Information Explosion Revisited

So the conversation has been brought back to the information explosion problem.  

I was talking to Stanley this morning before we headed to lunch, about the fact that there's just too much information on our screen everyday. All these years the "information explosion" problem has been discussed about over and over again, yet we still haven't got many good solutions to it. Well yes, of course there are some. Quora's good, and StackOverFlow is good - they help you find the answers in a Q&A fashion. Wikipedia is good because it gives you the "legit" introduction for things in a "official", or encyclopedic tone. People like these web services because they give us the answers rather than the links to potential results (like what search engines do), but unfortunately there're many more things we want to know that cannot be presented naturally in these forms. 

Why? I think there are two reasons for it. First, the questions are open questions that have no single, true answer, e.g. "Should we abandon nuclear power?", "Is Apple still gonna innovate after Steve Jobs?". Answers to these questions come with opinions and perspectives, which may sometimes even need to be involved with emotions. Second, a lot of the time what we are looking for are similar experiences or stories to our own scenarios, rather than definitive, yes-no answers. For example, "Should I take their offer and sell my startup now? Or should I keep trying and follow my passion?", "Should I send my kids to those private schools that are very visionary and experimental? Or should I stick to the traditional education system?" It is very hard when you're not sure what exact keywords to type into Google, and it's even harder when you're not sure if you'd necessarily agree with the value systems of the providers of what you've found.
 
What we're trying to do in StorySense Computing is to provide a way for people to communicate their thoughts and experiences in the form of stories, by helping them collect materials from the web without distracted by irrelevant search results, and organize these useful materials into meaningful threads to make their points. It's like wikipedia, where we provide editing tools for the editors and browsing tools for the readers, but the interface is a lot more visual and the search behavior is seamlessly integrated into the editors' storytelling behavior, that they can be encouraged to constantly focus on their points to make. We achieve this by displaying relevant keywords to users' input using a mindmap-like graph, so the users can focus on the associated keywords and the highly-relevant articles found. The produced stories can be exported as videos or javascript storyboards, and can be easily shared on social network platforms. The revenue comes from users who want to save their produced stories as private (like Github or Prezi's freemium model), and the first group of users would be people with strong opinions on the Internet that have strong passion to address certain topics by collecting and leveraging facts about public events.

Our philosophy is that, when people answer questions that have no definite answers, we engage in conversations. The person who answers the question may try to understand the counterpart's situated scenario first, and then provides her views by sharing her past experiences or others' stories she thinks are relevant. The cognitive process of describing these experiences are in fact a storytelling process, where the key element of stories - characters, events, time, location, objects, emotions - are composed to form higher-level concepts such as attitudes, standpoints, values, goals, lessons, etc. We exchange these higher-level concepts when the stories are told, and apply them into our own situations to decide what we answers want for ourselves. The goal of this tool is to simplify the storytelling process, making the produced stories visual and easy to consume, and democratize it so that more and more people can benefit from the sharers' valuable experiences. It may also track the editors' thinking trajectories, so that other people can benefit when thinking about the same question, which we think can save a huge amount of time previously wasted.

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Buy Wants

Your goal should be to buy wins.

In order to buy wins, you need to buy wants.

The more they need/want you, the bigger you grow, and the harder you'll cease to exist.

Kindle. iPad. WhatsTheNumber. PicCollage. Yelp. Facebook. Victoria's Secret. the more they're wanted. The more powerful they are.

Traction is an index, but it's not enough, because it doesn't show if the users want something enough that they'll pay - or you'll find someone that'd pay

People want you enough because all the other things that they want are projected onto you. They want you because you get them what they want.

Money. Sex. Sense of security. Pride. Attention. Support. Fame. Date. Food. Satisfaction. Self-esteem. Protection. Health. Joy.

Facebook is a never-dying product, because it's both emotionally sticky and practically useful. Whatever that satisfies these two characteristics at the same time, will be wanted enough that'll never die.

