chronicle of a curious mind--杨军的Blog

software quality-Joel Test

2009-05-18T22:25:00.001+08:00

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html

Yet abother RESTful API that's not RESTful at all

2009-05-13T20:50:00.002+08:00

I just run across another claimed RESTful API published by xiaonei.com. However, IMHO, it is not RESTful at all. That must make Fielding frustrated again. It is actually POX over HTTP. Obviously REST has been used as brand to mean buzz word compatible thing, that's what Fielding don't wanna see. Please see my previous post about what does REST really means and how.

what does RESTful web service really mean and how?

2009-05-13T11:59:00.007+08:00

Although SOA is a buzz word more often cited in enterprise application context, SOA also applies in Internet web application context. This is where RESTful web service comes into play. Most web2.0 websites are building sort of RESTful web services for mashup application development. However, many claimed RESTful web services are not RESTful at all, which have made REST father Fielding a bit frustrated. Maybe some guys just don't want real RESTful stuff, so they kinda relax a bit. Fielding also talk about what we get if we relax REST style. The point is there is no high REST or low REST. You can only be RESTful or not. There is no middle ground.

If there are some misunderstanding about REST, here are the basic constraints specified by REST style:

Resource oriented: each resource may have multiple representations. Resources are nouns in the vocabulary of systems. In http, it is about MIME types and content negotiation(Accept header).
Unique identification of resources: each resource has an unique identifier. In http, it is about assigning URI to resources.
Links between resources: resources should be linked so that agent can navigate from one resource to another. In http, it is about building hyperlinks between resources like sitemap.
Uniform interface: Not like we specify a contract with programming langueage interface, REST requires an uniform interface for all kind of resources. In http, the interface is a fixed set of verbs: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, which can be nicely mapped to CRUD operations in applications.
Statelessness: Yes, REST is stateless. Even though we use session or cookie in http overwhelmingly. That's the wrong way for scalable distributed system.
Layering: you can plugin some kind of intermediary like proxy or cache or authentication between client and server. It is like adding some filters in between if you like.

If this summary is just too boring to read, you can refer to real-life examples of RESTful web services. Sun has published its RESTful cloud API with json MIME type. Google Gdata API is another good example with Atompub protocol.

If you are already familiar with REST stuff and want to go for it, please read this IEEE article on the best practices of developing RESTful web services by Vinoski.

Here is my take on how to develop RESTful web services:

identify resources you want to expose and build a resource model like SUN cloud API resource model. E.g. building a resource model for a bookshop: shop, room, book, category, review, shoppingcart, order, bestsellers, featured, discount
select an MIME type, json or Atompub or customized xml, to specify representation for each identified resource. E.g. specifying representation for the shop resource in json format:
```
Content-Type: application/vnd.com.myshop.shop+json
```
{ “name” : "xxx shop", "url" : "http://www.xxxshop.com", "rooms": [{"name" : "science","url" : "/science"},{"name" : "management", "url" : "/mgmt"}], "shoppingcart" : "/user_id/cart", "order":"/user_id/order", "bestsellers": [{"name" : "best 1", "url" : "/book/1"} , {"name" : "best 2", "url" : "/book/2"}]}
now we have resources and representations of resources. In other words, we have nouns. So what do we do next? Yes, verbs. We should attach verbs to nouns for interface definition. E.g. for resource book, user can GET and can not POST/PUT/DELETE. Maybe adminstrator can do update operation. But for resource review, user can GET/POST/PUT/DELETE.
we get a quite good RESTful interface, but not implement it yet. So we have to choose a convienient programming language to implement the interface. In java, maybe jersey is the best choice. Ruby has quite good support for RESTful web service by ActiveResouce package.

If I get enough time, I will make a complete example of RESTful web service design using online bookshop as demo application.

SOAP is boring, we need more REST

2009-05-08T12:07:00.006+08:00

Since SOA became a buzz word, web service has been touted by vendors as the holy grail for EAI or even more, restructure of the existing IT architecture to get a SOA brand. However, if SOA is not driven by real business needs, it must be doomed. So if we have have done extensive cost benefits alaysis of SOA and concluded that we will have one, how can we do that? Basically SOA is a top down approach, because implementation of SOA need a holistic view of the entire IT infrastructure. Maybe there are incremental ways for SOA that I don't know. As a top down approach, it is more about governance rather than devise of a cutting-ege fancy technology to implement it. However, technological aspect somehow determines the adoption rate of SOA.

For now web service is the mainstream implementing technology for SOA because big vendors are driving behind it. But recently there is a new buzz word REST. REST has been a hot topic in many technology conference, like http://enterprisewebconf.com/sessions.html, the state of REST vs. SOAP, intro of REST, qcon presentation about combining REST & WS-*. The most interesting one I have watched is by Steve Vinoski, who was been in trenches for decades. When a CORBA guy is talking about distributed system, we shoule be listening. So what is this guy really talking about? Well, RPC is fundermantally flawed, REST is a better alternative way to go. That's what he is advocating. However, some guys don't buy it. Hot debates happened here, here and etc. One of points I think make sense is that it depends on what kind of control you have on the system to be built. If you have total control of all of the end points of the system, RPC can be used for optimized performance; on the other hand, if some of the end points are outside of your control, REST is a better alternative. So, in this reasoning, SOAP just doesn't fit into the space. Here is an extensive comparision between WS-* and REST.

UPDATE: I just run into this post about what Gartner coined as WOA(Web Oriented Architecture). Actually WOA is just an attempt of Gartner to make a new brand of its own from REST. Nothing new. On the other hand, Gartner proposed WOA as constraints of WS-* stack. How this can be done in the real world? I suspect vendors have motives to do it.

A note on software architecture style classification

2009-04-27T00:37:00.003+08:00

Architecture style of software system has evolved for decades. We can classify these styles as below.

1. No Architecture
no unified principle,thus no architecture
a integration task needed to plug into the whole enterprise after each
application developed
applications interact in a point-to-point way
each application has its own data store
interface bloating with O(n*n)
also referred as "post integration"
drawbacks: lack of semantic consistency
uncontrolled data replication
result: tight coupling, ripple effect

2. The Integrated Database Architecture
unified data model with clearly defined semantic
applications interact through a single data store
a single data store also a giant "global variable"
still result in tight coupling and ripple effect

3. The Distributed Object Architecture
OO Model ensures consistent semantic
still result in tight coupling, vendor lock-in
examples: EJB, DCOM, CORBA

4. Message Broker(Hub and Spoke)
Star-like topology
applications interact through the central broker
add a intermediary between applications, thus application can be removed or
replaced without effect on others
drawbacks: single point of failure
limited scalability
example: Web Methods

5. The Message Bus Architecture
Flexibility is one of the most crucial qualities of modern organization
Imagine main board bus architecture in computer
return to Integrated Database Architecture but difference remains
applications interact by sending message conforming to a message schema
drawbacks: proprietary messaging protocol, vendor lock-in
security risk including network flooding
message format adaption
example: TIBCO Rendezvous

6. Hybrid Architecture
virtual group
each group contains nodes acting as broker and bus
example: Microsoft BizTalk

6. Service Oriented Architecture
service everywhere
each application exports its own function to service which can be consumed by
other application
also each application can import services provided by other application in
implementing its own function
Put it simple, each application can be both service provider and service consumer.

Conclusion
1. No silver bullet, no one-size-fits-all solution.
2. No perfect architecture, only appropriate architecture
3. Big upfront design is less feasible than incremental iterative design

some new stuff worth a look

2009-04-24T23:41:00.002+08:00

I came across the InfoWorld's 2008 best open source software awards yesterday. Today InformationWeek's Top50 startups list pops up. Some of them definitely worth a look.

1. Git: a distributed version control system that has been used for Linux kernel, fedora and other important open source projects with geographical distribution characteristic.

2. Intel Threaded Building Blocks: an open source cross-OS x86 c++ template library for parallel programming. The essence of this library is a work stealing scheduler. There is an equivalent API in java called fork-join framework that is under development.

3. Alfreso: open source Enterprise Content Management alternative for MS Sharepoint. Most java projects use Confulence Wiki for similar purpose, but ECM solution provides more rich feature set.

4. Hyperic HQ: comprehensive open source application and system monitoring solution

5. Pentaho: open source Business Intelligence Suite originated from another comprehensive machine learning algorithm package Weka. Note: I have tried Weka for web page classification. It is more lightweight and developer-friendly than other open source alternatives such as RapidMiner.

6. Vyatta: open source router, firewall & VPN solution/claimed Cisco alternative. Ambitious! Here are some intro webcasts. And here is a comprehensive review. Another similar but more academic project is XORP. Ops! It seems Vyatta was really derived from XORP. Anyway, we can consider to use it as a replacement of Cisco low-end products. More importantly, students can download it and build a virtual network lab with VMware-like virtual machine software. Thanks for the hard work from these guys!

7. Metasploit Framework: open source penetration toolkit that can be used to hammer application for finding potential security vulnerabilities. Also It can be used for malicious attack.

8. Splunk: open source security log analysis framework that can analyze logs from various sources to find out security threats.

9. Amanda: maybe mostly used open source backup solution.

10. Abiquo: open source cloud computing solution provider, ambitious too!

11. Eucalyptu: yet another open source cloud computing solution, but more academic.

12: openqrm: open source data center management software, not touted as cloud stuff yet, but it can be.

I will elaborate more details when I try any of them.

architecture principles notes

2009-04-22T15:16:00.004+08:00

When I watched a presentation by Ebay architect about Ebay architecture principles, I was thinking about how could we figure out what architecture principles we could use in my specific project cases. After all, architecture principles vary from company to company and from project to project. So what does it derive from? After reading some resources, here is my notes.

1. what?

Before we go further, we'd better make clear what the architecture principles are. Here is a definition from TOGAF's enterprise architecture framework:

Architecture principles are a subset of IT principles that relate to architecture work. They reflect a level of consensus across the enterprise, and embody the spirit and thinking of the enterprise architecture.
......
Architecture principles define the underlying general rules and guidelines for the use and deployment of all IT resources and assets across the enterprise. They reflect a level of consensus among the various elements of the enterprise, and form the basis for making future IT decisions.

Each architecture principle should be clearly related back to the business objectives and key architecture drivers.

