沙田戰役當晚，大批市民在源禾路佈防集結，防暴警察已經迅速清理了兩處路障，和示威者只有二百至三百米的距離。昏晚街燈，風起雲湧，大戰一觸即發。

我站上馬路邊的石墩，屏息靜氣，準備記錄衝突一刻。眼皮底下盡是一大片的黃色頭盔，以及一個個黑衣身影。他們和我的距離仿佛能嗅到呼吸的氣息。他們太瘦小，臂纏保鮮紙，再套上一個浮板還要是小童size做盾牌，另一個示威者拿着連阿婆都嫌太輕唔想執的紙皮作防禦。對面是警棍和長盾。

我不想只作動作場面拍攝，我希望可以讓示威者還原做一個有血有肉的人。

我訪問了準備作戰的示威者。

一個說，他們若不站出來，便不能保護香港。一個說，他們要守在馬路，因為要拖住警察，讓後面的人有機會離開。

當然，其實沒有一個黃色帽的示威者願意在警察要進攻防線的時候離開，他們也不可能知道，原來他們已經被警方包圍不能離開。

我追問，後面的人既然要撤退，那你們難道不用撤退嗎？到底為甚麼要守在十字路口？

他沉默一回，然後慢慢說。「如果我無得捉一兩個差佬嚟打傷佢，我條氣唔順。」我當下是呆住了，頭盔和口罩之下，我看不清楚他的神情。這不是視死如歸，而是同歸於盡。殺敵一百，自損三千，但他們已經動了這種念頭。

這或許解釋為何每次和平遊行之後都會有大規模警民衝突，他們早有這種心理準備，或者說，是每次遊行的最低消費。這種警民仇恨已經糾纏不休。

另一個示威者，是來自台灣。他不是在香港讀書工作的台灣人，而是正宗在台灣工作生活的台灣人，今次是特意來香港參加示威活動。他本身經歷過太陽花以及數之不盡的示威活動。他來香港不是站在路邊食花生，而是戴了頭盔纏了保鮮紙站在最前線的示威者。我問他為何要來？他答：「今日香港，明日台灣。」

Infoman

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Infoman

上個月對飲食界來說真是奇妙的月份，日本一家拉麵店，想到夏天吃冷麵本來是沾醬來吃的，但是既然珍珠奶茶是受歡迎的飲品，何不來個拉麵沾珍珠奶茶吃吃看？於是乎，日本著名的連鎖拉麵店「麵屋武藏」（Menya Musashi）便開發了新款的「暗黑」拉麵。老闆看到的是，夏日高溫，便把原先的沾醬換上珍珠奶茶，還在其中一家連鎖店作為限定商品，每天限量15份出售，結果大受歡迎和好評。

專門發表日本飲食新聞和餐飲指南的日本favy網上雜誌，發布了拉麵專欄作家山川大介的食後感想文章，指出這款冷麵的配料有葱油雞和黃瓜等，沾麵的醬汁就是一碗珍珠奶茶，這奶茶是用鰹魚和牛奶製成，內含的珍珠份量不少，每顆珍珠都非常彈牙可口。麵條則比較扁平，上面灑着不少黑色而細碎的伯爵茶葉粒。麵條和珍珠一起進食的話，煙韌的珍珠和沾滿湯汁的麵條味道濃郁，合拍的程度令人嘆為觀止。

山川大介還說，吃完麵，店家會送上一碗杏仁奶，讓食客倒進沾麵湯汁中飲用，那湯頭的味道就變得更為醇厚。

珍奶官司

真是只要敢大膽的想，就可以大膽的做，於是珍珠奶茶配什麼更可口的念頭，觸發日本人不少創新的想法。有人做出珍珠奶茶奄列，不過，這其實和炒蛋加牛奶差不多吧？有人做出珍珠奶茶麻婆豆腐，這有點不倫不類吧？吃麻婆豆腐就是要吃其麻辣和軟嫩，如今加了珍珠，是吃軟嫩還是吃彈牙？亦有人做出珍珠奶茶泡飯，這只是珍珠奶茶的變調而已，看來沒有什麼稀奇之處，但原來卻不是我們想像中的泡飯，而是用珍珠奶茶和米一起煮出的飯。

這是在日本網絡媒體SoraNews24上發表的，創作者是日本美食編輯佐藤，他以一杯米和一杯珍珠奶茶的一比一比例加入電飯煲中煮，15分鐘過後，他聞到香氣飄出，再過15分鐘，將電飯煲的蓋子掀開，看到的是每一粒飯都飽滿地吸收了珍珠奶茶，呈現出奶茶的咖啡顏色，本來黑色的珍珠更是黑得發亮。佐藤說，味道完美結合，但米飯的香味還是可以品嘗得到。

還會陸續有些什麼珍珠奶茶的乜乜出現？誰也不知道，因為創意有時是苦思所得，有時是偶然一個靈感在腦際飄過，比如有人聯想到珍珠奶茶pizza，有人聯想到珍珠奶茶漢堡。敢想就敢做，至於味道如何，會不會受大眾歡迎，那就要經過時間的考驗了。

像珍珠奶茶，原先於上世紀八十年代在台灣推出時，誰會想得到竟然大賣，而且更賣到全世界各地去？台灣的珍珠奶茶，誰是第一個發明者？曾經有兩家店舖都說是首創者，為了爭第一個發明者的名銜，這兩家店還曾鬧上法院互告，但由於兩家店舖都未有申請專利和商標權，所以官司打不成。

自稱是第一個發明者的人，姓涂名宗和，自幼就愛喝茶，曾經學習製茶技術。據說他有一天在菜市場看到他愛吃的白色粉圓冰，便想到如果把粉圓加進綠茶裏會有什麼效果？結果發現，那晶瑩剔透的粉圓很像珍珠，便取名為珍珠綠茶。後來又在別處看到有黑色的粉圓，於是便有了現在流行的黑色粉圓珍珠奶茶。他後來開了「翰林茶館」，賣的珍珠奶茶大受歡迎。

另一個自稱是首先發明珍珠奶茶的人，姓劉名漢介，也就是台中「春水堂」的創辦人。他的茶館生意起初並不好，夏天時生意更差。1983年的夏天，他用調酒器把紅茶加上冰塊和糖混合成泡沫紅茶，率先打破傳統的喝茶要喝熱的習慣，分別推出冰涼的泡沫紅茶、百香紅茶等，結果是夏天的淡季一下子變成旺季。

吸管爭議

到了1987年，店子嘗試在茶裏加入台灣的地方小吃，即港人稱為涼粉的仙草，或是台灣特有的愛玉等，但無論是加了什麼，都不如粉圓那麼受到大眾的喜愛。就這樣，煙煙韌韌的粉圓加上泡沫紅茶，就成了最暢銷的珍珠奶茶。

最先賣的珍珠奶茶中的粉圓本來都不是很大顆，後來成為大粒之後，被稱作波霸奶茶，是因為當時港產電影在台灣流行，而港產片中的葉子楣被人稱為波霸的緣故也。

粉圓的製作，可以用各式各樣的粉，比如木薯粉和芡粉，只要做到彈牙有口勁就可以。台灣的粉圓，最初是用地瓜粉來製作，地瓜就是港人稱的番薯。現在連香港賣珍珠奶茶的店舖多不勝數，珍珠的大小和製作材料就各有各的秘方了。

世界潮流是少用塑膠製品，香港和台灣自然也跟隨潮流，在香港，最近不少飲食店不提供飲管，但還是有不少人要求來一根。在台灣，限制吸管的討論卻引起珍珠奶茶愛好者的抗議，認為不用吸管來啜上那些珍珠，便缺少了一份特別的滋味。而在香港，販賣珍珠奶茶的業者，不知想到有什麼方法，可以不用吸管呢？

