wanderer

Human-made Global warming is a theory that suggests human beings, in the industrialization process, generate too much carbon dioxide or CO2, along with methane from chemical industry and livestock. These CO2 and methane molecules are transparent to the visible light from the sun, but absorptive and reflective to infrared radiation. The earth surface emits infrared radiation. More CO2 in the air means less heat out of earth surface will radiate into the space, hence causes the average global temperature on the rise. Experimental data shows that CO2 content has increased drastically during the past two decades. Water vapor is also highly infrared reflective.

The consequence of global warming is gravy. Iceberg on both poles will melt, thus increase the sea level. coastal cities like Miami, Shanghai will be in water, so is the whole country Maldive. Indirect derivative includes iffy climate variation, more hurricane, typhoon, although no one can assertively assure that. Human-made global warming is a conclusion drawn by a group called IPCC (Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change). They urge nations to refrain from more CO2, dubbed green house gas, emission to avoid the looming disaster.

The controversy, however, lies in that average global temperature rise is such a hugely generalized lone factor that is determined by millions of other ones. Solar black dot activities, volcano eruption, for example, could alter the temperature variation, too. People argue how much CO2 content plays a role beyond the scientific scope. Now the question is human behavior might cause global warming, or might not. Rather than a deterministic disaster, a conservative solution is to reduce the human behavior that increase the CO2 content in the air.

But things are not as simple.  Reducing CO2 emission means higher price for energy generation. Politics kicks in. The policy making affect many industries and relationships between countries. Scientists are not  in truce yet. They discuss, debate and attack in colloquia, conference and media interview (Scientists are proud and sensitive, by the way), In some cases it goes to point fingers and name names. Soon the sentiment is contaminated into general public. Political figures and media join in without much insight, or with their own interest. Hence campaigns are waged from two camps. Things get funny when 'go green' becomes life-style fashion. Bike to work in fine days, unplug the refrigerator, or put a slab of solar cells on the roof become the loftiest endeavor for some people, and some extreme individuals became opinionated, discriminated and loathing to others who don't act like them. The truth is, human conscience can not direct global cooling. Wise policy and technology advances probably can.

Green Dam is scheduled to be placed in every newly purchased computer in China. The purpose is to protect the youth from pornography and purify the socialism ideological content. It will never work. Porn will go underground, malicious content will contract faster like flu with slight variation. Ever there is a technique that is used to contain or shield, then there will be a sharper technique to drill and thrust.

US air force now ordered  more no-man strike airplanes, or drone, than the usual fighters. The pilots stay in a air base bungalow in Nevada desert and use the monitor to control the drones, which are five thousands miles away in the sky above Afghanistan or Iraq, and conduct the killings. The latest toll, they killed 56 people who were in a funeral for the people who were innocently killed at previous drone strike.

Probability can never be truly understood. Seth Lloyd, MIT quantum computation professor wrote a book to claim the universe is an advanced quantum computer, playing the qubit addition and other operation to let world go like it is. Too advanced to comprehend or too abstruse to make any sense?

Neo gadget smart phone series, iphone 3G S, Palm pre and Blackberry storm. All are toys with a price tag of over two thousand dollars after 2-year contract. From the first wireless call in 1973, to the booming market in the 1990s, to the ubiquitious invading with so many whistles and bells nowadays, wireless conversation has evolved from convenient luxury into indispensible necessaity. What next?

Twitter seems all the rage, thanks in part to Iran election and the ensuing protests. Another channel of staying connected. (In case you are not so sure, Twitter is a thing that let you send short message, 140 words or less, via web or cell phone to the website, so the people knowing your twitter account know what is happening to you on an hourly update. ) How far does this go? Let me mock a tweating session, "too much cream in coffee, rushed to the bathroom. sent via cell at 9:25am." "Cloudy, hmmm, should I run or not. sent via cell at 4:30pm." "That guy's on the phone with his assuming tone again, driving me nuts! sent via web at 8:10pm." Well, wish massive soberness is stronger than the made-up here. Junkish might be part of dynamical information system, like gene.

