June 17, 2014

Chinese classics

Yesterday a friend asked me about the classics in Chinese literature. Since these are probably not very familiar to most Westerners, yet might be of interest to some, I give some basic information for anyone interested in the subject.
  • The Four Great Classical Novels, including Tales of the Marshes by Shi Nai'an, Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, and Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, from the 14th to 18th Centuries, are considered the highest achievements in Chinese fiction. In particular, Dream of the Red Chamber is considered the pinnacle of Chinese novels.
  • Li Bai and Du Fu, nicknamed "Poet Transcendent" and "Poet Sage" respectively, are the most prominent poets in China. Both from the Tang dynasty (7th to 10th Centuries), the "golden age" of ancient China, these two poets significantly influenced Chinese culture.
  • The Eight Great Masters of Tang and Song - Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Ouyang Xiu, Song Xun, Su Shi, Su Zhe, Wang Anshi, and Zeng Gong - are most distinguished in prose. The first two of them, Han and Liu, were from the Tang dynasty, and the other six were from Song (10th to 13th Centuries). Among them, Su Shi (aka Su Dongpo), one of the most accomplished writer, poet, artist, calligrapher, and scholar of ancient China, is probably the most known in the West, thanks to Lin Yutang's biography The Gay Genius: The Life and Times of Su Tungpo.
  • The Four Books (The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Golden Mean, The Analects, and Mencius) and Five Classics (The Classic of Poetry, The Book of Documents, The Book of Rites, The Classic of Changes (commonly known as I Ching in the English world), and The Spring and Autumn Annals), all of which written before 300 BCE, were the authoritative classics of Confucianism. The Four Books are philosophical and scholarly treatises of Confucianism. The Analects in particular records the teachings of Confucius himself. The Five Classics were already considered "classical" in the Warring States period (476-221 BCE). Each addresses a distinct topic. The most accessible to modern readers among the Five Classics is probably The Classic of Poetry, which is the first collection of poetry in China.
  • There are also the Daoist classics, Daodejing (often stylized as Tao Te Ching) and Zhuangzi, which are also influential to some extent in the Western world.
  • Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian, written from 109 to 91 BCE, recounts Chinese history from the Yellow Emperor to Han dynasty. An account of history, it is considered a literary masterpiece as well.
These names are some of the most acclaimed in classical Chinese literature. For modern literature, Zhou Shuren (aka Luxun) is usually considered the preeminent Chinese writer of the Twentieth Century.

January 6, 2013

A great example of true mathematics without numbers and formulas, for the lay person

Those without substantial mathematical training often take mathematics to mean just numbers and formulas (and possibly things that have to do with calculus). This article gives an excellent example of why this is not the case, in a way that people without mathematical training can approach, and be convinced. It is of course a great read to the mathematically trained as well.

D. Gale and L. S. Shapley, "College admissions and the stability of marriage." (1962)

December 20, 2012

A letter from a third-year student from my college


Hello, fj, 
How are you?
Best wishes


Hi abc, 

Happy holidays! 

