Fleeting Years

Jekyll, for hackers, not for humans

Thu May 24 19:00:00 -0700 2012

Nowadays, Jekyll (suddenly) becomes populars among hackers.

In short, “Jekyll is a blog-aware, static site generator in Ruby”. It can be used to build a “static” blog, instead of using WordPress.

Born in “static”, Jekyll does not have the problems such as security issues, C10K problems, php and database engines backend needed, software updates…… Considering that the comments, analytics can be done by Disqus and Google Analytics by adding some javascript snippets. More excitingly, writting posts in markdown,text-based instead of databases needed, they are cool! It should be the best alternate of WordPress!

Not exactly. The above paragraph or similar texts can be seen in almost any posts in the Internet introducing Jekyll. But since it and anthor project based on it, Octopress, are designed for hackers, it’s not for humans.

When a simple user want to write a blog, he may start in Blogger or WordPress.com. They provide good features and large community. They automatically deal with the technical details. Inserting pictures, videos, etc. are simple and easy. When a curious user want to customize their blog, he of she starts to study HTML, CSS and javascript. He want to buy a virtual host account, such as BlueHost. WordPress’ famous “five steps installation” gives strong convenience. After “clicking”, binding domains is easy as well. Installing plugins gives user the satisfaction. after learning some php syntax, a user can even try to modify of develop the themes and plugins!

In short, “playing” with WordPress (WordPress should be the most famous and widely used blogging platform or software) (or Blogger, Tumblr), users or players can “grow up” from easy to hard. In the very end, he or she can stop in any steps, or he or she can fully control WordPress just as a “person knowing more common sense about programming”.

But Jekyll doesn’t. “Playing” Jekyll needs that you are a hacker already!

Want to play Jekyll? Hummm…… It’s written (majorly) in Ruby. But how to install Ruby? It seems that I’d better have a GUN/Linux distribution or a Mac? Moreover, it’s cool to host it by github, whose cofounder is the author of Jekyll, but hey, what’s git? Version controller? I am not interested in it’s differences compared with Subversion! And what’s markdown? How to configure the text editor to suit it? …… Lots of question flooded into my mind when I want to play Jekyll!

Moreover, I am disappointed with some limits of the “official support” from github. In deed, github does a good job and it provies lots of convience to programmers, and I love it. But, considering Jekyll, it’s designed for hackers, but which hacker on earth doesn’t write LATEX or insert gists?! Maruku markdown pharser seems to provide the opinion buliding fomulars pictures, but it requires the local LATEX engin! Rdiscount is fast, but does not support LATEX. Kramdown seems to support MathJax very well, but it can’t be viewed in RSS because LATEX snippets are tranformed into <script> tags! In similar, gists can be inserted by adding the “embed” codes, but still they can’t be viewed in RSS because they are <script> actually. Yes, Octopress seems to deal with some problems, but it’s not “officially supported” by github pages, and it’s even more complicated. Plugins can solve some problems (not elgently), but again, it’s not supported by the official github pages. Of course I can generated the pages by the awesome Pandoc and upload the static files to the server or github pages, but again, it’s more complicated (though maybe I can’t help doing this later…..).

So, if you are a hacker, you may want to try Jekyll. It should improve your writing environment and speed later, if you haven’t commited a suicide while installing, configuring Jekyll, bearing the limitations and non-perfect aspects, and considering whether generating static files locally or by github pages, hosting it on github pages, or virtual host, of Heroku, or VPS etc. …… If not, WordPress should be the best choice of writing yet.

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if Flash is open source.....

Mon Jan 30 13:16:21 -0800 2012

If Adobe open source Flash, it will regain the control of the web.

It’s no doubted that Flash has greatly contributed to the development of the web. (Well, if it didn’t appear, will HTML standard be developed even faster? Who knows.) But today, Powerful JavaScript, improved HTML 5 and CSS 3 are going to replace it. New tags in HTML 5 such as video and audio can function like Flash. Angry birds and Cut the Rope in HTML 5 are the best proofs.

What if Adobe open source Flash player and related software?

Think about chromium and Android. Google open sources them and they are widely spread because there are no concern about the license. But actually, Google do control the development now, because other firms almost only concern about the “cost” rather than the development of the software itself.

