A better way to understand web2.0

Note: there are various definitions of web2.0, with the most quoted one (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html) being provided by Tim O’Reilly. But I feel all those definitions fall short of hitting the true nature of web2.0. I have articulated my understanding of web2.0 in various posts of this blog. Here I want to briefly summarize it and give [...]

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Computer Science is Life Science

Computer Science (CS) is not a science of computers. CS is a science of life. It is a bridge to connect the physical science with human science.
Here I take the word life as what is meant by C.A. (Christopher Alexander) in his book The Nature of Order. And I use his concept Degree of Life [...]

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Software programming for everybody

When software programming is made so easy, it is a revolution. I am referring to python and its web frameworks. Programming with python is like writing articles. Instead of writing things down, I just write them into software directly. In a sense, this is the true writing. The writing is not static, but dynamic, and [...]

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Managing common property is a challenge

In our time, there are a lot of thinking that many resources should be managed as common properties instead of being privatized. For example, I just watched the documentary Flow the other week: http://foodandwaterwatch.org/
As I came from China, a common reflection we had since the start of economic reform (which is 2 years after the [...]

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How to take back our democracy Part 2: Democracy, Money, Social Products, Local Services, the Power of Consciousness

This is to follow up with the part 1
The power of politics is the power to make laws to govern. The law should be minimum. Otherwise it become a tool to restrict people’s freedom instead of facilitate it. So by nature, what we can do should be much larger than what should be governed. Thus [...]

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Blogging is like writing software

One thing about blogging is that it is like writing software. I am able to get articles out quickly so readers who want to get an early look can read them. Usually before publishing them, I will proofread twice to get rid of obvious mistakes. For important essays, I will do a lot more revising [...]

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Why I choose New York

When I graduated from school, I was faced with a decision: whether to go to Scillicon Valley or go to New York. Since this is time of Web2.0 Expo at New York, I would like to write a little about why I chose New York.
First of all, I love Silicon Valley. I have been there [...]

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Software like buildings

Columbia has quite some beautiful buildings. I got inspired by them and felt it quite applies to software as well.
When I look at those buildings, I know instantly that there are a lot of complexity there. But I feel very comfortable looking at the whole. Just a glimpse, I know what is going on [...]

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What is life

While programming, objects emerge from context and circumstance. It is an abstract on a higher level, encapsulating a few lower level functions and is independent and self-complete. A good model of objects emerged from the context have the potential to be very useful in various situations.
Objects live on various layers of abstraction, interfacing with the [...]

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Comments on Whither the World

http://libcom.org/library/whither-the-world
I like this article. I agree with his view on capitalism and most of his analysis. I agree with him that capitalism is a historical advancement. A lot of things in capitalism can be justified. The real change in capitalism has to start from a underlying structure change. Throughout the article, the author is looking [...]

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Why IT/Software makes our world more human

When we are choosing the topic of the first CBSA Panel Discussion, we mainly hope to use this chance to introduce IT world to the business students. So they can have a general picture of the IT world and such understanding may help them if they want to enter IT enterprises. In the recent two [...]

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