tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67971942011-11-27T19:38:33.281-05:00Think like Confucius, cut like a blade.Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.comBlogger701100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-68169270709659796782011-10-28T23:04:00.000-04:002011-10-28T23:04:48.240-04:00

A hope begotten at your sight, a resolve made in my mind, A moth is destined for the flame, for the light. Aware of the devastation ahead, yet We no longer act in perfect logic. Best not to have met, best not to have wished, Only had we never loved one another. Take not another step closer, With every step we sink deeper. 'Tis time's mischief, That separates our lives. Longing for you, long is

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-17344855179224704022011-10-24T13:56:00.000-04:002011-10-25T10:37:38.095-04:00

You are presented with two envelopes, and are told that one contains twice as much money as the other. You are to choose one envelope and earn the money in it. You pick one envelope, and upon opening it, find that it contains y dollars. You have the option to keep that envelope, or to switch to the other envelope. Should you switch? Here is the paradox: there is a 1/2 chance that the other

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-40238985932666111042011-10-16T22:11:00.000-04:002011-10-17T00:57:40.676-04:00

Stopping here, dare not to go on, Stop the sorrows behind the curtains. The farewell that you've handwritten on the next page, Is beyond my power to refuse. We've taken this road in much haste, Holding onto false desires. 'Tis too late, 'tis beyond our patience, To appreciate all that we've left behind, Magnolia's scent cannot seal our wounds. Look no more, the sun shine through the clouds in

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-60002912303878056522011-01-07T21:42:00.002-05:002011-01-07T22:43:22.270-05:00

The most joyful thing in life is to deal with people who know what they are doing. Take, for example, the dinner tonight at The Modern restaurant. The chef clearly knew what he was doing, for the food was impeccable. But the girl at the coat-check left the deepest impression. She was cuter than the average coat-check girl, with an engaging smile, and she definitely knew what she was doing. The

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-86653106048515246212010-12-28T20:11:00.002-05:002010-12-30T00:18:12.702-05:00

On my MacPro, PostgreSQL is installed in /Library/PostgreSQL/8.4/. To install sphinx and have it work with PostgreSQL, I need to configure it in the following way:./configure --with-mysql --with-prefix=/usr/local/sphinx --with-pgsql --with-pgsql-includes=/Library/PostgreSQL/8.4/include/ --with-pgsql-libs=/Library/PostgreSQL/8.4/lib/

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-16584251099620337842010-12-24T12:21:00.006-05:002011-02-24T09:13:26.781-05:00

The django-sphinx package does not recognize the postgis backend; one needs to modify the /path/to/djangosphinx/utils/config.py and reinstall it to make the two work together. Add the following to _get_database_engine() in the config.py file:def _get_database_engine(): ... elif 'postgis' in settings.DATABASES['default']['ENGINE']: return 'pgsql'If you are creating a database as the default

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-5056526352846018312010-07-25T22:31:00.003-04:002010-07-25T22:40:37.651-04:00

What happens when a man dies in his own dream? Does he wake up or does he start another dream? It is one of the intriguing questions posed by the movie Inception. I have come close to dying in my own dreams, but I have always managed a narrow escape. This makes me think that death to oneself in a dream is something that simply does not happen. Our survival instinct may have diffused into our

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-64066024739865863342010-03-22T23:33:00.007-04:002010-03-26T13:37:02.524-04:00

The health care bill passed on Sunday, March 21st, 2010. A historic moment. It will be interesting to observe its consequences in the next decade, a potential gold mine for economists.On the following Monday I had a lunch conversation with a colleague, and the issue of health care was briefly brought up. My colleague said that he just could not understand why anybody could have opposed the bill,

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-31660027837950753972010-03-05T23:00:00.008-05:002010-03-06T11:15:20.132-05:00

As I strolled down the Madison Avenue, a sense of indignation assailed me on full scale. The display of excesses in the row of boutiques like La Perla, Oliver Peoples, and Breguet struck me as a manifestation of social inequality. Is there any justice that a bra, a pair of sunglasses, or a watch should cost so much that they are beyond the reach of ordinary hardworking Americans? Why is there not

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-36682943112000366192010-02-21T19:03:00.005-05:002010-02-23T09:50:57.786-05:00

From Roger Cohen's Op-Ed in New York Times, Dog Days in China:Another noted a local saying: "when the dog meat is being simmered, even the gods become dizzy with hunger."Growing up in China, I ate a lot of dog meat. It is more flavorful than lamb, a bit chewier, and quite delicious. In New York, my wife and I had a Cocker Spaniel, Tom. When it passed away several years ago, we buried it in our

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-61707607118906310032010-02-21T18:31:00.005-05:002010-02-21T20:55:23.119-05:00

The following immortal words of The Declaration of Independence are in peril of misinterpretation:... that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.Note that it is the pursuit of Happiness - not Happiness itself - that is among the unalienable Rights. The Obama administration and the current Democratic

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-41598556836375481872010-02-21T17:49:00.011-05:002010-02-22T08:26:05.616-05:00

I just had my taxes done. As I reviewed my tax returns, I noticed the following description on how to figure the limit on itemized deductions (http://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch29.html):If your itemized deductions are subject to the limit, the total of all your itemized deductions is reduced by the smaller of the following reduced by two-thirds:

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag: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,

Chinesebladenoreply@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,

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-49784005489635274282009-08-24T13:51:00.006-04:002010-02-21T23:42:02.329-05:00

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

Chinesebladenoreply@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,

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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.”

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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?

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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.

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@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

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1161576610234431172006-10-22T23:47:00.000-04:002006-10-23T01:05:29.570-04:00

I have always feared ghosts, and this fear grows stronger as I grow older. Every strange movement of untouched objects, every mysterious apparition, every inexplicable sound rouse my suspecion of an encounter with the unliving. Never could I watch a horror film without being on my toes for days afterwards; so I have quit those films altogether for a few years now.This fear rather perplexed me,

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1151254551614467402006-06-25T12:35:00.000-04:002006-06-28T10:18:20.150-04:00

Imagine an island, inhabited by aborigines untouched by civilization, innocent of art. Imagine a plane crash on this island, and the cargo, the treasures of western art, miraculously survives the crash. Imagine the aborigines, coming to the site of the crash, find that for their grab are Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a canvas spoiled by Jackson Pollack, and, for their

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1150337953350693102006-06-14T21:38:00.000-04:002006-06-15T08:48:03.753-04:00

This Nike commercial is making rounds on the internet. Ronaldinho, yet another Brazilian soccer genius, casually puts on a new pair of white Nike cleats, foot-juggles a football along the penalty line, and kicks the ball at the goal. Four times in a row, the ball hits the crossbar and bounces back, and Ronaldinho catches the ball with his foot and continues to juggle the ball. Incredible.Is it

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1147148979147054532006-05-08T23:34:00.000-04:002006-05-09T00:31:05.760-04:00

Internet! There seemed to be a webpage for everything. And every webpage needs a URL. The most thoughtless, and easy-to-remember way of forming the URL is to concatenate all the words together. My apartment building, Ritz New York, has its own webpage: www.ritzny.com, and one AIDS coalition's website: www.walkforaids.org.But this concatenation can misfire. The URL string can be parsed into

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1141002191423812002006-02-26T18:27:00.000-05:002006-02-26T20:08:52.503-05:00

Let me preface this writing by confessing that I know very little about Japanese -- their culture and their history. Excepting my acquaintance with a few Japanese scientists, my love of Sushi and eel over rice, and my fondness of Japanese anime, I have no knowledge of Japanese literature and art, or its customs and mores. I have not read a single Japanese literary masterpiece, or seen more than

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1140896087108347662006-02-25T14:31:00.000-05:002006-02-25T20:52:45.896-05:00

Nobody turns vegetarian for the taste. Mothers always tell their children to "eat your vegetables", apparently because we do not have an innate appetite for the green leaves or the red roots of domesticated plants. From day one of our existence in this world, we hunger for an animal product: milk. Evolutionarily, we are genetically wired to eat meat: our hunter-gatherer ancestors needed high

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1139352968063829872006-02-07T17:53:00.000-05:002006-02-07T17:56:08.073-05:00

Cis retinal sits,Quietly, until the light hits.Isomerize. See!Today AMBER works,Yesterday CHARMM does better,Force Fields are like that.

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1136263901171118902006-01-02T23:46:00.000-05:002006-01-08T21:47:21.286-05:00

On West 56th Street, just steps east of Carnegie Hall, stands the Le Parker Meridien Hotel. Walk into the lobby, past the reception desk, and turn left, you will find an obscure neon light sign in the shape of a steaming double cheese burger. For many hours around lunch time, everyday of the week, you will also find a long line of people waiting underneath the neon sign. They are waiting to have

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1133366474883744452005-11-30T10:27:00.000-05:002005-11-30T22:42:35.193-05:00

Congratulations on owning your new Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol, a beautifully crafted, perfectly lethal firearm. Please read the following instructions before operating your pistol, as the firing procedure varies under different circumstances.In a Western: Stand upright facing your opponent, arms casually dropped on the sides, with elbows slightly bent outwards. Gaze at your opponent intensely.