What are the wants that we are providing here? What are the desires that people just can't let go us with?

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connecting the dots: the business idea

somehow i started to realize the reason behind everything along the path.

just like what steve jobs once said about: the "connecting the dots" theory.

everything in the past that we spent time and effort on has its own purpose and meaning, as well as its own value from a business point of view: innovation, workshop, design, ai, commonsense reasoning, storytelling, documentary filmaking, etc etc.

because today's businesses are not like what used to be in the past anymore.

what's of great values today, are created by what symbolize or practice elements that are innovative, disruptive, organic, consumer-centric, more jeans than suit, story-oriented, why instead of what, and so forth.

what used to be doubted and challenged by comments like "so how do you make money with that?" or "why does that matter at all?" have become the most important things, because the world is changing vastly.

as a business owner, the problem lies in whether or not you can identify the crucial roles that these elements play. if you don't, the read-oceans competition will - sooner or later - forces you out the game.

and that's what we - not only have to, but accidentally naturally born to - think about in the beginning of launching a business.

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buzz words

design
innovation
workshop
ai
commonsense reasoning
storytelling
entrepreneurship
mobile interfaces
scenario-oriented design
information reduction
snowboarding
filmmaking
documentaries
viral marketing
traction
emotional attachment
technology
investment
reader-driven news/stories
cross-disciplinary industry & core value

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Storytelling Revisit

This paper that peggy and henry wrote for iui this year made me start thinking about storytelling again - the missing piece in our company currently that I used to take as the most important element. Somehow it led me to the thinking of the comparison between the two cultures that i've been through or encountered along the process for the purpose of innovation: the media lab-style research, which is about not being afraid to push boundaries, whereas the silicon valley- or MVP (minimum viable product)-style entrepreneurship is about not being afraid to make things quick and dirty, and push it on the web as quickly as possible. While there is not necessarily any direct contradiction between the two, somehow I see some sorts of difficulties in myself working on a startup, coming from a media lab background.

The problem that I'm facing is: "how do I make things that are of good enough standard in terms of the quality of the service, and the balance between the fun we have and the compromise we make for the sake of financial reality and revenue model, at a reasonable speed for a seed-stage company? how do I make sure things are progressing smoothly in a right direction that, it doesn't fall too much ahead of the market needs of the modern world?"

Coming back from the valley a few days ago, we learned that all we have to do right now is to make the product. Because people generally agreed with the market potential, as long as we can make it real rather than sample paper documents. And I believe we are now at a stage where it's like when Hugo made ConceptNet back then - as long as we can endure this hardest part and really get the engine to work, after that there will be hundreds of fun projects that we will be able to work on, each providing huge values to our users under their respective usage scenario.

That's said, maybe we don't really need to try to make any sorts of big decisions right now. Whatever works the best for us to get the things done most efficiently and to live an enjoyable life at the same time, works as the best solution.

It's not that easy to keep myself in this mindset though, maybe I'm so used to making sure everything's right before diving into something. Although in the startup world things seem to have to be like this. Cuz you never know what would happen, and what the best solution would be.

Maybe writing is also very important for us too - than reading - because it keeps us thinking and creating and innovating, and keeps us in the mindset of creating something, just like the important mindset when doing research (after all the coherent part is exactly "innovation"). When Einstein left this invaluable passage "Imagination is more important than knowledge", I wonder what the daily practice it is that he does everyday in order to keep his mind clean, fresh, and enthusiastic? Maybe he wrote.

Anyway, I really don't want the storytelling part to be left out. That's where my passion lies in, and why I founded this company. It's StorySense Computing.

