as you are. etc, bra, bra bra... this option is simple cut the question in small piece, and see how each piece fit the principle. or how each piece fit in each principle. it is somewhat a considerate option, which take care of each different situation, but it is kind of flexible that there seem to be no principle.

the 4th choice is, having a bigger picture, that cover and see what make the conflict or contradiction happen? this is hard. not everyone can have. it require penetration of the problem. this is what i called "beyond bipolar". say, "believer" and "not-believer". and there is "non-believer". i think i had talked the difference between these 3 .

one last thing i like to mention is, the John Rawls's theory and Milton Friedman's theory on economy. or simple communism and capitalism. but the later two is too broad, so broaden that beyond my ability. Rawls said, since everything we have is basically, not by ourselves, our wealth, our ability, our handsomeness, etc... so, we should not value people on their ability, but share the wealth. while Friedman given an example, that, in an imaginary world, John can make 2 cakes an hour and Sam can only make 1 cake, in what reason, John have to share a cake with Sam? by humanity? in my extension, if an alien comes to earth, shall we share our resources with them? if some stranger come to my home, shall i share my food to him? why? in an extreme case, since your prefect body is not by yourself, why don't you share and have sex with everyone?

personally, i am ok with "share a cake with sam, since you 2 are friends or John feel pity that Sam always hungry", but not "we have to set up a law, to force John to share with Sam." that is i am strongly against, that is absolutely cross the line, the line of freedom.

however, Fridmann's theory of freedom can possibly general a cruel world that the rich has no sympathy toward the poor. that is also i don't like, nevertheless, we are human, not animal.

so, is there a way out? to beyond these 2 theories? may be, that is what happening in this real world.

that, rich can have no sympathy, but the government should, and the matter is, how far this sympathy should stop. where is the line? and how the line move when the society change?

say, the MPF, the Mandatory Provident Fund, in HK. it try to ensure old people welfare. but i think that, this is an example of good intention, suck method. why and how suck it is? i think i already mentioned somewhere.

When Data does not fit the theory

2012-01-07T14:39:00.000Z

a friend asked me, what i will do, when the data does not fit the theory. i never though of this problem, just like never think how to walk. but this is a good question. so i made this chart, hope helpful. the error part can be fill numbers of books, so, that was skipped.

some thoughts on Hong Kong future and democracy

2011-12-04T05:33:00.001Z

Although i am going to leave Hong Kong, somehow, i do care about the politics over there. that will make a good post on "why i still care". anyway, lets start.

recently, what i concern on is the next chief executive of HK, the election, from 1200 people, who, some genius think it is good enough to represent 7.5million people of HK. so, each of the voter represent the will of around 6kilo people. anyway, the fact is, as some who is die-hard fan of this blog will know, there is no election but just a show.

"an election is possible, when the result is under control." -- a rumor.

now, there are 2 major candidates, C.Y.Leung and Y.Y. Tong.

C.Y. Leung is a well-known and open-secret member of communism party of china. He is strongly linked with Beijing. He has strong vision, plan and seem to be a strong leader, in which, he has alot ideas and opinions. The weakness of him is lack of administration skill. a simple word the conclude about him is, he is an ideologist. In the past, he was invited to join some real political position that can execute his idea, but he rejected. He is better then talk then cooperating and communicate with different parties interest. Thus, anything he say about "he is going to solve bra bra bra problems", we better just put in as a commercial, rather then he can really do so.

the great problem that he will face is, the business tycoons of HK. and combined with CPR, they form the shadow government and real power source of HK. OK, he is strong linked with CPR, but mean while, what he said about the solution of the problem of HK is, it reduce the profit from those tycoons. and those tycoons, are also well connected with Beijing. Thus, i am not sure he can really execute his plans and vision.

Y.Y. Leung is a well-know 2nd generation of business tycoon, and he is a retarded. All archivements of him can be traced back to those behind and connected to him. i have strong feeling that, the reason for his raise the campaign is, controlled by those behind. He is a typical idiot is fairly tale. ( somehow i cannot believe he is real, coz he is so retarded in the public! what he said, what he done revealed that his IQ is less then 90, i am pretty sure about that) It is very hard to imagine such a idiot will have such an ambition, unless, he was encouraged by his advicers, who are the real careerists. those careerists, of course, are strongly linked with tycoons or they are those tycoons. because of the nature of YY. Leung, he, in fact, is a dummy for them. so, that they can control the policy while keep being off-stage. A similar game was happened since Hong Kong retured to China. Therefore, if YY. Leung was elected, a deeper fusion of commercial sector and government.

lets copy some thoughts on my facebook timeline:

"compare to Tong, and Leung, it likes choosing a bunch of off-stage controllers and a wolf.
i think it is better to choose Leung, coz, at least, he "will" solve the housing problem, and he is on bright side, we know he is connected to CPR.

on the Tong's side, you have no idea who are behind, are those tycoons, CPR? how many connections behind? and 1 more thing is, he is a dummy, than the power is more slide to commercial sector."

"although it seems that Leung is a better choice, but the fact is, curry poo or poo-ly curry. if i think a little more, the weakness of Tong may be the hope of Hong Kong people. since the weakness of him can both easily settled from tycoons, and also people, whoever louder and violent is OK. and if the policy really more biased to tycoons's interest, it actually accelerate the fall of HK, and hopefully, after the darkest mid-night, a dawn will come, that, HK people cannot tolerant anymore and demand quick change in politics.

by the way, the meaning of election or democracy was lost already, not because it is controlled by CPR, but the people, who only hope for a strong and good leader like an emperor, rather then the system, which make no people be the biggest and powerful factor to change the course of the society. However, if we think democracy is the system that can truly reflect public's will, then, may be in HK, when everyone want to rely on a strong leader to save their pity life, how can i say democracy was lost??"

Now, let me shift the subject the democracy. what is democracy? it is the right and mean that everyone, everyone who passed certain age, which public is accepted, he or she is capable to think and choose what he or she want. (although it may not be true). in this sense, election is a natural mean and method to collect public opinions, take the average or majority, and make this will to be real.

Is the leader matter? may be and may be not, in an ancient time, ar... before internet. it is very difficult to collect public opinion. that make me confused sometime, why is it easy to collect tax from all the time? so i think is, it is a deep desire that we hope there is a leader to lead us, instead of finding the way by ourselves. we still have a stone-age mind in 21th century. we are still lost or lazy to think what is the best for ourselves. the situation is very similar to those who live with their parent. We can always rely on our parent to do much things, usually are those tiny little things like washing cloths, clean the room, etc. so that we can focus to a more "important" things, like making money, playing video game, have fun with friends, etc.

As Erich Fromm in his book ( i hope it is famous) "escape form freedom" pointed out. we actually don't like real freedom, we just want to do what we want. This is a conception difficulty between these 2. freedom, which mean we have more responsibility on ourselves. while, "do what i want" is completely no responsibility, in fact, it is against responsibility. the real freedom is harsh and a stone-age mind will be overloaded. because we have to consider every tiny little part on our life. for example, a truly freedom society will be no law. or just simple law, say "you have to take responsibility on every action you made." then we have to think before we crossing a road. we have to think before we rob somebody. but with law, modern law, we don't need to think, it is forbidden. and that is. and we save much time of thinking. (that somehow matching the statistic that, criminal has higher average IQ).

i am not sure did i mention it in this blog or not, that, why we cannot de-centralize the society. the government did not decide anything but execute the plan that people decides on internet, in public forum. (the detail of it can be a good post too) the society is truly based on people, not some leader or giant. anyway, what i think about modern day president is simple emperor with term. things really not change so much though 5k years. but the thing that make this century different from the past is, people have right to choose, to decide their future.

Path of Physicist

2011-11-21T04:46:00.001Z

As most people will not or not necessarily go to Grad School, even some went to grad school, different major will have different path. so, let me give a rough picture on "How to become a Physicist - in a normal path "

the path is began from entering university, basically, as long as you are in math or physics department, or some engineering department, you are able to become a physicist.

after undergraduate course, there are 2 paths lay in front of you. 1 is become a Master student, and the 2nd one is become a Doctoral student. Lets me talk more on the difference.

there are 2 kinds of master courses, one is a taught based, and one is research based. the taught based is a bit more easy, you take courses, have a little paper then you will finish it after 1 or 2 years. your title will become Master of Science, or M.Sc. it basically is an extension on the undergrad study and seldom bring you to a new level of learning. the research base is like, you take courses for 1 years, then do a 1 year research, finish your thesis with the help of your supervisor. it will take you at least 2 years. If your research is not going so well an smooth, or may be you have a high requirement professors (your supervisor), you may be delayed, take half or 1 more year before finish. And some cases, you can be fail to meet the requirement and not able to finish. your title will be Master of Philosophy, or M.Phil.

OK, now you hold a master degree, the next step is going to doctoral study. or, if you just hold a bachelor degree, you also able to apply a doctoral course. the difference is, once you have a master degree, your doctoral course will take you 3 years, if you don't have, the course will take you 5 years.

so, why not take the doctoral course, right after undergrad? the reason is, unless you already doing some kind of research during undergrad course, most students have no idea how a research look like. even you did undergraduate research course, it is still different from real research. just like the difference between part-time and full-time. Moreover, students may hear from other how a research is, and what is the career development. So, most people will take a master course, and get to know how research is fitting or not. and tell you from statistics, most of them, found that it is not.

Moreover, to process to doctoral study is a big decision in your life. the reason is 2 folds. first, you are going to sign a "contract" of 3 years. if you quite in the mid-way, you wasted time, and in that among of time, you can gain other competitive experience from working, that will help your salary. 2nd, after you finish a doctoral course, can you go back to the market? no, the reason is simple. you are well trained in a very special area, which mean, you are blank in other things, especially no one will hire a doctoral student for clerk work. while they also not going to place you in some decision making task. the fact is, you are too well-qualified and specialized, you can only survive in your field. unless you can accept after many years of study, go back to job market and earn fresh grad paid. Therefore, it is a big decision. it determines where you will go and who are you. in my advice, people, no matter which major, before you entering doctoral course, please ask as many advice as possible, say, from your teachers, from your friends, or from your parents. ( parents may be not a good choice, especially in Asia.)

So, now, you become a Doctoral course student. you already known how to do an independent research, how to look for reference, make hypothesis, do experiment, learn theory by yourself. yes, in most case, there is no text book for doctoral student, since it is already cutting edge research. If you are in a new field, then even few papers (scientific publishments) available. you are on you and your professors alone. so, doctoral course normally don't take any course but a full time research.

anyway, you finish, and now you can tick the square "Dr." on any documents or forms. Or more academically a " Ph.D", Doctor of Philosophy. Cool hah !?

now, as a doctoral degree holder, you need to find some labs to do the so called "post-doctoral" research. and your life may be end in this post. (of course salary will higher, but most of us will not satisfy, not because of the salary, is because all we want is a place in university or have our own research team. )

after many years, your research was recognized. some university, or lab, will invite you to join them. and Now, in this sense, you say bye-bye to "post-doc" life and having your own research.

if you go to university, you will first be a lecturer, then assistant professor, then professor.

so, the finial goal is becomes a professor.

so, now you know, a Professor is really hard to be. and that why most of them are wired. :P

Sleeping problem index

2011-11-15T04:58:00.001Z

Imagine a world that you don't have to work, no appointment. There is no sleeping problem, right?

Think about Sunday or holiday, you can sleep when ever you like.

So, the sleeping problem is come from your work, somebody require you to be some places on certain time.

And usually, job require a regular schedule. Thus, in my point of view sleeping problem is the mis-match of the schedule and your sleeping pattern.

For simplicity, we can defined a naive sleeping problem index to indicate how serious is that mis-match.

P= (wake up time - scheduled time) /12.

Today, my P = 0.5 , very serious.

For little complicated definition, a mis-match should be in term of "phase shift".

for normal people, there sleeping pattern can be well described by a periodic function, say, a square pulse function, with duty (sleep-on time) 8 hours and 24 hours a cycle.

Then, the mis-matching is the synchronization of this function and working schedule.

Lets put little more math on it. The sleeping function is:

S= 0, for 24>t>8, 1 for 8>t>0=24

The working function is

W= 1, for 18>t>8, 0 for 8>t>18

Then it is perfect match. And the sleeping problem index is zero.

However, If the sleeping pattern becomes

S= 0, for 24+a>t>8+a, 1 for 8+a>t>a

Then, the mis-matching hour "a" is related to your sleeping problem.

Since the clock run 24 hours a cycle. The worst case is a=12. Thus, we should divided 12 for simplicity. Or if you like, we can compare your sleeping problem in different planet, which 1 day can be any hours.

Of course, this is a very simple model. The sleeping and working function can be variated. And in principle, the mis-matching can tell you how bad your are, coz mis-matching hours, is not quite comparable.

Why? Think about an extreme case, the working pattern is 1 hour work, the next hour off, an repeat. And your sleeping pattern is same. Is the 1 hour mis-match is the same as the normal case?

Selfishness among Chinese

2011-11-14T06:49:00.001Z

the translation:

we hate corrupted governors, but we are very eager to work at government.
we blame monopoly, but we want to earn as high as possible.
we criticize injustices, when we work, we seeking every relationship we can.

we angry, it is not because we feel unfair, it is because we are in the disadvantage side in this unfair situation.

we don't really want to eliminate this unfairness, but just want to be privileged.

this deep -down selfishness, is the one we have to eliminated.

by Cheung You

Chinese - a concept

2011-11-08T20:18:00.000Z

as many foreigners have simple incorrect concept on Chinese, i think i have to make it clear.

a most easy analogy of Chinese is, Westerner. Lets me list some common features between them.

there are many different kind of Chinese, who lives in different countries.
there are many different countries, who is form and rule by Chinese.
Chinese speaks different languages
Chinese is NOT ALL Asian, as Westerner is not ALL European.

the 1st point don't have to mention. it is just like there are many westerners around the world. But one thing is, china people really love to group together. they like to form China town. However, may be westerners like to "colonized" the whole place, or make some "controlled area", which does not obey the local law and reign. so, there is no need for "england town" or "german town". may be it reflected the difference nature between chinese and westerner.

the 2nd point, Singapore, Taiwan, are 2 country who is formed by Chinese people. Although Taiwan is not a "country", but she has everything a country have, even more like a country then Palestine, or Monte Carlo. Just like Westerner, they have US, France, England, German, etc.

one particular point i want to raise in here is, The so called "One China" is only from the dictator of PRC (people republic of china), or so called "mainland" china. In fact, the "One China" concept of PRC is Cultural. when PRC said anything about Chinese or China, she means everyone who genetically and cultural chinese all over the world. And this is very dangerous from a dictator. because it means, every "chinese" in this board sense should listen to PRC, the dictator. and in War time, you can imagine. (the sad thing is, some idiot believing in. it is hard to imagine all westerner from a single country.) anyway, there should not be "one china" and "one china" is not a real situation.

(while PRC love to modernize as much as westerner, the dictators love to have rocket, satellites, more is better. but the number of Chinese countries, more is not better, in their point of view. )

However, in fact, Chinese is very diverge, as diverge as westerner. in chinese history, about 2500 years ago, china is very much like european, there are many countries. however, once after unified, it stay unified for ever. i don't know why. The main difference between chinese history and european history is, china is from many to one. while european is one to many (roma empire to many countries and state).

you may think, then, chinese was enjoying peace fro more 2500 years. i tell you, not, we suffered from the war of changing dynasty, which controlled by 1 single family. in average, every dynasty can last for 200 to 250 years. in each dynasty, the first 50 years may be a peaceful time. and then, a long corruption occurred. and it repeated for at least 8 times. Chinese people never learn there is a problem in this political structure.

OK, back to the topic.

the 3rd point is, languages. There is no language call chinese, as there is no language call "westernese". 3 major speaking language among chinese people are, Mandarin, Cantonese and Fujian. Mandarin is, in fact, a foreign language 1000 years before, who speaks by the northern area of china. at that time, a primary society formed from Norman. And the corruption of former dynasty gives chance for those norman took over northern china. Then people changed their language and mixed with it. Cantonese and Fujian is a direct off-spring from ancient and original chinese language, they keep a lot pronunciations. therefore, when people using Cantonese and Fujian to speak poems of ancient china, the sound is more accurate and get the rhythm correctly. Now, Mandarin is spoken by northen part of "mainland" china and Taiwan. and Cantonese and Fijian were spoken by southern part and oversea (Singapore, Mayasia, China towns over the world). However, as PRC keep "exporting" students oversea, you may found more and more "chinese" speak mandarin.

the 4rd point is, Chinese is a cultural mean or genetic mean. chinese culture dominated the east part of asian for long time, and make influence to many other countries nearby. however, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, etc, has their own culture as well. And people from southern part of china, they more like adventure, can take risk and populate around the south Asia and the world. i guess it is so called "meme" is social science. Chinese not only pass the genetic features to their child, but also the meme. that make chinese think similar. never the less, through education, these changed. however, i never met a chinese, who totally unfamiliar with chinese culture, as if he is raised by westerner. No, never met one.

at last, Chinese - Westerner analogy will give you a sense on how diverge "Chinese" are. As a HongKonger, i strongly think it is a insult when other mainland chinese regard me as same as them. Just like a Franch is regarded as British by Bristish people ( i am not sure are they now hate each other as much as the past ). We are so different! you speak "Mandarin", a foregin language which is spoken by invader, an you think it is "Chinese"! just like a robber rob your mom and you now call him father!

僕には簡単じゃないことだよ

2011-11-06T15:36:00.000Z

僕は透明人間さきっと透けてしまう同じひとには判る
噂が走る通りは息を吸い込め止めた儘で渡ってゆける
秘密も愉しいけれど直ぐ野晒しになるよそれを笑わないで
好きなひとやものなら有り過ぎる程有るんだ鮮やかな色々

あなたが笑ったり飛んだり大きく驚いたとき
透き通る気持ちでちゃんと応えたいのさ
毎日染まる空の短い季節
真っ直ぐに仰いだら夕闇も恐ろしくないよ

僕は透明人間さもっと透けて居たい本当はそう願っているだけ
何かを悪いと云うのはとても難しい僕には簡単じゃないことだよ
一つ一つこの手で触れて確かめたいんだ鮮やかな色々

あなたが怒ったり泣いたり声すら失ったとき
透き通る気持ちを分けてあげたいのさ
毎日染まる空の短い季節
手を叩いて数えたらもうじきに新しくなるよ

恥ずかしくなったり病んだり咲いたり枯れたりしたら
濁りそうになったんだ
今夜は暮れる空の尊い模様を真っ直ぐに仰いでいる
明日も幸せに思えるさ
またあなたに逢えるのを楽しみに待って
さようなら

Brain vs Heart

2011-11-06T12:37:00.000Z

i heard one thing long time ago. it said,

if you wondering which one , your brain, or your heart, you should follow during decision making, you better think about their statistics.

for myself, brain is definitely win. but wait.

without heart that give you the passion, give you faith when you are hopeless, helpless, it seems that the world is too computational.

the world is computational. everyone can only act within their imagination. some people more, some people less.

people like to follow habit, follow social rituals. just somebody follow more, somebody care less. we are all bounded by somethings. when someone has smaller common "social rituals", people may label it as crazy. because people cannot predict what they are going to do next.

think about the joker in batmen.

("you know one thing about chaos, it is fair" , truly bring up a whole new philosophy on social planning)

joker is crazy (and happy), because he does not following order, social ritual. he against it, he embrace chaos. however, even as crazy as joker, he still bounded by himself. imagine a society, that chaos is common, just like the war times, joker is not crazy at all at that society.

may be i gone too far. Brain VS Heart. as if "to be or not to be". biggest problem of life. one solution is, "To Be AND Not To be", "brain and heart". How?

as one of the different between adult and kids is, adult will foresee the consequences, while kids do not. So, if we think back, oh yes, kids never understand what is "to be or not to be", they are always "to be". Thus, kid has no fear. in contrast, adult always consider the consequences, and the consequences we don't want may be "the result does not same as i imagined" or "that will make people unhappy".

the motivation is from our heart. it give us reason to do things, to do extra things then support our life. and the brain plan to do to achieve that goal. so, when talking this... my heart can never make mistake, coz setting goal cannot be wrong. but it is the problem of my brain that fail to achieve that goal. oh... interesting.

although the world is computational, our brain is not powerful enough to compute the world.

...skipping

at last, different people has different needs and requirements. so, "To be, or not to be" should be " To change yourself, or not to change yourself ".

i don't mind to change. am i? can i?

Droste effect in Conway's Game of Life

2011-11-02T09:55:00.002Z

This always remind me How a complex world can be created by simple rules. But sadly, in the game of life, time is implicit build-in.

wiki links : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life

on science

2011-10-30T17:39:00.000Z

This post title is a bit bold. what i want to say is, what is science and how science works.

i guess many people have idea on the word "science". people may think, "oh, physics, chemistry, biology, social science are science." well, they are right, but it is not so precise.

in fact, science is a name of methodology. there are many ways the understand and explain the world, like religion, like fortune-telling, like meditation, Voodoo. However, none of those are more powerful than science. the power of science comes from the ability to modify the world. while others method, either telling you accept the world or try to change your mind, or fail in changing the world.

in the past, people only know little bit about nature, and of course, feel helpless when facing natural events, like raining, drying, storm, snow, etc. all they can do is, changing their mind, to fit the nature, to make themselves feel good. the nature is unchangeable, and human has to move around it.

Later, in ancient Greek, people found out that, the nature is following some sorts of rule, and those rule can be expressed in mathematics. like the polygon, lines and circle, conic section. the ancient Greek also use the power of mathematics to measure the size of the world!! to found out the missing gold in King's crown. to understand the market, how people sell and trade. and then they use the power of mathematics, basic mechanics, like pulleys and levels, to build gaint building. to change the living environment. After that time, the human is in the central, and natural is moving around us. we no longer have to change ourselves to fit the nature, we can make the nature to fit us. we becomes active, not passive anymore. we can control our faith, not waiting for the nature.

So, what is science? science is a methodology, that, we make hypothesis, we check it by experiment, and we correct the hypothesis and form a theory. in fact, human and even animal do the same things. The basic of science is "try and error". so simple, and cannot be more simpler. we actually, every people use it in everyday!

However, the differences between science and others, like Voodoo or pseudo-science are, the logic and "controlled-experiment". i am not going to talk deep in logic, it is because i am not good at it and i am not a understood it well enough. But, i can point out one common mistake people will make is, say, for example, "when it is raining, people bring umbrella" is equal to "when people bring umbrella, it is raining". most people from this example can see these 2 things are not equal. however, since it is daily issue, people are familiar with. When we are facing un-familiar situation, we are easy to make this mistake.

the "controlled -experiment" is a key for differentiate science and other subject. say, "social-science". in my understanding, social science cannot do any "controlled experiment", it even worse then psychology, as psychology can do controlled experiment to check a theory. basically, for me, social science is little more than statistic + psychology + economy. that is. when people say something "non-science", mostly means, the theory does not checked by a controlled experiment. Say, Fu-shiu, as i said long time ago, it is not science, it may be correctly predict something at sometimes, but that "correct" is not more than tossing a coin and you will get what you want. one more example is, the "myth-buster" in Discovery channel. ok, they do experiment to verify a "myth". but the way to do is not scientific at all. they only do one times and in a very specific condition, without any data but just video. without any theory prediction but just the "myth"prediction. and most important is, those experiment almost cannot be REPEATED! For me, it is just a fun show that prove nothing. but any way, that is a good show.

lets me sum up, science is a methodology to understand the nature, by undeniable logic, by controlled experiment, and by repeatable experiment, to form a theory that is true for anywhere, anytime.

the consequence is. we can fill out a whole library with scientific knowledge. but it is very hard to fill a bookshelf with religion or Voodoo, or Fu-Shiu. i believe, it is reflecting how the nature is. the nature is very complicated, has alot different varieties. if the the natural knowledge is on the bible or Koran, i will very disappointed as the god made the world so "hea". ( "hea" is a Cantonese slug that means "not putting any effort" )

清大彭明輝的部落格: 賈伯斯？他到底為這世界做了什麼好事？

2011-10-29T06:40:00.000+01:00

清大彭明輝的部落格: 賈伯斯？他到底為這世界做了什麼好事？: 我已經好幾次被問及：「你對賈伯斯（Steve Jobs）有何看法？」我答不上來。除了大略知道他讓 Apple 賺大錢，讓大家都想要有一隻 iphone、ipad、ibbok，此外我對他一無所知 ――他生產的東西沒有一樣是我所需要的！我知道他改變了這個世界 ――這個世界最膚淺...

