In my childhood, there was a tall wooden one-bar main door in the house which my peasant grandparents on my mother's side used to live in.

The word 'wench' must be rarely used nowadays.

I'm not sure if China's REAL GDP growth rates are that gleeful, on the magnitude of 9% or so.

Shouldn't China hire an auditing firm to audit its GDP data?

The saga of the overthrowing of Gaddafi's reign in Libya by rebels has only taken about half a year to reach nearly the end.

Without the support and supply by the U.S., U.K., U.A.E. and the like, anti-Gaddafi forces such as the National Liberation Army (Libya) wouldn't be capable of mobilizing and organizing so quickly and effectively, we can guess.

Well, the global consumers' confidence in Chinese products' quality may have been gradually built up. Just don't let it be dismantled.

I don't know why the opposite of "explicit knowledge" is called "tacit knowledge" instead of "implicit knowledge".

Discern the people who voluntarily or involuntarily convey the distortion of facts.

It appears that nuclear plants reign in the energy development plan of China. Given that China's engineering and technology prowess isn't that impeccable, that may be a prescription for terrible disasters.

I'm not deeply trained in Physics at all. But Einstein's theory about Brownian motion kind of moves me.

"
If ρ(x,t) is the density of Brownian particles at point x at time t, then ρ satisfies the diffusion equation: 

 

where D is the mass diffusivity.
" 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion#Einstein.27s_Theory

How will the climate change affect the situation of vegetable pests? Is there gonna be more of them or less of them?

Will EU be dismantled?

The queen, princes, and princesses of the U.K. travel the world to other Common Wealth countries every once in a while.

We can guess that the loosely connected realm provides a complementary mechanism to NATO, in terms of international defence systems.

The integers 0, 1, and 2 are sort of intuitive devices for human beings to understand and explore the nature.

The following is sort of typical in Canada, a country in which individuals' independence is stressed. Without a proper values system established in place, one becomes awry in life.

The past several years have been especially auspicious for Apple. Let's see how it will fare in its further and further pushes into overseas markets.

J drank a little whiskey to take the edge off his tiredness.

It appears that Saudi Arabia is a crucial country. It's got oil, it's rich, and it's got Mecca, the holiest city in the Islam world.

Does the trust between Damon and Pythias represent the highest level of trust between human beings?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damon_(mythology) for the two famous figures in ancient Greek mythology.

Canada's Jack Layton died immediately after his NDP party had risen to its peak of prominence. And Apple's Steve Jobs resigned from his CEO role just after Apple's market capitalization had been in full cry.

Life's transitoriness.

Pic - Hecate

The triple-bodied Hecate is a Graeco-Roman goddess associated with magic, sorcery, and crossroads. And it appears that she always holds one or more torches in her hand or hands.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AN00969955_001_l.jpg / Public domain picture)

My baby daughter has never gotten used to soothers.

In the word "cyber-war", the part "cyber" which qualifies "war" also increases the dimensions of the potential losses wreaked by "war".

Somerset Maugham wrote or spoke wryly, "If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts."

Well, that remark must have done tremendous good to the tourism of England, I'm positive.

Well, does Wall Street care about its black eye? How come I'm even doubtful about that?

The stooge media in a certain country dumb down its people.

So many scars and inferiority complexes had been seared into the national memory of China.

The finance industry has constantly badgered the rest of the economy into yielding to its wills. What would happen if less and less people borrowed money from the finance industry? What if the economy pattern changed away from the current model based upon credit?

Will fortune turn Turk with the white collar workers in China? Possibly.

Men typically thrash out wisdom over their life. On the other hand, what do women typically thrash out over their life? Families? Wisdom?

Having snubbed truth in the past appears to be the biggest fault of the plaintiff in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case of the alleged sexual assault.

Life's short. You can explore. But you can't stray.

It's inadvisable to party a lot.

This seems to be a women's rights statement: "Whatever we wear, wherever we go, yes means yes, no means no." What a bon mot.

