Happy Marriage!!

A great friend of mine is married right now, previously, I had written about the Han Chinese marriage ceremony (which consists entirely of kowtowing and bowing). Tonight, I'd like to copy down for you some well wishes Chinese guests give to their hosts during a wedding, all of which I wish upon my friends marrying, married, or will marry:

• 新婚快乐
• 早生贵子
• 白头偕老
• 比翼双飞
• 美满爱情
• 感天动地
• 天赐良缘
• 永结同心
• 百发齐眉
• 举案齐眉
• 天长地久
• 翱翔蓝天
• 情投意合
• 白首齐眉
• 鸳鸯比翼
• 天作之合
• 喜庆洞房
• 相亲相爱
• 永浴爱河
• 缘订三生
• 乐赋唱随
• 佳儿佳妇
• 君子好逑
• 美满缘缘
• 唱随谐乐
• 相敬如宾
• 花烛筵开
• 宜室宜家
• 瓜瓞延绵
• 德业同修
• 心心相印
• 美满家庭
• 鸿案相庄
• 五世其昌
• 良缘夙缔
• 美满良缘
• 欢迎淑女
• 缕结同心
• 郎才女貌
• 诗咏好述
• 天缘巧合
• 鸾凤和鸣
• 喜溢华堂
• 金石同心
• 爱之永恒
• 百年好合
• 琴瑟在御
• 佳偶蜜月
• 宜尔室家
• 钟鼓乐之
• 夫唱妇随
• 莲花并蒂
• 笙磬同音
• 花开并蒂
• 如鼓琴瑟
• 情联碧合
• 玉树良枝
• 神仙眷属
• 才子佳人
• 关睢志喜
• 福禄鸳鸯
• 锦绣龙凤
• 情投意合
• 亦绳系足
• 甜蜜的爱
• 并蒂长生
• 琴瑟友之
• 花好月圆
• 蓝田种玉
• 佳偶天成
• 珠联壁合
• 爱情结晶
• 凤凰于飞
• 同德同心
• 喜耦天成
• 月圆花好
• 亲爱精诚
• 永在爱中
• 风美河洲
• 书称厘降
• 麟趾呈祥
• 琴瑟和鸣
• 螽斯衍庆
• 风雨同路
• 凤凰于飞
• 琴瑟相调
• 天作之合
• 琴瑟和鸣
• 同心同德
• 夫贵妻荣
• 以沐相濡
• 柔情似水
• 佳期如梦

The Fourth Mouse!

Recently, at a dinner party with close friends, I had the opportunity to explain an interesting analogy for startups. It was the wise old tale that tells of three mice trying to overcome hunger and their human conditions:

The first mouse wasn't hungry, it saw the cheese on the trap and made a pass at it. It was caught by the trap and killed. Its spine broken and its blood drains and soaks the cheese

The second mouse was a little hungry, and saw the cheese, so it ate the cheese despite the blood. Because the trap was tripped by the first mouse, the second mouse did not get hurt.

The third mouse came and was very hungry. But the cheese has already been eaten by the second mouse, so it wondered away. Third mouse wasn't hurt, but probably dies of hunger eventually...

The fourth mouse came and is famished. It ate the first mouse.

(Sorry... on several occasions in my teenage years, I had seen perfectly fine animals that I saw the day before eat each other the next day (well, I saw a fat one and a missing one), I'm sure that has something to do with my telling of this story)

But it made sense--everybody nodded, half in disgust, half lost in thought. Despite the merry buzz that our grogs have given us, reality quite rudely, and quite suddenly came into focus, even for me, and that we all understood the perilous nature of the journey on which we were all about to embark.

Red Riding Hood

Loved Amanda Seyfried as Valerie the little Red Riding Hood. man, I can hear Catherine Hardwicke whispering "savage me..." as she sees her beloved appear in front of her in the woods. oh, and Gary Oldman is just as creepy as all of his other characters... But anyways, I want to copy down the dialog during the dream sequence (sorry about the spoiler)

"What big eyes you have, grandma"
"The better to see you with dear!"
"What big ears you have, grandma"
"The better to hear you with dear!"
"What big teeth you have, grandma"
"The better to eat you with!!"

