Albert T. Wong - 黃頌言

I love it how people can take a good “something” and turn it on it’s head. It’s like living in the book 1984 and realizing that things may not be what they really are.

Review: The Dark Knight || kuro5hin.org

It is little wonder that The Dark Knight has done so well in modern America, generating huge returns for its investors, and spurring talk even before its release of potential Academy Awards. This is not because the ‘dark’ setting and overt themes of the film have any legitimate resonance with the zeitgeist. No, the film’s subtext strikes a chord with the deep-seated convictions of the mainstream American public and with the interests of Hollywood investors.

One of my fav articles.

The Brand Called You
Big companies understand the importance of brands. Today, in the Age of the Individual, you have to be your own brand. Here’s what it takes to be the CEO of Me Inc.

Highlights…
*In the first section, Dennett defines scientific inquiry in a narrow way, restricting it to the collection of evidence that is reproducible and testable. He makes a sharp distinction between science on the one hand and the humanistic disciplines of history and theology on the other. He does not accept as scientific the great mass of evidence contained in historical narratives and personal experiences. Since it cannot be reproduced under controlled conditions, it does not belong to science.
*For Dennett, the visions of saints and mystics are worthless as evidence, since they are neither repeatable nor testable. Dennett is examining religion from the outside, following the rules of science. For him, the visions of saints and mystics are only a phenomenon to be explained, like falling in love or hating people of a different skin color, mental conditions that may or may not be considered pathological.
*The second section of the book is the longest and contains the core of Dennett’s argument. He describes the various stages of the long historical evolution of religion, beginning with primitive tribal myths and rituals, and ending with the market-driven evangelical megachurches of modern America. Looking at these evolutionary processes from the outside, he speculates about ways in which they might be understood scientifically. He explains them tentatively as products of a Darwinian competition between belief systems, in which only the fittest belief systems survive. The fitness of a belief system is defined by its ability to make new converts and retain their loyalty. It has little to do with the biological fitness of its human carriers, and it has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of the beliefs.
*Dennett puts forward other hypotheses concerning the evolution of religion. He observes that belief, which means accepting certain doctrines as true, is different from belief in belief, which means believing belief in the same doctrines to be desirable. He finds evidence that large numbers of people who identify themselves as religious believers do not in fact believe the doctrines of their religions but only believe in belief as a desirable goal. The phenomenon of “belief in belief” makes religion attractive to many people who would otherwise be hard to convert. To belong to a religion, you do not have to believe. You only have to want to believe, or perhaps you only have to pretend to believe. Belief is difficult, but belief in belief is easy. Belief in belief is one of the important phenomena that give a religion increased transmissibility and consequently increased fitness.
*The third and last section of Dennett’s book describes his view of religion in the modern world. In a long chapter entitled “Morality and Religion,” he blames religion for many of the worst evils of our century. He blames not only the minority of murderous fanatics whose religion impels them to acts of terrorism, but also the majority of peaceful and moderate believers who do not publicly condemn the actions of the fanatics.
*He quotes with approval the famous remark of the physicist Stephen Weinberg: “Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things�that takes religion.” Weinberg’s statement is true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth. To make it the whole truth, we must add an additional clause: “And for bad people to do good things�that takes religion.” The main point of Christianity is that it is a religion for sinners. Jesus made that very clear. When the Pharisees asked his disciples, “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” he said, “I come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Only a small fraction of sinners repent and do good things, but only a small fraction of good people are led by their religion to do bad things.

