为什么有些人那么没有正义感？

今日根一个匿名同学谈话。 开始聊学术， 发现他人很投机。 那个山高靠那个山。 没有对一个学科的忠义和献身。

后来又谈了谈政治。 谈到了台湾问题。 他说台湾应该是中国的。 这是说的没有特别离谱， 但是他跟的原因让我很吃惊。

“有了台湾， 就可以采到南海的石油， 还可以控制南海的运输。 在多了， 可以在台湾建立军事基地。”

我 觉得， 这个理由太自私了。 国际社会， 虽然说是自由法则， 但是人类也正在逐渐走向一种道德规范。 国家应该有一种正义感， 公平对待所有民族。 像美国， 为石油大伊拉克， 被全世界大骂。 像英国，为了殖民地和赚钱抢香港买鸦片。 像希特勒， 为了所谓的“德意志民族生存空间”霸占澳洲。 这些是多么自私和不正当的行为啊！ 不能总想着民族利益。 如果民族利益战胜了人类正义， 这就是纳粹。 如果”国家之上”战胜了人类正义， 这就是最狭隘的丑恶，野蛮行为。

为什么有些人那么物质？ / Why are some people so materialistic?

(English below)
昨天跟一个同学聊天， 说到了工作和人生志向。

她说好多同学顶破头挤进了高盛 （Goldman Sachs) 做金融，但是一天工作十六十七个小时， 人很不开心。 去做那工作就是为了赚些钱， 但是赚到了钱又丢到生命的快乐。 我就跟她说， “那他们就辞职干其它工作吧？” 她说， “谁舍得穿的好还有住五星宾馆啊？”

我想了想，难道这些都受过中国最好大学教育的青年思想怎么拜金啊？ 他们觉得奢侈和金钱可以带了真正的幸福和精神满足吗？ 现在中国经济发展，确实有创业家作了极大的贡献， 但是我觉得一个创业家最自豪的不应该是他/她赚了多少钱， 而是他/她战胜了多少挑战而做出了一件伟大的事业。

只知道穿名牌和住 五星宾馆， 他们一辈子的志向就怎么短见啊？ 自己不想给人类留下一种影响吗? 我的最大愿望就是能死前发现我做的一切努力让人类社会变得更好， 能让其他人更幸福。

所以我选择了科学可科技。 我特别喜欢用数学作医药研究 （model-based drug development, bioinformatics). 希望我这辈子可以帮助解除一些人间疾病造成的痛苦。 这样或者才有意义。 光自己享受太狭窄了。

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Yesterday I was chatting with a young female colleague about life and career goals.

She mentioned that many people worked tireless at getting into Goldman Sachs, only to find out the miserable long work hours after they enter. These people enter GS mainly to earn good money. But they cannot find time to enjoy the material that the money can buy. So I mentioned to her, why don't they just quit and find a different job? She said, how could anyone forgive a life of wearing brand name apparels and living in five-star hotels?

I was shocked. How can the best educated students in China be this materialistic? Could they possibly think that money can bring true happiness? As the current economy of China booms, we must admit to the great contributions that new generation of entrepreneurs made. However, their satisfaction should be based on the accumulation of account balance but rather from a sense of achievement for overcoming obstacles.

If you only know about living in luxury hotels and wearing expensive clothes, isn't that a rather short-sighted view of life? Ask yourself, what impact do you want to leave on society? What do you want your legacy to be? A life time of ostentatious hedonism? My own personal goal is to leave the world seeing that it is better place based on my efforts.

This is why I chose science. I hope to use science and technology to make people's lives better. To discover knowledge that would benefit mankind for years to come and to lay foundations for future generations. Living like this instills meaning in life. A lifetime of self-enjoyment is not for me.

Veteran

I was riding on the train and met this fellow Joe. We chatted a bit about baseball. Soon, he told me he spent five years in the U.S. Marines. You can see that such experience had made the man immensely mature and determined.
Before he got off, he showed me his uniformed services card. With shocking casualness, he mentioned that he's discharged now because he got "blown up a few times". It was hard for me to tell but I think one of his leg was a prosthetic attachment.
Now I feel even worse about Bush. For he sent such brave loyal young souls to die for the rich man's oil.
Joe, take care.

Amazing O.R. Analyst, Officer, and Rhodes Scholar from West Point

Check out the incredible story of Joshua Lospinoso. Top graduate from West Point Operations Research, NSF Scholarship recipient, and Rhodes Scholar. This man is incredibly intelligent with a strong sense of service and duty.

