siwen: People

Shawn Johnson

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:03:38 GMT

我巨fan这个小姑娘，可惜今天的女子体操全能她输给了Liukin，只拿了银牌。

她长得好可爱，甜甜的笑容让人觉得生活灿烂而美好。

美女啊美女

和Liukin一起

...这个就不说了...

Heath Ledger's gone...

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:31:03 GMT

他是我最喜欢的Hollywood的男明星之一。

早在Brokeback Mountain之前我就很fan他了，后来因为那座山他终于大红大紫。

1979年4月4日出生，29岁还不到呢，就这么走了。

是22号的事情。

那一天我在干嘛，好像一整天都是在公司培训。

不过根据时差，他死的时候我大概是在睡梦中吧。

今年的冬天特别冷，连上海都下大雪了。

Danny Tidwell

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:22:57 GMT

这几天在youtube上追着看完了所有他的舞蹈视频。

Danny Tidwell，美国选秀节目So you think you can dance第三季的亚军。

1984年出生（比我还小...），不知道生母出了什么问题，他在12岁时被白人家庭收养，潜心学舞。

去年So you think you can dance第二季的亚军Travis Wall是他弟弟（一起被收养的）。

他参加选秀之前已经成名，曾经是Madonna的首席御用dancer，现在也算美国身价最高的dancer之一。

不过也是因为他名气太大，比赛初期屡次被评委诟病，他的高高在上，他的傲慢，blahblah。

可能评委的话对观众也产生了影响，他进top 10之前一直磕磕碰碰，好几次都到了bottom three，差点出局。

不过好玩的是进了top 10之后一切峰回路转，美国观众似乎一夜之间接受了他，他也一直走到了finale。

虽然最后冠军给了Sabra Johnson，但是在很多观众心目中（特别是女性观众和gay观众），Danny is the best。

我也超级喜欢他啊。

修长的腿，略带羞涩的微笑，性感的肤色，安静的眼神，PERFECT!

不过随着我八卦的继续深入，噩耗马上就传来——

貌似是有确定的证据说明他是gay，他的弟弟Travis Wall也是gay...

我一直想不通，为什么现在是个帅哥他就是gay呢...而且通常还不是一般帅的那种...

我也讲一个吧，这个故事曾经让我哀伤了好久(ZZ from MITBBS)

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 19:54:39 GMT

我也讲一个吧，这个故事曾经让我哀伤了好久。

是真事儿。

一个英国女诗人，叫Sylvia Plath，她写得最有名的诗集是the bell jar，现在还可以
在网上找到当年在电台她自己念诗集的录音。五十年代在剑桥读书的时候认识了同样
才华横溢的诗人，Ted Hughes。这人恐怕很多人都知道，是英国现代有名的诗人。两个
人就爱上了，结婚了，生了两个孩子。绝配，天仙般的幸福日子。后来Ted婚外情，和
他们两个的一个诗人朋友的情人，Assia。Sylvia知道了，就等着，等他有一天回家来
，可是，总等不到他回家。1963年，她三十岁的一天早上，把家里一切都收拾好，给两
个孩子吃完早饭，又在床边给他们放好牛奶，然后关上他们的房门让他们不要出来。她
自己就走到楼下厨房里，关好门，把头探进煤气炉，打开煤气。。。

Sylvia死后，她的孩子被亲戚接走了。Ted和Assia般进了这个house。可惜，Assia的日
子很难过，因为Sylvia的死，朋友邻居都不给她好脸色看，她一个人，没什么朋友，后
来和Ted生了个女儿，叫Shura，连孩子也跟着遭别人的白眼，受人欺负。更糟糕的是，
Ted早就有其他同时搭上的女人，其中一个是个护士，根本没打算和Assia结婚。后来也
很少回家了，就在伦敦住着。Assia和当年的Sylvia一样，在同样的房子里，和孩子一
起等同样一个男人回家，却等不来。她终于也走了同样的路，在同一个厨房里用同样的
方式自杀。。。所不同的是，她带上了她四岁的女儿Shura。。。

Assia和Shura死后，Ted Hughes就和那个护士结婚了。后来一生还是个成功诗人，得了
无数名誉和奖像。他和Sylvia的两个孩子也并不很恨他的样子。1998年他患癌症死之前
，出版了一本收集了他为Sylvia写的88首诗的诗集，Birthday Letters，读的人无不为
其中的真情实感而感动。