Seen from a large picture, it is pretty amazing that so many people around the world are crazy about soccer. Even advertised as a beautiful game, the game itself is far from perfect. Soccer doesn't often have the thrilling ending like a NBA game that finishes in last minute or last second, It is really hard to turn around if one team is trailing behind; Soccer is continuous, but not as breathless as hockey, many out-of-bound, foul stops interrupt the game; Soccer is not as powerful, physical and speedy as American football. On strategical level, a coach's involvement is far less important than a talent player's individual flair to determine the game result; Soccer is not impulsive and explosive as baseball, the soccer jersey doesn't look as cool as a baseball uniform and cap; Soccer is not as manly as Aussie-style football; For its own sake,  controversial  reference calls, due to human error or corrupt mind, have the potential of ruining the game for good. But why so many people love soccer?

The reason might lie behind the fact that soccer is the only large field continuous game that requires not only teamwork but also personal talent.  Large field means more players on the field, hence more spectators on the stand. Basketball and ice hockey can't have that scale. Continuous makes it more like a war, players are mostly left to deal with the situation change in every second, no one has the luxury to carefully reorganize the attack or defense, hence time-out and try-it-again sounds like a joke in a real game sense (sorry, American football). Best of all, Soccer is a game that takes 11 players to win and lose. It is of great fun to be a memeber in a team. But there is still a lot of room for individual talent, being that superstar-ish or iconoclast. Top soccer players are combine of speed, agileness, strength and brain, they are not overshadowed by any other sport stars. They carry the game.

There are always die-hard fans who love a sport, these fans spread the fever to those neutral people, have them be influenced, like a fashion. When mob forms, there's an avalanche-like effect. Plus the tradition that soccer has been played in Europe, Soccer is no wonder the world sport.  252 million people were watching 2006 World Cup live, no other single sport event could even get closer to that figure (Super Bowl: 97m, NBA final, 33m--what, 7 games?-- let's not mention anything else). Life is a bane for many people. People associate their own emotion with other's stories. Hence there is movie, TV series. But sport is the live story that express the whole spectrum of emotion, joy, expectation, disappointment, anger and even hatred, you name it.

Myanmar is a militia controlled, ill-governed country. The economy is sagging down to the bottom on top of devastating cyclone disaster last year. The officials decided to start a soccer league in order to boost the spirit and straighten up the image of the country early this month. Guess what, it worked in some sense. Fans attended the game with great enthusiasm, the activities on the stand were a far cry from the murky mood of otherwise poverty-trodden country. In China, Soccer is the top sport, even under the diverging influence of iconic NBA star, Shanghai native Yao Ming. Unfortunately, Chinese national soccer team chronically played terrible games, it left Chinese fans more bitter than anything else. The poor achievement, however, doesn't dampen the zest of soccer fans. They find their team in global perspective. A TV news host brags his rooting interest for Argentina, while a celebrity actress shows her love to Azzurri, nickname of Italian team. There seems no patriotism concern, simply because Chinese soccer hasn't been relevant. See, soccer also carries irony.