Life span

2011-10-27T17:12:00.001+01:00

a simple method to estimate a life time on anything.

assume anything we encounter is at 30% to 70% of its life time. Thus the roughly end time will be 1.5 to 3 times of its current age.

The result behind is, the normalized age of everything should follow normal distribution. By mean of normalized age, we scale the age to be 1 until for everything.

Say myself, I am 27, thus, I will die some time around 45 to 80 years old.

friendship will last around this range. For 10 years old friend, can last for 5 more years, to 20 years. If I don't see a 1 week friend for more then 2 weeks, the friendship probably gone.

Thus, a healing time for losing a 1 years relationship, probably not longer than 2 years.

Ok, earth is now 4.5 billion years old, so, the end of the day is between 2 billion years to 9 billion years later.

Human exist for, say, 1 million year, it probably die after 50 kilo years later.

However, it is a very rough estimation without any further knowledge. If we meet an 100 years old man, the chance for he to die in tmr is so higher then a boy at age 10. Right?

So, put yourself as god, in such a way you can foresee the future, everything. Thus, scale the life span for everything. And it should a Radom variable and all possible age happened and it follow normal distribution.

Anyway, if you don't think it is the case, it is ok. It just a chance. But, to all my dear friends, I wish to see you, especially those are interesting and I like very much.

chess ranking

2011-10-24T10:46:00.002+01:00

one good thing about chess is, the ranking system is very scientific, logical and has meaning.

the detail can be found at Wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

The system was invented by Professor Arpad Elo.

Instead of explaining the detail, i will say about what the ranking mean.

Say, John is 1200, and Mary is 1200. This mean, if the skill of John and Mary does not change after each game, Thus, the ranking means, the chance of John win is 50:50, thus, draw game of lose is also 50:50.

if 2 players has ranking 200 points different, thus, the higher ranking player has 0.75 chance of winning. i.e. 1200 vs 1000, the 1200 player will win in 3 games out of 4. Same for 1400 vs 1200. a600 vs 1400, 2000 vs 1800.

you may ask, well, if a player is stronger then the other, why he will lose, or not always win?? well, the answer is, in a game, too many random events, or the possible moves are almost infinite. Thus, only a single mistake at the very beginning of a game will change the course of the game, that, even the strongest player cannot predicted. in fact, the best human player can almost predict 5 or 6 moves.

So, basically, we can imagine every chess player is a biased coins. the best player, is the most biased coin. when you toss a coin, no matter how biased it is, there is still a chance that it will give the minor possible outcome.

by that setting, (200 different means 0.75 chance of winning) we can set up the winning chance for any ranking difference.

R(1600):R(1400) = 3:1
R(1400):R(1200) = 3:1
there fore, R(1600):R(1200)=9:1

0 -> 0.5
100-> 0.63
200-> 0.75
300->0.84
400->0.9
500->0.94
600->0.96
....

So, we can see, if 400 ranking difference, the winning chance is so high. if you want to get improvement, better within 200, otherwise, you only get self-questioning.

The similar method is applied to many other games, like sports, say tennis. The world champion is through winning many many games instead of just one tournament. Thus, compare to US Basketball season final, only 7 games to decide who is the winner is not precise enough. but still better then the world cup. for me, the statistic error is so big in the world cup, that, the winner has no point to feel so excited at all. the world cup is just like coin tossing. each coins pair only toss once and decide who is the winner. Oh... there is no more naive game than this.

an question: How to find the winning chance for 100 ranking different?? it is very simple problem. if you fail to do, probably you have to review primary school math, about ratio.

List of extreme

2011-10-22T20:21:00.001+01:00

How large is a protein?
How small is a functionable protein?
How Large is a DNA can be?
How small is a functionable DNA?
How small can a gas planet can be?
How small a star can be?
How high a magnetic field can be? electric field?
what is the smallest distance?
is there more condition between E=mc^2? since we cannot convert any energy to any mass.
What is the biggest possible rock planet?
what is the size of water droplet just before it fall form a surface?
what is the largest size of rain?
what is smallest size of rain? a water molecule?
what is the maximum power of a lightning?
what is the minimum power of a lightning?
what is the maximum number of planet a star system can have?
what is the maximum number of moon a planet can have?
what is the highest frequency of light? gamma ray with so high energy will create positron-electron pair.
what is the lowest frequency of light? can you imagine, can we product a light at 1Hz? the antenna will be length from earth to the moon.
what is the longest living cell? can a cell live for 10 years?
what is the largest power output from a system?
what is the maximum refractive index can be?
How fast the wind on earth can be?
what is the largest crystal on earth?
what is the possible sexuality?
what is the smallest living thing?

i believe most of the above questions has theoretical value. and i am going to know them all in my life.

on fortune teller

2011-10-22T19:44:00.000+01:00

many fortune teller methods, some of them are based on minor factors, like horoscope, Astromancy, hand-reading. As Socrates said, "beware your though, it will change your behavior. beware your behavior, it will change your attitude. beware your attitude, it will determine your fate. " if we use the analogy, as "beware your date of birth, the stars position, as the season of your birth will determine the nutrition of your mother, and the season after your birth will determine how much attention you will received from your parent as they may need to work in summer and stay indoor more in winter. beware your gene, and your gene can some how reflected on your face, on your palm, or on your body, and the important of these things are obvious."

as special relativity said, we all get effect if we are in the light-cone. therefore, as we growth up, we get more effect from the history. and since the light is traveling 7.5 cycles of earth in just 1 second. basically, we all get affected by each others.

anyway, although i cannot give a clear argument on the fraud of fortune-telling, i deeply against it. my believe is simple, we have free-will to against ourself. we are not like a robot, a program a primitive life-form that only function limited. we are living creature, a highly advanced creature that the gene gave us a brain to take over the control. That, change everything. if we had "Childhood shadow", we can be healed by manipulated our mind. the possibility of NOT being ourself is a counter example of it.

anyway, what i want to talk is not above. there are other methods, like fortune-telling cards game. and i am going to explain why it does not work. and even it "works", basically is we make the prediction be real, as a psychological trap called "self-fulfilled prophecy".

the principle is, we cannot predict a random event from an other random event.

a simple example. can we predict the outcome of a coin by tossing another coin? i guess it is too obvious and require no extra explanation. as i am going to do in an abstract way which can be simplify and including this. The fact is, multiply the future with extra random, only "increase" the randomness. this is no help to predict the future. as we believe the future is the consequence of present. the more reasonable way is review the past, and figure out the relationship. that is basically science.

*********

let say the set of possible events is X, x is a member of it. this number is finite. or be infinite, depends on your counting method. but it does not matter. and Let the set of possible events in in the card game is Y, y is a member of it.

the question we want to ask is, what is the possibility of x given that y is the outcome of the game. in mathematics, P(x|y).

P(x|y) = P(x and y) / P(y)

if the card game is some how connected to the future event, thus, P(x and y ) is not equal to P(x)P(y), we said, X and Y are dependent.

Now, we can do experiment to verify the equality. P(x|y) P(y) = P(x and y), and see whether they are dependent or not. if they are independent, then

P(x|y) = P(x)

as i tossed 2 coins for 20 times and see whether i can use coin 2 to predict the coin 1. here is the result.

coin 1 X: ( H H H T T H T H T H T T T H T H T T H H)
coin 2 Y: ( H T H T H T H T T H H T H T T H H T H T)

we have
P(H and H) = 0.25
P(H and T) = 0.25
P(T and H) = 0.25
P(T and T) = 0.25
P(y=T)=0.5,
P(y=H)=0.5
P(x=T)=0.5
P(y=H)=0.5
P(H | T) = 0.5
P(T | T) = 0.5
P(H | H) = 0.5
P(T | H) = 0.5

we can see, they are independent. or if we use coin 2 to gambling the coin 1, we don't have any advantage.

We also have to notice that, we use 2 completely random events. but if the event that we want to predict is not totally random at all, thus, obviously, using an other random even to predict it is totally insane.

recently on chess board

2011-10-21T16:51:00.001+01:00

really want to read the book from Garry Kasparov. ah.. left in Hong Kong.

this book is not about tactic, not about method, is about the mental preparation. i start the play chess regularly online after read this book. and had re-read once before.

recently, i don't have any Determination on the board. i cannot execute my plan and my objective. coz i lost the focus on the board. i cannot see the weakness, i cannot strengthen my advantage. i am being too proud when against lower rank player. that is why i lost many battles recently.

i lost the rhythm of the battle, i cannot hear the voice from my knights and bishops. the pieces is not well coordinated. they do not helping , supporting each others. my knights only flight for himself.

and i always, quickly given up the control of the center of the field and let my center become vulnerable. recent battle lost in the opening, and struggle to suicide.

At least, I don't have multiple motivations, reason for each move. That make my purpose predictable.

However, i develop some tactics on side attack, although none of them is powerful.

the fact is, i am losing faith on myself. and i don't know why..

We cannot wish for that we know not. - Voltaire

on analysis or descrip one-self

2011-10-20T19:06:00.005+01:00

it is too bad that i forgot to bring the 3 books from Montaigne. what i am going to say below is inspired from him, a honest man ever lived in 16th century, and holding 23rd century idea.

i like to examine myself, for happiness, for sadness, for loneliness, for excitement, for how i think, to how i behave.

skipped 1000 words..........

this is completely not important, as ourselves, basically, doesn't exist. All feelings are just an illusion. However, as magician can master the illusion. we also can master the feelings.

On self-studying

2011-10-18T05:55:00.001+01:00

The meaning of study is, through your effort and with the help of the authors, you can understand those you did not understand. You acquired a new skill and a new viewpoint to the world.

The joy of it, is, you are now able to see the world in a different way. And found that how stupid you were.

The different way is not simply as "oh, people will think in this way." coz some people's mind sucks, as many "artists" think they gave something new angle. It means, the same things can be view in a profound way, not only a new view point but also a new extension, that completely changed the way you think, not in analogically, but in logically.

A trivial example is special relativity.

Ok, let me pause a while and talk about electromagnetism. Actually it is also a profound "different way".

Before maxwell unified the electricity and magnetism. People think they are different thing. An example is, in dry weather, your hair sticks with the climb and the compass always point to the north are totally unrelated by their behavior. However, maxwell unified these 2 phenomenons. And, this is important, the unification predict a new thing. The light! Which is just an oscillation of charge. Awesome!!

The point I want to deliver in here is, a true different point of view is not just give you a new angle, usually by sticking 2 things which has common feature or characteristics, and that is easy, say, I can combine a knife with a fork at 2 ends. But that does not give you an extension. You don't know what can you do more that that by the combination! The important thing in here is application, predictive or guidance by the "different view".

You may say my definition is too high that put almost everything into trash. Well, I can only say, "why rubbish don't go to trash?"

Dark Energy FAQ

2011-10-16T05:23:00.000+01:00

Dark Energy FAQ:

In honor of the Nobel Prize, here are some questions that are frequently asked about dark energy, or should be.

What is dark energy?

It’s what makes the universe accelerate, if indeed there is a “thing” that does that. (See below.)

So I guess I should be asking… what does it mean to say the universe is “accelerating”?

First, the universe is expanding: as shown by Hubble, distant galaxies are moving away from us with velocities that are roughly proportional to their distance. “Acceleration” means that if you measure the velocity of one such galaxy, and come back a billion years later and measure it again, the recession velocity will be larger. Galaxies are moving away from us at an accelerating rate.

But that’s so down-to-Earth and concrete. Isn’t there a more abstract and scientific-sounding way of putting it?

The relative distance between far-flung galaxies can be summed up in a single quantity called the “scale factor,” often written a(t) or R(t). The scale factor is basically the “size” of the universe, although it’s not really the size because the universe might be infinitely big — more accurately, it’s the relative size of space from moment to moment. The expansion of the universe is the fact that the scale factor is increasing with time. The acceleration of the universe is the fact that it’s increasing at an increasing rate — the second derivative is positive, in calculus-speak.

Does that mean the Hubble constant, which measures the expansion rate, is increasing?

No. The Hubble “constant” (or Hubble “parameter,” if you want to acknowledge that it changes with time) characterizes the expansion rate, but it’s not simply the derivative of the scale factor: it’s the derivative divided by the scale factor itself. Why? Because then it’s a physically measurable quantity, not something we can change by switching conventions. The Hubble constant is basically the answer to the question “how quickly does the scale factor of the universe expand by some multiplicative factor?”

If the universe is decelerating, the Hubble constant is decreasing. If the Hubble constant is increasing, the universe is accelerating. But there’s an intermediate regime in which the universe is accelerating but the Hubble constant is decreasing — and that’s exactly where we think we are. The velocity of individual galaxies is increasing, but it takes longer and longer for the universe to double in size.

Said yet another way: Hubble’s Law relates the velocity v of a galaxy to its distance d via v = H d. The velocity can increase even if the Hubble parameter is decreasing, as long as it’s decreasing more slowly than the distance is increasing.

Did the astronomers really wait a billion years and measure the velocity of galaxies again?

No. You measure the velocity of galaxies that are very far away. Because light travels at a fixed speed (one light year per year), you are looking into the past. Reconstructing the history of how the velocities were different in the past reveals that the universe is accelerating.

How do you measure the distance to galaxies so far away?

It’s not easy. The most robust method is to use a “standard candle” — some object that is bright enough to see from great distance, and whose intrinsic brightness is known ahead of time. Then you can figure out the distance simply by measuring how bright it actually looks: dimmer = further away.

Sadly, there are no standard candles.

Then what did they do?

Fortunately we have the next best thing: standardizable candles. A specific type of supernova, Type Ia, are very bright and approximately-but-not-quite the same brightness. Happily, in the 1990′s Mark Phillips discovered a remarkable relationship between intrinsic brightness and the length of time it takes for a supernova to decline after reaching peak brightness. Therefore, if we measure the brightness as it declines over time, we can correct for this difference, constructing a universal measure of brightness that can be used to determine distances.

Why are Type Ia supernovae standardizable candles?

We’re not completely sure — mostly it’s an empirical relationship. But we have a good idea: we think that SNIa are white dwarf stars that have been accreting matter from outside until they hit the Chandrasekhar Limit and explode. Since that limit is basically the same number everywhere in the universe, it’s not completely surprising that the supernovae have similar brightnesses. The deviations are presumably due to differences in composition.

But how do you know when a supernova is going to happen?

You don’t. They are rare, maybe once per century in a typical galaxy. So what you do is look at many, many galaxies with wide-field cameras. In particular you compare an image of the sky taken at one moment to another taken a few weeks later — “a few weeks” being roughly the time between new Moons (when the sky is darkest), and coincidentally about the time it takes a supernova to flare up in brightness. Then you use computers to compare the images and look for new bright spots. Then you go back and examine those bright spots closely to try to check whether they are indeed Type Ia supernovae. Obviously this is very hard and wouldn’t even be conceivable if it weren’t for a number of relatively recent technological advances — CCD cameras as well as giant telescopes. These days we can go out and be confident that we’ll harvest supernovae by the dozens — but when Perlmutter and his group started out, that was very far from obvious.

And what did they find when they did this?

Most (almost all) astronomers expected them to find that the universe was decelerating — galaxies pull on each other with their gravitational fields, which should slow the whole thing down. (Actually many astronomers just thought they would fail completely, but that’s another story.) But what they actually found was that the distant supernovae were dimmer than expected — a sign that they are farther away than we predicted, which means the universe has been accelerating.

Why did cosmologists accept this result so quickly?

Even before the 1998 announcements, it was clear that something funny was going on with the universe. There seemed to be evidence that the age of the universe was younger than the age of its oldest stars. There wasn’t as much total matter as theorists predicted. And there was less structure on large scales than people expected. The discovery of dark energy solved all of these problems at once. It made everything snap into place. So people were still rightfully cautious, but once this one startling observation was made, the universe suddenly made a lot more sense.

How do we know the supernovae not dimmer because something is obscuring them, or just because things were different in the far past?

That’s the right question to ask, and one reason the two supernova teams worked so hard on their analysis. You can never be 100% sure, but you can gain more and more confidence. For example, astronomers have long known that obscuring material tends to scatter blue light more easily than red, leading to “reddening” of stars that sit behind clouds of gas and dust. You can look for reddening, and in the case of these supernovae it doesn’t appear to be important. More crucially, by now we have a lot of independent lines of evidence that reach the same conclusion, so it looks like the original supernova results were solid.

There’s really independent evidence for dark energy?

Oh yes. One simple argument is “subtraction”: the cosmic microwave background measures the total amount of energy (including matter) in the universe. Local measures of galaxies and clusters measure the total amount of matter. The latter turns out to be about 27% of the former, leaving 73% or so in the form of some invisible stuff that is not matter: “dark energy.” That’s the right amount to explain the acceleration of the universe. Other lines of evidence come from baryon acoustic oscillations (ripples in large-scale structure whose size helps measure the expansion history of the universe) and the evolution of structure as the universe expands.

Okay, so: what is dark energy?

Glad you asked! Dark energy has three crucial properties. First, it’s dark: we don’t see it, and as far as we can observe it doesn’t interact with matter at all. (Maybe it does, but beneath our ability to currently detect.) Second, it’s smoothly distributed: it doesn’t fall into galaxies and clusters, or we would have found it by studying the dynamics of those objects. Third, it’s persistent: the density of dark energy (amount of energy per cubic light-year) remains approximately constant as the universe expands. It doesn’t dilute away like matter does.

These last two properties (smooth and persistent) are why we call it “energy” rather than “matter.” Dark energy doesn’t seem to act like particles, which have local dynamics and dilute away as the universe expands. Dark energy is something else.

That’s a nice general story. What might dark energy specifically be?

The leading candidate is the simplest one: “vacuum energy,” or the “cosmological constant.” Since we know that dark energy is pretty smooth and fairly persistent, the first guess is that it’s perfectly smooth and exactly persistent. That’s vacuum energy: a fixed amount of energy attached to every tiny region of space, unchanging from place to place or time to time. About one hundred-millionth of an erg per cubic centimeter, if you want to know the numbers.

Is vacuum energy really the same as the cosmological constant?

Yes. Don’t believe claims to the contrary. When Einstein first invented the idea, he didn’t think of it as “energy,” he thought of it as a modification of the way spacetime curvature interacted with energy. But it turns out to be precisely the same thing. (If someone doesn’t want to believe this, ask them how they would observationally distinguish the two.)

Doesn’t vacuum energy come from quantum fluctuations?

Not exactly. There are many different things that can contribute to the energy of empty space, and some of them are completely classical (nothing to do with quantum fluctuations). But in addition to whatever classical contribution the vacuum energy has, there are also quantum fluctuations on top of that. These fluctuation are very large, and that leads to the cosmological constant problem.

What is the cosmological constant problem?

If all we knew was classical mechanics, the cosmological constant would just be a number — there’s no reason for it to be big or small, positive or negative. We would just measure it and be done.

But the world isn’t classical, it’s quantum. In quantum field theory we expect that classical quantities receive “quantum corrections.” In the case of the vacuum energy, these corrections come in the form of the energy of virtual particles fluctuating in the vacuum of empty space.

We can add up the amount of energy we expect in these vacuum fluctuations, and the answer is: an infinite amount. That’s obviously wrong, but we suspect that we’re overcounting. In particular, that rough calculation includes fluctuations at all sizes, including wavelengths smaller than the Planck distance at which spacetime probably loses its conceptual validity. If instead we only include wavelengths that are at the Planck length or longer, we get a specific estimate for the value of the cosmological constant.

The answer is: 10¹²⁰ times what we actually observe. That discrepancy is the cosmological constant problem.

Why is the cosmological constant so small?

Nobody knows. Before the supernovae came along, many physicists assumed there was some secret symmetry or dynamical mechanism that set the cosmological constant to precisely zero, since we certainly knew it was much smaller than our estimates would indicate. Now we are faced with both explaining why it’s small, and why it’s not quite zero. And for good measure: the coincidence problem, which is why the dark energy density is the same order of magnitude as the matter density.

Here’s how bad things are: right now, the best theoretical explanation for the value of the cosmological constant is the anthropic principle. If we live in a multiverse, where different regions have very different values of the vacuum energy, one can plausibly argue that life can only exist (to make observations and win Nobel Prizes) in regions where the vacuum energy is much smaller than the estimate. If it were larger and positive, galaxies (and even atoms) would be ripped apart; if it were larger and negative, the universe would quickly recollapse. Indeed, we can roughly estimate what typical observers should measure in such a situation; the answer is pretty close to the observed value. Steven Weinberg actually made this prediction in 1988, long before the acceleration of the universe was discovered. He didn’t push it too hard, though; more like “if this is how things work out, this is what we should expect to see…” There are many problems with this calculation, especially when you start talking about “typical observers,” even if you’re willing to believe there might be a multiverse. (I’m very happy to contemplate the multiverse, but much more skeptical that we can currently make a reasonable prediction for observable quantities within that framework.)

What we would really like is a simple formula that predicts the cosmological constant once and for all as a function of other measured constants of nature. We don’t have that yet, but we’re trying. Proposed scenarios make use of quantum gravity, extra dimensions, wormholes, supersymmetry, nonlocality, and other interesting but speculative ideas. Nothing has really caught on as yet.

Has the course of progress in string theory ever been affected by an experimental result?

Yes: the acceleration of the universe. Previously, string theorists (like everyone else) assumed that the right thing to do was to explain a universe with zero vacuum energy. Once there was a real chance that the vacuum energy is not zero, they asked whether that was easy to accommodate within string theory. The answer is: it’s not that hard. The problem is that if you can find one solution, you can find an absurdly large number of solutions. That’s the string theory landscape, which seems to kill the hopes for one unique solution that would explain the real world. That would have been nice, but science has to take what nature has to offer.

What’s the coincidence problem?

Matter dilutes away as the universe expands, while the dark energy density remains more or less constant. Therefore, the relative density of dark energy and matter changes considerably over time. In the past, there was a lot more matter (and radiation); in the future, dark energy will completely dominate. But today, they are approximately equal, by cosmological standards. (When two numbers could differ by a factor of 10¹⁰⁰ or much more, a factor of three or so counts as “equal.”) Why are we so lucky to be born at a time when dark energy is large enough to be discoverable, but small enough that it’s a Nobel-worthy effort to do so? Either this is just a coincidence (which might be true), or there is something special about the epoch in which we live. That’s one of the reasons people are willing to take anthropic arguments seriously. We’re talking about a preposterous universe here.

If the dark energy has a constant density, but space expands, doesn’t that mean energy isn’t conserved?

Yes. That’s fine.

What’s the difference between “dark energy” and “vacuum energy”?

“Dark energy” is the general phenomenon of smooth, persistent stuff that makes the universe accelerate; “vacuum energy” is a specific candidate for dark energy, namely one that is absolutely smooth and utterly constant.

