What a fantastic medium to capture tomato sauce indeed!

Spaghetti often isn’t sauce enough, and Rigatoni sometimes has too much. Variations of Fusilli (spiral-shape), Farfalle (butterfly-shaped), and Casarecce (has a nice twist) are lovely, practical, well-engineered solutions.

But my favourite is Canalini: it is like Linguini but with a “canal” in the middle, into which the perfect amount of sauce flows. It is an intellectual pasta.

Because of these witty, elegant, and high-carb inventions, life is good.

An illustration (shared here) and some thoughts on the June 4th Movement in Beijing 20 years ago. Details of the June 4th Movement can be found at Open Past.

一九八九年六月四日，清早醒來，仍聽到新聞報導聲，父母仍坐在客廳看着電視，神情疲倦、哀傷、憤怒。

那年我十一歲，小學六年級。那年我第一次參加遊行，第一次感受社會動盪，第一次體會生命的意義和價值。我們這一代，在這二十年與中國一起成長的孩子和青年，也許可稱作「六四世代／Generation 6.4.」。

今年的中國已不是二十年前的中國，我們也不是二十年前的孩子。

至今回首二十年前的初夏，記得的不是死傷數字，不是標語，而是一種體認──對民族和社會的承擔，自身良知的省察，擇善固執的勇氣。

有人說，中國現今穩定繁榮，八九年春夏交際的那場政治風波，不談也罷。這種「稻草人」邏輯，不

單埋沒了歷史，也埋沒了良心。

管子說：衣食足，然後知榮辱。穩定繁榮，不是文明社會的終點，而是起點。嚴正對待事實，提昇國家文化，是社會領袖義不容辭的責任。

反觀現今中國，繁榮背後，被剝削侵犯的人，特別是孩子和女性，不可勝數。很多人面對社會的不公義，只有漠視、抱怨、以至從中取利；社會很多的「精英」，爭逐名利，富貴則淫，貧賤則移，威武則屈，延續以至鞏固了社會中嚴酷不公的制度。

八九年學生的訴求──民主改革，人權，自由，反貪污──二十年後仍沒有結果，反有倒退。

或許當年學生的行為有衝動之處，有錯失的地方，或許他們真的太傻太天真，但他們在廣場和平集會，追求的是對國家未來的期盼，一種民族未有的良知。罪總不至於死則肝腦塗地，生則監禁流亡？二十年過去，為什麼仍要混淆歷史，封殺言論，種疑於真相，更使死者不得公道，流亡者不得回國，使人民對六四事件禁若寒蟬？

民主進程，可以爭辯和妥協；自由人權，可以一步步走；但六四事件，黑白分明，為對死者和受難者交待，為對歷史和良心負責，我們必須鼓起道德勇氣，一寸也不能退讓。

What language must I create to describe nature? What system must I invent, to organize observations and experiences?

Reading I-Ching, a sweeping vision of nature and humanity spreads before me.

I-Ching, also known as the Book of Change, is a system said to be originated by Fu Hsi (~2800BC). Using a binary notation to represent a set of 64 symbols, it is an elaborate system that interprets the processes of nature, and thereby the affairs of man.

The name "I Ching" implies three ideas: Simplicity, Change, and Invariability. Each entry in the book starts with a hexagram,

which is a stack of six lines either solid (yang, masculine, creative) or broken (yin, feminine, receptive).

Each 3-lines forms a trigram, which represents an element of nature (heaven, earth, water, thunder, etc).

Each hexagram is a combination of 2 trigrams, representing a humanistic concept (family, youth, progress, conflict, revolution, perseverance, completion, etc).

The hexagram is then explained, its metaphor discussed, and the meanings on each of the six lines defined.

A delight it is to read and ponder these poetic metaphors, these mystic wisdoms! For example, water under mountain represents an image of youth:

It is not I who seek the young fool; The young fool seeks me.