撰文 : 占飛

Infoman

Erich Fromm Read in another language Watch this page Edit For the tennis player, see Eric Fromm. Erich Seligmann Fromm (/frɒm/; German: [fʁɔm]; March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German-born American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was one of the Founders of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory.[1][n 1]

Erich Fromm Erich Fromm 1974.jpg Fromm in 1974 Born Erich Seligmann Fromm March 23, 1900 Frankfurt am Main, German Empire Died March 18, 1980 (aged 79) Muralto, Ticino, Switzerland Era 20th century philosophy Region Western philosophy School Continental philosophy, Frankfurt School critical theory, psychoanalysis, humanistic Judaism Main interests Humanism, social theory, Marxism Notable ideas Being and Having as modes of existence, security versus freedom, social character, Character orientation Influences Bachofen, Spinoza, Eckhart, Kierkegaard, Marx, Freud, Alfred Weber Influenced Elias Porter, Chögyam Trungpa Contents Life
Edit Erich Fromm was born on March 23, 1900, at Frankfurt am Main, the only child of Orthodox Jewish parents, Rosa (Krause) and Naphtali Fromm.[2] He started his academic studies in 1918 at the University of Frankfurt am Main with two semesters of jurisprudence. During the summer semester of 1919, Fromm studied at the University of Heidelberg, where he began studying sociology under Alfred Weber (brother of the better known sociologist Max Weber), psychiatrist-philosopher Karl Jaspers, and Heinrich Rickert. Fromm received his PhD in sociology from Heidelberg in 1922. During the mid-1920s, he trained to become a psychoanalyst through Frieda Reichmann's psychoanalytic sanatorium in Heidelberg. They married in 1926, but separated shortly after and divorced in 1942. He began his own clinical practice in 1927. In 1930 he joined the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research and completed his psychoanalytical training.

After the Nazi takeover of power in Germany, Fromm moved first to Geneva and then, in 1934, to Columbia University in New York. Together with Karen Horney and Harry Stack Sullivan, Fromm belongs to a Neo-Freudian school of psychoanalytical thought. Horney and Fromm each had a marked influence on the other's thought, with Horney illuminating some aspects of psychoanalysis for Fromm and the latter elucidating sociology for Horney. Their relationship ended in the late 1930s.[3] After leaving Columbia, Fromm helped form the New York branch of the Washington School of Psychiatry in 1943, and in 1946 co-founded the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology. He was on the faculty of Bennington College from 1941 to 1949, and taught courses at the New School for Social Research in New York from 1941 to 1959.

When Fromm moved to Mexico City in 1949, he became a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and established a psychoanalytic section at the medical school there. Meanwhile, he taught as a professor of psychology at Michigan State University from 1957 to 1961 and as an adjunct professor of psychology at the graduate division of Arts and Sciences at New York University after 1962. He taught at UNAM until his retirement, in 1965, and at the Mexican Society of Psychoanalysis (SMP) until 1974. In 1974 he moved from Mexico City to Muralto, Switzerland, and died at his home in 1980, five days before his eightieth birthday. All the while, Fromm maintained his own clinical practice and published a series of books.

Fromm was reportedly an atheist[4][n 2] but described his position as "nontheistic mysticism".[5]

Psychological theory
Edit Beginning with his first seminal work of 1941, Escape from Freedom (known in Britain as Fear of Freedom), Fromm's writings were notable as much for their social and political commentary as for their philosophical and psychological underpinnings. Indeed, Escape from Freedom is viewed as one of the founding works of political psychology. His second important work, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics, first published in 1947, continued and enriched the ideas of Escape from Freedom. Taken together, these books outlined Fromm's theory of human character, which was a natural outgrowth of Fromm's theory of human nature. Fromm's most popular book was The Art of Loving, an international bestseller first published in 1956, which recapitulated and complemented the theoretical principles of human nature found in Escape from Freedom and Man for Himself—principles which were revisited in many of Fromm's other major works.

Central to Fromm's world view was his interpretation of the Talmud and Hasidism. He began studying Talmud as a young man under Rabbi J. Horowitz and later under Rabbi Salman Baruch Rabinkow, a Chabad Hasid. While working towards his doctorate in sociology at the University of Heidelberg,[6] Fromm studied the Tanya by the founder of Chabad, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. Fromm also studied under Nehemia Nobel and Ludwig Krause while studying in Frankfurt. Fromm's grandfather and two great grandfathers on his father's side were rabbis, and a great uncle on his mother's side was a noted Talmudic scholar. However, Fromm turned away from orthodox Judaism in 1926, towards secular interpretations of scriptural ideals.

The cornerstone of Fromm's humanistic philosophy is his interpretation of the biblical story of Adam and Eve's exile from the Garden of Eden. Drawing on his knowledge of the Talmud, Fromm pointed out that being able to distinguish between good and evil is generally considered to be a virtue, but that biblical scholars generally consider Adam and Eve to have sinned by disobeying God and eating from the Tree of Knowledge. However, departing from traditional religious orthodoxy on this, Fromm extolled the virtues of humans taking independent action and using reason to establish moral values rather than adhering to authoritarian moral values.

Beyond a simple condemnation of authoritarian value systems, Fromm used the story of Adam and Eve as an allegorical explanation for human biological evolution and existential angst, asserting that when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they became aware of themselves as being separate from nature while still being part of it. This is why they felt "naked" and "ashamed": they had evolved into human beings, conscious of themselves, their own mortality, and their powerlessness before the forces of nature and society, and no longer united with the universe as they were in their instinctive, pre-human existence as animals. According to Fromm, the awareness of a disunited human existence is a source of guilt and shame, and the solution to this existential dichotomy is found in the development of one's uniquely human powers of love and reason. However, Fromm distinguished his concept of love from unreflective popular notions as well as Freudian paradoxical love (see the criticism by Marcuse below).

Fromm considered love to be an interpersonal creative capacity rather than an emotion, and he distinguished this creative capacity from what he considered to be various forms of narcissistic neuroses and sado-masochistic tendencies that are commonly held out as proof of "true love". Indeed, Fromm viewed the experience of "falling in love" as evidence of one's failure to understand the true nature of love, which he believed always had the common elements of care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. Drawing from his knowledge of the Torah, Fromm pointed to the story of Jonah, who did not wish to save the residents of Nineveh from the consequences of their sin, as demonstrative of his belief that the qualities of care and responsibility are generally absent from most human relationships. Fromm also asserted that few people in modern society had respect for the autonomy of their fellow human beings, much less the objective knowledge of what other people truly wanted and needed.

Fromm believed that freedom was an aspect of human nature that we either embrace or escape. He observed that embracing our freedom of will was healthy, whereas escaping freedom through the use of escape mechanisms was the root of psychological conflicts. Fromm outlined three of the most common escape mechanisms: automaton conformity, authoritarianism, and destructiveness. Automaton conformity is changing one's ideal self to conform to a perception of society's preferred type of personality, losing one's true self in the process. Automaton conformity displaces the burden of choice from self to society. Authoritarianism is giving control of oneself to another. By submitting one's freedom to someone else, this act removes the freedom of choice almost entirely. Lastly, destructiveness is any process which attempts to eliminate others or the world as a whole, all to escape freedom. Fromm said that "the destruction of the world is the last, almost desperate attempt to save myself from being crushed by it".[7]

The word biophilia was frequently used by Fromm as a description of a productive psychological orientation and "state of being". For example, in an addendum to his book The Heart of Man: Its Genius For Good and Evil, Fromm wrote as part of his humanist credo:

"I believe that the man choosing progress can find a new unity through the development of all his human forces, which are produced in three orientations. These can be presented separately or together: biophilia, love for humanity and nature, and independence and freedom."[8]

Erich Fromm postulated eight basic needs:

Need Description Transcendence Being thrown into the world without their consent, humans have to transcend their nature by destroying or creating people or things.[9] Humans can destroy through malignant aggression, or killing for reasons other than survival, but they can also create and care about their creations.[9] Rootedness Rootedness is the need to establish roots and to feel at home again in the world.[9] Productively, rootedness enables us to grow beyond the security of our mother and establish ties with the outside world.[9] With the nonproductive strategy, we become fixated and afraid to move beyond the security and safety of our mother or a mother substitute.[9] Sense of Identity The drive for a sense of identity is expressed nonproductively as conformity to a group and productively as individuality.[9] Frame of orientation Understanding the world and our place in it. Excitation and Stimulation Actively striving for a goal rather than simply responding. Unity A sense of oneness between one person and the "natural and human world outside." Effectiveness The need to feel accomplished.[10] Fromm's thesis of the "escape from freedom" is epitomized in the following passage. The "individualized man" referenced by Fromm is man bereft of the "primary ties" of belonging (i.e. nature, family, etc.), also expressed as "freedom from":

There is only one possible, productive solution for the relationship of individualized man with the world: his active solidarity with all men and his spontaneous activity, love and work, which unite him again with the world, not by primary ties but as a free and independent individual.... However, if the economic, social and political conditions... do not offer a basis for the realization of individuality in the sense just mentioned, while at the same time people have lost those ties which gave them security, this lag makes freedom an unbearable burden. It then becomes identical with doubt, with a kind of life which lacks meaning and direction. Powerful tendencies arise to escape from this kind of freedom into submission or some kind of relationship to man and the world which promises relief from uncertainty, even if it deprives the individual of his freedom.

— Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom [N.Y.: Rinehart, 1941], pp. 36–7. The point is repeated on pp. 31, 256–7.) Five basic orientations Edit In his book Man for Himself Fromm spoke of "orientation of character". He differentiates his theory of character from that of Freud by focusing on two ways an individual relates to the world. Freud analyzed character in terms of libido organization, whereas Fromm says that in the process of living, we relate to the world by: 1) acquiring and assimilating things—"Assimilation", and 2) reacting to people—"Socialization". Fromm asserted that these two ways of relating to the world were not instinctive, but an individual's response to the peculiar circumstances of his or her life; he also believed that people are never exclusively one type of orientation. These two ways of relating to life's circumstances lead to basic character-orientations.

Fromm lists four types of nonproductive character orientation, which he called receptive, exploitative, hoarding, and marketing, and one positive character orientation, which he called productive. Receptive and exploitative orientations are basically how an individual may relate to other people and are socialization attributes of character. A hoarding orientation is an acquiring and assimilating materials/valuables character trait. The marketing orientation arises in response to the human situation in the modern era. The current needs of the market determine value. It is a relativistic ethic. In contrast, the productive orientation is an objective ethic. Despite the existential struggles of humanity, each human has the potential for love, reason and productive work in life. Fromm writes, "It is the paradox of human existence that man must simultaneously seek for closeness and for independence; for oneness with others and at the same time for the preservation of his uniqueness and particularity. ...the answer to this paradox – and to the moral problems of man – is productiveness."

Fromm's influence on other notable psychologists
Edit Fromm's four non-productive orientations were subject to validation through a psychometric test, The Person Relatedness Test by Elias H. Porter, PhD in collaboration with Carl Rogers, PhD at the University of Chicago's Counseling Center between 1953 and 1955. Fromm's four non-productive orientations also served as basis for the LIFO test, first published in 1967 by Stuart Atkins, Alan Katcher, PhD, and Elias Porter, PhD and the Strength Deployment Inventory, first published in 1971 by Elias H. Porter, PhD.[11] Fromm also influenced his student Sally L. Smith who went on to become the founder of the Lab School of Washington and the Baltimore Lab School.[12]

Critique of Freud
Edit Fromm examined the life and work of Sigmund Freud at length. Fromm identified a discrepancy between early and later Freudian theory: namely that, prior to World War I, Freud had described human drives as a tension between desire and repression, but after the end of the war, began framing human drives as a struggle between biologically universal Life and Death (Eros and Thanatos) instincts. Fromm charged Freud and his followers with never acknowledging the contradictions between the two theories.

Fromm also criticized Freud's dualistic thinking. According to Fromm, Freudian descriptions of human consciousness as struggles between two poles were narrow and limiting. Fromm also condemned Freud as a misogynist unable to think outside the patriarchal milieu of early 20th century Vienna. However, in spite of these criticisms, Fromm nonetheless expressed a great respect for Freud and his accomplishments. Fromm contended that Freud was one of the "architects of the modern age", alongside Albert Einstein and Karl Marx, but emphasized that he considered Marx both far more historically important than Freud and a finer thinker.[13]

Political ideas and activities
Edit Fromm's best known work, Escape from Freedom, focuses on the human urge to seek a source of authority and control upon reaching a freedom that was thought to be an individual's true desire. Fromm's critique of the modern political order and capitalist system led him to seek insights from medieval feudalism. In Escape from Freedom, he found value in the lack of individual freedom, rigid structure, and obligations required on the members of medieval society:

What characterizes medieval in contrast to modern society is its lack of individual freedom…But altogether a person was not free in the modern sense, neither was he alone and isolated. In having a distinct, unchangeable, and unquestionable place in the social world from the moment of birth, man was rooted in a structuralized whole, and thus life had a meaning which left no place, and no need for doubt…There was comparatively little competition. One was born into a certain economic position which guaranteed a livelihood determined by tradition, just as it carried economic obligations to those higher in the social hierarchy.[14]

File:Chomsky 5 - On Fromm's alienation of man.ogvPlay media Noam Chomsky discusses Erich Fromm's theory of alienation. The culmination of Fromm's social and political philosophy was his book The Sane Society, published in 1955, which argued in favor of a humanistic and democratic socialism. Building primarily upon the early works of Karl Marx, Fromm sought to re-emphasise the ideal of freedom, missing from most Soviet Marxism and more frequently found in the writings of libertarian socialists and liberal theoreticians. Fromm's brand of socialism rejected both Western capitalism and Soviet communism, which he saw as dehumanizing, and which resulted in the virtually universal modern phenomenon of alienation. He became one of the founders of socialist humanism, promoting the early writings of Marx and his humanist messages to the US and Western European public.

In the early 1960s, Fromm published two books dealing with Marxist thought (Marx's Concept of Man and Beyond the Chains of Illusion: My Encounter with Marx and Freud). In 1965, working to stimulate the Western and Eastern cooperation between Marxist humanists, Fromm published a series of articles entitled Socialist Humanism: An International Symposium. In 1966, the American Humanist Association named him Humanist of the Year.

For a period, Fromm was also active in U.S. politics. He joined the Socialist Party of America in the mid-1950s, and did his best to help them provide an alternative viewpoint to McCarthyism trends in some US political thought. This alternative viewpoint was best expressed in his 1961 paper May Man Prevail? An Inquiry into the Facts and Fictions of Foreign Policy. However, as a co-founder of SANE, Fromm's strongest political activism was in the international peace movement, fighting against the nuclear arms race and U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. After supporting Senator Eugene McCarthy's losing bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, Fromm more or less retreated from the American political scene, although he did write a paper in 1974 entitled Remarks on the Policy of Détente for a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Fromm was awarded Nelly Sachs Prize in 1979.