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1132593650940026732005-11-21T12:04:00.000-05:002005-11-22T10:01:13.766-05:00

Why is prostitution illegal in most places? Moral decadence in the profession, exploitation of female body, transmission of diseases, and abomination in God’s eyes, these have been foisted as reasons for banning the sexual service. But these reasons confuse cause and effect. The question is: how come prostitution is associated with evil in the first place?Only one condition can trigger the legal

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1132240913722530582005-11-17T10:16:00.000-05:002005-11-17T17:56:19.720-05:00

Nicholas Metropolis, the co-inventor of the Monte Carlo method – indisputably the crown jewel of numerical computation, was once asked how he conceived such an ingenious idea. He answered:“By working with the right people.”The reply was toned in humility and humor. But the statement, taken out of context, sounds trite. “Working with the right people” is the well-known secret of all successes. Jim

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1132205742218587962005-11-16T23:28:00.000-05:002005-11-17T10:03:02.446-05:00

The world consists of two groups of people: us, and them.On Tuesday morning I went to the Immigration and Naturalization Service Center in Flushing to get fingerprinted. The center is located on Rooselvelt Avenue, under the rails of the 7 train, inside a plain, grayish and old one-story building, adjoined by a 99-cent store on the right and a florist on the left. It has one glass door openning

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1122615187178455712005-07-29T01:29:00.000-04:002005-07-29T19:39:48.713-04:00

“Some of them say that you made them.”“I made them?”“Yes, that’s what some of them say.”“Impossible. Do they not know what they are made of?”“They know they are meat. They even know their molecular constitution – proteins, DNA, and all that.”“And they say that I made the meat.”“Well, they do not say that you made the meat. They say that you gave them the soul.”“The what?”“The soul, so that they

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1121493069331531972005-07-16T01:40:00.000-04:002005-07-19T22:49:46.273-04:00

I have one thing to say and I will say it right here at the beginning:Never, ever use American Auto Transport, or M & E Auto Transport, to ship your car. To leave no doubt as to which companies I am referring to, here is a little more information:American Auto Transport, website: www.american-autotransport.com, telephone: 888-402-7447, fax: 954-327-7109.M & E Auto Transport: 10929 Firestone Blvd.

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1118201142249909562005-06-07T22:58:00.000-04:002005-06-08T00:00:41.006-04:00

I ran into this woman in the elevator in my apartment building. She looked to be in her thirties, was smartly dressed, and was checking messages on her cell phone when I stepped in. Summer was in full swing in New York, and the elevator felt like a preheating oven. The woman promptly piped up: "It's hot in here." She spoke without looking at me and in a tone of soliloquy, as if talking to a

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1117838214828194202005-06-03T18:36:00.000-04:002005-06-07T22:57:37.436-04:00

On the second night in my new apartment in midtown Manhattan, I prepared dinner for myself. This is my signature dish: Steak with Asparagus and Mushroom, garnished with Strawberry. I may well be a chef disguised as a chemist.

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1117834925124233702005-06-03T17:34:00.000-04:002005-06-03T17:45:02.400-04:00

I am better, am I not?Today, I took E train from Queens to Manhattan. Across the aisle from me, a woman took out an eyelash curler and a small mirror and started shaping her eyelashes. She appeared to have made the effort to look pretty, for she wore heavy make-ups and seemed to be dressed in the best fashion that she could afford. She kept pulling and curling her eyelashes for twenty minutes.

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1117587499794318032005-05-31T20:56:00.000-04:002005-05-31T21:28:14.043-04:00

Tell me nothing; I don't want to know.There are two subspecies of humans: the rest of us, and the soccer fans (homo soccerfanus). The latter resemble the former in appearance; but they can be identified by occasional peculiar behaviors, such as extreme emotions after the victory or loss of their teams, shouting and yelling at critical moments in a game, excessive consumption of beer during a

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1117565348346981982005-05-31T14:42:00.000-04:002005-05-31T14:49:08.353-04:00

It has everything, and nothing more.Nike just introduced a new running shoe, Nike Free. I tried it on in Nike Town. It was the most comfortable running shoe my feet had worn.Holding Free in the hands, one will immediately notice its light weight. The upper of the shoe is extremely thin. It also has numerous tiny slit openings to enhance ventilation. The sole is flexible, so flexible that the shoe

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1116263349062813712005-05-16T12:55:00.000-04:002005-05-16T13:28:00.096-04:00

We humans are obsessed with sex. Whereas other animals copulate only when they come into heat, which happens once or twice in a year for most mammals, we humans screw all year round. We enjoy sex; we view it as a recreation as much as the means for procreation. We seek sex when we are not having any. We seek more sex when we are having some. The proverbial wisdom has it that a man thinks about

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1116011880555127302005-05-13T14:58:00.000-04:002005-05-13T15:19:15.316-04:00

What do you measure money in?Purchasing power is an important concept in macroeconomics. Defined loosely as how much goods a unit of currency can buy, it is a measure of the worth of money. The most careful analysis of purchasing power usually looks at the average price of a basket of essential goods. But there is a simplification. The price of Big Mac turns out to be a good indicator of the

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1115867376153231482005-05-11T22:51:00.000-04:002005-05-16T13:36:45.806-04:00