Due to the license problem, Firefox and chromium don’t embed Flash player. Chrome does, because Chrome isn’t open source, different from its brother. Once Flash is open source, browsers can embed Flash players, and factories and net users can contribute to the development of Flash player, solving the issues such as high CPU use more easily. And developers will turn back to the mature Flash technology instead of taking risk of new technology (js, HTML 5 & CSS 3).

In fact, if Flash is open source, there is almost nothing different towards general users.

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Education 2.0

Sun Jan 29 20:49:45 -0800 2012

It’s likely that a new tipping point of the new style of education – including teaching and studying – is coming.

Education, encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, good judgment, and wisdom. It’s important to focus on and improve the way of interact between teaching and studying. It’s obvious that how students absorb the knowledge and raise their curiosity determine the result of the process. Here I mainly discuss the narrow sense of education. which usually means the process of acquiring the knowledge of science, literature, etc, usually in schools.

Accepting education (in schools) is relevant to opportunity cost. The time is always limited and the process is not always pleasing. What’s even frustrating, so many people can’t offer the cost of entering schools, so that they have to work “in advance”.

Now online education is becoming popular. Maybe it provides more opportunities to poor man and those have limited condition to enter the famous universities.

Till now, education level has been developed by Internet greatly. Researching is enjoying the convenience of the super high speed and large volume of information data. Searching and creating data with the help of Internet is easier than ever. However, education focus more on the interaction of teaching and studying, as well as the creativity, rather than just researching. n this aspect, open course bring great impact, for example, some universities, such as Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and more, has released their video and/or presentation online. Some websites, such as netease open courses, have gathered and translated, and spread these online resources greatly. What’s more, there are some online courses available, such as Stanford’s Coursera, MIT’s MITx, and Udacity.

But it’s not enough. In essence, they are just putting the media online, not deeply taking advantages of Internet – connecting and interacting with people much easier.

Education 2.0, with the help of web 2.0, is the key and next revolution in education and society, in my opinion.

What’s it? The answer may hides in (inconspicuous) places: Wikipedia, and github.

Have a look inside Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Launched in 2001, Wikipedia has formed the largest online encyclopedia, with high quality, great authority and high page rank (which reflects how websites rely on it). In fact, The English Wikipedia passed 100,000 articles in 2003, a great and incredible success. Such a great increase of articles tells people that they had just waited for it for a long time. It’s a masterpiece by billions of net users, reflecting how great work can be done by the power of self-organization of the combination of the elite and the crowd.

Essentially, Wikipedia shows the desire to share and curiosity about knowledge. A virtuous cycle formed fortunately and is functioning smoothly till now. A simple way of editing and discussing, and the nature as a creature of “web 2.0” may explain its success.

Now observe github, subtitled “social coding”, another cool web-2.0 website, poplar among programmers. In similar to the growing process of Wikipedia, it enjoyed a great increase. launched in April 2008, it hosted about 46,000 repositories just in the first year! By now (Jan. 2012), over 3,800,000 git repositories are enjoying the platform. Github is your new resume. It’s possible to create a reliable and informative resume with the help of github and books in 2 years. There are real project, cool guys, people with the same interests, and here comes everybody.

The most powerful innovation of github should be “social”. One can “follow” another developer or “watch” a project, while at the same time “fork it” and “send pull request” have become the “culture” among the users.

So what’s the business of education?

Self-organization, happy collaborative work, creativity, and study process as a resume. A platform, (called “Wikihub” if I create it :-),) taking advantages of Wikipedia and github, should have the above advantages and features, and lead the revolution of education, named “education 2.0.

Education 2.0 should be benefited by self-organization. Both Wikipedia and github illustrate that self-organization also work and work even better. Students just don’t know what they will go at the beginning, but actually discover what they want later.

Education 2.0 includes happy collaborative work. 1+1 > 2. Twitter and Facebook prove that all the “tiny” behavior may effect on “big” result and incredible destination, which attract and confuse social researchers a lot. An appropriate platform allowing students to study what they are really interested in may drive our society to new ways. Because they are interested in, so they are fond of and realize the necessity of learning other knowledge that they don’t pay attention to before.

Education 2.0 enjoys the advantages brought by creativity. Unlimited and uninformed in advance may promote creativity, one of the most important power of society. But it should be noted that creativity relies on the knowledge base. So in some case and at some stage, teachers and other leading students should provide tips and hints and help to their fellows.

Education 2.0 lightens, if not solves, the conflict between study and work. Github notes down users’ operations and growth, and projects are for real world, instead of “not being practical”. When students end the education, they get resumes automatically.

