2009年6月29日星期一

Thinking About Michael

Andrew Sullivan:

There are two things to say about him. He was a musical genius; and he was an abused child. By abuse, I do not mean sexual abuse; I mean he was used brutally and callously for money, and clearly imprisoned by a tyrannical father. He had no real childhood and spent much of his later life struggling to get one. He was spiritually and psychologically raped at a very early age - and never recovered. Watching him change his race, his age, and almost his gender, you saw a tortured soul seeking what the rest of us take for granted: a normal life.

But he had no compass to find one; no real friends to support and advise him; and money and fame imprisoned him in the delusions of narcissism and self-indulgence. Of course, he bears responsibility for his bizarre life. But the damage done to him by his own family and then by all those motivated more by money and power than by faith and love was irreparable in the end. He died a while ago. He remained for so long a walking human shell.

I loved his music. His young voice was almost a miracle, his poise in retrospect eery, his joy, tempered by pain, often unbearably uplifting. He made the greatest music video of all time; and he made some of the greatest records of all time. He was everything our culture worships; and yet he was obviously desperately unhappy, tortured, afraid and alone.
精彩视频: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-blEgMyJwU More here.

2009年6月23日星期二

埃塞俄比亚OMO人


摄影家Hans Silvester将其摄影师的眼光投向了人类起源的古老的非洲,他在非洲游走期间,拍摄了很多罕见而亲切的色彩艳丽的图像。




2009年6月9日星期二

猪油对你有益


谢天谢地,终于等到这一天了。嘻嘻。。。
据最新的报告,猪油其实不如人们说的那么不健康:more»

自我控制

网友小鱼儿对儿童自我控制问题似有兴趣,下面是科学写作人 Jonah Lehrer 在一篇访谈中有关自我控制的报告,很有趣:

Walter Mischel at Columbia University is probably best known for the marshmallow task. It's a very simple experiment he did at the Bing Nursery School at Stanford University between 1968 and 1972, where you bring a four-year-old into the experimental room, and he'd say, "Kid, you can have one marshmallow right now, or if you can wait for about 15 minutes while I run an errand, you can have a second marshmallow." And he offered the kids marshmallows or cookies, pretzel sticks, and what he found was that there's tremendous variation in terms of how long kids can wait; every kid wants the second marshmallow or the second cookie, but some kids will eat the marshmallows before the scientist leaves the room. Some kids will wait two minutes. The average waiting time is about two and a half minutes, and some kids can wait the full 15 minutes.The question is, what allowed some kids to wait? And it wasn't that these kids wanted the marshmallow any less or that these kids had more willpower. It's that these kids knew how to distract themselves. These are the kids who would cover their eyes, turn their back, sing songs from Sesame Street, pretend to fall asleep.

My favorite kid is a boy with neatly parted hair, and he chose the Oreo cookies, and you can watch him. He's just really struggling with it. It's an agonizing, agonizing wait, and he carefully surreptitiously looks around to make sure no one's watching him. There's a large one-way mirror right to his left that he conveniently ignores. He picks up the Oreo cookie, carefully unspools it, licks off the white cream filling, puts it back together, puts it on the table, and then he could wait 15 minutes, no problem. Mischel notes that the kids who can wait what they’re better at is the strategic allocation of attention. They know that my willpower's weak and if I'm thinking about this yummy, delicious marshmallow, I'm going to eat it. What I have to do is not think about it; I need to distract myself.

Then you do this longitudinal study, and you find that the kids who could wait at the age of four — and this is the most predictive test you can give a four-year-old, much more predictive than an IQ test — it predicts their behavior in school, how likely they'll do drugs, their body mass index. The SAT score of a kid who can wait is 210 points higher than the SAT score of a kid who can't wait. It's an incredibly predictive test. Here's this very simple experiment, this very simple protocol you give to four-year-olds, and it turns out to explain a lot about their behavior as teenagers, adolescents.

Mischel and his collaborators are now flying 55 of these kids out to Palo Alto — they're now in their 40s — to put them in brain scans, and to see the different brain areas that underlie this ability to exert willpower, but the larger lesson is that what we think about willpower is actually completely wrong.

People think about willpower as gritting your teeth, but willpower actually is profoundly weak; no one can really resist a marshmallow if you're thinking about how sweet the marshmallow is. What these people are better at is — and this is how the scientists describe it — is the ability to control their thoughts, to control the contents of working memory.Some people are much better at that, and that's a crucial life skill that allows you to — my favorite television show's on, but I need to study for the SAT, I need to do homework. How can I resist this temptation? It allows you to control your temper, to not lose your temper when someone calls you a name. It really is a very, very important life skill, and that's what Mischel was able to measure at the age of four.

I've been thinking a lot about that, and now Mischel 's trying to go back into the schools to see if he can teach this to kids. Once kids leave kindergarden, we stop thinking about them in terms of character, in terms of these personality traits, but it turns out these are crucial things, and schools shouldn't just be in the business of teaching algebra, of teaching literacy, teaching spelling.They have to be in the business of teaching kids how to think, teaching them these metacognitive rules. Teach kids how to structure their thoughts, how to do a better job of controlling their mind, and that's going to have a huge payoff in terms of academic skills later on. I've been thinking a lot about that. Mischel's just a magnificent and very meticulous scientist.