Criticism
Edit In Eros and Civilization, Herbert Marcuse is critical of Fromm: In the beginning, he was a radical theorist, but later he turned to conformity. Marcuse also noted that Fromm, as well as his close colleagues Sullivan and Karen Horney, removed Freud's libido theory and other radical concepts, which thus reduced psychoanalysis to a set of idealist ethics, which only embrace the status quo.[15] Fromm's response, in both The Sane Society[16] and in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness,[17] argues that Freud indeed deserves substantial credit for recognizing the central importance of the unconscious, but also that he tended to rectify his own concepts that depicted the self as the passive outcome of instinct and social control, with minimal volition or variability. Fromm argues that later scholars such as Marcuse accepted these concepts as dogma, whereas social psychology requires a more dynamic theoretical and empirical approach. In reference to Fromm's leftist political activism as a public intellectual, Noam Chomsky said "I liked Fromm's attitudes but thought his work was pretty superficial".[18]

Notes
Edit ^ For a second name he was given that of his grandfather on his father's side–Seligmann Pinchas Fromm, although the registry office in Frankfurt does not record him as Erich Pinchas Fromm, but as Erich Seligmann Fromm. Also his parents addressed his mail to 'Erich S. Fromm.'[1] ^ About the same time he stopped observing Jewish religious rituals and rejected a cause he had once embraced, Zionism. He "just didn't want to participate in any division of the human race, whether religious or political," he explained decades later (Wershba, p. 12), by which time he was a confirmed atheist.[4]

Infoman

Quantum Experiment Shows How Time ‘Emerges’ from Entanglement

Time is an emergent phenomenon that is a side effect of quantum entanglement, say physicists. And they have the first experimental results to prove it

The Physics arXiv Blog

The Physics arXiv Blog in The Physics arXiv Blog Oct 23, 2013 · 5 min read

When the new ideas of quantum mechanics spread through science like wildfire in the first half of the 20th century, one of the first things physicists did was to apply them to gravity and general relativity. The results were not pretty. It immediately became clear that these two foundations of modern physics were entirely incompatible. When physicists attempted to meld the approaches, the resulting equations were bedeviled with infinities making it impossible to make sense of the results. Then in the mid-1960s, there was a breakthrough. The physicists John Wheeler and Bryce DeWitt successfully combined the previously incompatible ideas in a key result that has since become known as the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. This is important because it avoids the troublesome infinites—a huge advance. But it didn’t take physicists long to realise that while the Wheeler-DeWitt equation solved one significant problem, it introduced another. The new problem was that time played no role in this equation. In effect, it says that nothing ever happens in the universe, a prediction that is clearly at odds with the observational evidence. This conundrum, which physicists call ‘the problem of time’, has proved to be a thorn in flesh of modern physicists, who have tried to ignore it but with little success. Then in 1983, the theorists Don Page and William Wootters came up with a novel solution based on the quantum phenomenon of entanglement. This is the exotic property in which two quantum particles share the same existence, even though they are physically separated. Entanglement is a deep and powerful link and Page and Wootters showed how it can be used to measure time. Their idea was that the way a pair of entangled particles evolve is a kind of clock that can be used to measure change. But the results depend on how the observation is made. One way to do this is to compare the change in the entangled particles with an external clock that is entirely independent of the universe. This is equivalent to god-like observer outside the universe measuring the evolution of the particles using an external clock. In this case, Page and Wootters showed that the particles would appear entirely unchanging—that time would not exist in this scenario. But there is another way to do it that gives a different result. This is for an observer inside the universe to compare the evolution of the particles with the rest of the universe. In this case, the internal observer would see a change and this difference in the evolution of entangled particles compared with everything else is an important a measure of time. This is an elegant and powerful idea. It suggests that time is an emergent phenomenon that comes about because of the nature of entanglement. And it exists only for observers inside the universe. Any god-like observer outside sees a static, unchanging universe, just as the Wheeler-DeWitt equations predict. Of course, without experimental verification, Page and Wootter’s ideas are little more than a philosophical curiosity. And since it is never possible to have an observer outside the universe, there seemed little chance of ever testing the idea. Until now. Today, Ekaterina Moreva at the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRIM) in Turin, Italy, and a few pals have performed the first experimental test of Page and Wootters’ ideas. And they confirm that time is indeed an emergent phenomenon for ‘internal’ observers but absent for external ones. The experiment involves the creation of a toy universe consisting of a pair of entangled photons and an observer that can measure their state in one of two ways. In the first, the observer measures the evolution of the system by becoming entangled with it. In the second, a god-like observer measures the evolution against an external clock which is entirely independent of the toy universe. The experimental details are straightforward. The entangled photons each have a polarisation which can be changed by passing it through a birefringent plate. In the first set up, the observer measures the polarisation of one photon, thereby becoming entangled with it. He or she then compares this with the polarisation of the second photon. The difference is a measure of time. In the second set up, the photons again both pass through the birefringent plates which change their polarisations. However, in this case, the observer only measures the global properties of both photons by comparing them against an independent clock. In this case, the observer cannot detect any difference between the photons without becoming entangled with one or the other. And if there is no difference, the system appears static. In other words, time does not emerge. “Although extremely simple, our model captures the two, seemingly contradictory, properties of the Page-Wootters mechanism,” say Moreva and co. That’s an impressive experiment. Emergence is a popular idea in science. In particular, physicists have recently become excited about the idea that gravity is an emergent phenomenon. So it’s a relatively small step to think that time may emerge in a similar way. What emergent gravity has lacked, of course, is an experimental demonstration that shows how it works in practice. That’s why Moreva and co’s work is significant. It places an abstract and exotic idea on firm experimental footing for the first time. Perhaps most significant of all is the implication that quantum mechanics and general relativity are not so incompatible after all. When viewed through the lens of entanglement, the famous ‘problem of time’ just melts away. The next step will be to extend the idea further, particularly to the macroscopic scale. It’s one thing to show how time emerges for photons, it’s quite another to show how it emerges for larger things such as humans and train timetables. And therein lies another challenge. Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1310.4691 :Time From Quantum Entanglement: An Experimental Illustration This Week’s Top 5 Posts Does Your iPhone Have Free Will? Black Death Predated “Small World” Effect, Say Network Theorists The One-Way Speed of Light When Does The Universe Compute? How to Tie a Knot in a Bubble Ring

Infoman

Brain activity can be used to measure how well you understand a concept

48 prostoalex 2 days 11

https://neurosciencenews.com/concept-comprehension-14296/

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20394251

Unable to load the content

https://neurosciencenews.com/concept-comprehension-14296/

Infoman

Python consumes a lot of memory – how to reduce the size of objects?

124 atomlib 6 hrs 38

https://habr.com/en/post/458518/

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20401055

Unable to load the content https://habr.com/en/post/458518/

Infoman

滴滴透露，海外重點產品規劃推出AI語音接單和本地化電子支付功能。

滴滴出行副總裁、國際化產品技術部負責人卜崢在香港RISE創新大會上透露，滴滴日本和滴滴澳洲即將推出司機免接觸語音接單功能，這是全球首例自然語言識別技術在出行行業落地的嘗試。

卜崢指出，滴滴國際化團隊同樣關注安全和體驗，語音接單能大大減少司機操作APP的安全風險，在海外市場的試點也能為國內業務積累經驗；同時，國內的安全算法模型也在拉美市場進行了本地化適配，大大降低了事故和事件發生率。

語音接單功能是滴滴AI Labs(人工智能實驗室)在語音助手研發過程中的階段成果。去年8月，滴滴公布了兩個人工智能應用的試點項目，分別為增強現實(AR)導航服務和駕駛員語音助手。

Infoman

想拎 General Work Visa 去英國工作生活？原來唔係想像中咁難，只要你的職業附合英國的人手短缺工種，例如 Graphic designer、社工、App developer，基本上已經成功了一半。仲有咩職業都在人手短缺工種名單上？申請 General Work Visa 去英國海外工作仲有咩其他要求？General Work Visa 同 Representative of an Overseas Business Visa 又有咩分別？《撈到這世界邊端》請來 Facebook 專頁 Goodbye HK, Hello UK 負責人，為有興趣去英國工作生活的蘋果讀者解答疑問。今日下午6點，Click入果燃台，即有live睇。

Infoman

How I automated my Instagram account using Machine Learning and Python

13 mfernandes 1 hr 3

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-i-am-earning-500-followers-weekly-instagram-using-fernandes/

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20381180

The answer to do hard work without effort is automation. So I created a bot that does all the tedious work while I sit back doing nothing.