October 24, 2012

Advice to students thinking about grad school in economics

In this article I lay out some advice on the preparation that students may need before applying to the economics graduate programs, and eventually going to grad school, basing on my past experience and what I've learned from other fellow graduate students. This is most applicable to international undergraduate students interested in economics doctoral programs in the United States. Much of the advice here of course applies to (economics) graduate programs in other countries and for prospective students with different backgrounds as well.
  • Read David Colander's The Making of An Economist, Redux, to get an understanding of what grad school in economics is really like, and see for yourself if it is the right idea for you to pursue grad school.
  • Even though it is always better to learn more math in college, the undergraduate math preparation is generally sufficient with Real Analysis (on top of Mathematical Analysis) and ODE. Of course you'd need substantially more mathematical knowledge than these eventually, but in which areas of mathematics should you further your study depends on which field of economics you eventually choose. Just cramming in all the math you can take does not always justify the cost. On the other hand, you can always extend your math skills once in grad school or even later in your career. But everything said, ceteris paribus, more math is always potentially helpful.
  • While you're busy taking courses from the math department, make sure you also study mathematical economics, i.e. the area of mathematics that economists most frequently use, which can be sufficiently different from what the standard undergrad math department sequences offer.  Take an advanced mathematical economics or optimization theory course if you can. Make sure you read Simon & Blume as much as you can (preferably finish it) before grad school - particularly Chapters 15 (IFT), 18 (Kuhn-Tucker Theorem), 20 (Homothetic functions), 23, and 24 (difference/differential equations). Alternatively, you can read Dixit's Optimization in Economic Theory which is appropriate for college students as well. During my first year in grad school, I also found Varian's Microeconomic Analysis very helpful and a pleasure to read.
  • When applying, try to diversify your choices by applying to Business Economics and Public Policy / Political Science programs as well, if you have an interest in any of these. These programs are essentially economics programs with a particular focus. Their methodology will be economic, and many of the faculties members in these schools have PhDs in economics. Sometimes even business school economists may work on some theory if that's what you are interested in. If you are not sure, read the CVs and publications of the faculty members before you apply.
  • Confidence is always important regardless if you're still a prospective student or you are already in grad school. Sometimes you cannot understand some hard materials simply because you don't believe you can. Most of the things you are faced with in grad school are not as hard and profound as you imagine them to be. If you don't understand it, read it again - and again.
Further readings:

October 12, 2012

Messenger apps on Android

I have been trying out different messenger apps on Android; but it seems none of the mainstream apps I've tried serves my purpose well.

Facebook messenger has terrible Internet connection. It frequently fails to send out messages, and pops up notifications of failed trials in delivering messages. To make matter worse, Facebook messenger does not automatically attempt to send out stalled messages once the signal gets better, and the user need to manually initiate retries on the same message again and again. I have had the experience of repeating the process for more than ten times for a single message. I think Facebook messenger should really try to build this functionality into the app itself.

Google Talk does send messages automatically once the Internet connection gets better; but it lacks an important function of being able to copy messages sent and received. This function is useful when the recipient does not see a message you sent previously (for a variety of reasons) and you need to send the message again. It is much easier to just copy and paste the message instead of to type up the exact same message once more, especially when the message is long. Copying messages also becomes useful when there are important information contained in the message you received and you'd like to copy it to some other program (e.g. a GPS address). In comparison, Facebook messenger does allow you to touch and hold on a message to copy it to clipboard. Less importantly, the Google Talk app on Android has a plain and dull interface compared to the new Facebook messenger app, which looks more modern and friendly. The twin sister of Google Talk, Google+ messenger, basically does the exact same thing as Google Talk.

The other app I've tried is WhatApp. It has more functionality in general. It allows you to copy messages easily, and delivers stalled messages whenever the Internet gets connected. It even shows whether a message has been delivered to the server or received on your friend's device. The user interface looks nicer than Google Talk as well. The main disadvantage is that it does not have a phone-computer integration, i.e., I cannot continue a conversation started on the phone using a computer program, or vice versa. This is extremely useful when you started the conversation while outside, and now you have got home and can type much faster and easier on your computer keyboard.

To sum, there is not yet a mainstream instant messenger app that satisfies all the needs I've discussed above. I know that there are probably third-party messenger apps on Android that has everything here, but for a variety of reason (not the least of which are security and trustworthiness), I'd rather have these functions on an app that's been tested and used by a wide user base.

April 4, 2012

Why the car seatbelt once had such difficulty in gaining acceptance by the public

I read this paragraph in Levitt and Dubner's Super Freakonomics (highly recommended), on the initially difficult introduction of car seatbelts to the general public, despite that it could save thousands of lives each year in America alone:
The brilliant ration-alist [Robert S. McNamara, then working at Ford] had encountered a central, frustrating tenet of human nature: behavior change is hard. The cleverest engineer or economist or politician or parent may come up with a cheap, simple solution to a problem, but if it requires people to change their behavior, it may not work. Every day, billions of people around the world engage in behaviors they know are bad for them - smoking cigarettes, gambling excessively, riding a motorcycle without a helmet.
Why? Because they want to! They derive pleasure from it, or a thrill, or just a break from the daily humdrum. And getting them to change their behavior, even with a fiercely rational argument, isn't easy.
Precisely. This might as well be the single most deadly weakness of human nature at large.