远在异国他乡华人的婚姻其实很传统

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4bf5868d01000708.html

身在异乡，深有体会。 但这个作者也太以偏概全了吧？ 我有个加拿大好友是混血人。 人家家里也活得挺好的。 吃惊的是， 他爸是华裔（马拉），他妈是犹太人。 两个特别保守的文化居然碰到一起了。

每人有每人的选择。 现在世界通讯特别方便， 人不受地区的局限性了。

只不过每人应该做出一个成熟，真诚，长期，负责任的决定。 不要被媒体谣言迷惑住了。 很多老实的老外男女（男的多一些）想找亚裔女/男因为他们喜欢亚洲人的传统文化。 但是也有一些，像上面的作者描述的, "是本国的垃圾和losers。混不下去，找不到对象，才到中国凭着一张洋脸来混口饭吃泡个中国姑娘“. 要睁大眼睛把人看清楚了。

Un-"Gentlemen's Club"

On the way to school the other day, I saw a taxi cab ad advertising "Gentlemen's Club" in New York City. It got me thinking. A gentlemen used to be a man of honour who upheld the values of chivalry which included justice, courage, politeness, civility, loyalty, and duty. A gentleman is supposed to be courteous and loyal to his lady. Under the Oriental interpretation of the word based on Confucianism (君子), similar values are preached. It is ironic and sad that New York City strip joints, which house the anti-gentlemen of the modern age, call themselves by a title that should be reserved for those with the highest level of conduct. Calling a strip club "gentlemen's club" is comparable to calling a biker's pub "intellectual's club", or calling a strip club in China "君子俱乐部".

Going back in time & Crusaders

I was cleaning up my parents' computer today (optimizing all the accumulated electronic junk similar to how people clean out their attic & garage) and came across some of my history essays from high school. Needless to say I was appalled by my unintellectual discourses from my teenagehood.
One essay I read was about the impact of Crusades on Byzantine. The essay was so hollow it was than a joke. Its thesis seems to be that the Crusaders "destroyed?" Byzantine. The essay's body is more a regurgitation of ideas from secondary sources rather than a product of original thinking. It only focused upon the superficial military impacts of the Crusaders on Byzantine but doesn't address more fundamental questions such as
1. Why did the Crusaders, who were supposed to "Reconquista" Jerusalem and Anatolia, decided to ravage Byzantine and sack Constantinople? Especially when Byzantine was supposed to be their Christian brethren?
2. Why did Byzantine, the continuation of the mighty Eastern Roman Empire, not able to fend off a disorganized army of nobles and peasants from Western Europe?
3. Can't the downfall of Byzantine be attributed to the Turks/Muslims more so than the Crusaders?
On the flip side, I'm glad that university education has had an effect on my cerebrum.

Taiping Rebellion - Piece of history usually unknown in the West

I've been reading about the Taiping Rebellion recently. This curiosity was stirred by the recent Chinese movie "The Warlords" and a discussion with a friend about Christianity in China. Most people in the world don't know it but it's the largest civil war in the 19th century and the casualty is close to that of the Napoleonic Wars.
To summarize, it is a large scale sectarian rebellion that took place in Southern & coastal China at the end of the Qing dynasty. Number of deaths is around 25 million. The Taiping rebels managed to control Nanjing and certain major Chinese cities for quite a while and established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The leader, Hong Xiuquan, claimed that he was told to be the brother of Jesus through a vision.
This movement lasted about 15 years and took place simultaneously with other ethnic rebellions in Ningxia, Gansu, and Shanxi.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion

Upcoming search engines

Bing from Microsoft
www.bing.com

and this interesting "computational knowledge engine" from Wolfram (maker of Mathematica) called WolframAlpha
http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Open letter to all gun rights activists.

1) There are basically two functions to gun ownership, self-defense against criminal violence and organized defense against government tyranny. If the 2nd amendment was written to ensure people's ability to defend against tyranny, shouldn't ordinary people be able to own grenades, automatic heavy weapons, artillery, tanks, fighter jets, and gun ships? It's hard to stand up to a US military junta with just semiautomatic M16s.

2) I think the phrase "criminals will ALWAYS get guns" is false. Strict weapon control on "military grade" weapons makes it very hard to criminals to get any heavy firearm, bazooka, or grenades. If we declare all firearms to be in the category of "military grade" weapon and make REAL concerted effort to control them, then we can pretty much make sure that criminals don't get guns.

3) Under the assumption that gun control can keep most guns out of criminal's hands, then the only validity to owning firearms is self-defense against government tyranny. It's true that superseding your right to own firearms makes it easier for government to abuse its power. Shouldn't we weigh this against the risk of big criminals (terrorists & school shooters) getting ahold of dangerous weapons?

The crux of the argument is whether people are willing to reign in some of their personal freedom and transfer that to state control. But isn't that what organized society is about? We relinquish our natural freedoms (like the free ability to kill someone) to establish a set of rules that can maximize everyone's utility.

