Dec 31, 2006

我是谁

站在铜臭上

下面是坍塌的祖坟

铜臭在积高

高到自己头晕

“我是谁?”

祖坟在下沉

下面

空旷无门

 

 

可怜之人必有可恨之处

    朋友有一次跟我提起这句话,我为之一震!我觉得这句话道出了我有时候可喻不可言的想法!为什么不可言呢?因为这个社会往往是假惺惺的,一个个阴暗的心披着血腥的外衣,说一些违心的话,恭维的话,为自己赚得赞誉的话!所以当某一个自不量力或者不识时务的人亮堂堂的站在伪装的街道上,说出几句真心却不太好听的话时,整个世界似乎都在和他作对!

    什么是可怜之人呢?生活在中国的人,应该很难想象在新加坡这个“花园城市”里,还有沿街乞讨之人吧?而且是很多!一开始,你或许还认为自己可以做一回救世的好人,每当把钱交给他们的时候,心里都觉得热乎乎的,“毕竟是社会主义好青年呀!” 可是当你无数次的遇到这种事情的时候,你会麻木的!是的,我会麻木,我绝对不是什么有高尚情操的人。高尚如雷锋者,能够一辈子做好事;我不是雷锋,也没打算去做雷锋那样的事情!我只是想问:“为什么社会允许这种乞讨者的出现?”或者“为什么政府机制竟然对此等等没有解决?”

    尽管我认为“政府都是荒唐的人在严肃的做荒唐的事情”,但我还不是一个无政府主义者,因为我还找不到比政府还好的机制来管理和奴役社会的人!所以我看到这些人的第一反应就是:“政府在哪里?”。我们每年无数次捐的那么多钱,都跑哪里去了?为什么每次捐款结果都是上百万上千万,但是最终政府这个机器连某些人的最低生活都保证不了?我们捐了钱,难道还要我们亲自面对这些弱势的人再一次祈求的眼神吗?那么他们有可恨之处吗?当然有!这个国家是他们的!他们手里有选票可以去为自己改变现实!有人可能开始嘲笑我对民主政治的幼稚和无知了。先不要嘲笑!我可没有说过民主政治是唯一的路!但是事实是国家是他们的!至少他们是如此被教育的,不是吗?那么为什么不向自己的政府去伸手?有人或许已经开始骂我是为了自己不帮助他们而找借口,我很坦白的说,虽然做不到每一个都给钱,但是我至少努力那么做!但是这并不妨碍我思考这些问题!

    什么是可怜之人呢?印尼大海啸之后亚齐省的那些灾民是可怜之人!一夜之间家园都被冲没有了!骨肉分离,家破人亡!到现在已经两年了,有些人还一直住在简陋的临时住所,而且最近又被洪水淹了!他们可恨吗?可恨!那一天看新闻,新加坡的一个负责那里住房建设的人说明为什么住宅建设这么慢时说,因为土地所有权的问题!他们希望房子必须建在自己的地方,而且不允许其他人把房子建在自己原来的土地上。有些人要求自己的房子不能用木头建,要用石头!知道我看到这个之后的第一反应是什么嘛?我想骂人!当某些人把别人的救济作为理所当然而进行讨价还价的时候,他们不可恨吗?而且当自己都生活无保障,整个社区都面临如此大的灾难的时候,那些所谓的土地所有权的问题难道就不能暂时搁到一边吗?不要说我太集体主义和大民族主义!我的思想就是如此!

    什么是可怜之人呢?伊拉克战争之后,伊拉克人民遭受的苦痛世人皆知,每天都在死亡线上挣扎,指不定今天出门还能不能回来?他们可恨吗?可恨!不管出于什么理由,一个外来的国家,肆意的武力入侵自己的国家,推翻自己的政府,处死自己的领导人!占领自己的土地!而自己人呢?却为了不同的宗教派系而进行无为的相互屠杀!这难道不可恨吗?有人说我为萨达姆袒护,但是我相信一个伊拉克人的说法"He is a mass-murderer, but he is OUR mass-murderer!"!也不要说我受中国外交思想影响太深!对不起,我就是我,让我去假装其他,我做不来,也不喜欢!

