a new 太婆Tang

Okay, I don't know what that "Tang" is that the old China Town gangs call themselves, is it 党 like a political party? or 堂 like a place of assembly?

Tonight, 太婆Tang strikes.  I went to watch Jon Chu's GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra tonight at one of my favorite theaters. The story telling is quite excellent. Characters are strong (physically and characteristically), the action masks every single uncomfortably stupid plot holes or badly written dialog. The story flows well under Jon Chu's skillful direction. I was very dubious of his top-of-the-chart box office performance last weekend having seen his previous work such as Step-Up and LXD experiment. But the first 20 minutes of the movie was totally cool. It made me feel like a little boy again, big guns, big muscles, yeah! totally cool! cowabonga!!! and Ninjas too!

Okay, then this Chinese lady started to talk, in Mandarin Chinese behind me. She constantly asked questions about who each of the characters are, what the plot is, who is the bad guy who is the good guy… It totally ruined the rest of the movie for me.

I think middle-aged and older Chinese women are in a Tang of their own. They infiltrate into almost every organization, using their waning hormonal surges with mastery that come only with time and practices. In particular, I think the 太婆Tang is the universe's yin to Chinese 太子党's yang.

I mean, look at this situation, even though Jon Chu, afaik, is not formally 太子党, he is a successful, young man of Chinese descent. Old ladies want him but cannot have him, so they organize and go to each of his movies and try to disrupt the show so that he doesn't stay at the top of the box office chart.

I mean, it could be mainland PRC communist government trying to reduce the influence of a famous Chinese American that they do not control, but I would feel that it is more likely to be 太婆Tang is a separate entity trying to take control!

Because why else would there be a elderly Chinese women who cannot understand English watching this movie? It sure as heck is not because older Chinese women like to watch big black man and skinning white ass women shooting guns and cut off heads and limbs.

Why would she go see it at all? What good does saying all those questions in Chinese do other than to disturb the other audiences? (since nobody answered her throughout the entire movie) There is absolutely no reason why she would spend $9.75 on a movie that she cannot understand and cannot possibly have any cultural relationship with. I'll be this particular one is one of these key figures in the 太婆Tang:

太婆Tang掌堂人：

老太婆-龙中

太婆Tang二把交椅：

太婆-婆妈妈

don't believe me? When my blogs stops appearing, you'll know, it's not the Japanese paramilitary getting back at me wondering about their killer robots, and it's not alien abduction for my demanding privacy, and it's not God punishing me for thinking, it will be that I am struck down by the 太婆 Tang!!

But that's really not work!

I find myself saying this way too much recently:

"But that's really not work!"

I have to apologize to the people to whom I say this to. I am sure you are working very hard in ways you feel is the best. I express my discontent when I say that to mean literally, no work is being done by your action.

Let's review work, by classical mechanics definition:

W = F * d


work is a force pushing some distance. Literally, you have to move something from exertion in order for work to be done. You have to exert and something has to move for work to have been done.

Hmm, now that I'm writing this, I guess there is electrical work and thermodynamic work. But for my intents and purposes, I think the a priori assumption I make is that work is required and that you mean to do work by your actions.

My mistake when I assume, I make Ass of U and ME,  sorry guys!

万事必躬行

网上得来终觉浅…

Generative Models

A funny thought arose recently while thinking about modeling of some worldly things. Generative modeling is opposite of discriminative model. But in my thoughts, I wondered about predictive models, descriptive models and clearly in contrast to those there is such a thing as the original generative process...

"""
Being able to model successfully is good--
knowing the generative model is god.
"""

俗话说的好：和气生财

中国俗话说得好“和气生财”，但看官您老人家可是知其一而不知其二呀！那话儿是这样说的：
“”“
和气小生财

武器生大财

”“”

嫦娥神话后面的故事

"""

后羿与常鄂本是两个武将，一个驾车一个射箭。后来被老子动员入教修道。但是因为后羿射太阳名声大，常鄂嫉妒他，就独自偷吃了仙丹妙药得青春永驻。被发现，上厅，判酷刑：变女生、奔月，他的猎犬罚变成玉兔陪伴她：改名嫦娥与玉兔。听说因为是惩罚，不象一般仙女，有其七情六欲...还有人说最大的惩罚是月经。女人最大的痛苦常被形容为嫦娥的寂寞，旁边还有个什么洁白如玉的毛绒绒的小兔子每天把她搞得浑身发毛。但没有男的，只好借玉兔的玉杵一用。每次高潮，都给地球带来台风和洪水。提醒大家性欲是所有自然灾害的祸根。

"""

The Ancient Chinese Believes

The ancient Chinese believes that when a person makes a promise to do a good deed in return for something he desires that he must perform that deed when his wish comes true. It is believed that if he doesn't the wish can be undone or be corrupted in strange and undesirable ways.

Today we have changed these silent prayers and verbal agreements to contracts which are enforced in courts operating under rules of law as opposed to relying on karmic forces.

But what if karmic forces do exist? Does this render our governments and laws redundant? Sadly, this blog is here to tell you that like the Soylent Green,

Karmic Forces is people!!!!

and seeing as how it is of the people, by the people, for the people, and made from the people, it probably is not more reliable than governments.

The Chinese are historically useless

This was an extended conversation with dad


"""
Me: Dad, I remember a childhood story recently. The old man said to young man, you cannot sell oil, because you have not mastered the craft. The young man obviously disagrees. So the old man put a coin (Chinese coin used to be round and have square holes in the middle 1/8" by 1/8") on top of a jar and poured from a ladle into the jar through the coin hole. The young man was impressed and gave up his dream to sell oil.

