Category Archives: Books

Chrono Trigger

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Setting Out! The Dreamy Millennial Festival
The Queen who Returned
The Vanished Princess
I’m Home!
Kingdom Trial
Across the Ruins……
Factory Ruins in the Land of Mystery
The Farthest Reaches of Time
People of the Demon Village
Appeared: The Legendary Hero
Tarta and Frog
Red Stone, Rare Stone
Footprints! Track!!
Fight! Grandleon
Decisive Battle! Magus Castle!!
Before You Realize It, Primeval
Law of the Earth
Kingdom of Magic: Zeal
Release the Seal, Call Forth a Storm
The Philosopher on Grief Mountain
That Which Awaits in the Sky
The Call of Lavos
The Ancient Era’s New King
The Egg of Time
To the Fateful Time……
At the End of the Planet’s Dream
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– Chrono Compendium
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2010.01.03 Sunday ACHK

Looper, 2

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二次元時間 2.3 | Dimension 1.3.3 | Two dimensional time 2.3 | 孖生宇宙 2.3

這段改編自 2010 年 4 月 3 日的對話。

所以，我剛才視「多重宇宙標籤」為「第二個時間」次元，是建基於「平行宇宙機」的假設。那個科幻故事的主角，發明了「平行宇宙機」，令到自己可以，由原本的宇宙（甲），走到另一個宇宙（乙）行事。那樣，「宇宙甲」的歷史，就可以透過主角，影響到「宇宙乙」的演化，反之亦然。

其中一個有「二次元時間」的科幻小說是，電影《時凶獵殺》（Looper）。故事中只有「時光機」，而沒有「平行宇宙機」，所以，不同「時間線」之間的演化，只能是單向。意思是，「宇宙一」（時間線一）會影響「宇宙二」；「宇宙二」會影響「宇宙三」；如此類推。但是，「宇宙二」不會影響「宇宙一」。

單向的「平行宇宙」演化，比較接近平時意思下的「時間次元」，因為「時間次元」，應該是單向的 —— 由「過去」到「將來」，而不會由「將來」到「過去」。在這個例子中，「宇宙一」就是「宇宙二」的「過去」。而「宇宙三」，就是「宇宙二」的「將來」。

「平行宇宙」中的每一個，內部都會有自己事件演化的「因果鏈」，簡稱「歷史」。所以，每一個宇宙，即為一條「時間線」。那就是「第一個時間次元」。而「平行宇宙」間的演化，即為「第二個時間次元」：

「宇宙一」 –> （影響）「宇宙二」–> （影響）「宇宙三」–> … …

— Me@2013.01.15

2013.01.15 Tuesday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK

Information lost, 3.3

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Unitarity 3

The laws of Quantum Mechanics are very subtle — so subtle that they allow randomness to coexist with both energy conservation and information conservation.

— The Black Hole War, p.89

— Leonard Susskind

2013.01.06 Sunday ACHK

SICM, 3.2

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這段改編自 2010 年 4 月 3 日的對話。

《SICM》（Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics）中的編程語言，除了 Scheme 的本體外，還會用到作者特製的力學程式庫 Scmutils。而這個程式庫（library）卻只有 Linux 的版本，不能安裝在 Windows 之中。那導致我要特意在我的 Windows 中，先裝一個 virtual machine（虛擬機器），從而在那個虛擬機器之上，再安裝一個 Linux 作業系統。

閱讀《SICM》，除了間接令我，發現「時間」的定義外，還令我第一次接觸「virtual machine」這個概念。兩者各自都是，我個人智力發展的一個里程碑。

— Me@2012.12.25

2012.12.25 Tuesday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK

尋找時間的定義

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SICM, 3 | SICP, 2

這段改編自 2010 年 4 月 3 日的對話。

當年，我初看《SICM》（Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics）時，我不太懂做那些練習題目，因為那時，我是只是初學，而尚未能掌握，內裡的編程語言 Scheme programming language。

為了熟習 Scheme，我先行閱讀了《SICM》的姊妹作，《SICP》（Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs）的頭幾課。