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Happy April Fool's Day~

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左右腦的衝突

那是一個極端矛盾的狀況：用左腦開發工具，去達成右腦要的目的。左腦越發現一個開發出來的工具有用，越往下想，想出來的東西離右腦越遙遠。等到下一次兩邊大腦balance，清醒過來之後才發現這個方向上的錯誤，就已經是好久之後的事了。這時候如果右腦跳出來，指證這個過程的錯誤，左腦能夠做的，就是回到先前的起點，重新再往右腦的方向移動一點點，再想辦法從零開始，重新開始開發新的工具，hoping 不要再離右腦要的目的那麼遙遠。

然後這整件事情就像震盪不停的鐘擺，在漫長的左右拉扯搖擺之後，兩邊的腦才能共同漸漸尋覓到那個靜止的終點（＆中點）。

這中間的問題是，怎麼樣在左腦開心地一直往下走的時候，右腦能夠盡快地跳出來阻止它往錯誤的方向去，such that整個過程能夠被儘可能地加速？

我觀察到的結果是這樣的：選一個對於右腦最friendly的工作環境。

讓右腦很容易切入左腦的思路，讓右腦像一個糾察隊，隨時可以檢視左腦的表現。經常地activate右腦，不論是因為身旁的人的性格、講的話、身上的氣味，還是環境中的有形無形事物（家具或音樂），都是刺激右腦活絡的重要原因。假如把自己沉浸在這樣的環境裡，似乎右腦就可以很容易take charge了？

所以，為了自己爽而做的決定才是對的，為了單純喜歡而選的方向才是好的，不去找太多理由就下判斷壓寶，是必要的。

畢竟在這個新的世代，左腦是要服務右腦的。

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Think Different

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

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Rules of the Garage

Believe you can change the world.

Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.

Know when to work alone and when to work together.

Share - tools, ideas, Trust your colleagues.

No politics. No bureaucrasy.
(These are ridiculous in a garage.)

The customer defines a job well done.

Radical ideas are not bad ideas.

Invent different ways of working.

Make a contribution every day.
If it doesn't contribute, it doesn't leave the garage.

Believe that together we can do anything.

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Sharism

The notion of sharing ideas or initiating/creating environments for idea-sharing activities in an institutional format, has become one of the guidelines for executing or determining ways of goal-achievement processes in daily tasks. Companies and organizations gather together for all kinds of brainstorming sessions and topics, because they are aware of that protectionism may not work in the 21st century anymore, since the variance of perspectives and expertise may surpass the compliance with confidentiality in terms of effeciancy and effectiveness. How, if we should at all, are we gonna soften or thin the thick wall between business units and groups, to keep the ideas grow vastly and powerfully? Or, more fundamentally, is there a way that businesses could make sure that they retain their core value inside and feel more safe about sharing ideas with other people?

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二月三日 星期三

前天，J 說：「恩，我覺得可以撐三個月。別急，慢慢來。」；M 說：「我覺得那樣不錯阿，我會選Yelp。」

昨天，B 說：「Beautiful! Experience Bank!」，Q 說：「剛開始都會希望有很多flexibility，到後來才會發現，其實那都只是造成over-engineering而已。」

今天，I 說：「I explained it to them. And they're quite excited.」； H 說：「I like it. I think it's very interesting!」；J 說：「Ya. A very brave one.」；E 說：「不要擔心啦。要一股作氣，不要有後顧之憂。」；N 說：「你有準備嗎？我覺得講得不錯耶。」；Y 則說：「如果那邊沒有好的結果，我也想一起試試看。」

