這個世界有很多所謂的「大問題」，其實解決的方法可以很簡單。有時，甚至簡單到只有一步。但是，大部分地球人的腦部，偏偏接受不到一些太簡單容易的事情，硬要庸人自擾，建構很多複雜的大系統，去解決那些本來一步就能解決的問題。
例如，我認為瘦身公司的存在是必須的。但是我不明白，一個城市為何要有那麼多間的瘦身公司。要身材苗條，主要的方法很簡單：只要保持卡路里的吸收，少於卡路里的消耗便行。一方面，不要吃多餘的食物；另一方面，要做適量適當的運動。
又例如，我認為財務公司的存在是必須的。但是我不明白，一個城市為何要有那麼多間的財務公司。要財政健康，主要的方法很簡單：只要保持支出少於收入便行。一方面，不要買多餘的東西；另一方面，要增加收入的來源。
當然，簡單不代表容易。「簡不簡單」取決於步驟的多少。「容不容易」取決於每一步執行的難度。如果發覺事情簡單而不容易，就應該想辦法減輕每一步難度，而不是增加多餘的步驟，複雜化問題。
— Me@2011.12.12
2011.12.15 Thursday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
瘦身減肥之道，在於輸出多過輸入；
財政健康之道，在於輸入多過輸出。
— Me@2011.12.12
2011.12.12 Monday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
Peace
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If you want peace, prepare for war.
– Ancient Rome
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2009.09.03 Thursday ACHK
Process, not a state
Security is not a state, but a process.
不進則退
— Me@2010.12.03
2011.12.02 Friday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
You cannot maintain your health by just maintaining your health.
You have to maintain your health by improving your health.
— Me@2010.11.30
2011.11.29 Tuesday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
BBC Brain Story, 2
… and I’d go on to explain that much of what we take to be memory loss has other explanations.
For instance, as our values change with age, we often don’t care about certain things to the degree we used to, and we therefore don’t pay much attention to them anymore. The “memory problems” of the elderly are often simply due to the fact that they haven’t noted something that they find rather uninteresting.
— Ellen Langer
2011.11.25 Friday ACHK
Publish! 8
Usage is like oxygen for ideas. You can never fully anticipate how an audience is going to react to something you’ve created until it’s out there. That means every moment you’re working on something without it being in the public it’s actually dying, deprived of the oxygen of the real world.
— Matt Mullenweg
2011.11.13 Sunday ACHK
Mind Internet
Without Internet connection, a computer is severely limited, for internet is a computer’s way to transcend itself.
Similarly, without connection to other minds, a person is severely limited.
— Me 2011.11.09
2011.11.11 Friday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
Charlie Kaufman
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Do I have an original thought in my head? My bald head. Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn’t be falling out. Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I’m a walking cliche. I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There’s something wrong. A bump. The dentist called again. I’m way overdue. If I stop putting things off I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass. If my ass wasn’t fat I would be happier. I wouldn’t have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time. Like that’s fooling anyone. Fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more. Improve myself. What if I learned Russian or something, or took up an instrument. I could speak Chinese. I’d be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short. Stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that. Just be real. Confident. Isn’t that what women are attracted to? Men don’t have to be attractive. But that’s not true. Especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it’s my brain chemistry. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me. Bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But I’ll still be ugly though. Nothing’s going to change that.
— Adaptation.