Ted Hughes和Sylvia Plath生前死后都是负着盛名的诗人。Sylvia故事还在2003年被拍
成了电影，就叫Sylvia。。。可是，没有人再提到Assia，和可怜的Shura。那个可怜四岁的
小女孩儿，我没办法不想着她。一个朋友说Assia不应该把Shura带上，她没有权利替上
帝决定另外一个生命的去向。可我想，我明白Assia,她是太担心留Shura一个人在世上
，只有她在意她，她走了之后，没有她的保护，自从出生就被父亲冷落就被邻居朋友冷
眼欺负的shura的生活会是怎样。。。她是不舍得留下Shura一个在这世上无依无靠，才
带她一起走的吧。。。

可怜的Shura。那个可怜的四岁小女孩儿，我没办法不想着她。

附图： Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes

密斯张三

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:51:17 GMT

我很早之前就听说过她。
若干天以前熬夜写论文的时候曾经在google上找寻所有关于她的信息。

本名马晓雁，科大少年班毕业，至今在bbs.ustc.edu.cn上还可以找到她发的帖子。
2004年进入Princeton攻读天体物理的硕士，研究方向是等离子体物理。
2006年9月拿到硕士学位，决定不继续攻读博士，在纽约找工作。
2007年农历新年附近在Princeton的寓所中自杀，年仅23岁。

我有仔细看过她的三个blog：
阁楼间烟花巷　http://zia.blogcn.com
I Flunked, but　http://zhang3.blog.edu.cn
上演孟母三迁　http://misszhang3.yculblog.com
文字间闪烁的聪慧、敏锐和灵气让我折服，不明白这样的一个人为什么会选择结束自己的生命。

她是如此地喜欢张爱玲，能随口说出一段又一段原文；
喜欢迈克，喜欢达明，喜欢林生，喜欢黄碧云，不喜欢朱天心姐妹；
她参加过很多电影字幕的翻译，上次看《香水》的时候就赫然出现了她的名字。
有人说一直以为她在美国攻读文科的博士，因为那些文字是那样精致而清丽。
当然，我一直觉得，“最高端的文艺青年是理科生。
经过科学思维训练的头脑，对美有着更不含糊，精确而偏执的爱好。”

Dear Santa
This year, I have been a idle drifter. I slugged and loitered;
I'm passive agressive and bitter;
I let ppl down and somehow I don't really care.
Maybe I don't deserve any presents, or love, or blank checks this xmas...
but would you forgive me?

这是她在blog上留下的最后的文字，下面这一段是她一个朋友的留言。

sweetie, I come here to see cuz I just recalled what you said about Santa, right here.
Will you forgive me, Santa? That line made me wanna cry hard.
It's almost been a year but I'm still regretting if I've had talked to you
as much as now I talk to other ppl who know you or don't know you, in vain.
I wish you are happy now. maybe this is a pathetic world. I've missed you.

Maybe this is a pathetic world，它甚至留不下你。

依然是觉得惋惜，即使是在知道她死讯后的大半年以后。
重读她的blog，依然是自惭形秽，无地自容，那样精细美好的文字。

"生命是一袭华美的袍，爬满了蚤子"。

看到帅哥心情就会变好

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 03:05:07 GMT

你还是一如既往地帅。我还是一如既往地对你YY。

"You've got to find what you love" (zz from HY's blog)

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:03:15 GMT

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Great man and great talk

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 14:42:00 GMT

Bill Gates talk at Harvard's Graduation Commencement

President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President
Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers,
members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates:

　　I've been waiting more than 30 years to say this: "Dad, I always
told you I'd come back and get my degree."

　　I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I'll be changing my
job next year … and it will be nice to finally have a college degree
on my resume.

　　I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route
to your degrees. For my part, I'm just happy that the Crimson has
called me "Harvard's most successful dropout." I guess that makes me
valedictorian of my own special class … I did the best of everyone
who failed.

　　But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer
to drop out of business school. I'm a bad influence. That's why I was
invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your
orientation, fewer of you might be here today.

　　Harvard was just a phenomenal experience for me. Academic life was
fascinating. I used to sit in on lots of classes I hadn't even signed
up for. And dorm life was terrific. I lived up at Radcliffe, in
Currier House. There were always lots of people in my dorm room late
at night discussing things, because everyone knew I didn't worry about
getting up in the morning. That's how I came to be the leader of the
anti-social group. We clung to each other as a way of validating our
rejection of all those social people.

　　Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there,
and most of the guys were science-math types. That combination offered
me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned the
sad lesson that improving your odds doesn't guarantee success.