還有還有。

忘了都是哪些天。R 一邊走，一邊說：「碰到這種狀況，應該是要分開在不一樣的Slide。」、S 在夜裡的lounge 一邊拿著酒杯：「你沒問題的。擔心是應該的，那是你的小孩阿！」、F 穿得西裝筆挺，對著圍成圈的大家：「我們一起來辦尾牙要不要？」、J 在那通起初分辨不出我的聲音的電話裡，說過：「打群架，很好。」、Y 每天每天，都叮嚀我要記得一些事情：「I know you're good at it. But you can always find new things you have to learn. 」、U 坐在我的後座，在耳邊大聲喊著：「喔！那很有用阿！我之前都沒聽懂...那我介紹一個朋友給你！」、O 興味盎然地，覺得出乎意料：「有時候會有意想不到的結果。」、M 坐在人來人往的階梯上，彷彿瞬間鬧中突然一陣寧靜：「那是一句很 powerful 的話。 」、G 在不同的年代裡：「我一生都在關我身後的門。」、D 慷慨地分享他的祕訣：「一般人一定沒辦法想像要怎樣可以達到這個目標。」、L 翻著易經：「我們有很多東西可以向蜘蛛學習。」、S 在事隔多日之後，捎來鼓勵的話：「做人。做事。做市。做勢。」........還有更多更多人，身教抑或言教，我都有聽到，被鼓勵到。

謝謝你。
我會加油。

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[轉錄] Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China (美國該糟了...)

I spent Columbus Day in Sunnyvale, fittingly, meeting with a roomful of new arrivals. Well, relatively new. They were Indians living in Silicon Valley. The event was organized by the Think India Foundation, a think-tank that seeks to solve problems which Indians face. When introducing the topic of skilled immigration, the discussion moderator, Sand Hill Group founder M.R. Rangaswami asked the obvious question. How many planned to return to India? I was shocked to see more than three-quarters of the audience raise their hands.

Even Rangaswami was taken back. He lived in a different Silicon Valley, from a time when Indians flocked to the U.S. and rapidly populated the programming (and later executive) ranks of the top software companies in California. But the generational difference between older Indians who have made it in the Valley and the younger group in the room was striking. The present reality is this. Large numbers of the Valley’s top young guns (and some older bulls, as well) are seeing opportunities in other countries and are returning home. It isn’t just the Indians. Ask any VC who does business in China, and they’ll tell you about the tens of thousands who have already returned to cities like Shanghai and Beijing. The VC’s are following the talent. And this is bringing a new vitality to R&D in China and India.

Why would such talented people voluntarily leave Silicon Valley, a place that remains the hottest hotbed of technology innovation on Earth? Or to leave other promising locales such as New York City, Boston and the Research Triangle area of North Carolina? My team of researchers at Duke, Harvard and Berkeley polled 1203 returnees to India and China during the second half of 2008 to find answers to exactly this question. What we found should concern even the most boisterous Silicon Valley boosters.

We learned that these workers returned in their prime: the average age of the Indian returnees was 30 and the Chinese was 33. They were really well educated: 51% of the Chinese held masters degrees and 41% had PhDs. Among Indians, 66% held a masters and 12% had PhDs. These degrees were mostly in management, technology, and science. Clearly these returnees are in the U.S. population’s educational top tier—precisely the kind of people who can make the greatest contribution to an economy’s innovation and growth. And it isn’t just new immigrants who are returning home, we learned. Some 27% of the Indians and 34% of the Chinese had permanent resident status or were U.S. citizens. That’s right—it’s not just about green cards.

What propelled them to return home? Some 84% of the Chinese and 69% of the Indians cited professional opportunities. And while they make less money in absolute terms at home, most said their salaries brought a “better quality of life” than what they had in the U.S. (There was also some reverse culture shock—complaints about congestion in India, say, and pollution in China.) When it came to social factors, 67% of the Chinese and 80% of the Indians cited better “family values” at home. Ability to care for aging parents was also cited, and this may be a hidden visa factor: it’s much harder to bring parents and other family members over to the U.S. than in the past. For the vast majority of returnees, a longing for family and friends was also a crucial element.

A return ticket home also put their career on steroids. About 10% of the Indians polled had held senior management jobs in the U.S. That number rose to 44% after they returned home. Among the Chinese, the number rose from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in China.