This article is just about a summary and a prediction. Whatever, Internet has changed our life, and it will surely change the style of education. The tendency shows that another tipping point is near, maybe before 2016 we can see and create the tide.

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High Quality

Tue Jan 24 20:31:53 -0800 2012

The year of Drangon in China is here. I define the topic of my life “high quality” in the new Chinese year now.

Being addicted to web is harmful.

Today, my blog’s domain has changed to www.fyears.org. wtfy.org will be kept for a while but not long. The rss addresses are http://feeds.feedburner.com/Fleeting-Years (not changed) or www.fyears.org/feed/ . (changed from …wtfy.org…). Feel free the subscribe to one of them. :-)

And all my life online should be changed. This blog will (try to) prove high quality. The blog will focus on things or comments helpful to others (in my opinion) or thoses can inspire others. To ensure the wide spread of influence of my blog, I will try to write posts in English, though in some cases I insist on Simplified Chinese. In fact, most of MY OWN life never attract others (until I became famous in the future), unless my experience should be useful and worth learning (like THIS post). So my diary will be moved to life.fyears.org whose rss is life.fyears.org/feed/ probably mainly written in multi-languages . And as for programming, I believe that I am not a good programmer and not intend to be, so I will avoid to write codes on this blog. Real code for real man, however, I will place my codes and sources on https://github.com/fyears if necessary.

I am afraid of social network now. They waste me lots of time rather than I thought before. I am taking “writing” seriously, and repeatedly I say that one’s life is almost and usually not related to other’s life. So I will insist on writing blog posts WITH DEEP THINKING, though diaries on life.fyears.org will be more relax. I will try to avoid using twitter.com, facebook.com, weibo.com and renren.com if possible.

Books and studying should be the mainstream of the daily life, to keep the high quality and effieiency of time.

I am so despressed about my procrastination, the thief of my time and life. I plan for reading a few books but I always find myself wasting time sufering the web (flashing renren.com and weibo.com etc). Maybe I should delete my accounts on these websites. :-( High quality of life should be filled with the satisfaction of beating the difficulties in studying paths. So I am going to focus on studying mathematics and computer science this year. Not delaying doing anything is hard, but it’s important.

What’s more, I have a bad memory in fact. But I don’t like taking notes before. Maybe it’s useful to keep a tiny notebook or something what ever, to take annotate. So I will keep a custom of taking notes everyday, at least writing down what I have done everyday. “I rethink myself three times everyday.” It’s an attitude towards life, as well as an important necessary condition towards success.

It’s quite obvious that a person should live for a purpose. But it’s also quite strange that so many people just live for live, without thinking why they are here and not commit suicide. I am still thinking but haven’t found the answer yet. It depress me certainly. Hope I can find out the answer this year, well, not just simple and mysterious as “42”, but much more concrete. Once I dream of becoming a physics, and later mathematician. But I found myself too stupid. Now I want to concentrate on economics, which is relatively not so difficult to understand and develop.

All in all, in the new year, high quality is the theme of my life.

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good bye 2011, and hello 2012

Fri Jan 20 15:57:38 -0800 2012

Due to the exams at the beginning of 2012, I haven’t finished this post until now.

It’s hard to image that the “fleeting” 2011 has passed with such a fast step. In fact, I began to rethink what I had done since I came to university, I always found that I had wasted so much time and fortunately catch some opportunities as well in 2011.

60 percent of the time in 2011 is my life as a freshman in university.

In the aspect of study, the result in 2011 was not bad. Most important GPA was not that high albeit not too low. When it comes to my university, which is not so famous in the world, I have to acquire high GPA and should, but failed. Working harder doesn’t mean getting more, and to me, none with none work, though some “clever” people got not low GPA with some “tricks” (in my eyes) and cheating during the exam. Giving the opportunity, I won’t cheat at least not plan to cheat I think. And sadly, (as I know in the beginning of 2011), I hadn’t finish the task of finishing GRE test. I haven’t finish reciting the words required yet. :-( Hopefully I can enjoy the excitement of passing GRE test in 2012.