The New York Review of Books: Religion from the Outside
Breaking the spell of religion is a game that many people can play. The best player of this game that I ever knew was Professor G.H. Hardy, a world-famous mathematician who happened to be a passionate atheist. There are two kinds of atheists, ordinary atheists who do not believe in God and passionate atheists who consider God to be their personal enemy. When I was a junior fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, Hardy was my mentor. As a junior fellow I enjoyed the privilege of dining at the high table with the old and famous. During my tenure, Professor Simpson, one of the old and famous fellows, died. Simpson had a strong sentimental attachment to the college and was a religious believer. He left instructions that he should be cremated and his ashes should be scattered on the bowling green in the fellows’ garden where he loved to walk and meditate. A few days after he died, a solemn funeral service was held for him in the college chapel. His many years of faithful service to the college and his exemplary role as a Christian scholar and teacher were duly celebrated.

In the evening of the same day I took my place at the high table. One of the neighboring places at the table was empty. Professor Hardy, contrary to his usual habit, was late for dinner. After we had all sat down and the Latin grace had been said, Hardy strolled into the dining hall, ostentatiously scraping his shoes on the wooden floor and complaining in a loud voice for everyone to hear, “What is this awful stuff they have put on the grass in the fellows’ garden? I can’t get it off my shoes.” Hardy, of course, knew very well what the stuff was. He had always disliked religion in general and Simpson’s piety in particular, and he was taking his opportunity for a little revenge.

Paul Erd�s was another world-famous mathematician who was a passionate atheist. Erd�s always referred to God as SF, short for Supreme Fascist. Erd�s had for many years successfully outwitted the dictators of Italy, Germany, and Hungary, moving from country to country to escape from their clutches. He called his God SF because he imagined God to be a fascist dictator like Mussolini, powerful and brutal but rather slow-witted. Erd�s was able to outwit SF by moving frequently from one place to another and never allowing his activities to fall into a predictable pattern. SF, like the other dictators, was too stupid to understand Erd�s’s mathematics. Hardy and Erd�s were both lovable characters, contributing more than their fair share to the human comedy. Both of them were gifted clowns as well as great mathematicians.

Hmm….. I can have my own book!

My Book, by Me
“Getting published” has always meant something special to us writer types; a book with your name on it says you’ve arrived. And now, thanks to the Internet, I’m a genuine published author. My publisher? Me.
Espa a

Blurb is an online service that lets you create and publish the next great American novel.

It took all of a day, using a new online service called Blurb. Its approach is remarkably accessible. You choose a theme, page layout, picture and text sizes, and fonts from a range of options. The software is easy to navigate, if frustratingly slow at times. I uploaded image files from a CD, dragged pictures into place, and watched pages fill up with my original work.

Good books on the “smaller” word.

The New York Review of Books: When a Scorpion Meets a Scorpion
The invention of the microscope revealed wonders to the world, and permitted Jonathan Swift to quip:

So, naturalists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey
And these have smaller still to bite ‘em
And so proceed ad infinitum.

By the late twentieth century fascination with the minuscule had begun to pall, and now it takes an exceptional book indeed to reawaken our interest. Thankfully, in David Attenborough’s Life in the Undergrowth, Piotr Naskrecki’s The Smaller Majority, and Jeffrey Lockwood’s Locust we find three works that do so.

A good summary of what the Bush Administration has done to free press.

The New York Review of Books: The End of News?
In late September, the Government Accountability Office—a nonpartisan arm of Congress—issued a finding that the Bush administration had engaged in “covert propaganda,” and thereby broken the law, by paying Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator, to promote its educational policies. The GAO also faulted the administration for hiring a public relations firm to distribute video news segments without disclosing the government’s part in producing them.[1] The auditors’ report, which followed a year-long investigation, presents chilling evidence of the campaign that officials in Washington have been waging against a free and independent press. Only months before, it was revealed that Kenneth Tomlinson, the President’s choice to head the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, had paid a Republican operative to monitor the political leanings of guests on Bill Moyers’s show Now, as part of a broader effort to shift PBS’s programming to the right.

Food for thought….. if the Jones have MBAs…. does it mean that you have to get one too?