I am a guy that likes to learn new stuff, so for some time now I wanted to find out if all the fuss about Machine Learning (ML) was worth it.

At university I learned a lot about Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence but unfortunately I've never had the change to work in a real life project where I could use it.

Challenge accepted! It's time to change that, so I decided to take a course on Machine Learning to update myself, and at the same time learn Python.

The best method for me to learn something fast is just to do something practical, and after thinking for a bit I decided to write a bot to automate an Instagram (IG) account by using Python and ML.

I created a new IG account, handed it to my bot and sat back watching it work. I was impressed that it quickly started earning followers and growing in popularity. In a couple of months it earned more than 2000 followers and currently the growing rate is about 500 new followers per week but the rate is increasingly fast.

These numbers might not seem impressive for you IG marketeers, given that there are several tools out there that do the exact same thing and probably perform much better, but for me it is a very good outcome, given that this bot was entirely written by me in Python from scratch and as a result of a learning experience. Oh, and did I mention that now that the bot is alive I don't have to do any actual work?

In this article I will explain what I did in detail, explaining the best I can all the tech I used, but will not provide any source code.

What is it?

Nowadays all we ear is about IG influencers and how many followers they have and the amount of money they make with sponsored posts. Having a personal IG account for some years that never got anywhere (I only have a couple hundred followers), I wanted to know how hard is it to have a lot of followers and therefore to have "success" at IG.

I created a new IG account and then automated the whole thing: it chooses the content to post, it posts content 3 times per day, it writes the captions, chooses the tags, it credits the original author, it chooses who to follow and who to unfollow. It basically automates the whole work of a real human in a way that you can't tell the difference. I basically just sit back and watch it work.

I don't even pay for a server for my bot to live in. It is running from a small old Raspberry Pi I had dusting on a shelf. I just pay for the electricity it consumes.

I got to learn some Python, I learned some Machine Learning and I proved I could start a successful project from scratch by using technologies I nearly knew nothing about before I started. It seems to me a clear win-win scenario. Oh, and I had some fun too ;-)

How it's made

My bot does these actions:

It gathers new pictures from IG (scrapping) Among those pictures it selects only the best ones (cleaning) Three times per day it posts a new picture. It writes its caption and gives credit to the original poster (posting) It gathers new users to follow (promoting) It follows new users regularly (follow) It unfollows users regularly (unfollow) Here's the details:

Scrapping

First I choose a theme for the IG account. I am not going to reveal the real theme because I want the account to remain unknown. But let's imagine that I decided to create an account about cats.

I gave my bot a list of tags and accounts so that it knows what kind of content I want it to post. Therefore I researched all the best tags and accounts that post the best pictures about cats and I created a list with it.

It's important to know that the bot does not generate any content on its own, it only reposts content from other users giving them full credit. IG is special in this area because most users will be happy to see their content being reposted because it means more exposure for them. In fact many of them write a comment thanking my bot for selecting it. Of course, if anyone would complain about it I will have to delete the post immediately but till this moment it never happened yet.

A user thanking me for sharing his picture Once in a while the bot checks if there is enough content available to post, and if not, then it starts the process of visiting some of the tags or/and accounts and selects a few pictures and records all the related information and metadata.

Automatic cleaning

Deciding what's good content and what's bad is not a simple task. Many accounts publish pictures with ads and of course my bot doesn't want to post this kind of content. Therefore it must carefully select what's good and what's not.

My bot uses a combination of heuristics and as a last step it uses a Machine Learning model to select only the best cats. If it passes every test then it's good, if not it trashes it. In a medium where there is unlimited content, my bot can afford to reject content that it minimally suspects might not be the right one. When in doubt just reject it...

Here's the selection criteria my bot is using in more detail:

Image similarity

by excelAnt is licensed under CC PDM 1.0 When a image is really popular it is normal for it to be reposted in multiple IG accounts and my bot may be tempted to wrongly post the same image twice coming from different accounts.

To prevent this it uses a Perceptual Hash Algorithm that calculates a hash per image. Perceptual hash algorithms describe a class of comparable hash functions in which features in the image are used to generate a distinct fingerprint, and these fingerprints can be compared to find similar images.

In this way when there is a new image it can compare it to the existing ones to spot duplicates. Yes, this algorithm does not only spot equal images but also spots similar images, meaning a image does not have to be exactly the same to be marked as duplicate.

In this way my bot never posts the same image twice, even if the image is found in different accounts.

Check bad words in caption

My bot scans the caption for stop words or expressions that may be suspicious like "buy now" or "on sale now". If it finds any of these suspicious words it immediately discards the image because they may indicate posts used as ads.

Check post properties

If the original poster doesn't want people to repost his pictures then the bot respects it by examining the original poster properties. There is a IG property indicating that.

Another indication that the post may be commercial is if the comments are disabled. The bot avoids these posts also.

Check number of user tags

Many user tags in a single post normally indicate it is commercial. My bot discards this kind of posts also.

Check like and comment ratios

A good indicator of post quality is the number of likes and comments. Typically better content generates more interaction which translates on the number of likes and comments. But for an account with more followers it is only natural to have more interaction than an account with less followers. The answer to compare content quality ignoring the number of followers is to use a ratio instead of an absolute number.

For this reason my bot checks for the likes/followers and comments/followers ratio before deciding if the content is worth it or not.

Choosing the best content by using Machine Learning

I have a sense of what is good content and what's not, but to explain it with an algorithm is no easy task. This seems to be the perfect fit for a ML algorithm where I have lots of data and I classify it as good or not good. In fact this is the typical classification problem that can be solved by several ML well known algorithms.

As I described previously, I scrapped a bunch of IG images and created a spreadsheet with it. All I have to do is go through all the pictures and mark them as good (1) or not good (0).

While scrapping I record all sorts of other data like the number of likes and comments, the number of followers, number of tags, the full caption and many other types of data.

The goal is to train a model that given a picture and all its associated data, is able to tell me if the picture is good or not.

After several experiments I ended up using the Support Vector Machines (SVM) algorithm with a Radial Basis Function kernel (rbf) because the relation between the input and output may not be linear.

So, I classified a couple thousand images, because it is a tedious work. Yes I know this in not enough data but even so I managed to come up with a model with an accuracy of more than 75%.

Because I am able to get the probability, I only approve a picture if the probability of it being a "good" image is greater that 75%.

I used the excellent scikit-learn Python library to help me not rewrite the wheel.

Posting

Posting regularly is very important for IG popularity. It is also a very tedious work and most people just give up this task after a few weeks. Not my bot: it never gets tired or bored of posting. It posts 3 new photos per day, it never rests and never has a day off. Technically it is just a cron job that is fired 3 times a day.

But before posting, my bot has to create a caption and give credit to the original owner.

Automatic captioning

Getting good captions is not easy therefore I am using a mix of several methods:

I get quotes and phrases that basically can be applied to any photo. For instance, the following quotes apply to any photo about cats:

"Time spent with cats is never wasted"
"Cats choose us, we don't own them" So I scrap them from the internet and make a list with them. But these sources quickly run out and I want an almost infinite source of captions so my bot doesn't repeat itself ever.

I generate a bunch of phrases based on an automatic algorithm.

I used the Markov algorithm to generate a bunch of sentences which are created statistically from a bigger text. In the end I had to pick the best ones from the results but it is less work than to write every single one of them.

I also used OpenAI's GPT-2 model, a large-scale unsupervised language model which generates coherent paragraphs of text. It was used to generate automatic captions with incredible results. I used the 345M model as it produces better results. I can configure the starting words and the length of the produced text, so I just gave it some general starting sentences and watched it generate incredible realistic and credible text. Some texts included inaccurate facts which I had to, after a quick read, remove all the bad ones. But overall the quality is incredible.