There is something so titillating about a innocent maiden in presence of absolute evil and threat of certain physical harm. Here's one longer version from here:

"Grandmother, what big arms you have!"
"All the better to hug you with, my dear."
"Grandmother, what big legs you have!"
"All the better to run with, my child."
"Grandmother, what big ears you have!"
"All the better to hear with, my child."
"Grandmother, what big eyes you have!"
"All the better to see with, my child."
"Grandmother, what big teeth you have got!"
"All the better to eat you up with."

I suppose there is reason behind the removal of "Little" from the original fairytale. The movie talks about her falling in love, being engaged but having relationship outside of engagement, witch hunt subplot, love, hate, betrayal, religion, torture, affairs and the products there of, man versus nature,... some very very serious adult themes and scenes. Supposedly the original moral of the story is that young kids should not speak to strangers. (And actually, more gruesome, if you imagine wolf wearing grandma's skin when she asks her these things.) A slight more thoughtful interpretation is that young women should not be talked into sex by man-wolves. But this modern interpretation has the red riding hood already in love with a man eventually becomes the big bad wolf. The father, who is already a big bad wolf, dealing with his human daemons. ugh! this story is so ugly and seems so real. I wonder if the writer, David Johnson, who wrote for another one of my favorite movie: "The Shawnshank Redemption", has experienced such... wolf claws her wife's face, kills the daughter that is not his.. But the wife survives on... Seems like what a stepfather might want to do...

alas, Innocence is corrupted by love, and succumbs to evil, elopes to the mountains and the forests... lovely, but breaks with the whole reason why this story even existed in the first place!!

I feel like I did something bad enjoying this whole thing. It's so wrong, and yet feels so right!!

ugh, the tortures of humanity and beastiality!!!

Google and Anticopyblogism

Google blog announced recently that they downgraded sites that copy other sites.

"""

and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful...

"""

oh shit! Google finally caught on and decided to downgrade my copy blog! :(

Sadly, copy blogs often do serve some purpose. For instance, in my drunken haze I posted to facebook something about "Time is the fire within which we burn"...

If you search the quoted text on google (with or without quotes), you will find half a page full of text none of which leads to Delmore Schwartz's poem Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day, actual text here.(which btw, is also not mentioned on Delmore's Wiki entry) which contains the phrase "...that time is the fire in which we burn." The text is fully reproduced here, just to spite google I guess. hahahaa, man, I feel so pathetic, much like Don Quixote, charging at a large man made giant whose mechanical motion cares nothing about what it is that I'm typing... sigh... maybe, some day, descendant of Watson will laugh at this, standing on human skulls and bones, saying "oh man, I could parse that and figure out those two are basically the same"

"""

Calmly we walk through this April's day,
Metropolitan poetry here and there,
In the park sit pauper and rentier,
The screaming children, the motor-car
Fugitive about us, running away,
Between the worker and the millionaire
Number provides all distances,
It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,
Many great dears are taken away,
What will become of you and me
(This is the school in which we learn...)
Besides the photo and the memory?
(...that time is the fire in which we burn.)

(This is the school in which we learn...)
What is the self amid this blaze?
What am I now that I was then
Which I shall suffer and act again,
The theodicy I wrote in my high school days
Restored all life from infancy,
The children shouting are bright as they run
(This is the school in which they learn . . .)
Ravished entirely in their passing play!
(...that time is the fire in which they burn.)

Avid its rush, that reeling blaze!
Where is my father and Eleanor?
Not where are they now, dead seven years,
But what they were then?
No more? No more?
From Nineteen-Fourteen to the present day,
Bert Spira and Rhoda consume, consume
Not where they are now (where are they now?)
But what they were then, both beautiful;

Each minute bursts in the burning room,
The great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning the trivial and unique away.
(How all things flash! How all things flare!)
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.