So there are other candidates for dark energy?

Yes. All you need is something that is pretty darn smooth and persistent. It turns out that most things like to dilute away, so finding persistent energy sources isn’t that easy. The simplest and best idea is quintessence, which is just a scalar field that fills the universe and changes very slowly as time passes.

Is the quintessence idea very natural?

Not really. An original hope was that, by considering something dynamical and changing rather than a plain fixed constant energy, you could come up with some clever explanation for why the dark energy was so small, and maybe even explain the coincidence problem. Neither of those hopes has really panned out.

Instead, you’ve added new problems. According to quantum field theory, scalar fields like to be heavy; but to be quintessence, a scalar field would have to be enormously light, maybe 10^-30 times the mass of the lightest neutrino. (But not zero!) That’s one new problem you’ve introduced, and another is that a light scalar field should interact with ordinary matter. Even if that interaction is pretty feeble, it should still be large enough to detect — and it hasn’t been detected. Of course, that’s an opportunity as well as a problem — maybe better experiments will actually find a “quintessence force,” and we’ll understand dark energy once and for all.

How else can we test the quintessence idea?

The most direct way is to do the supernova thing again, but do it better. More generally: map the expansion of the universe so precisely that we can tell whether the density of dark energy is changing with time. This is generally cast as an attempt to measure the dark energy equation-of-state parameter w. If w is exactly minus one, the dark energy is exactly constant — vacuum energy. If w is slightly greater than -1, the energy density is gradually declining; if it’s slightly less (e.g. -1.1), the dark energy density is actually growing with time. That’s dangerous for all sorts of theoretical reasons, but we should keep our eyes peeled.

What is w?

It’s called the “equation-of-state parameter” because it relates the pressure p of dark energy to its energy density ρ, via w = p/ρ. Of course nobody measures the pressure of dark energy, so it’s a slightly silly definition, but it’s an accident of history. What really matters is how the dark energy evolves with time, but in general relativity that’s directly related to the equation-of-state parameter.

Does that mean that dark energy has negative pressure?

Yes indeed. Negative pressure is what happens when a substance pulls rather than pushes — like an over-extended spring that pulls on either end. It’s often called “tension.” This is why I advocated smooth tension as a better name than “dark energy,” but I came in too late.

Why does dark energy make the universe accelerate?

Because it’s persistent. Einstein says that energy causes spacetime to curve. In the case of the universe, that curvature comes in two forms: the curvature of space itself (as opposed to spacetime), and the expansion of the universe. We’ve measured the curvature of space, and it’s essentially zero. So the persistent energy leads to a persistent expansion rate. In particular, the Hubble parameter is close to constant, and if you remember Hubble’s Law from way up top (v = H d) you’ll realize that if H is approximately constant, v will be increasing because the distance is increasing. Thus: acceleration.

Is negative pressure is like tension, why doesn’t it pull things together rather than pushing them apart?

Sometimes you will hear something along the lines of “dark energy makes the universe accelerate because it has negative pressure.” This is strictly speaking true, but a bit ass-backwards; it gives the illusion of understanding rather than actual understanding. You are told “the force of gravity depends on the density plus three times the pressure, so if the pressure is equal and opposite to the density, gravity is repulsive.” Seems sensible, except that nobody will explain to you why gravity depends on the density plus three times the pressure. And it’s not really the “force of gravity” that depends on that; it’s the local expansion of space.

The “why doesn’t tension pull things together?” question is a perfectly valid one. The answer is: because dark energy doesn’t actually push or pull on anything. It doesn’t interact directly with ordinary matter, for one thing; for another, it’s equally distributed through space, so any pulling it did from one direction would be exactly balanced by an opposite pull from the other. It’s the indirect effect of dark energy, through gravity rather than through direct interaction, that makes the universe accelerate.

The real reason dark energy causes the universe to accelerate is because it’s persistent.

Is dark energy like antigravity?

No. Dark energy is not “antigravity,” it’s just gravity. Imagine a world with zero dark energy, except for two blobs full of dark energy. Those two blobs will not repel each other, they will attract. But inside those blobs, the dark energy will push space to expand. That’s just the miracle of non-Euclidean geometry.

Is it a new repulsive force?

No. It’s just a new (or at least different) kind of source for an old force — gravity. No new forces of nature are involved.

What’s the difference between dark energy and dark matter?

Completely different. Dark matter is some kind of particle, just one we haven’t discovered yet. We know it’s there because we’ve observed its gravitational influence in a variety of settings (galaxies, clusters, large-scale structure, microwave background radiation). It’s about 23% of the universe. But it’s basically good old-fashioned “matter,” just matter that we can’t directly detect (yet). It clusters under the influence of gravity, and dilutes away as the universe expands. Dark energy, meanwhile, doesn’t cluster, nor does it dilute away. It’s not made of particles, it’s some different kind of thing entirely.

Is it possible that there is no dark energy, just a modification of gravity on cosmological scales?

It’s possible, sure. There are at least two popular approaches to this idea: f(R) gravity , which Mark and I helped develop, and DGP gravity, by Dvali, Gabadadze, and Porati. The former is a directly phenomenological approach where you simply change the Einstein field equation by messing with the action in four dimensions, while the latter uses extra dimensions that only become visible at large distances. Both models face problems — not necessarily insurmountable, but serious — with new degrees of freedom and attendant instabilities.

Modified gravity is certainly worth taking seriously (but I would say that). Still, like quintessence, it raises more problems than it solves, at least at the moment. My personal likelihoods: cosmological constant = 0.9, dynamical dark energy = 0.09, modified gravity = 0.01. Feel free to disagree.

What does dark energy imply about the future of the universe?

That depends on what the dark energy is. If it’s a true cosmological constant that lasts forever, the universe will continue to expand, cool off, and empty out. Eventually there will be nothing left but essentially empty space.

The cosmological constant could be constant at the moment, but temporary; that is, there could be a future phase transition in which the vacuum energy decreases. Then the universe could conceivably recollapse.

If the dark energy is dynamical, any possibility is still open. If it’s dynamical and increasing (w less than -1 and staying that way), we could even get a Big Rip.

What’s next?

We would love to understand dark energy (or modified gravity) through better cosmological observations. That means measuring the equation-of-state parameter, as well as improving observations of gravity in galaxies and clusters to compare with different models. Fortunately, while the U.S. is gradually retreating from ambitious new science projects, the European Space Agency is moving forward with a satellite to measure dark energy. There are a number of ongoing ground-based efforts, of course, and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope should do a great job once it goes online.

But the answer might be boring — the dark energy is just a simple cosmological constant. That’s just one number; what are you going to do about it? In that case we need better theories, obviously, but also input from less direct empirical sources — particle accelerators, fifth-force searches, tests of gravity, anything that would give some insight into how spacetime and quantum field theory fit together at a basic level.

The great thing about science is that the answers aren’t in the back of the book; we have to solve the problems ourselves. This is a big one.

Just say it: 十四年亂象回顧（原載七月八日《信報財經新聞》）

2011-10-14T14:12:00.000+01:00

Just say it: 十四年亂象回顧（原載七月八日《信報財經新聞》）: 邵力競教訓總是重複，直至領悟。 ——西洋諺語一場突如其來的遞補機制風暴，把本已風雨飄搖的特區政府更打得七零八落。然而，冰封三尺，非一日之寒，特區施政之困局、行政機關之弱勢，非自曾蔭權始，亦絕不會以曾蔭權終。敢問香港回歸十四年，政策議而不決、決而不行、行而不果...

民進黨曉得選舉，卻不曉得治國

2011-10-14T05:18:00.000+01:00

inspire from this post, http://commentshk.blogspot.com/2011/10/blog-post_14.html

True, in a democratic society, political leaders should not only know how to lead, but also how to win as election.

However, the fact is, politician will be tested by the ability of winning as election, than tested by the ability of leadership. What if? those who is good at election by weak in political work? How exactly the ability of winning the public trust relates to the ability of leadership??

i have some thoughts, but i better save it first until the idea become mature. a naive idea is how about a general test on personality, logical thinking and humor?

Another thing related is, the promotion in company. we always dreams that, if i worked long enough or good enough in a company, i will get promoted, say, to be come a manager from an office worker. OK, the fact is, you are good as a office worker, How does it impile you can be a good manager?

On the opposite side, if you are a bad worker? May be you are a good manager!

imagine a robot city, every robot was built in specialized skill. some are good in wood coping, some are good in logistic, some are good in labour management. Then, every one was send to wood cutting department first, since they are newbie. then, the wood copping robot do a good job and get promoted! while the other do bad job in wood cutting.

there is no conclusion in this post, just raising a question.

compare to those worse

2011-10-13T04:27:00.001+01:00

following this logic, and there is always a worse scene, then, we should thanks those psycho-killer or serious killer, coz they did not kill you, who in front of the screen right now. if your parent treat you so bad, you should feel glad, coz they did not treat you worse! if you girl friend or boy friend treat you bad, cheating you, you should thanks she or he, coz she/he did not damp you yet.

and lets see this in "Occupy Wall Street"

some people said, the slogan holder is not the 99%. he is living in US, which is already the 1% compare to the world. in fact, he is the 99% in the 1%. But, does it make his demand invalid??

can we just thinking, "oh, there is a worse situation, we should satisfy now." this thinking is totally come from a salve.

a similar situation in charity or money donate, or talking about North Korean. as i responded earlier from one of my friend's blog. i said,

" looking at places that poor, sucker then us remind us how good we are. However, there is no point to feel happy or glad we lived in a better place -- coz there is a even better place. imagine a place, that, people over there look at HK is like HK look at NK. The logic is, NK's people don't know how good the world can be, but they always can compare some places worse. Can they be happy? Should they feel good?? my point is, HK sucks!!! and the "look at NK and see how good HK is and should satisfy" is a truly brainwash.

another thing is, when looking at some disable people and we should feel glad that we have a complete body. That is so naive. the difficulties which faced by those disable people is obvious. However, a normal people also struggling from many things those disable people never have to face. that is , everyone has its own difficulties and we should not be happy that we don't have others difficulties.

so, the idea "look! there is someone poor then us! lets feel glad!" is really simple, since it give us a chance to "escape" from the problems we have, that makes mankind be a "fallen angel" rather then, and it should be the "rising ape" "

and in connection between "salve". the point is, if you really living is a suck life. instead of thanks god don't give you a sucker life. Do improve it, change it, make it better. Coz, YOU CAN!

so, i my point of view, those believing "god will save them and wait for it" is, deep inside, don't believe themselves.

in last comparison, the Apple Inc, Steve Jobs. i only heard people say or infer that, "without him, the world is not as good as now". why we cannot think, "without him, the world will be much better." "without him, the world will be much more creative and diverges." again, this is the same logic that "compare to the worse".

at last.

being a scientists or engineer, if we die, and we can choose where to go, Heaven? or Hell? i definitely will go to Hell. since the Hell may be too hat, we can make an air-con. If the Hell don't have enough food, we can make DNA modified food to boost the produce. if you miss your family and friend, we can make telephone, no, the internet! compare to Heaven, Oh, boring, you got everything, what can we do??? we stay in Heaven, eat, pray, love endlessly??? sound very boring for me.

陳雲：文言難，白話也不易——讀張中行《文言和白話》有感

2011-10-11T15:13:00.000+01:00

陳雲：文言難，白話也不易——讀張中行《文言和白話》有感: 【明報專訊】國學大師章太炎曾向推動白話文運動的劉復（劉半農）說﹕「白話文不自今日始。」《詩經》裏面的詩，很多是當時的白話，《左傳》裏面的對白，也是當時白話。唐朝的語錄、變文，到今日仍可以讀得明白，例如禪宗六祖慧能的《壇經》，現在的人也毋須太多語體註釋就讀懂。

到了宋代，文人的白話著述流傳甚廣，明代更將白話的說書著錄為小說文本，於是有《三言兩怕》、《水滸傳》、《西遊記》等白話文學，連帶《三國演義》、《七俠五義》等淺白文言小說，幾十年前的小學生也視為課外讀物，當年很多坊間的印本都無註釋，電視台改編，也是盡量採用對白的原文。於是我們小學生的時候也懂得「先生大駕光臨，有失遠迎，望祈恕罪」、「相請不如偶遇，就到寒舍飲杯水酒好麼」之類的客套。豈有如今日的大陸人，稱己妻為「夫人」，稱自家為「府上」，店舖搬家，門口自貼「喬遷啟事」？

張中行的《文言與白話》（一九八八初版，二〇〇七重印），就講述了文言與白話的悠長歷史，文言與白話是彼此互相交通的，難分難解的。你誤以為是文言的，其實是古老的白話。你以為白話容易懂，其實文言更容易讀，因為白話到了下一代，失去口傳之後，很多語彙變成「死語」，無從稽考。

寧馨兒、阿堵物、莫須有

《詩經》很難讀懂，就因為很多詩歌是民謠，是白話詩，那白話經歷戰國與秦朝之後，口頭傳承斷了，就難解了。《楚辭》難讀，也由於內含太多失傳的楚國白話。反而文言由於有既定的通行語彙，承先啟後，歷代傳承，到了現在，我們也可以讀懂《史記》。

至於讀《史記》，敘述的部分用文言，容易讀；對話的部分用白話（漢朝的白話），就好難讀。《史記·陳涉世家》記載，陳涉稱王之後，榮華富貴，窮鄉里來探他，便感嘆﹕「夥頤！涉之為王沉沉者。」夥頤就是白話的感嘆詞，沒得解的。魏晉史書的「阿堵物」（此物）和「寧馨兒」（如此孩兒），都是口語。寧馨後來改換語義，變成俊秀美好，合音之後，在粵語口語傳承下來，就是那個「靚」字，問你服未？宋朝秦檜向岳飛講的白話「莫須有」，我們仍在用，但意義如何，就眾說紛紜，考證不出，要等到近代語言學家呂叔湘，才考據出是「恐怕有」、「別是有」的意思，方始有個定論。粵語的「怕且有」，也只有粵人明白。宋朝的口語詞「恁」，例如歐陽修的《玉樓春．酒美春濃花世界》詞﹕「已去少年無計奈，且願芳心長恁在。」那恁字不是艱深的文言，原來是廣東人依然掛在口邊、但變了音的「咁」。粵語很多語助詞，今日有些講普通話的北方人視為「南蠻鳥語」，其實是古代的白話。

《尚書》（書經）難讀，不是由於用的是文言文，而是用的是周朝的口語。《三國演義》可以流行，是由於敘述和對話都用了簡淺的文言；《水滸傳》有些難讀，是由於對話用了宋朝的山東白話。然而，由於不用白話來寫對白，《三國演義》的人物性格塑造不及《水滸傳》之豐富。這些觀念，都要弄清楚的。

誤以為講話容易

口語先於文獻，口傳先於刻印，這是無可置疑的，所謂文言，是基於白話基礎，不同語區的人聚在一起，要寫或者講某種大家都明白的語詞套式，就成了文言。漢朝是中國文化最為關鍵的朝代，除了經典（五經）、祭禮（周禮）、行政領域（郡縣）及官制（儒官）之外，最重要的，是中國的文字和言談方式在漢朝定下。漢朝有字典（《說文》），簡易、明辨而優美的漢字書寫方式（漢楷），並有中國歷史的故事講述方法﹕《史記》和《漢書》。歷代文人讀書，必須精讀《史》、《漢》，否則難以掌握最先的漢文敘事方法。

文言是通用中文（common Chinese）的根底，也是接通漢土和周邊古漢文區（日本、韓國、越南）的基礎。很多香港的老師、家長或學生以為白話容易而文言困難，為了寫好白話，便要學普通話。其實白話也是很難寫得好的，有時比文言更難寫得好。文言只是詞語偶有古奧，但有規格可循，有辭書可解，自漢朝之後就定型，也不受方言限制；白話則規格鬆散，而且是否以方言入文，依方言寫作之後的文句韻律如何，其他省市的人看起來能不能解，後世的人看了能不能解，嚴肅的作家、官方的秘書落筆的時候，這些都是要考慮的。即使依照北京方言或中州方言，也要考慮能否通解及文句韻律的問題，能否望文生義、文句鏗鏘，不是真的可以「我手寫我口」。

白話是用來創新思想的

即使開口講話，都要邊說邊想，不斷調整過來的，看看對方是否明白，我能否講得更好一點。講話並非容易的事，「我手寫我口」的說法，之所以可以迷惑人心，大概就是以為講話純是肌肉動作，書寫是思想動作。文人寫白話，絕不是鬧着玩，貪圖低俗，容易流傳，而是要開動思想，只有活潑的白話才可以擺脫文獻羈絆，創新思想，禪宗的語錄、機鋒，宋明理學家的語錄，如王陽明的《傳習錄》，用的就是白話。

民初用洋化的白話，創新了什麼思想呢？有幾多部哲學思想巨著留下呢？白話文的方向，是否應該再回想一下？

《文言和白話》

作者：張中行

出版：中華書局

Slavoj Zizek speaks at Occupy Wall St

2011-10-11T14:48:00.000+01:00

//personally, i suggest to read first, coz the speech is quite losing strength....

[They are saying] we are all losers, but the true losers are down there on Wall Street. They were bailed out by billions of our money. We are called socialists, but here there is already socialism — for the rich. They say we don’t respect private property. But in the 2008 financial crash-down more hard-earned private property was destroyed than if all of us here were to be destroying it night and day for weeks. They tell you we are dreamers; the true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers; we are the awakening from the dream that is turning into a nightmare. We are not destroying anything; we are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself. We all know [inaudible] from cartoons. The cat reaches a precipice, but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath its ground. Only when it looks down and notices it he falls down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street, ‘Hey! Look down!’

[inaudible] “… In 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV, film, and in novels all stories that [inaudible -- something about portraying "alternate realities or time travel"]. This is a good sign for China; it means people still dream about alternatives, so attacked and prohibited is dreaming. Here we don’t think of prohibition because [inaudible -- "history"?] has even oppressed our capacity to dream. Look at the movies that we see all the time. It’s easy to imagine the end of the world — an asteroid destroying all of life, and so on — but we cannot imagine the end of capitalism. So what are we doing here? Let me tell you a wonderful old joke from Communist times. A guy was sent to work in East Germany from Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors, so he told his friends, ‘Let’s establish a code. If a letter you get from me is written in blue ink, it is true what I say; if it is written in red ink, it is false.’ After a month, his friends get a first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: ‘Everything is wonderful here. The stores are full of good food, movie theatres show good films from the West, apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot find is red ink.’ This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want, but what we are missing is red ink: the language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom, ‘war on terror,’ and so on, falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here: You are giving all of us red ink.

“There is a danger: Don’t fall in love with yourselves. We have a nice time here. But remember: Carnivals come cheap. What matters is the day after when we will have to return to normal life. Will there be any changes then? I don’t want you to remember these days, you know, like, ‘Oh, we were young, it was beautiful…’ Remember that our basic message is, ‘We are allowed to think about alternatives.’ A taboo is broken. We do not live in the best possible world. But there is a long road ahead. There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want, but what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want? Remember: The problem is not corruption or greed; the problem is the system which pushes you to be corrupt. Beware not only of the enemies, but also of false friends who are already working to dilute this process in the same way you get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice cream without fat. They will try to make this into a harmless moral protest, a decaffeinated protest. But the reason we are here is that we have had enough of the world where to recycle Coke cans to give a couple of dollars to charity, or to buy a Starbucks cappuccino where one percent goes to Third World starving children is enough to make us feel good. After outsourcing work and torture [inaudible -- calls for "mic check"]… We can see that for a long time, we allowed our political engagement also to be outsourced. We want it back.

“We are not Communists, if Communism means the system which collapsed in 1990. Remember that today those Communists are the most efficient, ruthless capitalists. In China today we have a capitalism which is even more dynamic than your American capitalism but doesn’t need democracy, which means, when you criticism capitalism, don’t allow yourselves to be blackmailed that you are ‘against democracy.’ The marriage between democracy and capitalism is over. A change is possible.

“Now, what we consider today possible — just follow the media. On the one hand is technology and sexuality — everything seems to be possible. You can travel to the moon, you can become immortal by biogenetics, you can have sex with animals or whatever. But look at the field of society and economy — there, almost everything is considered impossible. You want to raise taxes a little bit for the rich, they tell you it’s impossible. We lose competitivity. You want more money for healthcare, they tell you, ‘Impossible! This means a totalitarian state.’ Is there something wrong with the world where you are promised to be immortal but they cannot spend a little more for healthcare? Maybe we have to set our priorities straight. We don’t want higher standards of living; we want better standards of living. The only sense in which we are Communists is that we care for the commons: the commons of nature, the commons of what is privatized by intellectual property, the commons of biogenetics. For this, and only for this, we should fight. Communism failed absolutely, but the problems of the commons are here. They are telling you we are not American here, but the conservative fundamentalists who claim they are ‘really’ Americans have to be reminded of something: What is Christianity? It’s the Holy Spirit. What is the Holy Spirit? It’s an egalitarian community of believers who are linked by love for each other and who only have their own freedom and responsibility to do it. In this sense the Holy Spirit is here now, and down there on Wall Street there are millions [?] who are worshiping blasphemous idols. So all we need is patience.

“The only thing I’m afraid of is that we will someday just go home, and then we will meet once a year, drinking beer and nostalgically remembering what a nice time we had here. Promise ourselves that this will not be the case. You know that people often desire something but do not really want it. Don’t be afraid to really want what you desire.”