It's been reported that the case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been dismissed by a judge.

The veracity of the plaintiff has been cast into doubts for good measure.

Well, in some Hollywood action flicks, the brave actor hangs onto a winch which is attached to a helicopter or something and swaying in the high winds.

What is that for? For impressing the audiences. But not deeply, I suppose.

High finance runs away with the world.

Should that change?

The European economy has gradually maneuvered into dire straits.

Across the Atlantic, beside the U.S.' problems, there are more and more very rich Chinese immigrants fleeing China for Canada. Are there deep troubles in store?

Enjoyment is different than glee. Enjoying my life is different from living my life gleefully.

The interests in ancient Greek and Roman cultures remain extant among some mainland Chinese people. Mostly they access the information about those cultures via texts in Chinese.

I'm not sure if the translation supposedly from English to Chinese takes some edge off the tastes of those cultures.

Since when has the finance industry taken the mantle of ruling the whole world? Perhaps since four or so decades ago.

I guess that the universities in Israel are very auspicious.

A contradiction of marriage vow and divorcing act

The customary Roman Catholic marriage vow reads like this in English:

"Do you, ____, take , ____, to be your (husband/wife), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. I, ____, take you, ____, to be my (husband/wife). I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life." 

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_vows#Traditional_Roman_Catholic_vows .)

But it's a fact that some Roman Catholics do get divorced, at least in Canada. I wonder if that tends to turn them astray from their Catholic religion. After all, they broke their serious Catholic marriage vow.

We can see a lot of usage of the word "extortion" in political articles circulating the U.S. Why?

Because in biz deals, you, as an individual, can simply walk away from the deals you don't like to accept; but in political deals and arrangements you CANNOT walk away and you will be affected by them in all sorts of ways.

Under the auspices of Google, the strategically crucial Android will have its place in the world, however weak the patents which it holds now are. The question is only whether it will be among the top three mobile OSes or not.

On a related note, Samsung's fledgling Bada mobile OS will be interesting to watch.

Some people write plain English with an edge of literariness. Some don't.

(By A_minor / http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotogiraffee/375202438/ / CC)

(By Thoth, God of Knowledge / http://www.flickr.com/photos/thoth-god/4179063773/ / CC)

I saw steely glints in O's eyes from time to time.

The severe dilapidation of trust in the society of China is a prescription for further and further troubles. Maybe huge troubles.

Can SNS decelerate people's information overload?

The relative transparency of the U.S. has gotten it castigated more yet gotten it out of more troubles.

Some people, especially in the past, beguile their tedious days with TV watching in the evenings. That's why it's important for one to establish better pleasure patterns, such as studying, in his teens and twenties.

Life's short. Distance's long.

What elements have prevented the disintermediation of the big credit cards such as VISA and MasterCard, by payment solutions such as Interac?

J tucks in chili sauces.

Along with the surging sales of iPhones and iPads in China, it's reasonable to expect a surge of iPhone and iPad apps warez activities.

I've been confused by the difference between a kindergarten and a preschool. Well, I've just figured it out.

A preschool is "a school for children between the ages of about two and five", while a kindergarten is "a school to prepare children aged five for school".

You are keen, Apple, you are keen.

It's reported that the hot sale of iPads and iPhones also boosts more users to turn to Macs from Windows computers. The adoption of iOS facilitates that of Mac OS.

There are many sound bites in English that ESL learners don't know.

The U.S. is the leader of the impious world. And it seems to be one of the leaders of the pious world too. Think about that.

Apple's Mac OS is a steady eddy. Compared with it, other UNIX siblings, such as Ubuntu, aren't as user-friendly.

How can people bear with the wry fact that China, whose GDP per capita is merely about one sixth of that of the U.S., is the single nation who holds the most American government bonds?

How come the capitalism system wrings people's hearts and makes them on their nerves from time to time, its efficiency and effectiveness aside?

Anyways, it's a grand game.