When we asked what was better about the U.S. than home, 54% of Indian and 43% of Chinese said that total financial compensation for their previous U.S. positions was better than at home. Health-care benefits were also considered somewhat better in the United States by 51 percent of Chinese respondents, versus 21 percent who thought it was better in their home country. (Indian respondents were split more evenly on this).

These were a self-selected group, people who had already left. But what about the future, the immigrants presently studying at U.S. institutions of higher learning? We surveyed 1,224 foreign students from dozens of nations who are currently studying at U.S. universities or who graduated in 2008. The majority told us that they didn’t think that the U.S. was the best place for their professional careers and they planned to return home. Only 6 percent of Indian, 10 percent of Chinese, and 15 percent of European students planned to settle in the U.S.

Many students wanted to stay for a few years after graduation if given a choice—58% of Indians, 54% of Chinese, and 40% of Europeans. But they see the future being brighter back home. Only 7% of Chinese students, 9% of European students, and 25% of Indian students believe that the best days of the U.S. economy lie ahead. Conversely, 74% of Chinese students and 86% of Indian students believe that the best days for their home country’s economy lie ahead. National Science Foundation studies have shown that the “5 year stay rates” for Chinese and Indians science and engineering PhD’s have historically been around 92 % and 85% respectively (NSF tracks these 5 years at a time, and the vast majority stay permanently). So something has clearly changed.

For Silicon Valley, and for the U.S., this is the wrong kind of change. To some degree, these responses reflected the moribund U.S. economy and the rough job prospects facing students. With U.S. unemployment at 10%, who cares if we lose the next generation of geeks? There won’t be jobs for them for years, anyway, until the U.S. job market recovers. And sure, I know the xenophobes are going to cheer my findings. They believe that foreign workers take American jobs away.

But a growing body of evidence indicates that skilled foreign immigrants create jobs for Americans and boost our national competitiveness. More than 52% of Silicon Valley’s startups during the recent tech boom were started by foreign-born entrepreneurs. Foreign-national researchers have contributed to more than 25% of our global patents, developed some of our break-through technologies, and they helped make Silicon Valley the world’s leading tech center. Foreign-born workers comprise almost a quarter of all the U.S. science and engineering workforce and 47% of science and engineering workers who have PhDs. It is very possible that some of the smart Indians who sat in the room with me holding their hand up on Columbus Day will start the next Google or Apple. Many of them will build companies which employ thousands. But the jobs will be in Hyderbad or Pune, not Silicon Valley.
(轉錄自TechCrunch, October 17, 2009 )

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癌症病人的一絲希望

參考文章:
Mr.6的天底下沒有「專家才能做」的事
ZDNet 的 "How a software engineer tried to save his sister and invented a breakthrough medical device"

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【轉錄】CNEX紀錄片《1428》勇奪66屆威尼斯影展地平線單元最佳紀錄片

由CNEX基金會出品，華人優秀紀錄片導演杜海濱拍攝，以四川地震為題材的紀錄片《1428》，在9/12日勇奪第66屆威尼斯影展「地平線單元競賽」的「最佳紀錄片」，成為本屆威尼斯影展至今唯一獲獎的華語影片。評審團表示，《1428》在面對國家級的災難，影片以冷靜、不煽情的語言，記錄了事件的多個面向，包括了災後的生活等。《1428》製片人蔣顯斌表示，CNEX感到榮幸能再度支持杜海濱導演的拍攝製作。導演杜海濱則希望身為一個紀錄片工作者，透過詳實的記錄為災難與傷痛做出一點貢獻。

《1428》是CNEX以及杜海濱繼2007年的《傘…》之後，二度向地平線單元叩關，更首度成功奪下最佳紀錄片大獎。導演杜海濱表示，面對這樣大規模的災難與傷痛，不禁問自己身為一個紀錄片工作者能為社會做些什麼？或許透過對事件詳實的記錄，是我們能做的一點貢獻。CNEX執行長，同時也是《1428》製片人蔣顯斌則說：「本片代表了紀錄片工作者對於死難者的悼念與生者的關懷，也很榮幸能夠再度支持杜海濱導演的拍攝製作。」