『（他們說）我們全是失敗者，其實真正的失敗者就在華爾街裡，他們要靠我們付出數以十億計的金錢救濟才能脫困；有人說我們是社會主義者，但其實這裡早就存在社會主義——是專為富人而設的社會主義；他們又說我們不尊重私有產權，但在2008年的金融海嘯裡，許多人辛勤工作買來的私有產業都被摧毀了，數量之巨，就算我們這裡所有人日以繼夜去動手破壞，幾個星期也破壞不完；他們又告訴大家，我們這群人正在作夢，其實真正在作夢的，是那些以為現有的一切將會永遠持續下去的人。我們不是在作夢，我們是在喚醒一個正在變成噩夢的夢想；我們沒有破壞任何東西，我們只是在目擊這個制度如何自我毀滅。大家都熟悉這段卡通片情節：那隻卡通貓走到懸崖邊上，還是繼續跑出去，沒理會下面已經空空如也，只有當牠向下看時，方才發現這個事實，然後就掉下去了。我們在這裡正是要做這樣的事情：我們要告訴華爾街那些傢伙：「喂！看看下面！」

『2011年4月，中國政府禁止了電視、電影和小說裡一切含有「另類現實」或描寫時間旅行的故事情節，這對中國來說是個好的徵兆：人們仍然夢想另有出路，因此政府才要出手禁制。在這裡我們就連禁制都不必要，因為統治體制連我們夢想的能力也早就壓制下去了。看看我們常看的電影，我們很容易就想像出世界末日——比如一顆隕石掉下來殺死所有生命之類——可是我們卻很難想像資本主義的末日。那麼我們正在這裡幹甚麼？讓我告訴大家共產時代一個精采的老笑話：有個傢伙從東德給派到西伯利亞工作，他知道自己的郵件都會被人監看，因此他告訴朋友：「我們定一個暗號，假如我的信件用藍墨水寫，裡面說的都是真話；如果我用紅墨水，說的都是假話。」一個月後他的朋友收到他第一封信：「這兒一切都美好，商店裡塞滿了好吃的食品，戲院播放著來自西方的好電影，住宅又大又豪華。唯一買不到的東西就是紅墨水。」這就是我們的生活模式。我們擁有一切想要的自由，但卻缺少了紅墨水：能夠清楚表達我們「非自由」的語言。我們被教會的那種談論自由的方式，例如「反恐戰爭」之類詞語，已經篡改了自由的意義。而你們正在給大家送上紅色的墨水。

『這次運動有一個危機：請大家不要自我感覺良好。不錯，我們在這裡很開心，但請你們記著：搞一個嘉年華會很容易，真正重要的是在我們回到正常生活後那天。到時候是否有任何事情改變了？我不希望大家回憶這段日子的方式，就是「噢，我們那時候多年輕，那次運動真美好……」之類。要牢記著我們最基本的信息：「我們可以思考其他的生活方式。」一個禁忌被打破了。我們並不是活在可能裡最好的世界。但在我們面前還有一條漫長的道路，要面對一些真正困難的問題。我們知道自己不想要甚麼，可是我們想要甚麼？怎麼樣的社會組織能夠取代資本主義？我們希望擁有甚麼類型的新領袖？記著：問題不在於腐敗和貪婪；問題在於一個把人推向腐敗的制度。不只要提防你的敵人，也要防範那些虛假的盟友，他們已經開始把這個運動淡化，就像製造沒有咖啡因的咖啡、沒有酒精的啤酒、沒有脂肪的冰淇淋一樣。他們試圖把這次運動變成一次無害的道德抗議，一次「脫咖啡因」的抗議。然而我們來到這裡的原因，正正就是受夠了這個偽善的世界：循環再造一堆可樂罐以捐兩塊錢做善事，又或者去星巴克買杯卡布奇諾咖啡，把一個巴仙捐贈給第三世界的飢餓兒童，就足以感覺良好。當我們把工作和酷刑都外判了，甚至連愛情生活都外判給婚姻介紹所之後……我們可以看見，在一段很長的日子裡，我們容許自己的政治參與也「外判」了，假別人之手進行。現在我們要把這個權力取回來。

『我們不是共產主義者——假如所指的是在1990年已經崩潰的那個共產主義的話。別忘記今天的那些所謂共產主義者，只是一群最有效率、最不擇手段的資本主義者。今日存在於中國的是一個比美國的資本主義動力更強，卻又不需要民主的資本主義制度。因此當你批評資本主義時，不要讓別人扣上「反民主」的帽子。民主與資本主義之間的聯姻已經終結了。改變是可能的事情。

『今天的人們相信有甚麼是可能做到的？看看媒體的報導。這邊廂，由科技到性慾，好像甚麼都有可能。你能夠去月球旅行，用生物基因科技達到長春不老，可以跟動物做愛，諸如此類。但另一邊廂，一碰上社會經濟的範疇，幾乎一切都被視為不可能。你想加一點富裕階層的賦稅嗎？他們會告訴你不可能，我們將因此失去競爭力；要把多些錢投入公共醫療保障嗎？他們會說：「不可能！這做法等於極權國家。」當人們得到允諾將要長春不老的同時，卻不允許花多一點錢在醫療保障上——這樣的世界不是很有問題嗎？也許我們應該把事情的優先次序搞明白：我們不是要求「更高」的生活水準；我們要的是「更好」的生活水準！要說我們跟共產主義者有甚麼唯一的相似之處，那就是我們關心普羅群眾：大自然裡的群眾；活在知識產權私有化底下的群眾；在生物基因科技下的群眾。我們應該為此而戰鬥，也只為此而戰鬥。共產主義徹底失敗了，可是群眾面對的問題仍在。那些人告訴你，我們聚集在這兒的都不是真正的美國人。但我們要提醒那些自稱「真正」美國人的保守原教旨主義人士：甚麼是基督精神？是聖靈。甚麼是聖靈？是一群信仰者組成的一個平均主義團體，他們以互愛的精神彼此連繫，並且只憑自由意志與義務責任心去實踐這個理想。這麼看，聖靈現在其實就在這裡，而在華爾街那頭的銀行家，都是一群褻瀆偶像的崇拜者。因此我們需要的只是耐心。

『我唯一害怕的，是我們有一天就此回家，然後每年在這兒聚聚頭，喝喝啤酒，懷緬我們在這裡曾經擁有過的美好時光。我們要向自己承諾不要變成那樣。大家都知道，人們總是渴望一些東西，卻又不是真的想爭取它。不要害怕爭取你渴望的東西。多謝各位！』

SkyDrive, Live Mesh, Dropbox and Ubuntu One

2011-09-06T19:57:00.001+01:00

Luckily, I have chance to windows 7, ubuntu and Mac OS X same time. Dropbox was the first files sync program used. Then accidentally, discovered MS office can save files on SkyDrive by Microsoft itself. Then further discovered the live mesh, which is a similar thing to Dropbox. Then for curiosity, opened Ubuntu One. Let me fist talk about Dropbox.

Dropbox:

It has 2GB free storage. is kind of small.
Work very well in all 3 systems.
the icon in notification give you information on the status, say how is the usage, recent files.
it also has iPhone app.
share files online by links. (only in shared folder)
you can also has a public folder, with your friend also sync on it. it enable work together.
for synced files, it will has a "tick" on it. Very user friendly.
can only sync one folder.
no single file size limit.

Ubuntu One:
It is similar to Dropbox.

it has 5GB free storage.
it only work on Ubuntu.
the iPhone app can only play musics under wireless LAN covered.

Live Mesh:
If you installed the Windows live essential 2011, then you get the live Mesh. Open it and then sync.

It has 5 GB free storage.
it does not support Ubuntu and iPhone app.
The notification icon tell you nothing but synced or not.
you can share the synced folder up to 9 people. not able to share files by link.
you can sync many folders
there is nothing show you which folders was synced in explore.
no single file size limit.

SkyDrive
It is somewhat between Dropbox and google doc + picasa. it also by Microsoft, and come with windows live account.

It has 25 GB free storage.
it is online-based storage, not a sync. so as long as you have browser, you can access it.
you can share your file by link or embedded on blog.
file size cannot bigger then 100MB.
If the files is MS office file, then you can view it online without any problem.

partially edit by the basic function of online office.
If you have office 2011 installed, you can storage and share the file online.
the saving and loading timing is long.

it also has public folder, which you can save file and your friend can edit together.

"Peace" as a core value?

2011-09-03T05:16:00.000+01:00

in Hong Kong, we are enjoying a long peaceful period after the 70s. the number of violent had been reduced and decreased. Thanks to the peace, our society moves on and develop into a modem, wealthy state.

Nowaday, after the return to mainland china, everything is changing. the so called "50 years non-changing" is a total liar. Since the government was elected by the "1200 nominated people from china, which some idiots think it is good to represent 7.5 million people". the voice from the people were never been listened. Moreover, government is practicing policy brutality to reduce people right and freedom through the slip of the laws. She intend to reduce to protests and other opposite voice within the law. Say, police will provoke the protesters and make the protest become violent. no matter the police or the protesters act first, the police can say that they are "forced" to cleaning the place to restore the order. futhermore, government has proposed a "re-election scheme for resigned legislators, who we have the right to vote for". in fact, the re-election scheme is a replacement scheme. whoever resigned, the 2nd highest votes holder will automatically replace the resigned one. this is totally bullshit.

a simple example to illustrate the situation in HK. imagine a family, the parent only take care of one brother (say, John) and treat badly and unequally toward the other brother (say, Sam) ( no mean for sexual discrimination, you are free to replace the brother by sister ). however, the badly treatments are totally within the law, say, John is allowed to play PS3, xbox, eat steak, but Sam can only do housework, eat KFC, or just the vege, which as a side-dish of the steak and left by John.

when Sam want to talk, demands equal right, OK, their parent pretend to have conversation, but situation unchanged afterward, sometime even harder. one day, Sam refuse to obey, and he smash the household, tear the sofa. Now, the parent punish Sam, and said, "peace" is the core value. you cannot violent "peace".

same in today newspaper, after some parties break the conference hall of "the replacement scheme" in violent. and the Government pop out immediately and said, "we have to protect the core value of Hong Kong, the peace. and we deeply condemn the violent."

when i heard people say "peace" is the core value of Hong Kong or even to people, i was so shock. What?? when does the China's "Harmonization" become favorite?? peace never and should not be a core value, but "freedom" and "equal right"! without freedom and equal right, what is the meaning of peace??? hah??

(轉貼)【中國人新特點】

2011-08-16T19:10:00.000+01:00

(轉貼)【中國人新特點】: "

(轉貼)【中國人新特點】

1、非常聰明，但卻非常相信謠言；

2、凡事喜歡搶，從出生搶床位，到臨終搶墳地，從頭搶到尾；

3、在大事上能忍氣吞聲，在小便宜上卻斤斤計較；

4、能通過關系辦的事，絕不通過正當途徑解決；

5、計較的不是不公平，而是自己不是受益者；

6、動輒批判外界，卻很少反思自己。

.

US's debt crisis

2011-08-11T07:46:00.000+01:00

just want to clarify the so call "US's debt crisis", in US policy, to be more specific, the Fed's policy, when US gave up the gold-standard to support its currency value, and turn to "credit" supported, which mean, the buying power of US dollar is completely based on "trust", the trust that people believe 1 US dollor worth certain value, and the issue of US bill can be pay back, then, the Fed's policy was going to be "deficit" policy.

This is a complete different idea on wealth management. for individual, since they cannot issue "bank note" or don't have any "credit", they have to save money or need some-kind of "gold-standard" to preserve its own buying power. However, for a country, they have power to issue money, when people "trust" it is worthy, it can print as many "bank-note" as they want. and the "deficit" of a state is not a problem at all, since, all about a numerical game.

think in this way, john and sam are playing a trading game. john just make its own money and sam willing to exchange some real thing, like pie, apple with john. thus, in some sense, john can have free stuff, as long as sam believe john's bank note is worthy. after a while, sam have many banknotes and want to buy something from john but realized that nothing can be bought from john! that is too late for sam, since all his banknote is basically nothing.

So, this "deficit-state" policy ran for long long time, say, about 70 years already. why people only now said it is all american fault???

back to the first message, the "US's debt crisis" is more likely to be political, between the balance of power between the parties, rather then real financial problem, in principle, the "deficit-state" does not exist, cost it always can issue more money. and as long as the rate of issue the money is well controlled, the value of US dollor never reduced, since it just reflected the US economy is getting larger and larger.

people may ask, can other country go to "deficit-states" policy as well? if the country can complete with US dollar and gain trust from people, so far, nothing like that.

inflation

2011-08-08T07:04:00.000+01:00

the inflation in early universe, may be due to the conservation of entropy. the expanding universe is a trade-off between momentum and space. may be the decrease of configuration space in momentum due to gravity is the driving force of the universe expansion. this is how gravity included in 2d law of thermodynamic.

in contrast with traditional theory, the dead of universe is due to we reach a maximum entropy state. however, it never included the effect of gravity. which, gravity can form star and galaxy, but 2nd law cannot predict this.

an also, it assumed the entropy can still be increase. however, the maximum entropy state usually reached quickly. say, a mixture of cold and hot water.

so, how about i assume, the maximum entropy state was formed very quickly in the big bang. then, due to quantum mechanic, and gravity, the size of momentum space was reduced and it forced the space expand to make the entropy does not decreased.

i did not do actual calculation,but just a fantasy here.

On the last job on earth

2011-07-22T12:49:00.001+01:00

We are experiencing a huge change of our society that many job was simplified, or even replaced by robot, machinese or computer. Even the so called "creative" job, like artistist and scientists.

If we realized that creative is just as simple as combination. As a famous quote said, a monkey can type a Henry IV by Shakespeare, if we give it enough time, or if we had so many monkey working. Another example is the IBM deep blue super computer, which was designed to play chess. Many people believe chess player require alot of instinct and creative to construct a strategy or a magic move, but in fact, the requirement of instinct can be replaced by huge calculation that the deep blue simulate the chess board for every possible move. The result is, it beaten the human champion Garry Kasparov.

Another achievement also come from IBM, the Watson. Watson is able to learn and understand human language. It is not simple google translate or a dictionary. It can understand the inner logic of a language, what a sentence infer the speaker emotional context by the conversation! The principle of Watson is learn by statistics, engineers feed the bible, Wikipedia, Shakespeare's and other English contexts. Thus, imagine one day, when you call the customer service hotline, on the other side of the phone is Watson, which also answering million other calls on the same-time.

Recently, scientists also build a robot scientist in bio-lab. And that robot scientist is able to give hypothesis, verify and make conclusion. Can you imagine if this robot scientist combine with Watson, which can be a huge active database and able to speak and write a scientific paper?

However, it is not the end. When we speak of combination, we infer that there is rules to make the combination. Although the rule can be very general and cover a huge area. There is a rule or a formalism.

Kurt Gödel shown on his incompleteness theorem, that, a mathematical structure cannot be shown by its principles or laws that it is logically complete and consistence. Thus, on building up mathematics structure, instinct is an essential. This instinct is a pure creation rather then just combination. Thus, as long as robot does not have instinct, ( which I doubt) the last job on earth is mathematician.

Privacy

2011-07-21T15:13:00.000+01:00

"privacy" is extended so widely today and exposed a lot of concern, especially by the internet.

i admit there are somethings people don't want others to know, say, your bankbook passwords, your email passwords, or a set of personal data that is qualified to be used on the things that make you lose, say, people can use your citizenship number and address and phone number and birthday to pretend your relatie and get money from your bank. or use this identity to commit crime that you never did.

notices that the many "and" between those items, only your address make no harm. coz people can always make up this address, but it is the COMBINATION that define you, or the social identity that is you in the court or in bank. therefore, your phone number, your citizenship number, your address, your blood type, your medical history, your finger print ALONE. is not important and should nto be counted as secret at all. coz the data alone fail to represent a person and function as "another" identity. ( fake identity is, picke one some data that the combination is not a real person in the world, say, Barack Obama, born in 12, July, 1964, blood type B, etc.. is not the a real person! so, that is fake identity )

however, people are easy to be scared by things they don't understand. and or some private reasons, they don't like those data are able to be known by others.

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." by Eric Schmidt.

Cockroaches

2011-07-21T14:31:00.004+01:00

Bomb

2011-06-25T19:50:00.000+01:00

Napalm bomb
About the best fire bomb is napalm. It has a thick consistancy, like jam and is best for use on vehilces or buildings
- Pour some gas into an old bowl, or some kind of container.
- use about 30% soap, The soap is either soap flakes or shredded bar soap. Detergents won’t do.
The gasoline must be heated in order for the soap to melt
- make sure the gasoline is heated enough to cook the soap.
- Get some styrofoam and put it in the gas, until the gas won’t eat anymore. You should have a sticky syrup.
- Put it on the end of something (don’t touch it!!). The unused stuff lasts a long time.

Pipe bomb
Pipe bombs are are an issue that has been over discussed on the internet without the involvement of any effective solid information on how to make a pipe bomb. The information out there is usually very shallow and does not show any real insight into the subject. This article was written with the backing of special forces improvised munitions knowledge.
First a word of warning. Explosives are extremely dangerous devices, forget what you’ve seen in the movies, if you venture into improvised explosives manufacture the chances are that you will lose your hands and other parts of your body no matter how good you think you are. Life is not a thing to waste on a pipe bomb. Having said that this article is for information purposes only and should not be attempted.
Introduction to Pipe Bombs
Pipe bombs are used as an alternative or to aid the use of conventional explosives. The components of a pipe bomb are very easily available and assembled. Additionally they can be used as a casing for high explosives such as TNT so as to improve the capability of the explosive device. Roughly speaking an explosive filler is placed inside a closed metal pipe and is detonated by fuse running into the pipe, the pressure of the explosive material when ignited builds up very rapidly and the pipe ruptures with great force causing damage. The main components of a pipe bomb assembly are the fuse, pipe assembly and the explosive chemicals used.
The explosive material
The first step to improvising a pipe bomb is to choose an appropriate explosive material as the filler. For simpler purposes match heads or gunpowder can be used though they burn rather slowly and great a lesser rupturing velocity of the pipe than other materials. Permanganate with sugar half half or similarly Chlorate with sugar are easily available materials with the chlorate having a higher explosive effect than the permanganate. Aluminium is a potent fuel and when combined with Carbon Tetrachloride or Permanganate can produce more dangerous explosive filler. These are all of the lesser explosives which however are easier to acquire. A more complicated scenario would involve the use of TNT of plastic explosives as filler which also increases the risk factors involved. The lesser powders are usually ground fine to accelerate their burning rate.
The Fuse
Military detonation cord is best to use as a fuse otherwise cannon or fireworks fuses can be used instead. To make a completely improvised fuse a tape sticky side up can be placed on a surface and sprinkled with ground gunpowder, the powder will stick to the tape and so is a fuse although less reliable than others. It is important to know where to place the fuse in the assembled pipe which is discussed later in the assembly section. Electrical detonation can also be facilitated.
Assembly of the pipe bomb
This consists of a pipe body threaded at both ends and capped on both ends with steel or brass caps containing the filler. The threading should be of the coarse type as fine threading does not resist the buildup of pressure as coarse threading does. For additional resistance a metal strip can be wrapped from one end cap to another so as to prevent the caps from flying off the pipe during the explosion. It is highly advised that an inner soft lining of plastic is used in the pipe to prevent any possible accidents with friction as when the pipe bomb is moved from place to place. The fuse is best placed through a tiny hole drilled on one end through a cap when both sides of the pipe are closed. However if high explosves are used as filler one end is usually left open with the fuse placed in the open end, if the fuse is placed erroneously in the capped end in this case the explosive material will be blasted out of the pipe prematurely. A thick metal pipe would create better fragmentation destruction than a thinly walled one. During the assembly process the important fact to consider is that explosive filler is usually sensitive to friction, so it is important to fill the pipe carefully and avoid having powder between the screw cap and screw threads as the friction could set them off.

Moltov coctail bomb
A Molotov cocktail (or petrol bomb) is a crude incendiary weapon which consists of a glass bottle semi-filled with flammable liquid, usually gasoline (petrol) or alcohol (generally methanol or ethanol), the mouth of the bottle is stoppered with a cork or other type of airtight bung (rubber, glass, or plastic), and a cloth rag fixed securely around the mouth. The weapon is used by first soaking the rag in a flammable liquid immediately prior to using it, lighting the rag and throwing the bottle at the target. The bottle shatters on impact, spilling the flammable liquid over the target which is then ignited by the burning rag.
Sometimes, if available, self-inflammatory materials (such as white phosphorus), could also be used to guarantee the bottle’s explosion as it hits the target surface. Tar, palm oil or other thickening agents are often added to the composition in order to make the burning fluid stick to the target rather than run off.
A full bottle will not ignite quickly when it breaks on impact (but has a longer burning potential). For a device to explode rapidly on impact the bottle is only one half to two-thirds full of mixture.

Soda bomb
Easily made by simply filling up a 600 ml bottle of 1 half brake fluid (or ethanol) and another half chlorine, put the lid on, shake it for 1 second or less than throw the bottle, and it will pressure the bottle to the extent where it lets of a huge explosion. DO NOT shake longer than 1 second, or it will explode in your hands.

Debate on Resolutions to amend Rules 44 and 45(2), and Rule 45(1) respectively - Margaret Ng

2011-06-25T17:40:00.000+01:00

Debate on Resolutions to amend Rules 44 and 45(2), and Rule 45(1) respectively
LEGCO 2011-05-11

Mr. President

The amendments proposed in this Resolution and the next may appear to be small, but are in fact fundamental. They go to the root of the principles which underlie the Rules of Procedure and the way this Council functions.

Let me state from the start that I consider our ability to maintain order and decorum in all our proceedings to be essential to our proper functioning, and to our credibility in the community as the legislature of the Hong Kong SAR.

Like other honourable members and members of the community, I am concerned about the repeated challenges to the rules of orderly conduct. I am even more deeply disturbed by the occasions on which the President’s orders were met with defiance and resistance and had to be effected by unseemly force. It is not that I am worried about setting a bad example for the children. More seriously, it is a matter of logic and obligation. For if the President cannot guarantee safe passage within our own House, how can we reasonably require any official or member of the public to appear before this Council?

Likewise, I am also aware that in the circumstance of repeated breach of conduct with apparent immunity, public pressure has increased for members to “tighten up” the rules to deter such conduct.

The problem is certainly clear. However, are these amendments of the Rules the right answer? I do not think so. First of all, we should distinguish the rules from their enforcement. The most notorious occasions of disorderly conduct took place within Council sittings. The amendments proposed today do not concern Council sittings: the President already has the powers under the present Rules. The question is how the Rules may be applied and enforced more effectively and expeditiously. This is being dealt with vigorously in the LegCo Commission. The amendments proposed to extend the same powers to the Chairman of any committee, and it is not clear to me that doing so in any way addresses the public’s concern.

Some members of the public have suggested that new rules should be made to punish a disorderly member by banning him from the Council for a period of weeks, with salary reduced or withheld. Our research shows that the House of Commons indeed has such powers, but they are not exercised at the order of the Speaker, but upon a motion moved by another member and passed by the House.

The apparently quaint procedure of the House of Commons illustrates a fundamental principle: authority is not used on an equal. Rules to give one member power over another member are justified only on the basis of necessity to facilitate debate. We must ask ourselves, before we cast our vote today, whether this requirement is satisfied by the proposed amendments.

As I have said earlier, the proposed amendments appear to be small: a few words are deleted from Rule 44, 45(1) and 45(2): 3 in English and 5 in Chinese. But the effect is to remove the difference between the powers of the President in Council, the Chairman in a Committee of the whole House or Chairman of any Standing or Select Committee on one side, and on the other side, the powers of Chairman of any other committee such as a panel, a subcommittee and a bills committee. Under existing rules, the power to order a member whose conduct is disorderly to withdraw immediately is exercised by the former, but not by the latter.

I may add that the three amendments are inter-related. Reading backwards, Rule 45(2) allows the Chairman to order a member whose conduct is grossly disorderly to withdraw; rule 45(1) makes a member who persists in irrelevant and tedious repetition and who refuses to stop speaking upon the Chairman’s direction guilty of grossly disorderly conduct, and Rule 44 makes the Chairman’s decision on whether a member is in breach of Rule 45(1) or (2) final and unchallengable. These are draconian powers. It is right and fitting that they should be restricted.

So why are they given to one group of committees and not to another group? I submit that this is not arbitrary but a matter both of principle and good sense.

LegCo’s Rules of Procedure originated from the House of Common’s Standing Orders, which makes a similar distinction. Powers under Standing Order No.42 (which is similar to our Rule 45(1)) and Standing Order No.43 (which is similar to our Rule 45(2)) are exercised only by the Speaker and the Chairman of a Committee of the whole House or a Standing Committee but by no other Chairman. The distinction is stated at the head of Chapter 27 of Erskine May: committees are divided into those which proceed by debate, and those which proceed by taking evidence, deliberation and report. These powers only apply in Committees which proceed by debate. Or put it another way, committees which deal with formal questions (motion or bills), debate upon them and then resolve them, by voting if necessary, as opposed to committees which hear proposals, deliberate on them by discussion, and where appropriate report to the House Committee but make no binding decision. The report, if appropriate, can then be debated in a sitting of the Council.

According to the research reported to us, no Parliament in the world empowers a Chairman of a deliberative committee with the powers which we are now considering under these proposed amendments.

It is clear to me that the draconian powers under Rules 44 and 45 are exercised by a Chairman of a decision-making committee in enforcing the rules of debate and are necessary and appropriate for that purpose. The Speaker or the President, in maintaining order and decorum in a formal sitting of the House, is additionally upholding the dignity of the Court of Parliament.

Such considerations do not apply to deliberative committees and subcommittees.

