Saturday, January 19, 2013

你幸福了吗?


常听说这样一句话,距离产生美。但还是在离乡背井多年后,才渐渐悟出它的意境。客居它乡一十二载,思乡情却逾加浓郁。每每遥望故里日新月异,欢喜,眷恋之情便油然升起。

思乡,进而关注乡音,留意国内媒体讨论的话题。

幸福了吗? 这还是两年前老婆那次回国带回的白岩松的书。一年前,闲暇时翻了一半,但未能读完。不知是不是白岩松这本书惹得祸,前一段忽然发现这一话题好像在国内被媒体讨论的火热,看到最有趣的报导是记者拿着麦克满大街见人就问,你幸福吗?由此,急忙找回这本书,读完了余下的章节。

字里行间,看到了白岩松如何在央视立业,开创专题栏目,主持国家级典礼,周游列国采风,访谈富贾政要闲侃,等等精彩的回忆,知道他幸福了。

然而,好像并不是被记者当街采访的所有人都愿意直接回答这个问题。听说一位被采访的市民,在记者你幸福吗的问题再三追问下,作答为我姓曾,机智却不失幽默,令人哑然失笑。

你幸福吗?说实话,就我个人而言,每当我听到这个问题,总是使我联想到年轻时爱看的言情电影或小说里的一幕。一对私情男女,女角总是不失时机的追问男角,我长的漂亮吗?不言而喻,在这种场景中,发问者通常不是诱供,便是诱惑,问者期待着预期的回答。

玩笑归玩笑,你幸福了吗?琢磨起来,还真不是一个那么容易回答的问题。

想要回答这个问题,我觉得还必须先弄懂何为幸福,正如孔子曰,名不正,则言不顺。理工科毕业,还是无法突破机械的逻辑演绎套路。老办法,先学定义,再查定理,然后方可解题。

何为幸福?就形而上论,雅一点的说法,可能应该是出自本杰明 富兰克林。我们都知道他在著名的美腿与丑腿一文中有如下一说:

世界上有两种人,他们的健康、财富以及生活上的各种享受大致相同,结果,一种人是幸福的,另一种却得不到幸福。他们对物、对人和对事的观点不同,那些观点对于他们心灵上的影响因此也不同,苦乐的分野主要的也就在此。

听起来好像还不难理解。但更直白,实在一点的说法,还是当属俺们自己的文匠曹雪芹。他在红楼梦中间接的(我觉得)把幸福感描述为一种意淫,一种可心会而不可口传,可神通而不可语达的东西。相同的境遇,领悟的意念,态度不同,进而感受不同。幸福感真可谓妙之又妙,玄而又玄。

然而,无论是本杰明还是曹雪芹,他们都没能够将幸福的定义抽象得更为精确,以至量化(想必他们两位文人缺乏理工的知识)到得以引伸更高一层次的论证。这需要我们理工科学的帮助,在我们理工专业这是吹灰之力。午休后半小时,不才便给幸福弄了个量化定义,从此,百年一题,终可破解:幸福=感受与预期之比。

简言之,你的幸福感并不完全取决于你目前的精神和物质现状,还取决于你的期望。这便解释了为什么生活富裕了,人们还是边吃肉边骂娘的现象。

按照这个定义,时下国内新兴的"共同富裕"的号召可能并不能改善人们的幸福感,因为目前在这个星球上,无论是社会主义和资本主义,没有一个社会能够实现共同富裕。相反,这个口号只能提高人们的预期。

相比之下,我觉得米国的智囊比我们聪明,他们的口号比我们的多三个字,"共同富裕的机会"。换言之,我不保你与别人一样富裕,我只保你有跟别人一样富裕的机会,成不成,在你。简单的逻辑,如果改善感受不易,咱就考虑如何降低预期,这也充分验证了本人首创的,化时代意义的幸福定义。

扯远了。回到主题,你幸福吗?

就我而言,工作一天下来,开车踏上回家的路,听着汪峰悲锵的歌,望着窗外依然陌生的城市,我感到的是幸福,因为我知道路的那端等待我的是我温暖的家。

朋友,你幸福吗?


Saturday, July 19, 2008

My wife and daughter are coming back from vacation

Finally, after two months, my wife and daughter are coming back from China. Right now they are on the flight from Hong Kong to L. A., scheduled to land L. A. at 21:55 pm tonight.

When they left, I ever made a plan, thinking that maybe I can spend the time I was alone at home to make some learning progress on Python, and add some code to the GAE project I have planned. Now, two months past, little progress was made in Python learning, and only a few line of code was added to the GAE project. Besides the reason that I always had problem to figure out the right food for dinner (it was the longest period of time that my wife and I were living separately after 22 years marriage), one of the other main reasons that discouraged me deeply to spend more time on Python and GAE was because I found out that the web framework GAE provides does not have the session object ! To a Java programmer, how can I work out some serious web stuffs without the session object at disposal ? It's simply unbelievable ! The discovery somehow made me losing interests to dig further into GAE, and, therefore, no progress made on Python learning also (at least, now it can be the alibi to defend me :)). So, I need to make a new plan, see how I can code something meaningful in Python to drop to GAE without using session object. Hope neither GAE nor Python will disappoint me this time :).

Anyway, I am very happy my wife and daughter are coming home. The next day after tomorrow shall be my wife's birthday, hope the roses and the gift from Helzburg I prepared for her will give her a little surprise and make her happy.

Now, the question is when I can find my next chance to make a plan to learn Python to finish my project on GAE ?

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Finally, I got my Google Application Engine Account

About two months waiting after Google released its GAE web hosting platform, finally I got my account registered on GAE. It's really nice that now I have a web ground to play with:
  • Python and Django
  • Dojo and Ajax
  • ArcGIS Server 9.3 REST APIs
  • Google Map APIs
At present, I am spending my spare time to try to create an online mapping application, iMap, which is based on AGS 9.3 REST APIs and Dojo. Of course, Python and Django are the power engine to drive these widgets. I have got a couple of lines code deployed to my GAE host: http://xdev.appspot.com
I will try to log all learning and pitfalls here down the road to get something meaningful up and running.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

My First Post

This is the start page for my blog.