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金童玉女的传说

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金童玉女的传说 说不清是什么时候,仿佛还在记事之前,小谋的生活里就有了冰然。 两家都住在小学的校园里,两家的父母都是这所学校的老师。冰然和小谋还在各自妈妈肚子里时,就被大人半开玩笑地“指腹为婚”了。当然这当不得真,但大家都知道这一对“金童玉女”的事,还常常打趣:“你们什么时候成亲呀?” 他们说“金童”将来必定是艺术家,“玉女”必定是文学家。两位妈妈听了都很高兴。 小谋是家中长女,加上从小聪明伶俐记忆力非凡,四岁便会背一百多首唐诗,导致父母对她的道德品质也要求特高,给她讲的第一个故事便是“孔融让梨”。此后但凡家里有了亲戚送来的苹果橘子什么的,一定要小谋来分,爸爸板着脸监督,倘若小谋把最大的给了奶奶,第二大的给了妹妹,爸爸的脸就会松弛下来;小谋当然是想把最大的留给自己,但是当她刚刚流露一点儿这种意思的时候,爸爸的脸便会黑得像要压下来的乌云,小谋就不敢了,另外,有时父母高兴买了玩具等等,只要妹妹喜欢的,小谋就只得让着她,如果不让着妹妹,就会挨训,“你是怎么做姐姐的?”这使小谋非常委屈,因为并不是她通过竞选或别的什么办法争到“姐姐”的地位的;并且眼见妹妹不用背唐诗不用做家务便得到更好的零食、玩具、饭菜……幼时的小谋便常常怀疑自己是不是爸爸妈妈捡来的孩子。小谋虽然对自己的处境不满,但每逢亲戚、宾客上门,无不夸赞小谋聪明、嘴甜、尊老爱幼,而妹妹花了一个星期只记住了一句唐诗“鹅 ,鹅,鹅”,令父母彻底放弃,而且妹妹只向带礼物上门的客人问好,便失去了一半儿的人缘,所以小谋以许多牺牲维持着“玉女”之誉。 作为“金童”的冰然是次男,他上面有个哥哥像小谋一样顶去了所有的期望,所以冰然过得比较自在,敢向他的妈妈索求许多非分的东西。冰然会吹口琴,会下象棋,会照着连环画画梁山好汉,他也跟着他爸爸学书法,算是琴棋书画样样皆通,而且还打的两手好球——乒乓球和篮球。这些才艺令“金童”之称名副其实。其实,冰然的爱好小谋都喜欢,也都会,可是每一样都比不过冰然。令小谋记忆深刻的是,有一次两人一起画画,画拿着荷锄的林黛玉,冰然的妈妈给冰然95分,小谋90分,冰然不依,说小谋的分数太高了,“你看,她画的手都没有搭到锄柄上,怎么扛得住花锄呢?”冰然的妈妈哄道:“所以嘛只给她90分呀,不是比你少了5分吗?” 再有一点令小谋印象深刻的就是,和冰然在一起玩时,总是冰然扮演解放军,小谋扮演白匪军;冰然扮演孙悟空,...

Man's Search for Meaning

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Austrian neurologist Victor Frankl stresses that we are not at the mercy of our environment or events, because we dictate how we allow them to shape us. In Man's Search for Meaning (1946), he explains that humans have two psychological strengths that allow us to bear painful and possibly devastating situations and to move forward; these are the capacity for decision, and freedom of attitude.  A colleague joined me for the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge this May. He worked for Deutsche Bank in 2001; he was on a business trip in São Paulo when the South Tower collapsed on top of the entire trading floor. I told him that I was not existent on 9/11.  "So were some of my coworkers that day. And that is why I am grateful to be speaking with you here, now."  Another executive, Mike Brady, shared in a remembrance session that he had sprinted from Merrill Lynch in financial district to midtown after the North Tower was struck. He had talked about his reconstruction efforts of the s...

