tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67971942009-11-01T18:52:29.835-05:00Think like Confucius, cut like a blade.Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-48125793367518539492009-11-01T18:26:00.002-05:002009-11-01T18:52:29.842-05:00

Unknowingly we are all in pursuit of Turandot, the cold, vengeful princess of Peking who confronts her suitors with her three riddles. Answer the riddles correctly, you will enjoy the conquest of the heavenly beauty of Turandot, and become the king of the vast land in the East; fail them, you will forfeit your life and have your head chopped off.Is it worth it, to have that singular obsession,

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-91963078152088513442009-10-25T01:07:00.005-04:002009-10-25T12:54:26.801-04:00

My friend's son turned one today. There was a big party. After the cakes were cut and served to the guests, a few objects were placed on a low coffee table: a pen, symbolizing scholarship; a drumstick, foretelling the life of a musician; two crayons, pointing to artistic creativity; a pink plastic ribbon, embodying longevity; a $20 bill, foreshadowing a career in finance; and a calculator,

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-84691510230287363022009-10-15T17:15:00.003-04:002009-10-15T17:35:17.518-04:00

Here is a silly but potentially fun game to play on Facebook. Take your favorite novel, say, War and Peace, and for each character, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasia Rostova, etc., register a Facebook page. Next, connect the characters in friendship as they do so in the novel. As you read the novel, each day you will update each character's page with things that happen to the character. Write statements

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-7417117982635486312009-10-14T09:41:00.011-04:002009-10-14T20:21:42.048-04:00

In the movie Fightclub, Norton's nameless character coined the phrase single-serving friends - strangers who share a few hours of flight time, chat, and then part their ways. On Facebook, friends are like bite-sized snacks - their frequent posts and comments alleviate the sense of separation but never satiate the craving for real connection. Just like too much snack can ruin the appetite for a

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-42804915267225812032009-10-09T13:36:00.003-04:002009-10-09T15:34:24.616-04:00

In debating whether President Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize after only 9 months as the president of United States, it behooves a re-reading of Alfred Nobel's original will:one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-2897597110565609992009-10-04T20:48:00.000-04:002009-10-04T20:48:21.394-04:00

When I first got into science, I thought that it was about coming up with brilliant and evolutionary ideas and the rest would come together by itself. After ten years in research, however, while being by no means a great scientist, I did learn a few things about the making of one, which I would like to share with you. It's an immodest thing to do. But anonymous modesty never serves anyone. So

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-79620184395520328632009-09-22T11:13:00.005-04:002009-09-22T11:33:25.790-04:00

Netflix just awarded a cool million to a 7-member team who managed to devise algorithms that improved the prediction of user's ratings of movies by 10% compared to Netflix's own Cinematch algorithm, the endgame of a 4-year long contest (see NYTimes).Isn't it time that Facebook sets up a contest of its own? With its database of human connections, Facebook can challenge the machine learning

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-29327850552837604592009-09-20T15:52:00.003-04:002009-09-20T16:28:37.742-04:00

I am a big fan of Luis von Ahn's work on human computing. The idea of human computing is to harness the idle human brain power to perform computational tasks that so far have eluded the computers, such as image labeling (see google's image labeler) and recognition of old text (check out reCaptcha). The clever part of von Ahn's approach is to engage the human brain through an entertaining game or

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-44881145812702234052009-09-08T18:37:00.009-04:002009-09-27T17:42:21.195-04:00

The first bird got away. It flew away so fast that before either Yang or I opened the safety on our guns, it had crossed the grassfield and safely alighted in the woods far beyond the reach of any 12-gauge shotgun. We followed its flight path with our eyes. It was a beautiful male bird with a long tail and a dash of red on its head. We were relieved that we did not have to kill so early in the

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-39313161785056185282009-08-26T14:21:00.004-04:002009-08-26T18:20:19.424-04:00

I do not own any land-based phone line, but my parents-in-law still use Verizon. Recently their phone stopped working, and Verizon sent a technician to fix the problem. Having revived the phone service from outside the house, the technician suggested that he could also change a wall jack in the bathroom. Why not, my father-in-law thought. So he got a new water-proof jack in the bathroom.To their

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-49784005489635274282009-08-24T13:51:00.005-04:002009-10-04T20:33:05.505-04:00

Men used to believe that distinct laws governed the heavenly bodies and the earthly objects .The motion of the planets followed different rules than the motion of a catapulted stone. The genius of Issac Newton changed this view forever. Gravity, the first universal force discovered, follows the same inverse square law in heaven as on earth. Much of modern theoretical physics strive to unify all

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-4535172277280372632008-04-15T08:45:00.006-04:002008-07-19T23:59:51.321-04:00

We were in Congee Village on Allen Street, eating porridge, Dungeness crab, and stir-fried frog legs. Viola said that the food reminded her of the movie The Wedding Banquet. All four of us at the table had seen movies of An Lee, so we talked about them, going through each one. Yang questioned whether there was a unifying theme in An Lee's movies. What did "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Eat,