《1428》的片名，來自於地震發生的14點28分。杜海濱希望透過這樣的片名，清晰的表達出自此開始，人與環境展開的一連串變化與反應。杜海濱在威尼斯表示，《1428》的拍攝是相當震撼的經驗，更與以往自己的創作不太相同。不僅是生平首度面對這麼大的一場災難，而餘震不斷的拍攝現場，更是首度身處在具有高度危險中的拍攝經驗。杜海濱並表示，該片在汶川拍攝之後回到北京，在CNEX的再次介紹下，與法國著名導演侯麥的剪輯師瑪莉斯蒂芬見面。聽完杜海濱對於影片的描述，瑪莉同意協助杜海濱來處裡後期的剪輯，這也是雙方繼2007的《傘…》之後第二次攜手合作。

CNEX基金會執行長蔣顯斌表示，《1428》是CNEX的2009年度主題「下一代的家園」的監製影片，這份榮耀代表責任的重大，希望《1428》能讓全世界透過影像了解到中國四川地震的重建過程，將遠比得獎更為重要。CNEX營運長陳玲珍則表示，《1428》不同於以往電影投資的概念，CNEX的投入在於提供導演與攝影師的支援，重點在於資源整合。只希望能夠透過這樣的平台，發掘各方優秀的影像工作人才，製作出代表華人發展的優質紀錄片。

蔣顯斌強調，CNEX本著紀錄片的社會意義，希望透過十年百部紀錄片的方式來記錄華人世界的思維觀點與社會真實。《1428》不僅代表了CNEX的創始意義，威尼斯的得獎更肯定了CNEX製作與拍攝的水準，能夠引起國際的注目與共鳴。未來CNEX將一如既往的支持紀錄片導演，堅持拍攝優秀的紀錄片。也希望觀眾能夠透過影像的欣賞，開啟討論與思想的空間。(轉錄自CNEX Group on Facebook)

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Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation @ TED Talk

Unbelievable but true. DO NOT MISS THIS VIDEO.

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The Rethininking of Storied Navigation and online videos

Today I got this message from one of my friends, saying that there's a online video service-providing company who has asked for something similar to what Storied Navigation does. It sure is something exciting.

Indeed we are stepping into (or literately LIVING IN, if you agree) the digital age. As what Chris Anderson wrote in his recently-published book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, computation power, storage, and bandwidth, are becoming cheaper and cheaper. They're becoming so cheap that they're all gonna be free soon, like very soon. And that video will become the major form of media online is no more a prediction, but something happening right now. Search is certainly the first-priority problem which needs to be solved, but when do we envision it to happen: where users need more than watching individual clips at a time or posting one clip in one tweet/blog post, and look for a series of clips to construct the so-called "flow" or even "perspectives", captured by the idea of StoriedNavigation?

YouTube is not doing too bad. It has its own social network, it has keyword recommendation (or maybe even collaborative filtering), and people ARE watching one after another clips on youtube via all the resulted hyperlinks that are shown to you. What StoriedNavigation provides is a thematic approach of finding out how the story could proceed in the way that some perspective can be constructed during the process of walking through the video corpus. If YouTube would ever want to acquire this kind of functionality in its service, I suppose it'd because they somehow discover that the meaning or motivation of consuming online videos has shifted from entertainment, introduction, promotion or marketing, and all the traditional purposes in broadcast systems, to somehting more twitter-like: snippets of ideas, observations, or emotions?

In other words, what we'd be interested in finding out is, thus, "Is the usage of the media form of online videos becoming more and more instant and fragmented, just like microposts on twitter that originate from the longer blogposts in the Web2.0 construct, or even the more formal html webpages in the Web1.0 world, so that a different mindset of using these these fragmented clips will emerge, e.g. people will take advantage of online videos in a different way, and also manage the videos in a different way?" If the answer is Yes, then is a novel mechanism that allows users to collect and make up streams of fragments that symbolize their streams of thoughts, going to be useful to most people at all?