Mr. President, the differentiation is not just in name; nor is it just slavish borrowing from a jurisdiction now foreign. It underlines the two complementary halves of our function and the way we discharge them: we debate in opposition, vote on party lines, but we investigate and deliberate in cooperation and across party lines, accommodating each other’s line of exploration. In making our reports we are conscious of power in unity, and that has been illustrated time and again in such reports as on the West Kowloon Cultural Development and most of our Select Committees of Inquiry. While the debates attract more attention, the real work, in my opinion, is more often achieved in the committee room. (By the way, the House of Commons uses “Select Committee” to refer to what we call a “policy panel”, and in the House of Commons, part of the legislative procedure is carried out in Standing Committees.)

In short, we take evidence and deliberate, and then we debate and decide. To disregard the distinction, as these amendments do almost more by thoughtlessness, is to confess our failure to cooperate and to commit this House to total debate. There is already an increasing impatience not to give time to a genuine exchange of views in order to forge maximum consensus, and to go immediately to debate from entrenched positions, and the ultimate vote count. I can’t tell you how remote this is from the true spirit of democracy.

I am reminded of the trial in Alice in Wonderland. As soon as the accusation was read out, the King said to the jury “Consider your verdict”. “Not yet, not yet,” the Rabbit hastily interrupted. “There is a great deal to come before that!”

Mr. President, is there? As far as this Council is concerned?

Let us, for a moment, leave principle and constitutional function and duty aside. Even on considering the practicalities alone these amendments should be opposed. They are neither necessary nor efficacious. Not necessary, because adjourning a committee meeting for a few minutes would be ample to deal with any problem of disorderly conduct. Not efficacious, because I see little likelihood of the Chairman’s order for the member to withdraw being meekly obeyed, and the commotion to get staff assistance to forcibly evict the member from a committee room will be more conducive to farce than to dignity.

Indeed, I believe that the threat of such an order from the Chair will be most likely to be provocative, and contribute to lasting ill feelings between members. It is not in such an environment that we can expect to foster the habit and norm of cooperation and consensus.

Since such additional powers are neither efficacious nor necessary, I do not see any justification for their adoption. Rules do not make good conduct. Only respect for the Rules and the institution can do so.

Finally, I would like to make this point: our Rules of Procedure will fall apart, not just when a few members choose persistently to throw things at officials, but when unbridled contempt are permitted to be expressed by members towards one another, when members are permitted to resort constantly to verbal abuse and personal attack.

I do not see how rational debate can take place in such a linguistic environment. And we do need rational debate if we were to discharge our duty, which includes ensuring the development of principled and reasoned long-term public policies for the good of Hong Kong. As a member who has long served this Council, I am greatly saddened to see this happening.

Although rationality may not be any longer relevant, let it be recorded that these are the reasons why I oppose the motion. I may add that I do so with full exemption from Civic Party, because rules of procedure are above politics.

法政隨筆 - 原則與規則 - 吳靄儀

2011-06-25T17:33:00.000+01:00

法政隨筆 - 原則與規則
明報 2011-05-16

香港人很重視遵守規則，但甚少關心規則背後的原則，往往出現了本末倒置的問題。不幸政府官員和立法會不少議員也有這個毛病，在官員來說，只見規則，不問原則，名為為保障公平，實則為免招致批評，結果就是官僚主義日深，勞民傷財而做不到有利市民的政策目標。在立法會來說，對議事規則甚至法案只知其然，不知其所以然，不耐煩思考法例的解釋與議會程序的基本原則與精神，結果在法例的通過與修改，議事規則的運作、應用和修改都變成政治掛帥，任意為之，無助於建立良好的制度和慣例，反而將原有的典章制度弄得支離破碎。眼見破壞程度日益嚴重，我深感愛莫能助。

例如上星期立法會動議修改《議事規則》，讓所有委員會與大會會議一視同仁，其主席有權驅逐他裁定行為極不檢的議員立即離場，如果該名議員不合作，則可令工作人員強制執行。議案獲大比數通過，而我這個議事規則委員會副主席則投票反對。為什麼我要反對？不是因為我「縱容」眾矢之的的幾位議員，或支持他們的犯規行為，而是因為這項修改有違議會運作的原則和精神。《議事規則》有關命令行為不檢的議員立即離席的規則，原是只有立法會主席在主持立法會正式會議時所行使的權力，亦引伸到其他藉辯論及投票通過有約束力議決的全體委員會和財務委員會，但不屬於審議性質的事務委員會或小組委員會。這個分野，來自議員的平等地位及委員會以不同性質，是有其原則基礎的。全世界議會同類的委員會，都沒有由其主席驅逐議員離場的規則。我們輕率地修改，因為絕大部分議員不覺得委員會與大會的會議有什麼分別，也沒有興趣探討，最意的只是「市民要我們『做』，收緊議事規則。」

中國官場文化風氣所漸，「主席」變成一個身分，代表某些高於別人的權力和地位，但「立法會主席」是一個公職（「office」），權責附於其位而非其人，而「委員會主席」只是委員會成員之一，受其他委員所托而在開會時或開會前後，按照他所理解的委員會成員的共識，處理有關委員會運作的事務。議會程序是一門學問，我們不求深博，但總要略識之無。

12 Maga Pixels

2011-06-05T05:01:00.003+01:00

a response

2011-06-04T14:30:00.000+01:00

That milky way picture is really cool. I just seen you posted it, and i re-posted it because i think it is cool. I don't know you, but i'm friendly with absolutely everyone. Can i ask you a personal question? Here goes... Do you think that you could explain Life, Atmosphere and space, energy, and how all these things and others i have not mentioned, all interact or Tie into one-another To create the real universe that we live in. Not in full detail of course, just in a nut shell so i can gain a little better understanding of all the elements and how they work with eachother. This may sound like a weird or unusual request, but I'm really trying to figure some things out. If you have no clue what i'm talking about, then never mind this message and have a nice day. I'm just trying to figure out what you might have a good idea about, due to the feild of study you are in. Very impressive I must say, do you have any idea how this disaster in Japan is going to affect the world? Should we be doing anything to help it that the experts aren't already doing, or will things work out ok? Thank you for your time, and sorry to ask such a complicated question, but i would love to understand more about what i can do to make a small change, to help others that come after us all here now. Thank you! Jason

****************************

as a physicist (i think i can say so) , we can explain alot, but only on surface. and many thing is not with in science domain, for example life, love, hate.... well, nevertheless, we try to formulate it with a lot mathematic models. OK, may be you mean life is in biological sense. in this sense, life is a system for me. we can create digital life, so that they follow simple rules but having complicated behavior. we all follow simple rules, we eat, sleep, have desire, motive, etc... and each other interact then create the society. similar thing happen in non-living things, water. water molecule follow simple rules, but water have complicated feature, it can be ice, be vapor, while single water molecule cannot be ice or water. my point is, if you look a big picture, we are just part of it. if you even look at a bigger picture, say a galaxy, we are nothing. however, if you look at a single household, everyone matter!

since your question is very general. and life is a very abstract concept, it can include many things. so, i dun know what to say. anyway, the underlaying structure of the universe is a very huge and harmonic, every part is related to each others. we can arrange them according to the complicity : mathematics -> physics -> chem -> biology -> psychology-> social science -> economy -> art ... or by size: nuclear -> atom -> molecule -> protein -> DNA -> man -> city -> planet -> solar system -> galaxy..... , or by energy, by time scale, etc... however, different veiwpoint is describing our universe.

so, as human capacity is limited, we so far dont have a simple theory. but just little pieces.

at the end, i think we can still trust nuclear power. since the japan nuclear incident is mainly a political problem, and if we spend more time and money on it, it only get better and better. think about car, if we so scary on car accident at the very beginning, do we have safe and fast car to drive? and nuclear power has so many advantage then the others. the only and only 1 problem is the nuclear waste. but compare to other waste by energy ( in fact, making solar panel use alot toxic material , large scale wind power will use up a lot of land, which mean, wild animal lost land, etc.). but the nuclear waste just need to store in very deep or just send back to the earth core ( although this technology not present yet ). in additional, people very concern on the accident of nuclear plant, i also worry on plane accident too! no one can live when a plane blow up in the mid-air! i think i make my point clear.

自由

2011-06-04T06:41:00.000+01:00

自由就是認識自己活在囚牢裏，認識自己每天在任由社會與權威擺佈，

食醫生與營養師叫你食的食物，
買海報雜誌叫你買的東西，
穿電視電影裏出現的衣服，
做老師家長牧師叫你做的事，
講書本裏教你講的說話。

nice reading.

2011-04-30T10:42:00.002+01:00

Words Cloud of this blog

2011-03-31T18:04:00.001+01:00

good and bad about iphone

2011-03-05T07:39:00.000Z

it does not support flash, many website cannot see properly
bluetooth is only for hand free, cannot transfer any things
No SD card
cannot use MP3 as a ring tone
the map does not has scale bar, so, you never know how far it is.
the facetime only usable under wifi network
it does not support multi-calander with google
Safari only can syn bookmark with IE
basically, if you looking for more options, make the iphone operate in your way, rather then you learn how to use it in apple's way, iphone is not your choice
although app store has alot app, but most of it just waste your time and money. too many repeated app.
the update is so slow, seem never update.
cannot adjust the silent mode. compare to nokia, there are alot of mode you can set. for example, i don't want any ring-in but i want to keep the alarm, no, i cannot do it buy just click the silent key.
the weather service only by yahoo, you cannot choose to have your local observatory
you cannot attach a picture after you edited a email. you have to go to the photo>send it as email. and you cannot attach 2 more photos on an email.
of course, you cannot attach any doc.
there is no file manger, you cannot use it as a USB, even you have an app for make it behaves as if a USB, it is not. it just created a folder under the app folder. so, you cannot change, or move the file out side the app.
of course, any music, video, pdf, must be transfer from itune.
and even the iphone has good cpu, you cannot paly other video format then mov, or mp4, those are big!!
you cannot have a blank screen only show your wallpaper. i like to have a clean desktop, and the app menu appear when i need it. but apple thinks, you need the app menu only.
the ibook app, you cannot change the way to make it fit width, it always fit hieght.
apple just don't listen its coustomer feed back. in the forum, already asked for many things, but apple just don't care. so, i have no hope for apple. for example, the auto brightness is good, but there is no auto voulume.
the note pad can sync with gmail, but you cannot edit in gmail, only in iphone
um.. if you are using Mac, may be there are less problems.
i have to write so good and correct sequence of stroke for chinese hand writing input. you cannot hand write a comma, a question mark. once again, you have to write in apple style.
you cannot tag your email but just move them in folder.
there are many many tiny problem, i already accepted. so, forget it. give iphone a break.

Good :

its outlook is nice.
overall, it run smooth.
HDR for photo is good. the photo is good.
it do have many different app then android, but i can say, after this year, the number will be more or less the same for 2 markets.
itune U is awesome.
never have programming problem. you never need to consider the app is runable for not.
the quality of the hardware. i did not use any protection, it still look good.
somehow you feel better when you use it in public. coz this mean, you can afford the expansive charge.
the compass is good, GPS location is fast, ( since i have internet connection all the time, so.. )
you can find your phone!
if you have Mac, and using iDevice, that will be good, but it is not free.
you are always easy to use someone else's iphone, since everything are the same. standardized.

Watson and the Globe of Knowledge

2011-02-20T06:42:00.001Z

knowledge is like the earth, different people look at it at different angles, some at Asia, some at Africa, some at America, like some look at it by social science, by physics, by history, etc.. but there is only 1 earth, 1 knowledge.

However, when talking about the deepness, it seem that the globe of knowledge is rather like the sky, can be infinite deep.

anyway, hope CNS can buy a Watson and feed it with every paper!! and books!! so, when scientists working at lab, can get instant assistance to solve problems.

零八憲章

2011-02-14T15:02:00.000Z

零八憲章(繁体中文版)

2008年12月10日公布

一、前言

今年是中國立憲百年，《世界人權宣言》公布60周年，“民主牆”誕生30周年，中國政府簽署《公民權利和政治權利國際公約》10周年。在經曆了長期的人權災難和艱難曲折的抗争曆程之後，覺醒的中國公民日漸清楚地認識到，自由、平等、人權是人類共同的普世價值；民主、共和、憲政是現代政治的基本制度架構。抽離了這些普世價值和基本政制架構的“現代化”，是剝奪人的權利、腐蝕人性、摧毀人的尊嚴的災難過程。21世紀的中國将走向何方，是繼續這種威權統治下的“ 現代化”，還是認同普世價值、融入主流文明、建立民主政體？這是一個不容回避的抉擇。

19世紀中期的曆史巨變，暴露了中國傳統專制制度的腐朽，揭開了中華大地上“數千年未有之大變局”的序幕。洋務運動追求器物層面的進良，甲午戰敗再次暴露了體制的過時；戊戌變法觸及到制度層面的革新，終因頑固派的殘酷鎮壓而歸于失敗；辛亥革命在表面上埋葬了延續2000多年的皇權制度，建立了亞洲第一個共和國。囿于當時内憂外患的特定曆史條件，共和政體隻是昙花一現，專制主義旋即卷土重來。器物模仿和制度更新的失敗，推動國人深入到對文化病根的反思，遂有以“科學與民主”爲旗幟的“五四”新文化運動，因内戰頻仍和外敵入侵，中國政治民主化曆程被迫中斷。抗日戰争勝利後的中國再次開啓了憲政曆程，然而國共内戰的結果使中國陷入了現代極權主義的深淵。1949年建立的“新中國”，名義上是“人民共和國”，實質上是“黨天下”。執政黨壟斷了所有政治、經濟和社會資源，制造了反右、大躍進、文革、六四、打壓民間宗教活動與維權運動等一系列人權災難，緻使數千萬人失去生命，國民和國家都付出了極爲慘重的代價。

二十世紀後期的“改革開放”，使中國擺脫了毛澤東時代的普遍貧困和絕對極權，民間财富和民衆生活水平有了大幅度提高，個人的經濟自由和社會權利得到部分恢複，公民社會開始生長，民間對人權和政治自由的呼聲日益高漲。執政者也在進行走向市場化和私有化的經濟改革的同時，開始了從拒絕人權到逐漸承認人權的轉變。中國政府于1997年、1998年分别簽署了兩個重要的國際人權公約，全國人大于2004年通過修憲把“尊重和保障人權”寫進憲法，今年又承諾制訂和推行《國家人權行動計劃》。但是，這些政治進步迄今爲止大多停留在紙面上；有法律而無法治，有憲法而無憲政，仍然是有目共睹的政治現實。執政集團繼續堅持維系威權統治，排拒政治變革，由此導緻官場腐敗，法治難立，人權不彰，道德淪喪，社會兩極分化，經濟畸形發展，自然環境和人文環境遭到雙重破壞，公民的自由、财産和追求幸福的權利得不到制度化的保障，各種社會矛盾不斷積累，不滿情緒持續高漲，特别是官民對立激化和群體事件激增，正在顯示着災難性的失控趨勢，現行體制的落伍已經到了非改不可的地步。

二、我們的基本理念

當此決定中國未來命運的曆史關頭，有必要反思百年來的現代化曆程，重申如下基本理念：

自由：自由是普世價值的核心之所在。言論、出版、信仰、集會、結社、遷徙、罷工和遊行示威等權利都是自由的具體體現。自由不昌，則無現代文明可言。
人權：人權不是國家的賜予，而是每個人與生俱來就享有的權利。保障人權，既是政府的首要目标和公共權力合法性的基礎，也是“以人爲本”的内在要求。中國的曆次政治災難都與執政當局對人權的無視密切相關。人是國家的主體，國家服務于人民，政府爲人民而存在。
平等：每一個個體的人，不論社會地位、職業、性别、經濟狀況、種族、膚色、宗教或政治信仰，其人格、尊嚴、自由都是平等的。必須落實法律面前人人平等的原則，落實公民的社會、經濟、文化、政治權利平等的原則。
共和：共和就是“大家共治，和平共生”，就是分權制衡與利益平衡，就是多種利益成分、不同社會集團、多元文化與信仰追求的群體，在平等參與、公平競争、共同議政的基礎上，以和平的方式處理公共事務。
民主：最基本的涵義是主權在民和民選政府。民主具有如下基本特點：
（1）政權的合法性來自人民，政治權力來源于人民；
（2）政治統治經過人民選擇；
（3）公民享有真正的選舉權，各級政府的主要政務官員必須通過定期的競選産生；
（4）尊重多數人的決定，同時保護少數人的基本人權。
一句話，民主使政府成爲“民有，民治，民享”的現代公器。
憲政：憲政是通過法律規定和法治來保障憲法确定的公民基本自由和權利的原則，限制并劃定政府權力和行爲的邊界，并提供相應的制度設施。

在中國，帝國皇權的時代早已一去不複返了；在世界範圍内，威權體制也日近黃昏；公民應該成爲真正的國家主人。祛除依賴“明君”、“清官”的臣民意識，張揚權利爲本、參與爲責的公民意識，實踐自由，躬行民主，尊奉法治，才是中國的根本出路。

三、我們的基本主張

藉此，我們本着負責任與建設性的公民精神對國家政制、公民權利與社會發展諸方面提出如下具體主張：

修改憲法：根據前述價值理念修改憲法，删除現行憲法中不符合主權在民原則的條文，使憲法真正成爲人權的保證書和公共權力的許可狀，成爲任何個人、團體和黨派不得違反的可以實施的最高法律，爲中國民主化奠定法權基礎。
分權制衡：構建分權制衡的現代政府，保證立法、司法、行政三權分立。确立法定行政和責任政府的原則，防止行政權力過分擴張；政府應對納稅人負責；在中央和地方之間建立分權與制衡制度，中央權力須由憲法明确界定授權，地方實行充分自治。
立法民主：各級立法機構由直選産生，立法秉持公平正義原則，實行立法民主。
司法獨立：司法應超越黨派、不受任何幹預，實行司法獨立，保障司法公正；設立憲法法院，建立違憲審查制度，維護憲法權威。盡早撤銷嚴重危害國家法治的各級黨的政法委員會，避免公器私用。
公器公用：實現軍隊國家化，軍人應效忠于憲法，效忠于國家，政黨組織應從軍隊中退出，提高軍隊職業化水平。包括警察在内的所有公務員應保持政治中立。消除公務員錄用的黨派歧視，應不分黨派平等錄用。
人權保障：切實保障人權，維護人的尊嚴。設立對最高民意機關負責的人權委員會，防止政府濫用公權侵犯人權，尤其要保障公民的人身自由，任何人不受非法逮捕、拘禁、傳訊、審問、處罰，廢除勞動教養制度。
公職選舉：全面推行民主選舉制度，落實一人一票的平等選舉權。各級行政首長的直接選舉應制度化地逐步推行。定期自由競争選舉和公民參選法定公共職務是不可剝奪的基本人權。
城鄉平等：廢除現行的城鄉二元戶籍制度，落實公民一律平等的憲法權利，保障公民的自由遷徙權。
結社自由：保障公民的結社自由權，将現行的社團登記審批制改爲備案制。開放黨禁，以憲法和法律規範政黨行爲，取消一黨壟斷執政特權，确立政黨活動自由和公平競争的原則，實現政黨政治正常化和法制化。
集會自由：和平集會、遊行、示威和表達自由，是憲法規定的公民基本自由，不應受到執政黨和政府的非法幹預與違憲限制。
言論自由：落實言論自由、出版自由和學術自由，保障公民的知情權和監督權。制訂《新聞法》和《出版法》，開放報禁，廢除現行《刑法》中的“煽動颠覆國家政權罪”條款，杜絕以言治罪。
宗教自由：保障宗教自由與信仰自由，實行政教分離，宗教信仰活動不受政府幹預。審查并撤銷限制或剝奪公民宗教自由的行政法規、行政規章和地方性法規；禁止以行政立法管理宗教活動。廢除宗教團體（包括宗教活動場所）必經登記始獲合法地位的事先許可制度，代之以無須任何審查的備案制。
公民教育：取消服務于一黨統治、帶有濃厚意識形态色彩的政治教育與政治考試，推廣以普世價值和公民權利爲本的公民教育，确立公民意識，倡導服務社會的公民美德。
财産保護：确立和保護私有财産權利，實行自由、開放的市場經濟制度，保障創業自由，消除行政壟斷；設立對最高民意機關負責的國有資産管理委員會，合法有序地展開産權改革，明晰産權歸屬和責任者；開展新土地運動，推進土地私有化，切實保障公民尤其是農民的土地所有權。
财稅改革：确立民主财政和保障納稅人的權利。建立權責明确的公共财政制度構架和運行機制，建立各級政府合理有效的财政分權體系；對賦稅制度進行重大改革，以降低稅率、簡化稅制、公平稅負。非經社會公共選擇過程，民意機關決議，行政部門不得随意加稅、開征新稅。通過産權改革，引進多元市場主體和競争機制，降低金融準入門檻，爲發展民間金融創造條件，使金融體系充分發揮活力。
社會保障：建立覆蓋全體國民的社會保障體制，使國民在教育、醫療、養老和就業等方面得到最基本的保障。
環境保護：保護生态環境，提倡可持續發展，爲子孫後代和全人類負責；明确落實國家和各級官員必須爲此承擔的相應責任；發揮民間組織在環境保護中的參與和監督作用。
聯邦共和：以平等、公正的态度參與維持地區和平與發展，塑造一個負責任的大國形象。維護香港、澳門的自由制度。在自由民主的前提下，通過平等談判與合作互動的方式尋求海峽兩岸和解方案。以大智慧探索各民族共同繁榮的可能途徑和制度設計，在民主憲政的架構下建立中華聯邦共和國。
轉型正義：爲曆次政治運動中遭受政治迫害的人士及其家屬，恢複名譽，給予國家賠償；釋放所有政治犯和良心犯，釋放所有因信仰而獲罪的人員；成立真相調查委員會，查清曆史事件的真相，厘清責任，伸張正義；在此基礎上尋求社會和解。

四、結語

中國作爲世界大國，作爲聯合國安理會五個常任理事國之一和人權理事會的成員，理應爲人類和平事業與人權進步做出自身的貢獻。但令人遺憾的是，在當今世界的所有大國裏，唯獨中國還處在威權主義政治生态中，并由此造成連綿不斷的人權災難和社會危機，束縛了中華民族的自身發展，制約了人類文明的進步——這種局面必須改變！政治民主化變革不能再拖延下去。

爲此，我們本着勇于踐行的公民精神，公布《零八憲章》。我們希望所有具有同樣危機感、責任感和使命感的中國公民，不分朝野，不論身份，求同存異，積極參與到公民運動中來，共同推動中國社會的偉大變革，以期早日建成一個自由、民主、憲政的國家，實現國人百餘年來锲而不舍的追求與夢想。

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Charter 08 (English Version)

Translated from the Chinese by Perry Link

The following text of Charter 08, signed by hundreds of Chinese intellectuals and translated and introduced by Perry Link, Professor of Chinese Literature at the University of California, Riverside, will be published in the issue of The New York Review dated January 15, which goes on sale on January 2.
—The Editors

The document below, signed by over three hundred prominent Chinese citizens, was conceived and written in conscious admiration of the founding of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, where, in January 1977, more than two hundred Czech and Slovak intellectuals formed a

loose, informal, and open association of people... united by the will to strive individually and collectively for respect for human and civil rights in our country and throughout the world.

The Chinese document calls not for ameliorative reform of the current political system but for an end to some of its essential features, including one-party rule, and their replacement with a system based on human rights and democracy.