The other part of life is certainly the relationship with others. The largest students league the Radio Station (广播台) gave me the the sight of a concept of company management. Hadn’t I ever image how a large league hand out the tasks to many people and ensure the finish of them until I peeped the working process of the league. Moreover, I make friends with some cool guys in it, whom I learnt from a lot and gain experience a lot. Interestingly, I attained another league 1010 Computer Association, in which I was not a unimportant member as I was in the Radio Station (thanks to my ability of technology compared with others’). I met some other friends who have excellent abilities.

It’s worth saying that I began the first independent project with some schoolmates. “YeeYee.net”, a website that helps students in the same school exchange their useless things etc. We formed the idea on 21st, July, 2011, with the faith that “life is short and life should be meaningful”.

And I didn’t realize I had stayed at the new school for one year until August.

Then fleeting time came to September. 40 percent of 2011 I was a sophomore.

I was accustomed to plan for many things and ways in front a new milestone or sometime similar. I heard that the second year in university should be very busy. But I got to know that it’s not exactly “true”. An important improvement on myself was that I attempted to tell myself that “It lasts not truly long, I can go through just after standing it for a while.” once I am facing hard or long or terrible difficulties.

Study in mathematics and computer science was unexpectedly difficult, especially computer science. It’s amazing that I still kept the curiosity and interest in mathematics, though my intelligence seemed to be not adequate now. It’s worthy of saying that I knew a little of the “potential” of my ability. The week before the deadline of the exam, I spent two days in library and almost every available afternoon and night for study. So I study from the beginning to the end of a course. After that terrible week, I think that if EVERY week of my life is so efficient, I must act as a genius. Though sadly, GPA seems to be much lower than that in the first year. I MUST study harder next term and later years.

Another change caused by “sophomore” or “growth” is that I am called “senior brother-in-learning” now. I am not quite used to it actually. And I became a “deputy minister” in the league 1010 Computer Association till now. To my pleasure, I got to know many beautiful junior sisters-in-learning now. :-) Though I haven’t met any girlfriend yet. :-( Maybe I should pray for it……

Projects are still so many. Thanks to “YeeYee.net”, I met some talent junior brothers-in-learning. And some related ideas about websites or even potential ways to change the world remain to be realized in 2012 or even later, years or decades.

All in all, life always plays jokes on me, and I have to fight. Life is an endless fight with the fate. 2011 has passed, with lots of my regrets, and 2012 is here, regardless of my willingness or any thoughts.I believe that one day in the future, I will discover with pleasure that all paths I will have gone through will bring me an extremely amazing destination, when I see back my steps.

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《共产党宣言》读后感

Sun Dec 25 05:09:05 -0800 2011

某门课程要求写一下《共产党宣言》的读后感。于是在这里也发表一下。里面的想法有可能都是错的，但至少证明了我有读过，有想过。

《共产党宣言》真不愧为最伟大的政治宣言之一。我读完短短两万中文字的《宣言》之时的第一感觉只剩下震撼。

通篇是气势磅礴的句子，洋洋洒洒，从古到今。从资本主义的诞生以及其优越性谈到其已经不能适应其引领的生产力与生产关系的发展；从资产阶级对共产主义的质疑到反驳到阐述自己那“消灭阶级关系”的终极目标；从各种社会主义到共产主义的文献的曲折发展谈到被误用的表现和纠正；从当前各种政党的目标到团结一切力量来实现共产主义的号召。最后，“全世界无产者联合起来！”为整篇宣言的目的作出了最直接的表达。

然而，掩卷过后思索，震撼的余韵过去之后，有些想法浮现了出来。鉴于我对经济学的推崇和学习，第二遍阅读的时候我对其内容中的与经济学相关部分抱有的疑问很多。

其实我认为，作为一个本科学生，是没有足够的阅历来深入理解《共产党宣言》的；只可能是一些肤浅的理解和带来的肤浅的疑问。但是，既然读了，就记录下一些疑问和感想，希望未来能够解答当初自己的疑问，在以后的道路上回顾自己思想的发展，为这个伟大的时代的发展作一个注脚。尽管肤浅，却有价值。

共产党宣言中，共产党人概括了“迄今为止所有斗争都是阶级斗争”，而这个斗争现在已经达到这样一个阶段，即被剥削被压迫的阶级（无产阶级），如果不同时使整个社会永远摆脱剥削、压迫和阶级斗争，就不再能使自己从剥削它压迫它的资产阶级下解放出来。这带来了一个问题：没有阶级的社会是怎么样的？