Or, water above wood, mage of the well:

The town may be changed, but the well cannot be changed. It neither decreases nor increases. They come and go and draw from the well.

Or, mountain and thunder (hexagram shaped like a mouth), image of nourishment:

Pay heed to the providing of nourishment and to what a man seeks to fill his own mouth with.

Evidently, I-Ching was a system of divination in ancient China. Feng-Shiu, among many other superstitious practices, are its degenerated forms. As we manipulate atoms, unravel the genetic code, and know the specifics of nature’s laws, these hexagrams are now but intellectual relics to many of us. On the other hand, many of us who live in mega cities hardly have time to appreciate nature as our ancestors did, let alone contemplate upon its lawfulness and its relationships to humanity.

Because dreams — dry or wet, scary or sweet — are far more alluring than the routines that await modern men and women in the morning. Let's hit that snooze button one more time...

But what is that creaking noise? What is that feeling of gravity? It is the bed rotating, 10 degrees per second.

The best alarm clock is ambition. The second best is this most ingenious invention of mine.

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
— The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1

"not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible."

It has three categories: A, B, and C vocabulary.

A vocabulary are words used in everyday life, but stripped down and then recombined (knife, speedful, doublepluscold, undark).

B vocabulary are words constructed for political purposes (goodsex, thinkpol, duckspeaker).

C vocabulary are obscure technical terms without reference to any scientific thinking.

But that was in 1984.

In our 21st century, the world speaks New Newspeak. It is conceived so as not to diminish

the range of thoughts, but to extend and obscure them. I would categorize them as such:

A vocabulary are pleasant words that makes you desire more than you need. (organic, design, vitamin)

B vocabulary are web 2.0 words that sound good, for now. (google, twitter, bing)

Imagine Hong Kong in a time-lapsed movie: tall buildings sprouted upon landfills, people multiplied like fungus under subtropical heat, Mercedes jammed the roads, smog and hurricanes, came and went. Can you also see the Emperor's graffiti flickered, here and there?

For 50 years, the city must have been to him like an eternal SARS scene. A world silenced. Masked people. Nervous and discriminating eyes. A great city is always a great solitude, and to him, a great canvas as well.

For 50 years, he had written on walls and poles, in broad calligraphic strokes, the same nonsense:

Kowloon Emperor. New China Emperor. Chinese-British Emperor. Tsang Tsou Choi...

His calligraphy has a complex and strange charm: repetitious, obsessive, pompous,

childish. It is the antithesis of a pragmatic and fickle city.

The police used to charge him with vandalism, but now the government wants to preserve his scribbles as "cultural heritage".

During his last days in the hospital, doctors and nurses all hailed him as the Emperor of Kowloon. "Ah, Emperor, it’s time for lunch!" said the nurse.

Who among us can radiate such majestic presence? Is it not why Mencius said a great man is he who does not lose the child’s heart?

He was more lovable than the Chairman of China, more genuine than the Chief of Hong Kong, and more buoyant and steadfast than all of us. I shall miss him dearly.

To be or not to be?

Richard D. Altick, a literary critic, wrote a hilarious parody –

A policy decision inexorably enforced upon a depression-prone individual whose posture in respect to his total psychophysical environment is rendered antagonistic by apprehension or by innermotivated disinclination for ongoing participation in human existence is the necessity for effectuating a positive selection between two alternative programs of action, namely, (a) the continuance of the above-mentioned existence irrespective of the dislocations, dissatisfactions, and disabilities incurred in such a mode, or (b) the voluntary termination of such existence by self-initiated instrumentality, irrespective in this instance of the undetermined character of the subsequent environment, if any, in which the subject may be positioned as an end result of this irrevocable determination.

I found this passage in Richard A. Lanham’s brilliant book "Revising Prose".

Flipping through the book Fermat’s Last Theorem the other day, I found this interesting story:

An Arab numerologist documents the practice of carving 220 on one fruit and 284 on another, then eating the first one and offering the second one to a lover as a form of mathematical aphrodisiac.

