We need more Bill Gates

After Bill Gates finished a book, he placed it in the following link. A lot of books! He even read fertilizer book since fertilizer may increase food harvest and reduce the number of hungry children. His traveling bag as he showed it to the CBS correspondent is so heavy since it all contains books. He is so busy to eradicate the diseases that kill children under 5 years old, so busy to reform the U.S. education, so busy to improve the sanitation in Africa, so busy to increase the food productivity, so busy to invest R&D to increase energy efficiency including safer nuclear energy and he still has time to read so many books, watching knowledge-enhancement CD and reading magazines. When asked how he could have time? His answer: "I don't spend time to mow the lawn!"

Bill Gates' books

flipped classroom

翻轉教室 (flipped classroom) has become a buzzword in the recent education reform.  It has already shown impressive results in some areas of the U.S.   Clintondale High School (a financially disadvantaged high school with 75% of its students need government-subsidized free lunch) near Detroit has become a commonly mentioned school to show the incontrovertible merits of 翻轉教室 as illustrated in the attached figure.   Aiming at this promising out-of-box 翻轉教室 and its huge futuristic market, many start-ups with strong financial backup have actively pursued the "adaptive learning" platform.   The readiness of adaptive learning platform will undoubtedly facilitate the development of  翻轉教室 and make MOOC (massive open online courses) much more useful and popular.
Obviously, any new technology will inevitably go through the so-called "hype cycle" as shown in the attached figure.  Hopefully, in the years to come, when the 翻轉教室 can be slowly adopted, probably it will sluggishly reach the stage of "plateau of productivity".

A pensive President

35 years ago when Obama entered an elevator, a woman subliminally clutched her purse, simply because of the ingrained racial profile: "Black guy is likely a bad guy". This was what a pensive Obama felt during his improvised informal press conference 2 days ago. Racial profile is widely believed in the recent cause celebre of Trayvon Martin case but racial bias is a very high bar in criminal case which, unsurprisingly, led to George Zimmerman's acquittal. Racial profile, in my opinion, is inevitable because of the lurking humanity's superiority complex. "Black" insinuates "crime", "Asian" alludes "quietness", "Hispanic" connotes "laborer". The world can never be an utopia and, in terms of competitiveness, will never be equal. All we can do is to seek social justice and never hesitate to show what we really are.

More languages = More IQ

It is well accepted that having a bilingual brain may help your career but it is surprising that it may make you smarter and delay the dementia in senescence. Latest TIME magazine claims that a bilingual brain can have the following advantages over monolingual brain: 1) 4.1 more years of clarity before dementia sets in, if any 2) larger hippocampus (part in brain to govern memory) and 3) larger areas in three locations of cerebral cortex (part in brain to process high-order reasoning). Wow, that definitely gives a boost for the already packed English camps in Taiwan.

The Power of the Bilingual Br

“We have to surprise them with restraint and generosity”

“We have to surprise them with restraint and generosity.” This is what Mandela told his supporters when he became the South Africa president after being incarcerated for more than 20 years. Arab Spring will never come to fruition without Mandela-like leaders. Any political upheaval will never stop if leaderships lack the broad-minded “to surprise them with restraint and generosity.”

an expedition that started E pluribus unum

Just watched 2-hour "Lewis & Clark" in PBS. In 1803, after Thomas Jefferson bought Louisiana from France, he sent a 30-person team headed by Lewis and Clark in a arduous and trail-blazing expedition into an uncharted territory from St. Louis all the way to Pacific coast. This heroic expedition inspired many adventurous Americans and, driven by the mindset of Manifest Destiny, started the rapid territorial expansion westward. Finally, an E pluribus unum of the United States was formed.

Unscrupulous patent troll lawyer can be a modern Plutus

Patents may mean innovation but nowadays are more likely to become an extremely profitable asset for patent troll lawyers. How rich can a patent troll lawyer be? According to July 14 NYT, a high-school-dropout-turned patent troll lawyer earns $25M/yr with $19.5M house, a private jet and 16 cars, six of them Lamborghini. The rampant scourge incurred by patent trolls will never stop unless US patent system is totally reformed. Even the troll-hunting measures announced by President Obama in June, 2013 probably will not stop patent trolls significantly simply because the skyrocketing profits for patent trolls.

75 years with 33 Nobel Laureates

In the last 75 years, probably only one institute can attract 33 Nobel laureates (including Einstein, Oppenheimer, von Neumann, 楊振寧, 李政道) and 2 out of 3 of the honorees of the top math medal, Fields medal, i.e., Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ; only 20-minute walk from Princeton Uni. and 15-minute drive from my house. I wonder how long this kind of basic research can last. Their research will not see applications for probably another 100 years while corporate CEOs only focus on the balance sheet quarter-by-quarter. This institute is lucky enough that 80% of the operating expenses are funded by income from the $5M endowment in 1930. It is hard to envision the institute's nondescript buildings can house so many bright minds for more than 75 years.  

Soaring venture-capital investment on education technology

U.S. venture-capital investment on education technology has soared up in the last few years, mainly on MOOC (massive open online course) and adaptive learning technology in a recent Economist article, "Catching on at last". It seems like MOOC is what the future education should be (Bill Gates is the strong advocate of it). Not sure if the education culture in Taiwan can acclimatize this trend.

Stealthy cloak

The English composition topic in Taiwan's joint college entrance exam is "invisible cloak". NYT also had a coverage of "stealthy cloak" (partially invisible under thermal exposure). Nowadays, privacy is a catchy word with headlined story of NSA's snooping, composition topic in Taiwan's college exam and haute couture fashion show.