如果一个没有阶级的社会能够存在的话，那么支撑这个社会的经济基础（或者说物质基础）是什么？这里自然的“经济”绝不止于狭义“金钱”，在远古时代就是食物，封建时代就是田园与货商交易，现代社会自然是指熟悉的经济的运行，资本的流动，以及其带来的生产关系。“自由平等而没有剥削”的世界的存在前提条件是资源的无限丰富，或者近乎无限的快速再生。古代到现在的社会，可以说是“人类社会中阶级剥削阶级，然后人类剥削自然”，那么共产主义理想中的社会可能是“人类社会直接剥削自然，跳过了阶级之间的剥削，因为没有了阶级”。然而，这样的话自然资源被开发乃至被消耗的速度将会是现在的几十倍，几百倍，乃至成千上万倍，经济学告诉我们资源是稀缺的，人是自私的，哪怕到时候经济学已经没有存在的必要，但可以合理的认为这两条公理还是正确的（因为它们反映了自然与社会的本质）那么，直接推论就是，哪怕人类能够短暂地实现这个没有阶级的社会，进而直接把自然资源（而不是某些阶级的辛勤劳动）转化成为生产力，也会在短时间内把大量的社会资源消耗掉，社会奔溃，退回到阶级剥削的社会阶段。

如果一个没有阶级存在的社会能够存在的话，那么这个社会还有发展的前景么？没有。“水至清则无鱼”。在没有阶级的社会之中，一切的人类之中美好又滋生丑恶的感情的土壤已经不复存在。友情，亲情，爱情，理想，追求，这等等的一切都已经没有存在的必要和可能。友情是建立在同等阶级带来的共同价值观之上的，当阶级不复存在（或所有人都是同等阶级）的社会中，所有人都可以成为朋友就是说所有人都不是朋友。爱情也是类似。至于亲情，没有了父母对儿女的特殊情感，所有幼童都是由所有人喂养长大的话，亲情这种以家庭为基础的情感也会消忙。至于理想与追求，宣言之中已经概括了“人类历史就是阶级斗争史”，那么，没有了阶级的人自然也就失去了“向上走”的欲望，也不可能有着“为了人类未来”的远大理想，因为他们已经达到了。科技都没有了进步的可能，因为科技是以提高生产力为目的的，没有这种性质的科技不会被社会力量支持然后得到真正的发展。所有人性的阴暗面都会消失。因为有人性阴暗面的人总想达到一种不平等而自己有利的阶级斗争，既然前提是消灭了阶级，这种人就是没有了。进而，艺术已经消亡，因为人性已经没有什么好描写的了。简而言之，如果不是像上一段描述的那样退回到“阶级时代”人类已经站在了灭亡的边缘。

我诧异于我的疑问以及推论，我以为我想错了。后来我又一想，也许不是我想错了。而是应该把《共产党宣言》置于历史的长河之中看待，历史当然不是一成不变的。于1847年到1890年书写的《共产党宣言》，敏锐地预测了之后至少两百年的历史——至少现在看来，它的描述的框架还是适合的——但毕竟新的历史表明，《共产党宣言》之中，有些想法已经过时或者不恰当了。《共产党宣言》也许又到了需要人们修改的时候。既然可预见的将来，共产主义的到来必将伴随着资本主义的毁灭，那么，我们的着眼点应该如《共产党宣言》那样的思路，分析资本主义对这个社会的促进和阻碍作用。从而得知共产主义的优越性和可实践性。

历史表明，至少到现在为止资本主义的私有制还是适应于当前的生产力的，无论现在的生产力和生产关系发展到19世纪的人多么瞠目咋舌的程度。一个1900年出生的人，如果他活到2000年，他小时候社会还是坚信人是不能升空的，中国人出门还是坐花轿，但到老年的时候，月球已经被踏上人类的足迹，普通人出门可能以飞机代步。资本主义用实践证明了，它依然有着广阔的未开拓疆土，有着旺盛的生命力，并不是《共产党宣言》时代所表现出来的那样，走到穷途末路。