Given Canadians' easy mobility into the U.S., why haven't the talents drained in Canada after so many years?

Wow. I didn't know that Somalia, the country which is currently suffering the big famine, is very largely Muslim.

Does that fact have something to do with the historical influences of the Umayyad Caliphate, a huge ancient Arab empire? Or with those of some other Persian or Arab empire(s)?

The U.S. has been thrashing some Arab nations all these decades, why exactly?

Almost everyone is an armchair CEO. They can dress down companies' acts and management.

Unfortunately, I suspect I'm one of them too. :-)

They backed out of the deal. And everyone just moved on.

From a company's perspective, how to avoid jading its software developers?

In the current economic climate, if something happens to the economies of the so-called BRIC nations, will the world go into a long-standing funk?

That would be tough.

Well, I don't know how galled many middle-aged and old-aged Canadians are with lay-offs. Some of them must be fairly galled.

You iterate, you recur. Over time, you develop.

I don't know. The value of many people's lifetime work just goes astray time and time again in the highly volatile securities markets in which the pension funds and pensioners themselves heavily invest into. Has the value vaporized or been turned into the hands of speculators, market middlemen, or some other party?

How will the possible eventual dismantlement of RIM look like? Anyway, what a loss for Canada as a nation.

It's been reported that beside the presence of an Apple store knockoff in China, there's also a knavish Ikea store copycat in China. Gee.

I want to study orbs and orbits, from the mathematical perspective.

Are those termed as "spheres" in Mathematics? I did my high school in China, so I don't know the exact English names of those mathematical objects.

Pic - Tellus (a.k.a. Terra)

(By ortygia / http://www.flickr.com/photos/roger_ulrich/4187205643/ / CC)

"

Ara Pacis: Tellus Relief

From the east side of the Augustan altar of Peace (Ara Pacis) in Rome. Roman marble relief of "Tellus" (the identification is controversial). A velate female holds two babies; personifications of winds (aurai) flank her.

Date: 13-9 B.C. Set up in honor of Augustus.

"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roger_ulrich/4187205643/

In Roman mythology, Tellus, a.k.a. Terra, is a goddess personifying the Earth.

By the way, I suspect that the Telus Corporation, one of the few big telecom carriers in Canada, is named after the ancient Roman goddess Tellus.

Old age comes anon. That for sure will be how I'll feel.

I'm especially intrigued by the notion of the dissipation of economic rents in Economics. That must be positively related to competition in the marketplace.

In addition, the economies of scope also somewhat intrigues me.

It's been said that lots of people experienced glee when they saw Murdoch is in trouble due to the scandal of his News of the World paper.

Has Sohu.com always been a mere knockoff?

Economic recessions and uncertainties have been mantling our Earth during last several years. Is there a proper attitude to face them?

After all, our world is a set of highly interdependent nations and individuals. People's demands for goods and services are always there to be met. People just postpone the placement of orders which would fulfill their demands sooner or later.

It's reported that Edmonton, Alberta has become the capital of crime of Canada. And it's said that many of the offenses having happened over there are related to drugs and young people from elsewhere seeking opportunities in the booming Alberta.

Well, why is the fluid group of mobile job seekers associated with drug problems?

Wry and (somewhat?) unclean industries

To some or a large degree, the Canadian government controls the gambling and lotteries industries because by doing so, it can supplant illegal activities in those areas which surely would happen due to the human nature and would usually be gang-related and gang-controlled otherwise. So the government runs those industries which inherently aren't clean. Think about the wryness of that.

裝B不是你的錯。但裝B裝到讓人有看到大海的感覺就是你的錯了。

People use tropical expressions to illustrate their points. How logical or accurate is that process?

Money is an inanimate thing. It's a token of value, or economic value, so to speak.

"But you ...", K squealed a bit, raising his voice.

I think that every programming language textbook should introduce a little bit of the stored-program concept, which is very fundamental.

Once the myth that one can get a lot of rewards from pursuing an MBA degree is debunked further and further, one can deallocate at least two years of his life by not getting into a B school.