    什么是可怜之人呢?非洲大多数国家的人民,温饱问题都解决不了,文明的发展程度相对落后,经济更无从谈起!天天都有人饿死!他们可恨吗?可恨!自古生活在一个自然资源丰富的地区,直到近代之前,没有什么外来威胁!所谓“生于忧患,死于安逸!”长期满足于采集农业和狩猎的生活方式!这是物种发展的失败,这难道要怪别人吗?经历过独立运动之后,理应努力发展经济,提高自己的生活水平,确天天搞相互战争和种族内战!你杀我几十万,我杀你几十万,到头来,农业没有农业,工业没有工业,却要天天等着别人的施舍和救济!这难道不是自己的错吗?

    什么是可怜之人呢?台湾的老百姓,被民进党和国民党的两党寡头政治玩的云天黑地,非蓝即绿,经济下滑,自杀率直线上升!他们可恨吗?可恨!政客高呼“民主”,他们就要民主,政客高呼“台湾主体意识”,他们就高呼“台湾主体意识”,政客高呼悲情,他们就忘记了自己的悲情!不要告诉我你们没有办法!难道你们没有办法就不是你们的错了?

    不要说我太极端,太无情,上面的都是我的真实想法,那怕他们只在我的脑海里停留了很短的时间,他们也是真实的想法,我不想去回避或者隐瞒这些!,因为我只是一个普普通通的,在社会和思想的洪流中思索的人!有人曾经评论某位网络作家是“呐喊者”,却不是“领航者”!我两个都不是,我只是一个“自我思想者”! 就让我用这个作为这个即将过去的可怜的2006的结语吧!送给可恨的他们和我们!

    先想想自己可以为自己做点什么,不要总是认为会有别人来救助你,这个世界不相信眼泪!

Dec 22, 2006

Adobe Creative Suite 3 Icons Suck!

    It seems that i was too optimistic about the new Adobe CS 3 icon before, in other words, i was wrong!! The fact is they are not for temporary purpose, they are really going to use those so-called "simply" icons for the final products! If you dont know what i am talking about, here it is:

     That's right! they will be the final icons for Adobe Creative Suite 3, at least for what they are talking now. unless they change their mind later. According to their dev blog, their goal is "having them work well as a complete system"!

    The question is: are they out of their mind? Two -letter icon?is this all because of the great merge of Adobe and Macromedia, which makes them so hard to work on something unified that they just decided to go over-simplified and take the basic design concept of Macromedia icons and render them using "Unified"gradient? Or do they just want to constantly remind those people who already used their products for years the name of their products? 

    I think the fundamental rule of icon design is its uniqueness and quick recognizability! that means you dont have to go through a serial of brain processes to recognize it! In the past, Adobe changed their product icons a lot, in fact i think they have a heritage of creating a whole new set of icons for each product generation. But the bottom line is that they all worked pretty well in recognizability sense. Because they are all graphic related icons, dont forget that human has a stronger memory sense about graphic than texts. That's why typographic is so widely used and accepted in design industry.   

    Another thing to mention is that: they may not look that ugly in Windows, but they are so not fit-in under Mac OS. If you have a chance to see them sitting with other stunning icons in the Dock, you will get what i mean. I think this applies to all past Adobe icons as well. Come on, squire shape icon? they are so 80's!!!

    Hope they will listen to their customers and make some positive move! 

P.S: This picture reconfirms my suspicious about the absence of ImageReady in the future! But "Fh"? a new Freehand in the coming version? man that's so unexpected!!! why dont they just merge it into Illustrator?  

Dec 21, 2006

Finally get my PR Approval!!!

    After more than 3 months of waiting, i finally received the Permanent Residence approval letter on 19th Dec 2006!!! My goodness, i was so excited when i first saw that heavy letter addressed to my name from ICA!!! I have no idea why it takes so long to proceed, but who cares about that now?

    I went to Raffles Hospital for medical check this morning! It was a really smooth and fast process. Blood Taking, Doctor Consultation and X-ray...The funniest thing happened during the consultation. When i was introduced into a male doctor's room, he asked "do you have any medical problem?". "No, sir!" i answered while seating down. "That's good! you can take this form to the main reception!". Man, what the hell? He didn't even sit down! So i pulled my ass off the chair which i just sat for 3 seconds and left!

    Well, another thing is that i met a bunch of NTU fresh SM3 students from China! They are getting their medical check there, assisted by some seniors! They are so young and I felt so old!!!!