《SICP》跟《SICM》，同樣是超級名著。但是它不易理解。幸好，它官方網站提供了，一些 1986 年的講課錄影。當年（2006），尚未流行使用 YouTube，所以我要花很多時間，下載那些錄影。我還記得，每節課的錄影檔案，有 600MB 那麼大。

雖然那麼費神，但卻換來意外的收穫。《SICP》令我瞭解「時間」的定義。

This image is taken from 《SICP》 and 《SICP》 itself is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

最令我意想不到的是，那竟然是來自一本電腦書，而不是物理書。

— Me@2012.12.23

2012.12.23 Sunday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK

Dear Esther

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To get a feeling of dying, play the video game Dear Esther till the end.

— Me@2012.12.16

When you finish a video game, you go back to the real world;

when your real world is over, you go back to your realer world.

— Me@2012.12.21

There is another theory, that in a car crash, Esther was put in a coma, and the voice is her husband talking to her, in hopes that she can hear him. She wanders along beaches and through caves that are filled with sometimes strange things, things that are bits and fragments of what she is hearing and what her mind is putting together. At the end when Esther jumps, it is possible her heart rate increased, showing up on the hospital monitor, which would explain the voice at the end saying “Come back,” and the darkness at the end would probably be her dying in the coma.

— Wikipedia on Dear Esther

— 21:01, 29 May 2012

2012.12.22 Saturday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK 

SICM

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這段改編自 2010 年 4 月 3 日的對話。

（安：我怎樣把 mechanics（力學）學得好一點？）

哪一門力學？經典力學，還是量子力學？

（安：經典力學。）

你想應用在哪些地方？

（安：暫時純粹為了求知和娛樂。）

那我介紹一本名著給你。它叫做《SICM》（Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics）。它免費發布於 MIT（麻省理工學院）的網站。

這本書的主要好處是，它會要求你，透過編寫簡短的電腦程式，來解決力學問題。反過來說，你亦可以透過解決力學問題，來練習 programming（電腦編程）。

— Me@2012.12.15

2012.12.15 Saturday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK

Move on

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Yes, this city needs Bruce Wayne. Your resources, your knowledge… not your body. Not your life. That time has passed.

Remember when you left Gotham? Before all this, before Batman? You were gone seven years. Seven years I waited, hoping that you wouldn’t come back. Every year, I took a holiday. I went to Florence, there’s this cafe, on the banks of the Arno. Every fine evening, I’d sit there and order a Fernet Branca. I had this fantasy, that I would look across the tables and I’d see you there, with a wife and maybe a couple of kids. You wouldn’t say anything to me, nor me to you. But we’d both know that you’d made it, that you were happy. I never wanted you to come back to Gotham. I always knew there was nothing here for you, except pain and tragedy. And I wanted something more for you than that. I still do.

Alfred Pennyworth: I’ll get this to Mr. Fox, but no more. I’ve sewn you up, I’ve set your bones, but I won’t bury you. I’ve buried enough members of the Wayne family.

Bruce Wayne: You’ll leave me?

Alfred Pennyworth: You see only one end to your journey. Leaving is all I have to make you understand, you’re not Batman anymore. You have to find another way. You used to talk about finishing a life beyond that awful cape.

— The Dark Knight Rises

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2012.12.08 Saturday ACHK

Hero 4

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Seen by itself the David’s body might be some unusually taut and vivid work of antiquity; it is only when we come to the head that we are aware of a spiritual force that the ancient world never knew. I suppose that this quality, which I may call heroic, is not a part of most people’s idea of civilisation. It involves a contempt for convenience and a sacrifice of all those pleasures that contribute to what we call civilised life. It is the enemy of happiness. And yet we recognise that to despise material obstacles, and even to defy the blind forces of fate, is man’s supreme achievement; and since, in the end, civilisation depends on man’s extending his powers of mind and spirit to the utmost, we must reckon the emergence of Michelangelo as one of the great events in the history of western man.

— Ch. 5: The Hero as Artist

— Civilisation (1969)

— Kenneth Clark

2012.11.21 Wednesday ACHK

Memory

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I have collected in this book memories extending over fifty years.