It seems way too dogmatic. Here are the guts:

They are IT principles.
They are general guidelines and rules of utilizing IT resources.
They should be well aligned with business objectives.

Here is the components an architecture principle usually contains:

Name: representative name with clear meaning
Statement: description of unambiguous fundamental rule
Rational: highlight business benefits, point out the relations to business principles and relations to other architecture principles, and how to weight them in context
Implication: requirements from both IT and business to carrying out the principle in terms of resources, cost, activities and cost. It's about impact and consequence.

Here is an architecture principles example from Example Set of Architecture Principles from TOGAF's enterprise architecture framework. Another example is NIH enterprise architecture. Maybe this example is more technology oriented.

2. how?

According to the above interpretation of what, we could only derive these architecture principles from business objectives. Here is the method of running a workshop to draw up them. The key points are:

Identify Strategic Objectives
Record Strategic Objectives
Identify Architecture Principles
Explain Architecture Principles
Prioritize Architecture Principles
Show Prioritization Results

reference:

1. http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/enterprise-solutions/running-an-architecture-principles-workshop-12581
2. http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/enterprise-solutions/sample-architecture-principles-workshop-agenda-12598
3. http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf9-doc/arch/
4. http://www.bredemeyer.com/HotSpot/20040428EASoapBox.htm
5. http://enterprisearchitecture.nih.gov/ArchLib/Guide/EnterprisePrinciples.htm
6. http://enterprisearchitecture.nih.gov/About/Approach/Framework.htm
8. http://blogs.msdn.com/architectsrule/archive/2008/04/22/reference-architecture-principles.aspx

handy system administration and monitoring tools

2009-04-22T13:44:00.006+08:00

Just a memo:

maybe the most extensive list on the net about system administration:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/nmtf/nmtf-tools.html

Among the list, here are those I have used:

Ntop/Nmon: network traffic data collection

Currently the most popular and also oldest network monitoring tools might be Nagios(network and server monitoring) and MRTG(mainly network traffic). Another perl written one cfengine is getting popular for its powerful rule based management script execution system. Rule language is not new. It has been widely used in business rules engine like ILOG and Drool. It also shines when it is used for system administration. I will give a try if I have a chance.

There are some new open source tools worth a look:
1. OpenNMS: java
3. Hyperic: java
3. Zenoss: python

And it seems old boy is losing favor.

operation dimension of system architecture

2009-04-22T12:19:00.004+08:00

In terms of software architecture, there are usually various stakeholders involved in a specific system architecture. Each of them might has different architectural requirements. Product department often submits functional requirements. Operation department often submits system management or monitoring requirements. Accounting department may submits billing requirements. And in some cases the system has its own inherent non-functional requirements such as performance, availability and other SLA guarantees. In one word, a system architecture always involves quite a lot dimensions. We have to think about all of them so as to get a full picture of the system. However, developers are usually myopic so that they rarely think about other dimensions. After all, when system rolls out, developers have to work closely with operation people to get feedbacks about production system. If developers don't get well prepared, they may end up with getting nothing. Even worse, they will get entangled into operation aspect. Here are some points developers could consider in advance and prepare for.

The first question is how to get production system status?

The common approach is log extensively in the system itself and send notification email when things get abnormal. Simple! But it don't work when the system is down. And another disadvantages is that application level logging only cares about the system itself. How about machine poweroff or disk failure or network outrage?

So we should have an independent and full functional health management system. Usually this system is maintained by operation department. Then there is a gap, social and technical. The social one is that the two department have to cooperate to make system work. The technical one is about how to make existing health management system be aware of the new system. It depends on both sides. The health management system should be extensible so that it can adapt to any kind of new system. Luckily some full functional monitoring systems qualify. And the new system itself should provide health checking interface that would be called by health management system. So far so good. When system goes wrong, the health management system will get notification in the first place. If they can deal with it, developers can sleep well. Otherwise, developers will get busy.

Another important point is that trust should be built between operation department and development department. Developers should add a lens which can view the dimension of operation to its toolbox. Also system administrators should add a lens which can view the dimension of development to its toolbox, because a full understanding about the new system can help them monitor the system more extensively.

The reason why I am aware of operation aspect of system architecture is that it is getting more and more important today. Service has been a buzzword for years. SOA, SaaS, PaaS, Web Services and so on. So how can we measure the quality of service? Yes, SLA(Service Level Agreement). 4 nines availability and 1s response time. That's it. But how can we reach that SLA? It is closely related to operation. So be watchful of it.

UPDATE: Here is a good post on the same topic: monitoring java system, but more specifically.

the lessons of scaling

2009-03-30T10:35:00.004+08:00

In the previous post, I make a simple classification on current website architectures according to their technology features. So what we can learn from these architectures? Before any elaboration I will point out most of principles are proposed for scaling-out rather than scaling-up, because scaling-up just don't do well. In contrast, commodity PC cluster is entering the mainstream. Well, Here is my notes.

1. partition

It seems that partition is a quite familiar concept for DBA rather than developers. I mean, almost any fancy database support table partitioning fully or partially. That means big volume table can be sliced into multiple small and manageable tables. What's more than that is sharding. Or we can just call it cross database partitioned table or horizontal partition. Sharding is almost the standard approach adopted by most of today's web2.0 companies. But note that sharding is not out-of-box components provided by database vendors. Instead, anyone who want to use it may end up with building a sharding solution specific to the use case. Although there are some partial solutions like Hibernate shard and Mysql Proxy out there, in most cases you have to customize or treak for your needs.

The essence of partition is divide and conquer. However, this principle also applies very well in the whole software stack. In application layer, we can partition a monolithic system by function into independent system unit or just design such architecture from the start in mind. In SOA terms, well defined self-contained services. Because each unit has its own constraints and characteristics, so each unit can be independently developed and optimized for performance and scalability. For example, In a classic online shop, there may be signing service, item view service, item search service, ordering service, and so on. Each of them has different user experience tolerance characteristic and IO characteristic. We can use different strategy to implement these services for different functional and nonfunctional needs. But one important assumption of function partition is the system is stateless. In other word, service is self-contained. So we avoid server side http session or stateful session bean into a minimum.

2. caching

Caching is a well-known hammer to crack performance problem. Also caching can be applied in many use cases. Database do have its own query result cache. If your server has abundant memory, allocate more of them for database query result cache can make significant impact in response time. Aside from database, developers are more familiar with caching in application layer. There are many caching solutions
for popular web programming languages. The most notable one is memcached which is almost the standard configuration in most web2.0 companies.

3. avoid distributed transaction

This one is also the most provoking and controversial one. However, it has been regarded as an important principle in Ebay's scalable architecture. But this is not a new idea at all. The basic logic behind this principle was proposed as CAP theorem in the earlier 90s by Eric Brewer. The theorem is also called Brewer conjecture.
However, CAP theorem was proved thereafter. So we can make architectural decisions based on this assumption. For most of today's web services, availability and partition are fixed factors. So we have to sacrifice consistency for availability. That usually means ACID properties provided by relational database will not be available anymore. Instead, we end up with a different architecture: BASE. However, we do need eventual consistency in some cases. So we have to introduce other mechanism for compensation and correction to reach eventual consistency. Concrete implementing strategy must be tricky.

4. asynchronous processing

Another proven approach of scaling is identify time-insensitive processes and do it asynchronously. The point is decouple one process from the others and thus each process can be simple and easy to scale and most importantly, without blocking other processes. Sometimes asynchronous principle is called event driven model. That's true that asynchronous processing always involves some kind of notification about the result of processing. Messaging middleware have been widely used for this purpose. Order processing, billing, BI are all in this spectrum. Queue mechanism has been touted as the weapon for (XTP)Extreme Transaction Processing. When high volume load is queued for later processing, the system scales. But behold, the pressure is actually transferred from application to messaging middleware. So if the messaging middleware itself can't scale well, there might be a nightmare.

In addition, some OS and programming language provide asynchronous abstraction. In OS level, Asynchronous IO has been developed in windows(CIOP) and linux(AIO) for better scalability. Some language libraries also provide such abstraction. Java has concurrency package that provide future concept. Boost library has an AIO module for network programming which implemented Proactor pattern. And event based IO in linux like epoll has prevailed with the large adoption of web server like lighttpd. However, in the context of network programming, threading or events is a question. There are some provoking discussions worth a read.Why events bad and Why threads bad. Don't be confused by the title. Read in context.

5. failure oriented

The 8 fallacies of distributed computing are well-known in the distributed system field for years. Actually all of them are false assumptions we are likely to make when designing distributed system. Although some of them seems naive for today's architects, most of them still apply. In other words, when system gets distributed, things get ugly. We have to be prepared for dealing with such ugly things. A good start is list all components of the system, assume each of them is likely to fail in some cases, and figure out how to deal with it in such cases. The more worse the cases you think of and prepare for, the more stable the system would be. There are many researches and practices on the issue. Hardware redundancy, software instance replication for availability, automatic failover, backup and revovery, data replication for error tolerance and so on. In programming language, Erlang really did a good job in this area. Erlang was designed with "failure is everywhere" in mind. Each process can have a monitor process to watch if it is healthy and keep it up in case of failure. However, there is a "who monitor the monitor" problem. That's why we can only build system with several 9.

6. virtulization

Virtual machine is well understood for testing purpose. It is very easy to install several virtual machine images in one psychical machine and test programs for different OS environment. But today virtulization has been leveraged for building large scale cloud computing infrastructure, because it can provide a better abstraction of computing power. User can instantly use it without worrying about networking, power or disk failure. That's the essence of utility computing either. Enterprise can get better utilization rate of its computing resources. For now cloud computing is provided by IT giants like Amazon. But it would be promising to see how cloud infrastructure fits into the enterprise scope.