I feel that in the moments other than now, we human beings live in our own feelings instead of in the physical world.

For instance, how much do our possessed feelings and emotions distort the memory of our real past years?

It seems that one's plasticity is negatively proportional to his path dependence. Is it correct?

Liquidity, liquidity, liquidity.

In a person's young years, he can while away much of his time because he doesn't have much responsibilities. But at the same time, his pleasures are not very sophisticated.

Forced or not, the proportion of impiety among the Mainland Chinese people is uniquely very high.

Language is a double-edged sword. It can reveal and convey truth, wisdom, and true love. Yet on the other hand, it can mislead and beguile.

Well, that is accidental complexity.

(By Arianna_M(sea time) / http://www.flickr.com/photos/53690113@N05/5385486043/ / CC)

Quote:

"Order must exist before it can be broken in order to create the
anomalies and uncertainties".
(Robert Venturi_Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture) 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53690113@N05/5385486043/

(By J. Star / http://www.flickr.com/photos/jstar/32486696/ / CC)

I don't know. It seems that the capitalism system is blessed and accurst at the same time. The recessions occurring every 7-11 years or so seem to be unavoidable.

I'm positive that there must be many economists who are doing research on why China has been an exception to the periodical recessions during its past two booming decades.

By the way, does the name "7-11" of the Japanese chain convenience stores have something to do with the economic cycle mentioned above?

Our baby daughter has been a little cranky and sleeping poorly because of her teething.

J's child isn't accepted by that daycare facility for this September. J's become wry.

The world economy has been so sick of late. People are sick of it.

八風不動

Does one get beguiled more often by the world than by himself? How should he get disillusioned?

One consumes. One puts some money down the drain.

Be a wise consumer, then.

Money dilapidates. Truth and wisdom doesn't.

中美之間的衝突在將來可能會升級嗎？雙方在 cyberspace 中的衝突沉默而巨大。

Recursion vs. Iteration is an interesting and deep comparison.

Once I saw in a news video that a horse to be killed in a Canadian slaughter facility was thrashing its head up and down, allegedly because it was in a mentally unstable state due to abuses or fears.

Animals beside dogs also do have emotions and feelings.

Ah, the collegial and harmonized Chinese society.

I haven't been able to find a good pic of Hymen, the Greek god of marriage who must be a male, on Flickr.

The notorious Operation Shady RAT, the lately uncovered multiple-year-long cyber attacks series discovered by McAfee, possibly comes from China.

See the below excerpt from Wikipedia as of August 9, 2011:

The report suggests that the targeting of various athletic oversight organizations around the time of the 2008 Summer Olympics "potentially pointed a finger at a state actor behind the intrusions". That state actor is widely assumed to be the People's Republic of China. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Shady_RAT

In China, it seems that loneliness is squeaking in many young people's life.

How important is the liquidity of financial markets?

Furthermore, how important is the liquidity provided by financial traders?

The scientific approaches are unimpeachable. Everyone should be immersed in them for a while in their life. People get that mainly through their science and math courses in their education.

On the other hand, also invaluable is the way of thinking and feeling incarnated in arts and humanitarian subject matters.

It seems that China's economic ambitions bull ahead, with its political ambitions astray.

A nation's long-term prosperity and political advancement go hand in hand, I discovered.

Maybe the sheen of the solar panel industry will dim a bit in the short term due to overcapacity.

Wire transfer is also called wire payment.

Pic - Neptune (Poseidon)

Neptune (sort of analogous to Poseidon in Greek mythology) is a Roman god of water and the sea.

(Photo by G.dallorto / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DSC00363_-_Mosaico_delle_stagioni_(epoca_romana)_-_Foto_G._Dall%27Orto.jpg / CC)

As the labor force in China is attempting to become more plastic, are we gonna see over there the increase of influences from Taiwan as well as the decrease of influences from Hong Kong?

