Pat is having her statistic exam next week, so she is studying hard this weekend. Somehow her nervous in preparing for the exam affects me. I already helped her walking Charlie everyday, did laundry, cooked dinner and washed the dishes on the weekend. As a arts student, Pat seems struggling in the statistic course. I wonder how tough is the course and I picked up her textbook and see hard the material can be. I spent about half an hour go through all the chapter summary. As I expected, the undergrad statistic course for psychology students is a piece of cake to an engineer. There is only one central idea connecting everything in the course: you got some sample data, then you pick a distribution curve, then apply some math formulas to find whatever parameters in the curve. There are some assumptions, from time to time, you have to test whether the sample data justify for the curve you are trying to fit. You don’t want to fit the data into a wrong curve or your experiment result is meaningless. I did not learn statistic in engineering school, but the basic concept is the same for probability and statistics course. It is the same basic mathematics to see whether a new drug is effective on the patients or to decode cell phone signal received from the antenna.
Taxable benefit of living in school
My high school made news on Globe and Mail, a national newspaper. Revenue Canada, aka taxman, sues the headmaster and teachers living on campus understating their taxable benefits on free rent. The headmaster claim a taxable benefit of $6000 per year, on a two stories house over looking Lake Ontario. But the taxman say it should be a value of $31000, which is calculated base on the rent in the area. The case went to court and the judge rule against the Revenue Canada. The judge accept the headmaster’s argument that living on campus sacrifice their private life. It is unrealistic to assume the place rent out with the market price. The rent is cheap because it comes with the responsibility to take care of the boarding students at night.
As a alumni, I agree with the judge and glad that he had made the right ruling. Although outsiders thinks my high school is a elite school with four prime ministers on the alumni list, the fact is the students are as troublesome as other teenagers. Things just happens at night in board schools. The teachers living on campus has to deal with it. The headmaster is not exaggerating. We do have drunken students and students with emotional distress. I was caught once sneaking out to have beer in midnight and saw more than once fights break out among students who suppose to be sleeping. We also pranked the headmaster from time to time. I remember we wrap his car with toilet paper in Halloween one year and painted his lawn furniture in pink the other year. I don’t think anyone with a right mind would pay the market rent to live among 200 naughty teenagers.
Mumbai rampage
The Mumbai gunmen rampage catch the headline of the news today. It also catch the attention of everyone in the office. Our company outsource to India and many in the team had traveled to India, so any news in India has great interest among us. Today some Muslim extremist launch multiple terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Gunmen take over the railway terminal and two luxury hotel. They had killed over 100 people and injured over 400. They also single out and kill foreigners from US and UK. The most scary part is I dined out a lot at those two luxury hotel chains in Bangalore. Mumbai is not like Kashmir, it is the business center of India, like New York to US. If terrorist attack can happen in Mumbai, it can also happen to Bangalore, the high tech center of India. The security in Bangalore is not very assuring and it had bomb attacks only a few months ago. It is quite dangerous traveling to India now. Oh! My boss is still in Bangalore, maybe he should cut his trip short and come home earlier.
I have been thinking how can we stop terrorist attacks from Muslim extremist. The ideal solution is either catch them and lock them up or simply kill all of them. Too bad that it is almost a mission impossible in a country with large amount of Muslims. You just can’t tell the good Muslims apart from the bad Muslims. In ancient time, before the government is constraint by human right regulations, the emperor can threaten to retaliate by killing everyone in the village the terrorists came form. This strategy works well against normal citizens under dictatorship in the old communist Russian and ancient China. However, this strategy may not work on Muslim extremists even we can ignore human rights. The Muslim extremists all prepare to die for Allah. If they decide to throw away their own lives, how can we expect them to take the life of their fellow villagers into consideration. Maybe they will think the villagers die as martyrs and going to join them in heaven.
If we want to threaten the Muslim extremists, we must hold something dear to them as the target of retaliation. Muslim extremists attack us because of religious causes. We must ask what is the most important thing to the Muslim religion? It is the holy city, Mecca, of course. Here is the perfect solution. If the Muslim extremists won’t stop their terrorist attacks, we should threaten to drop nuclear bomb on Mecca. Given enough warning for evacuation, wiping out Mecca would not have any causality nor loss of lives, so it does not violate any human rights. The Muslim extremists must learn violent will not solve anything, it will only hurt them more at the end.