Note: I will update this post when new idea comes up.

reference:

1. http://highscalability.com
2. http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1394128
3. http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1466448
4. http://www.infoq.com/articles/ebay-scalability-best-practices
5. http://www.manageability.org/blog/stuff/about-ebays-architecture
6. http://www.manageability.org/blog/stuff/cache-tier-architecture
7. http://www.ccs.neu.edu/groups/IEEE/ind-acad/brewer/sld009.htm
8. www.atomikos.com/downloads/articles/TransactionsForXTP-WhitePaper.pdf

the challenge of the scale

2009-03-29T11:17:00.008+08:00

After the dotcom bubble broke, we gradually get a new one-web 2.0. However, this time it is more fun. From a brief history of web 2.0, we can see the birth of google marked the infancy of this new age of Internet. The most notable feature in this age is collective wisdom. Well, you may say long tail, large scale collaboration, and whatever. The point is the users are the leading role of the stage. So what's the implication of this trend on technology? Users means page view and site traffic. And what's more than that is the scale of traffic and data. How could we deal with this thing? The question is the same, the answer varies from one company to another. highscalability.com made a great contribution for the community to learn from each other.

Since google published some papers on its secret weapons, many companies have disclosed their technology architectures and shared their experience in a variety of talks. I just make a simple classification about these architectures:

1. cloud computing
features: homegrown solutions from scratch for large scale data processing, distributed,tolerant and high available file system; distributed schemaless database/document store; computing grid/distributed job scheduler
example: google, amazon
technology: GFS, Bigtable, MapReduce, Chubby, Dynamo, EC2, S3, SimpleDB

2. LAMP
features: customized LAMP, some homegrown solutions, some clones of class 1
example: yahoo, livejournal, youtube, flickr, facebook
technology: linux, LVS, Apache, Mysql, PHP, Squid, memcached, MogileFS, Perlbal, DJabberd, The Schwartz, Spread, Hadoop, HBase, ZooKeeper, Hypertable,

3. JAVA EE
features: classic N-tier architecture,2PC transaction, application server clustering, db replication, caching/in memory data grid
example: Ebay(Note:maybe ebay is not a good example of this class because ebay don't use 2pc transaction), many banks and security companies
technology: jsp, web frameworks, jee application server, messaging middleware, commercial relational db

4. MS suite
features: N-tier architecture, partition, caching
example: MySpace
technology: Asp.NET, sql server, windows server

It is clear the first two classes of architecture draw much attention these days, partly because open source software has got accelerating adoptions. On the contrary, commercial solutions are more likely to be adopted by those tycoons who can just throw money on everything. Each class of architecture may solve the scaling problem in one way or another. But it is hard to estimate how cost effective each class of architecture might be. On one hand, homegrown solutions may solve the problem more effectively and provide more flexibility, but maybe need more efforts to build. On the other hand, commercial solution may also solve the problem with equivalent efficiency, but must need more money. The key is the architecture must be extensible for new functional requirements and scalable for increasing user traffic.

really funny google hacks

2009-02-24T02:07:00.010+08:00

Well, about a hour ago I was chatting with one of my friend. Actually we are talking about how to acquire page view statistics on a website which are controlled by third parties. Suddenly I was reminded of the idea that google hack may do the trick. Then after a bit of googling of "google hack", many funny things popped up. One of them is how to view or control a webcam by google. And I also found some guidelines(Taking advantage of technology, and how to search and view free live webcam by google) about this trick. And this one even listed some live webcam available at present. I just paste some of pictures for your curiosity. You can just try some of them. Have fun!

personality guess from blog

2009-02-14T16:49:00.003+08:00

There is an old saying in Chinese(文如其人): The style is the man, or the writing mirrors the writer. It means we can deduce one's personality from his writing. Now technology can verify this saying. There is a website Typealyzer.com doing this verification. Before you browse someone's blog, you can make a guess about his personality and find friends who are similar with you. Have fun!

a hot debate: where should China's foreign reserve go

2009-02-09T13:54:00.002+08:00

Editorial: It is well known that China has accumulated the biggest foreign reserve in the past couple of years. As is noted in academics, this big number of foreign reserve is a double edge sword. On the one hand, it represents the financial power of the state. So the government can resist malicious speculation on RMB from some sharks among foreign investors. And also domestic companies can import advanced equipments and technology patents by buying foreign exchange from SAFE(State Administration of Foreign Exchange) within specific limits. On the other hand, because foreign reserve exists in form of foreign government bonds and securities, there must be some kind of opportunistic cost and possibility of increasing the pressure of inflation.

When we can not rely on imports of the US and EU countries, what we can do with our foreign reserve to revive our economy? A hot debate is happening among some Chinese economists. I'd like to brief this debate(一场关于外汇储备用法的激辩).

On the night of Feb. 8, 2009, a hot debate is happening in the north of Ha'erbing. One side is Zhang Weiying, an economists and professor working in Peking University, the other side is Gao Xiqing, the CEO of China Investment Corporation. The focus is whether the foreign reserve should be redistributed to Chinese citizens to expand domestic demands.

Mr. Zhang made an adamant proposal that the big and idle foreign reserve can be partly redistributed to Chinese citizens to increase their purchasing power. And he thought it is helpful for every Chinese citizen to be the holder of the US bonds. Zhang's proposal was strongly refuted by Mr. Gao, who thought that once this accumulated reserve are redistributed to Chinese citizens, the government can't execute central management of foreign exchange, which is considered necessary to resist currency speculation. Mr. Gao said, "the Americans must oppose this proposal. because holding of the US government bonds means support of its credit. If we sell these bonds, the credit of bonds will drop dramatically. So is the expected profit of these bonds. And finally all of the foreign assets we are holding will become paper." Another reason he opposed the proposal is that he thought the citizens would rather deposit received money than consume. Let stimulating economy alone.

Mr. Zhang also defended his proposal. He said only a part of foreign reserve will be used for redistribution so that the national financial security will not be threatened.

Although the defense of Mr. Zhang seems unassailable, the proposal is a bit radical. The doubt of Mr. Gao about what the citizens will do with the money is reasonable. At present, most people don't have protection of social security. Education of children, disease, taking care of old parents are all big concerns for them. If these top concerns would not be relieved, consumption would not come as expected. So my opinion is that part of the reserve can be used in extending social safety net to all of the country so that people can consume without concern.

the turning point of China

2009-02-08T23:11:00.004+08:00

Since the downturn of the US economy, there have been many discussions about whether China will be affected by this credit crunch originated from the US. Now the problem is not whether or not, but how. In the 4th quarter of the last year, many factories and businesses focused on foreign trade were closed and tens of thousands of people are laid off. Annual bonus in most companies were discounted in the last year. Even for those trying to sustain development, business opportunities become rare. It is evident that the China economy are experiencing the shock of financial tsunami. So what we can do to recover?

Actually both foreign and domestic economists and experts noted early that China was developing a very abnormal economy that we can see from the big Sino-US trade surplus. But there was no powerful measures taken to improve the situation. As long as the train of the economy is running, no much attention would be paid. Now the train is slowing down and likely to stop somewhere if nothing will be done. It is a turning point for us to make a transition in the development policy. In the past almost all of the economic accomplishments in China relied on large quantities of exports. And a big foreign reserve is gradually accumulated to the extent that China and the US are in the same boat. In the meantime, the percentage of consumption in GDP have remained low for years. Now we can't depend only on exports anymore. We should shift our focus to domestic demands.

The government has passed a stimulus package plan and some of these money has been invested in infrastructure projects. And countryside is considered the most important area for financial support. Most importantly, an overall social security plan is carrying out to cover all of the people. As long as these measures, long term or short term, are carried out fully, the potential of domestic demands can be unleashed and our economy can become into a more healthy one.

联通手机邮箱实现Gmail邮件提醒

2008-12-30T02:34:00.004+08:00

最开始只是想弄一个Gmail的邮件提醒功能，于是想到了邮件转发，如果Gmail邮件能够转发到联通，然后联通就可以发短信通知我，这还不是通常说的PushMail。PushMail强大多了。于是一阵google，发现联通有个手机邮箱，每个手机用户都可以免费申请一个，不用白不用。立马用手机号注册一个。注意不是所有的联通用户都可以免费的。只有Up新势力是初次使用免费。好了，有一个联通手机邮箱了，这个邮箱的功能之一，就是邮件到达短信提醒，that' exactly what I want.

接下来，就是在我的gmail邮箱上设置一个过滤器，把我比较关注的邮件转发到刚刚申请的联通手机邮箱。写了几个测试邮件，文本邮件和pdf附件都没问题，没试过发图片附件。有一个问题是，如果邮件正文有背景之类的，转发过来整个邮件正文就丢失了。虽然一般不会收到这种邮件，但万一碰上，后果还是很严重的。另外一个问题就是，push下来的email正文需要发N个短信指令才能读完，实在是烦不胜烦。

于是想到这样一个混合方案，用手机邮箱做短信提醒，收到提醒（对新势力用户完全免费的哦！），立马打开Gmail client查邮件。貌似可行。好了，就扯到这里。

终于搞定联通GPRS访问Gmail

2008-12-30T01:12:00.004+08:00

以前好像没怎么玩过手机上网的东西，今天突然心血来潮，搞了个联通的GPRS套餐，开始捣鼓起来。我开通手机上网主要是在没电脑用的时候用来访问Gmail和MSN的，可能skype也会用一下。看新闻什么还是算了，太费劲了。好了，下面开始一天的艰苦旅程。

首先一阵google，让手机终于连上了网。这里有个简单的介绍，照葫芦画瓢就OK了，在此不详述。值得注意的是，这里使用的接入点是uniwap，提供wap浏览和彩信功能。

好了，第一个问题是怎么让手机访问Gmail? Gmail网站上有两种方式：一种是通过WAP访问，另一种是通过IMAP客户端访问。WAP访问貌似简单明了，不需要装任何东西，只要能上网就行。但我想用uniwap来访问却不行，提示“不能建立安全连接”或者“找不到服务器”，我起初怀疑是不是因为uniwap不支持对gmail的https访问呢，反正郁闷半天没敲出个所以然来。暂且先放一边，WAP访问看来不可行，猛然看到Gmail网站有个Gmail client,是个IMAP客户端，下载装上，打开，一样连接不上。我就纳闷这联通怎么就跟Gmail杠上了呢？于是有按照Gmail网站上的提示来设置我手机上内置的邮箱，步骤繁琐，毫不容易设完了，连接，不上。貌似没希望了。