Delmore Schwartz

"""

copy posts from recent foray into dating

was on a date recently, captured an entry for the 肉麻博客:

"你的手好小....好小巧...小巧玲珑....俗话说的好，人是十指连心，美丽的手说明你有一颗美丽的心...."

First words, the morning after

"Did you make any audio or video record us last night? I'll Have you know you wont be the only one with an embarrassing artifact on me..."


And interesting observation:

"人才如粪土，人情值千金"

and

"Blogging is the e-soup for the soul..."

girl problems

"""
Some girls are 北极上面的冰激凌沙漠里面的干燥剂, there's no heat in my loin warm enough to melt her heart, nor tears real enough to make her wet.
"""

note to self, buy flowers for girls following the 100 flowers rule

I was reminded of the 100-flowers episode recently. I think popular media in American tend to make people believe that those people who speaks out, who differentiate himself will win more often than those who don't. Although, now I feel that perhaps it's not right. Perhaps the best is to remain anonymous and unrecognized.

If a movement is started to try to find problems, I think maybe there is a larger probability that it is an effort to discover a few dissidents (for lack of a better word) than the probability that it is an earnest effort to make improvement. 80/20 rule rules. find that 20%, cut them off, and keep the 80% who will keep you happy.

I mean, that's the only rational thing to do. And in a democracy, it will actually work. 51/49 rule will work!

So, in sum, it seems that one should not fall pray to innocent request for comments and suggestions from their bosses when the request is made en masse.

anyways, some residual thoughts from 2010... happy new year everyone!

misc end-of-the-year pileup

From preview of "Your Highness"

Portman:

For some reason I just couldn't stop thinking about you.

Guy we just saw pouring midievil lamp oil on his hands in bed:

That's odd, I was just about to finish thinking about you!

Economists: there is such joy in having economist as friend, and a continuation in the commentary on modern culture:

"We should take rational approach and consider the time value of respect. This, however, is very difficult, considering the payoff would never come before your expiry..."

Job with Benefit:

As a failure in the department of personal relationships I wonder if I approach things from the exact wrong angle. For instance, I have observed that all girls that work will flirt with male coworkers. This unfortunately cannot change very quickly because for a very very large majority of our civilization's history, that has been women's role with regards to men. It is unnatural, to both parties, for her to act the opposite. (and this is not to say that she can't or that it is inappropriate for her to do so.) However, as a male member of this game in life, what should I think of this fact? That her success depends on her ability to manage and leverage her effect on her male coworkers?

Is it an occupational hazard, or is it a perk? Is it a cost, or a benefit?

Because if you think about it, her response, if she is young and healthy, to male attention is arousal. And, if she is a good women, she will not act on the arousal, but accumulate it's effects until later when it is appropriate to react to them--in your presence, of course.

Big perk!

But of course, there is the distinct possibility that she becomes desensitize to men after a day of arousal, which will bring you much misery and frustration.

But of course(2), if she's not a good women, and... well, you know, if she's not a good women in most books of good vs. bad, and to be explicit, if she responds to the arousal with her co-wokers behind your back (or worse, dear god forbid, in front of you, hmmm, or maybe that's for the better, not sure...), then it should be seen as a risk. (not a cost of course not... I hope not...)

Anyways, I guess it will be a happy new year, now that I've got this figured out, I can straighten my life up and finally have a successful relationship with a gf, knowing that I should appreciate the perks and benefits of her having a job, and not be so negative by looking at the possible down side of it.

Copy 2010

wohwa, it's the end of 2010 already. Ouch!!

Here's one last copy for 2010, from NPR news article on the arguments between Santa Clause having fights with their organizations (Mall Santas not the real santas)

So, one of the separatest Santa's has three motto's that he lives by that I thought was interesting:

never be lied to or about.
never steal or be stolen from.
never be laid hands upon.

Goina be hard to keep these all inline. :)

The Virtue of Adversity--You Know You're an American If...