I am well aware that memory is unreliable.

It not only selects and rearranges that facts of our lives, but also embroiders and invents.

I have checked my version of facts wherever possible against other people’s memories and against written documents.

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– Freeman Dyson’s Disturbing the Universe

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2009.09.05 Saturday ACHK

Looper

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Looper is a 2012 American science fiction action film written and directed by Rian Johnson. The film stars Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Emily Blunt.

— Wikipedia on Looper (film)

If everyone just looks out for themselves, you just get this perpetual loop of everybody pointing fingers, and everybody blaming each other, and everybody killing each other. And it takes an act of selflessness to maybe break that.

— Rian Johnson

— The Insane Things Joseph Gordon-Levitt Did to Become Bruce Willis in Looper

— Charlie Jane Anders   

— io9

2012.10.01 Monday ACHK

Information lost, 4

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Losing information is the same as generating entropy. And generating entropy means generating heat. The virtual black holes that Stephen had so blithely postulated would create heat in empty space.

— The Black Hole War, p.23

— Leonard Susskind

2012.09.23 Sunday ACHK

香港科技, 2

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這段改編自 2010 年 3 月 27 日的對話。

美國 Silicon Valley（矽谷）的 intellectual power（才智實力），其實是建基於 科學、科技 和 科幻 的文化。而這類文化，是累積多年而得來的，而不是只靠大量金錢，在短短幾年間，就可以得到。

James C. Collins 在他的《Good to Great》中，用了 flywheel（飛輪）作比喻。香港見到矽谷的飛輪轉得很快，於是買了一個飛輪回來，企圖聘請很多「大力士」把它轉動至高速。殊不知，即使有很多「大力士」，飛輪都是極之難轉，加速得奇慢。別人的飛輪可以轉得那樣快，是因為別人的「大力士」，已為飛輪加速了幾十年。

— Me@2012.09.08

The Flywheel: The additive effect of many small initiatives; they act on each other like compound interest.

— Wikipedia on Good to Great

2012.09.08 Saturday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK

版權地獄

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這段改編自 2010 年 3 月 27 日的對話。

作家 John T. Reed 出過一本書，叫做《How To Write, Publish, and Sell Your Own How-To Book》（如何靠編寫和出版工具書為生）。書中的其中一個要點是，要出版書籍的話，就應該自己出版，而不應透過出版社。靠出版社出書的最大問題是，你心血結晶作品的版權，將會屬於出版社。

John T. Reed 說，他有一個朋友（甲），寫了一本工具書《甲書》，透過出版社（乙）出版。後來甲想為《甲書》更新，編寫第二版（《甲書二》）。不幸，因為甲和出版社意見不合，出版社不肯出版《甲書二》。於是，甲想找另一間出版社，又或者自資出版。

但是，因為《甲書》版權歸乙所有，甲沒有權力出版《甲書二》。甲唯有放棄修訂和更新《甲書》的大計。結果，《甲書》既會絕版，因為它的內容會過時；又會絕後，因為它不會有新版。

（安：香港都有類似的事件。早前「博益出版」結業，初時沒有把書籍版權，歸還給作者們，導致那些書籍，幾乎從此絕版絕後，在這個宇宙中，永恆地消失。幸好事件最終圓滿解決。）

— Me@2012.09.02

2012.09.02 Sunday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK

A History of Western Philosophy

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During the 1940s and 1950s, Russell participated in many broadcasts over the BBC on various topical and philosophical subjects. By this time in his life, Russell was world famous outside of academic circles, frequently the subject or author of magazine and newspaper articles, and was called upon to offer up opinions on a wide variety of subjects, even mundane ones. En route to one of his lectures in Trondheim, Russell survived a catastrophic plane crash in October 1948. A History of Western Philosophy (1945) became a best-seller, and provided Russell with a steady income for the remainder of his life. Along with his friend Albert Einstein, Russell had reached superstar status as an intellectual. In 1949, Russell was awarded the Order of Merit, and the following year he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

— Wikipedia on Bertrand Russell

2012.08.21 Tuesday ACHK