Empire of Carbon; and What?

I have seen the future, and it won't work.

No. The above line isn't plagiarized from Paul Krugman's article opener in the Empire of Carbon. It is the same line, but the meaning it carries in my post is very much different from Krugman's.

China is not a clean country. Every city you visit, you are almost always greeted with a foggy atmosphere, and you'd better clean your shoes everyday, because of the omnipresent dirt from all those construction sites. When I first came to Shanghai I was surprised to find the air conditions no better than that of Nanjing; isn't Shanghai closer to the sea and enjoys the natural sweep of the seaborne wind everyday? Nanjing, in comparison, is surrounded by hills and therefore is a natural trap for dirty air. 'But Shanghai's got many more cars.' My colleagues told me.

However, as Krugman has shrewly pointed out, the Chinese have their fair excuses for the pollution (a demerit good) they produce: that the development of the now developed countries was not put under such environmental-friendly restraints. Meanwhile, China's per-capita emission is still below that of the US. So after all, it is difficult to talk China down with moral rhetorics. And what can we do? It is very unlikely that China will do away with the problem of pollution all by herself--not nearly fast enough to satisfy everyone--because usually we do not expect the problem of negative externality to go away all by itself anyway.

This is where I started to get disappointed with Krugman. Much as he has been offering the correct insights into various economic matters, on this one his ideas are falling short:

As the United States and other advanced countries finally move to confront climate change, they will also be morally empowered to confront those nations that refuse to act. Sooner than most people think, countries that refuse to limit their greenhouse gas emissions will face sanctions, probably in the form of taxes on their exports. They will complain bitterly that this is protectionism, but so what? Globalization doesn’t do much good if the globe itself becomes unlivable.

What confrontation are we trying to build here? Maybe it's a matter of wording, but are we trying to say that we should 'beat China until she complies'? First of all, you don't beat a country into compliance--the US has learnt the lesson the hard way (or maybe it's not enough?). Secondly, you don't beat a country who has a fair excuse for what she does--this is all evil. Considering the target country is China, you cannot actually hope that she will remain docile while being beaten up; China has her claws, and many people out there are much more willing to believe this than I do. For goodness' sake, forget about confrontation. It's such an old word from the Cold War vocabulary.

The most desirable solution for China is that the international community gives her money enough to transform all production lines into cleaner ones. Yet will the indignant international community willing make this kind offer? I guess not.

So it all comes down to eclecticism. Investing more money into China's clean production will be a welcome gesture. China is already on her way to cleaner energy, but still not fast enough to cope with the problem of global warming and such. What the world can do is to invest in order to speed the process up. Do not face China with a cold look and threaten compliance. Help her with this good deed.

But confrontation might be such an easy word that everyone will pick it up sooner or later. And the future, perhaps, will no work...

A Self-discipline Upgrade

Leo Babauta shares his ideas on how to deal with a lack of discipline on Zen Habits. Generally I love this man's ideas. He seems to be a man who thinks and commits. However, this time, I don't agree.

Although I am often viewed as a man with self-discipline, I constantly feel that I'm not there yet. And in trying to get more "discipline" I went into the walls (or illusions) Leo's talking about in the very article. Do I stop? Or do I torture myself with the idea of self-improvement?

I would say that with a already well-disciplined person, Leo's advice would work out well; however, when I can clearly see the spot of improvement (e.g., wasting too much time surfing the internet), I would definitely go for it. I have long lost the habit of wandering around the bookstores--there are more efficient ways to get knowledge; and I currently have no internet connection on weekends, which I find not as unbearable as one would expect from the beginning. There are times when you should just forgive yourself, but don't give up if you can see the PATH. Motivation, making things easy, and focusing on the fun are all good tips--sometimes. But there are times when you feel that you need super motivations to get going, because some tasks are so boring... Yet the achievement (and joy) from trudging through and finally crashing the obstacles can be overwhelming. And I always believe that if I keep entertaining myself, I will stay where I am and cannot improve. The idea of improving everyday has become my biggest motivation. As little as this motivation may seem, it works for me (at least half of the time).

Daniel A. Bell: The Confucian Party

From the NY Times opinions page:

Those looking for another explosion of political demonstrations like Tiananmen are likely to be disappointed. At the conference in Qufu, the Confucian critics were careful to tell government officials that they favor change on a stable basis.