　　One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975, when I
made a call from Currier House to a company in Albuquerque that had
begun making the world's first personal computers. I offered to sell
them software.

　　I worried that they would realize I was just a student in a dorm
and hang up on me. Instead they said: "We're not quite ready, come see
us in a month," which was a good thing, because we hadn't written the
software yet. From that moment, I worked day and night on this little
extra credit project that marked the end of my college education and
the beginning of a remarkable journey with Microsoft.

　　What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of
so much energy and intelligence. It could be exhilarating, intimidating,
sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an amazing
privilege – and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at
Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.

　　But taking a serious look back … I do have one big regret.

　　I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in
the world – the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and
opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.

　　I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and
politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the
sciences.

　　But humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but
in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether
through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or
broad economic opportunity – reducing inequity is the highest human
achievement.

　　I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people
cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I
knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable
poverty and disease in developing countries.

　　It took me decades to find out.

　　You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more
about the world's inequities than the classes that came before. In
your years here, I hope you've had a chance to think about how – in
this age of accelerating technology – we can finally take on these
inequities, and we can solve them.

　　Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours
a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause – and you
wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest
impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it?

　　For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do
the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have.

　　During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an
article about the millions of children who were dying every year in
poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in
this country. Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever.
One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a
million kids each year – none of them in the United States.

　　We were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of children
were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority
to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not.
For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives
that just weren't being delivered.

　　If you believe that every life has equal value, it's revolting to
learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We
said to ourselves: "This can't be true. But if it is true, it deserves
to be the priority of our giving."

　　So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it.
We asked: "How could the world let these children die?"

　　The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving
the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So
the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power
in the market and no voice in the system.

　　But you and I have both.

　　We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can
develop a more creative capitalism – if we can stretch the reach of
market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make
a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities.
We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money
in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.

　　If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways
that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will
have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world. This
task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort
to answer this challenge will change the world.

　　I am optimistic that we can do this, but I talk to skeptics who
claim there is no hope. They say: "Inequity has been with us since the
beginning, and will be with us till the end – because people just …
don't … care." I completely disagree.

　　I believe we have more caring than we know what to do with.

　　All of us here in this Yard, at one time or another, have seen
human tragedies that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing – not
because we didn't care, but because we didn't know what to do. If we
had known how to help, we would have acted.

　　The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much
complexity.

　　To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a
solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps.

　　Even with the advent of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still
a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problems. When an
airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference. They
promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar
crashes in the future.

　　But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: "Of all
the people in the world who died today from preventable causes, one
half of one percent of them were on this plane. We're determined to do
everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the
one half of one percent."

　　The bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions of
preventable deaths.

　　We don't read much about these deaths. The media covers what's new
– and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in the
background, where it's easier to ignore. But even when we do see it or
read about it, it's difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. It's
hard to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we don't
know how to help. And so we look away.

　　If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come
to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution.

　　Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our
caring. If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or
individual asks "How can I help?," then we can get action – and we
can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But
complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who
cares — and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.

　　Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four
predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage
approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the
meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you
already have — whether it's something sophisticated, like a drug, or
something simpler, like a bednet.

　　The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is
to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The
ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with
a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund
vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a decade,
so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand – and
the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid
risky behavior.

　　Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the
pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working –
and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th
century – which is to surrender to complexity and quit.

　　The final step – after seeing the problem and finding an approach
– is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and
failures so that others learn from your efforts.

　　You have to have the statistics, of course. You have to be able to
show that a program is vaccinating millions more children. You have to
be able to show a decline in the number of children dying from these
diseases. This is essential not just to improve the program, but also
to help draw more investment from business and government.

　　But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show
more than numbers; you have to convey the human impact of the work –
so people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected.

　　I remember going to Davos some years back and sitting on a global
health panel that was discussing ways to save millions of lives.
Millions! Think of the thrill of saving just one person's life – then
multiply that by millions. … Yet this was the most boring panel I've
ever been on – ever. So boring even I couldn't bear it.

　　What made that experience especially striking was that I had just
come from an event where we were introducing version 13 of some piece
of software, and we had people jumping and shouting with excitement. I
love getting people excited about software – but why can't we
generate even more excitement for saving lives?

　　You can't get people excited unless you can help them see and feel
the impact. And how you do that – is a complex question.

　　Still, I'm optimistic. Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but
the new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us
forever. They are new – they can help us make the most of our caring
– and that's why the future can be different from the past.

