ucbiridescentbrian-blog

[ucbiridescentbrian-blog]

“Hope in any case is necessary, if there is no hope of comfort, poverty of the tragic situation will not be tolerated.” (Johnson)

   My friend’s father is a police officer of Huairen (a small mountain of China). He told us in his hometown, there is a small needy junior high school named Xiaoyu and the students in there are really talented and hardworking. But due to the leak of money, their study environment is terrible. These students didn’t have opportunities to get higher education and achieve their dream. So after the college entrance examination, along with some high school classmates, spending a whole day on the way, I went to this school personally to see what I could do to help. After arriving there, all I saw are black boards have many holes, windows are broken that definitely can’t protect students from the bitter wind in winter, desks are dilapidated which make it difficult to write upon it. (And some students just stick on a lot of tape to fill in the rugged desktop.), etc. The classrooms, the dormitories are so shabby that we even can’t believe there still are some people study in them.

    After this tour, my friends and I decided to do something for this poor school. We founded a public welfare organization named “EYE Public Welfare”. On the one hand, this name means the public can monitor every movements of our organization, on the other hand, the word “EYE” has same pronunciation with Chinese word “爱” (means love and care).

    Soon after, we came back to Xiaoyu high school and took some pictures and videos to made the promote video (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTY1MjkyNTQ2OA==.html?spm=a2h0k.8191407.0.0&from=s1.8-1-1.2) and print many leaflets. Then we went into streets to publicize and raise money.

   At first, because the number of participants and location that permit us to raise money were limited, the funding raise didn’t work well. So we changed the way to achieve it. We began to use the Internet to have some influence while raising money. Less than a day, we successfully raised about ￥5,000 and my moments (A function in weichat works like Twitter) is full of the information about this activity. I was so excited and moved by these kind people around me. And we carried on, to raised money by selling books that we don’t need. It worked very well. And in the end, we raised almost ￥10,000 which was totally enough to buy a hundred new desks for Xiaoyu school.

   But we encountered a problem. We just focused on the costs of purchasing desks but ignored the transportation costs. Our funding became insufficient. Moreover, the school season was about to come, we had no time to raise money again. We are so frustrated. And those two days really becomes dark days in my life. But none of us wanted to gave up. So we kept seeking if there was a company has lower price while consulting with them. “Where there is a will, there is a way.” Finally, we found a truck that happened to be going to the same place and available to transport these desks. We got a thirty percent discount of the costs, that was great!

    At October 22nd, the first day of Xiaoyu school, students were sitting in neat classroom and writing fluently on new desks. They felt so happy that seemed to forget the hard environment, forget the burden of life on their shoulders, forget their unfair life experiences. They laughed so happily. And I had never thought the simple action can bring others so much happiness. The head master of school said to us, “Please often come back to see your brothers and sisters, Xiaoyu school is always your family.”

   Thanks to this unforgettable experience, I was moved by the power of love in the society. And there is a question in my mind since I was a kid—What is dream? Now, I seem to get an answer, that is “the dream is a version; if people persist in chasing it, they will get happiness.” And this experience is like I achieved one of my dreams. As the slogan of this activity said “We are fighting today for a better tomorrow!”, wherever we are, whoever we are, if have a dream, don’t give up and don’t give in, just chaise it, no matter it will achieve or not. After all, the best gift we get is to have a dream and see it to fruition!

[ucbiridescentbrian-blog]

Privacy or profit, that’s the question.                                                        (I’m getting offline now!)

(Creative Heroes)

Image that a police officer accompanies you 24-7 and keeps watch over every behavior you do. What you feel is safe or it infringes on your privacy? (and make you crazy?)

(Dave Pearson)

                                             For companies

Telling a story of myself. Recently, I was studying Artificial Intelligence, and I always searched some information in the search engine like Google and Baidu. At the beginning, these search engines offered me some news about AI automatically and I felt it was very convenient. But later on, there were some advertisements of computer science educational institutions immerge on my screen when I surfed the internet. And recently, I even get some spam calls and emails on my personal phone and in my mail box. How could this happen?

(Casey Florig)  There is only one explanation, the internet company were selling my information to others without my permission. Ironically, I did felt comfortable and though it was convenient to take the “service” even if my privacy was infringed upon. However, it didn’t last long as I was soon overwhelmed by an ocean of spam.

(Michael Coghlan)  There is another example, AT&T and Verizon are selling information about their cell-phone customers, enabling mall owners track shoppers based on the signals emitted by the cellphones in their pocket.