If the Confucians get their way, political change will come slowly and peacefully. Since Deng Xiaoping opened the doors to economic reform over 30 years ago, various economic experiments have been carried out at different levels of government, with the central government taking what works and implementing the reforms in the whole country. That’s also likely to be the model for educational and political reform over the next 30 years. It may be starting right now in towns like Qufu.

I'm glad that some people from the West hold such open opinions about China. Read the rest here.

Leadership in the Classroom

Coming back from the May Day Holiday I felt more pressure on my shoulders with regard to the English classes I now teach. Apparently the students come from different English educational background (at least former teachers, so to speak), and they have different needs; and to cater to these needs with a class of 24 is already becoming not as easy as when the class started out (only 8 students).

I have no children, yet. And right now it is not easy for me to treat my students as my own kids: they are merely 10 years younger than me, but have shown everything Generation Gap prescribes. The best thing I can do is to try to become friends with them, but friends do not come with birth; friends are chosen (from both perspectives, theirs and mine).

Therefore the word Leadership comes to mind.

And this article breathes life into my work :)

Mark Thoma: "John Bogles: 'A Crisis of Ethic Proportions'"

Mark Thoma reposted part of John Bogles' 'A Crisis of Ethic Proportions', which puts ethics at the front of the current economic crisis. Bogles goes on to identify the corrupted as the agents of the big corporations who put their own interest before that of the ones they are supposed to represent.

All very nicely analyzed. If you are an economist, you would really appreciate this effort of pinning down the real culprits within our theoretical system. Yes. The agency problem is well understood by economists, therefore solving it will not be that hard, once it is identified.

This identification, however, has slipped from Bogles' original point of observation. He effectively transforms a problem of ethics into one of agency, in which process an external factor of economic models is quietly internalized. Fortunately Mark Thoma is clear-headed enough to point out that '[r]ules will never cover everything, so ethics is part of the problem.'

However, my quesiton is, 'What ethics?'

I do not like to predict the death of capitalism like a socialist of the past. Observation is much better than prediction. Yet I believe that we have observed that people are not able to withstand the possible gains from bigger leverages, so much so that they and the huge organizations they represent will inevitably fall. It is the Gresham's law applied to the financial domain, and we seem to have got the problem back into the economists' hand. Congratulations! But do we have a stock solution?

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We have generally given up on 'good money' in currency circulation, but it is not possible to give in to 'bad money' in finance yet. While people were quick to realize the debased value of the 'bad' silver coins, the financial instruments are just too hard for the mortals to understand, and the rating agencies are doing a really evil job in offering (at least to Lehman) unfairly high ratings. So, once the complexity of the 'bad money' gets out of the limit of common human sensibility, all economic laws based on rationality need to be remade.

One Walks Before He Can Run

This is a basic Chinese notion about how things should be done in a gradual order: you don't teach a baby to run if he could not even walk (less true with Forrest Gump though). But too often the civilized West becomes impatient with the 'barbarian Asians' and ask them to jump without knowing where they originally stood.

This impatience is again manifest in the New York Times' editorial, where Afghanistan and Pakistan for violation of human rights and regressing into Islamic war control. I cannot speak for the Pakistan authority which let happen the beating of a woman for refusing a marriage, because it is an extreme case of human rights violation. I cannot speak for Mr. Karzai of Afghanistan, either, as the new law does sanction marital rape. But condemnation does not work.

The very idea that passing a marital rape law could boost Mr. Karzai's re-election campion shows that the law has popular support among the Afghan voters. Now I don't really know if women can vote in Afganistan or not (and given the newly passed law, it seems that they can't), but clearly Mr. Karzai is making a calculated decision. Find him another viable way, or stop telling him that he's doing the immoral thing. You can't condemn him into another presidency.

The popular support for Islamic law, as I understand it (or am unable to understand it), has many complex levels. Scolding Mr. Karzai isn't likely to work; telling them to respect the rights of women overnight isn't either (while telling them to respect the rights of women the Western way is entirely another matter.) The way to do it is to induce the Islamic society (and any other non-Western compliant societies) to form globally acceptable moral codes on friendly terms. The Japanese and the Indians once treated foreigners (Europeans) like dogs, but are now good world citizens (at least in this current world order), and it took them a couple of centuries to get there. Why can't we give other people some time so convergence in value can take place, unless some of us are actively seeking possible enemies to divert attention on local matters?