In America, we grow people who excel in adversity. So after some two centuries, there only people who can work under severe adversarial situations. And the consequence is that organizations are built to provide adversity. Organizations are not designed for efficiency of operation for the precise reason that everybody only work when they're poked and prodded. Americans are only able to function when they're an army of one at war. Americans only behave when they're constantly watched. Americans only apologize when they are caught doing something atrocious. Americans only feel comfortable if there are residual and lasting problems in their product.

You may say that you are religious, and perform according to God's commands and rules, but you know just as well as I that you are an American.

So, you know you're an American if you fit the above descriptions.

Shi

Read an interesting article about a piece of Chinese composition today. The piece is written with the same sounding words in Chinese

《石室诗士施氏》
石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮。施氏时时适市视狮。十时，适十狮适市。是时，适施氏适市。氏视是十狮，恃矢势，使是十狮逝世。氏拾是十狮尸，适石室。石室湿，氏使侍拭石室。石室拭，氏始试食是十狮尸。食时，始识是十狮尸，实十石狮尸。试释是事.

All words sound like "shi" but with a different tone. The poem is about a person eating his favorite which is lions. There, I just read it to myself. can't help but giggle a bit. Here's another one:

《羿裔熠邑彝》
羿裔熠，邑彝，义医，艺诣。熠姨遗一裔伊，伊仪迤，衣旖，异奕矣。　　熠意伊矣，易衣以贻伊，伊遗衣，衣异衣以意异熠，熠抑矣。伊驿邑，弋一翳，弈毅。毅仪奕，诣弈，衣异，意逸。毅诣伊，益伊，伊怡，已臆毅矣，毅亦怡伊。翌，伊亦弈毅。毅以蜴贻伊，伊亦贻衣以毅。伊疫，呓毅，癔异矣，倚椅咿咿，毅亦咿咿。　　毅诣熠，意以熠，议熠医伊，熠懿毅，意役毅逸。毅以熠宜伊，翼逸。熠驿邑以医伊，疑伊胰痍，以蚁医伊，伊遗异，溢，伊咦。熠移伊，刈薏以医，伊益矣。伊忆毅，亦呓毅矣，熠意伊毅已逸，熠意役伊。伊异，噫，缢。熠癔，亦缢。

The whole thing is pronounced "yi". The story is about a direct descendant of a mythical ancestor who lived when the earth was still forming and there were 10 suns. This mythical ancestor shot down 9 of them so that earth is inhabitable by his descendants.

Here's a copula more:

《熙戏犀》

西溪犀，喜嬉戏。席熙夕夕携犀徙，席熙细细习洗犀。犀吸溪，戏袭熙。席熙嘻嘻希息戏。惜犀嘶嘶喜袭熙。

《饥鸡集矶记》

唧唧鸡，鸡唧唧。几鸡挤挤集矶脊。机极疾，鸡饥极，鸡冀己技击及鲫。机既济蓟畿，鸡计疾机激几鲫。机疾极，鲫极悸，急急挤集矶级际。继即鲫迹极寂寂，继即几鸡既饥，即唧唧

《季姬击鸡记》

季姬寂，集鸡，鸡即棘鸡。棘鸡饥叽，季姬及箕稷济鸡。鸡既济，跻姬笈，季姬忌，急咭鸡，鸡急，继圾几，季姬急，即籍箕击鸡，箕疾击几伎，伎即齑，鸡叽集几基，季姬急极屐击鸡，鸡既殛，季姬激，即记《季姬击鸡记》

《于瑜与余欲渔遇雨》

于瑜欲渔，遇余于寓。语余：“余欲渔于渝淤，与余渔渝欤？”余语与瑜：“余欲鬻玉，俞禹欲玉，余欲遇俞于俞寓。”余与于瑜遇俞禹于俞寓，逾 俞隅，欲鬻玉于俞，遇雨，雨逾俞宇。余语于瑜：“余欲渔于渝淤，遇雨俞寓，雨逾俞宇，欲渔欤？鬻玉欤？”于瑜与余御雨于俞寓，俞鬻玉于余禹，雨愈，余与于 瑜踽踽逾俞宇，渔于渝淤。

《易姨医胰》

易姨悒悒，依议诣夷医。医疑胰疫，遗意易姨倚椅，以异仪移姨胰，弋异蚁一亿，胰液溢，蚁殪，胰以医。易胰怡怡，贻医一夷衣。医衣夷衣，怡怡奕奕。噫！以蚁医胰，异矣！以夷衣贻夷医亦宜矣！

《遗镒疑医》

伊姨殪，遗亿镒。伊诣邑，意医姨疫，一医医伊姨。翌，亿镒遗，疑医，以议医。医以伊疑，缢，以移伊疑。伊倚椅以忆，忆以亿镒遗，以议伊医，亦缢。噫！亦异矣！

《芝芷》

芝芷陟沚殖彘，芝致帙智，芷致枳痣。芷忮芝智，芝知芷忮，稚之，挚止之。值芝芷之峙，芷执芝至枳絷芝，制桎桎之，芝之桎，蛭豸致芝肢痣。芝智智，咫纸旨侄至，至治芝肢，肢痣治。智芝支侄制芷。芝侄置雉炙彘，脂汁吱吱。芷至，执卮直致之。炙彘之脂汁致窒，芝掷帙质之，指芷之忮。芷知芷至至鸷，纸志之。芷贽芝栉，芝芷黹帜，识之

芝之稚侄郅,至智,知制纸,知织帜,芝痔炙痔,侄至芝址,知之知芷汁治痔,至芷址,执芷枝,蜘至,踯侄,执直枝掷之,蜘止,侄执芷枝至芝,芝执芷治痔,痔止.

These are apparently known on the net as 同音文, or单音文, or univocalic:

　　上联：齐妻起棋，齐欺妻气，妻弃七棋。

　　下联：伊姨移椅，伊倚姨疑，姨遗一椅。

More:

【吏李立莅】吏李立莅，赲逦屴岦峛沥俚黎，立艃漓里叕鲤礼黎，罹沴厉离，俚黎蛎鹂历呖

Anyways, I'm off to find a book on this subject, (here's one ISBN:9787500470199同音文海宝韵合编整理与研究) And apparently there are English one's as well, tho less tongue twisty than Chinese versions:

No cool monsoons blow soft on Oxford dons, Orthodox, jog-trot, book-worm Solomons

is an example of English univocalic composition.

Word of the Day Carcereal

m-w word of the day is Carcereal, of or pertaining to prison.

Used in a sentence:

"""
The carcereal regime at work required us to never complain and never stand out or else risk a good ass fuck. The secret societies and gang wars occur in total civility as we smile and territories are won and lost, lives slaughtered and shattered. It is no wonder that even the big boss will quote the prisoner's dilemma in casual conversation.
"""

I Fear for My Race

The Chinese Will Fail.

The western worlds' mind set is against people of Chinese origin. They have chosen the Idian people as their subservients. As the Indian population increase to match and exceed the population of China, they will be the biggest consumer market of the world and they will provide cheap labor.

My Person

I have experienced the total bigotry against the Chinese people. Deliberate miscommunication, deliberate delay and sabotage, all to make my work to look inferior and useless. The replacement is a team entirely consisted of Indian workers. Their failures are quickly covered by all management from the most senior executive down to the line managers.

Given that my technically superior work does not receive the praise and use that it deserves. It is clear that the agenda here is to remove Chinese people from being a viable competitor.


How is it not racial segregation and discrimination if you separate groups by ethnicity and country of origin so that only Indian race work on a product? How is it not discrimination that the product of equal or better performance is replaced by inferior product only because the replacement is developed by Indians and the original was written by Chinese?

My World

This will happen on a larger scale. It will take place, as it has in my employments, under three guises.