April 1, 2012

Google: Human beings can finally change the weather as they wish

After aeons of dealing with the immense costs from the unpredictabilities of Nature, human beings finally mastered the skill to manipulate the weather as they would like to. Now, just google "weather", and you will see a control panel of your local weather:

But more power also calls for more responsibilities:

Unfortunately, this service of Google probably only lasts for today, so hurry up and make good use of it!

March 25, 2012

LaTeX Tips: Basics

LaTeX Tips: Basics

A nice and succinct article introducing the basic philosophy and typesetting rules of LaTeX.

January 6, 2012

Happiness, Fulfillment, and Meaning

I received an email from a sort-of pen pal a few days ago asking about living one's life and success.

I do not value short-term happiness very much. Happiness is good; but it is like the instantaneous utility function – whatever its magnitude, at every point in time it has only zero measure, and once past, it wouldn't mean anything anymore. What I pursue is fulfillment, or long-term happiness, which is only realized after a long period of fermentations and meditations. I think the process of achieving this fulfillment should feel like the experience Cal Newport describes in his blog post today. I am not implying that short-term happiness does not provide me with utility; it is that I only slightly discount happiness in future periods, that the joy at this moment wouldn't seem as significant as it may.

When I was a kid, I started thinking about the meaning of my own existence. The life time of a human being, a hundred and twenty years at most. There are so many people on this planet, and your own being would not mean much at all. The world is still the same whether you are here or you are not. Once you are gone, you are gone forever; even your descendants probably will not know your name two hundred years from now. Whatever you have accomplished, once you are passed, they wouldn't mean the slightest to you. The utility beyond the capital T is always null. I thought about death at this point, but still there was a little unwillingness, as if I was denying myself of my own conclusion, and trying to spend more time seeking the deeper meaning of life that I hadn't realized. If you will die one day certainly, and everything will be lighter than the clouds once you have passed, why not devote your life to work on something big, something larger than yourself. That was why I once resolved to become a writer. I think writers are a group of most influential people. Even when emperors and kings were forgotten, the names of writers still resound in people's languages. The legacies ancient writers and philosophers left us are still guiding the advancement of modern society. I chose my career in academia also because I wanted to leave something to mankind, and contribute a little bit to the advancement of our understanding of the world and of ourselves, and to leave my trace in my limited life.


November 14, 2011

My Pursuit





October 19, 2011

A joke on mathematicians

This was told by my optimization professor.

A physicist and a mathematician were asked to solve two problems. The first problem was that given a waterfall, an empty kettle, and a stove, to prepare hot water. The physicist collected water from the waterfall with the kettle, and then put it on the stove to boil it; the mathematician did the same. The second problem was to prepare hot water given a waterfall, a kettle, this time already filled with water, and a stove. The physicist directly put the kettle of water on the stove to boil; but the mathematician first poured away the water from the kettle, and then the second problem was reduced to the first problem, solving the second one.

October 6, 2011

Market for everything: Name your couple stars

International Star Registry: Name a Star for Someone Special | Unique Birthday Gift - Buy a Star Name Today - Couple's Star Group
Since 1979 International Star Registry has been offering the gift to name the stars and is now offering your chance to name two stars in honor of your favorite couple. Couple’s Stars are available for couples, loved ones and family members. Two stars from the same solar system. Residing in the sky. Together forever.
Thank Terri for the pointer.

September 24, 2011


For one thing, the people-finding algorithm of Facebook is a clumsy one. If Google+ can effectively develop a superior algorithm to match friends (which is one thing Google is insanely good at), it may be a game changer.

September 20, 2011