Category Archives: Transcender | 架空俠

The Incredible Hulk

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Marvel’s The Avengers (2012 movie): What did the Hulk mean when he said his secret was that he was always angry?

It seemed that early in the movie, he was not able to control himself when he turned into the Hulk. Yet, he seemed to be able to transform at will and also listen to orders or operate as part of a team in the later part of the movie.
 

Mark Hughes, Screenwriter, Forbes Blogger

If Banner had to just avoid getting angry in order to not be the Hulk, he’d never succeed, because of course it’s probably almost impossible for the vast majority of people to really just stop themselves from getting angry. But what do we do instead? We can’t avoid being angry, but we learn to control our TEMPER and we can control how we RESPOND to anger.

In the previous solo Hulk film, it ends with Banner learning that the key is less about the anger itself, than the literal physical reactions caused by the anger. If he can keep his heart rate down and his metabolism from responding to the anger and pain, then he can prevent changing into the Hulk. He maintains a constant state of anger at his situation, and at the state of the world, and at the people responsible for it, as a way to keep the emotional status constant and thus allow him to ignore controlling his emotions so he can instead focus his efforts merely on controlling his physiological responses to the anger.

With anger as a constant state, his body adapts, it returns to a moderated physical state most of the time, so anger itself won’t be a trigger. Only when he allows the anger to go unchecked and gives in to his body’s “desire”/urge to change, does he become the Hulk — unless he is too overwhelmed by physical stress to hold it back, like when he was severely injured early in the film on the Helicarrier. Otherwise, he can change into the Hulk at will because he’s already always angry, and need only let the change take place.

http://www.quora.com/Marvels-The-Avengers-2012-movie/What-did-the-Hulk-mean-when-he-said-his-secret-was-that-he-was-always-angry/answer/Mark-Hughes-1

2012.05.12 Saturday ACHK

iCloud

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The classic Buddhist image of this hack is that thoughts are like clouds passing through a spacious blue sky. All your life, you’ve been convinced that this succession of clouds comprises a stable, enduring identity — a “self.” But Buddhists believe this self this is an illusion that causes unnecessary suffering as you inevitably face change, loss, disease, old age, and death. One aim of practice is to reveal the gaps or discontinuities — the glimpses of blue sky — between the thoughts, so you’re not so taken in by the illusion, but instead learn to identify with the panoramic awareness in which the clouds arise and disappear.

— What Kind of Buddhist was Steve Jobs, Really?

— Steve Silberman

2012.05.10 Thursday ACHK

Computer games, 4

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Like many software developers, my introduction to programming was my Dad telling me if I wanted to play video games at home, I had to write them first. Tough love hurts. Home game consoles were the gateway drug of choice for parents who imagined their children as young programmers, a sneaky way for parents to trick their lazy game-playing kids into learning BASIC.

— Rediscovering Arcade Nostalgia

— Jeff Atwood

2012.05.08 Tuesday ACHK

The American Scholar

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Emerson wrote in his speech “The American Scholar”: “We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; Divine Soul which also inspires all men.” Emerson closed the essay by calling for a revolution in human consciousness to emerge from the new idealist philosophy:

So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. … Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.

– Wikipedia on Transcendentalism

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2010.09.07 Tuesday ACHK

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

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種子意念 2.1.5

The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is an unusual example of a self-refuting argument, in that Ludwig Wittgenstein explicitly admits to the issue at the end of the work:

    “My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it)”. (6.54)

However, this idea can be solved in the sense that, even if the argument itself is self-refuting, the effects of the argument elicit understandings that go beyond the argument itself.

— Wikipedia on Self-refuting idea

2012.04.10 Tuesday ACHK

Transcender 1.2.3

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這段改編自 2010 年 3 月 20 日的對話。

你現在有沒有問題，需要給我去 transcend 一下？

（安：沒有。但是我想問，「transcend」這個字的中文翻譯是什麼？）

這個字翻譯了的話，就再沒有原本的神髓。例如，你可以用「超越」或者「看化」。它們的意思，和「transcend」非常接近，但感覺不大相同。

當你講「超越問題」時，別人不會知道你的意思。解釋「超越問題」的時間，不會比解釋「transcend」這個字的時間少。你用「看化」的話，又好像帶點滄桑和消極。

（安：如果用「轉化」呢？）

「轉化」就好像是指，由一樣東西，變成同一層次的另一樣東西。它缺乏了「transcend」之中，「跳高一個層次看」和「騰雲架霧」的意思。

— Me@2012.04.08 

2012.04.08 Sunday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK

Transcender 1.2.2

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這段改編自 2010 年 3 月 20 日的對話。

又例如，有學生問我，他來不及「完成所有功課」時，應該怎麼辦。回答時，我並不是教他如何「完成所有功課」，而是解釋為何「完成所有功課」，並不是重點。

做功課只是手段，不是目的。做功課的最終目的，並不是「完成功課」。做功課的最終目的，是透過做功課，去奪取最多的學術知識和考試分數。

所以，我叫他要懂得權衡輕重，先做成本效益最高的東西。其他功課，無論有多麼掛念，都應暫時完全拋諸腦後，直到完成第一要務為止。那就可以保證，即使完成不了功課，成績也不致太差。換句話說，他應透過解決真正的問題，去避開原本的問題。