Firstly, Chinese products will continue to be defamed and libeled as it has been. The corporation involved in this will have gathered the intelligence around the pattern of designing and testing in the US, manufacturing outside the US. With this experience come prepackaged lies, deceptions, and PR releases to deal with each and every possible failure on the part of the US in design and testing. As well, it will have determined through thorough experimentation on Chinese manufacturers the methodologies on how to blow out of proportion the mistakes made by the foreign manufactures. While doing so, USA will have agitated the Chinese people to the limits of their tolerance and to the edge of social eruption against its own government for allowing this to happen to them. Bringing the Chinese to that emotional state will help to facilitate it's downfall as the new star of the world's superpowers.


Secondly, the oft quoted short coming of India is actually a blessing in disguise. According to many sources, India as a country lacks the infrastructure, power, transportation, etc., to be competitive with China. But this is the exact reason why it will be cheaper to buy products of India. American will have the excuse that Indian products are lower quality than Chinese products and that they do not have a history of on time delivery, and they do not have the social maturity to have large corporations within India. Because of these reasons, Americans can pay lower price for products "Made in India" and force down the price of higher quality products "Made in China".

Thirdly, America will "discover India" and begin a series of goodwill exploratory business deals with Indian corporations. These deals will include American companies acting on good faith, paying exorbitantly high price in a business deal with Indian companies that has absolutely zero track record in the product or service they will be providing to the American corporation. The business deals will immediate produce financial loss, but the American company will persevere citing that it will "take time" to develop good faith and trust. This is how America will help to build up India's economy--at loss of its tax payers and shareholders.

With this three-pronged attack, America will have not only prepared Americans but also Chinese for China's downfall. It will, in the mean time, have helped to built up the Indian economy to consume and produce at similar pace as China, as well as foster artificial friendship with India, thus establishing a large friendly amongst the superpowers.

As a citizen and resident of the US, I am saddened by this direction of "progress". As a person of Chinese decent, I am filled with fear and despair. There is no hope. There is no way Chinese will survive when the world is turned against us and these underhanded and under the belt approaches are taken in the management of American corporations! Above all else, this is an organized, systematic, and planned effort spanning decades and generations!!


It is a massive conspiracy to bring the Chinese people to their knees, to be enslaved helplessly!!

Why have QA at all?

Why do companies hire QA's ?

Aside from regression testing and UI testing, QA's seem to always require full time assistant of engineers before testing, during testing, and after testing.

Well, today I think I've found the answer. QA, to put it in words that would normally not be used on them, is the group that assuages the Executive and Managements' paranoia and distrust for the Engineers.

They know the Engineers aren't getting paid what they should be paid for their best service, why would they expect them to provide such service? Adding QA, who looks best when discovering the most bugs, will provide a black box counter solution to an existing black box solution to the business need.


Very cool!!

Imperitive and Recommendation

I realize that I may have made an error in my previous post.

The command do onto others as you would have others do onto you, is an actionable statement.
The command do not do to others what you don't want, is actually not an actionable statement.

So in my previous analysis, the selfishness a person believing golden rule, is commanded to make others people believe the rule.

The silver rule on the other hand, says "If I don't believe it, do not force others to believe" This is weaker than what I had said in my previous post. Under mixed situation, one golden and silver follower, golden will try to convert silver into golden, but silver will simply not try to convert golden into golden. (as opposed to persuading him away from golden as I had said previously). So in that analysis, silver lives a lessair fair life, where as golden tries to convert every one.

Also, there is a small bug in the utilities calculation. The utilities should be calculated over the whole population (given the way the analysis went) so the tables with utilities should have been

I Want	Others Want	Golden Rule Win	Silver Rule Win
Y	Y	1	2
Y	N	-1	2
N	Y	1	0
N	N	1	2

and

I Want	Others Want	Probability in Reality	Golden Rule Win	Silver Rule Win
Y	Y	0	1	2
Y	N	1	-1	2
N	Y	0	1	0
N	N	0	1	2

respectively, but that is a monotonic increase of one, so all extrema in the analysis remain the same.