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Ideas on 雲門's 行草三部曲 & 董陽孜x書法紀錄片

Just like to share with you some ideas I got from 雲門's 行草三部曲 that i went to see two days ago..

This whole notion of the "cursive" chinese calligraphyical art to me, seems so much like the characteristics of our culture that is prevailing in our daily lives: from how we talk or interact, how we move, to our architecture, our urban layout, and so on so forth.

It is composed of flexibility (or even irregularity), 留白, humbleness, 應對進退的拿捏, .....and so many things specific to our culture.

So it occured to me, when I thought about the possibilitiy of telling a story about chinese calligraphy/characters:
How do we capture these essential elements shared by the dancing, the writings, and all these other activities or objects in our culture? Or are we going to be able to illustrate the way the audience's emtional feedback resonates with (or be analogous to) the calmness or joy they get when writing calligraphy? These are the questions I would think important to think about when we try to put together things into a story.

To be more specific, when we interview people that are not themselves professional calligraphers while interacting with calligraphers greatly, what kind of conversation would we wanna have with them? How are we going to set up the contextual environment, such that the important notions that we want to touch upon under this whole chinese-culture umbrella, can be clearly identified and examplified? To answer these questions, we may also want to clarify our potential perspectives towards this topic, in order to know what we want (or don't want) to explore.

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八月十一日

今天的早晨feels a little bit like Boston. 不曉得是因為颱風的關係，所以空氣出奇地好、或者是豔陽高照卻配合著宜人的溫度、還是單純地因為要出門時，心情是愉快而充滿創意的念頭的。總之，難得在創業的泥沼前進的同時，會有這番愉快。

我看著前來面談的攝影師，和這次的導演、製片聊著計畫中的執行狀況，心裡一邊有種感覺——這間公司、這個我們理想中所謂「讓創意人可以盡情發揮的空間」，似乎開始冒出了一點小小的幼苗。感覺好像過去還在實驗室裡頭，為了一個新的idea寫出的最簡單最簡單、但勉強可以拿出來demo的code、很興奮地拿給Henry或其他人看的那種「冒出幼苗」的興奮。當然所有的人都看得出來，這簡單的一百行code離一篇paper投稿獲選、甚至一個被世人採納的理論，還差的遠了；換言之，這幼苗要變成大樹、或者讓創意人真的可以盡情揮灑的理想環境，還需要不知道多少倍的心血投入。但看得到幼苗了，我總覺得心中有一絲難隱的小小喜悅，如同當時向Henry "show off"的時候的心情一樣。

當然問題還有很多。財務、人事、硬體資源…一切都還得靠我們用智慧去化解。It's like a never-ending problem solving challenge.

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剪接6/20

抽離，可以說是在觀後將故事殘留的感覺澄清的、一個挺有效的方法。

故事裡，有的部份像是稀飯一樣，順口但平淡；有的部分看了又像是在吃麻辣鍋，辛辣地叫人一把鼻涕一把眼淚的，口味重到不行.....但在抽離之後，當再度回想劇中的角色情節、情緒起伏，這些差異似乎變的更清楚，背後的理由也似乎越來越透明、甚至合理。

我知道，在這裡面藏著一顆小小的、卻晶瑩而又值得讓人珍視的鑽石；
但在一次又一次修改的同時，我也漸漸看清楚：存在的問題是什麼，或緣由於劇情輾轉背後的、什麼樣的一個機制。你若問「怎麼改才能解決這些問題？」對我而言就像是在問一個廚師怎麼重新調配佐料，讓慢火熬的肉能夠鮮嫩、能夠入味？抑或讓大火快炒的青菜能夠保持翠綠、爆香卻同時濃烈而爽快？ ── 掌握每一句話、每一個表情、還有每一個情節的顏色，讓一個好的故事引人入勝，卻又不會頭輕腳重、對角色份量有所偏頗，讓觀眾在每一秒鐘感受到我們希望他們感受到的，是剪接師最重要的拿捏。

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老

so it's not a story about 老人 anymore. it's about this single word 老.