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2009.06.24 Wednesday ACHK
Curiosity 2.2 | 原地踏步
（安：我十分欣賞 Paul Graham 的文章。他的其中一個講法是，工作經驗的所謂「多少」，其實並不重要。真正重要的是，那些工作經驗，為你的想法帶來多少改變、為你的思考帶來多大提昇。在看 Paul 的文章之前，我從未聽過，有人對「工作經驗」，有這類的見解。）
Stephen Covey 和 Paul Graham 對「工作經驗」這個詞語的用法不同。Paul Graham 的「工作經驗」，是指工作年資，亦即是時間的長短。而 Stephen Covey 的「工作經驗」，是指對工作經驗的個人體會，亦即是 Paul Graham 所講，想法的改變 和 思考的提昇。雖然他們用字有別，但這一點上，有相同的見解。
Stephen Covey 都講過，你工作了 29 年，並不代表你真的有 29 年的「工作經驗」。如果你在那 29 年裡，都以同一個心態，用同一個處事方式，在同一個崗位，做同一類工作的話，你實際上只有一年的工作經驗。你有的，就只是第一年的工作經驗。其餘 28 年的所謂「經驗」，只不過是將第一年的經驗不斷重複。
— Me@2011.10.17
Another popular explanation is that wisdom comes from experience while intelligence is innate. But people are not simply wise in proportion to how much experience they have. Other things must contribute to wisdom besides experience, and some may be innate: a reflective disposition, for example.
— Paul Graham
2011.10.17 Monday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
缺乏寫作靈感 2
[At a seminar, Charlie Kaufman has asked McKee for advice on his new screenplay in which ‘nothing much happens’.]
Robert McKee: Nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your mind? People are murdered every day. There’s genocide, war, corruption. Every day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every day, someone, somewhere makes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love, people lose it. For Christ’s sake, a child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman. If you can’t find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don’t know crap about life. And why are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie? I don’t have any use for it. I don’t have any bloody use for it.
Charlie Kaufman: Ok, thank you.
— Adaptation.
— Charlie Kaufman
2011.10.13 Thursday ACHK
讀書與睡眠 3.2.2
這段改編自 2010 年 3 月 6 日的對話。
要證明你的生活沒有意義，方法很簡單：
你喜歡「再睡」多過「起來」。
— 改編自叔本華
這類方法的重點是，只要透過建立適當的賞罰規則，幾乎什麼缺點也可以刪除，什麼優點都可以外加。例如，如果每次準時起床都會有一百萬獎金的話，我保證你天天也會準時起床。
宏觀一點看，早上不願起來的終極核心原因是，你的現實比你的夢境沉悶。只要你改變這個情況，令到每天的生活都十分精采，你就會有強大的做人意志，而不會再沉迷睡眠。
— Me@2011.10.05
2011.10.05 Wednesday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
這段改編自 2010 年 3 月 6 日的對話。
（安：但是，如何令到自己有足夠的意志力，早上定時起來呢？）
其中一個方法是，每天如果你可以準時起床的話，就獎勵自己半小時，做自己很想做的事情。那樣，你每天起床的動機，就會大很多。
中七高考前的一個月是假期。理論上，那個月是用來準備考試的。但是，凡是假期，我也起碼去到十一時才起床，浪費了早上的大部分時間。我當時想了一個辦法。每天，如果我可以六時準時起來的話，就獎勵自己玩電腦遊戲一小時。之後的半小時，我會用來吃早餐。就我現在的記憶所及，那個計劃百分百成功。在那一個月，每天我也可以準時在早上七時半開始溫習。
如果你十分喜歡閱讀的話，你可以把書本放在鬧鐘旁邊。每天關掉鬧鐘時，你都會望見你想閱讀的那一本書。那樣，你就可以逐漸戒除「回頭再睡」的自然反應。
其實，只要忍耐到一分鐘不回頭再睡，你就可以完全清醒起來。
— Me@2011.10.01
2011.10.02 Sunday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
If your life gets better and better, you will not miss the past.
