Why unnecessary complexities are "necessary"

I always believe in Einstein's quote

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not more so.

The world as I know it now, however, has way too many complexities. From my experience, these complexities exist usually not because the systems need them to work. Rather, they are there because it is easy to screw outsiders when a system is complex enough.

This is especially true because few of us are research-type people who would do due diligence to really find out how things work. And for those who can, they may not have time to do that.

Think about it, many industries are like that.

Making decision and moving forward are almost always...

Making decision and moving forward are almost always more important than debating what the optimal solution is.

Why?

Because it is rarely the case that the optimal solution is significantly better than the second-best (or even the third-best) one that deserves the hassle of argument.

That's why I like Aaron Burr's quote so much.

Accounts Alerts: You've no alerts at this time

This alerts box on GoDaddy really caught my attention when I logged in:


It's like

"Hey you!!!!"

"What??"

"Ah, nothing."

"#$@!*&"

Little Wonders - Rob Thomas

Didn't know that there was such as good film back in 2007 until now. The lovely lyrics of this song wonderfully match the main theme of the movie. The director chose to play it at the very end, a brilliant move :)

Let it go

Let it roll right off your shoulder

Don't you know

The hardest part is over

Let it in

Let your clarity define you

In the end

You will only just remember how it feels

Our lives are made

In these small hours

These little wonders

These twists and turns of fate

Time falls away

But these small hours

These small hours

Still remain

Let it slide

Let your troubles fall behind you

Let it shine

Till you feel it all around you

And I don't mind

If it's me you need to turn to

We'll get by

It's the heart that really matters in the end

Our lives are made

In these small hours

These little wonders

These twists and turns of fate

Time falls away

But these small hours

These small hours

Still remain

All of my regret

Will wash away somehow

But I cannot forget

the way I feel right now

In these small hours

These little wonders

These twists and turns of fate

Yeah, these twisted turns of fate

Time falls away

Yeah, but these small hours

These small hours

Still remain

Yeah, oh they still remain

These little wonders

All these twists and turns of fate

Time falls away

But these small hours

These little wonders

Still remain

今天只做一件事 - Tuomas Jauhiainen

I'm touched every time I see that music crosses the boundary of countries and races (like MJ...). This video features a guy in Finland singing a song of Eason in Cantonese. Tuomas may not understand the lyrics but it's definitely a beautiful articulation :)

An unforgettable Christmas present

This year I got a Christmas present that I'll remember for the rest of my life...

My car got stolen at the night of the Boxing Day.

I was pretty calm when I discovered it and proceeded to file a report at the local police station. The officer told me that whether they can find my car it's purely a matter of luck. Since I don't usually have good luck, I've pretty much thrown in the towel.

What really hurts me though isn't the resale value of my car. It's been with me for more than 10 years and has gone through many important moments in my life.

One time, I nearly got killed on the freeway because one of its tires exploded. My car turned 90 degrees and was blocking the forthcoming traffic. Very luckily, I was calm enough to put the car in reverse gear and backed off to the side of the freeway. If I've done that just three seconds late, I'm pretty sure I'd have been killed by a lethal side collision: the upcoming traffic averaged a speed of 80 mph.

And now, my car is gone, probably forever. Along with my favorite CDs that have been with me during my ups and downs all these years.

What makes losing something regrettable isn't the fact that you lose it. Instead, it's because it happens so quickly that you don't even have the chance to say goodbye.

It felt as if someone has robbed me of an important part of my memory. It felt as if a little part of my soul is eliminated forever.

I know the chance of that car thief reading this post is nearly zero. If God can hear this, please let the car thief stole whatever parts he wants and leave my car in a spot that can easily be discovered by the police. Even it's an "empty" car, I'd want to take a photo with it and say farewell...

Car thief car thief, do you realize what you've done to someone in Christmas time? And just in the last post I talked about having more trust in strangers.

What kind of world am I in?

Warning: "Be Wary of Strangers"

Today, after I bought a newspaper and went aboard my car, an old woman suddenly showed up outside the window and asked me if I was interested in buying some little bags hand-made by her.

"It's just $5 per bag." She said.

I told her that I wasn't interested because the little bags wouldn't be useful to me. Most importantly, however, I don't trust people asking for donation on the streets.

"If you're not interested in buying the bags, maybe you want to make a donation..." she said in a pitiful tone. "I'm doing this for my grandchildren. I'm not lying..."

Despite this, I didn't believe her and started my car and left.

On my way back home, I was glad that I avoided yet another scam. When I thought about it more, however, I started to think that, maybe...


Maybe she wasn't lying.


How bad a person one has to be for her to defraud others using her grandchildren as an excuse? And, after all, this excuse is pretty much a dumb one if it's fake. It's just like you won't lie to your boss that your mother was sent to hospital to get a day off.

I should have at least looked into her eyes to decide whether she was lying.

If it was indeed true that she was trying to earn some extra money for her grandchildren, I'd give her $5, no, $10, in a heart beat.

This is sad, really sad. The news that we read everyday, I bet you $100 that there's at least one piece of them about fraud. Enron. Mortgage meltdown. Bernard Madoff. Whatever. We get the idea that this world has many dishonest people who try to cheat whenever there's a chance.

There's a Chinese mot that says

"害人之心不可有、防人之心不可無"

which translates into

"One shall not try to hurt people. In spite of this, one shall be wary of others."

This is to say that, whenever a stranger approaches you, your "correct" behavior is to assume that s/he is a bad person so as to protect yourself. This was what I was taught when I was a kid and, until today, I still believe that it's healthy to maintain a certain degree of doubt on everything, including people.

But, maybe I'm wrong. This makes me think of how the fathers and teachers in my high school had unconditional trust in us, even though they might not know us well and that we made mistakes all the times.

I feel quite bad about this and hope that the old woman succeeds in selling her little bags to some kindhearted people (sigh, not like me) in that parking lot... I probably should try to hold a neutral standpoint on strangers from now on. They may be scammers but don't judge without giving them the tiniest chance.