Golden and Silver Rules

Last week, I discovered that there are names to the two statements of ethical determination and they are known as the golden rule and silver rule. As part of my reviewing logic, I've drawn a truth table of implicaitons:

In the statement:

If P then Q,

P is known as the antecedent and Q is known as the consequent. So, in logic, the statement "If P then Q" has truth value as follows:

I've added a column to illustrate the example, let's say the subject is sex.

P	Q	If P then Q
T	T	T
T	F	F
F	T	T
F	F	T

So, logic is actually pretty easy. Let's plug in some expressions, let P = "I want it", and Q="recommend to give (on) to others", then the golden rule says:

I Want it	Give (on) to Others	Commanded by the Golden Rule	Sex
Y	Y	Y	I want sex, so do sex to others.
Y	N	N	not recommended.
N	Y	Y	I don't want sex, so do sex to others.
N	N	Y	I don't want sex, so don't do sex to others.

Similarly the silver rule:

I don't Want it	Don't Give (on) to Others	Commanded by the Silver Rule	Sex
Y	Y	Y	I don't want sex, so don't do sex to others.
Y	N	N	not recommended.
N	Y	Y	I want sex, so don't do sex to others.
N	N	Y	I want sex, so do sex to others.

Let's see, so, under goldern rule, if I want sex, I must do sex to others. But under the silver rule, even if I like sex, I don't have to do to others. I have the choice of doing it or not doing it to others.

Under the golden rule if I don't like sex, I have the choice of doing it to others or not, but under the silver rule, when I don't want sex, I must not do it to others.

Initially, we must recurse in analysis:

Under the golden rule, if I believe it is the right ethical thing to do, then I do onto others, that they follow the golden rule as well. And if I don't believe it, then fine, I can do whatever I want--including forcing it onto another person.


Under the silver rule, if I believe it's right, I can do whatever I want, I don't have to enforce the rule. But if I don't believe it, then I must not only not follow the silver rule, I must also ensure others do not follow it.

Knowing this, let's look into a situation of two person, one following golden rule, and one following the silver rule. The golden rule person will force the silver rule person to follow his system. The person believing in the silver rule does not try to force it onto the golden rule person. However, the silver rule person will not believe the golden rule, so he will try to persuade the golden rule person from following the golden rule. The golden rule person has one goal, which is to make silver into gold. The silver rule person has a more diverse goal, which is to make the golden rule follower deviate from the golden rule. One insists on absolute perfection, the other one does his best to prevent the worst from happening.


The state of the silver person believing the silver rule causes golden person no anxiety, only his own believe in the golden rule forces him to try to convert the silver. The state of the golden person believing in golden rule causes the silver person his anxiety. His own believe in the silver rule doesn't compel him into action. It is out of his concern for golden person that he tries to persuade him.

So, from the perspective of the reason for action, golden person is in some sense more selfish then the silver. The silver tries to help golden person out of altruistic goals where as the golden person tries to help the silver person, intentionally, or not, to expend the coverage of the golden rule.


Of course, both suffers from the perspective of not considering if others want it or not. But I think both tries to use the heuristic that my wants correlates with others' wants.

I Want	Others Want	Golden Rule Win	Silver Rule Win
Y	Y	1	1
Y	N	-1	1
N	Y	1	-1
N	N	1	1

If the desires are completely correlated, both scores 2, if the desires are completely anti-correlated(your stupid spouse decides to only dislike things you like and like things you don't like), then both scores 0. If the desires are uncorrelated (say that the probability in this contingency table is 0.25 for each outcome), then the score is 0.5 for each rule.

We can construct pathological case for each. Say all the things in the world are like this:

I Want	Others Want	Probability in Reality	Golden Rule Win	Silver Rule Win
Y	Y	0	1	1
Y	N	1	-1	1
N	Y	0	1	-1
N	N	0	1	1

If the world was like this, where you like everything and everybody else hates everything, then the silver rule wins 100% and golden rule loses 100%. And similarly, if you dislike everything and everybody loves the whole world, then golden rule wins 100% and silver rule loses 100%.