The prominent citizens who have signed the document are from both outside and inside the government, and include not only well-known dissidents and intellectuals, but also middle-level officials and rural leaders. They have chosen December 10, the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as the day on which to express their political ideas and to outline their vision of a constitutional, democratic China. They intend “Charter 08” to serve as a blueprint for fundamental political change in China in the years to come. The signers of the document will form an informal group, open-ended in size but united by a determination to promote democratization and protection of human rights in China and beyond.

On December 8 two prominent signers of the Charter, Zhang Zuhua and Liu Xiaobo, were detained by the police. Zhang Zuhua has since been released; as of December 9, Liu Xiabo remains in custody.
—Perry Link
Frederick Douglass Book Prize Announcement

I. Foreword

A hundred years have passed since the writing of China’s first constitution. 2008 also marks the sixtieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the thirtieth anniversary of the appearance of Democracy Wall in Beijing, and the tenth of China’s signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre of pro-democracy student protesters. The Chinese people, who have endured human rights disasters and uncountable struggles across these same years, now include many who see clearly that freedom, equality, and human rights are universal values of humankind and that democracy and constitutional government are the fundamental framework for protecting these values.

By departing from these values, the Chinese government’s approach to “modernization” has proven disastrous. It has stripped people of their rights, destroyed their dignity, and corrupted normal human intercourse. So we ask: Where is China headed in the twenty-first century? Will it continue with “modernization” under authoritarian rule, or will it embrace universal human values, join the mainstream of civilized nations, and build a democratic system? There can be no avoiding these questions.

The shock of the Western impact upon China in the nineteenth century laid bare a decadent authoritarian system and marked the beginning of what is often called “the greatest changes in thousands of years” for China. A “self-strengthening movement” followed, but this aimed simply at appropriating the technology to build gunboats and other Western material objects. China’s humiliating naval defeat at the hands of Japan in 1895 only confirmed the obsolescence of China’s system of government. The first attempts at modern political change came with the ill-fated summer of reforms in 1898, but these were cruelly crushed by ultraconservatives at China’s imperial court. With the revolution of 1911, which inaugurated Asia’s first republic, the authoritarian imperial system that had lasted for centuries was finally supposed to have been laid to rest. But social conflict inside our country and external pressures were to prevent it; China fell into a patchwork of warlord fiefdoms and the new republic became a fleeting dream.

The failure of both “self-strengthening” and political renovation caused many of our forebears to reflect deeply on whether a “cultural illness” was afflicting our country. This mood gave rise, during the May Fourth Movement of the late 1910s, to the championing of “science and democracy.” Yet that effort, too, foundered as warlord chaos persisted and the Japanese invasion [beginning in Manchuria in 1931] brought national crisis.

Victory over Japan in 1945 offered one more chance for China to move toward modern government, but the Communist defeat of the Nationalists in the civil war thrust the nation into the abyss of totalitarianism. The “new China” that emerged in 1949 proclaimed that “the people are sovereign” but in fact set up a system in which “the Party is all-powerful.” The Communist Party of China seized control of all organs of the state and all political, economic, and social resources, and, using these, has produced a long trail of human rights disasters, including, among many others, the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957), the Great Leap Forward (1958–1960), the Cultural Revolution (1966–1969), the June Fourth (Tiananmen Square) Massacre (1989), and the current repression of all unauthorized religions and the suppression of the weiquan rights movement [a movement that aims to defend citizens’ rights promulgated in the Chinese Constitution and to fight for human rights recognized by international conventions that the Chinese government has signed]. During all this, the Chinese people have paid a gargantuan price. Tens of millions have lost their lives, and several generations have seen their freedom, their happiness, and their human dignity cruelly trampled.

During the last two decades of the twentieth century the government policy of “Reform and Opening” gave the Chinese people relief from the pervasive poverty and totalitarianism of the Mao Zedong era and brought substantial increases in the wealth and living standards of many Chinese as well as a partial restoration of economic freedom and economic rights. Civil society began to grow, and popular calls for more rights and more political freedom have grown apace. As the ruling elite itself moved toward private ownership and the market economy, it began to shift from an outright rejection of “rights” to a partial acknowledgment of them.

In 1998 the Chinese government signed two important international human rights conventions; in 2004 it amended its constitution to include the phrase “respect and protect human rights”; and this year, 2008, it has promised to promote a “national human rights action plan.” Unfortunately most of this political progress has extended no further than the paper on which it is written. The political reality, which is plain for anyone to see, is that China has many laws but no rule of law; it has a constitution but no constitutional government. The ruling elite continues to cling to its authoritarian power and fights off any move toward political change.

The stultifying results are endemic official corruption, an undermining of the rule of law, weak human rights, decay in public ethics, crony capitalism, growing inequality between the wealthy and the poor, pillage of the natural environment as well as of the human and historical environments, and the exacerbation of a long list of social conflicts, especially, in recent times, a sharpening animosity between officials and ordinary people.

As these conflicts and crises grow ever more intense, and as the ruling elite continues with impunity to crush and to strip away the rights of citizens to freedom, to property, and to the pursuit of happiness, we see the powerless in our society—the vulnerable groups, the people who have been suppressed and monitored, who have suffered cruelty and even torture, and who have had no adequate avenues for their protests, no courts to hear their pleas—becoming more militant and raising the possibility of a violent conflict of disastrous proportions. The decline of the current system has reached the point where change is no longer optional.

II. Our Fundamental Principles

This is a historic moment for China, and our future hangs in the balance. In reviewing the political modernization process of the past hundred years or more, we reiterate and endorse basic universal values as follows:

Freedom. Freedom is at the core of universal human values. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom in where to live, and the freedoms to strike, to demonstrate, and to protest, among others, are the forms that freedom takes. Without freedom, China will always remain far from civilized ideals.

Human rights. Human rights are not bestowed by a state. Every person is born with inherent rights to dignity and freedom. The government exists for the protection of the human rights of its citizens. The exercise of state power must be authorized by the people. The succession of political disasters in China’s recent history is a direct consequence of the ruling regime’s disregard for human rights.

Equality. The integrity, dignity, and freedom of every person—regardless of social station, occupation, sex, economic condition, ethnicity, skin color, religion, or political belief—are the same as those of any other. Principles of equality before the law and equality of social, economic, cultural, civil, and political rights must be upheld.

Republicanism. Republicanism, which holds that power should be balanced among different branches of government and competing interests should be served, resembles the traditional Chinese political ideal of “fairness in all under heaven.” It allows different interest groups and social assemblies, and people with a variety of cultures and beliefs, to exercise democratic self-government and to deliberate in order to reach peaceful resolution of public questions on a basis of equal access to government and free and fair competition.

Democracy. The most fundamental principles of democracy are that the people are sovereign and the people select their government. Democracy has these characteristics:
(1) Political power begins with the people and the legitimacy of a regime derives from the people.
(2) Political power is exercised through choices that the people make.
(3) The holders of major official posts in government at all levels are determined through periodic competitive elections.
(4) While honoring the will of the majority, the fundamental dignity, freedom, and human rights of minorities are protected. In short, democracy is a modern means for achieving government truly “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Constitutional rule. Constitutional rule is rule through a legal system and legal regulations to implement principles that are spelled out in a constitution. It means protecting the freedom and the rights of citizens, limiting and defining the scope of legitimate government power, and providing the administrative apparatus necessary to serve these ends.

III. What We Advocate

Authoritarianism is in general decline throughout the world; in China, too, the era of emperors and overlords is on the way out. The time is arriving everywhere for citizens to be masters of states. For China the path that leads out of our current predicament is to divest ourselves of the authoritarian notion of reliance on an “enlightened overlord” or an “honest official” and to turn instead toward a system of liberties, democracy, and the rule of law, and toward fostering the consciousness of modern citizens who see rights as fundamental and participation as a duty. Accordingly, and in a spirit of this duty as responsible and constructive citizens, we offer the following recommendations on national governance, citizens’ rights, and social development:

A New Constitution. We should recast our present constitution, rescinding its provisions that contradict the principle that sovereignty resides with the people and turning it into a document that genuinely guarantees human rights, authorizes the exercise of public power, and serves as the legal underpinning of China’s democratization. The constitution must be the highest law in the land, beyond violation by any individual, group, or political party.
Separation of powers. We should construct a modern government in which the separation of legislative, judicial, and executive power is guaranteed. We need an Administrative Law that defines the scope of government responsibility and prevents abuse of administrative power. Government should be responsible to taxpayers. Division of power between provincial governments and the central government should adhere to the principle that central powers are only those specifically granted by the constitution and all other powers belong to the local governments.
Legislative democracy. Members of legislative bodies at all levels should be chosen by direct election, and legislative democracy should observe just and impartial principles.
An Independent Judiciary. The rule of law must be above the interests of any particular political party and judges must be independent. We need to establish a constitutional supreme court and institute procedures for constitutional review. As soon as possible, we should abolish all of the Committees on Political and Legal Affairs that now allow Communist Party officials at every level to decide politically-sensitive cases in advance and out of court. We should strictly forbid the use of public offices for private purposes.
Public Control of Public Servants. The military should be made answerable to the national government, not to a political party, and should be made more professional. Military personnel should swear allegiance to the constitution and remain nonpartisan. Political party organizations shall be prohibited in the military. All public officials including police should serve as nonpartisans, and the current practice of favoring one political party in the hiring of public servants must end.
Guarantee of Human Rights. There shall be strict guarantees of human rights and respect for human dignity. There should be a Human Rights Committee, responsible to the highest legislative body, that will prevent the government from abusing public power in violation of human rights. A democratic and constitutional China especially must guarantee the personal freedom of citizens. No one shall suffer illegal arrest, detention, arraignment, interrogation, or punishment. The system of “Reeducation through Labor” must be abolished.
Election of Public Officials. There shall be a comprehensive system of democratic elections based on “one person, one vote.” The direct election of administrative heads at the levels of county, city, province, and nation should be systematically implemented. The rights to hold periodic free elections and to participate in them as a citizen are inalienable.
Rural–Urban Equality. The two-tier household registry system must be abolished. This system favors urban residents and harms rural residents. We should establish instead a system that gives every citizen the same constitutional rights and the same freedom to choose where to live.
Freedom to Form Groups. The right of citizens to form groups must be guaranteed. The current system for registering nongovernment groups, which requires a group to be “approved,” should be replaced by a system in which a group simply registers itself. The formation of political parties should be governed by the constitution and the laws, which means that we must abolish the special privilege of one party to monopolize power and must guarantee principles of free and fair competition among political parties.
Freedom to Assemble. The constitution provides that peaceful assembly, demonstration, protest, and freedom of expression are fundamental rights of a citizen. The ruling party and the government must not be permitted to subject these to illegal interference or unconstitutional obstruction.
Freedom of Expression. We should make freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and academic freedom universal, thereby guaranteeing that citizens can be informed and can exercise their right of political supervision. These freedoms should be upheld by a Press Law that abolishes political restrictions on the press. The provision in the current Criminal Law that refers to “the crime of incitement to subvert state power” must be abolished. We should end the practice of viewing words as crimes.
Freedom of Religion. We must guarantee freedom of religion and belief and institute a separation of religion and state. There must be no governmental interference in peaceful religious activities. We should abolish any laws, regulations, or local rules that limit or suppress the religious freedom of citizens. We should abolish the current system that requires religious groups (and their places of worship) to get official approval in advance and substitute for it a system in which registry is optional and, for those who choose to register, automatic.
Civic Education. In our schools we should abolish political curriculums and examinations that are designed to indoctrinate students in state ideology and to instill support for the rule of one party. We should replace them with civic education that advances universal values and citizens’ rights, fosters civic consciousness, and promotes civic virtues that serve society.
Protection of Private Property. We should establish and protect the right to private property and promote an economic system of free and fair markets. We should do away with government monopolies in commerce and industry and guarantee the freedom to start new enterprises. We should establish a Committee on State-Owned Property, reporting to the national legislature, that will monitor the transfer of state-owned enterprises to private ownership in a fair, competitive, and orderly manner. We should institute a land reform that promotes private ownership of land, guarantees the right to buy and sell land, and allows the true value of private property to be adequately reflected in the market.
Financial and Tax Reform. We should establish a democratically regulated and accountable system of public finance that ensures the protection of taxpayer rights and that operates through legal procedures. We need a system by which public revenues that belong to a certain level of government—central, provincial, county or local—are controlled at that level. We need major tax reform that will abolish any unfair taxes, simplify the tax system, and spread the tax burden fairly. Government officials should not be able to raise taxes, or institute new ones, without public deliberation and the approval of a democratic assembly. We should reform the ownership system in order to encourage competition among a wider variety of market participants.
Social Security. We should establish a fair and adequate social security system that covers all citizens and ensures basic access to education, health care, retirement security, and employment.
Protection of the Environment. We need to protect the natural environment and to promote development in a way that is sustainable and responsible to our descendents and to the rest of humanity. This means insisting that the state and its officials at all levels not only do what they must do to achieve these goals, but also accept the supervision and participation of non-governmental organizations.
A Federated Republic. A democratic China should seek to act as a responsible major power contributing toward peace and development in the Asian Pacific region by approaching others in a spirit of equality and fairness. In Hong Kong and Macao, we should support the freedoms that already exist. With respect to Taiwan, we should declare our commitment to the principles of freedom and democracy and then, negotiating as equals, and ready to compromise, seek a formula for peaceful unification. We should approach disputes in the national-minority areas of China with an open mind, seeking ways to find a workable framework within which all ethnic and religious groups can flourish. We should aim ultimately at a federation of democratic communities of China.
Truth in Reconciliation. We should restore the reputations of all people, including their family members, who suffered political stigma in the political campaigns of the past or who have been labeled as criminals because of their thought, speech, or faith. The state should pay reparations to these people. All political prisoners and prisoners of conscience must be released. There should be a Truth Investigation Commission charged with finding the facts about past injustices and atrocities, determining responsibility for them, upholding justice, and, on these bases, seeking social reconciliation.

China, as a major nation of the world, as one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and as a member of the UN Council on Human Rights, should be contributing to peace for humankind and progress toward human rights. Unfortunately, we stand today as the only country among the major nations that remains mired in authoritarian politics. Our political system continues to produce human rights disasters and social crises, thereby not only constricting China’s own development but also limiting the progress of all of human civilization. This must change, truly it must. The democratization of Chinese politics can be put off no longer.

Accordingly, we dare to put civic spirit into practice by announcing Charter 08. We hope that our fellow citizens who feel a similar sense of crisis, responsibility, and mission, whether they are inside the government or not, and regardless of their social status, will set aside small differences to embrace the broad goals of this citizens’ movement. Together we can work for major changes in Chinese society and for the rapid establishment of a free, democratic, and constitutional country. We can bring to reality the goals and ideals that our people have incessantly been seeking for more than a hundred years, and can bring a brilliant new chapter to Chinese civilization.

—translated from the Chinese by Perry Link

something i hope everyone must listen

2011-02-14T13:59:00.004Z

coz it is simply great.

for this, please download itune

http://itunes.apple.com/hk/podcast/id409698187

陳雲 is simply wise.

誰說書生百無一用??

Largest cell and smallest cell

2011-02-12T15:53:00.001Z

in human body, the largest cell is the egg. yes, is the egg only in female body.

and the smallest cell is sperm, only found in male body.

in nature, the biggest cell is still an egg, yes, is birds egg, the ostrich eggs.

i wish to know the largest possible size of a potential and DNA, and what is the smallest possible functioning DNA and cell?? anyone know?

On Google translate ( the app )

2011-02-11T10:01:00.001Z

Now, you can use this app to speak and get instant translation! you don't even need to type!

think about in the near future, we have our hand-free, the mic is hearing people speaking and we have a instant translate to hear, like a real interpretor always stand by. and we speak, the mic reconginze our voice and the phone start to translate and speak.

but those are technical stuff. the most important thing is, we no long need to be troubled by language. we can speak and understand people, no matter what language they speak. and this greatly improve the international cooperation, and also preserved the identity of different people.

imagine if we have all our english lessons, spend on other things, like math, physics, computer, art, writing, reading, sport, etc... i think i can get a phd when i was 20.

and don't forget there are many books and ideas never get translated!

i am so sure to say, a translator is the most important invention in 21 century. great impact on human society, and it can be compare to the invention of paper and printing. human will once again go to another revolution, and new phase of Enlightenment.

the inconvenient is just a moment. think about the steam engine when Watt first invented. it is too bad that it is easy to broken, it need people to maintain, its power output not even better then a horse! but after a while, steam engine start to to replacing horse, to deliver cargo, transport people that cannot be imagine by using horses. Now, we have alot of engines everywhere, not horses.

i am sorry for those who spend their whole life in study language. may be time for you to not just study it, but do research on it.

language should be just a tool to express ourself, not a purpose.

If we charge

2011-02-10T18:45:00.002Z

think about we don't eat anymore, we charge ourselves to consume energy. which one is cheaper?

a normal people need 2000kcal a day. that is western style. well for me, i think i just consume 1000kcal a day, may be 1500 to 1800 when i am hungry.

1kcal is about 4.2kJ.

so, i need 1800kcal = 7560kJ a day.

how about my electric bill? in Japan, 1kWh is about 23.375 yen.

1kWh = 3600kJ

therefore, if i eat electricity, i only need to pay about 60 yen a day.

but i am now spending about 1500yen a day for food if i eat out, or 700 yen for cooking myself ( not including the energy for electric cook, delivery of water.) . thus, it is about 11 times less!

and if all people in the world don't eat any more, but all are charged. then we only need more power plant and can save the world.

besides, if i eat electricity, my dinning time will be unchanged. for a power input at 1kW, i need 7560 second to charge up. which is about 2 hours. but of course, we can use higher power, say, 10kW, then we just need 13 minutes. suitable for busy people.

(someone please check my calculation, i do it just before i sleep, so tried.)

Food shortage and Decrease in population.

2011-02-10T18:35:00.000Z

one factor is the mainland economic growth, but i think the main reason is, human is facing a great food shortage in coming 10 ten years or short. the shortage is resulted from many factors.

on supply side: more land changed to produce energy agriculture, or food products are used to produce fuels. and global warming is changing the weather and reduce food production. and the common worries on genetic modulated food prohibited the advancement in agriculture technology.

on demand side, population is growing and hard to die, due to advance medical treatment and social security. human is under a ever longest peaceful time in the last 5000 years. many poor societies can able to develop and demand more and more energy and food.

and food shortage is always is reason for great population decrease in a eco-system to bring back the balance. and the way to do it, no matter how, bring great vibration to the society.

there are many several ways to solve the problem. but none of it seem promising.

change the diet habit, start to eat more vegetable then meat. or start to eat bugs.
accept genetic modified food or even artificial food, like meat growth in Lab.
an outbreak of virus or illness to reduce the population. in fact, human population is just too saturated. we can see unemployment rate is increasing in every corner of the world. since we don't need that many people to support the society.
War. it is not necessary to be the war between different countries. and it is not necessary to spiting blood. it is the economic war. countries try to protect themselves and limited food export. and this may leas to a real war. another case is civil war, people may be think it is the bad government or some giant business tycoons who control the economy and make food price up.
we eat less.
alien discover the earth and save us from starving.
change more percentage of out power to nuclear or solar, or wind or geothermal, but no fuel.
the sun becomes dimmer and reduce the global warming. or we build a large mirror in space to block the light.
global warming makes Sahara becomes a green land and we can plant on it.
we colonize the Antarctica.
we can photosynthesis.

Japanese to English ( for physics )

2011-02-07T14:18:00.001Z

スピン＝S-Pi-N= spin

ポテンシャル＝Po-Te-N-Sya-Ru = potential

ハミルトニアン＝Ha-Mi-Ru-To-Ni-A-N = Hamiltonian.

シュレディンガー＝Syo-Re-Dei-N-Gaa = Schrödinger

チャネル＝Chya-Ne-Ru = Channel

i don't know what is the problem in Japanese, they knew all the words in english above and they use it someimes! but why not consistence? sometimes, they use Japanese form, somethings, the use english form. .....

Things must do in my life

2011-02-05T19:05:00.001Z

Although it is from a movie, but it is real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing

what i mean is, put a mouse in there, not me. :P

just kidding, of course me la!

When your boss blame you.

2011-02-05T07:55:00.000Z

Boss: $%&&^*&(()_)%#@$%^*!!

You : i cannot do that, if you think it is easy, show me how you do that.

Boss : if i do this by myself, why i hire you? i hire you to do something i do need to do!

You : hm... ( a little thought) can you promote me to be a manager?

Boss: what??

You : raise my salary and give me a room.

Boss: are you nut? you fail to do the job and asking me to raise you up?

You: yes, so i can hire someone else to do it. just like you :P

《媽媽，我壓力好大》

2011-02-04T13:57:00.000Z

Last Christmas

2011-02-04T13:54:00.003Z

google Art work

2011-02-04T13:34:00.001Z

http://goo.gl/9qVtQ

on Believe

2011-02-02T14:30:00.001Z

don't believe is still a kind of believe.

"believe" is putting yourself in certain position. like choosing a castle to protect. people can choose many different kind of castles they like. some people choose castle A, while some people choose an enemy castle B, which in war with castle A. but some people, just does not belong to any castle. we called those people, SKEPTIC.

Skeptic is those questioning everything. then, they usually come up with 1 idea that, " the unchanging thing is change".

Skeptic even questioning about skepticism. well, this is not so surprise at all. since the biggest question among a skeptic is about himself. and it is daily routine to questioning, to do surgery on himself.

Thus, oneself was awaken, becomes a wind.

the Cogito, ergo sum

imagine the speed of light is just 100km per hour

2011-01-29T16:48:00.000Z

100 km per hour is equal to 27.8 meter per second. which is a high speed for driving, but really slow speed for molecule.

beside of special relativity effect, there are much more funny things will happen. if any one who like to look for the effect due to special relativity, one can set the speed of walk of normal people ( 4km per hour ) to be 4% of speed light in any simulation in the web. or for cycling ( 10 to 20 km per hour) is 15%, and a normal driving will be 50%, the special relativity effect become obvious at this speed.

never the less, the things become funny is due to special relativity, which set a maximum speed be the speed of light.

the first thing come up in my mind is, boiling a water. according to statistical mechanic, the average speed of particle is given by

v = Sqrt [ (2 R T ) / M ],

where R is a physical constant (=8.314472), T is temperature, and M is a molar mass of a particle.

for water, the mass is 16 +2 = 18 gram = 0.018 kg.

thus, for room temperature, which is 300K, the average speed is 526 meter per second! which is much faster then the speed of light!, thus the physic is not applicable in this case.

the correct physics for relativistic particle, which moving very close to the speed of light, is by the Maxwell-Juttner distribution.

we don't have to go to that mathematics. all we have to know is, there is no more boiling water, even liquid water does not exist!

how about air? air is mainly composited of nitrogen gas, the molar mass is 0.014 kg , thus, the highest temperature is 2K. , which - 272 degree! and nitrogen will be solid in the temperature!

WordPress VS Blogger

2011-01-28T07:42:00.000Z

i just open a blog in WordPress, more correctly, moved a blog from here to there. coz WordPress support Latex, which i can type equation. hope blogger support Latex soon, then i move back to here.

i like Blogger more.

it can import google doc without any problem.
it is faster, i mean, load faster, and preview is quick and direct
the sitting in here is easy to understand
the archive can be expand and use it as a blog entry.
better integration on other google product another things, like picture, youtube, just use HTML embed.
the format can be changed, even you use some template, but you still can change to font, color, apparent, which WordPress cannot, it only allow you to change the BG. sucks

WordPress has its own advantage

no need to say, it support Latex
it has blog calendar
more secured.
more notification?

may be i am new to there, so, just feel odd except can post latex~

Jump!