Does misery love company! Chinese soccer fans' company are American soccer players. American soccer, to the best analogy (or the worst), is like an adopted son in a feudal family with 12 spoiled offspring. Nobody cares, no one loves them. Self-centerism is notorious in American sports. Soccer never finds the niche in the US soil. In the national league, Major League Soccer or MLS, majority of players earn less than 200 thousand dollars a year, compared with the lowest required salary, 380-420 thousands, for baseball or basketball players. The US national team played Okay on the international stage but the impact is lackadaisical. 'The US has a soccer team?' 'Soccer isn't sport, neither is curling.' 'No one in America cares. It's soccer, Keep it in Europe.'. 'Why don't they use hands play a sport. what's wrong with those guys?'---These are the comments posted on Today's popular sports website, foxsports.com, after the US team had staged the biggest upset in their history, defeated world No. 1 ranking Spain 2-0 in the 2009 Confederation Cup. How big is the success? First, they are never a favorite in any tournament. Secondly, the beginning of this one is worse. First game they lost to Italy 1-3, what hurt more is a guy named Rossi in Italian team was born in New Jersey, but he ditched the US and chose to play for his parents' home country Italy and scored twice! The second game for them wasn't any better, they lost to Brazil 0-3. The third one would determine if they could advanced into semi-final, the stakes are they had to beat African Champion Egypt at least 3-0, and powerhouse Italy lost to Brazil 0-3. Nearly an astronomical odds. It looks more like another rather-forget-soon journey for them. But miracle did happen sometimes, they did their best to beat Egypt 3-0, and Italy miserably lost 0-3. And today, the US team had an opportunity to prove that they had more than luck. The semi-final opponent is top ranked Spain with 33 games of non-loss streak. The nameless US team used some luck again, used a lot of mental power and physical endurance to fortify their defense and pulled off the victory. They won their first chance to play a final.

I'm not a fan of American soccer. I root for them because they were underdog. But they showed the fighting-a-good-fight mettle. They seemed to say by their playing: 'No matter how dominant you are, I'm not intimidated, I give my best.' Now soccer also represents an attitude.

Chinese soccer team missed many chances to exhibit their fighting aplomb, they lost respect in millions of fans thereafter.

There are two mechanism of thinking that works for human in making decision. One is logical, rational, analytical, the most common way. A few examples, 1) a consumer buys a laptop with a budget. She/he shops around, with priority specs in mind, and compare all the computer stores can offer, then decide; 2) a company hires a new hire. The hiring manager tries to get as much info as one can for the applicants, phone interview, on-site interview, possible test, meet people from different department, and then collect all the feedback and decide. (Supposedly all the business decision should fall into this category, but no, brilliant economists pointed out people don't act rational in investment, hence there's a dot com bubble, real estate bubble, etc.) 3) a researcher conducts experiments. She/he has a rough idea what the sample would respond under the laser beam, then controls the temperature, humidity, uniformity and so on and repeats the measurement again and again, then outputs the results and compares with the hypothesis. If it agrees, good, if it is not, comes up with new explanation till the two match well. (Once again, supposedly all scientific endeavor should fall into this category, but no, blunt scientist like me can show quite some research work is not in this trajectory. Besides being analytical, some people insert a step of packaging in the procedure. I can't get any meaningful signal for water clusters as proposed, but hey, I got some new radiation from the water vapor.)

The other mechanism of thinking is impulsive, transient, intuitive. It happens when emergency happens or unconscious self is working. Similarly a few example, 1) Stampede in a stadium, everyone on the stand is rushing into one exit that causes casualty; 2) One recoginizes an acquaintance's face after years of absence; 3) A soccer player decides where to shoot the penalty kick at a decisive moment. There are many more but let's skip them. Basically under stressed condition, human brain is functioning like a highly sophisticated computer cluster, it makes a decision with very limited input and within very short time constraint. More often than not, people rely on this non-analytical thinking to make decisions. Some are good, some are not so. Ever made a right guess of bad guy at very beginning from a fast-paced, plot-twistd movie, or experienced 'love at first sight'?

Now what less known is that these two mechanism don't really supplement. Being analytical thinking is why people go years of training to become skilled in some area, or work in a particular field for years and become well-rounded. When it comes to spontaneous response, experience, or skills, counts little. This is why many non-native students write perfect english but stutter in conversation, because talking requires interactive, spontaneous response, no time for them to arrange the words and structure the sentences nicely; This is also why a veteran driver is equally vulnerable in a car accident. In a blink of eyes, unconscious guides the drivers to do the similar dodge. To be able to excel in car chase and collision, one has to be trained like a special agent, because this is completely different skill.