時常緬懷過去，代表你的生活情況越來越差。
— Me@2011.09.25
2011.09.28 Wednesday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
年年齡 9
2004 年，我參加碩士畢業禮時，
大學副校長會同畢業生逐一握手和合照留念。
我和他握了手，我就立刻「擺 pose」（擺姿勢／作態）。當我剛剛「擺 pose」，開始對著攝影機鏡頭微笑之際，
攝影師就說：「下一位。」
人生就是那樣：當你企圖「擺 pose」時，就已經是「下一位」。
— Me@2007
2011.09.26 Monday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
即使在假日，如果有四個小時可以集中到精神，去做需要高度思考的工作，就已經十分難得。
就算是專業的數學家，有些每天最多只可以用四個小時去研究數學。[1] 其餘時間則用來處理其他事務性質工作，例如教學。
— Me@2011.09.24
[1] I Want to Be a Mathematician, by Paul R. Halmos
2011.09.24 Saturday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
Have you ever stood and stared at it, marveled at its beauty, its genius? Billions of people just living out their lives, oblivious. Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered, where everyone would be happy? It was a disaster. No one would accept the program, entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world, but I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization. I say your civilization, because as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization, which is of course what this is all about. Evolution, Morpheus, evolution. Like the dinosaur. Look out that window. You had your time. The future is our world, Morpheus. The future is our time.
— Agent Smith
— The Matrix
2011.09.24 Saturday ACHK
上班 8 | 自然定律 1.2
這段改編自 2010 年 3 月 6 日的對話。
（安：你講過，Stephen Covey 的講法，通常也不會不切實際。你所舉的例子是，有一個讀者問他：「我想開一間咖啡館，哪我好不好辭去我的工作呢？」Stephen Covey 回答：「不要。先留住你現時的職位。執行你的理想往往比你想像中困難。所花的時間亦會比你想像中長。最好是先留住你現時的工作，然後用工餘的時間經營咖啡館的事務。〔如果你在咖啡館成功前就辭去現時的工作的話，你很可能沒有足夠金錢維生。〕」
「留住現時的工作，然後用工餘的時間經營自己的理想」我覺得十分合理，適合絕大多數人。但是，執行起來，我遇到一個實際的困難，就是 …）
沒有工餘時間？
（安：不是。我有工餘時間。而且，我的工餘時間，比一般受僱人士為多。但是，我在工餘時間的精神很差，集中不到心智去實行自己的理想，例如閱讀。
而我又覺得，每天一早去上班，其實就等於將自己最有精神的時段，去做一大堆近乎毋須任何思考的事務性質工作，十分可惜。）
其實，不只是上班，在讀書時代，也會遇到同樣的問題。大學時期，日間要上課和參加課外活動等，晚上回家後，即使有時間，也已經沒有精神去做功課和溫習。
我當時的解決方法是，回家後立刻睡覺，早上起來才工作。我有時會在晚上九時半睡覺，然後在凌晨三時半起來讀書。有時則會在十時半睡覺，四時起來。一般來說，我可以工作至七時半。平均而言，我每天也有三至四個小時高度集中的時間。
後來，我才發現，有不少人也用這個方法。例如，數學家陳省身每天也是凌晨起來研究數學，而日間則用來處理一些事務性質工作。
— Me@2011.09.21
2011.09.21 Wednesday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
年輪 | 年年齡 8 | Cumulative concept of time, 12
The younger tree is still here, for it is inner part of the present tree.
 |
| This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Author: Lawrence Murray from Perth, Australia |
present-self of the tree = younger-self of the tree + the outer layers [1]
— Me@2011.09.10
[1] This is not scientifically accurate. But it is a good analogy for illustrating the cumulative nature of time.
2011.09.11 Sunday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
年年齡 3.1.2
If the time rate is kept constant, the increasing rate is kept decreasing.
— Me@2011.08.25
For example, assume that my initial salary is HK$10,000 per month, and the increasing rate is HK$1,000 per month.
Then my salaries are
10,000 –> 11,000 –> 12,000 –> 13,000 –> 14,000 –> …
The corresponding increasing rates, in terms of percentage, are
10% –> 9.09% –> 8.33% –> 7.69% –> …
— Me@2011.08.30
2011.08.30 Tuesday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK
Physics Town 
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