　　The defining and ongoing innovations of this age – biotechnology,
the computer, the Internet – give us a chance we've never had before
to end extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease.

　　Sixty years ago, George Marshall came to this commencement and
announced a plan to assist the nations of post-war Europe. He said: "I
think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous
complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by
press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the
street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. It is virtually
impossible at this distance to grasp at all the real significance of
the situation."

　　Thirty years after Marshall made his address, as my class
graduated without me, technology was emerging that would make the
world smaller, more open, more visible, less distant.

　　The emergence of low-cost personal computers gave rise to a
powerful network that has transformed opportunities for learning and
communicating.

　　The magical thing about this network is not just that it collapses
distance and makes everyone your neighbor. It also dramatically
increases the number of brilliant minds we can have working together
on the same problem – and that scales up the rate of innovation to a
staggering degree.

　　At the same time, for every person in the world who has access to
this technology, five people don't. That means many creative minds are
left out of this discussion -- smart people with practical
intelligence and relevant experience who don't have the technology to
hone their talents or contribute their ideas to the world.

　　We need as many people as possible to have access to this
technology, because these advances are triggering a revolution in what
human beings can do for one another. They are making it possible not
just for national governments, but for universities, corporations,
smaller organizations, and even individuals to see problems, see
approaches, and measure the impact of their efforts to address the
hunger, poverty, and desperation George Marshall spoke of 60 years ago.

　　Members of the Harvard Family: Here in the Yard is one of the
great collections of intellectual talent in the world.

　　What for?

　　There is no question that the faculty, the alumni, the students,
and the benefactors of Harvard have used their power to improve the
lives of people here and around the world. But can we do more? Can
Harvard dedicate its intellect to improving the lives of people who
will never even hear its name?

　　Let me make a request of the deans and the professors – the
intellectual leaders here at Harvard: As you hire new faculty, award
tenure, review curriculum, and determine degree requirements, please
ask yourselves:

　　Should our best minds be dedicated to solving our biggest problems?

　　Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world's worst
inequities? Should Harvard students learn about the depth of global
poverty … the prevalence of world hunger … the scarcity of clean
water …the girls kept out of school … the children who die from
diseases we can cure?

　　Should the world's most privileged people learn about the lives of
the world's least privileged?

　　These are not rhetorical questions – you will answer with your
policies.

　　My mother, who was filled with pride the day I was admitted here
– never stopped pressing me to do more for others. A few days before
my wedding, she hosted a bridal event, at which she read aloud a
letter about marriage that she had written to Melinda. My mother was
very ill with cancer at the time, but she saw one more opportunity to
deliver her message, and at the close of the letter she said: "From
those to whom much is given, much is expected."

　　When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been
given – in talent, privilege, and opportunity – there is almost no
limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.

　　In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the
graduates here to take on an issue – a complex problem, a deep
inequity, and become a specialist on it. If you make it the focus of
your career, that would be phenomenal. But you don't have to do that
to make an impact. For a few hours every week, you can use the growing
power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same
interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them.

　　Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big
inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

　　You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time. As you leave
Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You
have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have. And with
that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will
torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change
with very little effort. You have more than we had; you must start
sooner, and carry on longer.

　　Knowing what you know, how could you not?

　　And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now
and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I
hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional
accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the
world's deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world
away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.

　　Good luck.

Tina Brown

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:14:29 GMT

Tina Brown是美女，即使现在年过五旬还风韵犹存。

Tina Brown还是才女， 74年毕业于牛津大学，25岁就被聘为Tatler的主编；

84年的时候成为Vanity Fair的主编，92年接管The New Yorker；

不过虽然The New Yorker发行量增加了不少，杂志社还是一直亏钱，大抵因为她的作风太过奢侈；

99年她又来到了Talk，可是01年的时候Talk也因为亏损关闭了。

还记得Sex and The City第一季episode05的开场白就是：

The mose powerful woman in New York is not Tina Brown, or Diane Sawyer or even Rosie O'Donnell.