Gmail先放一边，装个MSN再说吧，MSN还是很顺利，直接通过uniwap就能连接，而且界面很nice，不错。信心终于恢复了一点。好了，又一阵google，发现了两个重要情况：一个是有个叫mimo的软件号称可以通过uniwap访问MSN,QQ以及强大的push mail,我不由得想试一把；另一个是uninet,这个很少在成百上千的联通gprs上网设置的tutorial里找到，我也就在一个地方看到了这个东东。好了，接下来，要开始这两个试验了。当然了，uninet最简单了，重新设置一把接入点就行了。设完，再启动本机的内置Email连接，忽然看到哗哗的邮件标题在闪动，我想这把应该是成了。再重启前面装上的Gmail client,也是哗哗的一阵。然后找了个Opera Mini装上，访问Gmail首页，登陆，一切OK，不得不说Opera太Cool了！

好了，到这的时候，今天差不多快结束了，要知道中间为了让我手机跟PC连接起来，费了老半天劲。我下载的最新的Nokia PC Suite 7.1居然不能识别我手机配的USB数据线。试了半天老版的PC套件，终于连上PC。那个mimo的东西改天再玩吧，那么多人推崇，想必应该好使吧。还有一个东西得玩一下：GPRS手机+PC数据线+PC/笔记本通过手机的GPRS上网，其实也有好多人玩过，自己试验一下更有意思（PS: 好了，已经试验过了，速度在6KBS左右，那叫一个慢啊，还贵，不到紧急情况还是不用了）。

快写完了，突然发现，有个问题还没说，那个uninet就叫那个是个啥东东呢！一阵google，发现是联通移动数据业务的一个王牌，165拨号就是上的uninet网络，主要是访问Internet。uniwap功能比较弱，只支持wap网页浏览和彩信。哪个好使当然不用说了，不过联通的网站上确实没说通过GPRS连uninet。Anyway，哪个好用用那个了。

notes about MOF and UML

2008-12-25T12:54:00.004+08:00

I just read an old post(MOF 4 layers) about the mapping between UML and MOF. However, I'd like to post my idea about UML mapping to MOF 4 layers.

As a reminder, MOF 4 layers structure from that post is pasted here.
* Level M0: User Object Layer (Instances)
* Level M1: Model (Domain Specific Language)
* Level M2: Meta-Model (Schema description Language)
* Level M3: Meta-Meta-Model (The Schema of the Schema)
And here is an architecture image about MOF:

The basic thinking is think of each layer as instantiation of the layer above. So I think it works this way:

* Layer M0: specific instances of model diagrams, e.g. a book named "UML distilled"

* Layer M1: UML model diagrams we drawed when we do modeling, e.g. e-bookshop class diagrams and use case diagrams. Actually it is the equivalent of C source file.

* Layer M2: UML meta model, e.g. model element specified in UML, class, interface, association, generalization,property,method, component and so on. It is the equivalent of C syntax.

* Layer M3: UML meta meta model, maybe its basic model elements is entity and relationship. It is the equivalent of syntax definition specification like EBNF.

software reuse: how?

2008-12-24T01:20:00.002+08:00

It is a short summary of great essay on software reuse by Schmidt(reuse lessons).

1. impediments
organizational
economic
administrative
political
psychological

2. prerequisites
competitive market
complex application domain
corporate culture and development process
reuse magnet: open source with short feedback loop
leadership and expertise of skilled architects and developers

3. what we can do?
adopt iterative development process to grow reusable assets incrementally
maintain a close feedback loop between component developers and application developers
buy middleware rather than build in house: don't reinvent the wheel
build on architecture rather than on specific technology: vendor neutral
one dimensional thinking never works
reward incentives for reuse
continuous learning
keep faith

DSL: How?

2008-12-23T23:01:00.004+08:00

I just read a book about DSL(Domain Specific Language), a summary are written to get a general idea about DSL.

1. interpreter
write grammar using BNF or other grammar notations;
build or generate a parser of grammar(using tools like yacc, javacc, antlr)
script languages can be built in this way(template language like jsp,asp,freemarker,..)

2. embeded
build domain model by general purpose programming language
in a form of API specific to a domain
can be designed for considerable expression power within that domain(jMock)

3. XML
represent grammar by XML schema
processing XML is made easy by many API and tools
very popular in many domains:
definition of state transition in a state machine;
description of object relation mapping in OR Mapping tools
description of web page navigation flow
definition of business process(BPEL)

4. graphical DSL
represent domain model by constructing graph elements and their connections
more intuitive and impressive
graphical model can be transformed into software artifacts
XML is used for well integration with tools(XMI)

the dilemma of obedience

2008-12-11T17:51:00.003+08:00

From the very beginning, human is a highly socialized species. From tribes to cities and states, socialized organization become increasingly sophisticated. Like any socialized life like bees or wolves, human get an edge to survive on earth from this feature of highly socialization that is still driving the development of human civilization.

Human live by customs as socialized animals live by rules. A society always shows some kind of division of labor which is considered as the driving force of human evolution and also the foundation of classic economics. Apparently human benefit a lot from society by playing a role in it. However, sometimes human do enormous harm to others by doing the same thing. Numerous notorious genocides in human history are the most noticeable evidences for this case.

A few decades ago the famous Milgram experiment was conducted as an attempt to shed light on this sort of humanity disasters. It shows that a majority of people tend to inflict distress to any extent on others when they are forced to by an authority. It seems that the blind obedience of the majority to the authority is the culprit, because when people do something against his conscience, the blame can be shifted from the individual to the authority so that the individual feels less guilt than he should. And when the number of people getting involved reaches a threshold, herding mentality comes into play, which reinforce the power of authority. And finally a catastrophe is inevitable. This is a psychological explanation of why moral individuals constitute immoral society.

As long as the society exists, the authority, more or less exists. If the authority is doing the right thing, it is a fortune. Otherwise, the harm is beyond anyone's imagination. So what we can do to prevent it? Social psychology give us a special lens to peer into the human nature and give us some clue to figure out a preemptive solution. The key is to limit any forms of authority to develop rampantly. This is where check and balance comes in.

It seems ridiculous that we are battling against our innate nature. But it is the truth. We must employ our reason to won this battle. And there is no way to escape.

silver bullet for vocabulary building

2008-12-10T18:36:00.006+08:00

Vocabulary building is one of the greatest obstacle for all English learners, especially for those who have a very different native language such as Chinese, Japanese. It is claimed that a vocabulary of 2,000 is enough for normal English communication. However, English, as one of the most popular languages, have accumulated a large vocabulary bank in its history. And now it is still inflating when our society is undergoing dramatic changes. One reason why English has developed a so big vocabulary is that when there is a need to express a new meaning, a totally new word is created, even sometimes the new word has only a subtle difference with similar words. Therefore, it is necessary to grasp as much words as possible to communicate more precisely.

I must say in the first place that there is no silver bullet to memorize words. But there are some methods you can have a try to build your vocabulary more efficiently. Actually some of them are well written in many places. I just list some of them I used and I felt effective.

1. word roots
Almost each English dictionary has an appendix of word roots. By word roots, new words can be created more easily and also more understandable. Many English word roots have a Greek or Latin origin. So, if you can grasp the meaning of these words root upon which a lot of words are built, you somehow grasp the key of the gigantic vocabulary bank.
some useful links:
Common Word Roots
Root Words and Word Origins
English roots chart

2. prefix and suffix
Like word roots, many words are built from prefix or suffix.
Please reference to the links in the first section "word roots".

3. association
It is always hard to remember many single words. But if you can find out some kind of relationship between these single words, you can piece them together like a jigsaw and eventually get a web of words instead of shining stars scattered in the dark sky. Relationship can help you remember words.
(1) synonym, antonym, homonym
Actually when we learn Chinese words we also did a lot of these kinds of exercises. Obviously it also applies well in learning English.
(2) analogy
If some words share a similar part in their structure, you can group them together. If some words share a similar meaning, you can group them together. If some words represent concepts of the same subject, you can group them together. For example, many words describe goodness or kindness, many words describe dislike, and so on. And also you can find out your own analogy as long as it make sense for you.

Common Word Relationships

4. use words as hard as possible to write something
If you manage to get a vague memory about some word but you still can't use it correctly, you can strengthen your memory of the word by using it. Otherwise, the vague meaning will vanish some day.

5. make a summary(in any form: oral or written) about what your heard or read and try to use different words
Sometimes, you can manage to understand something, but if you can't digest the content in your own way, your initial understanding is shaky and easy to fade away.

Some general links:
How to build a better vocabulary

Vocabulary book recommendation:
Webster Vocabulary Builder

list of courtroom drama

2008-12-04T10:25:00.004+08:00

Out of enormous curiosity about the legal and judicial system in the west, I find and see some courtroom drama movies and TV shows to try to get insights about how the legal and judicial system works in the west. Some of them are classic ones. I'd like to list their names.

movie

1. To Kill a Mocking Bird
an attorney fight for the accused black person's justice which was badly biased by the white majority, not only with his powerful words but also with his persevering acts

2. 12 Angry Men
12 ordinary persons of different social status, different education level, different occupation, acting as jurors, debating in a meeting room, showed how the jury system works.

3. Kramer vs. Kramer
a common civil case about the custody right of a boy. a happy ending with a bit suspense. the point is not how the father or mother has more legitimacy to live with child, but what is the best environment for the child to grow up in a single parent family.

4. Witness for The Prosecution
an murder case of much suspense in the ending. great playwriting

5. Judgment at Nuremberg
a famous international trial on Nazi German top officials. thought-provoking

6. Runaway Jury
Out of disappointment on the US judicial system to do justice for those impaired by guns, which proliferated through strong sales channel supported by gun manufacturers, a man managed to become a juror and influence other jurors to reach a verdict favorable to the striving prosecution and also striking to the defendant, and at the same time, extorting a large sum of money from the defendant, gun manufacturers. The weakness of the jury system is also unfolded.

7. JFK
Even now the truth of assassination of JFK is not yet known, so how could a film unravel what really happened at that time? The point is not reveal the truth, but enlighten the people not to be cheated by the misrepresented truth distorted by government for hidden purpose and never give up the rights to pursue the truth. The closing of the prosecutor is very powerful.