Without any doubts, GPT-2 is my preferred method for the future if I ever need to generate more captions. I was amazed by how well it works!

With these methods I wrote a huge text file with a caption in each line. At the time of picking a new caption my bot simply chooses randomly one of these sentences. Because I have so many sentences, there is little danger of it repeating itself.

Tagging

It's important to choose a good set of tags for good post visibility. I have a file with a set of tags that are relevant for this type of content and I let my bot choose a random set from it. After a while I can choose the best tags that produce the best results.

Automatic credits

Giving credit is very important because I don't want to use content without authorization. almost everyone is happy to re-share its content because it means more exposure. In fact most of the people thank me personally in form of a comment, a private message or even an IG story.

My bot parses the caption of the original photo and tries to find the author by searching for sentences like "photo by" or "author". It uses a regular expression to simplify this task. If it does not find the author by this method then it gives credit to the IG account it scrapped the photo from.

A template to wrap it all together

After my bot calculates the caption, tags and credits it uses a template to assemble the final caption. It is simpler in case I want to change it later. With all this calculated a typical caption may look like this:

Cats choose us, we don't own them. Credits to @cats_of_instagram

cats #catsofinstagram #cats_of_world #cats_of_day

Growing the number of followers

An important aspect of IG is the promotion of my account because it is through promotion that it gathers more cat followers. From what I've learned the best types of promotions are liking other photos, commenting on other photos and following other users.

To start I decided my bot would only follow/unfollow other users. Currently it is not liking or commenting on other content.

User scrapping

For best results the users should come from accounts with the same interests as my bot's account, therefore I searched for accounts related to cats.

It then looks at these accounts and extracts its users. It uses these users to follow them hoping they will follow it back.

Follow and unfollow

You may be asking why do I need to unfollow? Well, it turns out you can only follow a finite amount of users. After that if you want to keep following you have to unfollow some. For this reason my bot follows a group of users, it then waits a couple of days, and then it unfollows them.

The activity of following/unfollowing becomes less important as the account grows because then the account has more exposure and it is able to grow organically.

Where does the bot live?

At first I thought it would be better to have a server somewhere where my bot could live, but the Raspberry Pi is a pretty good solution because I don't have to pay for any hosting and the internet it uses is paid anyway. I have it connected on a shelf without any screen, keyboard or mouse.

When I need to access the Pi for updates I use ssh. If I am away from home then I use ngrok to access it from anywhere in the world.

I set up a cron job on my Raspberry Pi to post a new photo 3 times a day. It looks like the best hours to post are early in the morning, at lunch time and at the end of the afternoon.

I have a different cron for follow/unfollow that runs several times per day to distribute the load evenly through the day.

Raspberry Pi 3 B+" by ghalfacree is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 Future work

Regarding ML there are some new tweaks that may improve the overall performance of the quality of image posts:

Use number of likes and number of comments of published images on the bot's account to check its quality. That's right, instead of classifying manually if a picture is good or not, we can use the number of likes and comments as an indicator of post quality.

For example, if after two days, we get more than a certain number of likes in a post, then we can assume the quality of the post is good, otherwise we mark it as no good.

After training a model with this information then we can try to predict the number of likes and comments of a picture before publishing it.

Use online learning

Using the previous technique we can make our model learn continuously by giving it continuous feedback. That is, after we learn if a picture is good or not, we can feed this information into our existing model making it adapt continuously. This technique is called "online learning".

The results

I have lots of fun just watching how my bot behaves and also seeing what pictures it "chooses" to post. I know I created it but even so, it feels like it has live of its own. Strange feeling...

It's also fun to consider that if I would have do all this work manually I would not have enough time to do anything else because it is a lot of work and my bot does it all automatically. Maybe I should try to automate other stuff in my life too...

by steve p2008 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Manuel Fernandes Manuel Fernandes Tech Lead / Senior Full Stack Web Developer at Isobar Switzerland

How I automated Instagram - please read and comment #machinelearning #ml #artificialinteligence #ai #instagram #bot #automation #pi #raspberry #raspberrypi #python #gpt-2 #markov #scikitlearn #openai #scraping

Infoman

我在6月17日於本報發表〈對時局的反思〉，提出幾個觀點：香港現處九七回歸以來最嚴重的管治危機，經歷了今次因《逃犯條例》修例所全面引爆的政治風暴後，香港從此不再一樣，因為民心已變，我們回不了頭。暴露出來的深層次體制性矛盾，對香港如何走下去影響深遠。

首先，民心思變，尤其是新、中世代對現有體制的疏離感日甚，不少選擇了與之對立抗爭的定位，視為「雞蛋對抗高牆」，以維護其心中的公義和保衞其心中的香港價值。當然，反政府反體制的不是社會的全部，與之對衡也有另一邊的聲音和力量，而且政治動員必有種種雜質及多元動機。但從幾次大遊行之龐大規模、向公權力衝擊行動之頻仍，以及愈來愈多年輕人自發動員，可清楚看到：挑戰以至否定建制的力量乃一面倒。若不肯承認此現實，加以深究，就不可能對症下藥、解決問題。

第二，「精靈已從瓶中釋放出來」，返回不了過去，網絡時代民間抗爭模式已經登場。本來一項引起市民不安與不滿的修例爭議，不應就此演變成為今天香港的管治亂局、死局。但修例觸發了累積多年不少港人對內地制度及「兩制」關係的不信任，以至人人都從最壞、至極端之處去想像修例的影響和終極含義，加以政府解說乏力，擺出不顧一切強行通過之勢，遂使一總矛盾全面發酵，一發不可收拾。

年輕一代，包括大、中學生，經歷了自2014年起「佔中」、「傘運」的政治啟蒙及其後的低氣壓，一方面有感於那些「抗爭」改變不了政治現實和體制，但是另一方面又要以其本世代的論述與行動的前衞性，去衝擊體制及挑戰歷史局限，於是造就了一種新世代的抗爭模式。

從6．12的包圍立法會衝擊行動、「七一」前幾天包圍警察總部及個別政府部門的衝擊權力機關及不合作行動，以至「七一」當天衝擊及佔領立法會大樓、破壞設備並塗污特區立法機關權威象徵、展示殖民地港英旗幟等舉動去看，一些年輕抗爭者的行動，已非純屬抗議實已「死亡」的《逃犯條例》修例案，也不止於所謂不滿林鄭月娥特首對民眾訴求缺乏全面真誠的回應，而是去到近乎否定特區憲政的地步，處處展現「癱瘓政府」的符號主義（symbolism）。

這種敢闖敢為的做法，使人想起中國大陸發動文革前毛澤東「為有犧牲多壯志，敢叫日月換新天」的豪言。可是（套用一專欄作者所說）年輕人眼中香港未來是個謎，所以他們只能行動在當下，但求遍地開花。

年輕抗爭者的舉動不單令全社會及北京矚目，也吸引了全球各地的眼球和想像力，他們變成牽動事態發展的真正推手和「歷史主角」。於是，由2003年起所營造的數十萬人以至今年創記錄的百萬人和平遊行的港式公民抗爭模式，已經被比下去。為何仍去花精力估算、爭論遊行人數呢？一百幾十個人的勇武和硬闖不是更有實效嗎？本來不認同如此脫軌衝擊的一些「成年」抗爭者、公民社會及泛民人士紛紛調整思想：「因為絕望，所以……」，客觀上也等於宣布了「和理非」路線的不濟甚至死亡。這的確是他們自己的結論嗎？若是，則可推斷中央政府和特區政府會得出怎樣的結論來呢？

