Year: 2009

zz Sender: SMG Solar Eclipse Live Broadcast Shockingly Absurd Quotations (Repost)

Life & Notes2009.07.22
zz Sender: SMG Solar Eclipse Live Broadcast Shockingly Absurd Quotations (Repost)
Sender: AvenueQ (Traveler on the Chang’an Road), Section: Joke Title: SMG Live Broadcast of the Solar Eclipse: Outrageous Quotes (Repost) Posted from: Peking University Weiming Station (Wednesday, July 22, 2009, 18:06:44), forwarded 【 The following text is reposted from the Triangle discussion board 】【 The original was posted by AvenueQ 】 http://www.douban.com/group/topic/7351690/ 1 At one observation point, clouds made it impossible to see the total solar eclipse. Male host: “There are clouds now, so we can’t see the solar eclipse. When the sun is completely covered later, we should be able to see the stars, right?” Professor: “You can’t see them.” Male host: “You should be able to, though….
everyday life Peking University astronomy
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2009年7月22日
Ji Xianlin: “Miscellaneous Memories from the Cowshed”

Culture & Public Commentary2009.07.17
Ji Xianlin: “Miscellaneous Memories from the Cowshed”
Ji Xianlin: Memoirs from the Cowshed (manuscript edition), Zhongguo Yanshi Publishing House, 2006, 9787801288799 The ritual of mourning for Old Ji can be considered complete. By comparison, the book I would still recommend is *The Archive of Shuxingbei*, though *Memoirs from the Cowshed* has its own distinct flavor. If *The Archive of Shuxingbei* is a downright tragedy, then *Memoirs from the Cowshed* is more like a farce—dark humor, of course. How was the Cultural Revolution possible? This was the last question posed by Old Ji. The Cultural Revolution was a miracle; it gathered together every favorable condition of time, place, and people, and only then did it blossom in a…
book reading China notes intellectuals
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2009年7月17日
[Archive] Ji Xianlin: Preface to Miscellaneous Recollections from the Cow Shed

Culture & Public Commentary2009.07.16
[Archive] Ji Xianlin: Preface to Miscellaneous Recollections from the Cow Shed
http://vip.book.sina.com.cn/book/chapter_38306_22059.html Ji Xianlin: Preface to Miscellaneous Recollections from the Cowshed Miscellaneous Recollections from the Cowshed was written in 1992. Why, after six years, was it only now, in 1998, brought out for publication? This rather violates the usual conventions of book writing. Readers are bound to suspect that there must be some explanation. Their suspicion is justified: there is indeed an explanation, and it is not mysterious at all. It arises merely from a bit of personal selfishness—my own petty “judging a gentleman’s belly by a small man’s heart.” I had already been trampled on by the “revolutionary” youngsters—though in fact they were not necessarily all young—by a thousand feet,…
book reading China notes history
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2009年7月16日
Ji Xianlin: “Ji Xianlin on Translation”

Culture & Public Commentary2009.07.16
Ji Xianlin: “Ji Xianlin on Translation”
Ji Xianlin: “Ji Xianlin Talks about Translation,” edited by the Ji Xianlin Research Institute, Contemporary China Publishing House2007, 9787801705952 When Mr. Ji Xianlin passed away, Peking University set up a memorial hall for public mourning, but I did not go. Of course I very much identify with such commemorative rites; feelings of admiration, humility, reverence, remembrance, and so on are all contained in the ritual of condolence. Still, I myself did not go to pay my respects, because for me there are more fitting rites with which to remember this elder. The reason to come and pay tribute to Mr. Ji Xianlin is not because I feel any grief….
book reading notes Peking University translation
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2009年7月16日
When the End Seeps into the Process, So That the Means Too Become Ends

AI & the Future of Technology2009.07.15
When the End Seeps into the Process, So That the Means Too Become Ends
If doing certain things does not achieve the intended purpose (and doing something else might achieve it), then one may well regret it. And if doing certain things does achieve the intended purpose, but later one discovers that this purpose is not what one truly wanted, then one may also regret it. But there are some things one will not regret doing afterward: namely, those whose very process is the purpose, or, to put it another way, those whose purpose can be obtained on the spot in the course of the process itself. The most typical examples are games, and communication. Of course, you may regret becoming addicted to games,…
technology intentionality love purpose
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2009年7月15日
On “Benefiting Others by Serving Oneself”