    P.S: I went to see "Night at the museum" with my friend last night! It is fun and from my point of view, a very nice holiday movie for families! You will laugh out here and there for several occasions and it is definitely worth that ticket. 

Dec 15, 2006

Adobe Photoshop CS 3 Beta Screenshots

    Well, Title says it all! Adobe is planning to release a beta version of Photoshop CS 3 today! Somebody has already found out the download page before Adobe officially giving out the link. You will find the links at the end of this article.

    Everyone can download it and give a try for 2 days, after that you will need to get a CS 3 beta serial number which is only possible if you have a CS 2 serial number, you may want to refer to following Adobe instruction:

Important: A licensed copy of Photoshop CS2, Creative Suite 2, Production Studio, Adobe Web Bundle, or Adobe Video Bundle is required to use this technology beyond a two-day trial period. After installation you will be prompted to enter a CS3 beta serial number for Photoshop. To obtain a beta serial number, visit www.adobe.com/go/photoshopcs3beta_serialnumber and enter your CS2 serial number. Although the beta is available only in English, all language versions of Photoshop and the products mentioned above qualify to participate.

     It is available for both Mac and Win, and of course, it is Universal Binary for Mac, which means it can run natively on Intel based Mac! I have 100 percent confidence that this will boost the sale for Mac Pro!

    Well, enough bluffing, lets see the face! This is the main interface with about screen, no doubt that it is a temporary about screen.

 

ps
Click for high resolution
 

 

    As usual, you can use the typical way to find a about screen easter egg: Click "About Adobe Photoshop" which holding Ctrl. Here it is, the "Red Pill":

 

 
 

 

     While most parts of the interface remain unchanged, the most noticeable change is on the right hand side, where you usually put all your tool palettes. Now there are new ways to arrange them, as you can see bellow, you can arrange them in different groups and can expand or minimize them all at once. You can also place them as Icon Palette and you can access the content by clicking, which can be seen in the picture on the right bellow:

 

 
     Another thing that i noticed is a slightly change in the Tool Palette, "Switch to ImageReady" is nowhere being seen. This raises my speculation about the future of ImageReady, it is secondly confirmed by the following palette, that's right! They have put Animation Palette right inside Photoshop! So i may say that you wont see ImageReady in the coming version of Photoshop anymore! About that Layer Comps, i have no idea what it is about right now!
 
    Lastly, is this already in CS 2 or it is just being added in as a new feature?
 
    I am using only the Windows Version, i will try Mac Universal Binary version when i am back home tonight! I think it will run nicely and pretty fast!
    So here is the Download Link Adobe Photoshop CS 3 Beta, which requires  a Adobe Account. Or you can Download directly bellow:
    Win:
    Mac:
 
    Note: You may want to try it later, because it seems that the server is done due to high download request.
 

 

Dec 9, 2006

纬度诗稿

        不太会写诗,却常常敝帚自珍。似乎越是半斤八两,越觉得自己瓶子里有货吧。想想看,似乎也写了一些自己比较“臭美”的东西了,昨天闲来无事,就整理了一下。点击下面图片下载pdf.

poem 

Dec 1, 2006

关于美国民主制度的一点思考

关于美国民主制度的一点思考

前几天在和朋友讨论南美政治现状的时候,我大谈左翼的复兴等等,结果朋友问道:“你明白什么是左翼,什么是右翼吗?”我一时语塞!好像我从来没有想过这个问题,在我印象里,共产主义属于左翼,纳粹的种族主义属于右翼,但是难道左翼就是共产主义,右翼就是种族主义?我们有时的确会被太多的想当然所左右!按照朋友的理解,左翼是极端理想主义,而右翼是极端现实主义!尽管可能不对,但是似乎有一定道理,而且适用于我所知道的事实。

那么,我们就从现实主义谈起吧。无数的人群蜂拥到美国,目的就是为了心中的“美国梦”!然而,美国却不是什么梦幻的地方,美国是再现实主义不过了。在我看来,现实主义是美国文化中相当重要的组成部分!这其中很明显的例子就是美国的政治体制,也就是所谓的美国式民主!