第三，年輕人及少數人的激進化，也會影響同情他們理念和行動的其他人的激進化。荷蘭社會心理學者Kees van den Bos在其近著《為何人們會激進化》（Why People Radicalize, Oxford University Press, 2018）中提出，當受公共權力和制度不公對待及剝奪之感持續累積，反感愈大會愈強化一種道德力量去採取一切行動保衞應有的公義和價值。關鍵就是「公平」問題──制度上、施政上、處事上。他主張公權機構以「軟答案回應硬問題」（soft solutions for a hard problem），還公民與不同異見者予尊重與尊嚴，廣聽各方，跟進其關注問題。香港的抗爭者說「若水」，當政者也應「若水」；若只是以武對武，客觀上助長進一步激進化。

第四，當下香港，新世代的怨氣和憤怒源於其難以認同一個他們視為不公平、只傾斜於一邊的體制。社會經濟問題如就業、房屋及流動停滯肯定是造成年輕一代看不到前景、容易激進化的部分因素，但是解決深層矛盾已不僅是改善他們的生活這麼簡單，因為他們持有的公義感及社會核心價值是既有體制未能足以反映。而他們害怕失去的「香港」特色，也不是一些冷酷的「你們怕什麼？」或「應走出香港，到大灣區去闖」般的言詞便疏解得了。

他們當中固然有擔心學業、事業甚至置業無望的問題，但是往深一層就算有了這「三業」，若他們失去心中仍可引以為傲的香港，失去了其所追求（也是官方及教育論述和上一輩予其願景）的自由自主性時，物質滿足又如何。年輕一代還是以香港為家，當他們感到體制由他人主宰、城市空間（包括交通甚至購物）愈來愈為外人進佔時，其「保衞我城」便不只屬單維的本土政治了。

第五，政府管治表現，關乎制度、能力、判斷和領導質素，最終離不開體制問題。回歸20多年了，難道我們還看不到惡性循環、社會內耗的種種惡果嗎？當然，改革不易，但這不是不去改革的理由。文革後鄧小平說：「……制度不好可以使好人無法充分做好事，甚至會走向反面……」，一位美國故總統也曾說：聯邦政府充滿被壞制度所困的好人。道理一樣。

面對當前複雜及其來有因（即有其「路徑依賴」）的局面，可以如何解困突破呢？我並無即時見效的藥方，但我知道，悲情只會滋長宿命感，仇視只會助長撕裂，敵對不能帶來信任，缺乏互信就難推動改革。要去再度出發，前提是準確研判當前局勢及深層矛盾的成因，並能跳出過往的思考框架探索其所以然。

在此關鍵時刻，面臨內外嚴峻挑戰，最大的風險來自認知上和行動上與現實及其背後結構因素之間的落差。特區管治體制已明顯與時脫節，非改革不可。香港真的大病了，不能諱疾忌醫。當然目前體質虛弱，也不一定有條件即時動大手術，所謂欲速不達，但是如何防止傷患惡化擴散，如何部署有利於改轅易轍式改革的條件，卻事關重大。成敗往往繫於一念。

香港的管治更關乎「一國兩制」在回歸後21世紀國內新秩序及國際新形勢下的實踐落差問題。無論中央層面，或特區內政府及社會各界與政治光譜各方，是否都掌握到「一國兩制」應有的靈活性、模糊性和創造性，正確看待香港「異數」？如何促使「兩制」互信，香港和內地都要深思與學習。怎樣的香港才可在國家發展和國際大局中扮演關鍵角色，好讓港人尤其年輕一代足以自豪，重拾自信與希望，得以由回歸以來的內向、失落、悲情思維中走出來？

窮則變，現在是求變的時刻。能逾越此關，「一國兩制」可找到新台階。過不了此關，「香港」的萎縮會成為自我應驗的預言。

張炳良

香港教育大學公共行政學研究講座教授、前運輸及房屋局局長（2012-17）

【對時局的反思】（二）

Infoman

日本的地產法例頗為完善，即使本身不是凶宅，但若樓上或隔鄰單位的住客曾在屋內往生，地產代理也會如實相告，物業合約甚至連單位的日照時間及方位、可以養多少隻竉物等細節都會寫得一清二楚，當然，大前提是你記得要問。

在日本買樓，最重要的是地點，但很多人都忽略了戶數。戶數的多少決定了這個單位的管理費和修繕金，這些固定開支也是投資成本之一。

為什麼要特別留意管理費和修繕金？因為不論單位租出與否，這些費用都由業主負責，扣除這筆開支後才是業主的收入（還有其他較細項的開支，稍後再談），租不出時便要自己搬錢繳交。

選擇戶數多物業

有經驗的地產代理會提醒客戶選擇戶數多的物業，數百戶最佳，但過百戶的樓房在日本相對較少，有六七十戶已不錯了，管理費和修繕金攤分後會較少，以一戶約20方米的單位來說，兩項費用加起來不宜超過1.5萬日圓，否則，再加上稅項和雜費，業主每月真正到手的可能不到2萬日圓，這樣的話，回報隨時只得一兩厘，不如買5號仔算了。

如果兩項費用加起來只需3000日圓，是不是十分抵買呢？非也，這通常是只有十多戶甚至幾戶的樓房，大廈法團（即幾位業主）索性不設修繕金，一旦必須維修時就齊齊夾錢，可能兩三年一次，每次每戶數十萬日圓，如果剛好在你買下物業後，任何公共設施有問題，這筆開支便是新業主的責任，記得先查詢大廈修繕基金約有多少，當然愈多愈理想。

基於公平原則，各家各戶的管理費和修繕金也不同，地下一樓住戶不用乘搭電梯，沒理由要承擔電梯維修費；在高樓層居住要承擔較高風險，收費自然較高，所以，愈高層的房子，成本也愈高。

如果是沒電梯的話，3層高的大廈要選2樓；4層高的首選3樓，次選2樓；有電梯的6層高大廈，首選5或4樓，次選3樓，最後才選2樓。

為什麼不選頂樓？日本夏天炎熱，午間日照直射天台，頂層的室溫也高，而5及4樓不太熱又可俯瞰街景，至於2樓，雖然比地下一樓感覺上較安全，但單身女性還是會擔心的，所以多數選3樓或以上。

陽台愈大愈着數

在香港，有陽台的樓盤必被視為豪宅，但日本的單位不論大小，九成九都有陽台，為什麼？日本位於地震帶，逃生梯就設在陽台，所以，除非是位於新宿中心地帶的超筍盤，否則，不要考慮沒有陽台的單位。

逃生梯屬公共設施，住戶只有使用權而非擁有權，不計入單位面積，所以，面積愈大就愈着數，下班後與三五知己在陽台聊天乘涼，說不出的愜意，如果陽台太小，逃生梯已佔了大半，隨時連晾衣服也沒位置，所以不要只看房子的面積，陽台大小也決定了它的價值。

下期繼續為大家解構日本置業的注意事項，千萬要留意啊！

圖片來源：吳雋樗

撰文 : 瑪麗

Infoman

自經濟從工業生產為主，發展到以知識、服務和發明為主後，創新已是經常掛在口邊的名詞。根據美國康奈爾大學及其他機構評估的「全球創新指數」，在2015年，中國還只是排名29，2018年已晉升至17。看來，舉國體制催谷創新，倒是有一定成效的。

當然，這些創新主要集中在科技工程等方面，而非文化或社會科學上。二戰以後，不少英美心理學家已研究創新與年齡的關係。夏飛雷文（Harvey Lehman）在60多年前已指出：天才兒童大多未能在成年後仍然充滿創意或有突出的成就。卓越的創意人往往要到30至40歲才達巔峰，然後，創新力就逐漸衰退。

最佳例子是電影界的奧遜威爾斯（Orson Welles）。1938年，他23歲，將H. G.威爾斯（H. G. Wells）的科幻小說《世界大戰》（The War of the Worlds）製作成電台節目，聽眾信以為真，引起恐慌。1941年，他26歲，拍成處女作《大國民》（Citizen Kane），被英國《視與聽》（Sight and Sound）雜誌選為有史以來最佳電影數十年。之後，他導演和演出的電影，成績不算差，但已沒有一部能望《大國民》之項背。