Philosophy & Thought2009.07.15
On “Benefiting Others by Serving Oneself”
“Wei ji li ta” is a concept that Wang Haiming loves to talk about, his eureka moment, the core term in Wang Haiming’s ethical system… For some reason, these few words suddenly came to mind, so I might as well write a little about them. As for Wang Haiming and his philosophy, I certainly have no fondness for them at all; I can’t even bear to read his books, and I don’t want to spend much time evaluating them. But on the other hand, I feel a certain sympathy for him—“new philosophy,” “new ethics,” unifying and integrating the doctrines of all schools, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, and founding…
philosophy China freedom value
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2009年7月15日
zzA once-in-a-century astronomical feast: July 22 · the Yangtze River total solar eclipse

Life & Notes2009.07.07
zzA once-in-a-century astronomical feast: July 22 · the Yangtze River total solar eclipse
A Centennial Astronomical Feast: The July 22 Total Solar Eclipse along the YangtzeSteed posted on 2009-07-05 16:20 On July 22, the moon’s huge shadow will once again sweep across our country, and the spectacle of a total solar eclipse will once more pay a visit to China. Although it has been less than a year since the last total solar eclipse, these two eclipses could hardly be more different. The total solar eclipse of August 1, 2008, occurred in the evening, when the sun was already slanting low in the western sky at totality, and the duration was only a little over two minutes. This eclipse, by contrast, will occur…
everyday life China astronomy stars
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2009年7月7日
How to Reason with Emotion

History of Science & Scholarship2009.07.07
How to Reason with Emotion
Feeling and reasoning seem to be two utterly opposed things; many people would think that a good argument ought not to be mixed too much with private feelings, and that the intrusion of subjective feeling will make a paper bad. Of course, broadly speaking, that is not wrong. Good papers at least seem cold; apart from the opening and the closing, they rarely contain any lyrical sentences. Still, leaving aside scientific and technical papers, as far as philosophy is concerned, I believe the best philosophical papers must be saturated with the author’s personal feelings. The key lies in how to infuse feeling, and absolutely not in how to drive feeling…
philosophy scholarship writing reason
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2009年7月7日
Notes from Today’s Xindao Salon, 09-07-04

Life & Notes2009.07.04
Notes from Today’s Xindao Salon, 09-07-04
Today, NKM’s grand visit saved me from turning into a solitary castaway. I showed him his logic paper, “Counterfactual Conditionals in Situational Semantics,” and we tossed around a few things about counterfactual conditionals and possible-world logic. I am completely a layman when it comes to logic, so my opinions probably won’t be of much help to him either (exchanging ideas with laypeople is beneficial for philosophical thinking, but I do not know how it works in a strange specialty like logic). Personally, I do not concern myself with technical details such as the construction of related formal semantic systems. What I mainly care about, as far as counterfactual conditionals are…
everyday life AI logic counterfactuals
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2009年7月4日
Solar Eclipse and Ritual

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2009.07.01
Solar Eclipse and Ritual
When the ruler’s conduct is irregular, and the dukes and ministers are unvirtuous, when the Yi and the Di are strong and invade, and all affairs are thrown into confusion, then the sun is eclipsed.——《Spring and Autumn Wei: Gan Jing Fu》 When the ruler indulges himself and does not follow the ancients, when he acts against Heaven and brutalizes things, calamity arises and then the sun is eclipsed.——《Spring and Autumn Wei: Yundou Shu》 When the ruler’s joy and anger are irregular, when he lightly kills the innocent, executes the guiltless, disrespects Heaven and Earth, and disregards ghosts and spirits, then the sun is eclipsed.——《Liyun Wei: Dou Weiyi》 When the…
culture China ritual astronomy
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2009年7月1日