美国民主很重要的精神就是权力来源于人民!但是它却更进了一部,那就是在回答“如果人民内部意见不同该怎么办?”的问题时。“多数票制”被采用,这似乎合情合理而且也无数次的被用于日常生活中。“多数票制”未必产生最好的决定,但却是现实的解决办法。因为这个办法极巧妙的解决了一个很讨厌的问题。那就是“我可以反对某个人,但是我不能反对多数人;我可以不向某个人妥协,但是我必须向多数人妥协,否则,我的个人立场就一无是处!”这其实是一个责任和权利分担的制度,他在确保权利分散的基础上,也解决了责任分散的问题。如同前面所说,“多数票制”未必产生最好的决定,而且往往是相互妥协的产物,甚至是相当错误的结果,但是因为是多数人的决定,那么和前面提到的一样“我可以责备一个人,但是我不能责备多数人!”所以他也很好的解决了自我瓦解的危机!但是这样的制度下,每一个人都是平等的这本身其实就是一个不稳定因素,因为任何一个人的因素都太渺小!要想达成某种协议或决定是很困难的,而协议和决定是社会化所必需的。孤军作战显然和社会化相矛盾。所以做为个人利益集中化和社会化的政党的出现就理所当然了。政党本身就是民主制度向现实主义妥协的一个例子,因为纯粹个人化的“多数票制”太过理想!那么为什么多数民主制的国家多普遍采用两党制呢?即便是多党制,往往也会出现普遍的党联盟呢?这个问题要从竞选说起!

竞选的目的是什么?人民利益?服务国家?不,那些是民主制度所期望的结果,是理想的东西!民主制度是很现实的,做为政治体制的手段,选举成为了自己的手段,换言之,选举的唯一目的就是选举自身的结果,也就是“当选”!那么问题就很明显了!如何才能当选呢?如何才能让选民选我呢?这个问题从选民的角度来看就很有意思了。如果同时有两个人都在你面前夸耀自己的完美,做为选民,或许更经济和省力的办法就是“我不要选谁?”这也就是为什么选举时有那么多的相互攻击了。因为最好的自我标榜就是指弊对手!那末,在必须要有多个选项的情况下,什么才是社会最低成本的状态呢?自然是两党!这样,任何一个政党只需要集中力量去攻击另外一个!而选民也只需要用两只耳朵听坏话,不必长出第三只耳朵了!

但是这样的竞选带来一个很严肃的问题,那就是竞选中充斥的都是选民所不希望听到的!因为选举的模式自身就是否定的和负面的“不选A”,而不是“要选B.这就让我想起了2004年美国大选的一句经典“Anyone but Bush!

另外,落选的政党,做为反对党,他要想夺回政权,他要做的并不是做好自己,而是要让选民知道对手的短处!这对于防止腐败的确是很有作用的,但是如果到了吹毛求疵的地步,是否意味着社会资源的浪费呢?就如同克林顿的白水门事件一样,共和党花了那么多纳税人的钱,结果是:毫无结果!

这里还有一个说法需要讨论,就是政党之所以在相互攻击上乐此不疲,是因为选民喜欢如此,而且选民用选票证明了这一手段有效,所以选民对此也有责任!也就是说:有什么样的选民,就有什么样的选举!

那么,选民有其他选择吗?或者说:是人民自己选择的这种政治体制吗?这个问题适用于任何政体。答案在我看来都是一样的:绝对不是!

这样一来,问题就成了:选民手里只有两个馒头,一个含有氰化钾,一个含有砒霜!你必须要吃一个,或者你可以杀了给你馒头的那个人!这有点像台湾的郑村祺说的:“两个都很烂,人民只有革命了!”

既然提到了台湾,那么就说一下,台湾的政治体制有点类似于一个还躺在手术台上的病人,肚子还开着呢,麻药已经失效了!就是人民已经明白民主的含义,而且也被政客们灌够了民主的甜头,但是身边的现实却是令人发指的政治制度!也可以借用鲁迅的那个比喻:大家都在铁房子里,窒息的要命,但是大家都不知道阳光的好处,也没有闻过空气的味道,这时大家不会觉得痛苦和压抑,现在你一旦把这些都输入到他们的大脑里面,他们会痛苦不堪!

 


最后说两个生活中的幽默:

 

1.

这是朋友在玩WOW时,里面的一次对话

A:"Man, what's up?"

B:"The sky!"

2.

朋友有一次说从“出离愤怒”这句话来看,鲁迅的英文肯定很好!

我问为什么,他说"Truly 愤怒!"。我当时笑的抱住枕头在床上打滚!