《共产党宣言》时代到现代，最大的改变恐怕是，资本主义已经由粗放式的初级阶段发展到现在的中级阶段。

在十九世纪，资产阶级和无产阶级的相差犹如鸿沟，有一层无法打破的壁垒。一个出身寒门的人，纵然有才华，也很难拥有社会资源去发展社会生产力。而出身资产阶级家庭的人，就算没有学识，也能使用父辈留下的资产对比自己更有学识的人进行残酷的剥削。甚至，泯灭了出身寒门的人获得学识的可能性。但是，到了现代，资本主义已经得到了无数发展和改良，无产阶级和资产阶级之间的原本认为无法调和的矛盾有着一种走向调和的趋势——社会阶级的流动性不断增大，资产阶级随时有可能变回无产阶级，更妙的是，无产阶级也可以通过相对公平的制度成为资产阶级。况且，随着生产方式的发展，资产阶级对无产阶级的剥削变得比以前要温和得多，因为实践表明，这种更加温和而不是残酷的剥削更加能适应现在的生产力和生产关系，能够更快的发展生产力。比如说，在如今这个年代，有才华的人能够通过吸引资本家的投资，进而创办企业，获得盈利，与当初的投资者共享利润（按股份比例分配）。这个过程之中看似无产阶级被剥削了，资产阶级依然是不劳而获，但实际上，“蛋糕”正能够通过这个方式“做大”，无产阶级也能够借助这个方式相对公平地成为资产阶级。剥削已经是如此的温柔，以至于现在的人们都不称之为“剥削”了。

另一个大的时代之间的变化是，现在的资本已经由绝对的私有制发展到一部分是国家掌控的“国家内的公有制”，一部分是“社会某个领域的公有制”。

福利国家的实践表明了，资本主义社会群体内，一定范围的资本公有制是有可能的。某些NGO（非政府组织）和NPO（非盈利组织），（如维基百科）的资本运作方式表明，资本在某些领域能够实现公有，小部分人的资本能被贡献出来实现大家相对公平地共享劳动成果（无产阶级反而不劳而获了）。

现在有些学者提出，资本主义发展到高级阶段，已经能够和共产主义相差无几，但《共产党宣言》那种绝对消灭阶级的社会是不可能存在的，更大的可能是资本的快速流动和生产力的快速发展使得阶级之间能够变换，社会就在这种变化造成的平衡之中快速前进，每个人都是自私的但造成的结果是提高了大部分人的生产力改善了大部分人的生产关系，资产阶级依然“剥削”无产阶级，但这种“剥削”已经温柔到和《共产党宣言》时代所表述的“剥削”性质发生了变化。那样的社会是现在的我们能够理解并且遇见的。

也许《共产党宣言》到了需要修订的时候。无论如何，它都是最伟大的政治宣言之一。希望我在再度多次之后能够有新的感悟，新的启发。

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Less is More

Tue Nov 01 16:40:45 -0700 2011

“Less is more.” It’s one of my favorite motto.

While designing a project, a production, or an art, which I would like to say, I always prefer to make subtraction, until nothing should be thrown away or given up. However, while bringing the project out of the paper or the brain, I discover that it is much harder to remain the simplicity – the details, the additional must-have, and something forgotten which suddenly occurs to me, always destroy my simple and elegant design, as well as turn it into a total mess in the end.

Maybe it’s my pursue for the “perfection” that drive me to the wrong way. In my mind, I should consider all the possible conditions to avoid the imperfection. But, it’s impossible all the time. So the perfect way is the imperfect way, not considering anything but just describe the ideal form of the design. Less is more. Simplicity should take magical effect only if I am concentrate on the simplicity, without thinking of or dealing with so many extra things.

Less is more. Itself describes more than itself actually.

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数字如潮人如水 -1

Fri Aug 26 03:18:06 -0700 2011

这个系列是为了写一下生活中的各种数字化洪流，名字取于学而时嘻之的同名文章

数字如潮人如水 -1- 从一次书展说起

昨天，我去了一趟书展。本来以为会是一场有意义的活动。结果去到的时候，我被吓倒了：诺大的会场里面人山人海，各个出版社摆成各种摊位，里面摆着不同种类的书籍，到处都贴着全场七五折的标语。在人群中忍着推推攘攘的我感到一阵茫然，而且我穿着凉鞋因而被人踩了不下N+1次，身高的差距使我不得不忍受奇奇怪怪的味道和沉降下来的二氧化碳…… 重点是，我找不到我想找的书。没错，那里是有很多很多的书籍，五彩斑斓的封面充斥眼前。问题是，我不知道如何搜索，我拿起过几本书翻了两番然后放下，走到别的书堆前，然后我就失去了耐心，不停地逛啊逛，仅仅凭着书的封面和名字来感受一下它能不能“catch my eyes”。无疑，这是一种低效的方法。最后，我逛了一圈——在这里我表示强烈不理解女性逛街的乐趣，在人群中寻找宝藏那样的经历绝对不是一段愉快的时光——在角落里，百无聊赖地打开手机，上 amazon ——比较物价发现很多书都是七折以下的——等同行的伙伴出来。我终于明白， amazon 等网络书籍供应商带给生活的变化有多么大。几年前，我也来过书展，依稀记得当时很耐心地一排书一排书地找过去。可是，之后我被网络书店宠坏了，再也回不去了。