I don't believe that the word 'befriend' means beat someone repetitively untill they are submissive enough to agree to everything you say. Realize the difference and be tolerant. Since it's always easier said than done, stop condemnation and try to do some real friendly work patiently. Please.

Those Born With Rights and Those Born Without

Irrelevant image: migration destinations of Chinese to the US, generated by NYT

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Debate on immigrant workers is still running on the New York Times' Room for Debate. While the original topic, as I understand it, should be centred around the H-1B visa as an excuse for cheap labour, many of the authors actually take the liberty to warn the US of the danger of losing foreign talents, and consequently, losing her global technological competitiveness.

Whether that debate on NYT is off-topic or not is not my concern. My take on the debate is that if we look at the problem at hand up-side-down, that is, if we ask, 'Is it normal for the US to amass all the talents this world has to offer?' the answer should be quite clear. It is like a permanent trade surplus/deficit which has just proven by the current crisis to be quite impossible.

Why? Because existing American workers (supposedly not as competitive as some of their immigrant counterparts) will not just disappear. Worse still, unlike unemployment in a structural change of the economy, the kind of American workers we are talking about will continue to be born! Now this begins to sound a bit social Darwinian, and I assure you that I will not go down that route. I just wish to make the case clear, that with no ethical way of removing a certain number of the American citizenship, and as the speed of technology cannot keep up with the rate of population growth once high-skilled labour begins pouring in, the US will not be able to retain all the talents coming out of the US higher education system. And since a good number of these talents do not enjoy the same rights as an American citizen does (as has been made apparent in the debate at NYT), they naturally will choose to return to their home country.

So it is about time that we say 'Sorry' to the ideal US which no longer exists. If the market for talents were so biased towards the US, it is now beginning to clear. Any other way out? Yes, when free immigration is realized (a time when national borders cease to exist), we will all be better-off, except that by then it will be meaningless to speak about a 'global technological lead'.

Why so extreme? Why do I mess about national borders? Because within these borders, people are born with certain rights the outsiders do not enjoy. American vs non-American, urban household vs rural household (as in China)... People are not born equal. And since it is not politically right to say that someone is superior to another as a human being, displacement of the right-holders by non-right-holders will be impossible. The 'most' equal method is to let the population within the border grow; and the result is that some people can get a better life by qualification, while some will get it by birth.

In the advanced countries, nowadays, city growth has slowed down, and there is trend of migration back to the countryside. I would suggest that this is a better world, at least better than the swelling big cities in the past. Maybe this will happen on a global level, as well. In order to solve the problem of 'the immigration of high-skilled workers', some Americans will have to go. In a social-Darwinian way the goers are those at the bottom of the social ladder; in a more ethical way, it could be the richest guys. Either way, being an American will not be that important any more. Sadly the current debate seems to insist on the unviolatable rights of the Americans, and is too politically correct to become social-Darwinian, while too reluctant to let the elite get out of the US.

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I have actually concealed one solution. According to economic theory, instead of amassing factors of production, the real advantage of a country should lie in the progress of its productivity, or level of technology, or (very unfortunately) randomness in the equation! Productivity is a black box, but it does point to the fair solution:

Educate the existing US citizens so they over-perform most of their foreign counterparts, and the US will always lead. Immigration is always a cheap way to excellence, and it is good that the Americans have already realized that the current cheap plan does not work.

24 & G.O.P.

Being rather unfamiliar with American politics, I had some difficulty getting the meaning of the 'G.O.P.' derided by Paul Krugman.

Nonetheless, enlightenment can still come quite unexpectedly. 'And the parties are, of course, being promoted heavily by Fox News.' Krugman wrote, and I suddenly realize that why 24, the TV series that I happen to come to love, happens to be a Fox product. It now seems clear why the show happens to feature a lot of torture of terrorist suspects (rightly suspected by the hero), why the government that tries to shut CPU down is wrong, and how stupid the FBI agents who play by the rules are. It seems less clear, though, why the current 24 president is so stubborn and inept that she is almost certainly the clone of the 2001~08 president, although her female status still gives us a hint that the role was designed to create an on-screen Clinton.

Susan Hough: 'Confusing Patterns With Coincidences'

I've been quoting a lot recently, as I do not have enough web time for blogging. But for this one, I do have something to say.

