This September commences a variety of new Smartphones.
The iPhone 6 came out a week ago, with larger Sapphire crystal screens, faster
A8 chip and a slimmer look. Similarly, Samsung, the Korean tech giant, rivaled
Apple by releasing Galaxy Alpha and Note. No doubt soon many of these mobile
devices will go to the hands of many readers, and join our campus and
classrooms. However, besides the security crises of
Cloud service that sparked recently, you also need to consider other important
aspects about using a Smartphone.
Some may regard Smartphone as merely a convenient
device for communication. But in retrospect, the Smartphones business and
social apps, have casted revolutionary impacts to the human society. Last century, a talented Archaeologist V. Gordon
Childe notified in his book “Man made
himself” that human beings “progress” by changing economy patterns. The transformation of subsistence, such as from hunter-gathering
to farming, is revolutionary to human history because it can influence the way
people forming society. From this perspective, we may consider the use
of Smartphone as a new revolution, which reshapes our ways of subsistence,
social networking, and self-identity.
"TThere is no need for you to understand religion, there is only the need to believe in religion."
「你不需要理解宗教，只需要信仰宗教。」
"Ullambana, rather than giving a Durkheinist collective effervescence, is based on human beings' most noble and honest feeling, that is, love to family members. Love that can cross time, space, and the line between life and death."
「盂蘭盆儀式傳達的，並非涂爾幹式的集體意志，而是人類最純粹高貴的情感：人倫親情的舐犢濡慕，足以戰勝死生契闊。」
Last Wednesday afternoon, a small crowd of Taiwanese
students protested in front of Sinclair Library to voice their supports to the "Sunflower
Movement." The Sunflower
Movement, similar to Occupy Wall Street, used occupation to protest against
political and economic inequality.
As a matter of fact, I did not expect too much for opera. Chorus has been not an option for my radio. My impression to opera came from a movie, Fareneli and a musical, Cat, in which an opera's scenery design should be poor, no audience understood lines and lyrics, and the story is illogical because it served for music. I signed up this EWCPA tour, thinking to (maybe as most those never-gos) gaining experience. After all, it was a rare opportunity. Then it turned out that.......it's great! What a great invention, opera!
In my childhood era, there was one unusual television channel specialized in playing art films. I remember once even a Chinese film channel could play French movies, and Mina Tannebaum alwaysmade me cry. I remember watching Kieslowski used to be a fashion in Taiwan. Juliette Binoche's beautiful face on Blue's poster was visible everywhere. I remember somehow White was often re-broacasted (it's a weird movie to me). I read from newspapers saying that Red failed in the year's Cannes Film Festival, to a rising star Quentin Tarantino (and his Pulp Fiction). I remember on one Saturday night I watched The Double Life of Veronique on my sofa and fell into sleep.
Life is changeable. Even a seemly constant view, one day you will realize that they are never the same. Or maybe the sceneries were gone with the master who created them? I am deeply fascinated by every detail in Red. This film presents me the most appealing atmosphere that only existed in the 90s. I mean the stone buildings and urban landscape of Vienna, Zbigniew Preisner's orchestral music, the simple and structure-less photography, the unsung angelic super beauty of Irene Jacob, and that out-of-date fashion styles, e.g., the low think heels, heavy sweater, and over-sized coat with stupid shoulder-pads.
( I never read directly his works, so it may not be a valid reflection.)
As the flyer summary implied, this was a lecture about the significance of Neolithic Evolution, in which the speaker focused on the impact of using fire, plant and animal domestication, and the subsequent effects such as centralization and emergence of states. The use of fire had transformed human subsistence in the first place (mmm, because I came into the lecture room from this part). It enabled early human beings to enlarge the range of food choices. Although I am not sure how it connects to the next part, together with plant domestication, e.g., rice and millet, the use of fire contributed to the centralization of human population and a sedentary life style in which this evolution could not be reversed and continued to develop toward "elaboration" and complexity.
"Hana and Alice" has a very classic opening for art film (i.e., weirdly, wondering girls and their laughs), numerous must-have photographic shots that against lights, Iwai Junji films' typical beautiful boys and girls, and the impeccable music composing with piano and violin. My above technical descriptions may help you to catch the way this film looks like, but definitely not the light that touches your heart.
