source: kitchen daily
Fascinating! I would try this right now unless I’m still at work. So…maybe later. I hope that when I doing this, my kids will think they have a miracle father.
Remember, They’re Family: You Don’t Have to Like Them
Family is important, but there’s no rule that says you have to like or get along with everyone you’re related to. If you do, you’re very lucky, but just being related to someone doesn’t automatically mean the two of you will get along in every situation, share the same views, or even enjoy each other’s company. The holidays—that time of year when everyone is stuck together no matter what—is a particularly trying time when you know that family members you don’t get along with will be present.
It’s a romantic to assume you can push through the stress and irritation at the Thanksgiving dinner table to suddenly become close with a family member you can’t stand. If it happens, you’re lucky, but it’s unlikely. Be kind, respectful, and cordial, but don’t force yourself to spend extended periods with someone you dislike just because you “feel like you should.” Be assertive enough to excuse yourself from awkward conversations, and choose to spend your time with family members you enjoy instead. In the end, you’ll have a happier, healthier, stress-free holiday with family.
This is what I just read in a lifehacker article whose author named Alan Henry. When I saw it for the first time, I thought it was something wrong with my eyes. How could anyone suggest that you don’t have to like a family member? We have always been taught to be nice to our family members, be tolerant and try to figure out how to get along with them. But if you let yourself calm down and think it again, you may find it get some sense.
We all have different experience, ideas and perspective, if we can reach an agreement, we’re just lucky, if we cannot, so what? You should know it is unlikely beforehand. Instead of making yourself miserable to deal with such stuff, why not just admit it and stick your way. Family members are blood-bonded, that’s true…and that’s all. If your ever sincerely tried to be a reasonable person and they still don’t give some positive responds, then let it go. Like the article said, “Be kind, respectful, and cordial, but don’t force yourself to spend extended periods with someone you dislike just because you ‘feel like you should’”.
What the government has done made me gross. That’s why I want to make the donation to this man, Ai weiwei, a man with conscience, though he has claimed that he merely intended to borrow some money. But I still have my worries, what will the government do next time? If they have done it once, why they cannot do it for the second time and why they cannot do it more viciously? After all, they’re shameless and afraid of nothing. So this time I won’t donate much(even if I did, it won’t make much difference I suppose), $10 is just my attitude, appreciate the brave man and despise the shameless authority.
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| From November 5, 2011 |
It’s been a long time since the last time I saw such encouraging video. I do should watch these videos every day to draw energy from them and keep following my dream. Like what has been said in this video,
A free man is someone who is true to be himself. Who follows his dreams and turns them into reality. You have to put fear to one side, it will always be there…but you have to follow your path. It’s all possible, if you put enough energy into it.
You know what? After watching this video, my blood is getting hot. Seriously!
I Believe I can Fly ( flight of the frenchies ). Free segment from sebastien montaz-rosset on Vimeo.
I’m not an Apple fan, and probably I will never be. The only Apple product I had is an iPod classic, a birthday present I bought for my wife. But I suppose you don’t have to be a loyal and crazy Apple fan to appreciate the beauty of the artistic Apple products. Undoubtedly, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iMac have changed the world, in both ways of the stereotypes of these products and how great a product could achieve. I guess that a world without Apple or an Apple without Jobs will turn out to be much boring. Now the second assumption has unfortunately become true, I hope the Apple could sustain and the world could sustain.
Steve Jobs, you’ll be missed for sure.
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中国，中国，壮丽的山河，长江奔腾，昆仑巍峨，
共产党拎刀斩心的国家，处处盛开社会主义花朵！（嗯，社会主义恶之花）
中国、中国，腥红的太阳、庸部落
中国、中国，肺疼的山河，钱金浪潮，波澜壮阔。
猩长征步伐无比贱定，加快建设现代化的墙国
中国、中国，腥红的太阳、庸部落
中国、中国，布局的山河，危然屹立，气失磅礴。
英雄得（dei）认命，严整一代，时刻准备消灭一切轻律者
中国、中国，腥红的太阳、庸部落
中国、中国，腥红的太阳、庸部落
p.s: 时间有些仓促，改得自己也不甚满意，不过限于本人的中文水平和要求对原词尽可能的匹配，也就只能做到这样了。好了，明天终于可以放开嗓门唱了。
还是一句话：唱你鸡巴红歌！
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“The Optimism Bias”, Time, June 6, 2011 , is a very interesting and thought-provoking article. It solved a lot of puzzles which haunted my mind. You can read this article on Time’s website. I promise it won’t let you down. But the other thing I want to remind you is that the reading experience is totally different between web and printed paper. Of course, printed paper is much better.
