Author: 胡翌霖

A Portal for the History of Science and Philosophy? A Library? — On the Future Fate of keshizhe.net

Site Matters2011.12.08
A Portal for the History of Science and Philosophy? A Library? — On the Future Fate of keshizhe.net
After wrapping up the Beijing History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy Student Forum, more than half a month had slipped by before I even realized it. The keshizhe.net I had worked so hard to put together died, with no suspense whatsoever. Although I had never had much confidence that it would ever become active in the first place, I still hadn’t expected it to die so quickly, so cleanly, and so decisively. Not only did almost no one post again after the meeting ended, but traffic also plunged rapidly, and in less than a week it was already lying on the bottom: The 5 or 6 visits per day at…
philosophy of science blog Peking University internet
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2011年12月8日
On Communicating with Extraterrestrial Civilizations—A Snarky Commentary on Jiang Xiaoyuan’s Report

Culture & Public Commentary2011.12.04
On Communicating with Extraterrestrial Civilizations—A Snarky Commentary on Jiang Xiaoyuan’s Report
Forum on the History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy, Lecture 82: Jiang Xiaoyuan: Should We Talk to Strangers? — A Debate in the History of Science about the Search for Extraterrestrial Civilization This afternoon I went to listen to the Keke Forum. Quite a few people showed up this time; even the classroom was full. It seems that everyone still has high expectations for Teacher Jiang’s talk. Before this talk, when Teacher Wu mentioned it to us, he said that this time he especially wanted Teacher Jiang to say something “substantive.” In the past, whenever Teacher Jiang had been invited to speak, it was all rather “media-like,” or to put…
culture value human nature modernity
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2011年12月4日
Second Commentary on the Science and Technology Assignment (On the Revolutionary and Conservative Aspects of the Copernican System)

Teaching & Courses2011.11.30
Second Commentary on the Science and Technology Assignment (On the Revolutionary and Conservative Aspects of the Copernican System)
I’d been busy with meetings for a while; organizing these meetings takes so much mental energy that I still haven’t really recovered… But the long-overdue second assignment for Keton had to be graded. I’ve already gone through the assignments once and added comments one by one. Some assignments got very few comments, so I’ll use this space to talk about the more general issues. First, I have to stress once again the issue of annotation conventions. Last time I only directly pointed out the problem of annotation conventions in my replies to some students; for other students whose annotations were also nonstandard, I didn’t criticize them directly. Instead, I wrote…
history of science scholarship history course
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2011年11月30日
Exchange First, Scholarship Second—A Summary of the Forum on the History and Philosophy of Science

Life & Notes2011.11.23
Exchange First, Scholarship Second—A Summary of the Forum on the History and Philosophy of Science
The 2nd Beijing Graduate Student Academic Forum on the History and Philosophy of Science was finally wrapped up last weekend~ After the forum, I caught up on sleep + spent two days tinkering with the blog as a change of pace, and only now have I begun to write the summary.I was the main person in charge of organizing this forum, and my chief work was contacting students from various schools, calling for paper submissions, and moderating the review process, and so on. At the beginning, everyone’s enthusiasm was not high; it was not until the last moment that submissions started flooding in, which in the final half-month almost drove…
everyday life scholarship media blog
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2011年11月23日
Introduction to the History, Philosophy, and Science Conference Handbook

Life & Notes2011.11.16
Introduction to the History, Philosophy, and Science Conference Handbook
This forum received strong support from students and teachers at various colleges and universities in the Beijing area, and the students took part with great enthusiasm. On behalf of the organizing committee, I would like to express our gratitude to all the students and teachers who participated in our forum in one way or another! Because of everyone’s enthusiastic support, we ultimately received as many as 80 submissions. But in the end only a little over twenty could be presented at the conference, and the remaining articles could not be printed in full either (only abstracts would be included). If we have disappointed the enthusiasm of the students who submitted…
philosophy everyday life science history of science
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2011年11月16日
Politics Is Dispute—Starting from the Smoke-Free Campus

Culture & Public Commentary2011.11.03
Politics Is Dispute—Starting from the Smoke-Free Campus
I don’t know when the sign “This campus is a smoke-free school” was first hung at Peking University’s gate. I once even saw security guards seriously stop people who were coming in with cigarettes in their mouths. Today, in the midst of the poisonous haze (November 1), I noticed this sign again, so I’ll jot down a few thoughts while I’m at it~ I don’t smoke, and I don’t like other people smoking around me. But I do not support a “smoke-free campus.” In particular, a “smoke-free Peking University” is even worse. Because a smoking ban runs counter to freedom. Smoking is harmful, and it affects other people’s physical and…
culture China freedom commentary
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2011年11月3日
Mathematics, Education, and Machines

AI & the Future of Technology2011.11.02
Mathematics, Education, and Machines
Today in discussion section, I listened to Brother Donglin’s report, and it felt wonderfully intriguing; some of my earlier scattered thoughts have become much clearer. What Brother Donglin discussed was the concept of “diagramming” in ancient Greek geometry. He pointed out that the geometrical constructions of the ancient Greeks cannot be understood as “construction” in the Kantian sense: the meaning of diagramming is not to provide some kind of “ontological proof.” Diagramming is undertaken for pedagogical and instructional purposes; the original meaning of “proof” is also a kind of showing, a process by which the teacher displays something to the student. “Geometrical diagramming, geometrical knowledge, and phronesis (practical knowledge, that…
philosophy technology science media
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2011年11月2日
What Is an “Eduroam-Free Address”?

Site Matters2011.11.01
What Is an “Eduroam-Free Address”?
Since the readers of my blog are mainly university teachers and students, I wanted to buy a domestic host. A host on a dedicated Education Network line is hard to find and not really necessary, but at the very least it must be a “free Education Network IP”; otherwise it’s no different from a foreign host. But based on my experience over this past year communicating with various IDC service providers, whether before-sales consultation or after-sales service, whether front-desk support or back-end technicians, whether IDC customer service or Taobao shop owners—after contacting maybe twenty or thirty people all told—not a single one actually knew what a free Education Network address…
technology education internet website
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2011年11月1日
Huaxia Mingwang’s hosting failure rate is too high…

Site Matters2011.10.31
Huaxia Mingwang’s hosting failure rate is too high…
Today Suixuan and the Forum on the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology were down again for most of the day, and the quality of customer service was also quite worrisome. After submitting a support ticket, the customer service staff who solve technical problems always respond only after the issue has been fixed, so I can hardly find out what exactly went wrong; as for the front-desk customer service on the web interface, they are often totally clueless, and even when I inquire about purchasing services, they respond slowly, with a poor attitude, and still know nothing about anything. What should one do if the host failure rate is…
China blog education internet
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2011年10月31日
Ye Men Gathering — Archived Old Essays

Life & Notes2011.10.30
Ye Men Gathering — Archived Old Essays
Today I went with Teacher Wu to attend Master Ye’s gathering. We went to a French restaurant in Sanlitun for a French meal; the portions were a bit small, but the steak was genuinely delicious. We sat at a Western-style long table, and there wasn’t much conversation during the meal. Besides the Wu school and Teacher Ye, I didn’t know anyone else either; I only introduced myself briefly together with Senior Brother Shengli and Senior Brother Han, the three of us third-generation disciples, to Teacher Ye while packing up, and I didn’t even give my name. I don’t know whether Teacher Ye still remembers me. Perhaps Teacher Ye still will…
philosophy everyday life
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2011年10月30日