传统书店，图书馆，书展等，面临着数字化狂潮的冲击。它们更难被检索，需要顾客自己去找；它们占地不得不广阔，因为书籍总要占那么的体积；它们提供的纸质书，面临着各种损坏的风险。相比之下，网络书店有着更好的服务；24小时服务，不占面积，没有人流汹涌的隐患，上门服务。网络书店的重点是，提供了便捷的检索服务。我去书展，本来想着，如果能够找到一本心仪的书籍，那该多好啊。可是我失望了，那是大海捞针般的做法。回到电脑手机，或者什么比较先进的联网的电子产品面前，amazon，dangdang，豆瓣等上面有着我购买，读过的各类书籍，以及机器或者人工提供的推荐书籍，那里有着比传统书店更加便宜的折扣，因为是直接从出版社那里拿货的。网络书籍供应商或者不能给我惊喜，但至少，我比较容易地找到有目标的书籍。如果网上都没有了，那么恐怕要去很专业的图书馆里面寻找了——一般来说，就我以及很多人而言，没有这种需求。于是，至少在书籍上来说，我发现，购买过程的数字化已经很容易地取代了传统书籍寻找后购买在我心中的地位。

除了书籍购买过程的数字化之外，恐怕世界已经看到了下一阶段：购买对象——书籍——的数字化。很多人争辩说，看东西还是有着一本纸质书在手上更加舒服，更加不容易走神。但不可否认的是，不少青少年都或多或少地有过网上看小说或是什么书籍的经历。就中国最为有名的起点小说网而言，上面很多小说都是几百万甚至上千万字，要是这些书变成纸质书，所需要的书本厚度和全套 Harry Potter 相当。如果有几套…… 然而，满满一书架的书，换成电子版一部稍微先进一点的手机就能装满。昨天书展的时候，我稍微理解了一些偏激的人的想法，“我买书，尽量买电子版的。”我明白了 Kindle 为什么有市场，老实说，我以前认为这么一个单调的玩意儿就是傻逼，还不如多加几百美元换一台平板电脑呢。它纯粹的读书功能正是为了让那些“有着一本纸质书在手上更加舒服”的人取得一个电子化阅读行为与传统阅读习惯的平衡。amazon上现在很多书都有纸质书版和 Kindle edition，后者还分有付费免费的种类。我家里有很多书，我渐渐地为了哪里放它们而苦恼。后来，我都懒得买书，收集电子书成为我的爱好之一。各种电子书分享网站（鉴于中国的特殊情况），以及提供正版书籍的 Google Books 和 Kindle Store，已经提供了很多很多传统书籍的电子化版本。我个人认为，买很多书的话，还是找个 Kindle 来储存阅读更为舒畅，也保留了我对纸质书朝代的眷念。

没错，传统书店，图书馆，乃至出版业甚至报业，显然已经走向没落。更进一步地，纸质书籍也走向末朝。渐渐地，图书馆里面，窗外斑驳，投射出专心读书的美丽侧影也终将成为历史的剪影。我们不再去书店或图书馆，而是在家里下单，或者直接通过某部电子产品获得网络上呼哨而来的数据洪流，脑海里闪过纸质书籍时代的历史，正和纸质书大量普及时，人们对羊皮卷和竹简所感伤的情形相似。

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How Are You Now

Sun Aug 14 16:15:52 -0700 2011

Today it occurs to me that I haven’t seen you for such a long time.

How are you? What are you doing? What are you interested in now? How about your new friends and are they as reliable as your old friends? What’s your hairstyle? What are you happy for or what is grieving you?……

All questions flood to me.

But I don’t know. And I don’t know how to get to know. You seldom update your QQ, RenRen, Blog, Microblog. I don’t want to disturb you with strange text messages. No of my close friends knows much about you……

I am wondering, what will I say if we meet again?