The New York Review of Books: The Rich and Everyone Else
In their own ways, three of the books under review—Class Matters, Inequality Matters, and The Chosen—warn that social barriers in the US are higher and economic inequality is more pronounced than at any time in recent memory. All three books also frame this issue by asserting or implying that lines between classes are hardening. While the term is widely used, class has always resisted clear definition. We may talk of the rich and poor, of people in the middle, of blue- and white-collar workers, of haves and have-nots, yet attempts to place most people in an appropriate class have never been successful. There is no clear agreement on the number of classes, and how they should be defined. Indeed, attempts at precision inevitably create problems. For example, a 2004 study by the Annenberg Center at the University of Pennsylvania defined the middle class as everyone with incomes between $25,000 and $75,000.[1] They make up half of all households, and include all families on both sides of the median family income of approximately $50,000. But has a family making, say, $28,000 really reached the middle class? One with $95,000 might be called upper middle class; but that would still seem to locate it in the middle. Any attempt to set a floor or ceiling is bound to raise questions like these.

Hi Friends,

Wanted to wish you all a Happy Chinese New Year (which is this weekend).

If you’re not familiar with Chinese New Year, (Chinese: ??, ??, Ch_nj e; or ????, ????, N ngl X_nni n), also known as the Lunar New Year or the Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It consists of a period of celebrations, starting on New Year’s Day, celebrated on the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar, i.e. the day of the second new moon after the day on which the winter solstice occurs. The Chinese New Year period ends with the Lantern Festival, on the fifteenth day of the festival.

Legend has it that in ancient China, Nian (”Nyehn”) was a man-devouring beast that could infiltrate houses silently. The Chinese soon learned that Nian was sensitive to loud noises and the color red, and they scared it away with explosions, fireworks and the liberal use of color red domestically. These customs led to the first New Year celebrations.

Celebrated internationally in areas with large populations of ethnic Chinese, Chinese New Year is considered to be a major holiday for the Chinese as well as ethnic groups such as the Mongolians, Koreans, the Miao (Chinese Hmong) and the Vietnamese (see T t), who were influenced by Chinese culture in terms of religious and philosophical worldview, language and culture in general. Chinese New Year is also the time when the largest human migration takes place when Chinese all around the world return home on the eve of Chinese New Year to have reunion dinners with their families.

Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_new_year

And if you’re a 2nd or 3rd generation Asian American that would like to learn more, check out Good Luck Life : The Essential Guide to Chinese American Celebrations and Culture (Paperback) by Rosemary Gong, one of my favorite asian american books.

Good Luck Life is the first book to explain the meanings of Chinese rituals and to offer advice on when and how to plan for Chinese holidays and special occasions such as Chinese weddings, the Red Egg and Ginger party to welcome a new baby, significant birthdays, and the inevitable funeral. Packed with practical information, Good Luck Life contains an abundance of facts, legends, foods, old-village recipes, and quick planning guides for Chinese New Year, Clear Brightness, Dragon Boat, Mid-Autumn, and many other festivals.
Written with warmth and wit, Good Luck Life is beautifully designed as an easily accessible cultural guide that includes an explanation of the Lunar Calendar, tips on Chinese table etiquette for dining with confidence, and dos and don’ts from wise Auntie Lao, who recounts ancient Chinese beliefs and superstitions. This is your map for celebrating a good luck life.

Good Luck Life book @ Amazon

Once again, happy chinese new year!!!

Oh BTW, I will be in San Jose next week, I’d like to see if there are others who would like to have dinner wednesday night. If you’re interested, please send me an email!

Seen this in book at the book store. I think I read the abstract and that’s about it. I’m guessing (without reading the entire book) the below article will summarize many of the high point of the book.

Meet the Automatic Millionaires: The Automatic Millionaire - Yahoo! Finance

One of my favorite books on career development. I think it’s a great way of thinking about your career, how to be successful and be very happy with what you do.

Amazon.com: Books: The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers : The Guide for Achieving Success and Satisfaction (Crown Business Briefings)