由此可见这女人在NYC的声名。

最近她又出了一本新书，The Diana Chronicles。

(八卦不完了。。。)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

今天突然就发烧了，全身发烫，好难受，从内到外充满了无力感。

于是就打开本本，什么正事也没干，四处闲逛。

中午碰到HY，他也感冒了，Well，Bless him and me，希望我们都快点好起来。

无题——for someone

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 12:02:51 GMT

她是我的老板，这大半个月以来做兼职的老板。

中途因为她我quit一次，后来又鬼迷心窍地跑回去，我想还是因为她。

她是一个非常厉害的女人。

我很少碰到能让我发自内心觉得厉害的人，嗯，她算0.8个吧，呵呵。

之所以只说0.8个，是因为她身上有些东西我还是会觉得难以接受。

她脾气很糟糕，可能是因为太劳累对自己太push的缘故。

经常会骂人，特别是对一些反应慢而且不会做事的人，她的耐性极差。

第一次去她office的时候，她在搬东西，嘴里时不时蹦出TMD，有时候还来一句CTMD；

我当时就觉得这个人很好玩，因为敢肆无忌惮骂脏话的女人，通常都不简单。

她赚的钱不少，但是大多数时候她会让人觉得她很穷。

她买很便宜的衣服，吃很廉价的东西，甚至卫生巾也只用两块钱一包的。

有一次在家乐福，她在打折的T-shirt前面流连，被我拉走了。

后来她自己说她是一个很cheap的人，她还说我不是，我太挑了，很难伺候——

当然，她说这话并不是贬低她自己或者表扬我，在她看来我这样的人才应该检讨一下自己。

不过有时候她又让我大吃一惊。

她的office靠近久光，昨天上班的时候我赫然看见她床头有一个Vivienne Westwood的袋子。

我当时就想，如果小兹鲁也在，我们两个人一定会尖叫的，呵呵。

她以前的员工说她怕孤独，我想我可以感觉的出来。

我还偶然看到了一些事情，更加让我觉得她是真的有一些孤独。

可是同时我又觉得她既然有这样的性格，就应该生来就学会忍受孤独。

最搞笑的一次是在静安枫景苑一号楼的lobby。

有个房东居然问我是不是她女儿，说我们俩长得很像，当时我和她都有点抓狂。

她抓狂是因为她其实还很年轻，我抓狂是因为我觉得我看上去应该没有那么咄咄逼人。

手头有一封cover letter要写，还要问师兄课题的事情，还要制定周末的行程——

不过我还是想写写她，至少以后想起她时还有东西可以看看~

Freezing cold

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 13:18:15 GMT

上海这两天简直是冷得惊心动魄，好冷好冷。

刚才出去吃饭的时候碰见一堆印尼小孩。

我本来一个人坐在一边，而他们在热烈地交谈，用我听不懂的“鸟语”。

后来我出于好奇，就跑过去问他们是哪里来的，我想知道“鸟语”是什么语言。

原来是在印尼出生的华人小孩，在澳大利亚读大学，Monash Uni，然后到上外交换一个半月。

他们都是大三大四的学生，英语很流利，可是有很厉害的口音。

我们聊了一会，临走的时候有个男孩子不好意思地用中文问我：我可以给你打电话吗？

然后他的同伴们都哄笑，用印尼语不知道说些什么，他的脸都红了。

我有点不知所措，在我看来他就是一小孩，虽然他比我可能小不了多少。

不过我还是给了他号码，可是我希望他不要打过来。

回来的路上我觉得心里不是很平静。

说不出来是什么感觉，有一点兴奋，又有一点难过。

兴奋是觉得这种事情很好玩；

难过是觉得，我错过了本应该经历这些事情的年龄，我最好的年华，我却弄丢了。

有没有哪怕一点点的可能让我重新回到初中毕业的时候...

Evariste Galois

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 03:04:47 GMT

最近在研究伽罗华域的一些东西，然后在网上顺带看到了伽罗华的生平。

天才的浪漫的数学家，21岁就为了女人和别人决斗而死，下面这段话摘自他的遗书。

“我请求我的爱国同胞们，我的朋友们，不要指责我不是为我的国家而死。

我是作为一个不名誉的风骚女人和她的两个受骗者的牺牲品而死的。

我将在可耻的诽谤中结束我的生命。噢！为什么要为这么微不足道的，这么可鄙的事去死呢？

我恳求苍天为我作证，只有武力和强迫才使我在我曾想方设法避开的挑衅中倒下。”

从小就崇拜数学和物理好的人，特别是数学；

而且反之亦反，就是说如果一个人其他方面再厉害，数学不好，基本上我是懒得去仰视的。

我看到困扰了我很长时间的伽罗华域的理论是他20岁不到的研究成果之后，就觉得天旋地转；

再看到他为了“爱情和荣誉”跑去跟别人决斗被打穿肠子然后重伤而死之后，就再次感到天旋地转。

想想刚刚重新看了一遍的张爱玲传，心里感叹可能天才的人生总归要与众不同一些才正常。

另：最近越来越多我care的人成为Phd candidate，搞不好我也要了，真是说不出的迷茫。

摄影师与作家

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 03:21:16 GMT

摄影师与作家, 是上期三联生活周刊中的一篇文章.