Wonder if any of our modern-day geeks would like to pick up this fantastic ritual again — perhaps as laser-engravings onto mobile phones?

Also try a geekier pair: 9363584 and 9437056, discovered by Descartes in the Age of Reason.

Toothpaste, chopstick, bikini: stuff that grease modern life, making it bearable or even enjoyable. I have taken for granted a multitude of things around me, without ever wondering about their creators.

Every man-made system, space, object, and idea must once be thought, tested, and produced; and so weaved into it are insights, frustrations, ambitions, triumphs. Who are the people behind the artifacts?

Life in the corporation is like an RPG game. One must submit to its culture to be happy. Once in a while, one gets a level-up, and may spend the extra earning on the latest gadget. So it goes.

Gradually, I drift away from my true sense of self, and interact in chary manner with people in similar guises, and become a team player in a machinery that exists solely to profit its shareholders.

I suffer, and my sufferings are petty, and the pettiness suffocates me.

What has a well-fed person got to complain about? There are neither war nor famine. There are but a wide expanse of boredom between the nose and the computer screen.

It is with this sense of ambivalence, this irresolution between feeling grateful and feeling entrapped, that I conduct my professional life.

When the Tao, the Zen, or the Ecclesiastes fail to soothe, I would try to emulate the wisdom of J Alfred Prufrock:

no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool.

At times, alas, I also bullshit.

*

Exhausted by a busy week, trapped in a small airplane seat, elevated above the glittering landscape, I started reading On Bullshit.

*

Harry Frankfurt, Professor Emeritus of Princeton University, starts his book On Bullshit thus:

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.

The professor seeks a clear definition of bullshit: what its properties are, how it is used, and why there are so much of it.

There are different kinds of bullshit. The first kind is simply shit. The second kind violates objectivity and discipline. The third kind is when people play out different attitudes without committing to any belief. The forth kind is elaborate mumbo-jumbo. And so on.

But how does bullshit differ from lying or bluffing? Professor Frankfurt has a remarkable insight. A liar must know what truth is in order to invent a lie, but a bullshitter is indifferent to truth and falsehood. A bullshitter has a different mode of creativity:

It is more expansive and independent, with more spacious opportunities for improvisation, color, and imaginative play. This is less a matter of craft than of art.

Therefore, bullshit is unavoidable in our world, where truths and values are often considered relative, where every field of knowledge is almost unfathomable except to its specialists.

Professor Frankfurt believes that, because of this loss of confidence in objective inquiry, we retreat from the ideal of correctness to an alternative ideal of sincerity. Unable to

fathom truths about reality, one seeks to be true merely to his own self instead.

This may sound reasonable, until one reads the book's final judgment:

Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial — notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.

He gives the following example: A straight line is the simplest curve, in which each line segment differs in position. A circle gets a little more complex, in which each line segment differs both in position and direction, but the angles between segments are the same. A spiral gets more complex yet, and Brownian motion is the most complex of all.

And since the similarities in segments that define a straight line is different to those which define a circle, we can assert that circle has a higher order than straight line.

This leads to an interesting question: Are there subjective perceptions of the world? Bohm believes that subjectivity is but a lack of understanding, or of language, to describe the true quality of order that we perceive.

The first portrait comes from Jean Cocteau’s The Blood of a Poet. A lustrous mouth appears on the artist’s hand, sighing, whispering, bringing both sensual pleasures and mental confusions.

The second comes from Paul Klee, who compares the artist to a tree. The root absorbs streams of imagery and experience, and the crown of the tree is his art. The artist is the stem, passing on what comes to him from the depths. "He neither serves nor rules — he transmits."

Perhaps every artist is a synthesis of these two portraits, one that swings between narcistic obsession to transcendental wisdom.

Silence has a powerful voice. Press the start button and the microwave does nothing; the computer freezes; the sound system malfunctions in the middle of a movie; someone tells a bad joke; vivid dreams between the alarm clock’s snooze intervals; no one calls, not even telemarketers; a love letter sent, unrequited...

