Idleness

There is a public folder in the corporate network that stores some interesting documents posted by the management. Nobody ever looks at these documents but me. These documents are interesting not because of the content, but because they reveal a lot of what is on the minds of these CEOs and SVPs.

Take for instance, the article of “Changing Jobs Solely for Money Could Be a Mistake" from Wall Street Journal. It really reveals the deep insecurity of the bosses who are faced with intense head-hunting from competitors.

What amuses me is that these CEOs try to justify their long vacations by posting this article- “Why CEOs need a vacation”, which cites that CEOs need longer breaks to refresh themselves in order to look at problems from a new perspective.

This is bull-shit. Firstly, I know that a couple of the bosses fly constantly on the job. They have got 13 hours idling if flying to London, and more to Las Vegas. Usually they are in the Business Class section, sipping fine wine, flirting with the air-stewardess, and it occurs to me that they have got plenty of chance to refresh themselves. Maybe some serious business is done in these overseas trips, but I’m quite sure the majority of these trips do not lead to anything more than business leads. These are, without a doubt, paid vacations.

CEOs often conduct their business in a leisurely manner, over the golf course, over the 5-star hotel lounge, over some classy restaurants. No, I don’t think they need longer vacations. They need to spend more time in the office for some serious work and thinking.

I would be curious to find out if they would still post this article, had the title become “Why Workers need a vacation”.

And I bet no CEO would post the article of “In Praise of Idleness” by Bertrand Russell

“ When I suggest that working hours should be reduced to four, I am not meaning to imply that all the remaining time should necessarily be spent in pure frivolity. I mean that four hours' work a day should entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life, and that the rest of his time should be his to use as he might see fit. It is an essential part of any such social system that education should be carried further than it usually is at present, and should aim, in part, at providing tastes which would enable a man to use leisure intelligently.”

超越时空

虚拟紫禁城。

http://www.beyondspaceandtime.org/

终于进入了太和殿内部.

2005年去的时候，我只能在门外张望。

中轴线

我遇到了一个导游，跟他打个招呼。他很热情，领着我到处跑，还给我详细说明。

optimal price

What’s the most optimal price of fuel that the government should impose?

You would think that with the fuel price going up, you save less. So, the cheaper the fuel, the better. Well for me, that’s not exactly the case. Lately the fuel price comes down to less than 100 dollars a barrel (god know what it means), and this has effectively increased the traffic, so much so that I spend 45 minutes more every day on the road. So I lost tremendous amount of time, not to mention extra fuel to inch along the highway jammed with cars.

One easy solution is to increase the fuel price to a ridiculous level, so that all poor bastards are forced to take the subway. But this solution has a drawback : 90% of the people are poor bastards. And I'm one of them. I certainly cannot afford very high fuel price.

The solution is to increase the fuel price a little more, but not too more, so that it eliminates the weakest 10%, those who could barefly clear the credit card charges of last month. Is it ethical to eliminate these people from the road? It is not a question of ethics. It's a question of necessity. Intead of complete gridlock on the road, somebody has to be sacrificed. If you were born into a poor family making less than two dollars a day, you are not worthy of driving a car. Study hard, get a good degree, cars and women can wait.

So the question that I want to put forward to PHDs: Can simulation software simulate the traffic and find out what’s the least price the government could charge that results in tolerable traffic (Slow but no need to hit the brake excessively).

I wouldn’t mind paying a little more for being able to drive at 50km/hour and spend another 15 minutes more on the road. Traffic is slow but everyone is driving at a steady speed without hitting brakes. We have a piece of mind. We could actually sort out some tough problems on our mind while driving in this steady mode, which facilitates an efficient day. This is the optimal fuel price the government should charge.