Another even less know aspect is that the two mechanism might conflict with each other. Too much information, too long of an analyzing process incur inaction. Why starbucks keeps the beverage sizes to 3 on the list, even there is a real 'small' available? There is a marketing reason behind it? If a group of people want to find a resturant on a busy street, the best strategy is to decide what food to eat first within the group. Sneak from the window one resturant by another in order to get complete information and full consideration, mostly leads to a regretable choice. Don't believe me? Try that on your next trip. Simple task needs no complete spectrum of information. In this sense, more choices don't mean better decision. Mathematically, the best stoppage time is proved 1/e, or 3 out of 10. Say, if you want to buy a new laptop, out of 20 different models on the exhibition, you may selectively check 6 of them, then you have a good idea what to buy. Same principle applies to job search, find a wife/husband, pick up a watermelon, schedule an appointment among several different slots, doctor's, big boss's, or if you want to watch a whole new movie.

(This is to sum up a book I have read, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It is a smooth reading with a lot of fun examples. It is also an easy reading, in a sense that in the end you feel what the author has said was actually common sense, he doesn't really offer practical advice on how to separate the two mechanism, and how to train oneself for better 'blink, better thin-slicing, i.e., make better decision under strained condition. Rather than being a drone regurgitant, I gave my thoughts and my own examples.) 

"What does it mean when you Sichuan folks say, 'We will eat chan-chan for dinner'?" Ke asked me the other day. I smiled, 'Chan-chan is stir spoon. Eat chan-chan means There's only a stir spoon in the pot or wok, there's nothing to eat."

"But when do you use it?" Her curiosity went on.

"Usually this is used when someone's in a mood, or disappointed. Say, a kid is hungry and goes to ask Mom, 'Mom, what do we eat for dinner?'. But Mom might be busy with somthing else, or upset at the argument with Dad. She would reply, 'Eat Chan-Chan!'. Or, a bunch of guys decide to have a big meal after finishing some work. But the plan falls through, no one is happy, one may say that to show their disappointment."

Ke became more interested, "So you guys use a lot of tool terms in your dialect, huh? What about Cui-zi (pronounced as trea-tze )?"

"Wo, wo, wo! Where did you get that?"

"Some jokes from online forum." Then she repeated a joke how a journalist from the north is confused with a Sichuan local at the interview when the latter used Cui-zi here and there in his replies.

"Well, Cui-zi literally means hammer. But implicitly it could also mean man's penis. Only people on the street or in the farm use that word often. Watch out. And mostly only guys use it, Okay! Basically it is used as a negative. Like in your joke, I have had Cui-zi's Cui-zi, it means I have no hammer. Or it is simply a nullification, for example, This is a piece of Cui-zi art, it is to say, it is crap." I elaborated my careful and detailed explanation. Ke was amused and said, 'You guys are like born grassroots. A little vuglar but funny. I like that." I repled, 'Right, Sichuan people were born farmers,  except a few idiots who don't know how to sow, reap or cook."

A few days later, Ke told me she's suddenly craving for eggplant box. Yes, suddenly. She explained, "It's two pieces of eggplants sandwiched with seasoned ground pork, then fried or steamed...Nonono, it's not like the dish in Dim Sum place, it's Beijing style, it's my favorite dish since my childhood." She played a cute face at me. "I can do that for ya." I ventured. She looked very happy.

A more day later, when she needed to do some work in the office, I declared the lunch would be eggplant box. She asked, 'You sure you know how to do that?' I said, 'Sure. season the ground pork, then insert into the eggplant. Oh, I will steam, not fry, for healthy sake.'  But I know I don't know how to do it in her childhood style.

Fear not. Let imagination do the work. I split a plump and beautiful eggplant apart with the heading untouched, Craftily I carved out some pulp to make more room. Then I started to season the groud pork, salt, pepper. how about an egg? To make yolk uniform, it seems I need lightly fry the pork in the pan---This is a wrong turn---The ground pork doesn't cling but scatter. Well, let it be, I stuffed it into the eggplant.  Would the flavor of eggplant be an issue? I put some soybean sauce in, the piece of art became less prettier, but I worried about the taste. Some chili sauce? Drill some holes in the upper and lower part...Finally there's no return for her childhood dish now, but maybe she'd like my creative trial. I am always proud of my touch of taste tuning.