We’re born to be some optimistic creatures, we tend to believe things will turn out to be better than what they will really end up; most people suppose their driving levels are beyond the average, which is certainly a ridiculous judgement; almost no one think he/she will divorce when he/she just get the marriage-license; we underestimate our chances of getting fired; we wear rose-colored glasses to look into the world. Yet we don’t aware of it, besides, we don’t know why our genes shape us in this way.
To figure out the why question is not an easy job.
FIRST OF ALL, do you realize that you’re optimistic? If you never read such articles or attended some psychological curriculum, I would guess your answer to be negative. But when you finish reading the last paragraph and think through, you’ll notice how overly optimistic we are.
SECONDLY, why we become so? We, human beings, regard ourselves as a rational species. We are more likely to be objective. Optimism lure us to form some false outcomes of things, which makes us seem stupid. Worst of all, optimism exists generally in most of us. So either there are some other benefits of optimism to make its exist reasonable, or evolution made a tragic joke over our mortals. Now “The Optimism Bias” reveals that do have some critical benefits of become optimistic. Like the author of “The Optimism Bias” said:
…the bias also protects and inspires us: it keeps us moving forward rather than to the nearest high-rise ledge. Without optimism, our ancestors might never have ventured far from their tribes and we might all be cave dwellers, still huddled together and dreaming of light and heat.
To make progress, we need to be able to imagine alternative realities–better ones–and we need to believe that we can achieve them…
As compared with these advantages and disadvantages, we can conclude that to be positive is much more crucial to our survival. If we cannot walk out of the cave, it doesn’t matter whether we make some disastrous miscalculations under the influence of optimism , such as less likely to get health checkups or open a savings account.
THIRDLY, to understand the real function of our memory system. What the use of our memory system? To remember the past? Partly true, but not exactly. Research data shows our memories are not reliable. When the time passed by, our memories reconstruct the events happened before with lots of errors, omits and amends. If the memory system is naturally selected and designed precisely to reproduce the past, how can it be that wrong after thousands’ years of evolution? Let’s see what the author say about it:
Scientists who study memory proposed an intriguing answer: memories are susceptible to inaccuracies partly because the neural system responsible for remembering episodes from our past might not have evolved for memory alone. Rather, the core function of the memory system could in fact be to imagine the future–to enable us to prepare for what has yet to come. The system is not designed to perfectly replay past events, the researchers claimed. It is designed to flexibly construct future scenarios in our minds. As a result, memory also ends up being a reconstructive process, and occasionally, details are deleted and others inserted.
And what’s the relationship between memory system and optimism? To understand the mechanism of memory system help us a lot, we know this system deliberately delete something unexpected and insert something desirable. In this way, we become optimistic creatures.
FOURTHLY, to perceive the human time machine.
To think positively about our prospects, we must first be able to imagine ourselves in the future. Optimism starts with what may be the most extraordinary of human talents: mental time travel, the ability to move back and forth through time and space in one’s mind.
We may take this ability for granted, mankind make such mistakes quite often. But the truth is, we never randomly acquire any abilities without deliberately purpose. As we possess this ability, we’re able to make plans and set goals, which help us to be to cleverest primate on earth. But unfortunately, every coin has two sides,
While mental time travel has clear survival advantages, conscious foresight cane to human at an enormous price–the understanding that somewhere in the future, death awaits.
We mortals are all unwillingly to accept that, it makes us depress. Things turns out to be meaningless. No matter how hard we work, no matter how many efforts we made, one day, everyone of us will disappear from this world. This will lead our necessarily activities to survival to a dead end, that divert from the meaning of life. At least, evolution and natural selection won’t allow it to be happened in mass creatures. So optimism stands out to counter the pessimism. To irrationally picture a bright future maybe the only way to inspire us to sustain.