我无意中看到, 对这两个女人都产生了浓厚的兴趣, 于是回来继续研究.

摄影师: Annie Leibovitz

生于1947年, 1970年开始为Rolling Stone拍照, 1973年成为其首席摄影师.

1983年成为Vanity Fair特约摄影师, 1990年在纽约成立Annie Leibovitz工作室.

http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/leibovitz/index.html

作家: Susan Sontag

1933年生于纽约, 2004年10月28日逝世.

她的作品被翻译成32种文字, 在美国文坛影响巨大.

http://www.susansontag.com/index.htm

三联上这样说:

无论她们之间是什么关系, 这种关系都是深刻的.

两人相识于1988年, 随后搬进纽约同一栋公寓大楼, 不住在一起, 却看得见对方房间的风景.

2001年12月, 54岁的Leibovitz生下女儿Sarah, 临盆时Sontag在侧.

这如同许多女同性恋的无奈选择, 是个值得祝福的baby, 但这个女孩却成了禁忌话题.

接着谣言四起, 说精子提供者是Santag的儿子, 当时38岁的David Rieff.

最近摄影师出了个新传记, 在长时间沉默后, 首次谈论Santag, 以及她们的孩子.

总之是很有趣的女人, 很有趣的人生.

下面这张是Annie Leibovitz的作品, Vanity Fair十月号的封面.

Robert Kapa

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 00:20:15 GMT

"他老兄

匈牙利出生、

德国上学、

法国谋生、

西班牙内战出名、

北非跳伞、

诺曼底登陆、

在巴黎和Ingrid Bergman恋爱、

加入美国籍、

在日本上班、

在越南被地雷炸死、

尸首埋在纽约...

像蚂蚁一样工作，

像蝴蝶一样生活。"

2006年6月6日晚12点，

趴在床上看到这段话，

很是激动，

这个男人太酷了。

Diane Arbus

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 00:36:54 GMT

Diane Arbus

Timeline

March 1923	Born Diane Nemerov in NYC.
1937	Meets Allan Arbus, future husband.
1941	Marries Allan Arbus.
	Allan begins to teach Diane photography.
1955-57	Began Studying Photography with Lisette Model.
	Separated from Allan Arbus.
1960	First Published in "Esquire"
1962	Switched from 35mm to Square format
1963	Recieved Guggenheim Fellowship.
	First Time Arbus photographed a nudist camp.
1964	Arbus' first exhibit at Museum of Modern Art.
1965-66	Taught at Parsons School of Design, NY
1966	Recieved second Guggenheim Fellowship.
1967	Work Exibited as part of New Documents, the Museum of Modern Art's influential exhibition about the "new social landscape" of the 1960s.
1968-69	Taught at Cooper Union in NY
1969	Divorced Allan Arbus.
1970-71	Taught at Rhode Island School of Design
July 1971	Committed Suicide
1972	First American Photographer to be honored at Venice Biennale
	Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph first published
1984	Diane Arbus, Magazine Work published

Quote:

"Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe. There's a quality of legend about freaks. Lke a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatifc experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats."

—— Diane Arbus

“你无法脱出自己的皮肤而进入他人的身躯，别人的悲剧永远不可能成为你的。”

—— Diane Arbus

拼命想找出上面这句话的原文，可是眼睛看疼了都没有结果。

只知道它是出自Patricia Bosworth的Diane Arbus：A Biography。

google到了很多她的作品，几乎全是黑白，阴暗的色调，

想到自己已经更换了space的颜色并觉得有必要改变心情，于是没贴出来。

我以前也知道她，是在安妮的书中。

当时手边没有电脑，于是无从得知进一步的资料，后来也忘记了。

这次是因为Nicole Kidman将要拍她的传记Fur，所以重新提起兴趣。

其实也没有什么好写的，只是对她这句话感触深刻。

以前一直希望能得到他人的救赎，后来才发现自己是多么的naive。

幸福始终是自己一个人的事情，没有人能给予或者剥夺。

可是我即使知道，很多时候我面对自己的生活也还是无能为力。

不知道为什么，那天心血来潮将space变得明媚之后，写blog的心情顿时消失了:(