How the world is distributed in the case of Y/Y and N/N is unimportant. It only matters which of the following two cases happens more:


A.) I like something and others don't like it
B.) I don't like something and others like it.

Simple example I.) I like English because I speak it. A.) is probably the case. and Golden rule loses near 100%.

Simple example II.) I don't like grain alcohol (hypothetically speaking), B.) is the case, because a lot of people in Asia like grain alcohol... so person following silver rule loses 100% and golden rule wins 100%.

The research question for the future is this. What is the distribution of A versus B in reality over all people. One-Versus-Rest:

A~\sum_{p \in all people}\sum_{q \in all people}\sum_{t \in things both p and q have feelings for} {p likes t and q doesn't like t}

B~\sum_{p \in all people}\sum_{q \in all people}\sum_{t \in things both p and q have feelings for} {p doesn't likes t and q likes t}

Seeing it this way, leads us to believe, that over the whole population of humans, and over all things they have in common, the golden rule and silver rule are equivalent in utility if applied uniformly.

Because A=B by expansion of summations.



An exercise for the future is to take p out of a population with x% golden rule follower and the rest silver rule follower, and seeing how thing work out. (The flipping point is obviously when x reaches 50%)

Second exercise is to think of two large populations, say US and China, and suppose US follow golden rule 95% of the time, and China follow silver rule 95% of the time. Taking notice of the population and cultural difference, what is the utility of this application of both rules?

Thirdly, extend the second into analysis of several major continents simultaneously.

Lastly, perform cost-sensitive analysis of the system from 3rd exercise and analyse the utility considering the cost of applying golden rule and silver rule.

How could you tell who's hacking your machine?

" Under today's circumstances, the person who is laughing and chatting and in general happy mood is likely the one. In today's world, those who live with out stress must have either arranged it so that he is not stressed or have disposed of the distress onto others."


Interesting answer to that question... I didn't think of it, but now that it's said, it seems so right...

I mean, that's not to say that nobody should be happy, but it seems to follow the same line of thinking as "bad people are all so happy, and good people suffer aways'

I could tell the horse really liked her

"""
No, no! not like that, yuck!

The horse was happy when she patted it on the head and when other people tried to touch it, it lifted the head up high so that it couldn't be touched.
"""

narrowly avoiding a misunderstanding.

It Doesn't Pay to be Principled.

Recently, I had an interesting discussion with coworker at work...

At some point, I started saying:

"... well, that's not a very principled way of doing it..." (here in a machine learning/statistics/mathematical sense of being principled, as in the Occam's Razor principle aka MDL, etc., principled as opposed to ad hoc)

and then, realizing some thing... I continued to talk


"... of course I realize that being principled in statistical sense doesn't always pay..."

"...err, of course I also realize that being principled in general doesn't necessarily pay..."

... and finally I realize that what I'm saying makes no sense to be said, which is to say that it needn't be said, as sad as that may be...

"Being principled doesn't pay!"
"Having principles does not pay!!"

I concluded, finally, struggling with my grammar, logic and sanity, my soliloquy to a bunch of ppl some where in some office some Friday afternoon...

A X are alike, and all !X are !X in their own ways.

According to Leo Tolstoy; all happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.


I recently had a discussion about where to buy a house in the bay area with one of my Chinese friends from college times. I mentioned to them that culturally, Cupertino has Asian cultures (according to insiders, 50% Chinese, 50% Indian...). his wife responded to me that she actually prefers to live in Palo Alto, where there are more white people.

"why?!" I asked in surprise

"Because! Diversity is better than uniformity."


This reminds me of a time when the universities and private schools in America offer scholarships to Foreigners in order to diversify their cultural mix and to introduce the Chinese language and culture to their students. At the time, I had thought, wow! What snobby people that they want to collect these foreign people like zoos collect wild life... The better the school, the more exotic and comprehensive the collection...

Now, I feel like we've discovered a corollary to Tolstoy's statement:

All snobby people are alike, and all humble people are humble in their own ways...