Late genius
Malcom Gladwell’s writing is often very inspiring. I liked his booked Blink and Tipping Point. I visit his website once a while to catch up his articles on The New Yorkers. His article titled Late Bloomer seems strike a chore in my mind. In this article he questioned are genius always shine in early age. Almost all famous artist, scientist, philosophers we remember finish their greatest work in early days. Gladwell went through historical data and show that although rare, there are indeed some late bloomers, whose genius are not recognized until their forties or fifties. There are two types of genius. The first kind is the young genius we all familiar with, who shine bright and then fate fast. The second kind is a late genius, he perfect his work through years of experiment with his thoughts. The young genius seems come around more often because it is pure economic. Young genius gain their fame quick so they can support themselves. The successful late genius often have love ones supporting them whiling wait for their talent come to the full potential. However, more often unsuccessful late genius just simply giving up and live a mundane life. I know for sure I am not a young genius. (That’s quite obvious) Maybe I am a late genius, I can accomplish something great if I just keep trying. If I continue my studies in philosophy, maybe one day I will write a master piece and become a famous philosopher. Most of the great philosophers in history made their name early in their career, but maybe there are still rooms for a late genius.
潮爆中國 – 李照興
上次回香港遊行逛書店﹐原本想買些說香港文化的書藉﹐視線卻給這本放在旁邊的《潮爆中國》吸引了。曾幾何時中國等於老土的同義詞﹐近十多年中國發展迅速﹐ 在很多方便已經發達﹐甚至超過香港這個小小的南方城市。說來慚愧我雖然生為中國人﹐去過世界各地不少地方﹐可是中國最遠只是踏足過深圳羅湖城。我對中國的印象﹐只停留在電視報章雜誌的報導﹐又或者偶然與北上工作朋友的閒談。難得見到這本對新中國作全面體的書﹐便二話不說先買下來再說﹐讓我加深了解這個將會在本世紀冒起的大國。
李照興是香港北上的文化人﹐《潮爆中國》收錄他在明報和號外發展過的文章。除了都是環繞現代中國作中心外﹐文章的題材多樣化﹐全部也是從一個切入點出發﹐去探討新中國的社會現象。文章有的講述城市發展﹐有剖釋中國娛樂藝術文化事業的轉變﹐有論述城市新一代的生活面貌。全書的文章並沒有很重的批判性﹐中肯地敘述新事物與舊歷史的交替﹐繪畫未來帶來的新機遇﹐和因為改變而引起的難題。有人會說李照興替共產黨塗脂抹粉﹐ 因為這本書只說中國發展快速﹐令人嚮往的城市生活。完全沒有交代在發展背後﹐被忽略那一個仍然貧窮落後的中國。不過北京上海這些大城市近年的改變﹐也是無可否認的事實﹐這本書正好把這些轉變記錄下來。其實因為中國過去行共產主義的冤枉路﹐香港又是一個不正常的崎形城市﹐香港人一向以來習慣用狹窄的本土視角去看事物﹐才會對中國改革開放與世界接軌大驚小怪。書中很多描述在西方國家根本是正常現像﹐差不多是晉身發達國家的必經之路。
這本書的開場白特別長氣﹐有很多文化界名人寫推介詞和序。這本書本身的內容已經有足夠的號召力﹐其實根本用不著請名人推介﹐反正那些人也不是真正的有名氣 ﹐不過是在文化界小圈子混了一段日子罷了。特別是梁文道那篇最後一代香港文化人的告白﹐與這本的主題完全牛頭不對馬嘴﹐不知道放在前面幹什麼。不知是那些人是作者的朋友﹐出版社隨便找來充場面﹐還是他們反過來想叨《潮爆中國》的光。也許再過十年重看這本書﹐會驚訝當年中國的先知先覺﹐又或者可能嘲笑當年的落伍。如果那天潮爆的不再只是中國的大市城﹐而是中國的農村鄉下也同樣潮爆﹐我們才能喜歡地迎接擁抱一個新中國。