真正的問題是「如何奪取最多的分數」。原本的問題「如何完成所有功課」，只是表面的問題，所以可以 transcend 掉，毋須理會。

你現在有沒有問題，需要給我去 transcend 一下？

（安：沒有。但是我想問，「transcend」這個字的中文翻譯是什麼？）

這個字翻譯了的話，就再沒有原本的神髓。

— Me@2012.04.06 

2012.04.06 Friday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK

Transcender 1.2.1

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這段改編自 2010 年 3 月 20 日的對話。

我發覺我習慣了「transcend 掉」別人問我的問題。我往往不是直接回答，如何解決那個問題。我往往都是解釋，為何那個問題不重要，又或者，如何令到那個問題不再重要。

有時，「解決問題」的最好方法，未必是「直接解決」，而是把那個問題「transcend 掉」，令它不再重要。有時，只要宏觀一點看，原本的問題，會顯得無關痛癢。而真正的問題，就會立刻出現。解決真正的問題，往往會簡單和容易過，解決原本的問題。

例如，在太空中沒有引力。太空人不能用一般原子筆書寫。於是，美國人花了數以萬計的金錢，去研發一種，在太空中都可以使用的「太空原子筆」。但是，蘇聯人卻選用了鉛筆 －不費吹灰之力，就解決了真正的問題，避開了原本的問題。或者說，蘇聯人透過解決真正的問題，去避開了原本的問題。

真正的問題是「在太空中書寫」。原本的問題「在太空中用原子筆」，只是表面的問題，所以可以 transcend 掉。

（這個故事是虛構的，而且違反科學，但適合用作比喻。）

— Me@2012.04.03 

One of the most useful mental habits I know I learned from Michael Rabin: that the best way to solve a problem is often to redefine it.

The way to kill it is to redefine the problem as a superset of the current one.

— Paul Graham

2012.04.03 Tuesday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK

Generalizing a problem

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One of the many articles on the Tricki that was planned but has never been written was about making it easier to solve a problem by generalizing it (which initially seems paradoxical because if you generalize something then you are trying to prove a stronger statement). I know that I’ve run into this phenomenon many times, and sometimes it has been extremely striking just how much simpler the generalized problem is.

edited Sep 26 2010 at 8:34
gowers

Great question. Maybe the phenomenon is less surprising if one thinks that there are ∞ ways to generalize a question, but just a few of them make some progress possible. I think it is reasonable to say that successful generalizations must embed, consciously or not, a very deep understanding of the problem at hand. They operate through the same mechanism at work in good abstraction, by helping you forget insignificant details and focus on the heart of the matter.

answered Sep 26 2010 at 10:27
Piero D’Ancona

— Generalizing a problem to make it easier

— MathOverflow

A general case has less information (details) than a special case. 

— Me@2012.03.10

2012.03.13 Tuesday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK

Time horizon

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Bezos: It does fit into my view. Our first shareholder letter, in 1997, was entitled, “It’s all about the long term.” If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue. At Amazon we like things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow—and we’re very stubborn. We say we’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details.

In some cases, things are inevitable. The hard part is that you don’t know how long it might take, but you know it will happen if you’re patient enough. Ebooks had to happen. Infrastructure web services had to happen. So you can do these things with conviction if you are long-term-oriented and patient.

— Jeff Bezos Owns the Web in More Ways Than You Think

— By Steven Levy
   
— Wired December 2011

2012.03.06 Tuesday ACHK

Meta-company

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Meta 2

“You know what’s great about the YC network? It gives the benefit of being part of a large company without being part of a big company,” Graham says. “The problem with doing a startup–even though it’s better in almost every other respect–is that you don’t have the resources of a big company to draw on. It’s very lonely; you have no one to give you advice or help you out. In a big company, you might be horribly constrained, but there are like 1,000 other people you can go to to deal with any number of problems. Now [with YC] you have 1,000 people you can go to to deal with problems, and you don’t have all the restrictions of a big company.”

— Paul Graham: Why Y Combinator Replaces The Traditional Corporation

— Austin Carr

2012.02.29 Wednesday ACHK

龍珠 2.2

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種子意念 2.1.4 | 網誌時代 14.3

這段改編自 2010 年 3 月 20 日的對話。

「閱讀」會遇到類似的問題。以前年輕時，我會煩惱有太多書要閱讀。值得看的書實在有很多，不「全部」也閱讀的話，又好像有很大遺憾。每看少一本書，我就會損失一本書的知識和機遇。　

後來我發現，到了二十八歲左右，就開始沒有必要，去刻意閱讀一般的書籍。而我也再沒有那個動機。這個現象的原因是，閱讀越多，思考水平就會越高。相對於你來說，市面上書籍的水平就會降低。換句話說，閱讀越多，值得你看的書籍就會越少。

— Me@2012.02.18

2012.02.18 Saturday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK

龍珠 2

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種子意念 2.1.3 | 網誌時代 14.2

這段改編自 2010 年 3 月 20 日的對話。

寫作時，我應有的心態是，即使企圖傳授個人的全部知識，我亦沒有必要，把全部東西也寫出來。其實，只要把核心的東西齊集，我就毋須再寫其他。讀者有了「知識完備集合」以後，就可以隨時隨地，透過當中的「知識基礎向量」，去建構新知識，解決自己的問題。

情形就好像學習英文字母。讀者一日未學懂全部二十六個英文字母，一日的英文都會一頭霧水。但是，只要掌握了全部字母，他就可以開始學習任何英文生字詞語，而毋須再花時間，去學習新的英文字母。

— Me@2012.02.16

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.

Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

—

2012.02.16 Thursday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK