Year: 2007

This Week’s Music: Harmonica Solo: The Dance Partner in My Dreams

Life & Notes2007.11.02
This Week’s Music: Harmonica Solo: The Dance Partner in My Dreams
http://www.wmlife.cn/uploadFile/_wmlife_audio/audioupload/folk/0706/kouqin/8.wma At last, the harmonica that had been gathering dust at home for many years has been found, and a couple of days ago it was sent to me. This harmonica was my dad’s treasure back in the day; they say it even played a role when he was pursuing my mom~ Too bad he has long since stopped playing it~ The good thing about the harmonica is that it’s cheap and easy to carry around. But in terms of timbre and expressive power, it really isn’t all that great, and it’s honestly a rather hard thing to control (though very easy to get started with). As for me, what…
everyday life music
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2007年11月2日
[Spanish] Fernando Savater: “An Invitation to Philosophy—The Questions of Life” —☆

Philosophy & Thought2007.11.01
[Spanish] Fernando Savater: “An Invitation to Philosophy—The Questions of Life” —☆
[Spanish] Fernando Savater: *The Invitation of Philosophy—The Question of Life*, translated by Lin Jingwei, Peking University Press, September 2007, 24 yuan — ☆ Although there is no longer any need to cultivate an interest in philosophy, I still keep an eye out whenever I find a newly published introductory philosophy book on the market. Introductory books are among the easiest, most interesting, and most colorful kinds of philosophy reading. Introductory or survey works written by different people are surely bound to have their own flavors; if two introductory books read as though they were virtually identical, then chances are they were both written by Chinese people…… This book is touted…
philosophy book reading notes
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2007年11月1日
[U.S.] Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner: Freakonomics

Web3 & Cypherpunks2007.11.01
[U.S.] Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner: Freakonomics
[U.S.] Steven Levitt and Steven Dubner: _Freakonomics—A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything_, translated by Liu Xiangya, Guangdong Provincial Publishing Group, Guangdong Economic Press, March 2006, 28 yuan I generally don’t read popular books, especially the flashy, business-and-management-type titles that seem to be everywhere in the “social sciences” section of Xinhua Bookstore. But recently I decided to take another stab at economics, so I first picked up the lightest thing I could find, partly to whet my appetite and partly to see what these bestselling business-and-management books are really like. This book is billed as “the No. 1 business-and-management bestseller in the United States in 2005,” and it…
book reading notes human nature economy
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2007年11月1日
Mathematics Is a Technical Craft… Some Additional Notes on Learning High School Mathematics

History of Science & Scholarship2007.10.28
Mathematics Is a Technical Craft… Some Additional Notes on Learning High School Mathematics
Last year I wrote a piece, “On Learning Middle School Mathematics”; the discussion below can be taken as a supplement to it. In the ending of that piece, I gave the so-called very “origin” kind of math problem, and this discussion picks up right from there. What follows is an excerpt from my chat log with UNIC. I’m too lazy to rewrite it all over again, so I’ll just file it away here as a record. The only help I can offer you is this sort of empty talk, because since mathematics is a kind of technical art, the mathematics “coach” really has to teach hands-on, step by step; teaching…
technology science mathematics Wittgenstein
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2007年10月28日
The Philosopher’s Basics

Philosophy & Thought2007.10.28
The Philosopher’s Basics
Yesterday I was once again thinking about some things concerning doing philosophy and being a philosopher. The trigger was a segment of discussion on a QQ group chat; I’ll excerpt it here: Gǔ Chǔ 22:55:08 In order to study the spirit of the Party’s Seventeenth National Congress, to encourage the broad student masses to pay attention to national affairs and the livelihood of the people, and to strengthen students’ ideological and political education, the Department of Philosophy will carry out a series of study activities under the theme “Study the Spirit of the Seventeenth National Congress, Pay Attention to National Affairs and the Livelihood of the People.” The specific contents…
philosophy discussion
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2007年10月28日
[English] John Lloyd, John Mitchinson: The Book of General Ignorance — 200 Questions People Commonly Overlook

