(reminder: all quotes here are fiddled, probably.)

02 竊竊私語

03 你正百無聊賴我正美麗

(原詩分行，無標點)

* * *

### 圓滑?!

......

Q1: 比較 1a、1b, 應慎重考慮 = ?
Q2: 到底 2a 同意甚麼?
Q3: 3a 非常歡迎, 3c 並非長遠可行的計劃. 咁, 即係想點?

### 二刻拍案驚奇

1. 市場與政府干預

(卷一 進香客莽看金剛經 出獄僧巧完法會分)

* 輻輳(湊) vs 輻射
* 不知一行禁止，就有棍徒詐害

2. 搭煞

3. 收科

4. 戤典. 戤, 音鈣

### real roots

Q:

If a, b, and c are real, show that the equation
(b-c)x^2 + (c-a)x + (a-b) = 0 always has real roots.

A:

Rewrite the equation as Ax^2 + Bx + C = 0.
Noting that A+B+C=0, we get
\delta = B^2 - 4AC = (A+C)^2 - 4AC = (A-C)^2
which is non-negative. QED.

BTW, it has double roots when A = C, namely, 2b = a+c.
In other words, when b is the mean of a and c.

Further:

Does the equation always have real roots too if all the minus signs become plus signs: (b+c)x^2 + (c+a)x + (a+b) = 0 ?

No.

夫人腹中隆隆叫，
實在教人吃不消。

(姚錦清譯, 參余光中評語略改)

### To Robert Browning, etc.

1. Walter Savage Landor, To Robert Browning''

──蘭道

*陳次雲譯，參余光中之評語略改。原譯見百花文藝余光中集第九卷含英咀華

2. Emily Dickinson, I years has been from home''
(情怯舊居前)

*丁雍嫻譯，參余光中評語修改。原譯見余集卷九

### 張五常, etc.

1. 南周, 张五常：“平生没有见过这么好的制度”

2. 若缺齋

### 難忘郁達夫

Heine《Harzreise》

Ledet wohl, ihr glatten Saale,
Glatte Herren, glatte Frauen!
Auf die Berge will ich steigen,
Lachend auf euch niederschauen!

浮薄的塵寰，無情的男女，
你看那隱隱的青山，我欲乘風飛去，
且住且住，
我將從那絕頂的高峰，笑看你終歸何處。

(excerpt from 郁達夫《沉淪》)

### Antigone

Kyle Brenton, Acts of War

At the center of Sophocles' original play is a struggle to reconcile personal beliefs with the needs of society. At no time is this question more relevant than in periods of war . . .

Brecht's Antigone is a vehement and uncompromising attack on tyranny . . . Brecht uses the Antigone myth as a platform for his economic philosophy. His Chorus expresses concern for the wartime metal shortage in Thebes, and repeatedly asks when the treasure-wagons from Argos will arrive.

### mathmatica makes students miss the point?

Walk versus Wait: The Lazy Mathematician Wins

In this recreational mathematics note, we address a simple, yet instructive question:

Justin has to travel a distance of d miles along a bus route. Along this route, there are n bus stops i, each spaced at a distance of d_i from the starting point. At each bus stop, Justin is faced with a choice: to walk or to wait. If he walks on, he can still catch a bus at the next bus stop--but if a bus passes him while he walks, he is almost assured a longer wait.

We model Justin's decision constraint and completely solve the model in a special case. The answer is intuitive: the optimal strategy is the laziest.

16 Puzzles for International Puzzle Day

Flipping Out over Technology in Education

In one of the two main examples cited in the study, the students waste time carefully and cleverly using Mathematica to solve a difficult integral that, it turns out, they didn’t need to solve in the first place because it cancels out. Why does it cancel out? Because if it didn’t, this wouldn’t be a homework problem; it would be way too hard to solve by hand.

A student who didn’t have Mathematica but did have rudimentary test-taking skills would have realized immediately that the problem couldn’t be that hard, and would have started looking for ways around the integral.

You can call that a higher level of thinking, and blame Mathematica for leading the students astray, but I think this misses the point. In any sort of real-world scientific problem, chances are you actually would need to solve the integral. Are we really serving our students well by shielding them from this reality and encouraging them to look for tricks and shortcuts they know must be there simply by virtue of the fact that they’re working on a homework problem and not a real-world problem?

BTW,
Schools are not just about teaching practical skills, they are about our hope for the future. They must help our children think with depth and clarity, see the world with open eyes, and ultimately be our worthy successors in the great enterprise we call civilization.

### 平遙鎮國寺, etc,

1. Rosas

Rosas (玫瑰花)

En un día de estos en que suelo pensar

“hoy va a ser el día menos pensado”,
“今天把心放下，什麼也不想”
nos hemos cruzado, has decidido mirar,

a los ojitos azules que ahora van a tu lado

2. 梁啟超談佛學 P20

___________ | 寺數 | 僧數

________580 | 30K | 2000K
(永平釋老志)

3. 9部偉大的中世纪歷史影片

4. The Decalogue (1988, Kieslowski)

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### what a drag

what a drag

Most sailors are fully aware of friction drag: the resistance caused by the skin friction of a surface moving through a fluid. As the yacht (the surface) moves through the water (the fluid), it develops a boundary layer, or region of interrupted flow, surrounding the submerged surfaces. The water immediately touching the hull (the base of the boundary layer) is actually moving at the same speed as the hull. The hydrodynamic no-slip condition occurs all along the base of the boundary layer, due to the viscosity of the fluid. Further away from the hull surface, the water gradually returns to its normal flow, which occurs at the edge of the boundary layer. This transition of flow within the boundary layer causes inter-molecular shear stresses, which requires a certain force to overcome.

As the boat moves forward, it pushes water out of the way. Due to conservation of energy (remember that law from physics?), the moving boat must use some of its own energy to push the water out of the way. This loss of energy would tend to slow the boat down, which means that more energy is required to keep the boat moving at the original speed, in other words an increase in drag.

### disable 持續追縱格式設定

microsoft word stylesheet

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### heaven can wait (Lubitsch)

wonderful.

cf. bergman, fanny and alexender