The quote goes first:

The game goes like this: you look back at past recordings of X, where X is radon or whatever, and find that X had shown anomalies before large earthquakes. But the problem is that X is typically what we call a “noisy signal” — data that includes a lot of fluctuations, often for varied and not entirely understood reasons — so finding correlations looking backward is about as meaningful as finding animals in the clouds.

We do know that some earthquakes, including the L’Aquila event, have foreshocks, but we can’t sound alarm bells every time little earthquakes happen because the overwhelming majority — 95 percent or so — will not indicate a coming major quake.

And the full article is available here.

Does the story sounds remotely similar to the one happened in China last year? Or indeed to the current economic crisis centered around the Wall Street melt-down? The choice is ours to make: find a way to neutralize these high-stake risks, or live on like we do now and let issuance of one kind or another to clear up the aftermath. The strange thing is that we have so far opted unanimously for the latter option, which seems to be cheap in comparison. But is it? Clearing up the mess in L'Aquila might be cheap (no derogative use here), but for the other 2 cases, the consequences are all too severe.

I seriously suspect that the whole world nowadays is risk-loving, for my problem is your problem, but my profit is too often my profit alone--the negative externality problem is everywhere. In theory people would look to the government for solution, but governments are more concerned about social unrest than about the possible loss of lives... What other options have we got?

"Predicting the Present with Google Trends"?

I was very interested at the research co-authored by Hal Varian and Hyunyoung Choi titled: "Predicting the Present with Google Trends" until I found that the source is Google blog. Now I'm not sure if I'm still reading an unbiased research report or a piece of Google propaganda. Perhaps neither.

It has been said that if you put a million monkeys in front of a million computers, you would eventually produce an accurate economic forecast.

Got to love this quote. Let's wait and see the result.

Just survived my GNOME 2.26 upgrade

Arch Linux is for the lazy. Yes. When everything goes as planned. If not, this beautiful OS will turn into a thing for the crazy... At least for a non-programmer like me.

To cut a long story short, I upgraded GNOME on Arch installation last night, and came back this morning only to discover that CPU usage went up 100% 99% of the time, and Xorg (again) is identified as the culprit. As suggested on the Arch forum, upgrading xorg-server to 1.60 will solve the problem, but I was not so lucky. After the upgrade, CPU usage still hung around 50%, and my laptop still turned into a burner very fast.

It is suggested that creating a new user will solve the problem, as some of the old configs are not working well with the new version of GNOME. After some messing around I accidentally discovered that disabling nautilus show desktoy in Gconf-editor make cpu usage spike, and turning it back on put my cpu usage back at bay. I suggest that people try this first before flushing their home directory. Good Luck! Happy Arching!

Edit:
Seems that a quick xorg fix on the 1.5 branch has fixed this problem. Kudos to the devs.

"King Solomon's Dilemma and Behavioral Economics"

Can't help quoting this one. It shows how far economists are willing to go to challenge conventional 'wisdom'. Makes very good teaching material.

Let's think about this. The "mechanism" (game) designed by Solomon proposes to split the baby in two (sounds "fair" at least). One women screams out "No! Let the other have the whole baby instead." The other woman coldly agrees to the solution. The real mother is revealed in the obvious manner. What is not so obvious is why the false mother could not have anticipated this outcome; a more clever woman would have simply mimicked the behavior of the true mother. Instead, the false mother fails to make this calculation (and instead adopts a simple "behavioral" strategy; which is just a fancy label for irrational behavior).

Read the full article at MacroMania.

Music Sharing: Pirate or Explorer? (II)

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I read about the new interface of Google's music search service in China today on Aw's blog (link in Chinese). This brought my attention to this service which was established a (long?) while ago.

It is remarkable that the new interface enables people to discover music according to certain criteria, such as tempo, pitch, and tone. Genre and language filters are also available. But this is hardly amazing in this modern world. What surprises me is that Google offers music downloads, too. This is the search result for Onmyo-za, my favorite band at this time, who are unfortunately not really popular at least in Mainland, and Google still has 8 album entries for this band. Download quality is at 192 kbps, a rate at which compressed music is transparent to most ears.

