Gong Cheng's Blog

Last night, we went to see the two new movie Underworld 3, the birth of lycans, and The curious case of Benjamin Button.
Underworld 3 is one of the latest one of the Underworld series, I chose this movie simply because I like the previous two Underworld movie. The impeccable  pictures, and intriguing mystic story can take you far far away from the reality. The plot of the movie is quite simple, Lucian a Lycan raised within dealth dealers was always treated as the second level citizen. The Viktor’s daughter Sonjia falls in love with Lucian. Viktor played a similar role as in previous movies, trying to separate the two of them. Failed, Viktor decided to kill both of them as a punishement. He successfully killed his daughter Sonjia, but again failed on killing Lucian. Altogether with a group of Lycans, Lucian killed the majority of the death dealers as a revenge, even Viktor. However, Viktor is a vampir, he will come back after 100 years.

Benjamin Button is a totally different story. In the 1st world war,  a clock smith’s son was sent to the field, and came back as bone ashes. The desperating clock smith decides to build a clock which will run reversely in hope that time will go reverse to bring his beloved son back to him. His son never came back, but at the time the clock was built, Benjamin Button was born as an old man. His life is completely reversed. He looks old when he was born and live gradually younger and younger, it is just like a curse. Of course, he still has the chance of developing a romantic relationship with the female lead, even has a daughter who serve as the narrator in the movie. I think the problem of this movie is the length, two and a half hours, when we were watching this in the cinema, I heard people sleeping at the back, bath room visits are frequent during the latter half of the movie.

美国的经济正在经历前所未有的打击,我们不知道这次会持续多久. 翻了翻经济学的书, 从根本上说,我以为,经济发展无它,不过是效率的问题, 如果大家都能把工作做的又快又好, 那么大家就都有吃有喝有的玩, 如果效率低下,大家就都得工作很长时间, 生活水平还是没有提高. 所以呢,美国人收入高,其实说白了,就是美国人工作效率高. 美国人工作效率高并不是说美国人的工作紧张, 这是两个不同的概念. 应该说, 美国效率最高的在于它的大规模生产, 尤其是农产品, 大部分工业用品,都是通过机械化的大规模生产制造出来的,所以单位时间投入的人力,在美国就能够产生出更多的财富.

我觉得, 目前的经济还有很多效率不高的地方,如果提高了, 还是可以进一步提高美国经济的效率.
看看我自己的帐单,
吃, 平均每天20块的话,一年大概总开销7000$.
穿，我大概一年会穿坏两双鞋子，两件衣服，两件裤子，所有衣物加起来大概要花500$, 当然，我算不怎么花钱买衣服的人。
住，在西雅图住房子，一个小套大概平均800$一个月，一年下来就是10000$,
行，汽车一年的折旧加上保险大概1000$, 如果天天开20mile, 一周开100mile, 每个月就是400mile, 大概20加仑，一年1000$汽油费。
手机， 一年大概800$的手机费。
除此之外，我几乎花不了什么钱，想来大多数人可能也差不多吧。 可见，花销最大的依次是住和吃。 我以为，这两个行业也是目前自动化程度最低的行业。
比如说盖房子，都是一些蓝领在搞，一个房子要盖很久，实地考察，图纸设计，埋地基，盖墙，上屋顶，装电线，水管，等等，等等，这些东西都没有充分自动化，所以成本居高不下。 我以为，盖房子的技术难度比造汽车要低很多， 如果把盖房子的过程充分流程化，盖一栋房子的价格应该比买一辆车便宜。 再比如说，美国这么多人都住所谓的别墅，我觉得完全没有必要，应该像中国那样搞成小区，大家都住一起，再弄个集体花园多省事。

再比如说吃，我觉得中餐的快餐就远远没有西餐发达，还是以手工作坊为主，如果能够涌现出几个像麦当劳那样的中餐馆，那就很好。即便是美国的快餐，其中的健康食物也非常有限，蔬菜往往就萨拉一种，没有办法常常去吃。

再往下，我觉得最后衣服的购买也可以通过网络自动化， 比如说，我们把身高，x围什么的，还有头像交给某个网站，它就可以根据你的身材量身定做衣服，我觉得这也比在mall里跑断腿买衣服效率要高。

我觉得这个世界上还有很多可以做的事情没有做……

最近干的一件大事就是上个礼拜组织了微软华人协会的委员会在微软的春节联欢晚会上唱了一首歌。这是我人生第一次组织别人唱歌，是个有趣的经历。我上次自己学新歌还是2002年的事情，我突然感觉读博士期间，我的生活停滞不前了6年，现在才开始继续。这周工作算比较忙，早出晚归。