在我小時候，人們的麻煩是沒有信息，需要的是信息。現在，人們的麻煩是信息太多太多，需要的是 情報 和 比普通信息更有價值的重要信息。

Pigs squeal when they are in fear. Pigs are smart animals.

Driven by desire

The electric fan extorts artificial breezes from the summer air
The baby is gibber-jabbering and speaking "eye" and "hair"
You say life is too hard and most of times unfair
and why the biting flying mosquitoes always dare

Even the proverbial hand pointing to the moon is hard to see sometimes.

Against the backdrop of the lack of modern science, the ancient Roman people associated the sun with a god named "Phoebus" (a.k.a. "Apollo" in Greek mythology).

Well, science is a newly found layer of human beings' cognition of the universe, from the human society development perspective.

In addition, it's said that Phoebus drives around in his chariot. Well, why doesn't he fly about instead, like other gods? Because the sun is too heavy for a god to carry around?

Far things stand as beacons and metrics. Blended together with pragmatism, they also make the road underneath.

In many stores in Montreal, there are little packs of tamarind balls brand-named as "Chappie's Treats". The main customers of that product are women and girls, I suppose.

A quite smart brand name it is.

How many years had it taken for the Magna Carta, of the Great Britain, to develop?

教育，分成 学校教育 和 自我教育。对现代人来说，两者你中有我，我中有你。

Are there metrics for predictability / certainty?

Posies of enlightenment normally only come when your mind actively seeks them.

A lot of cash. A lot of liquid assets.

People demand. People diss. People ditch.

I don't really know why some penmen among Chinese immigrants write slightly poetic articles over the poor and run-down Verdun area in Montreal.

Intriguing is the development of Morality Plays, following that of Mystery Plays, in the Middle Ages' Europe. I'm not sure how the relationships between them and Shakespearean dramas are.

"Having grown out of the religiously based mystery plays of the Middle Ages, they (Morality Plays) represented a shift towards a more secular base for European theatre."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality_play

(By David Blackwell / http://www.flickr.com/photos/mobilestreetlife/4954319481/ /CC)

You know that man. You know he puts on a pious face. There are more people who know that than who don't.

(Continuum & spectrum) vs. (black and white)

"Good" and "bad" ... stand at opposite ends of a continuum instead of describing the two halves of a line
--Wayne Shumaker
--Excerpted from the item "continuum" in the Merriam-Webster 11th Collegiate Dictionary

RIM failed to escape its own echo chamber and missed the boat.

"May I have your name please?" J said to the assistant.

Well, the dilapidated state of Montreal's transportation infrastructure will cause tax hikes eventually, I suppose.

When a sovereignty government commits activities which would be capital crimes if they were done by civilians, how legitimate can the government be?

The brute fact is that a man needs money to survive. Anyone who ignores that fact, which rules their biz partners, is doomed to fail.

"Men turn, and see the stars"

The Odyssey's epigram, which was written by A. Lang, is so sublime.

Excerpt:

MEN TURN, AND SEE THE STARS, AND FEEL THE FREE        10
    SHRILL WIND BEYOND THE CLOSE OF HEAVY FLOWERS     AND THROUGH THE MUSIC OF THE LANGUID HOURS, THEY HEAR LIKE OCEAN ON A WESTERN BEACH   THE SURGE AND THUNDER OF THE ODYSSEY.

When two or more people collaborate, some efforts will go down the drain, why? Think about that.

Will the epilogue of the current economic recession spell the shrinking of the pattern of consumption on credit?

Americans and Canadians like to cram pizzas. Well, it's not my cup of tea, yet(?).

Our infant daughter likes to cuddle her teddy bear, naturally.

Berlin has been called "a chameleon city" by some people due to the importance of its international culture.

Are most free-range chickens free-range capons?

Only years and years of smart labor in an industry can thrash out wisdom and competitive edges.

How well known are the whiskeys of Canadian provenance?

The finiteness of the number of steps is the key requirement of recursion.

Actually, finiteness must be crucial in the theory of computability.