Google is offering the music download in cooperation with top100.cn. According to their vision statement, the site intends not only to let users discover and download music, but to lead to music related purchases. Considering that they are in partnership with such big names as China Mobile and Google, the actual income from music sales might not be that important to this site. Therefore, it seems questionable if this free download model is a sensible business model by itself.

Where is the American Nanny?

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It is a modern fable in China: an American nanny bought a house for herself on mortgage, and paid off her debt when she died; a Chinese nanny, on the contrary, saved up all her life and bought a house when she died. The result? The American nanny worked all her life and enjoyed her housing, while the Chinese nanny worked all her life to buy a house that she had no chance to live in.

The wisdom is that one should borrow and consume, and worry about payments later. The Americans have done this all along, while the Chinese are gradually shaking off their saving habits. The assumption is that the ability to pay is guaranteed for life. And of course, we all assume that when we need to borrow money, we can always find a lender.

If I wrote this a year ago, I might still thought that the above assumptions were right, and I might wish to have an American life-style myself. But now? Where is the American nanny before she dies? We come to realize that the ability to pay is not guaranteed, and that if the Chinese nanny doesn't save in the first place, the American nanny may well find it hard to get a mortgage.

Mark Thoma asked "Who's the Villain in the Crisis?" Now what do you think? The American nanny who borrowed too much? The Chinese nanny who saved up too much for the American nanny to borrow? The broker who channeled the savings?

Music Sharing: Pirate or Explorer? (I)

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I'm not sure how many of you still remember Napster. Not the Napster paysite as it is today, but its predecessor, the free mp3-sharing website. The site used to enable users to share and download free digital music, and was so successful that it sent Radiohead atop the Billboard, and brought itself a lot of legal trouble, too, and in 2001, Napster had to shut down its service.

That Napster is dead, but its spirit lives on (not in the resurrected paid service). Online P2P music sharing carries on, and the nature of this mass piracy makes it very hard to criminalize anyone (Fa Bu Ze Zhong, as the old Chinese saying goes). One of the new upstarts in the business is this Coda.fm, which I overheard from MakeUseOf.com. The admin of Coda.fm openly admits that the service is under legal threats, but says that the site intends to resist the pressure in an attempt to bring about change in the music industry. But the exactly proposition to change is not very clear, or actionable--as long as law makers do not catch the service, it is for the music labels to worry about the possible changes. And according to the interviewed Coda.fm admin, music label is "a middleman that should be gone soon". With this posture, one might reasonably believe that no solution, except for the disappearance of either the labels, or of Coda.fm, will eventually come about before the fragile and embarrassing status quo breaks.

I recently heard of a similar service which goes a bit further in the quest of solutions. The service, called Xiami, is based in China, where intellectual property rights (especially of those totally intagible goods) are not well exercised. Despite this background, Xiami says, in response to customer request, that they share the download revenue with artists. The business model is one that encourages music upload and P2P sharing by rewards of Xiami web assets (which might be convertible to RMB, according to plan), charges the same web assets for downloads, and facilitates the purchase of Xiami assets with real RMB. Very good model, except that exactly how much is paid to the artist is unknown to the public. And considering that a lot of music shared on the website is foreign based, it is doubtful whether Xiami can guarantee their pay-the-artist model 100%. A few users fear that the Xiami's model will mean that the legal liability lies entirely with the uploader, and since Xiami does not host any music files, it will abondon its user in potential legal disputes. Many P2P sharing sites are hiding behind the same shield; and as there are too many users (copyright law offenders), legal punishment will become impossible. However, I would say that the case with Xiami is a bit different, as the service may try to directly profit from music sharing activities, making them liable to related accusations. The good things is that once the service is monetized, there will be room for negotiation with music labels, and a mutually acceptable solution will become more likely (compared to Coda.fm). So will they be an explorer in the terra incognita of the future music land? Or are they still pirates as I fear? Maybe they'll end up as a privateer...

Sakura + Kimono: Still Problematic in China

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It is spring time and sakura, not only in Tokyo, but in China too, is flowering. A mother with her daughter dressed up in kimono (Japanese traditional clothing) and took photos under some flowering cherry trees the other day in Wuhan University, and they were, unfortunately but almost inevitably, ill-received by the passers-by.

The on-lookers felt especially offended by the wearing of kimono, which may be too "Japanese" for the liking of most of Chinese. It is not perhaps as offensive as a few Japanese military uniforms reminiscent of WWII, but it is still too much.