8. The Devil's Advocate
It is about the ethical conducts of lawyers? Maybe.

TV show

Out of many courtroom shows such as Law and Order, Shark, Boston Legal is my favorite one in the same class. Boston Legal perfectly blend humor, flirting and exciting court trial.

notes on judicial system

2008-12-03T19:27:00.002+08:00

The distinctions of law in different countries are very conspicuous. So are the distinctions of judicial system. One of the most conspicuous distinction is the jury which is widely used in countries ruled by common law. The jury system is initially devised by the Greeks and ever adopted by Roman. And later most European countries adopted jury system. But for a variety of reasons some of them abolished jury system. The failure of jury system in these countries may be attributable to social customs, culture characteristics and political system.

Nowadays the most successful case of the jury system is in the United States. In fact, many Hollywood movies and courtroom dramas produced in the United States show some aspects of jury system. I'd like to list some timeless works I've ever seen in another blog. Now I just wanna jolt down my understanding about jury system.

Linda, a writer, ever write a book about American judicial system. In the book, Simpson's case is elaborated in very detail. And the author made a metaphor I think is very appropriate. He said, the judicial system in the US is like a football match. The defense attorney represents the accused person to cast reasonable doubts or overturn the evidence against the defendant. The district attorney represents the prosecution to provide as much evidence as possible to prove the defendant guilty. Cross examination is used by two sides of attorneys to clarify the scenario of the case. The judge controls the trial process. If any side asked irrelevant question or made irrelevant request, the judge can overrule or sustain the question or request. During the trial period, the jury is isolated from the outside and is supposed to make an objective verdict according to the evidence presented on the court. In most criminal cases all the jurors should reach an unanimous judgment to make a verdict. In some civil cases the rule of majority is used.

The democratic characteristic of the jury system is very evident. The essence is that the accused should and can be judged by those have the same social status with him in a just procedure. All jurors are randomly chosen from local registered electors and two sides of attorneys should reach a consensus about the list of the jury. It is no wonder that in some cases even when the defendant lost the case he still insisted that he was judged with justice.

Such a democratic system is not without problem. Actually we can clearly see the problem from Simpson's case. Until today most Americans believed that Simpson was guilty. However, the jury announced that Simpson was not guilty in the final verdict because the dream defendant attorneys brought forward some reasonable doubts which were partly caused by the prosecution side. So we can say, a notorious murder escaped justice under protection of the judicial system which most Americans are proud of. Maybe this system is too democratic. If there is no jury or the jury is not responsible for the final verdict, Simpson would definitely be announced guilty. The democratic system make it harder for the jury to reach consensus. This is the cost of democracy. But on the other hand, the democratic system make it harder for any force of authority to abuse power and lead to injustice. The founders of such system must have thought of this problem but they finally insisted on this system because they thought that preventing good men from injustice outweighed letting criminals at large.

Besides the problem of the democratic process of the jury, each juror, as key roles in the judicial system, is vulnerable to the influence of public opinion. Although each juror is supposed to make objective judgment according to what he saw and what he heard on the court, the infiltration of mass media, the argumentation of attorneys and the opinions of other jurors all may have an impact on one's judgment. The herding mentality inevitably takes effect in the jury. The movie Runaway Jury showed that how the jury is manipulative although the process may be a bit fictional but it is probable in reality.

In china, the reform of judicial system is on the agenda. And the civil juror is installed on court to participate in trial process. Most of them are selected from the middle class or the so-called elites. But the role of civil juror is more like assistants of the judge. They don't make the verdict independently. It is too early to say how these civil juror will influence the practice of justice in China and what's the next step to go. The same devise may appear in different way in different places. So let's just wait and see.

notes of legal system

2008-12-03T17:54:00.006+08:00

From the very beginning of human civilization, people lived under the order of rules. Among them are social customs, moral codes and laws. Almost every modern state was ruled by law to some extent. Some countries have more complete and thorough judicial system than others. There are two most used legal system today, common law and civil law. Common law originated in England and thrived throughout all Britain common-wealth countries, some colonial countries of Britain and also the United States. Most of the rest countries adopted a kind of civil law system.

Common law is also called case law, because the main criteria of judgment is the cases which have been decided and can be used to determine similar cases happened later. Given the cases accumulated along the time is so enormous, it must be very difficult for the lawyers or judges to reference these cases. Therefore, there is no country completely ruled by common law. Many common rules have been generalized from these cases and written in separate codes as judging criteria. The most noticeable feature of common law is that the judges can largely participate in the process of legislation by making precedent cases. Maybe this feature partly accounts for the meaning of "common". The power comes from common people, not the elite legislation.

Civil law is probably the most used legal system in the world. One of the reasons is that continental law is enacted and enforced in a top-down manner. The legislation of a country passed laws and the judicial system ensured the obedience of law of the subjects. Obviously civil law system gives the judges less control or participation in the process of legislation, which make those countries which are not governed by an elected government tend to adopt civil law system in order to keep power in the control of the few.

The legal system plays a very crucial part in modern state governance. It even determines whether a country will prosper or perish. In short, the law system provides a rule of game in which each parties, government,individual or corporation, can make best of their capabilities to get as much benefits as possible.

complexity of risk modeling

2008-11-06T10:12:00.004+08:00

An article in nytimes "In Modeling Risk, the Human Factor Was Left Out" draw my attention because it attempted to peer into the current financial turmoil from risk modeling perspective. Maybe this kind of microeconomics thinking would refresh my mindset about the crisis.

"But the larger failure, they say, was human — in how the risk models were applied, understood and managed. Some respected quantitative finance analysts, or quants, as financial engineers are known, had begun pointing to warning signs years ago. But while markets were booming, the incentives on Wall Street were to keep chasing profits by trading more and more sophisticated securities, piling on more debt and making larger and larger bets."

Even most people are blind to the risk, some insider can still have sensible insight to point out the risk. But if only few people have different view, they are dissents. They are just ignored by others.

"That out-of-control innovation is reflected in the growth of securities intended to spread risk widely through the use of financial instruments called derivatives. Credit-default swaps, for example, were originally created to insure blue-chip bond investors against the risk of default. In recent years, these swap contracts have been used to insure all manner of instruments, including pools of subprime mortgage securities.

Credit-default swaps, though intended to spread risk, have magnified the financial crisis because the market is unregulated, obscure and brimming with counterparty risk (that is, the risk that one embattled bank or firm will not be able to meet its payment obligations, and that trading with it will seize up)."

Credit default swap has been ever well known to financial professional, but it is so to everybody by exposing devastating catastrophe to the public. This kind of risk management instrument fails to meet their goal. I think the increased complexity brought about by weaving so many institutions together was less investigated that people are less informed upon the accordingly increased risk. So it is no wonder CDS was notoriously blamed as the main cause of this crisis. But is it simple like this?

"Math, statistics and computer modeling, it seems, also fell short in calibrating the lending risk on individual mortgage loans. In recent years, the securitization of the mortgage market, with loans sold off and mixed into large pools of mortgage securities, has prompted lenders to move increasingly to automated underwriting systems, relying mainly on computerized credit-scoring models instead of human judgment.

If the incentives and the systems change, the hard data can mean less than it did or something else than it did,” said Raghuram G. Rajan, a professor at the University of Chicago. “The danger is that the modeling becomes too mechanical.”

Risk management model are mainly based on math and statistics. In the world of this model each party is treated as a robot. That means their behavior are certain or statistically certain. However, it is obvious that this model is not compatible with the real world. It seems that we just can't precisely model the real world because we are all insiders so that we can't thoroughly understand it. We are part of this world but we try to understand the whole. It is mission impossible. The so-called reflectivity theory from a famous insider George Soros also well extrapolate this point. So, attempting to manage the risk by statistic modeling is doomed. So, what can we do to prevent such risk or at lest mitigate the magnitude of the risk?

"The Fed economists concluded that the risk models used by Wall Street analysts correctly predicted that a drop in real estate prices of 10 or 20 percent would imperil the market for subprime mortgage-backed securities. But the analysts themselves assigned a very low probability to that happening."

It seems that the models are less disappointing that it roughly predicted the probable collapse of subprime mortgage securities. However, in the booming times the probability of this kind of dismal event are deliberately minimized.

“The price of an asset, like a house or a stock, reflects not only your beliefs about the future, but you’re also betting on other people’s beliefs,” he observed. “It’s these hierarchies of beliefs — these behavioral factors — that are so hard to model.”"

"To confuse the model with the world is to embrace a future disaster driven by the belief that humans obey mathematical rules.”

This point also coincides with the modeling paradox.

"Among economists and academics, he said, the research was well received. “On the industry side, it was dismissed,” he recalled."

Well, the academia is not to blame because at least some of them have uttered warning according to their work. However, the sound of academia is so small that it is totally overwhelmed by the uproar of the Wall Street.

"Financial regulation, Mr. Lo said, should be seen as similar to fire safety rules in building codes. The chances of any building burning down are slight, but ceiling sprinklers, fire extinguishers and fire escapes are mandated by law.
“We’ve learned the hard way that the consequences can be catastrophic, even if statistically improbable,” he said."

Fire safety rules is a good metaphor to such statistically improbable events as financial turmoil. So, modeling is a daydream, and financial instruments such as CDS are also just mess. What left is rigorous regulation long resisted by the Fed. According to the testimony by the former Fed chairman Greenspan, the belief that the market will self-correct itself to remain healthy is also a daydream. So, it seems that regulation is necessary. But is regulation sufficient? The old question about regulation is "who would be responsible for regulating the regulators?" From the perspective of politics, check and balance strategy is well formed to mitigate the possibility of wrong-doing by government. So is it possible that this strategy is introduced into financial market? If so, how? If you can figure out this problem, please let me know, thanks:-)

Chinese Saint Lin Zhao I never known before

2008-10-17T15:30:00.002+08:00

I never heard of the name of Lin Zhao before. In Chinese history textbooks, some martyrs like Qiu Jin are recorded and praised for there devotion of their causes of revolution or reform. Any events or person during that dark age were deliberately ignored in history books except very vague and short introduction. However, it is people who created history, not the history textbooks. Forced amnesia are not possible because those events and person would be remembered by those were concerned with or involved in it. Actually I got to know Lin Zhao and other names like Zhang Zhixin from internet.