Dad: yes, I know that story well. the parable teaches young people to work hard at their craft and not jump into starting their own business to eagerly.

Me: Yeah, but look, I recently tried that with olive oil. I poured olive oil from a can into a bottle that has an opening not much bigger than a coin's hole, and it's actually pretty easy. Oil flows pretty smoothly and has lower surface tension and higher viscosity than water, so it flows in streams and tend to stay in stream even when you move slightly.

Me: I think this parable should teach Chinese kids not to listen to their parents and actually try these things and see how hard they are…

Dad:… ahh, but you didn't read the story very carefully, the old man poured oil from a ladle held in one hand above his head standing straight the whole time into a bottle on the ground with that coin at the opening. You were probably at your sink, the large jar of olive oil resting on the edge of the sink, two hands holding it pouring into the bottle, and you wouldn't even notice spillage because the bottle is used and already greasy.

Me: Yeah, but why would I ever want to pour oil from a ladle standing straight into bottle on the ground? That is absurd.

Dad: Nontheless, the moral holds true, people experienced in something can do harder things than people not experienced, that's why they should be in charge and not some young kid.

Me: Do you want me to buy you some Facebook stock when it IPOs?


Dad: Only for the short run, not too sure about "long term sustainable competitive advantage" of that company…

Me: …. Here we go again with the old people idea about how things should work.


"""

"Honesty is the Foundation to a Health Relationship"

"Honesty is the Foundation to a Health Relationship"

An old adage. I find myself thinking of this on this Easter Sunday Afternoon. Obviously, honesty facilitate happiness and operational cohesion inside a family.  But somebody says, trust is more important. It's okay to allow leeways for small white lies, but not okay if there is no trust.

This is stating an obvious effect caused by complete honest is that the couple trust each other both in what is communicated and in the the intentions and the actions of the other. But the observation is indeed correct that even if a couple is completely honest to each other but lack in trust, then the couple still cannot be happy.

Honesty in it's more general sense insist that we do not make inferences and decisions based on premises that are known to be untrue or ignoring information available to us just because it forces inferences and decisions in an undesirable direction.

However trust, in it's more general sense addresses our believes about the world. My trusting my wife means I believe what she says. My trusting my wife means I believe she has my, or our, rather, best interest at heart. Furthermore, I believe that her actions are to the best of our interest--that is to say, I trust not only in her intention but her ability.

Human faculties of observation and reasoning obviously play a very large role in both of these aspects of our relationship, however we should assume these to be god given and all well and sound enough.

Then it would appear that we have been missing an important aspect of relationship, which is that in addition to being honest, we must as well be trusting. Trust might mitigate our human frailties in earnestness. Honesty can help to moderate the negative effect of trust:

"Honey, I lost our retirement savings from last week's market crash."

"Oh, that's okay, dear, I'm glad you told me, because we can work on earning it all back. oh and also, let's take away your e*Trade account for now..." (because we have now adjusted both of our believes in "our" ability to make money in the stock market and also acted to the best of our interest.)


Humor aside, the new slogan will be:

"Trust and Honesty are the Foundation to a

Lasting Healthy Relationship"

I want to buy an iPad

I want to by the 3rd generation IPad. Recently Apple made major effort to improve the poor Chinese slave laborers working in foxconn's sweat shops and tried to raise their salaries to global income level.

Thank you Apple!

The sad truth is that this all comes out to be an insult to the brilliant Chinese people The western media began cooking a story about how the Apple were selling these products that are made by under-aged Chinese boys and girls, and if that is not to be believed, certainly underpaid (as compared to their Korean counter parts by orders of magnitude.)

Because of western society, western media, western sensibility, this Taiwanese run sweatshop finally raises pay of its Chinese works. And I had found it insulting when an NPR broadcasters wondered out aloud on air why the Chinese people were happy about Jeremy Lin becoming a huge star in America. (because Jeremy was born and raised in America AND his parents wasn't even from China, they were from Taiwan, as that broadcaster emphasized, twice, on air)

Look at how these Taiwanese oppress their own people. Their own race. Their own genetic equals. All for the spare changes of American companies, they would pay these Chinese people little money because they are lesser people? because they are not worth sympathy? compassion? fairness in labor practices?

And the stupid Chinese people, cannot learn to rebel against these capitalist pigs! Could not say no to twice the pay but absolutely unfair treatment! Fucking stupid Chinese people! could not save their own. Fucking stupid Chinese government could not deal with BLATANTLY UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES!!

And get this!!! When the western media broke the news, took no action to correct this problem!!!

Now Apple has the glory of righting the wrongs.

• Apple corrected the problem of Taiwanese company not paying Chinese labors enough.
• Apple corrected the problem of China not having minimum wage/age and safe working condition laws.

Apple now has earned a medal for Capitalism! Apple has won a medal for White people! All those years of imperial practices, All those years of racism against non-white people... may not have been such a bad thing after all. Look at how happy the Asian Indians are, and Black President of America, look at how powerful he is. Look at all that cash these poor Chinese laborers have in their pockets!!! All those poor ancestors who suffered look at how happy the children are! 



Talk about hurting the Chinese. Sheeesh!!! Talk about a major fucking face loss!


One wonders, if the competition is lost, why bother making children? Their happiness and their suffering at hands of descendent's of those with power of Apple and Foxconn will only be evidence of my failures and my loss.


Alas,  I am looking forward to the hi-res retina display and 4G download speeds...