2011-01-24T12:47:00.001Z

imagine there are 2 suns

2011-01-23T14:46:00.003Z

we live in earth, which around the sun. the earth orbits around the sun like a perfect circle. because of this circular orbit, the earth's temperature changes little bit. average is 13 degrees and from -89 degrees, to 58 degrees. see the following graph:

Mean January air temperature for the Earth's surface, 1959-1997.

This is the temperature distribution of earth. most temperature is around 0 to 40 degrees. compare to other planet, like mercury, its surface temperature is as high as 200 degrees and due to this high temperature, small gravity and strong solar wind, all air of it are gone, evaporated! and compare to mars, the average temperature is -47 degrees.

thus, if the earth is not move like a circle, it will get very hot when close to sun, but very close when far away. this big temperature different makes life hard to exist. this is because no know life form on earth can cope with such big temperature different. and also, the protein, and cell membrane cannot stand for this temperature change. but never the less, there may be some life form can stand with this change but we just not discover it yet.

In additional to temperature, the weather also goes crazy. the weather on earth is mainly coz by the temperature different on earth. the hot air goes up and cold air goes down and it makes the rain and weather! so , fluctuation on temperature will coz large change in weather.

OK. what is it about "if there are 2 suns" ? if there are 2 suns, then the orbit of the earth will but so complicated and a simple circular orbit does not exist. some orbits may just therefore, if there are any planet with 2 suns, their orbit is always irregular. and an irregular orbit will result large temperature different.

moreover, our earth motion creates day and night, for so many year, it just changes a bit. and it help creature build a biological clock. but when there are 2 suns, the day and night will goes crazy. one tricky thing may happen is the cycle of the 2 suns are in prime number. say, 1 sun goes 7 hours for completing a cycle while another sun is goes 13 hours. thus, a complete cycle is 7x13 = 91 hours ( the LCM). with in this 91 hours, the day and night time is like this:

you see there are very short day and night some time, while very long sometime. this again, it very difficult for creature to adopt or to develop a energy spending and storing style, which it what the biological clock for. the clock tell it, it is time to spend energy, and it is time for eat, store some energy. Never the less, there many be some creature in space can stand for this crazy living style.

the day time and night time, positive is day, negative is night. the x-axis is hour.

for comparing, this the the day and night of earth.

(* graph by wolframalpha.com *)

there fore, when scientists are looking for some planet that may have life form. they always looking for a single sun system. because it can have circular orbit. and stable orbit.

**************
there may be a stable orbit for 2 sun system. the 2 suns are orbiting each other close by and the planet just far away of them. when looking at far away, the 2 closed-sun like 1 single sun. the other way is 1 sun is so big and the other is like a planet circulating around. it is similar for a bigger size solar system, while the Jupiter becomes a sun.

but in the case the 2 suns are similar size, and the planet are not far away, there are not stable orbit on it.

a little reminder about critical thinking

2011-01-15T16:57:00.000Z

as i a half nuclear scientist, i have some degree of critical thinking and i use it almost everywhere in my life. and i hope, ordinary people, especially when reading newspapers and chinese. in the matter of fact, the knowledge level of chinese is high but the critical thinking is low.

the basic is really simple, well, the simple thing is the hardest thing to do, like changing your habit.

questioning on relationship, on the reason for cause and consequences.

for example, does the background of a politician really that important? is the honestly of a politician is a must? people always demand many criteria on a position. But most of it, only have statistical relation but not a logical relation. people believe horoscope affect their life, they sure there are some relation between the position of star and fate, but they don't know that it is just a statistical relation, not a logical one.

what is logical relation? a physical law is a logical, a math theorem is logical, which is undeniable, inescapable that if A happened, B must follow.

what is statistical relation? the relations are based on statistic, like "Starbucks coffee is tasty" means it is tasty for most people, base on large number of sample. but it does not mean it MUST tasty. that is the different. and by the way, in this special case, "tasty" or not is really personal. another example is "it is 50% that tmr is sunny." that does not mean tmr must sunny, but it is just a chance. when talk about chance, that lead to another blog to explain. since there are at least 2 scientific ways to define what is chance.

暨南大學圖書館失物招領狀

2011-01-12T14:03:00.000Z

紫色水壺：古有云：「永靈刀，食材回春；紫紋壺，注水不漏。」本以是虛言，今於圖書館一詳，果真不假。初見紫輝攏於此身，化作靈光衝至天廳，轉瞬之間及其靈光盡失，殘損之軀已無鎮八方定四夷之猛，須以其命中之擁者重注其魂；灌其靈。

機車鑰匙/紙/筆：機車鑰匙/紙/筆，三樣物品同時間在圖書館發現，或許是某一種神秘的機緣之下，讓他們在圖書館聚首，流連忘返以至於閉館時他們仍依依不捨至於圖書館之內，請認識或是他們的親屬將他們領回，謝謝合作。

灰色連帽薄型外套：預估持有人為身材嬌小，衣料曾多次洗滌，表面產生出多處不規則分布之毛球，除此之外經由鈕扣上端縫線鬆弛的程度，故可以判定此衣服以多次洗滌，唯一無法推斷的僅剩餘遺失動機與失主為何人，這始終是失物招領版的一大遺憾。

強制汽車責任險保險證：水藍白圖紋底，紅方印落款抬頭，文字端正而樸華，內文謹慎而嚴密，條理清晰且文筆著墨細膩，持寶卡可應事故而不慌亂，攜神物可面災險於無拒抗；但需在遵守行政法律一切安全措施等交通條文的大前提之下方能實用；且此神物已授身於人，且不可二主，請持有人速速前往失物招領中心取回。

moRE

Name of wars

2011-01-11T15:22:00.000Z

When I look at some Japanese history books, ok, I don't understand at all, I just recognize the Chinese letters or the Kanji. One thing I notices is, the name of wars are so different than what we learn in china. And then, I check the wiki, and I found that it is not the problem of Japanese but Chinese!

For example. The Sino-Japanese war, in Japanese, they call it china-japan war. But Chinese call anti-Japanese war.

This term "anti-Japanese" war, if Chinese is still using it, then it shows that Chinese didnot have a proper view of the history but just keep in mind that they are the victim.

In every battle or war in the history, the name of those never indicate the victor or loser, the attacker or defender. This is because of an unbiased view. Can you imagine we call the 2nd world war as anti-axis war? Or anti-Nazi war? The civil war of north america be the anti-north or anti-south war? No, because those biased name distorted the understanding of the war. And also, we don't know which side is good or bad, since war is inhuman in anyway. As war is not about right or wrong or justice but just victor or loser, tactic and strategy.

Anyway, when the day Chinese can say it is the china-japan war instead of anti-Japan war, that is the time Chinese can walk out the shadow of it.

Never the less, I truly believe that Chinese government means to keep that name and educate to their people, coz they think that can take most advantage against japan in any political issues. It is just like "you are criminal 60 years ago. Although you are clean after that, but you are still criminal, so shut up and listen to me."

If we careful enough , we can see, when Chinese government is losing on the negotiating with japan, she will bring out the war. In fact, that really annoying Japanese and bring untruth, since china already said forgiven the war many many years ago. but till now aday, they keep on bringing it back on the table, that make not just japan but neighbor countries feel china has no honor and loyalty, just like a little girl.

Slide rule

2011-01-09T13:38:00.002Z

Before electric calculator was born, scientists, engineers, accountants and many people demand a tool for accurate calculation without paper and pencil.

After the discovery/innovation of log function. Slide rule was born.

The significant of log function is, it turns a multiplication/division into simple add/subtract. Because:

Log( m x n ) = log( m ) + log( n )

For example:

100 x 1000 = x

We can directly multiple and give the answer, but we can also take log from both side.

Log( 100 x 1000 ) = log ( 100 ) + log ( 1000 ) = log ( x )

2 + 3 = 5 = log ( x )

then, we inverse the log, which is 10^( ). More detail :

If : Log ( x ) = y

Then : x = 10^( y ) , by 10^( log ( x ) ) = x

Back to the topic,

5 = log ( x ) => 10^5 = x

See? For this simple illustration, the multiplication become intuitive adding!

If we have a ruler, on it, already marked the log of number. I. E., the numbers are not evenly distributed on the ruler, not same distance between 2 to 1 and 3 to 2, but marker of 2 is at length log (2) beyond marker of 1, marker 3 is at length log (3) beyond marker of 1, which is to say, a log scale.

Make 2 of such kind of ruler, then we are having a slide rule!

You can pick 2 ordinary rulers and try to do adding and subtraction, but it is naive and boring.

When you have 2 rulers in log scale, things are wonderful! When you adding length, "adding" number, you are actually doing multiplication!

Now aday, there are many function on a slide rule. And they no longer in ruler form but a circular form.

The simplest way to do calculation on slide rule is remember follow principle.

There are many rows on one slide rules. Basically C and D.

The number(x) in these row is read as C(x) = log (x) and D(x) = log (x), when you adding C row and D row, you are doing:

C(x) + D(y) = log (x) + log (y) = log (x * y) = D (x * y)

C(x) + D(y) = D(x*y)

The thing inside the log is the answer you want.

The actually step is for doing is, align D(x) by C(1), then read the D row on C(y). Simple!

There are other rows:

A(x) = B(x) = log(x^0.5)

K(x) = log(x^(1/3))

Cl(x) = log(1/x)

L(x) = log( 10^x ) = x

LL2(x) = log ( ln^(x) ), ln is natural log , x from 1.11 to e

LL3(x) = log ( ln^(x) ) x from e to 20000

S(x) = log ( sin(x) ) , x from 0 to 90 degrees

T1(x) = log ( tan(x) ) , x from 6 to 45 degrees

T2(x) = log ( tan(x) ) , x from 45 to 90 degrees

ST(x) = log ( tan(x) ) = log ( sin(x) ) , x from 40' to 6 degrees. Since sin and tan are almost the same in this small angle.

another way to read is :

A and B row is square of D row.

K row is order 3 of D row.

Cl row is inverse of D row.

L row is log of D row, which has a normal scale.

LL2 is exponential of D row in range of 0.05 to 1.

LL2 is exponential of D row in range of 1 to 10.

S row is arcsin of D row, in range of 0.105 to 1.

T1 row is arctan of D row in range of 0.105 to 1.

T2 row is arctan of D row in range of 1 to 9.5.

ST row is arcsin or arctan of D row in range of 0.0116 to 0.105.

See? The slide rule has every function!

and it has memory if there is a pointer!!

The last thing to keep in mind is, the digit has to keep in mind, for example, 2 x 6 = 1.2 in slide rule, but you knew that the 10 is missing.

or, you can use A row and B row. A(x)+ B(y) = A (x*y), and the range of A is from 1 to 100!

A wonderful thing on slide rule is, it is very good in calculating the form :

u x v / w

You just have to align D(u) with C(w) and read the D row on C(v)! One step, KO!

There are many fancy calculations on slide rule. Buy one now! ( interesting people can contact me and I send you one with price. ;P )

Slide rule 2

2011-01-09T13:37:00.002Z

We knew that slide rule can do multiplication. This post is focus on the applications.

Ratio:
That is the simplest function I can think of. For example, exchange rate. Say, 1 USD = 7.78 HKD. We simply set the D row be USD, C row be HKD. Align the C(7.78) on D(1), then done! If you want to check 4.5 USD = ? HKD, look at the D(4.5) and find out the number in C row.
10 HKD = ? USD, look at the C(10) and find the number on D row.

Given the c and a, find out the b in a^2+b^2= c^2 :
since b = Sqrt(c^2-a^2) = Sqrt( (c+a) (c-a) ) = Sqrt(c+a) Sqrt(c-a)
Thus, we have to use the A and B row, which is Sqrt root.
First, locate A(c+a) and align B(1) on it, check the B(c-a) and read the D row.

Square of x = x^2 :
using the fact that A(x) = D ( Sqrt(x) ) <-> A(x^2) = D(x), so simple read the A row of D(x).

Division x / y :
Locate D(x) and align C(y) on it, read the D row on the C(1). This is a reverse process of multiplication! We really do thing in backward sequence!
another way to do this is using n / m = n x 1/m, thus, Locate D(n) on Cl(1) and read the D row on Cl(m).

another use of Cl row :
For ruler shape user, you will find out 2x6 will be out range, the ruler is just long enough. So, you are going to use the Cl row. The principle is, n x m = n / (1/m), a multiplication is equal 2 times division. The step is: align D(n) on Cl(m), than read the D row on Cl(1). You will find that the answer is 10 times lesser. This out-range problem can be overcome by a circlur slide rule.

10^x :
we have to use the L row. locate the L(x) and read the corresponding C row or D row, no need to slide.

log(x) :
if x <10 , use D(x) and read L rowif 100>x >10, use D(x) and read L row, but add 1.
if 1000>x>100, add 2 on the L row.

e^x :
from the fact that, if LL2(x) = D( ln(x) <-> LL2( e^x) = D(x). so, read the LL2 row on the D(x). and if it is out range, use LL3.
e.g.

a^x :
this times, we have to use the fact that a^x = e ^ ( x ln(a) ). so, we align the C(1) on LL2(a), then the LL3 or LL2 row on C(x), the decision on whether LL2 or LL3 is on the range of the result. The reason for this is, LL2(a) + C(x) = log( ln^(a) ) + log (x) = log ( x ln(a) ) = D( x ln(a) ) = LL2( e^ (x ln(a) ) = LL2 (a^x).
e.g.
2^1.1 : LL2(2) + C(1.1) = LL2(2.14)
2^2 : LL2(2) + C(2) = LL3(4)
3^n : LL3(3) + C(n) = LL3( 3^n)

log(x, base a) :
log(x, base a) = log(x) / log(a). this is quit complicate as there is only 1 L row.

x + y :
L(x) + L(y) = D( 10^x) + D (10^y) = D (10^(x+y)) = L (x + y)
align D(1) with L(x), read the D row of L(y) = D(z), remember, and read the L row on D(z).

by applying the above methods, one can calculate everything. The master of slide rule skill require deep understanding of log function, and inverse function. Thus, this is a very good tool to train mathematical skill.

for example,

Sqrt( x^2 + y^2 ) :
use square method, and apply addition method, then use square root method.

Not safe in office

2010-12-23T13:13:00.001Z

SuicideGirl Belle and Sebastian Music Video - NSFW from SuicideGirls on Vimeo.

My friend, she wants
To be a Suicide Girl
I'll take her picture
For the whole wide world
I've known her for a long time
You could say that I'm a fan
But I always thought that
I would be her man

My friend, she wants
To be the girl of suicide
She wants a number
For her radical side
I know that she is special
I can see what she has got
But what I have loved and guarded close,
She will take, and to the world exposed,
She gives it all away.

My friend
She sometimes gets anxiety and stress
She got a manual
From the NHS
She proclaims a week of sadness!
Please abstain from telling jokes!
The world will see her poet emerge
A butterfly to empathy
I know that I can do it
I'm in to light, I'm in to shade
But let's face the facts
We ain't going back
When she takes off her clothes
We'll never be the same again!

聖誕半裸派對

2010-12-23T06:04:00.003Z

Do you hear what i hear

2010-12-23T05:09:00.001Z

this is a classic Xmas song.

the rhythm is very nice.

the lyric is very classic....al shit.

one point i very dislike about religion is, they always demand a superpower, a king, a super hero to save to world. then, the rest can sit beside, waiting for being saved and may be having sex at the mean while.

thus, they always under-estimate the power of ourself.

and that is what i think why the religion can not save the world, in fact, they are trying to save it for 2000 years!!! and fail!

Jump!

2010-12-18T05:52:00.002Z

起床 Get Up!

2010-12-16T15:58:00.001Z

由鬧鐘響起的一刻，爭扎便開始。

At the moment the alarm shouting, a struggle has began, ironically, the very first idea is NOT wake up. when we start to flight against this idea, our hand was already betrayed us by pressing the snooze button. although our hand saved us from this struggling decision, plenty of decisions just started. Is it the Welcome to the beginning of a day!?

The first thing to be decided, well, you can argue that it is not first, but it is hard to say we were really deciding to press the snooze button on our own, anyway, the 1st is when is the best time to wake up, well, it means, when is the last time I should wake up before too late. Can I sleep 5 more mins? 10? Oh, may be 15. 5 min is never been so precious and the most interesting thing is, we can think really fast! Within the 5 min between pressed the snooze button to the next alarm, i already figuring at least 3 possibilities. the 1st is, may be i can skip the morning shower, by the way, the weather is not so cold, i did not sweat last night, that's save 15mins. 2nd, may be i can skip the breakfast, thus save another 10 mins. 3rd, um,,, may be i don't shave this morning. my beard is not so long...and more and more...

then the alarm ring again. um... no matter how i change the alarm sound. it will turn out to be the most annoying sound ever. i better no use my favorite music as a morning clock alarm....

After pressed the snooze for 2nd times, delay seem to be far from satisfactory. and start to think about ABSENT. may be the class is not important, i can catch up by myself in half hour. it will be save. may be no one will care weather i am there or not. Really? will my classmate miss me? will my professor care? i was quite active and involved in the class. will my absent disappointed my professor?

the sound of the 3rd alarm strike into my mind. and now, i barely open my heavy eye lips, i just wish i am sick and have a good reason to be absent! when the number on the clock is clear....

What!!!! how come it is faster by 10 more mins??? it should be the 3rd alarm, not 4th! are you fucking me??? hah??

Ok, better take a hot shower and shave my beard, have a full breakfast, i feel quite hungry in this morning and eventually, it is the breakfast is breaking slow and i was late in the class.....

how to know "right" is right!

2010-11-27T04:36:00.000Z

Inspired by 怎知對是對

so far, human can only deal with logic in mathematics to prove somethings right or wrong in a consistence structure/system. or you can call it "proof is contained". (in fact, the Gödel's incompleteness theorems stated that there are somethings cannot be proved even in mathematics!)

For things not within the kingdom of science, there is nothing right or wrong. only popular or not, eyes catching or not. an example is the Marx's communism, he said that it is "logical", "scientific", but when you look at the arguments, it is simply a set of opinions without or cannot be proved. the so called "social science", is nothing science at all, or, a weak science. why? because they use hundred and thousand of assumptions. Comparing with social science with mathematics, physics or some what strong science, we can see that those are only based on few assumptions. take the Euclid's Elements as an example, the book 1 only has 23 definitions and 5 postulate, and by these, the whole set of 2nd school geometry was built.

in my opinion, we only have few things can be said "right" or "wrong", coz most others are not subject to prove! so, if we want to know "how to know right is right", we have to ask it within an area that "right" or "wrong" is well-defined.

One idea for promoting sport and excerise.

2010-09-25T17:38:00.001+01:00

Use those health care commercials, but when the product show up, change it to say,

'Don't want that happen on you, excerise now!'

'according to servey, it is due to lack of exercise."

' your skin can back 10 years after you have regular exercise."

' Stressful? Feel full but hungry? sport can save you!'

an idea for genetic food

2010-09-25T17:37:00.002+01:00

plants can be feed by sea water.

it also help to fight for fresh water saving.

Getting Wiser

2010-08-30T19:31:00.000+01:00

depends on Laws (privacy selling)

2010-08-13T02:50:00.002+01:00

selling personal data to 3rd party by bank, telecommunication companies is a hot issue in hong kong.

yes, people can rely on setting up a law, to restrict and open the use of personal data (PD).

i think it is stupid and silly.

because the responsibility is on ourself, on the people, not the government.

1, people have to open a bank account, a cell phone to survive in society. our PD has to hand out to them. the contact designed by the companies must contain the right of using those PD. even those we set a law to constraint the design, like bigger letter, color letter. Can we say a NO?? can we not sign the contract?

2, the PD has value, because company can make profit on it, like cold call, or other mean. Anyway, they can provide some products and make profit. therefore, some people do buy the product from cold call. the hold market can survive, cannot only has those companies, but no customer! and also, some people has to work on this, to make the phone call. people can live from it!

in my opinion, people has to say NO to EVERY cold call. if no one buy the product, the product cannot make profit, the PD will be useless.

However, if follow this thinking, this mean, the company can really sell those data to make profit, some people really buying the product!

all in all, i mean it is in fact not a problem, it is just a economic issue. and the chaos from selling PD is just a adaption period of a new business. people has to learn how to say no, stand up to themselves.

one very interesting thing is, the Octopus company earned 40 million HKD from selling PD, why no body sue it and ask for compensation? we can ask for the legislator near you! why no body do that? if it is really a matter, why no people move?

That is the reason why i like 'kick-ass' !

*********************
telecommunication should show which company is calling from. in fact, this is no new technology, but just no one use. why we have to remember a number, instead of the company name to make a phone call?

When lost

2010-07-23T06:42:00.008+01:00

of course we should pursuit our dream. i think we are now dealing with a goal, a short term goal of a long life. The trouble was happened because you cannot reach your goal, not your dream, right?

A GOAL should be designed after we understood ourself, our strength, our value, and our position.

while a dream can be anything make me happy.

i believe you are now not satisfy, not feeling fulfilled from your post. and you want to be a person-in-charge for companies loan. i suggest you should answer those questions in that article, before you can persuade others, and also give yourself a solid foundation for doing that.

1, 我有哪些長處？ What Are My Strengths?

2, 我的作事方法為何？ How Do I Perform?

3, 我的價值觀是什麼？ What Are My Values?

4, 我歸屬於何處？Where Do I Belong?

5, 我應該貢獻什麼？ What Should I Contribute?

when you can answer those questions and present them to your boss in this way:

是的，我願意做這件事，但我會用這種方式來做這件事；此事應該如此架構；與其他伙伴的關係應該是這樣；你可以預期我達成這些成果，預估的時間是如何如何，因為我就是這樣的人。

Yes, I will do that. But this is the way I should be doing it. This is the way it should be structured. This is the way the relationships should be. These are the kind of results you should expect from me, and in this time frame, because this is who I am.

Then, i think everyone will give you a chance. =)

managing oneself.pdf (with highlight)

研究計画

2010-07-23T06:42:00.002+01:00

I am going to take part in Nuclear Physics for investigate a method of proton spin polarization under high temperature and low magnetic field strength and others related research, such as the scattering of heavy isotopes on polarized proton target. The project is branch of Dynamic nuclear polarization, which is transferring spin polarization from electrons to nuclei (protons) by cross polarization.

The polarization of proton can be used in width range of applications. It is called Hyper-polarization, because the polarization beyond thermal equilibrium or the Boltzmann Distribution. This can be applied to enhance the efficiency of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and improve the resolution and application range of Magnetic Resonance Imagining (MRI), which has greatly useful from medical, chemistry to quantum computing.

One important application of the polarized proton is investigate the nuclear structure. For example, polarization study of unstable isotopes by scattering it with highly polarized proton target. Since the current technique is difficult and expensive to achieve low temperature (sub-Kevin degrees) and high magnetic field (several Teslas). The thermal movement of atoms will destroy the polarized electron spin by collision with other atoms. Therefore, lower temperature can get better polarization efficiency. According to the Curie's law, the magnetization, or the electron spin polarization, is proportional to the external magnetic field and inversely proportional to temperature. Therefore, low temperature and high magnetic field is essential for spin polarization. The study is hard to be deployed.

Currently, Professor Tomohiro Uesaka's group had achieved the polarization at temperature 100 K and magnetic field strength 0.1 T. The resultant proton polarization rate is 20%. The group use doped crystal of naphthalene (C₁₀H₈) as the polarization target, because of the π-electrons play an important role in the “Inter-system crossing” among different energy levels. Therefore, the group use Laser as a mean for exciting the electrons and undergo energy level transition. The electrons will be distributed on a triplet state m = +1, 0, -1 with different population and then polarized. By cross polarization, the group is able to polarize the proton spin.