Philosophy of Science, Google, and Machine Learning in Information Age

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory

This is a blog article that argues for the end of deductive science. With the amount of information available on the internet, the author Chris Anderson argues that simple model built upon mountains of information can generalize much better than complex causal relationships. He calls this the Petabyte Age and uses example from TextRunner project, Google AdSense, and Google Translation.
Is this the end of deductive science?
On a related note, check out this notion of "transductive science" pioneered by Vladimir Vapnik.

Google Tech Talks

It's an awesome channel on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/user/googletechtalks

machine learning + computer vision at the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture

Bunch of kids can play a racing game by leaning left and right. Very cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXLR2QEvmYA

Part of the 2008 Royal Institution Christmas Lecture "Hi-Tech Trek"

Infinity QX4 audio repair

Been meaning to post these photos.
A while back, the cd changer on my parents' 2001 Infinity QX4 jammed and we decided to get a new GPS audio navigation system. The unit I settled on was Pioneer AVIC-F700BT along with a bunch of accessories from Crutchfield.com.
The process wasn't that hard. The most critical component was this Scosche audio connector adapter (also called a harness). It allows you to connect Nissan audio cables to your Pioneer unit. I guess the overall process is:
0. UNPLUG THE CAR BATTERY!
1. Get rid of your old unit.
2. Hook up the harness. The Nissan cables all have tiny letters written on the plastic to indicate their functionality. Make sure you connect the AMP wire correctly according to the instruction manual.
3. Hook up the microphone to some place convenient.
4. Put the GPS antenna on the dash board.
5. You can leave the parking break and reverse signal wires from your Pioneer unit unconnected. Only connect the reverse signal if you're using a back-up cam.
By the way, I also bought an Audiovox back-up camera but couldn't get it to work :(
Here are some photos.

Art vs. entertainment

If you look at every form of human expression, writing, music, film, drawing/painting, it is always divided into an "art/independent" stream and a "blockbuster/commercial" stream. You get movies like 007, Air Force One, American Pie against the more "thinking" films such as John Adams, documentaries, Britney Spears vs. Aaron Copland, John Grisham vs. Toni Morrison, and Japanese comic vs. Yoko Ono. Provided there is a small area of intersection.
I think this division comes from the purpose behind expression. Some pieces are created with entertainment as its ultimate objective while others are motivated by inquisition and enlightenment of the human condition.
Good "overlaps" in my humble opinion are films like Munich, Traffic, and Platoon.

Why not invade another country to rob their money?

Interesting topic came up at a random conversation in school today. Country A will invade country B to rob their art gallery, industry, precious metal, but never their domestic currency? Ever wondered why?
That's because country B's currency would be utterly devalued on the international market during the invasion that the domestic currency would be equivalent to piles of paper.

Rebecca's Painting

Check out my friend Rebecca's painting:

http://rebextrip.deviantart.com/art/Alpine-Glacier-117184602

Money as allocation of wealth and allocation of labour

Some of the resentment over the distribution of wealth comes from the fact that money has two functions in the society. It is both redistributing wealth and also redistributing labour.
Society's demand for different skills vary as time goes on. In a socialist society, people would not be free to choose what they do, rather they would be told what the state needs. If the state needs an engineer, you would become an engineer, if the state needs a farmer, you become a farmer. Everything happens according to a state-wide schedule.
In a free society, people cannot be assigned to certain types of work, but society still needs to the demand for certain skills. So the market raises wage for skills that are undersupplied while lowers wages for skills that are oversupplied. Should an accountant be paid more than a lawyer? This is why IT workers got paid huge money in the dot-com boom and are now getting paid less due to oversupply. The effect? Fewer students pursue computer science and turn to other fields. This way, the society keeps supply & demand in balance. Further side effect is that some people got incredibly wealthy for performing a task that can now be outsourced to India.

Human Computation

Luis von Ahn and the concept of "Human Computation"
How do we make use of wasted human computation cycles?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8246463980976635143

If you have a passion, follow it, or you will regret it forever

This is a painful transition point in my life. For the past five years or so, I focused all of my energy into the pursuit of this field known as quantitative finance. That decision was made after the abandonment of my true passion - computer science. Word cannot describe how foolish I was to choose a financially rewarding field that I loathe over a less rewarding, more risky field that I loved. Day and day, night and night, I admire those friends of mine from high school and university who dared to face the threat of IT outsourcing in pursuit of their true passion in computer & high-tech industry. People like James, Avrum, Mu Cai, Samuel, yes they might not make as much as a Wall Street banker, but at least they can wake up to a job that drives their soul. Where as I mistakenly thought that I can "build my passion" for elements of society that I never showed any, any aptitude for. Reading the finance section makes me lethargic while reading the technology section makes me insomniac.
May this post help those younglings who are at that junction of life make a more insightful career decision. Never again would I let paranoia about career prospect cloud my passion, no more "secure" careers: medicine, law, finance, consulting, just my passion: computer science.