FIFTHLY, optimism is not just something about illusion, it has the power to change the reality. Since most of us think optimism merely formed inside our mind, how can it effect the reality? Have you ever heard the self-fulfilling prophecy? It’s a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive or negative feedback between belief and behavior. When you expecting something good, your brain will get excited, usually this will improve your performance in certain aspects; on contrary, your brain will stay indifferent if you primed it with some negative messages. You see, optimism do have influence over our brain, and whether our brain behaves active or negative affects our performance, different performance lead to different results, that’s why optimism has the power to change the reality.
SIXTHLY, sliver linings. Optimism not only takes effect when we face the good and the bad, but also appears when we have to make a choice among bad things (or good things). If you must bear a malady, it’s will be painful experience to choose from a broken leg or a broken arm. But once you has slightly tilt towards one malady, optimism will immediately step in and take charge of your feelings. You’ll think positive of what you have chosen. Let’s say you painfully made the decision to have a broken leg, seconds later you may conceive some ideas in you mind: It’s not that bad, maybe I’ll stack in the room, but I could play video game all day long. Great!” We live in a rapid world, time is short for us to struggle in dilemma, we must keep moving, with the help of optimism we can make some quick decisions.
SEVENTHLY, can we take the advantage of optimism and remain rational? Of course we can, like the author said:
I believe knowledge is key…The good news is that awareness rarely shatters the illusion. The glass remains half full. If possible, then, to strike a balance, to believe we will stay healthy, but get medical insurance anyway; to be certain the sun will shine, but grab an umbrella on our way out — just in case.
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We both, the individual and the authority, know quite well that 4th, June is not a common day, and will not be. But for the most of us we just pretend we don’t acknowledge it, and we never talk such topics in public. That’s our fault, after they committed the crime. We did nothing but turn a deaf ear about it. Where is our consciousness? Yes, you may say there are many people standing out to protest the wrongdoings of the government, but remember, even you can make a huge list of these dissidents’ names, they’re still the minority. The authority can crush therm like bugs at any time. The general population don’t give a shit about it. Only when their interests have been violated, will they resist; otherwise they are just “good people”, minding their own business. It’s quite normal, isn’t it? Actually it’s pathetic.
22 years ago, the students shed their blood in Tiananmen Square. The government regarded them as rebels. What did the students do? They made peaceful and non-violent petition, expecting that some reforms will take place in China, in a more open and more democratic way. And what they got were bullets and tanks. I suppose some people must have lost their mind.
Now, 22 years passed, and China has become stronger and stronger, but do you think we, the ordinary people, get the benefits? We know too well that the government took the lion’s share. Citizens give up some of their profits and freedom to form a government,aiming to take care of the public affairs and serve the citizens, which should be controlled and supervised by the citizens. Now the government become the Big Brother, watching us in every aspect. How long can we endure?
Make no mistake, none of the regimes can hold the power forever. They either be overthrown violently or they have to seek reform eagerly; totalitarianism and oligarchy always fall into the former category
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I’ve watched the film “Dead Poets Society” last week, and I found it’s really classic. But ironically, I never heard the name of this film until someone recommended another film “The Way Back” (I may talk about that later) which was shot by the same director. This movie do not like the kind of film shot in 1980′s, the scenes remind me of “Scent of a Woman”, have very high qualities. Somehow that’s not the point, the point is the poems in this file attracted me. I don’t have that good command of English, so I can certainly not understand the full spirit of these poems, that’s why I want to take a note here, it will be in handy.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
– Henry David Thoreau:Walden,or Life in the Woods
O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up&emdash;for you the flag is flung&emdash;for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths&emdash;for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
The arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won:
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler,long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other,as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim;
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that,the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh,I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,and I—
I took the less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.– William Shakespeare
She Walks In Beauty
She walks in beauty,like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.One shade the more,one ray the less,
Had half impair’d the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er he face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure,how dear their dwelling-place.And on that cheek,and o’er that brow,
So soft,so calm,yet eloquent,
The smiles thatv win,the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!– George Gorden Byron
Last but not least, in the end of the film, when the students stand upon the desk, when the words “Oh, captain. My captain.” spit out their mouth. I was totally moved and I yelled in my heart, “Fuck the regulations!“
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