The media is almost uniformly opposed to the on-lookers, saying that it is only excessive and unnecessary patriotism. Neither sakura nor kimono are related the WWII crimes, and should be given considerations as such.

I am, of course, in support of the media on this issue, but I, too, find this sakura/kimono combination too much for me. I do not hate the Japanese, especially not the current generation; I am learning the Japanese language in the hope that I can view the civilization in a more educated manner. However, at this stage I still have some "nerves" against the Japanese; I wish that it could go away, but it is there. Similarly, I believe that none of the on-lookers in Wuhan University are really that anti-Japanese as to get themselves completely insulate from the Japanese culture. In this age it is too hard. We buy Japanese electronics, use Japanese cosmetics, view Japanese TV series, and read Japanese comic books. Tension still exists, but understanding is growing, and tolerance brewing. Therefore, no one will likely to scold you for viewing sakura, for taking photos of sakura with Canon cameras, or for similar activities related to Japan. However, unfortunately, wearing kimono to the scene is still not quite accepted, and with a little understanding of the opinions of the Chinese people at large, such embarrassment can be avoided.

The mother and daughter said that they had no special intentions. They just thought that wearing kimono under sakura trees was beautiful. So indeed, it is avoidable, as the kimono served no particular important purpose. The mother and daughter did not do anything "wrong"; just that they should have known better.

Now I am writing to the Westerners' dismay, because my suggestion is so undemocratic. But remember: China has always been a collective society (and Japan too), and collective opinions are not to be taken lightly. Just as the US youth do not understand the sadness in someone traveling alone (according to the experience of Haruki Murakami, if I remember correctly), it is OK for the West not to understand the Chinese emphasis on the collective over the individual.

But NOW is a good time to start to understand.

And believe me, just as it is now nothing big to talk about Takuya Kimura in adoration, it will be acceptable to wear kimono to "hanami" in China as well, sooner or later. It is happening. Just wait.

P.S.
Just came across this piece on IHT. Some Westerners do seem to understand collectivism and hold it rather high. Also, this Britannica Blog entry on loneliness by Peter Augustine Lawler is distantly related. I'm amazed how quickly related articles got my attention after this post.

Personality Quiz

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a

Traveling Creative Self-Knower

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This is by far the least accurate quiz I've taken! Perhaps I misled the quiz designer by ticking the "lived in another country" box. I, however, lived in England for one year for my academic study, and wasn't very satisfied with the lifestyle... Other than this experience, I absolutely dislike the kind of "traveling" which everyone seems to enjoy. I don't like to go to random beautiful places, and I don't like to take photos of random beautiful scenery. I go to new places for food, or to experience my (Wikipedia) reading in real life. This is the reason why I enthusiastically explored the Temple Church twice and took many photos.

By the way, the most accurate test I've taken is the MBTI, multiple times at different places, and have always been an NTP. Recently I switched from INTP to ENTP! But I'd say that I'm actually something in between. Anyway, the I/ENTP's do have an interesting way of life, and is very productive at the same time, about which I'm preparing to blog a lot!

Funny Post and Paranoid Chinese Software End Users

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The Post

Take a look at this web page: http://bbs.pcpop.com/070604/876055.html
The topic reads, "MP3切割工具——MP3 DirectCut绿色破解版免费下载" (MP3 splitter--MP3 DirectCut green cracked version free download).
Now on the homepage of MP3 DirectCut it reads, "Download mp3DirectCut: 190 KB · simple installer (selfextracting zip) · Freeware". So it is indeed free, and there is no need for a crack. I remember it being green also, but it does not really matter, for the software is not loaded with junk and can be uninstalled cleanly.

The funny thing is how the words Green, Free, and Cracked are emphasized over the Chinese download community. It is like that no one wishes to distribute their software for Free; if they don't, then all you have to do is to have it Cracked; if they do, then the software package certainly will not be Green, and will surely be loaded with adware and spyware and the like. Therefore, even this wonderful little program called "MP3 DirectCut" is free and clean by itself, there is still need to assure downloaders that it is Free, Cracked (as if to make sure it is quality and Clean software). The average Chinese computer users have to worry about all these. Without understanding the circumstances of the Chinese downloading community, this will look utterly pointless.

