two very different art of management

(1) "Zen and the art of research management"
I saw this article hanging in the hallway of a research institution when I interned a few years ago. It was a pleasant short read over a cup of coffee, and I thought: that's true wisdom of running a lab!

The article somehow crept back to my mind recently, but I just could not recall what the wisdom really was. So I asked Jian, who is currently interning there to find, take a picture and share it. He came back with bad and good news: the frame is no longer in the hallway, but there's a google book link containing it:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cIpZis5f0rMC&dq=zen+and+the+art+of+research+management&pg=PA223&ots=Rpcy1voOo-&sig=wy6nQ91RA8h6tTixjH4YW3yEjE4

Now I understood the reasons for taking it off the walls, after reading it again this time ... the idealistic research lab wisdom is no longer true, that institution isn't an exception either.

One more complaint ... google just hid from the book preview (in the past two weeks) my favorite part about a toy budget and the dark room for shocked accountants upon discovering it! alas.

(2) "Mao and the Art of Management" This one is a sarcastic holiday entertainment.
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=10311230

Mao is on the cover of the Economist this week .. fashioning a Chirstmas hat, followed by a sarcastic short article on how his art of management should set examples for struggling modern executives. There are many unsupported claims, amid the many places of black sarcasm that made me laugh and sigh (as a China native, naturally).

well, "the single most important lesson: if you can't do anything right, do a lot" ;)

"Ratatouille" and "Enchanted"

Two fairy tales -- in real-life human shape and animated mice.

It is easy to get enchanted with the disney simple story, complying laugh with the occasional scratch of our common itches, and leave the theater light-hearted. It is also easy to indulge in the delicious culinary tricks towards the making of ratatouille, the ups and downs of the plot, and numerous humorous remarks.

I'd rather ignore some of the life-messages bundled with the show. Being fairy tales, they can't be blamed for loading messages on the surface. I'd rate them as very good entertainment, nonetheless.

cheers,

"The Uncommon Reader"

The Uncommon Reader is a fine and fun novella, a pleasure to read. Enough said about this little best seller of the year -- it is on the list of this week's Economists, ... did the NYT list also came out?

What I wanted to say a few words about, however, was my twisted declaration of reading it and the consequences.
me (changing nickname on gtalk): "a common reader" -- who said only the queen can indulge in the pleasure of reading, although only the queen's pleasure is worth documenting :)
dong (in the middle of some night): ... you read Virgina Woolf, too ?
liling (a day or two later): "dear common reader - i love Richard Russo's books"

Well, not only did I put up a cliche it seems, it's an ambiguous one as well !

hmm, the pleasure of a common reader has long been understood and elaborated. But still, why do we read? How many of us want to start writing after reading? ...

Let me just end this post with quotes from the short essay The Common Reader, Virginia Woolf. Thanks to search engines that enabled random serendipity on the web: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91c/chapter1.html
" The common reader, as Dr. Johnson implies, differs from the critic and the scholar. He is worse educated, and nature has not gifted him so generously. He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others. Above all, he is guided by an instinct to create for himself, out of whatever odds and ends he can come by, some kind of whole—a portrait of a man, a sketch of an age, a theory of the art of writing. He never ceases, as he reads, to run up some rickety and ramshackle fabric which shall give him the temporary satisfaction of looking sufficiently like the real object to allow of affection, laughter, and argument. Hasty, inaccurate, and superficial, snatching now this poem, now that scrap of old furniture, without caring where he finds it or of what nature it may be so long as it serves his purpose and rounds his structure, his deficiencies as a critic are too obvious to be pointed out; but if he has, as Dr. Johnson maintained, some say in the final distribution of poetical honours, then, perhaps, it may be worth while to write down a few of the ideas and opinions which, insignificant in themselves, yet contribute to so mighty a result.
"

"Atonement"

A very moving story, well done, I enjoyed it.

Haven't read the novel .. but it should be better, there are a few loose wholes in the film plot and sometimes it's rushed. there are also different interpretations of Briony's motivation (jealousy vs. ignorance) on wekipedia, but i think the film interpretation seems better.
Not sure if flashbacks are in fashion, so many movies use it, some without adequate reason -- feels like a narrative instrument used in its own sake. Why do we have to know the results first and entrust our patience to the director for unfolding all the question marks?

"i am legend"

I just saw this at the Palisades IMAX, fresh out from release. a typical hero movie ... i'd rate it as "okay" (spoiler below).

The good: imaginative - cure for cancer turned disaster.
The bad: camera work - close up with a lot of motion, yes they intend to make us nervous, but it's way over done and i'm dizzy.
The ugly: cliche has it for a solo hero, wounded, made great discovery and died for the cause. guns, medicine, ghosts. the best friend (dog) of the hero dies. An angle comes to the rescue because she believes in god (! GWB's propaganda?)

Will Smith did a decent job, but how much can you act as almost the sole actor in a whole two hours?

Randomly Revived

After more than a year of silence (1 yr 7 months, to be exact) ... i'm here writing another blog post again, finally.

A lot has happened and gone unnoticed. I've accumulated more than 2GB of GMail (what did i do!), got a Facebook account and started enjoying it with 65 friends, migrated my online album onto Flickr and making a new year resolution to put up more ...

Upon receiving a nice annual holiday letter from my friends Ming and Wilson, it struck me that so many little things can be documented so that life won't just flew by. This said, I'm going to put less effort in polishing what I put down, and simply just put more things down.

I'm going to start with what I read, what I watch, and other little things. Hope this will last -- and it never hurts to start upon a random motivation, does it :)