History of Science & Scholarship2007.10.28
[English] John Lloyd, John Mitchinson: The Book of General Ignorance — 200 Questions People Commonly Overlook
[UK] John Lloyd and John Mitchinson: *Quips and Quibbles——200 Questions People Generally Overlook*, translated by Wang Zhanghua, Li Jian, Yang Yu, Wu Wenzhong, Shen Xianyun, and Chen Jie, Guangxi Science and Technology Publishing House, August 2007, 24.8 yuan Another book of entertaining popular-science questions, or rather, one could call this sort of book “popular-science 8g.” Still, compared with the other books of this kind I’ve read, including *Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze?* and the previous *Who Says Men Can’t Get Pregnant?*, this one is much more exciting. No wonder even Teacher Wu actually “jointly recommended” this book… (Joining him in the recommendation were also Academician Zhu Zuoyan of the Chinese…
book reading notes Wu Guosheng science communication
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2007年10月28日
Music of This Issue: Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

Life & Notes2007.10.25
Music of This Issue: Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
http://media.ewen.cc/wma/n00000027/n0000002749028318.wma Last time in Master Xian’s Schopenhauer class, he mentioned the chaotic, dark state of the world before the first pair of eyes opened. Master Xian said this state is impossible to describe, and cannot be depicted in painting either, but perhaps music could express it somewhat, so he gave this example—the opening section of Ravel’s Left Hand Piano Concerto. When I got back and searched it out to listen, it really did have something going on. Of course, aside from the opening, the overall feeling is also quite good, very marvelous. This piece is one you have to listen to with your eyes closed. The music from the previous…
everyday life music art Schopenhauer
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2007年10月25日
A Reading Report on Schopenhauer

Philosophy & Thought2007.10.24
A Reading Report on Schopenhauer
I seriously underestimated the extent of my own decadence: I kept frittering away the time until there were barely more than two days left before I even started reading. I also seriously underestimated the difficulty of turning a reading report into prose, dragging it out until the evening of the last day before I began to write. I also seriously underestimated my ability to ramble, so that by §24 I had already run up some 4,500 characters, and when I looked at the clock it was already deep into the night. There was no time to ramble any further, and even if I finished rambling now, there would still not…
book reading notes Kant materialism
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2007年10月24日
[Repost] Funeral Industry Launches Graduate In-Service Training Class; Practitioners Can Attend Peking University to Study Philosophy

Life & Notes2007.10.21
[Repost] Funeral Industry Launches Graduate In-Service Training Class; Practitioners Can Attend Peking University to Study Philosophy
News here; I won’t reproduce it: http://news.qq.com/a/20071020/000050.htm I hadn’t originally thought of commenting, but after seeing it reposted on the department board, and then reposted again to the Joke board, and seeing that classmates’ reactions seemed mostly displeasure or contempt, I couldn’t help but voice my opinion. Below is my reply on the department board: (The person above said: “Reviving Zhou ritual is not something our department would get around to doing.”) Do you all think it’s bad? I, for one, think it’s terrific! Absolutely terrific! This is far more meaningful than opening a traditional-culture class for CEOs. If reviving ritual and music is not something our department is to…
everyday life culture Peking University tradition
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2007年10月21日
[Canada] Sergio Sismondo: An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies

History of Science & Scholarship2007.10.21
[Canada] Sergio Sismondo: An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies
[Canadian] Sergio Sismondo: Introduction to Science and Technology Studies, translated by Xu Weimin, Meng Qiang, Cui Hailing, and Chen Haidan, Shanghai Century Publishing Group, Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press, August 2007, 25.5 yuan It is a rare introduction to “science and technology studies” (Science and Technology Studies, or, alternatively, scientific and technological studies, science and technology metrology, and so on; since this concept sometimes refers to a transdisciplinary field of study, and sometimes also denotes a certain stance or camp, while its boundaries are fuzzy, it is really hard to pin down… the translators also discuss this in the postface). Because there are still very few comparable Chinese-language books…
book reading science notes philosophy of science
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2007年10月21日