Alas, we the modern people can neither escape from the noises nor the silence.

The games express a higher vision of order, a meditative kind of beauty.

Laws of the Game, following the tradition of philosophical games, is a complex yet delightful book by Manfred Eigen and Ruthild Winkler. Using simple games, it illustrates concepts of biology, economics, and even music. It shows how the interplay of rules and chances can create — as Coleridge would say — unity in variety.

Indeed, enlightenment is when one has acquired all knowledge and experiences, yet retain a child's heart, which is always full of playfulness and wonderment.

Find a grain of sand that weighs a very specific value, say 0.4374284729... gram. Then with a very accurate machine we shall measure its weight very very accurately.

Then, we shall read that specific value, position by position, and convert the value in each position to binary numbers. For example, from the value of 0.4374.. we will get, 0, 100, 11, 111, 100, etc. Appending the values one after the other, we will get a very long string of 1 and 0.

Now feed the string into a Turing Machine (computer), and generate the digital sound and fury, that probably signify nothing, hidden in a grain of sand.

"Dude, comb my hairs so that no parting can be found -- or death!"

This is a topology problem about vector fields on a sphere. The best one can do is to comb the hairs to make everywhere smooth except one point on the ball. Remarkably, the meteorologist then deduces from the hairy ball that there must be always a cyclone somewhere on earth.

Thus we are always doomed, one way or the other.

P.S. Concepts of Modern Mathematics has a lively discussion on the hairy ball.

Each guest is served with a chopping board, a paring knife, and an onion. At Mr Schmuh’s signal, the guests would start chopping the onion to pieces, so that the juice, the sulphenic acids, would induce tears.

So that they weep and mourn for all that had been forever lost.

Some believe that the magnitude of upheavals in our era has overwhelmed us, that we become numb to deaths and destructions, that we live in a tearless century.

Perhaps metaphors are always more convincing than grim reality to us. We understand the world through eels inside a horse’s head, grandma’s layers of skirt, and the fervent drumming of a midget.

A child dies because his father has miscalculated the thickness of ice.

A young girl plans to seduce a man who may or may not be her real father.

A man sells his kidney for stamps.

A woman turns a teenger stalker into a hapless victim.

An executioner murders a murderer.

Scriptures leave no room for moral dilemmas. Laws do not account for the close-up faces of desire, or torment, or despair. Commandments of "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not" are so absurd here, because human lives are always human-like: intertwined, ambivalent, circumstantial.

1. Pull out two horns from each end of dough
2. Pull out two more horns from each of the (two) horns and weave them.
3. Pull out two more, from each of the (four) horns and weave them.
4. Pull out two more yet, from each of the (2^N) horns and weave them.

An Alexander Horned Baguette is like a baguette, except that the outer complement of the dough is not simply connected, and its fundamental group is not finitely generated. Make sense?

Who could resist the fresh smell of something so pathologically twisted? Make it a sandwich with Monkfish and Romanesco cauliflower.

See: a helicopter carrying Jesus, a young woman's bosom, a sea monster, a familiar girl waving to him, a pale and placid dawn.

By keenly observing the richness of its details, an ordinary life becomes sweet. It is a truth that self-help books won't teach, and money can't buy.

A short essay on Processing language, written for National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts' digital art site digiarts.org.tw.