Lin Zhao was born in 1932 when China was not liberalized. She was a fervent believer of communism and also Mao. She ever supported underground CCP activities at that time. After the liberation of China, she run away from home and got to a vocational school to study journalism. Then she became a CCP member and later admitted by the department of journalism of Peking University. She was very different from other classmates in terms of life style and thinking. She got involved in the anti-rightist campaign and criticized its craziness. She was condemned as rightist and asked to confess but she refused. Then she was put in jail in Shanghai. She wrote a great deal of essays and poems criticizing the ill government. She was deprived of pen and paper. She used her blood as ink, comb as pen and clothes slices as paper. In 1968 she was sentenced to death. What is the most ironical thing is, Lin's family was asked to pay for 5 cents of bullet fee. Lin's death sentence was secretly done and many people including her classmates and friends knew it several years later.

I saw some of those blood writings in a documentary "Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul". I was completely shocked with that. It is not stage property in an ordinary film but real thing. She not only wrote essays and poem to criticize the system, but defended freedom through her struggle against the authorities. Her critics were inspired by the spirit of Christian traditions and also awareness of the situation of society. Some of her opinions are permanent. She wrote, "not only the slaves are deprived of freedom, but also those masters are not free". She also said, "freedom can't be obtained by replacing a slavery state with another". These words remain very meaningful today.

During the vindiction movement afterwards, Zhang Zhixin was officially regarded as martyr. Lin Zhao was just announced a case of mistrial. I thought that this kind of discrimination came from their different attitude on socialism. They are both adherents of socialism but they were killed in different reasons. Zhang Zhixin opposed personal cult of Mao and pointed out some wrongdoings of Mao and thought Mao went too left and diverted from fundamental Marxism. So Zhang was a socialist until death. On the contrary, Lin Zhao criticized the whole autocratic system on behalf of freedom and equality. Lin was greatly influenced by Christianity because she was a Christian from very young age. In view of CCP, Zhang is a family member and Lin was a stranger, which finally lead to different treatment after their deaths. But for me, it doesn't matter. The significance of Lin Zhao in the process of liberation of Chinese people would not be diminished without official recognizing.

I recommend anyone who want to understand practiced liberalism to see the documentary "Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul".

reference:
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/02/AR2008070203677_4.html?nav=hcmodule&sid=ST2008070202549&s_pos=
2. http://www3.nbnet.nb.ca/stao/memo_linzhao

review on "Greed, Fraud & Ignorance: A Subprime Insider's Look at the Mortgage Collapse"

2008-10-04T17:06:00.003+08:00

About a week ago I read a book about subprime mortgage crisis in the US. The title of the book is "Greed, Fraud & Ignorance: A Subprime Insider's Look at the Mortgage Collapse". I am not a professional in finance or economics, but I can understand what the book said. I just jolt down some notes about the book.

1. The essence of subprime mortgage is no bad
In its inception, subprime was targeted for those less creditworthy to have a home and there was nothing wrong in itself. On the contrary, it helped many Americans realize their dream of a home.

2. The roles of subprime industry
The main players in subprime industry are borrower, house broker, lender, investor, rating company. The borrower submitted materials to house broker and initiated a loan. The house broker acted as a middle man between the borrower and the lender but didn't take responsible for anything in loan application. The lender was supposed to check applications and determine whether or not lend money to borrowers. When securities came in, conditions got a bit complicated. The lender packaged some loans together and attempted to sell it as some kind of mortgage securities. The rating company rated securities. The investors bought this kind of securities according to its rating. The investors were expected to reap the repaid money from borrowers.

3. Problems
(1) One of the most important problems is the very low borrowing cost, which indirectly encouraged many people with bad credit history to apply loans. The practice of zero down payment is no good.
(2) Another problem is that the house broker were not well regulated so that they always tended to help borrowers do fraud in application in purpose of making as much profit as possible without thinking that fraud may harm borrowers or lenders.
(3) The rating agency had more power than it should have. The profits of rating companies is only related with the volume but not the quality of loans. This is the incentive of rating companies to tend to rate mortgage securities higher to attract more securities into the market.
(4) Maybe the above problems is just what we saw but not why it happened. If the origin of the problem is to be probed, economical policies of the past should be examined. One argument is that the long-term low interest rate led to the financial turmoil. I'm not sure about it. Some other arguments are about the long-term industrial policy such as the repeal of Glass-Steagall Act and the legislation of Financial Services Modernization Act.

4. Solution
(1) Increasing the cost of borrowing money by any means
(2) More strong regulation of the house brokers and rating agencies

5. Question
I'm not sure how the restoration of Glass-Steagall Act would take effect in mitigating the high-leveraged impact of financial derivatives.

comment on "My personal experience about America after immigration to America" wrote by a Chinese immigrant in the US

2008-09-30T14:39:00.006+08:00

I read an article about a Chinese immigrant's opinion about China(My personal experience about America after immigration to America). Undoubtedly, the phenomenons covered my this immigrant existed in every corner of China and it also represented a conflict in most oversea Chinese's minds. Although the author tried to avoid an impression of his disgust of China, the readers are very likely to think about that. I agreed with the comment by shuiqin that this article uncovered a myriad of bad things common in China, but it didn't go more further to analyze the cause of these phenomenons behind the scenes.

I am trying to analyze its causes. For one thing, the aftermath of the culture revolution and all kinds of political movements are still lingering in many people's minds. Fear are rooted in people and make them extremely alert to the outside. Although the government had revalue the culture revolution, the deep fear still don't go away. Except personal attack, Chinese traditional culture was completely abandoned by so-called class struggle. In the times when Confucian was no longer respected, how civilized would regular citizens be? Although economical reform are performed for two decades, the Chinese still don't find something to believe in. Maybe some will say the thinking of peasants, I will argue that this kind of thinking will just make people a bit mean but not alert always. Others will say materialism lead to degradation of people. I will argue this point is shallow. To some extent, the government and the whole system made people alert. Abuse of the parents will make children deviated from normal. In the same way, unreasonable political system will twist people's values.

As regard to the solution, I think it is necessary to rebuild the modern Chinese culture. It must not be a copy of the west culture. Instead, it should make the best of the merits of all cultures, avoid those uncivilized aspects, create a values fitting the thinking of Chinese, and popularize fundamental education and advocate the new values. On the other hand, the government should change its position against the people, become more open-minded and receive the investigation of the people. If the dialog is smoothly built and the public trust of government improves, the distrust and alert between the people will also be mitigated.

Any discussion is welcome on this topic.

与“移居美国后回头看中国，我的真实经历”作者商榷

2008-09-26T18:57:00.004+08:00

刚看了一篇文章移民美国后回头看美国，我的真实经历，我想该文揭示的现象是不容置疑的存在与中国的每一个角落，也反映了大多数海外华人的矛盾心态。尽管作者试图表现出“儿不嫌母丑”的心态，但读者很难不想到反面。我同意水清的评论，该文确实道出了现在中国存在的普遍恶象，但缺乏深度，没有分析这些恶象背后的起因。

我尝试说两点：首先当然是因为文革以及类似的种种整人运动，余波未息，恐惧已经深深扎入人心，由此导致对外界的极端戒备，尽管国家已经对这段历史已经重新评价，但不足以消除这种深深的恐惧；除了武斗导致的恐惧以外，中国人的传统文化也彻底被所谓的阶级斗争破坏殆尽，连孔圣人都不再圣了，有能要求老百姓圣到什么程度？即使经济发展几十年，但中国人的精神家园仍然是一片荒芜。可能有人会说道中国人的小农思想，但我觉得小农思想顶多使人小气一点，但不至于处处警惕别人。也可能有人说是拜金主义导致道德沦丧，但这只看到了表面。其实源头在于政府，某种程度上政府以及整个体制造成了人们的警惕。父母对孩子的恶语相加会导致孩子的心灵扭曲，变态的体制同样会导致人们的价值观扭曲。

至于解决办法，我觉得在文化领域有必要重建中国现代文化，不是全盘西化，而是扬长避短，融合中西，创建一种符合中国人思维的价值观，并普及基础教育，弘扬新的中国现代价值观。另外，政府必须从根本上扭转传统的官民对立形象，而是必须以一种更开放包容的心态，接受人民监督。如果通畅的对话渠道得以建立，政府的公信力得以提升，势必会缓和人民内部的不信任和互相警惕。

English translation of this blog: comment on "My personal experience about America after immigration to America" wrote by a Chinese immigrant in the US

the dacaying of China

2008-09-24T09:12:00.007+08:00

Almost every month some grieving news would be highlighted on newspapers and Internet forums. Death toll caused by weak security measures in some mines, poisonous foods are common cases. Sometimes I have became dumb about the bleak society of China. I think many Chinese have the same idea as me. We have developed a cynical distrust of it. In name of people, government have done a lot of things against people. It's a society lack of trust and basic social morals. Government try to hide truth which may aggravate the fury of the people. Government destroy the basic rights of living of people at its will. Companies and businessmen try hard to make money by as many means as they can even some of them are harmful or deadly to people. Many doctors, who are always called the white angels, stoop to receive bribery, become oblivious of diseases and pains of people, just act with disregard of human life. It's a decayed society.

Every Chinese may ask a question: why are we here? I think the basic reasoning is that it is too hard to live in China. People had gone through several couples of years of poverty after the foundation of China. Thereafter, as soon as one had a chance to make money, they will make the best of it. They became into the most selfish economic animals. Although traditional family ties are still strong, conventional ethics and morals are shattered. In the end, the convention are given up but new belief had not been found. It seems that money becomes the only idol of most Chinese after 20 years of economic reforms. Another reason is that the fears brought about by those revolutionary movements and political prosecutions are still lingering in many people's minds. Fears give rise to distrust. People are always alert against each other.

Then another question is, what can we do to stop it? For one thing, we should reexamine our traditional culture. We can't totally abandon it without any reason. Instead, we can try to blend the merits of tradition culture with western ideas. Only fusion can rebuild the values of Chinese people. Neoconfucianism is such an effort. For another, government should take responsibility of making a just evaluation for any prosecuted in movements. However, based on popular distrust against government, we can't expect too much from it. The hope lies in each people and their children, lies in the awareness of the sad situation and the will to fight against it. Even most of us are brainwashed by the education system imposed on us by the government, I think most of us will realize the situation in the end.