CHIMERAS OF EXPERIENCE [5.21.09]A Conversation with Jonah Lehrer
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lehrer09/lehrer09_index.html

2009年6月8日星期一

Meditation on Demand

From Scientific American:


In the fall of 2005, the Dalai Lama gave the inaugural Dialogues between Neuroscience and Society lecture at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, DC. There were over 30,000 neuroscientists registered for the meeting, and it seemed as if most of them attended the talk. The Dalai Lama’s address was designed to highlight the areas of convergence between neuroscience and Buddhist thought about the mind, and to many in the audience he clearly achieved his objective. There was some controversy over his being invited to deliver this lecture insofar as he is both a head of state and a religious leader, and for that reason he largely stuck to his prepared text. But he strayed from the text at least once, reminding the audience that not only was he a Buddhist monk but also an enthusiastic proponent of modern technology.

Elaborating, he shared a confidence with the audience, telling the audience of scientists that meditating was hard work for him (even though he meditates for 4 hours every morning), and that if neuroscientists were able to find a way to put electrodes in his brain and provide him with the same outcome as he gets from meditating, he would be an enthusiastic volunteer. It turns out that a recent set of experiments, from researchers at MIT and Stanford, moves us a step closer to making his wish a reality.

More here.

2009年6月7日星期日

无奈民意 - 同人于郊 

 最近发生了一连串的事件,杭州撞人,巴东烈女,每天上网看到这些消息心情极其恶劣。我一再告诫自己中国很复杂一定要用理性去思考问题,但是面对这些事情怎么保持理性?最近听说了一句很有感情的话,说奥斯威辛之后写诗是野蛮的。听说了这些事情之后还“理性”,也是野蛮的罢!   

今天我就非理性一把,不谈大局,不谈主流,就谈这些民意事件。从当初哈尔滨宝马撞人案到现在,所有这些民意事件存在一个一般规律:    
第一,引起广泛民愤的事件往往是“官民冲突”,或者说是权贵与普通百姓的冲突。这些事件之所以成为导火索,根本原因在于相当多的老百姓不信任政府,尤其是基层地方政府。很多人说美国也有腐败,但美国的腐败主要在高层,而中国的腐败更多的表现在直接跟老百姓打交道的基层。老江当年16大报告说“旗帜就是形象”,其实基层才是形象。这些民意事件说明,执政党的形象是不行的。    

第二,事件发生之初,一定是首先向有利于当事人中的权贵一方发展。这是基层官员集团的本能。把谁放到那样的位置上去,他也必然会做出同样的选择。反过来说没有这种本能的人也到不了那个位置。这是体制的悲哀。......

[全 部]
同人于郊 发表于 2009-05-31 16:02

2009年6月5日星期五

美丽的讣告 - 龙志为

前些时候在联合早报上看到一则美丽的讣告,竟被逝者的遗照深深地吸引住;看后击节三叹,太好了,这家人真懂得善待他们的亲人了!

那是一位98岁高龄的老太太,但这位前辈的遗照却是她青春少艾时艳光照人的彩色相片,影中人散发着一种优雅含愁的气质,不觉让人联想到上个世纪二三十年代中国五四文坛上的才女们。一则“讣告”带来了一种意想不到的审美愉悦

惊艳之余,我那些好事之友竟然SMS和电话纷至沓来,几乎要开个会讨论那讣告,探讨美丽女子的出身、环境、后人的教养和心情。其间似乎有一腔热情促使大家在朋辈间说来道去,连自己也不解为何突然变得那么八卦。其实真得向老前辈的家人说声对不起,我们不是有意冒犯,而是那“美丽的讣告”已在我们之间泛起了圈圈美的涟漪。

这位美丽的女子青年时写诗吗?她可曾轻拂河岸垂杨柳?可曾也让箫声响彻二十四桥那有着明月的凉夜?谈着,有人仿佛听见了30年代迢遥的曼妙歌声,看见了年轻飘逸的舞姿。有人肯定认为,原照片一定是黑白照像时代的作品,最最接近真人的原貌,色彩是另行加工的,于是大家又真诚赞叹影中人的美的真实!

一幅遗照造就了一个让人发挥美的想象的空间,在今日这充斥各种危机的污浊世道,不啻是一个意想不到的,能够让人缓缓神的路边绿色保留地。

一帧遗照同时也让人发现思路U转的极为不易,因为有人訾议遗照的处理,说是当事人哗众取宠,赞叹者闲极无聊;应当老人还给老人,年青还给年青。这说法让人突然觉着一种被边缘化的悲哀,难怪社会上近来不时听到抗议50岁就被称为老翁老妇,40岁求职已被列入高龄的呼声!
原来这阵子,我们都在借“美丽的讣告”决定者果敢的酒杯,浇自己胸中的块垒!

2009年6月1日星期一

Easy Solutions #1

From Batteries Feel Included:

So, you're in love with one of your friends, but she has a boyfriend and probably wouldn't have sex with you anyway.What you will need: 1 x knife, 1 x ring, access to a sunbed, the ability to grow a beard.

Step One: Place the ring on your wedding finger and avoid contact with your friend for a month.

Step Two: Stop shaving and use the sunbed to gain a tan.

Step Three: After a month when your beard is full and your tan is noticeable, remove the ring from your finger.

Step Four: Remove all your clothes and break into your friend's house.

Step Five: Use the knife to cut your body in various places. Avoid the face. If possible, focus on your back. The more blood the better.

Step Six: Enter your friend's bedroom and lie face down on the floor. Wait for her return.

Step Seven: When she enters the room pretend to be unconscious. Allow her to turn you over and try to wake you for a few seconds before you open your eyes. The injuries to your body will serve as a distraction to your nakedness. She will be more concerned about your wellbeing instead of fearing the naked man in her room.

Continue reading here.