Ke came back, full expectation in her face. 'Ta-da!' I opened the lid, 'Maybe this is not the eggplant box you want, but try it......' Her eyes rolled up twice as wide as used to be. 'You are supposed to cut the eggplant into disks, then sandwished the raw meat burger...Well, I like your initiative...let me try how it tastes like,' She fetched a knift and a fork but hesitated where to start, 'Well, how about you have a try.' She handed me the tools. In the steam, I cut a piece of eggplant. Blank; Then pried in and dug out some pork and tried, nothing else but salty. Grossly salty. "I think my trial is a failure. It's a bad eggplant," I said to Ke, "but do you wanna try, anyway?"

Ke imitated my steps and put some stuff in her mouth, then spit and said, "This is Cui-zi eggplant box. We eat Chan-chan today."

A 10-year-old girl, Colby Curtin, is dying of cancer. Her last wish is to see the Movie UP, by Pixar. But she is too ill to go to theater. The movie producer Pixar, upon the story, flew an employee to Huntington Beach, CA, where Colby lived with her divorced mom. The employee brought Colby the animation movie DVD and stuffed animals in that movie, played her a private show and then left. Seven hours later, Colby died.  The story is spread and ignited outpouring sympathy from online readers, even on some nerdy forums where comments were usually abrasive and satirical, some macho IDs blankly conceded they were fighting the tears at the story. Pixar, in the meantime, refuses to comment. Nor does anyone know the employee's name. Not knowing further details, one post reads: Pixar has a slogan for their movies, 'For children at all ages.'  

College Entrance Exams, or Gao Kao, ended a few weeks ago in China. more than 10 millions Chinese high school students attended this annual exam for a chance to get enrolled in college, the average make-it odds is 3/5. It is the largest talent competition ritual in the world. Forget about American Idol (or German Idol, or Bulgarian Idol), forget about Britain's got Talent, Gao Kao literally determines millions of students' future and rake out all kind of geniuses, all Chinese real products are nearly coming out of the poll, the Gao Kao students are the class that work the hardest. Salute and learn from them, slothful adults.

A bus full of passengers suddenly went into flames in downtown Chengdu, China. Blog described the horrendous aftermath scene. Human bodies are like piles of ashes, a little touch, it went smashed on the floor. Why is it so bad? The bus is so-called all-close A/C medium size bus in sizzling summer, when emergency happens, there's no other exit but the driver's door. So it's common there's a hammer on the buses in Chengdu. This sounds more than ludicrous. Can Chinese authorities learn from what bus is operated in the US? Any bus has to have an exit door for emergency, which can open insider or from outside. This basic save-life install is not high-tech and doesn't cost dearly, why would the government compromise on this? There is hard lesson from the school building collapse during earthquake, already. The bloggers could have had blown this up as prominent as the attack case of Deng Jujiao (In case you are not aware of, Deng Yujiao is a 21-year-old waitress in a Karaoke Bar in China. She defied the special service (read, prostitution) request from the clients and gravely stabbed them. Her case was widely known in China's website. A month-long Internet support was the major factor that local authorities granted her freedom from guilty).

A popular saying during my college era, 'No bad of a boy, No love from a gal.' Bad boy image is fun to compare between a Chinese version and an American one. On the China's side, let me pick a poem from my favorite poet, Yu Jian, here is his early work, my woman is a silent woman (link, translation to my best effort).