這篇短文介紹Processing程式語言，是寫給國立台灣美術館的數位藝術知識與創作流通平台專欄。

到博物館走走，可以一睹以往的新科技如何帶給藝術家新的表達形式。從遠古的石人至杜象（Duchamp）的雕塑，從維梅爾（Vermeer）的暗箱油畫至曼雷（Man Ray）的曝光照片──藝術的發展也反映了科技的發展。如若缺少了鑄煉的科技或捕光的儀器，很多創新的藝術都不可能成形。

電腦科技為藝術帶來很多意想不到的新方向，其軟硬體繁雜而奇妙。藝術家也許能從小小的發光二極管（LED）中取得無窮創意，但又覺得最新版的 Photoshop 仍有太多不足；或者，他熱衷於電腦動畫，但卻受限鍵盤和滑鼠的輸入方式……。

故此，數位藝術家必須能以自創的工具，去開拓自創的語言和風格。然而現今的藝術教育，注重解讀莎士比亞多於解讀程式編碼，而藝術系的學生，常也投進唯心的世界中，把數理化忘記了。及後，要跨過數位藝術的門檻便顯得十分困難。

但二極管閃閃發亮，古怪機械人搖來擺去，數位藝術看似奇趣無窮，卻可望而不可及，可遠觀而不可褻玩，有時令人垂涎不已！

為此，我希望可以簡明地介紹一下 Processing程式語言。它為數位藝術初學者提供了極佳的學習環境，也是創作和探索數位藝術的好工具。

Processing 是一種源自 Java 的程式語言，亦是特別為藝術家、設計師和學生而開拓的免費編程環境。它的始創人 Ben Fry 和 Casey Reas 本身也是數位藝術家，他們於美國麻省理工學院的媒體ç ”究室畢業後不久，開始了 Processing 的計劃。該學院「美學與運算小組」（Aesthetics & Computation Group）對數位藝術的ç ”究 ，是Processing不少意念的源起。

Processing 計劃在這三年間發展迅速，而 2005 年四月推出的 beta 1.0 版本是其重要的里程碑。現今的 Processing 軟體已非常完整，很多的數位作品都以 Processing 創成，而其社群也正不斷擴大。

教學是 Processing 計劃的一個焦點。其程式語言簡明，重於處理視覺和互動元素，是以化虛為實，使初學者能以圖像和動態思考電腦程式的基本概念。例如，line(10,10,20,20) 可畫出一條短線，而 ellipse(10,10,20,20) 則畫出一個小圓形。由這些單純的起始，初學者可漸進地領悟編寫程式的基礎，如迴圈（loop）、條件式（conditional）、和物件（object），並藉此探索進階的技巧，如方位幾何、粒子系統、影像處理等。Processing 語言提供了一個由淺入深的教學環境，其微妙的平衡，補充了其他程式語言在教學方面的不足。

另外，Processing 網站有著活躍的社群和豐富的資源，為初學者解答疑難。網站中有很多範例可供初學者參考，由滑鼠輸入和三角幾何，以至遞迴演算和粒子系統，有趣極矣！

Processing 也是適合數位藝術家的創作環境，其語言簡潔，圖像處理功能卓越，各種程序庫伸延 Processing 的應用範圍至操控電子元件、錄播 MP3、存取 XML 等等。

「寫生簿」（sketchbook）是 Processing 的一大特點。數位式的「寫生」有如傳統式的寫生，重於探索和實驗，並自反覆ç ”習中熟練技巧。數位「寫生」可以試驗新的演算方法，探索圖形和動態的變化，追尋靈感，推敲意念，藝術家以此能集成自己的數位工具，逐步整合完善的作品。這大概有老子所言的「九層之臺，起於累土」之意吧。

然而，數位藝術的其一特點是它的多元性。我想數位藝術家必需善用不同的工具，吸納各種的知識，輻輳並進。

培德在《文藝復興》的結語中說，藝術給予流逝的時光最大的價值。然而時光流逝，社會改變了，人們對藝術和時間的價值觀也改變了。石器時代有石器的雕刻，電子時代亦應帶來電子的藝術。一塊石é ­既可製成工具，亦可釋出靈魂（正如米開朗基羅所言）；如此，電腦也許不只是工具，它與人文藝術之間或潛藏著更多不可思議的關係吧。於是二極管閃閃發亮，古怪機械人搖來擺去，催促古怪的藝術家們，走往奇妙的前線去。