Circumstances

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Decadence dripping from the corner of your clubmaster Hardly blending into a Sunset Boulevard summer These tribulations embraced me like kintsugi  like velvet ribbons, flowery gowns, lace chantilly  Powdery women and pompous men  Their voices were nectar and ambrosia: "Armageddon punishes the realists,  for hedonists died in euphoria"  The world churns on counter-clockwise Hector, Paris, Sisphyus, Oedipus:  Stuck in our blessed roles and circumstances  To save the dragon, I must slay the princess

Et al.

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To comprehend 2024 is to comprehend fleeting moments, and a romanticize them sufficiently.  The Chanin building stands in its auburn limestone glory at the heart of midtown. The low-hanging facades are visible crossing to Grand Central Station, rendering low marine lifeforms: fern-like organisms and tertiary animals crawling about. The Chanin building is the most beautiful when the daybreak radiance reflects into its neighbor, Socony-Mobil building, and all the 1930's warehouse windows have stopped quaking in the aftermath of the strong afternoon winds. These strong decade-long winds bring fortunes benevolent and malevolent.  I have felt the city's electrifying energy from the magnanimity of wistful silence. In California, it was a competition of who is the loudest--- garnering attention and acclamations. Banal tomfoolery bathed in Pacific saltwater deemed fitting. I embraced it. New Yorkers enjoy subtleties of intentional disguise. Suppressed emotions, lowered gazes, and hush...

Manhattan

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Impinging upon a full year in New York is a whimsical sentiment, I feel these foreign faces have imprinted a familiar shade on me.  Let me tell you, Reader, of a story when I was 11. Cindy, my only close acquaintance in elementary school in Toronto, had haughtily told her mom in English that Lisa hasn't ever read Nancy Drew nor Geronimo Stilton books. That, in comparison, she has finished both series and enjoyed them.  She knew that I couldn't understand English well enough to answer her articulately in English, much less to read those books. It was my 4th month in the North American continent.  Perhaps it was her effort to impress her mom, or a childish tease at an immigrant's poor English--- she succeeded. Her mom said that her Cindy is the smartest, and some children can't read yet. Cindy's mom wanted to see me hurt, so she said it loud and clear, in Chinese.   But I was the Head Girl in Beijing! My fragile ego felt tremors. (Interestingly, they never warn yo...

Mimicry

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"Mimicry is the purest form of appraisal, and replication is the utmost act of idolization" For a very long time I believed that by perfecting a set of moral codes or institutionalized doctrines, I would nimbly align to an superego self. The truth is, these doctrines and codes deem inherently oppressive, and are widely accepted because they are oppressive. By conforming, the mind dulls and dwells in the sweet confines of amorphous hierarchical structure. This structure is very much alike elitist organizations and associations. Much of the world's elitist associations are self-proclaimed, their importance inflated, are prone to pragmatism, and oft lack prudence. Be very careful if you find yourself in such a situation.  Much of the world's population behaves as an enactment, a result, an afterthought of the contemporary social turbulence. What I mean is that, for example, in making strides of great technological advancement to have information dispersal, the adverse ef...

Idiosyncracies

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Fanaticism likens an ensnarling Siren's call because this macrocosm feeds upon vehemence  only with my vision pristine and bindings firm can I separate crazed zealotry from evangelism "How do we yearn and strive, subversively--- if we can only convalesce from our circumstances?" no grand orations, momentous sermons, or blandishments sweet Could fatalism ever rival my promises due East Metropolitans in these hushed corridors cajoled the youth to be an anticipator  so that she won't miss the days  of exchanging idiosyncracies under a Camphor

Azure KT

Latency is a term used to describe the time it takes for data to travel. Regional low-latency network is a fiber connection between data centers in the region. We must choose a region closest to our users to minimize latency. Paired regions are usually within the same geographic area except for Brazil south, outage failover means if the primary region has an outage you can failover to the secondary region. Each region has a minimum of 3 zones. You need virtual machines in at least two of the data centers. Again, a region is a set of datacenters deployed within a latency-defined perimeter and connected through a dedicated regional low-latency network. The Azure Resource Manager (ARM) manages the portal, azure CLI, powershell, rest API, client SDK by handling the request.  Choose creating a virtual machine. A virtual machine doesn't have its own exclusive hardware. Pros: control, application, existing infrastructure. Scale sets are a group of identical, load balanced VMs. Multiple VM...