My woman is a silent woman/ We walked across the mountain edge, scorched red by the Sun/ arrive at the bank of Nu River/ which is howling with pitch dark beaming torrent/ She bored the seed I planted in her on haystack that night/ a boy with tan black butts/ The shouting of Nu river let me feel like committing a crime/ feel like loving, feel like crying, feel like erecting like a tree branch/ Men aspire to show off, women want cuddling/ She let me do everything a man wanted to do by the river/ She let me shout to the bottom of my lung, crack up muscle facing the rock/ She let me hold her tight,  let my chest burn her into a snake/ She laid down on the bank, showing her legs/ buxom like trees yet soft/ She closed her eyes, not looking at my naked body/ What a beauty she is, prettier than God's woman/ Her two eyes are like two leaves/ leave of Eucalyptus in the spring/ My woman is a silent woman/ I can never read her heart from her body/ She looked at me, never walked away/ Never walk closer/ she bears the gray looking of a wolf/ My woman is a silent woman/ she is loyal to her man/ like the cooking smoke is to the sky/ She always opens and closes the door of my house and hers/ during the dawn and during the dusk/ She let me gulp the alcohol, munch the meat/ allow me to beat her, cuss her, she lowered her head/ Sometimes I crawled around her like a dog, licking her apron/  She's waiting for me in the lonely darkness/ overhearing my flirting with other women/ My woman is a silent woman/ I used to be a chief who governed a mob of buffaloes/ walking up the hill, stepping into the ravine I was the Mountain King/ she took a peek at me, said/ It's dark now/ then I followed her/ Since then I escaped from her tens of thousands of times/ and quietly sneaked back, sneaked back with loss of mind/ The pitch dark beaming torrent of Nu River flew off the mountain/ My woman is a silent woman

The chinese version of bad boy is very raw and rough. The image of the woman is even touchy. To find an American counterpart, a song written nearly at the same time as Mr. Yu wrote the poem fits the bill, "Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty. Here's the lyrics.

Shes a good girl, love her mama/ love jesus and america too/Shes a good girl, crazy bout elvis /Loves horses and her boyfriend too//Its a long day living in reseda/Theres a freeway runnin through the yard/And Im a bad boy cause I dont even miss her/Im a bad boy for breakin her heart///And Im free, free fallin/Yeah Im free, free fallin// All the vampires walkin through the valley/Move west down ventura boulevard/And all the bad boys are standing in the shadows/All the good girls are home with broken hearts//
And Im free, free fallin/Yeah Im free, free fallin/Free fallin, now Im free fallin, now im
Free fallin, now Im free fallin, now im//I wanna glide down over mulholland/I wanna write her name in the sky/Gonna free fall out into nothin/Gonna leave this world for a while/ And Im free, free fallin/Yeah Im free, free fallin

The American version is claimed to describe the social life to Southern California,  playboys use girls and dump them for self interest.  Well, sort of. Comparing with Mr. Yu's poetic rendition, the lyrics doesn't make much sense (love Jesus and America, a freeway goes though the yard?). Interesting enough, the song is sung beautiful, different artists cover it in their own album. One of them is live concert, three acoustic guitars decorate John Mayer's singing (link).

There's also a repentant part of bad boy. But never take a pop song's words literally, a bad boy never goes suicidal. John Mayer's performance gives Tom Petty's original one new flavor, a fascinating adoption. It is not clear, though, whether he got some inspiration from his on-and-off dating game with American sweetheart Jennifer Aliston when he recorded the song last year. 

They say a picture speaks volumes. It does for sensible eyes. What is less known is that behind every stunning picture published, there is tremendous effort. National Geographic Magazine might select mere eleven pictures out of forty thousand ones from an assignment, to say nothing of the photographers' tough trip into the hostile wild. News photographs usually have lifespan less than 24 hours, tons of tons of news photos ended up into documentary folders and not come into light again. Photographers, the photo creator with a weapon in hand, are like exciting writers, many of them have extra lives. Surprisingly and not surprisingly, some are poverty-struck, some are depression-haunted and ended life tragically (take Kevin Cater, for example). Usually the photographers don't refer to the wedding photographers from your nearby neighborhood street corner, using the magic of photoshop to morph a monster into a beauty. Photographers are artists, they create a specific image to excite some sensation that are aesthetic, awe-inspiring, or even mind-disturbing. Barely do the readers know how the pictures were taken other than the short captions describing the figures and events in the pictures. Now thanks to the Internet, more and more websites have the pictures recording the life, the people, the events around the globe, uploaded on the web, updating on regular basis. It is a great pleasure to have more channels to appreciate the arts of photographing. Below is the summary of some websites that publish big pictures. Lo and behold, get ready to be stunned, be taken away.