Sometimes I begin to think that, the government is naturally antihuman. Maybe in the beginning when the government is set up, it represent most of the people. But afterward, it changes to only represent some special interest groups. According to a poll, even in the US, only 17% of voters say the federal government represent the will of American people，and 67% of them believe that federal government had became a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interest. Those advocates of the democracy of the US should be aware of this fact. It is not reasonable to oppose one system of government and support another. It is not kind of either-yes-or-no logic. I think there is no perfect government. However, people should struggle to make it better as possible.

about the freedom of the press

2008-09-23T22:29:00.003+08:00

Recently I saw some film about journalism. All the president's Men is about watergate scandal in which two journalist in the Washington Post strove to trace the dark business behind the election and finally President Nixon was impeached and gone down. Good night, good luck is about McCarthyism in the 50s of the US during which CBS stood out to reveal the unjustness of McCarthyism. These two films are about politics. Another one is about public health. The insider is about a lawsuit against a tobacco company. A TV program producer made great efforts to find witness and produce program to support those injured in the lawsuit. A conscientious chemistry scientist ever working in the accused tobacco company, as an insider of tobacco business, cooperated with the TV program producer to provide effective testimony for the lawsuit in face of great pressure. You can see them by the references below this blog.

Actually I'm more stroke by "The Insider", because this one is pretty much focused on individuals, while another two are mainly about the roles of mass media (newspaper,TV channel) in politics. It is no doubt that mass media are powerful in spreading and influencing public opinions. However, because its intimate relationship with advertisers, independent opinion is very rare in them and some of them even side with a party and oppose another. So, in most cases, mass media stand on behalf of some kind of interest groups rather than real public opinion. On the other hand, the characters in "The Insider" are individuals and emotional struggles in revealing the dark side of a giant business are depicted in details. For anyone in journalism, this kind of emotional or moral struggles are very common. This film is successful in describing the emotional conditions of journalist and regular citizen in the progress of becoming a muckraker.

Actually when I saw them, I can't help thinking about the condition of journalism in China. Although the press got more freedom in recent years compared to the 80s, the censorship in journalism is still strict. The freedom of speech and press is literally in the Constitution, but it never has been enforced. On the contrary, many hidden rules are in effect in journalism and many topics are forbidden. How the constitution is ridiculous! What's more worse is the censorship of the Internet by national security services. Many articles including sensitive words are isolated from Chinese netizens by a powerful national firewall. I think the voices asking for freedom will be more and much louder, so the conditions will improve gradually.

I shall give my respect to any journalist who hold a professional conscience and dare to reveal the inconvenient truth. They disclose the dark side of society and offer real information for the public. To some extent, they act as a watchdog of the society.

Another point I want to say is that, some left guys are still thinking in a cold war way. One of their points is that those asking for more freedom in speech are traitors or lackeys of the west. All they said is about personal attack rather than specific debate. This kind of thinking doesn't make any sense. Joining in a debate and trying to solve the problems are a more reasonable and realistic attitude.

reference:
1. All the president's Men(Chinese title:惊天大阴谋)
2. Good night, good luck(Chinese title:晚安，好运)
3. The insider(Chinese title:局内人)

Does Fahrenheit 911 imply a new trend in documentary?

2008-09-11T10:49:00.006+08:00

Fahrenheit 911 is not a new film, but I never have time to see it. I thought it is about politics so it must not be objective. I didn't want to get involved in that kind of swamp. However, this film is a Cannes Festival winner, which make it more accessible to the public. I don't know if it would have been forbidden in the US, if the film didn't win such a prize. Anyway, I saw it.

It is clear that this film is about politics of the US. I think it is not necessary to mention those shots in this blog. There are a lot of reviews and critics about it out there.

There was no such a documentary in the film history that could be so sensational. One of the reward presenter had ever said that this film is chose not because of politics but its artistic skills. It is a conventional view that documentary should be about the facts and be objective. Obviously this documentary perfectly blended traditional features with entertaining elements. However, I think this film appeared less impartial rather than objective. Anyone can feel the obvious political stand against Bush in it. Maybe this kind of controversy is what made it so popular.

One of the point in the film is the opposition of the war against Iraq. However, the war is approved by the congress which represent most US people. So if the war is not the will of the US people, we can conclude that there is something wrong with the congress and also the whole system of government. On the other side,the US government is considered the best government in the world so far. We can only conclude that the Iraq war represented the mainstream of public opinion. I think this is also a kind of tyranny of the majority, against the outside not the inside. If we think about McCarthyism in the 50s which was accused by the justice, I can't help thinking that the justice is only for the US people.

In fact, I heard of some kind of so-called liberal wing's opinions, like that US is a country with the most intensive sense of mission or salvation. Of course people holding such opinion think Iraq war is justified. I will say such opinion is totally bullshit. If these guys were Iraq people, they would not think so.

Actually I was deeply struck by the scenes of a mother of a US soldier who was dead in Iraq war, as sad as when I saw the film Nanking. So, I think the war is war. It is brutal. It is antihuman. The history of human civilizations are still short compared with the evolution history. Maybe it is too short to see its perfection. Maybe after a long time like several tens of thousands of years, human at that time will think us barbarian and not civilized at all although we are so proud of modern science and technology today. Maybe they will think us ridiculous. Why people are still fighting each other while there are more important thing to do to sustain our existence on earth?

dystopia books

2008-09-05T14:54:00.005+08:00

Recently I read something about politics, including those famous but deported poets and writers in Russia, documentaries about demonstrations in China, and also some films of dystopia.

Many renowned poets and writers were deported in Soviet Union. They are considered as dissenters at the time of Soviet Union. Deport of dissent artists is an unique feature in the history of arts of Russia. Most of their writing are fierce critics of autocracy of Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn, the conscience of the Russian people, is one of them in the 20th century. The Gulag Archipelago is a elaborate writing about labor camp in Soviet Union. I have to say, if I have time to read this great novel, I can debunk the mystery of its equivalents in China. I think this kind of device is very common in eastern autocratic countries. Actually, I know some Chinese books are forbidden in mainland. I can't say these books are all the truth, but they definitely include some kind of facts which government don't want citizens to know.

What's the most ironical thing is that, as a persistent defender of democracy and human rights, the United States became notorious for its oversea prison and all kinds of atrocity against so-called terrorist whom they alleged. A documentary "The Road to Guantanamo" revealed the illegal detention and brutal mistreatment imposed on three British muslin who was going to Afghanistan to provide humanistic help for refugees. It is obvious that those claimed themselves human rights defenders adopted double standard on behalf of themselves. Maybe their thinking is: all people are equal, but we are more equal than others. I don't mean to justify similar issues in China by scorning other countries. All those kind of issues are equally unreasonable and should be abolished.

I recommend some books which are often called political fables to everyone who want to understand politics in depth.

I gave video links of the three books here:
1. Fahrenheit 451
2. 1984
3. Animal farm

critics of the 11th five year plan of China

2008-08-29T20:30:00.006+08:00

Although the 11th five year plan was made in 2005, I still have to bring forward some weak points in it.

In the first chapter, the general guiding principle is proposed as a human oriented scientific view of development. It's a good point. However, when we obviously fall into an increasingly deteriorating environment, human oriented point of view must also include an implication of sustainable development. Actually the most critical factor of sustainable development is a new energy plan.

In the past several centuries, we exploited the nature at will. Now we begin to see the consequences. Flood, mudflow, drought, desertification, and new stubborn diseases become increasingly common. So we have to begin to think about what we can do to stop it or at least mitigate it. Going green is a buzz word today. Apparently a sustainable energy plan will play a vital role in going green. Energy plan is a system project. In one hand, Efficiency of fossil fuel can be improved and depollution of fossil fuel before and after burning is also important. In addition, alternative energy such as solar panel, wind power, nuclear power should be seriously and urgently considered and researched.

The second point is that the proportion of basic science R&D investment is too low. We can not be proud of being a world factory. Actually, currently we are. If we don't increase the investment of basic research, we will not have enough potential to prepare for applied research and thus we will be tied in the lower end of value chain. It's absolutely not sustainable.

Finally, investment policy on public education is less satisfactory. Although the 4% goal was set in the 90s of the last century, it is not reached even now. Low financial income leads to deficient budget on education. This is always the excuse of Chinese government officials. I have to argue this excuse is nonsense. It is about determination and persistence. Even in a poor rural family, money can be saved for education. Moreover, if government has not enough money for education, why so many splendid government office building are constructed? why the salary of public servants was raised several times in recent few years? It's too much for me to call government to account for this issue. In a word, public education especially in rural areas is an unavoidable duty of government. There is no excuse. There is only consequences.

Is reconcilement between science and religion possible?

2008-08-28T22:56:00.005+08:00

After a fierce debate about religion with greenapple, we ended with a consensus that science and religion will coexist in future for a long time. As greenapple said, neither of them can provide us a comprehensive understanding about everything around us so human need both of them. This is a typical debate about the validity of religion between atheism and Islam. Actually this kind of debates lasted for centuries and became much hot recently.

In one hand, some religions begin to employ so-called science miracles in holy scriptures to justify their validity. For example, there are many arguments about science miracles in Quran which claimed that Muhammad got revelations about the origin of the universe, the creation of the earth, development of embryo and so on. Also a variety of creationism such as intelligent design were developed to justify God in a more scientific way. On the other hand, it is noticeable that such justifications have around the same number of critics as supporters. Because they are still open to debate, we can't tell which side is more justifiable.

If we can go a little further to explore the essence of religion, problem could be simplified. German philosopher Feuerbach said that, if God can't be proved as a material existence, then it is a spiritual existence which must derive from human's mental activity. It can't be independent so it is a outward projection of human's inner characteristics. Psychologist Fred said that religion is the realization of human's intense and urgent wish. Human will confront a lot of sufferings such illness, frustration, and death in life, so he gets an intense desire to get free from these sufferings by simply relying on a kind and mighty deity. It is a great comfort to offset those sufferings in real world. So, if God is just a mental phenomenon of human, it is subjective and can't be justified and not to mention it can direct the progress of science.

However, despite its subjective trait, religion definitely can improve comfort, sense of safety, peace. So it embodies a kind of humanistic characteristic. The rational power of science and humanistic influence of religion will be complementary rather than competitive.

why there is no prevaling religion in China?