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-8262582821280088272008-03-22T02:26:00.002-04:002009-09-27T20:52:31.014-04:00

I haven’t been to any scientific conference for a year, so attending one in Santa Fe is refreshing. I have been in this field so long that going to a conference is like attending a family union: lots of familiar faces, with a few new additions. There are a few people whose presence can be depended upon. There is one man who has indefatigably come to every conference that I recall going to, and he

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-79220059511291202722008-03-22T02:25:00.001-04:002008-04-06T23:09:36.780-04:00

I am not fond of contemporary art – most of it, at least. Nevertheless, I went to see Cai Guoqiang’s exhibition “I Want to Believe” in Guggenheim. I went because I had corporate membership so I did not have to pay. I went because Chinese modern art had been fetching skyrocketing prices in art auctions, so I felt that I should be more in the know. I went also because I liked novelties, and

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-84941629107820584472008-01-12T00:50:00.000-05:002008-01-17T14:23:23.694-05:00

She got on the train at Princeton Junction. It was seven and already dark. She looked twenty seven. She smiled friendly and sat down next to me. There was a man asleep in the opposite seat. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. The train departed, leaving behind the light of the station. Outside the window it was but emptiness. Except for the lamp posts that threw periodic patches of

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-82657058117630263762007-08-25T12:04:00.000-04:002008-01-09T23:22:38.093-05:00

Every Tuesday afternoon, when I take my bath in Cağaloğlu Hamami, Mustafa Ozkan appears fatter than I remember him from the week before. How my masseur manages to develop that corpulence despite his strenuous profession – all day long he pummels and presses and twists and kneels and steps up and down on his customers, in all that heat in the sauna room – puzzles many bathers. “It’s the baklavas.”

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-70901217323919374072007-08-17T19:21:00.000-04:002007-08-17T20:01:59.559-04:00

Desalination of E. Coli. in Homeric hymnHeed, the readers of Science,Secret ways of the antiporter.This family of membrane proteins,Trading one sodium inside cell, withTwo protons outside,So all life is alive, in acid and brine.Its structure recently unveiled,Using extraction from E. Coli.;Yet its method of act,Hitherto uncomprehended.This method we tell, by a host ofMolecular simulations;By

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-5297085288309618022007-08-02T12:08:00.000-04:002007-08-25T12:16:07.757-04:00

My blog is worth $1,129.08.How much is your blog worth?

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-48174210037284224872007-04-29T23:18:00.000-04:002007-04-30T10:34:38.154-04:00

Bank of America's new gimmick is its Keep the Change program. The ads are all over the places: TV, radio, billboards, subway trains. They feature coins idling on escalators, in dryers, under the carpets, and in other odd crannies. These are the loose changes that BOA vows to help you save: if you use the BOA debit card, your purchase will be rounded up to the next dollar, and the difference will

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-82491507286575015892007-04-07T19:46:00.000-04:002007-04-08T12:53:46.866-04:00

In April 2004, 206 members of Congress signed a letter urging President Bush to loosen the restrictions on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research.Stem cell controversy is another knot in the long string of conflicts between ideology and intellectualism. As it is more a rule than an exception, intellectualism has been on retreat. In 1995, President Clinton signed into law

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1167687615890187912007-01-01T16:23:00.000-05:002007-01-02T11:09:14.626-05:00

For two hundred, you can learn general relativity from a brunette.Cabaret von Einstein sits at an obscure corner off Langestrasse. Zurich, like most European cities, is small, and its Langestrasse is no more than a mile long. I crossed the Sihl River from its north bank, where I was staying in a small hotel for the night, and walked from one end of Langestrasse to the other in less than fifteen

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1167455906268483312006-12-30T00:12:00.000-05:002006-12-30T23:03:37.063-05:00

Il Violino is an Italian restaurant on Columbus Avenue behind the Sony Theatre at Lincoln Square. Many a violinists seemed to have dined there, maybe for dinner as they performed at the nearby Lincoln Center, as their autographed photos covered all the walls. How these photos come into the restaurant is unknown. Did the artists bring a photo of themselves wherever they dined and gave them away as

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1167455424303585642006-12-30T00:06:00.000-05:002006-12-30T00:18:58.180-05:00

The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away; at least the shipping and handling is free.

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1166417414717223882006-12-17T23:17:00.000-05:002006-12-17T23:50:14.736-05:00

It is almost Christmas and I tipped my doormen. This is the first time that I have given the year-end tip to the doormen of my new apartment, therefore it is important and difficult for me to choose the right amount. Too little, the doormen can be unhappy and that will jeopardize my relationship with them; too much, it will set an expensive precedent that I will have to follow in the years to

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1161663318042829622006-10-23T22:46:00.000-04:002006-10-24T00:15:18.163-04:00

I got a coupon from Supercut offering a free haircut. I thought that there was no harm in saving a few bucks. So I went.In retrospect, the big mistake that I made, aside from stinting on what I should have splurged, was that I presented the coupon right after I entered the shop. Every barber turned her head and frowned: here comes another person who is in just for the free cut. The head barber

Chinese Bladenoreply@blogger.com1