成就卓越乃因無知

曾有記者問他：何以他拍第一部片即有此卓越的成就？奧遜威爾斯坦白地回答：「無知！無知！完全無知！」然後，他慨嘆：當你真正入了電影圈，認識更多的時候，便會變得怯懦或小心了。換句話說，本着初生之犢不畏虎，他才能拍出曠世傑作！可惜，他的創新巔峰期只有短短幾年。

美國加州大學戴維斯分校的施蒙敦（Dean K. Simonton）教授，經年累月研究創新維持多久的問題。他指出：大多數創作人入行後20年，創意最盛，作品最有突破。比如你25歲入電影圈，到45歲後，創意和作品質素都會下降。史提芬史匹堡1975年拍《大白鯊》成名，到1993年拍《舒特拉的名單》已是他創作力的巔峰，之後雖然間歇有佳作，如《雷霆救兵》（1998），但創意已明顯地無復當年。

黑澤明1946年的《我對青春無悔》已是佳作，到1965年，剛剛20年，他的《赤鬍子》到達黑白片時期的巔峰。之後，他豹隱了15年，期間拍過兩部平庸之作。1980年的《影武者》、1985年的《亂》及1990年的《夢》卻是大師級傑作。黑澤明一生有兩個創作巔峰，在導演或創作人來說，都是黑天鵝式例外。大多數導演只能像奧遜威爾斯般剎那光華或史匹堡般得一個巔峰期！

物理學家亦然。保羅狄拉克（Paul Dirac）半認真、半開玩笑地說：30歲後已難有理論的突破了。天才如愛因斯坦，26歲（1905年）一口氣發表4篇劃時代的論文，包括狹義相對論及E = mc2方程式。36歲時，他發表廣義相對論。之後，他的學術貢獻再及不上當年了。狄拉克自己亦在31歲時憑狄拉克方程式獲諾貝爾獎。霍金最大的理論突破在1968至1975年，即是他26至33歲之間。當然，到二十世紀末，科學和科技的創新和突破已不是個人天才可畢其功，需要群策群力，還要有大量投資。惟有數學家仍然可以一腦一筆而有創新。

歷史家薑是老的辣

施蒙敦發現，詩人大多是英雄出青年，年過四十很難寫出好詩，中國的詩人則例外。小說家要到40歲過外才寫出傑作。無他，作家要累積足夠的人生歷練，長時間的過濾和沉澱，才會寫下出類拔萃之作。沒有數以十年計的艱苦琢磨增刪，曹雪芹焉能寫出《紅樓夢》這樣的傑作？此所以作家小時了了，太早成名，不一定是好事。遲遲未能寫出傑作，不必氣餒。歷史學家更薑是老的辣，六七十歲寫出經典之作者，大不乏人！

暢銷小說作家卻例外。小說家Martin Hill Ortiz統計了1960至2015年間，作品在《紐約時報》暢銷小說榜上排第一的作家，發現大多數40至50歲，連《格雷的五十度色戒》的E.L. James上榜時都接近50歲！

數碼時代卻多青年富豪。Bezos創辦亞馬遜時只有31歲。谷歌兩名創辦人25歲。朱克伯格創辦臉書時更只有20歲。YouTube 幾名創辦人都在30歲左右，推特幾名創辦人亦只有30多歲。無他，人老，頭腦追不上時代，看不到商機，雖有奧遜威爾斯的「完全無知」，卻沒有無初生之犢不畏虎的魄力，何來嶄新和突破的創意呢？

撰文 : 占飛

Infoman

評級機構穆迪發表報告，維持香港信貸評級為Aa2，前景展望保持「穩定」，但特別提到示威抗議活動是香港制衡政府的手段之一，若制衡能力出現削弱跡象，將對香港的信用狀況產生負面影響。在「一國兩制」的「50年不變」安排下，香港獲得一定的政治和經濟獨立性，惟有關獨立性的優勢可能面臨受損，香港在世貿（WTO）等國際組織及雙邊貿易安排上，一直獨立於內地的主體地位（independent entity），但可能早於2047年前便驟然改變。

維持Aa2 展望「穩定」

穆迪於2017年5月把中國主權評級下調一級至A1，同時亦降低香港評級至Aa2，其理據是中港經濟和金融聯繫密切而廣泛，意味當內地信貸狀況轉弱，最終會影響香港。財政司司長陳茂波當時指穆迪近乎機械式下調香港評級，「理據未免流於膚淺」。

雖然穆迪今次維持香港的信貸評級，主要由於香港財政和外部緩衝能力仍然非常強勁，負債少及財政儲備龐大，有助抵禦衝擊及負面的長期趨勢，包括全球貿易的潛在急劇放緩、中美緊張局勢下的環球貿易與投資安排面臨的長期風險。

不過，報告也提到在政治風險上，近年香港政府的政策不時受到挑戰，尤其可見於近來爆發多宗大規模民眾抗議。這些示威活動是香港制衡政府的手段之一，可支持其體制實力。若制衡能力出現削弱的跡象，將對香港的信用狀況產生負面影響。

憂2047年前獨立性受侵蝕

穆迪續稱，「一國兩制」政策中訂下「50年不變」的法律和體制安排，令香港獲得一定政治和經濟獨立性，加上香港內在信用實力亦使其評級高於中國的A1評級。然而，隨着時間的推移，香港有關獨立性及相對內地大城市的競爭優勢，可能面臨實際或被認為受損的風險，導致香港的體制實力受到削弱。

雖然「50年不變」的過渡期持續至2047年，而且結果尚未確定，但香港在世貿組織等國際機構和雙邊貿易安排中一直獨立於內地的主體地位，可能因一些國際夥伴的單邊行為而驟然改變，或早於2047年之前發生。例如美國國會正考慮為《美國－香港政策法》附加一些條件，計入其對「一國兩制」政策發展的看法。若法案被廢除或修訂，可能對美國與香港之間的貿易安排造成重大影響，波及香港與其他貿易夥伴的關係，大幅削弱香港作為國際金融中心的吸引力。在有關情況下，香港與內地的評級差距或會縮窄。

穆迪又指出，由於存在經濟、金融和政治上的聯繫，香港容易受到內地的發展所影響，一些發展會為香港帶來機遇，例如新設立的粵港澳大灣區。惟中港聯繫亦隱藏風險，若內地經濟大幅放緩，香港必首當其衝。倘中美貿易摩擦升級，香港作為國際投資和貿易往來內地的重要入口，可能持續受到嚴重影響。

政府指港人權自由獲保障

即使中美貿易關係維持現狀，兩國爭端的持續不確定將直接導致香港的貿易放緩，並間接令香港的商業投資和消費需求下滑。因此，香港的本地生產總值（GDP）增長率料在今年放緩至2.3%，然後在2020年溫和回升至2.7%。

政府發言人回應，中美貿易緊張局勢令全球經濟的不確定性增加及影響增長，香港無可避免受牽連。政府對經濟或金融的潛在衝擊會保持警惕，強調有足夠政策空間及有需要時會支持受影響的行業。中國內地將繼續是全球經濟增長的主要來源，大灣區的發展為香港帶來機遇，香港會積極利用大灣區的優勢，為香港經濟帶來增長動力。至於香港的人權及自由，包括言論自由及結社自由等，充分受《基本法》、人權法及其他法例所保障，並受國際社會廣泛確認。

Infoman

人生只有在造物主眼中才有真正意義，於個人而言，自己要去找尋，否則毫無意思。

Infoman

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人生 只有在造物主眼中才有真正意義，於個人而言，自己要去找尋，否則毫無意思。

人生只有在造物主眼中才有真正意義，於個人而言，自己要去找尋，否則毫無意思。