Big Picture  By newspaper Boston Globe's website. Updated weekly. The newspaper is now in financial crisis, there's some disagreement between the employees and the boss, New York Times Co., which threatens to close the newspaper. We definitely hope that not happen.

Lens   New York Time's photojournalism blog. publish daily.

Giga Big Picture's Netherlands version. Inspired by it, but list pictures as old as 2004, and one session shew old pictures of world war II. Nice nostalgic touch.

Photo Journal    Wall Street Journal's catch-up photo blog. Not bad at all.

The week in pictures   On MSNBC website. Maybe the longest existing photo site, even not as big as big picture. Renew weekly. 

In picture  BBC's picture news channel, update daily. The picture is not big, though.

There is a tendency to quantize every aspect in our lives. Apart from the mostly used numbers like salary, monthly pay, etc., people measure up things that are previously intangible. For example, a trivial nutritionist claims you need walk 59 minutes at speed of 3 mile per hour to burn the calorie of the donuts you just ate; Emotions can be measured as well, report says Denmark has the highest happiness index, of 8.0, in the world; Even in the highly verbal and vague political world,  a statement can be emphasized with numbers. CBC, Canada Broadcast Company, podcasted that Chinese government issued Human Right White Paper and made a political promise of human right improvement in China: till some time next year, this many people would have access to clean drinking water and food, that many people would be covered with basic medical insurance. The trend seems to be, digitize everything, so we can better comprehend and manipulate the world. But really?

Digitization is great for engineering and decision making. One of America's greatest power, in my point of view, is the principle of standardization and scalability, this is the building block for commercial expansion. Behind this, it is to quantize nearly everything. Take McDonald's. In nearly every store of over 40 thousands of McDonald's outlets, the customer gets nearly the same amount of beef, lettuce and tomato, cheese, two pieces of buns for a Big Mac, with slightly localized flavor. So does Starbucks for a cup of regular coffee, or a summer blouse in Ann Taylor store. American big corporates digitize everything into a manual that can be reproduced like a copy and executed precisely. Even soft product like a consulting solution is offered in this manner. Ask IBM for city planning, urban screening or monitoring. Or ask GE for a wind farm construction. They are superior.  In daily life, appraising a subject with numbers is only becoming fashionable and sometimes unnecessary. A baseball player (RBI, home run, batting average...), fine; A professor (h-factor), Einstein values 49, Hirsch 56, and Witten 120! Something not into consideration to say the least. In every single category, quantization doesn't apply at two extremes. We can't measure the greatness of the greatest with a number just as we can't evaluate the value of many newbies. Beyond that, numbers can be used to extent with fairly great accuracy.

This is fabulous, methodologically speaking. We can dissect things into digits and operate plan like a computer. On the other hand, we know there's a limit. People are not robot, people want room for creative working, smashing all the robot command-like instructions and numbers. Genius can't be numbered. One story sums this up nicely. A TV hostess laughs when she reads out a recipe for a course of delicious Sichuan dish, 'then add 2.5 grams of salt......oh, boy, that takes away all the fun of cooking,' She goes on and explains, 'Do I need to have a scale ready in my kitchen? Cooking is all about timing and feeling, a proportion table doesn't make a great chef...."a tad of salt" would suffice for instruction.' Yes, a tad of salt is enough for a non-standard item, the rest is taken care of by a mind with rebels.