When things start to break, it is time to leave.I have lived in San Francisco for twenty months by now. Things started to break. About a month ago, I dropped the lid of my Brita water filter, and it broke. That was the first of a chain of incidents. The handle on my Dell laptop bag gave way two weeks ago, and I had to use the shoulder strap since, until last Friday when the strap also came off

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1114816944888392452005-04-29T19:09:00.000-04:002005-04-29T20:02:04.220-04:00

If people don’t understand it, they won’t trust it.“I sense a great disturbance in the Force”, Darth Vader says as Obi-Wan Kenobi boards the Super Star Destroyer. I am a believer in the force field that Jedi knights manipulate with miraculous effects. But I have grown wary of the force fields that computational biologists use in their simulations. To simulate on computers the behavior of a

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1113850409143358532005-04-18T14:28:00.000-04:002005-05-01T13:36:57.640-04:00

Saturday, Yang and I took subway from Queens into Manhattan. New York City subway got its weekend relief from its workday congestions, and there were only a handful of passengers in our car. Our ride was roomy and long, so I took the opportunity to show off my card tricks.It is a challenge to do the tricks for Yang, for she is more interested in catching my sleights than being entertained. This

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1113069697601112372005-04-09T13:59:00.000-04:002005-04-21T22:32:41.930-04:00

I took a personality test to determine the most fitting OS for me. Not a surprising result.

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1111278873670041822005-03-19T18:37:00.000-05:002005-04-21T22:33:16.800-04:00

Evolution has no foresight. Neither do we. This is an age of insecurity. Hijacked planes, suicide bombs, weapons of mass destruction, phishing emails, computer viruses. We are under attack everywhere and everyday.But this is also an age of protection. National security advisory code, airport shoe check, National Missile Defense system, liberation of Iraq, sophisticated message encryption,

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1110827682693990942005-03-14T14:13:00.000-05:002005-04-13T14:12:07.133-04:00

To promote women, we must demote men.When I first went to Columbia University, the Department of Chemistry had one female professor. A year later, the department hired a young woman as an assistant professor, doubling the size of its female faculty. The department had a total of twenty faculty members at that time.In University of California, San Francisco, on the floor that I currently work,

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1110827608290170182005-03-14T14:10:00.000-05:002005-04-14T21:08:55.346-04:00

Seeing the bus leaving the stop, I ran after it. My life changed for the next three weeks.Exhibit 1. The swelling was still visible a week after I sprained my left ankle.The accidentWhen I was thirty years old, I went on crutches for the first time. The accident happened on a Thursday night, when I severely sprained my left ankle as I ran to catch a departing bus. That night, Bosco and I were

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1110660312928099212005-03-12T13:39:00.000-05:002005-04-21T22:37:50.586-04:00

Don't write beyond the subject line.In the information age, brevity comes first. I sent the following message to invite my friends to a popular Peruvian restaurant:Near the intersection of Valencia and the 17'th Street sits the legendary Limon restaurant, whose succulent ribeye steaks and tender grilled scallops have earned its reputation far and wide in the Bay Area. To this restaurant I invite

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1110598236055161432005-03-11T22:17:00.000-05:002005-05-17T13:13:33.136-04:00

Harvard University did not offer me a job, for one good reason.This year I looked for faculty positions. I sent my application to Harvard University. It lead to the following exchange of letters.*********************************Department of Chemistry and Chemical BiologyHarvard UniversityDear Members of the Search Committee:Please consider my application for the junior faculty position in

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1109624004203248902004-05-28T15:50:00.000-04:002005-04-30T18:14:45.830-04:00

Sitting with an empty wallet in a restaurant that only accepts cash, I thought of calling a friend, who was at that moment desperately looking for his missing cell phone. It happens to us all. Seeing that "Cash Only" sign hanging on the restaurant door at the end of our solitary meal, and finding to our great dismay that, despite those "accepted everywhere" major credit cards and except for a few

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1082481175186156832004-05-10T02:24:00.000-04:002005-04-21T22:39:34.896-04:00

I had one night to fear my imminent devastation.I spent half of my lived life preparing for and taking exams. I excelled in them. They gave me instantaneous satisfaction and self-assurance. From primary school to college, I enjoyed the feeling of triumph after scoring higher than most of my classmates in each exam. Although I was scarcely the top of the class, I was invariably close enough to

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6797194.post-1082335172276892722004-04-26T00:41:00.000-04:002005-04-21T22:40:05.486-04:00

How some classic puzzles can be solved in different ways.I am fond of puzzles, and often trade them with my friends of similar propensities. Over the years I have come across a large number of puzzles. As a result, the stream of new ones that flows my way has dwindled to a trickle. More often than not, I will have recognized a puzzle of past acquaintance before my friends are only half way

Chinesebladenoreply@blogger.com0