There is a story about Charles Dickens (1812–1870), the English novelist and one of the most popular writers in the history of literature. It is known that Dickens was interested in practical applications of mathematics. On the final day in March during a year in the second half of the nineteenth century, hewas scheduled to leave London by train and travel about an hour to visit a very good friend. However, Mr. Dickens was aware of the fact that in England there were, on the average, two serious train accidents each month. Knowing that there had been only one serious accident so far during the month of March, Dickens thought that the probability of a serious train accident on the last day of March would be very high. Thus he called his friend and postponed his visit until the next day. He boarded the train on April 1, feeling much safer and believing that he had used his knowledge of mathematics correctly by leaving the next day. He did arrive safely! Is there a fallacy in Dickens, argument? Explain.
sth interesting(1)
在阅读Arara的Computational Complexity时，碰到一个有趣的习题：
The MIT museum contains a kinetic sculpture by Arthur Ganson called “Machine with concrete”(see Figure below). It consists of 13 gears connected to one another in a series such that each gear moves 50 times slower than the previous one. The fastest gear is constantly rotated by an engine at a rate of 212 rotations per minute. The slowest gear is fixed to a block of concrete and so apparently cannot move at all. How come this machine does not break apart?
一條完美的解釋about IMO，IMO
IMO：
Abbreviation for “In My Opinion.”
Use if you want to
a) weaken your argument significantly,or b) make it known that this is not your neighbor’s opinon or you doctor’s opinion, it is yours.
eg:”Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy, IMO.”
-FDR
又臭又长
Guy Kawasaki给斯坦福的学生做了一个演讲，关于Creating Enchantment。
‘so i use a top 10 format for my speech, and i will tell you why as you go through you lifes ,you will probably see many high tech ceos……points about of their xxx, the first is that they are pretty much suck, and the second is that they go long, and if you think about it that is a powerfully unfortunate combination, bcz if you are good, you go long, it’s ok, and if you suck, you go short it’s ok, but if you suck, you go long , it’s like being stupid and arrogant. its a bad combination .
so what i’ve done is that i embrace the top 10 format for my speech so that in case i suck, you know approximately how long longer i will suck , i truely hope you don’t think suck.”’
掌声。
（几个节点怎么也听不懂，好多还是猜的，这个挺花时间。）
但不幸的是我做了一个又臭又长的presentation，今天。
不用这么快就应验在我身上吧？
有个印尼的学生，所以说最好用英语做，还是做到一半被人说，实在讲不出来就中文。这个印尼学生人挺好，博一，他是为了回国在高校任教，来台湾拿个博士学位，不容易。都30了，还有孩子。去年他们全家都来台湾，但考虑到这边生活也不容易，再之会影响自己的研究。
之前他的方向是偏管理一点，还没有光学方面的基础，几乎没有，在这边跟老师做之前完全没接触过的东西。也只有每个月一万台币（很少了，吃饭就要花五千一个月），国内还有老婆孩子，要在这边待三四年。
他在国内说的也不是英语，但在这边只能通过英语跟人家交流，你可以想象（哦，不，你不能想象）一个印尼人怎么说英语的。不过还好啦。
morning =)
第一次起这么早。还是因为室友，他有九点的课。
刚经过玻璃门，看见对面也有人过来，他正要开门，我已做好说谢谢的准备。走进发现那人是自己。orz
路上在听王若琳的Time in a bottle，04年出的EP，哈，要是能听她把Beatles的歌都唱一遍那该多好。当时还能听出是少女（16）的声音啊，现在则相对成熟一点。
PS，本来想发状态，无奈字数限制。
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans
刚刚在ifanr上看到 微软“I’m a PC”先生近日因家庭原因离职 这条新闻。
（I’m a PC 和 I am a Mac是微软与苹果之间的广告战系列。有趣之极。）
讲到自己的离职， Sean Siler（即PC扮演者）引用了约翰列侬那首Beautiful Boy 中的歌词，“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”（不要认为有人从微软离职就觉得微软没前途了: ) 我坚信它还是一家伟大的公司，即便在APPLE和Google强势表现下，然后也别觉得Google之类很无敌，它现在也面临人才流失的窘境，许多去往Facebook）
原来这首Beautiful Boy的歌词中还有这么伟大的一句，原来一直没听懂。Beautiful Boy是列侬写给自己与小野洋子的儿子，Sean Lennon。
哈 ，正好前面说的这位PC先生也叫Sean！这才是我想写的。这一切都太美妙。
关于歌词呢，这里和这里有着近似的解释，却来自不同的。This is cynicism, or irony.
注意Sean不念做Sea。怎么念你去听听那首歌。最后一句。