“Hi. Long time no see. Bye.”

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原创科幻一则

Thu Aug 04 13:42:24 -0700 2011

尼古拉斯今天隐隐约约地感到兴奋，他终于快要实现他的梦想了。

那是20年前萌生的想法。

“旧约第20章，镜子是恶魔的藏匿之地，永远不要把光和两面镜子放在一起……”神学课上的老师解释着。偏偏尼古拉斯不相信，他举手，“放在一起会怎样呢？”“会招惹恶魔的现形。”已经不年轻的神父老师戒告，“哦，我希望，你们永远不要这样做。以前这样做甚至会被当成异教徒处理。当然了，”他顿了顿，脸上露出了不屑的表情，“现在是科学的时代，不再有这么严重……”他视线回到手上的卷宗，继续讲课。“我们继续看下去……” 回到家，尼古拉斯说一声“我回来啦，”还没等他妈妈回应，他便“检查”了他的房子，“妈妈，为什么我们家里没有镜子啊？”“这是不允许的，”他妈妈在厨房端出一些水果“镜子是有神秘之力的物体，即使教堂也只能有一面。来来来，先吃水果。” “光是无限快的，时间是不由任何东西而改变。”尼古拉斯最喜欢的格物课堂上，老师的话被打断了，“尼古拉斯你想说什么？”“那么，”尼古拉斯那脸由于这个大胆的想法而变得微红，“如果在两面相对的镜子间放个灯泡，因为镜子是平面而且反射光……” 老师的脸变了，“你，你跟我来办公室。其他人先看书。”

自从那次课堂后被老师乃至校长狠狠地训斥了一番之后，尼古拉斯一直不服气。少年倔强起来是不可理喻的。之后20年，他一直想“为什么不能？！”尽管他父母，身边的人都是虔诚的教徒，偏偏他自己因这件事记恨了“主”，进而怀疑“祂”的存在。他一直在旧约，新约寻找蛛丝马迹，“为什么会有这么多奇怪的规定和戒律？”

20年后，他终于弄到了两块完整的镜子。之前几年，他已经成为“极端的异教徒”而被追杀，所幸，在他所组织的异教保护和掩护之下，他活到了现在，并且在重重管制之下弄到了两面镜子。 “我们不信主！即使有魔鬼，我们也要释放出来，净化这个被神权染指的世界！”发表了慷慨的演讲，尼古拉斯的信徒们欢呼起来，欢呼声又迅速地沉寂下去。他们在等待。尽管他们不信“主”，他们坚信自己在等待一个神圣的时刻。 “这里，是两面镜子，以及这个机关，”尼古拉斯满脸红光地指着地上立起来的镜，上面有布蒙着，以及地面的类似滑轨的装置，“它们是完全的平滑，也能完全地面对面，我们在这里有一盏蜡烛。” 建筑物的灯熄灭了，蜡烛点亮，成为所有人的目光之处。缓缓地，镜子移动，到达位置了。

“根据神学，接下来会有魔鬼现身；根据科学，蜡烛的少许光芒会因无限的反射带给我们创世般的光明！” 尼古拉斯兴奋地一把扯开了蒙着两面镜子的布——

. . .

“老师，又奔溃了！” “我来看看……堆栈溢出。哦，是你这个程序太粗糙了……竟然允许无限快的光和绝对平面的存在……” “可是，我已经防止了……” “你这样是解决不了 bug 的，因为好奇心这个参数总会在一定时间后比宗教禁止这个参数大。你看，这样的话，那个生命使得绝对平面的镜子要无限复制对方的镜像，自然会使得内存不足而堆栈溢出了。” “哦……” “你应该学一学耶和华同学，他的程序还算完备，已经运行不少时间了。当然，正确的做法是用一个模型来控制程序，耶和华同学用两个模型，什么相对论和量子论，迟早会产生兼容问题的。” “哦，我知道了，老师。”

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Fleeting Years

Jekyll, for hackers, not for humans

if Flash is open source.....

Education 2.0

High Quality

good bye 2011, and hello 2012

《共产党宣言》读后感

Less is More

数字如潮人如水 -1

这个系列是为了写一下生活中的各种数字化洪流，名字取于 学而时嘻之 的同名文章

How Are You Now

原创科幻一则

这个系列是为了写一下生活中的各种数字化洪流，名字取于学而时嘻之的同名文章