2008-08-27T20:47:00.006+08:00

While I begin to think about my belief and religion, I try to find my belief from some kind of origins, one of which is Confucianism. It's well-known that Confucianism ever had the most important influence and now still has lasting influence on Chinese everyday life, but why didn't it develop into a popular religion like Christianity? Or why there is no prevailing religion like Christianity in China?

It's a very intriguing and complex question. After some research and pondering, I think it is the ethical and philosophical feature of Confucianism that makes a religion not necessary in China.

Confucianism mainly deals with politics and ethnics. The core principles are humanity, loyalty and filial piety. Humanity teaches us to behave with humaneness. One golden rule which expresses the principle of humanity is: Whatever you don't wish for yourself, don't do to others. It's about empathy. Loyalty focuses on the obligations of the ruled to the ruler, and also extends to one's duties to friends, family and spouses. Filial piety denotes that children should respect their parents or ancestors.

It is evident that Confucianism is a very complete moral code to regulate social relationships in China. Also Confucianism pays little attention on anything out of living beings; instead, it focuses on personal cultivation with a goal of becoming a gentleman. Put it simply, Confucianism is more of a philosophy of life than a religion of theism. This kind of feature makes a belief of supernatural power such as God not necessary. People can live well in the direction of Confucianism.

Actually there is a native religion in China. It is Taoism. However, Taoism is too mystical to be popularized.

After a roughly one century of fracture of the tradition of Confucianism, most Chinese actually begin to lose memory about Confucianism. However, it's no good and we should adopt a analytical method to revive Confucianism to fit in modern values, especially when western civilizations have begun to show serious consequences in many aspects of our life such as global climate change. Chinese traditional philosophy of "unity of Heaven and Man" could serve as a savior. The most prominent philosopher in 20th century Russsel ever commended Chinese traditional culture and he said:

His (Confucius)system, as developed by his followers, is one of pure ethics, without religious dogma; it has not given rise to a powerful priesthood, and it has not led to persecution. It certainly has succeeded in producing a whole nation possessed of exquisite manners and perfect courtesy.

random thoughts on religion

2008-08-27T09:37:00.004+08:00

I have talked about my belief in the former blog post, but I think I could also record some thoughts about religion.

Generally there are two types of belief system, theistic belief and atheistic belief. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are the most influential religion belief system in the world. Actually these religions share the same origin. They believe in one God, share the same prophet Abraham(Ibrahim) and Judgment Day caused by original sin of human beings. Arabians and Jews all claimed that Abraham are their ancestor. However, there are some distinctions between them. In regard to prophets, Christianity regard Jesus as the Savior sent by God, but Jews don't think so and they are still waiting for the advent of the real Savior, Muslin just think Jesus as one of the prophets and also regard Muhammad as the last prophet sent by God(Allah). As for holy books, Jews accept that Old Testament is their only revelation from God, but Christians also read New Testament. Islam accept some parts of the Bible but think it is not original or authentic, also Islam regard Koran as the most complete and authentic holy scripture.

On the other hand, Buddhism is the most influential atheistic belief. Buddhism don't believe there is a God because it don't think anyone else can help except ourselves. There is nothing permanent in this ever-changing world, so pursuing a lasting spiritual existence is impossible. All suffering comes from our craving and clinging to wrong things, and there are a lot of causes and effects(Karma) in our life. Human life is continuing living and death before attaining liberation from Karma. However, we can avoid suffering by arduous self-promotion such as meditation，morality and wisdom and finally reach Enlightenment(a mental state beyond suffering).

Also there are some other types of atheistic belief such as humanism, rationalism and postmodernism. I can't elaborate them in this post. Maybe I can do it sometime later.

Personally speaking, I can't tell which is better or worse. Each one has some merits and flaws. But I would prefer a atheistic type of belief because it is more reasonable for me.

about belief of Chinese

2008-08-26T09:10:00.005+08:00

Before I met greenapple(nickname) several days ago, I never thought about belief. I never think it is problem. My talking with greenapple about religion made me begin to think about this old question.

So, the first question I would ask is if I have a belief? I think I do have a belief. First of all, I am still practicing some traditional Chinese religion. I stand in awe of Heaven and Earth. I think human's power of rationality is limited but the universe we live in is infinite. Although science has been advanced a lot in the late several centuries, science is an endless progress. So I think keeping a awe of the nature is a necessity. Also I have a great respect of my ancestors. I have to be grateful to the heritage(materialistic and spiritual) from my ancestors. It is their great efforts that laid a rich foundation for our modern life. Although I got these ideas from my parents and also practiced them, but I think they are more of a custom than a belief for me because at least I can express my respect on my ancestors.

Moreover, I think my behavior is definitely influenced by Confucianism that prevailed in China for about 2000 years. In the late 20th century, with the demise of Qing dynasty, Confucianism was disdained and discarded by modern Chinese intellectuals. However, I think the basic Confucianism is still in Chinese people's mind as a cultural heritage. We still act according to those ethnics taught by Confucianism, such as respect, loyalty and kindness. So that's about my understanding about my belief.

Actually I heard a lot of points that Chinese is a nonbeliever people. It is not really true. For religion, there are a lot of followers of Buddhism, Taoism and Islam. Moreover, most Chinese have the similar belief as me. Another feature of Chinese belief is pantheism. We worship Emperor Yuhuang, Heaven, Earth, Buddha, Lady Guanyin and also Confucius and Laotze. They just choose some of them to worship. If someone say that Chinese have some kind of pragmatism, it is true. They worship those deity which can bring them goods.

a heartwarming Oscar-winning cartoon "Farther and Daughter"

2008-08-19T23:10:00.007+08:00

As the title said, it's an affecting cartoon. The little girl is always waiting for his farther in her lifetime. The season changes and the aging of the girl are greatly shortened for an effect of exaggeration. Thankfully, the old girl got together with his farther. What's the most moving part is the scene that the girl found a empty boat when the lake dries up.

I recommend anyone to see it and you'll feel one of the most precious emotions of humankind.

see it online: Farther and Daughter

personal review of the film "Fight Club"

2008-08-17T22:42:00.004+08:00

Fight Club seems like a typical gang film at first sight, but it is more thought-provoking than it seems.

Although Tyler and Edward co-create the fight club, Tyler is actually the godfather of the club. He attended college, extremely debase consumerism which ever dominated Edward's life.

The advocated values of the club is that one should abandon materialistic world and pursue a kind of spiritual redemption by destruction. Destruction is the way they live. Destruction is what makes them exist. As Tyler said, "Let gone."

One scenario is very striking for me. That guy claimed to study biology conceded that he really want to be a veterinarian when his head is pointed by a short gun. Maybe death can save us to some extent because death can help us know what we really want to be. But before that, we should seriously think it over and over. As soon as the goal is clear, just do it before we die.

Now, I can't say any more about this movie. Maybe the next time I see it again, I can gain more understanding.

about so-called Runner Fan event

2008-08-17T21:09:00.004+08:00

One post(Mr. Fan Meizhong's blog) on the tianya bbs stirred fierce discussions. Most said that Mr. Fan lost conscience and failed to fulfill obligations as a teacher. Furthermore, some cited the conduct rules for American teachers when natural disasters occurred. Mr. Fan also his some supporters who said that his was not to blame because he was just committing self-protection. Basically I don't think Mr. Fan should be to blame because he just wanted to live.

For one thing, to live is the most fundamental right for any species. To some extent human being is also a kind of species what we call Homo sapiens. His self defense behavior came from the very instinct of life.

From the ethical point of view, Mr. Fan obviously don't carry out the obligations as a teacher, especially in China, such a country where traditional ethical standards prevail in most people's life. This is why so many critics was flooding him.

In addition, Mr. Fan is so brave that he dare to expose his "coward" mind to the public. Maybe many people have the same feeling on the tip of their tongues but they can't speak it out. Mr. Fan just revealed this kind of feeling.

Finally I have to say that everyone is very different from each other. We should not expect others think the same as ourselves. Speech should be respected. We can disagree with others, but we don't have to commit verbal assault which fails to settle anything.

linux下设置oracle自启动

2008-05-04T14:22:00.001+08:00

1. 创建文件/etc/oratab
#添加如下内容到/etc/oratab文件中,
#$ORACLE_SID是你的Oracle数据库的sid
#$ORACLE_HOME是你的Oracle数据库的Oracle_home
#Y表示要求在系统启动的时候启动Oracle数据库.N表示不要在系统启动的时候启动Oracle
$ORACLE_SID:$ORACLE_HOME:Y

2. 修改文件/etc/rc.local添加一下两行
##
## 关于su的具体命令参看linux的manual文档
##
su - oracle -c 'dbstart'
su - oracle -c 'lsnrctl start LISTENER'

环境变量设置:
编辑 /etc/profile
export ORACLE_BASE=/usr/oracle
export ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/10.2.0/db_2
export ORACLE_SID=orcl
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:$ORACLE_HOME/bin
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/usr/lib
export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8

转载, 通过脚本实现自启动:
#!/bin/sh
# Author: jackylau
# chkconfig: 345 99 99
# description: start or stop oracle
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
#oracle_env
export ORACLE_BASE=/home/oracle
export ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/9.2.0
export PATH=$PATH:$ORACLE_HOME/bin
export ORACLE_SID=oradb
export ORACLE_TERM=vt100
export ORA_NLS33=$ORACLE_HOME/ocommon/nls/admin/data
export NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.ZHS16GBK
oracle_user=oracle

#killproc
start(){
echo -n "starting oracle: "
su - "$oracle_user"<
lsnrctl start
sqlplus /nolog <
connect /as sysdba
startup
EOS
EOO
}
stop(){
echo -n "stoping oracle: "
su - "$oracle_user"<
lsnrctl stop
sqlplus /nolog <
connect /as sysdba
shutdown immediate
EOS
EOO
}
case "$1" in
start)
start
touch /var/lock/subsys/orad
;;
stop)
stop
rm -f /var/lock/subsys/orad
;;
status)
status oracle
;;
restart)
stop
sleep 3
start
;;
*)
echo "$0 {start|stop|status|restart}"
;;
esac
将此脚本cp到/etc/rc.d/init.d/目录下

加上可执行权限：
chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/init.d/orad
发布：
chkconfig --add orad
即可！

google blog gfw test

2008-05-04T14:15:00.000+08:00

google blog gfw test