The Reflection

This is a reflection of the sad truth in the software industry in China. Proprietary software does not sell, and free (as in "free beer") software does not come clean. It is understandable that the consumers would wish to save and the producers would wish to make money, but it is astonishing that for the most of us, the demand and supply curves does not form a market equilibrium--I doubt that they meet.

Starting from Windows 95, I have turned to the free (as in "free beer and free speech") world of GNU/Linux, and currently run an Arch Linux installation. I have been a minor non-programmer contributor to the Linux world for some time now. The equilibrium has worked for me quite well so far, although not perfectly, because the world at large is Windows. I cannot say that it will work well for all the others, especially for the majority of the Chinese who are not willing to pay the price as it is set. The market theory tells that demand and supply will work out an acceptable price, but it does not tell us why for so long (more than 10 years?) the price is still not acceptable in China.

We need a change.

And the one line above is just empty words. If I do have a better way, I myself might become a millionaire based just on that :P

We all need to think hard about it. Not just live with it. Live with it and change it for the better.

Afterwit--the 'How' Is More Important

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I recently did a cleanup, and found something interesting. A news printout from the International Herald Tribune (IHT), or 'Gore attacks Bush's policy on Iraq, saying it hurts nation', dated Sep. 25, 2002, by Dan Baiz of the Washington Post. (Just checked, and this article is somehow missing from the IHT archive.)

Back then, I used news articles like this one to train my English reading. Opposition to the war played a minor part in the choice of this particular article. Now it seems to be fate that I made the choice, since Gore's speech reads like a prophecy.

By shifting from his early focus after Sep. 11 on war against terrorism to war against Iraq, the president has manifestly disposed of the sympathy, goodwill and solidarity compiled by American and transformed it into a sense of deep misgiving and even hostility.

How true. I was never positively thrilled by the disaster of Sep. 11, as opposed to the feeling of many Chinese when the incident occurred. I don't remember having any conscious disagreement to the war against the Taliban, despite the funny history of how the Taliban came into power. I would choice to dislike Saddam if I was asked to make a choice (although it was not my concern), and though I was not a fan of the Bush administration ever since they decided not to honour the Kyoto Protocol, I was to some degree with the US since Sep. 11. But not after the start of the Iraqi War.

But I'm not going to make any more moral judgments on Bush or the past US administration. Moral standards are difficult to handle, especially in international politics.

The point is that people knew the War was wrong, and did not stop it from taking place. In 2002 there were of course arguments, and arguments went on while decisions were being made. Only six years later does a clear judgment come forward, and Bush was mostly wrong. One cannot but feel that this comes too late.

It is all possible that Gore attacked Bush out of partisanship. This review from the Economist's View is more revealing, but maybe Paul Krugman can also be ignored for being partisan? After all, Dick Cheney is now attacking Obama, and who knows? Maybe he's right?...

Yet I would say NO to Cheney, though I do not yet know if Obama is doing the right thing against terrorism. Although I admit that judgments are hard to make, especially concerning things that has not yet happened, it is relatively easy to spot the fault; and the fault in the Bush administration is their conservative origin--to idealistic to deal with reality. Such moral arrogance was also present in the North Korean talks. And now Cheney is not ready to give it up.

I'd very much like someone to share their way of foreseeing the "truth", but at least for now, this is still mission impossible for me. However, this should not prevent people from trying their best at making decisions, as long as they are dealing with the real world, and not just fancies.

In Google I trust?

Having been thinking about moving out of Microsoft Live Space for a long time--the interface is too slow and too ugly for my liking. Moved to wordpress.com.cn a while ago, but later found out that the site is not actually affiliated with Wordpress. And wordpress.com? Inaccessible behind the wall.

I'm a bit scared at putting almost everyone of the services I use under the banner of Google, but it does provide almost every web service that I need, with aesthetics, with responsibility, and hopefully, with a well managed relationship with the Chinese authority for as long as I can foresee.

So I finally decided to move most of my English blogging to Google, knowing that it would be quite easy to migrate to Wordpress when I have the time and money to get a hosting service. This move to Google is not the first one, and perhaps will not be the last one.

My heart did not rest well when Bloglines seemed to have gone down and I finally had to move my feeds over to Google Reader. Google is growing into a good-willed monopoly, and while the monopoly does not go away easily, good-will often does. But what choice do I have? Especially over wordpress.com... Feels almost like the good old Windows piracy marketing.