你說，老是一個過程。一個人可能因為遭遇了什麼挫折，然後看開了；也可能因為失去了一段段感情之後，漸漸地不再那麼在乎或激動，因為累了、看淡了…老，是一個隨著時間流動、不斷不斷發生的進行式，存在於我們每個人身上，每一個瞬間。當提到老人的時候，你的直覺反應是，那是我爺爺奶奶，不是我；但談到老的時候，你卻一邊若有所思地一邊說，我大學四年，老了多少，因為發生了哪些事，讓你一直都記得…

然後我們來到了這個老的兩面定義。老是失去，以及在失去的同時對它所作的抵抗。從失去體力、美貌、到失去愛、失去親人、失去朋友、失去掌握事情的權利、甚至是站起來替自己（更別說別人）作點什麼或說點什麼的能力。抵抗。抵抗可以被用來解釋為我們不肯就這樣輕易放手所以緊緊抓著，但也可以更廣義地被視為在放手的同時找尋情緒的出口、心靈的慰藉。你可以說老是成長的負面的名字，或者成長是老的積極正面的外衣…但不管你怎麼去稱呼它，它終究是一條長長的路，每個人都要走。誰也逃不掉。

過去一年，我發覺自己變老很多，大概是因為自己被像浸在一個叫做「挫折」的大水缸裡，時間還沒到所以還不能出來；在這之前，我也曾因為後悔自己造成了無法挽回的遺憾，所以意識到自己心境的變遷。而今天，我一邊騎著腳踏車在台大晃阿晃著，一邊想著自己的role model，思索自己如果總是會變老，那我寧可變得像他一樣，有著那個階段的人生裡最可能的迷人的樣貌——那大概是最好的選項了吧我猜。於是這個念頭開始讓我好奇：如果我們每個人，在每個階段都可以看到下一個階段的自己哪些可能的樣子，那麼到底有多少人，走過變老的這條路，能夠變成自己想最變成的模樣？

我希望，我們希望，這部片會是關於每個人的電影。而不是只關於老人、或者更狹隘地「我們要怎麼服務老人」、「我們要怎麼替老人帶來希望」的電影。希望她能夠讓人反思自己一路走來：是否感到喜悅、滿足？是否曾經後悔？是否有所惋惜？是否肯定它的價值？…或者，simply，是否一無牽掛、孤獨自在？

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創造

從一段旋律、一首歌、一個演唱會、到一個遊戲程式、一個工作坊、一篇論文、甚至是一個人類使用資訊的習慣改變趨勢的大膽假設、或一部（自以為）具有人性關懷普世價值的電影…人生就是一個接著一個有趣的作文題目。或許對我而言重點不在於寫不寫得好，而在學習創造的過程裡，可以讓自己不斷被提醒：我為什麼活著。

但今天我快要三十歲了。作文題目一直換個不停的現象—— or to many people, PROBLEMS——總是該被調整或做點修正（起碼大部分的你們給我的訊息大概是這樣），even though 我想這件事也未必要被這麼消極的態度來處理。換個積極點的角度來看，I was wondering if we could put it this way：該是要找個方法，讓這些創作的能量可以被聚集起來、生根發芽、並且能夠茁壯、能夠累積的時候了....？

其實這件事情本身也是一項極具挑戰的創作。我不確定自己有沒有這個膽接下這種艱難的任務，只覺得這似乎是一個創作的進程、到了這個階段自然而然該出現的題目。So 我只是一股腦地好奇：今天這一個發現、這一個念頭，不知道會造成十年後什麼樣的光景？

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