The main objectives for my doctoral research is to investigate and improve the condition for maximize the polarization rate. The spin of proton also contributes magnetic field. The polarized proton spin gives a much stronger magnetic field. Professor T. Uesaka's group uses total magnetization (Polarization ratio times Total volume of the crystal) per power of laser as a measurement of the polarization efficiency. The current efficiency is around 7 [% mm³ / mW]. At this point, if the efficiency keeps unchanged, higher laser power will give out higher polarization ratio. The bigger challenge will be a higher ration, bigger crystal volume and lower laser power. Another improvement is increasing the working temperature or lowering the magnetic field while keeping the polarization ratio the same. This is possible in theory, because the population of the triplet state is independent of temperature and magnetic field.

By studying the spin polarization, several possibilities will be opened, such as applying the spin dynamic into quantum computing or study unstable heavy nuclei, like O-22, (which has 16 neutrons), C-22; or He-8. The unstable nuclei has un-ordinary spin-orbit coupling that changed the fine structure in nuclear system. This is an important discovery in modern physic that explained why some isotopes are more stable than others. The fine structure in nuclear system is similar to atomic system. The strong nuclear force in the nuclear shell model plays a similar role as the electromagnetic force in the electron shell model. The shell model gives protons and neutrons orbiting in shells. Thus, spin-orbit coupling will change the energy level. In 1963, Wigner, Mayer and Jensen shared a Nobel Prize for it. The change of fine structure of an unstable nuclei can be largely different form a stable one. With the help of a strong magnetic field from a strongly polarized crystal, we can study of the spin-orbit coupling. Therefore, proton spin polarization is a foundation for future research and study.

I have a vision after I finished the course. I become both skillful in experimental technique and mastering theories. I believe this is basic requirement for research career. Besides knowledge, I wish through out studying oversea, I could able to learn how to work with others, who are from different countries and cultures. Also, I can live by myself and look after others. These are very crucial for doing research and personal enhancement as well. At last, I want to become a mature and professional scientist. That is my dream and also my parent's.

Field of Study (as a reminder )

2010-07-23T06:41:00.002+01:00

My major interest in physics is the electromagnetic theory, especially optics, from geometry optics, wave optics to laser. I was extensively trained with electromagnetism courses. I am able to solve the Maxwell’s equations analytically in specific geometries and numerically in most geometry. My first research project on my bachelor course is about the structural color in nature, like the scales of butterflies, bees and seashells. After employed modern laboratory techniques, such as SEM (scanning electronic microscope), TEM (tunneling electronic microscope), and our group revealed that the color of butterflies is based on a very simple principle – multiple thin films reflection or interference. The color is not form pigment as most people though, it is completely form the microstructures of chintin, which is a common material in nature. By changing the thickness or geometry of the structure, we are able to change the color reflected.

The second research project is about fabrication of the structural color or the photonic crystal, by using holographic lithography. Holographic lithography records the intensity pattern from laser beams interference and forms structures on a photoresis. The size of the interference pattern is determined by the wavelength of the laser used. A UV laser is able to produce 200 to 800 nm sub-micro structures. The structures at this scale can push the optical respond range to visible range. This method is also able to produce a large sample (5 X 5 mm²) by expanded the laser beams. A large sample makes optical spectrum measurements possible.

The objective of the project is fabrication of a sub-mirco-sized gold particles array and study of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) when EM wave incidents on it. The surface plasmon is a quantized state of the vibration of surface electrons; thus, only metallic or conductive structures have such effect. For a single gold particle, the frequency of the quantized state is given by the size and geometry. A simple imagine is the gold particle was polarized and like a giant dipole oscillating with the external field. The effect of single dipole is weak and impossible for measurement. The array of dipoles will give strong and extraordinary effect when they are in resonance. One example is the extinction, which is defined as log(1/T), there T is transmission. The high extinction means low transmission. Our group found that the extinction peak was blue shifted from elliptical spheroid to good sphere. The result is same as numerical simulation.

My master research project follows the same technique. But instead of fabricate gold particles array, I were going to fabricate spiral structures. The fabrication required interference of 1 circularly polarized beam and 6 linearly polarized beams with very fine optical alignment. Therefore, the project took a lot of time for fine-tuning and optimization of the laser beams configurations, such as incident angles, polarization, and intensity. We also used computer simulation not only in the design stage, but also in the improvement stage. We are able to find out the factors that creates defect in our sample. Our group had also designed and set-up the measurement equipment and technique for measure the full state of light polarization with limited equipments. The special effect for a polarized light pass through a chiral slab is the wavelength dependence of the change of polarization angle. The polarization angle of blue light will be rotated larger than that of red light. The result can be explained by classical EM theory with the introduction of chirality factor in the characteristic equations that connect the electric displacement field and magnetic induction with the electric field and magnetic field.

I am also interested in the atomic structure. Therefore, I took 4 related experiments on a modern laboratory course. They are Millikan oil drop, Zeeman Effect, Optical Pumping and ESR (electron spin resonance). Those experiments not only enhanced my understanding, but also polished my experimental skill. Moreover, those experiments bring me into the real world that is a lot different in the theory. There are a lot unexpected and practice issues appear when performing an experiment. That is the fun and interesting aspect of doing experiment.

Wisdom

2010-07-20T14:38:00.000+01:00

1 bottle or 3 bottles? (II)

2010-07-18T04:55:00.000+01:00

Extend reading : 1 bottle or 3 bottles

In that article, i used the expectation of "Utility" replacing the expectation of "bottle".

somethings wrong with this. isn't it?

because the expectation is still there. the reality only approach to the expectation when there are many many trials.

but wait, Are we really using the expectation of "Utility", or just compare the utility for different results?

if we have equal utility for both 1-sure-bottle and 1-unsure-bottle. thus, 1 side has total utility is 1 and other side is 3. in this case, since we treat both kind of bottle are the same, so, we, of course, choose to bet the 3-bottles.

So, the question is, How the uncertainly devalue the utility?

well, it may different from different people. and by only compare the total utility, we can know, if the utility for a 1-unsure-bottle is lower then 1/3, then people will not like to take the gambling.

but what is different now? i think what i say is still running around the question!

think about what is utility? it means how would you like the trade or compare different things. so, we still using "utility" replaces "bottle"!!!

we just assign a value to each bottle and then say, "hey, i like this more than that, is because the assigned value are different!" which is simple to say, "i made up a reason & regardless of the chance."

**********************************

in the game holder view point.

he has to buy many equal bottles, which has value , say, 1$.

the cost of 1 sure-bottle is 1$, and 3-unsure-bottle is 3$, with 1/2 chance. the expectation of cost is 1.5$.

when he hold the game. the value of unsure-bottle devalue, or, relatively the sure-bottle up-value to 1.5$ for loss free.

Interview

2010-07-13T13:22:00.002+01:00

Today, i encounter a funny question when interview.

interviewer, " What do you expect or seek from the job? money? working experience? future development? "

me, " Can i have them all? "

interviewer, " Yes, sure, but you have to rank them, which one is on the top of the list? "

me, " if i have to rank it, is it mean your company cannot provide all of them? "

interviewer, " Yes, we can, but we have to look your characteristic and preference, so, we can give you the most suitable training and development plan. "

me, " Ok, i prefer all of them. :) Does your company have a plan for people looking for all of them? Does your company have to divide people like this? money, working experiment and future development is a constant sum. One more, the others must be less? "

interviewer, " ................... "

i guess, the interviewer fall in a trap set by herself. her question is implying only one of them, this is the answer she have to find out. and She insists to it and believe people can be classified like this.

At last, she only can say "yes", when i asked a negative question, she fail to respond. In Asia, people fear to disagree. disagree = disrespect are equal in most people mind. But it is not true.

job title

2010-07-03T17:51:00.002+01:00

As Companies like to make fancy title for very normal job, as if this can make the job more fun or professional. here some suggestions:

for those who graduated from school of engineering:

Insurance engineer 保險工程師 (who is a insurance salesman)
Tele-Sale engineer 電銷工程師(who is a tele-salesman)
Education engineer 教育工程師(who is a teacher or teaching assistance)
Audit engineer 審計工程師 ( who is working in audit)
Hygiene engineer 衛生工程師( who may be a toilet cleaner with a degree in engineering )
Transportation engineer 運輸工程師( who is driver for transportation, like bus driver, but, with a degree in engineering )
Garment engineer ( who is working in garment industry )

As long as the working is holding a degree in engineer, he/she more or less will solve problem in engineering way, so, added a title with engineer should be proper and sound professional!

For those who graduated from humanities :

Insurance humanist (who is a insurance salesman)
Tele-Sale humanist (who is a tele-salesman)
Education humanist (who is a teacher or teaching assistance)
Audit humanist ( who is working in audit)
Hygiene humanist ( who may be a toilet cleaner with a degree in engineering )
Transportation humanist ( who is driver for transportation, like bus driver, but, with a degree in engineering )
Garment humanist ( who is working in garment industry )

For those who graduated from chemistry:

Insurance chemist (who is a insurance salesman)
Tele-Sale chemist (who is a tele-salesman)
Education chemist (who is a teacher or teaching assistance)
Audit chemist ( who is working in audit)
Hygiene chemist ( who may be a toilet cleaner with a degree in engineering )
Transportation chemist ( who is driver for transportation, like bus driver, but, with a degree in engineering )
Garment chemist ( who is working in garment industry )

what is your Job nature and your degree ?

For me now:

Housekeeping Physicist :P

Incentives mechanics

2010-07-03T03:41:00.000+01:00

Can people be treated as a mechanics?

Animals can.

when we have 2 choices, we will pick up the most valuable one, or the better one, according to our utility function. we tend to spend less and get more. say, the price of a can of coke is cheaper then a bottle of milk, and the satisfaction (or the utility ) is the same for me, i will take the coke, coz i can spend less but get higher satisfaction. when the coke is $1 and the milk is $2, and and now, i prefer milk more, then i may take the milk. In such a case, when a problem exist a optimum solution via analysis, i will like the call : Un-choos-able Choice. quot from Shakespeare: be or not to be, it is not a question.

an indifferent choice raised when the 2 choices are same cost and the satisfactions also the same. Then, i will call this is a Indifferent Choice.

Like everything, there is a margin for uncertainty. for example, a red dress is $100, a green dress is $101. can we really "feel the different"? are we so sensitive for a small different. how many people can really tell the different between following number"

1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 4/5, 5/6, 2/5, 3/5...

unless we changed to digital number.

0.50, 0.67, 0.75, 0.80, 0.83, 0.40, 0.60

OK, what am i talking about this?

the reason is, we act according to different situation, different feed-back, different input. For those Un-choos-able Choice, there is no freedom at all, (unless we are stupid ).

Even for those Indifferent choice, we can increase the incentive, then we can make it be a Un-choos-able choice.

We all be driving by the incentive.

unless the assumption is not correct : we do not tend to spend less and get more.

is it the beginning of moral? How about sacrifice?

We are not different at all.

2010-06-19T16:24:00.001+01:00

In Asia, people can see the different from different country, we can tell, Chinese, Japanese, Koren, Taiwanese, are different. and even people can tell, Tokyo'er, Kyoto'er are different, Hong Kong'er and Shanghai'er are different.

In Europe, people can do a similar things. they can distinguish Germany, British, Greek.

Similar in Middle East.

People know their neighborhood very well, and able to classify. one result is, a boundary is built. freedom lost, conflict raised.

From Westerners eyes, Asian are Asian, we are almost the same. If we are the same, why we kill each other? why we can not understand each other? it is just because "countries" ?

If we have a bigger picture, Human are similar, we share 99.9999999% of same DNA! our structure or ingredient are the same! May be less the different between Coke and Pepsi !!

If we have even a bigger picture, all living creature are similar! we have to live in this earth. why not cooperate?? making things better to each other, Win-win situation.

In order to have bigger picture, we have to learn and discover. Move now!

致知在格物

曾余辯 by ATV

2010-06-18T00:55:00.002+01:00

1 bottle or 3 bottles ?

2010-06-14T21:14:00.002+01:00

there is a game:

you can get 1 free bottle. or you bet this bottle, for a chance of 1/2 for 3 bottles or 0 bottle.

what will you do?

In logic, you should bet the bottle, coz the expectation is 1.5 bottle, while the other one is 1 bottle only.

However, don't for get what is "expectation", which is the mean gain from large number of trials.

if you only get one chance, what will you do?

may be we can introduce a utility for the bottle. say, you need a bottle so much. like a medicine, you need it for your life, so, the question will become weather you have a bottle for sure or chance for more or zero bottle. Thus, 3 bottles for you may be not so useful, attractive or necessary. therefore, if people have no bottle on their hands, they will prefer to have the guarantee bottle.

If people already has few bottle on their hands, thus, the guarantee bottle is not so attractive. so, why not gambling?

The utility function can be like this. it depends on the result, on how many bottles people already have.

For no bottle people, their utility function may be 1 for the guarantee bottle and also 1 for the 3-unsure-bottles. means both of them is equal attractive. thus, the expectation of utility is 1 to 1/2, ok, pick the guarantee one.

For had some bottles people, the 1 bottle may be only 1 for them, but 3 for the 3 bottles, which means, the 3 bottles is more attractive. the expected utility is 1 to 3/2. Gambling.

How about the 3 bottles changed to 100 bottles?

the utility changed. and you can see, different people has different utility.

*******************
Let's talk about utility.

although utility is different from different people, it can be compare within same people.

what does it mean i like coke more than milk? if my utility function for coke is 3, milk is 1. thus. i like to trade 1 coke for 3 milk in order i got satisfy.

wait! how about i hate milk? at this case, the utility of milk will be negative, say -1. Thus, no matter how, i will not trade a coke for milk!

next time, if you want to compare somethings logically, try to think how many of these can trade for that.
*******************

back to the game.

in order people will gambling even they got no bottle, the utility must be 1 for the 1-bottle and at least 2 for the 3-bottles. This means, you like to use 2 guarantee-bottles for 3 unsure-bottles. the uncertainty lower the attractive to 2/3 for each unsure-bottle.

How about in 1-sure-bottle vs 100-unsure-bottles with 1/2 chance?

the utility for choosing 100-unsure-bottles is still at least >2 . and the attractive for each unsure-bottle becomes at least 1/50 due to the uncertainly. we can see, this de-valuation is so huge. many people will agree the attractive of a unsure-bottle should be more than 1/50. say, 1/2. Thus, from the utility, we can see the total utility for 100-unsure-bottles is 50, very easy to larger than 2. Therefore, people may even choose to take the chance even though they did not have any bottle.

******************
Other issue, in the game holder view point.

people can buy a coke or buy a chance to win 3 coke with same price.

............um.... i have to think about this......

How about apply this "trading" for politics? to solve conflict? like terrorism?
How much they can trade for the "Muslim" to stable life?

An observation on a Turkish class.

2010-06-14T14:15:00.002+01:00

The class room is no fans. Like a tutorial, not using powerpoint. Students can speak and talk to the professor like they are chatting. Students are active, responsive. No lectture notice, student write their own. So, it quite depends on th talent of each student. Ebru does not take note, while most studnt are taking. Is she good? Or just lazy? But it seem that her way of study is by listening, rather than note taking. My style as well.

The classroom is quite hot.

The writing of the professor is quite un-organized. Some where there, some where here. But he write down the point, and develop it. Note taking students may be a problem. Words are small on the white board.

No clock.

The professor is quite talkable. He come back to previous idea. Alhough the equiment is not as good as hk, student are btter. May be also the subject are different. Economic and phyics. By the way, why economic cannot be teach in a mathematical way? Lets the formula and logic tell the story.

In physics class, a lot of mathematics. Well, no. Only othere subject less mathematic.

His writing is real ugly.he needs a copy-book. =)

He use questions, to raise up curiosity to students, and tell them the answer.

Some Turkish suffix

2010-06-14T14:09:00.006+01:00

"to be" / continuous tense / future tense / aorist tense:

+ (y)im i
   sin you
   [nothing] he/she/it
   (y)iz we
   siniz you (plural / formal )
   ler they

past tense :

+ m i

n you

[nothing] he/she/it

k we

niz you (plural / formal )

ler they

possessive :

+ (i) m my

(i) n your

(s) i (n) his / her / its

(i) miz our

(i) niz your (plural / formal )

leri (n) their

optative :

+ yim i

sin you

[nothing] he/she/it

lim we

siniz you (plural / formal )

sinler they

E = m c square

2010-06-14T13:41:00.003+01:00

There are 3 mass definitions:

inertial mass, which respond with acceleration when force applied.
gravitational mass, which produced the among of force by gravity.
relativistic mass, which is a fictional mass created by Einstein.

Many people say, when something get heated, than energy increased, thus the mass increased and it becomes heavier. According to Einstein's equation E = m c^2. Completely incorrect. They totally mix all three definitions of mass all together, and has a mis-understanding of heavy and "hard to be moved".

This equation tells us that mass and energy are equal, mass can change to energy and vice versa.

therefore, as long as the kinetic energy still "functioning", as shown that the heated thing still hot. thus the energy did not covered to mass yet.

In nuclear reaction:

He-4 + N-14 -> O-17 + H-1

the mass of He-4 + N-14 = 18.00567 unit
the mass of O-17 + H-1 = 18.00696 unit

The gain of mass from energy. the energy is needed because, the 2 nuclei has great electromagnetic force between 2 cluster of protons. After the combination, the kinetic energy will be converted to mass, as a blinding energy.

To fully understand this equal, we have to distinguish 2 similar but different concepts - equivalent and exchange. Both concepts are simple. They mean the same or equal value. Like 1 US dollar can exchange/equivalent for 7.8 HK dollars. However they are little bit different.

First of all, may be we should return to a more fundamental equation:

E = K + mc^2

Where K is the kinetic energy, m is the rest mass of the object.

This equation means the total energy contains 2 parts. 1st is the kinetic part (you can say, the energy because of motion), 2nd is the mass part (you can say, the still one). Now, you may argue why "Total" energy only has these 2 things, how about sound energy? light energy? chemical energy? The answer is, if you are smart enough, the kinetic part contained all this kind of energy and the truly amazing thing is, mass can be energy as well!!

Let me explain a little bit about the kinetic energy as well. As we known, sound energy is same as vibrating energy of air molecules. For light, it is a non-stop particle (in particle sense), and according to special relativity, it only has kinetic energy but no mass. And for chemical energy, which is in fact electromagnetic energy, which is light energy. How about Potential energy?? Good question! as you can see, for gravitational potential energy, this energy is stored in the field, not on the object.

Thus, E = m c^2 is just a simplified form when there is no kinetic energy.

According to special relativity, it is more harder to accelerate a body for a higher speed. however, it does not implies the body was heavier! More technically, it is because the momentum changes lesser due to non-linear space-time.

remember, there is no relativistic mass. this is a great misleading simplification of Einstein. he likes to simplify equation a lot and he made this:

K + m c ^2 = M c^2

where m is the mass (or rest mass), and M is the so called "relativistic mass".

He introduced this misleading concept because it is much more easy to tell the public why it is harder and harder to reach the light speed.

Correct interpolation for E = m c^2 is exchange, or replace, but not equal. This means, energy or mass can either exist, but not both. Just like you pay 2 dollars for an apple, you will not get back the 2 dollars. another example is light, photon. Photon has energy in electromagnetic form. Does it mean photon has mass? NO, photon has no mass according to special relativity, otherwise, it cannot move in speed of light. Therefore, we can see, the kinetic energy has no contribution to mass.

Best of worst VS Worst of best

2010-06-06T14:07:00.000+01:00

i like to think i am smarter than others, mostly. i am not only can think, generate new ideas, but also make them real.

But the truth is, i am smart just because others are not so good.

take chess as an example.

i beat many people, does it mean i am smarter?

may be, but the more reasonable reason is, i play more.

when practice chess with computer, i knew there are many many tricks and skill i dun know. and my national ranking (if there is any) is below mean of the world chess players.

Thus, the reason that i always win is just because my opponents are not chess player or not played more than i do.

I suddenly recognized that it is so danger for i did not notices that before.

Game VS Life

2010-04-28T19:29:00.000+01:00

many people say life is a game.

i hold a different point of view.

you can quite the game, give up anytime; you cannot give up your life.

you can play again; you don't have 2nd life.

game has rules; life don't have any rule.

Life can be a game, but game is not a life.

no need a lot of different.

Anyway, life is a game can give us some relief when shit happens.

Energy of Life

2010-04-28T19:16:00.003+01:00

The energy of life is the decision of controlling his life. To practice his own will.

My life is my story, i can do what i want. I should be the writer of my story. I can take the responsibility. I can suffer the pain of my action & enjoy the joy of my success.

I love myself, to make myself to be better, every minutes, everyday. I have good things and also bad things. No matter good or bad, they define me. The worst life is acting and fitting other requests, doing what others want me to do, and then, get lost.

That is so called the enlightenment. The wake up of the soul. The realize and practice himself.

Without this, we cannot love. Because we are not free. We are still living for others. Many people are in "love", in fact, they are escaping from loneliness, seeking for security provided by others. They are together because of fear. The good tester is jealous. Can they allow the others has a close friends of opposite gender? Coz, jealous only exist when there is no love, no true trust.

What is love? Love is making things better. Love is originate from oneself. The primary object for love is myself, to realize that he can beloved by himself. And this love can be extended to others. After he love himself, he has confident, he can trust, then he can be independent.

He can control his life.

To control your life, is the will to control your life.

Gucci Proxy

being late

beyond bipolar

When Data does not fit the theory

some thoughts on Hong Kong future and democracy

Path of Physicist

Sleeping problem index

Selfishness among Chinese

Chinese - a concept

僕には簡単じゃないことだよ

Brain vs Heart

Droste effect in Conway's Game of Life

on science

清大彭明輝的部落格: 賈伯斯？他到底為這世界做了什麼好事？

Life span

chess ranking

List of extreme

on fortune teller

recently on chess board

on analysis or descrip one-self

On self-studying

Dark Energy FAQ

Just say it: 十四年亂象回顧（原載七月八日《信報財經新聞》）

民進黨曉得選舉，卻不曉得治國

compare to those worse

陳雲：文言難， 白話也不易——讀張中行《文言和白話》有感

Slavoj Zizek speaks at Occupy Wall St

SkyDrive, Live Mesh, Dropbox and Ubuntu One

"Peace" as a core value?

(轉貼)【中國人新特點】

US's debt crisis

inflation

On the last job on earth

Privacy

Cockroaches

Bomb

Napalm bomb

Pipe bomb

Moltov coctail bomb

Soda bomb

Debate on Resolutions to amend Rules 44 and 45(2), and Rule 45(1) respectively - Margaret Ng

法政隨筆 - 原則與規則 - 吳靄儀

12 Maga Pixels

a response

自由

nice reading.

Words Cloud of this blog

good and bad about iphone

Watson and the Globe of Knowledge

零八憲章

零八憲章(繁体中文版)

一、前言

二、我們的基本理念

三、我們的基本主張

四、結語

Charter 08 (English Version)

I. Foreword

II. Our Fundamental Principles

III. What We Advocate

something i hope everyone must listen

陳雲 is simply wise.

Largest cell and smallest cell

On Google translate ( the app )

If we charge

Food shortage and Decrease in population.

Japanese to English ( for physics )

Things must do in my life

When your boss blame you.

《媽媽，我壓力好大》

Last Christmas

google Art work

on Believe

imagine the speed of light is just 100km per hour

WordPress VS Blogger

Jump!

imagine there are 2 suns

a little reminder about critical thinking

暨南大學圖書館失物招領狀

Name of wars

Slide rule

陳雲：文言難，白話也不易——讀張中行《文言和白話》有感