Fiat Lux!

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True scholars prefer the clandestine accommodations of secluded chateaux to the ostentatious finance and interlocking corporate consortium They indulge in ambrosia-glazed idols in a Bayreuth opera house And vials with oil of brazilwood, distilled Amazon dew, creme de Java  And I could fill the days with flame-kissed roses, powdered saltwater pearls, essence of lilac---  half-heartedly allude to commentaries that blend in with volumes of Penrose's crowds Revert disillusioned nebulous eyes mine into an exhilarating rhinestone gleam:  "to let the warm light in!"

A year, introspectively summarized

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               A year, introspectively summarized      A primal and gravitational feeling is the feeling of belonging--- though the whole sense of "purpose" is artificial, defined deliberately by people who want others to emulate them. Emulation stunts creativity, just as the proclivity to belong stunts agency. I am delighted by the platform that I am given to practice my agentic self, now and continuously onward.       There will be a time when t he basis of your understanding, you learn, was fabricated---even some of your strongest beliefs need reinterpretation, the very framework under which you operate proves inflexible and restrictive. Perhaps the best remediation strategy then is desensitization of the action-oriented part of your mind. You must compromise scaling for precision.         Considering the carbon footprint I've incurred upon my earth flying this year, I've discounted it...

DevOps put nicely

DevOps is a holistic approach to work, spanning the entire software delivery lifecycle, from product conception to delivery. It also encompasses all business functions involved in the software delivery process, from development through to finance, HR, leadership, security, and operations. This has led to the title evolving, with terms such as BizOps, CloudOps, DevSecOps, FinOps, ITOps, NetworkOps, NoOps, and others, growing increasingly common.   The fundamentals of DevOps are people, processes, and products. The flow down starts with requirements, design and code, integrate, test, and operate and maintain. Incorporated contiguously is the agile software development methodology. We can also refer to this methodology as extreme programming (XP), which introduces the practice of continuous integration. Continuous delivery aims to release bug fixes, new features by developing software that is deployable throughout its lifecycle.   Transparency underpins the success of the other c...

The Sonnets of Orpheus

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A close friend gifted me Rilke's "The Sonnets of Orpheus", and I am compelled to document these sagacious lines. You are what you read, after all.  Second elegy---  "Even his downfall was merely a pretext for achieving his final birth." Recently a series of happy happenstances led to a long-coveted outcome, and I may not have the appropriate judgments to decipher its future trajectory —  I certainly must regard it intently. Historians have difficulty demarcating one period of time from another, reaching a consensus only blearily. So how do we demarcate our microscopic and noise-infiltrated lives with tags like "pretexts" and "postscripts"? The answer is to change grandly and constantly, to initiate large changes faster than the rate of change life impels upon you. Make sweeping and not seeping changes, thus filtering out noise and quotidian coincidences that the mundane crowds experience.  Third elegy---  "This is what fate means: to be ...

AGI Safety Fundamentals: Governance Week 1

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 The AI governance landscape composes of series of standards and regulations that addresses catastrophic risks, AI-assisted bioterrorism, and AI-exacerbated conflict. Some example approaches to address AI risk are: model evaluation, hardware export controls, cautious coalition expansion, privacy-preserving verification mechanism treaties, lab governance, "CERN for AI".  I will be documenting my AI Safety Fundamentals: Governance course notes on a weekly basis. I will be posting on LessWrong also.  The AI Triad and What It Means for National Security Strategy [https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET-AI-Triad-Report.pdf] Modern AI's complexity is summarized as: Machine learning systems use computing power to execute algorithms that learn from data.  An example of Supervised Learning (SL)'s impact on national security is that US military's instatement of Project Maven (the creation of the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team). It applied SL to photos...

Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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A transcendentalist, Whitman abandoned the conventional themes of vehement appraisal of nations and warfare popular in the mid-19th century and instead envelopes his fervent adoration of the United States with naturalism doctrines. "Leaves of Grass" is an amalgamation of the poet's thirst for unrestricted discourse and his admiration of "beauty for beauty's sake"--- a praise for the bucolic!  "No myth, no legend, or romance, nor euphemism, nor rhyme" is the reflexive statement delivered by the ex-editor on his poetry. A literary reactionary like Whitman is averse to stock ornamentation--- the truest countercurrent innovator in the publishing world.  As I traversed through the Great Plains and seen the quotidian, billowing smoke of New England cottages, I am etching out a sketch of the great American landscape. This isn't to say that he doesn't talk about the dissolution and gestation of states at all, it is simply that in the larger Whitman...

DAO notes

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Democratizing Pharmacy  1. Seeking to increase the efficiency of alternative drugs to treat COVID, by primarily reducing inflammation. 2. Example of treatment of cystic fibrosis, which costs $300/dosage, can be reduced using blockchain to be applied to big pharma. This would require small investors to solve patient needs by outletting to DAOs to make specialized drugs through IPOs and secondary markets.  3. For 40B in Drug R&D, the pipeline follows scientists who make target gene discoveries drugs, the drugs are patentable but publications are not claimable. In cancer therapy treatment, there have been attempts at patenting the 7 versions of inhibiting the PD1 pathway.  ____________________________________________________________ Incentivizing climate action via Regenerative Cryptoeconomics  1. Cumulative global emission of gigatons of CO2 (GtCO2) per year, which is > 2 degrees more than precedent historical trends.  2. What if we can manage the Carbon Ma...

Ode to Psyche

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I had studied Keats' most famous odes. While the other ones are more well-known, I enjoyed "Ode to Psyche" the most. In his time, Walt Whitman and Lord Byron were the prime naturalist poets. This poem has the most natural element in it. To convey a distinct Keatsian style, Keats merged both mythology and imagination. As we know, Psyche is the Greek goddess who was immortalized by her symbol of love for Eros, the god of love. Through turbulent tasks and many of Aphrodite's trials, Psyche prevails. On the other hand, the psyche means the human mind and consciousness. Many have commented on how this poem reminds them of a dream-like state. This can be attributed to how Keats is "looking" at Psyche and Eros from a distance, therefore creating this illusion of being at once present and not present.  In this poem, Keats captures the ethereal state of innocence; however, Keats is listed amongst poets in the romantic era for the ode’s sensuality. A form of a sonnet ...

Literary Analysis: The Stranger

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  From the very first chapter, Meursault was extremely dismissive about his mother’s death and was quick to clear himself the blame from his boss. Directly, he comes into contact with the director of the elderly home. Meursault’s sentences are concise and spoken in a manner that is almost unconscious. His reaction to the present world is one that is muffled and suppressed. After talking with the caretaker, Meursault emerges from the mortuary. The caretaker had asked him if he was hungry, by which Meursault answered: “But I wasn’t hungry,” and “I drank the coffee.” These sentences are simple sentences with no hanging participles or phrases. Reading about his condition, readers are seeing a slide-show (fragmented) more than a scene (fluid motion). When the elderly women (Maman’s friends) greeted Meursault, Meursault had a great sense of drowsiness and pain. Meursault’s senses are concentrated on his miseries and agitations: “I didn’t feel drowsy anymore, but I was tired and my back w...

Literary Analysis: East of Eden

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  East of Eden "Now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good." Bibliographic Information: John Steinbeck’s East of Eden was published in September 1952, under of which title Steinbeck had received a Nobel prize in literature. Born in Salinas in 1902, John Steinbeck largely based off of the setting of East of Eden to his perception and experience in the valley. Later in his writing career, Steinbeck set out to write a tale that encompasses his beloved Salinas Valley with its primordial roots. The historical era of the publication had a large role in the chronological timeline in the story, which begin around the 1890s to the 1930s. The literary period or era of East of Eden can largely be credited to the late Victorian era that progresses into modernism, with signature works like W.B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas, and John Steinbeck himself. This literary period marks a significant self-conscious break with traditional modes and modernist objectives just before WW1, w...