(Run With Scissors)  It sounds like mall owners want to provide a high quality service, but actually, it sounds terrifying and makes us worried about who our information is used in illegal ways. (Because it’s out of our control.)  "The father of the Internet," Tim Berners believes that social networking is stifling the Web, and competition between companies caused by user power damage is the user "electronic human rights" violations. In a sense, these companies don’t give customers the right to choose.  Maybe it’s more appropriate for these corporations to ask for customers’ permission first then share the information.

                                            For governments

(Stephen Melkisethian)  Undoubtedly, the safety of the Internet always of great importance. And it’s reasonable that governments take some actions to make it possible. But as time goes by, people find that some governments agencies break in people’s internet life bright and upright and made many wrong judgments which brought many difficulties for innocent individuals. And the ready access of governments made the public feel their privacy is unsafe. (Your privacy may be infringed when you are sleeping!) Like the FBI can get anyone’s location easily by tracking the signal of phones and the NSA is always scooping up Americans’ phone calling records without their permission. As a result, the freedom on the Internet is fettered.

(EFF Photos)  So did the monitoring of government makes the internet world safer or not? And if the government should have the power to monitor us, who monitors them? These are questions.  As the passage “You’re under surveillance” mentioned, “Information is power. Anyone who holds a vast amount of information about us has power over us. In the twenty first century, large institutions—both governments and corporations—are gaining the upper hand in the information wars, by tracking vast quantities of information about mundane aspects of our lives.” So here is the question, are they fighting for our safe and convenient life?

(CHRISTOPHER DOMBRES)  In conclusion, technology allows us to find how wonderful life can be, to realize the world is more colorful than we thought before. But technology also allows others to spy on us, causing us to pull back from digital intimacy. (THE WEEK,2014) I believe that there is a line between privacy and profit. If someone cross the line and shift the balance, the “Ellen has your Facebook photos!” may not be humorous, but hurtful.

(nolifebeforecoffee)

Brian.

[ucbiridescentbrian-blog]

Go Giants !!!

2017.7.20   at AT&T Park

Here is gonna have an exciting game between San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres.(Thanks to Mrs.Baptiste’s guidance, we are lucky to get tickets.) 

Sitting in AT&T Park, which located in the bay, we have a good chance to watch the game while enjoying the sunset.

At this moment, listening the cheering sound, watching the great game, enjoying the beautiful sunset, I am so excited. And this is one of the most wonderful times in my life.  “Go Giants!” 

[ucbiridescentbrian-blog]

Recommended three great blogs.

1.NASA  https://nasa.tumblr.com

From this blog, we will be able to explore the universe and enjoy a thousand of beautiful cosmic imagines. From this blog, we will definitely broaden our horizon and be burned with the passion of exploring the unknown. 

2.HackCollege  http://www.hackcollege.com

College likes a mini society and us students will meet a lot of issue to deal with. This blog has great ideas to help students “Work smarter, not harder.” There are plenty interesting ideas and efficient ways of study in this blog. There is always one for you!

3.Pastel Nature   https://outdoorspastelnature.tumblr.com

“Beauty is found everywhere. Our eyes do not show a lack of sense of beauty, but a lack of observation.”–Auguste Rodin. This blog is exactly an eye to find the beauty of nature. And we can enjoy the fragrance of flowers and fresh green grass.

[ucbiridescentbrian-blog]

“I taste a liquor never brewed.”

It’s a mid-summer of France 2014. In a small cafe located in the banks of the Seine, a boy holed a glass of wine, facing the flow of boats, cars and pedestrian. It drew a fascinating picture. That’s the first time the wine comes into my life and I fall in love with it.

Personally, I don’t drink, although I am old enough to do it in China. However, when it comes to wine, I can’t help tasting it. Here I use the word “taste” because wine for me is not just like an alcohol but a delicacy.

 Back to china, a good wine always cost a lot of money. So I used to bought  a bottle of awesome wine which won’t cost so much and pure some cheap wine into it. At the time I sit on the bank of the lake in our university at night, seeing the stars shining in the dark sky, pouring out a little my “fake wine” in the glass, I feel happy, peaceful and ...  there is something I can’t describe which helps me to think a lot.

Gradually, wine becomes a lifestyle for me to feel and enjoy.  And  I’m trying to figure out the true meaning of “I taste a liquor never brewed.”. But back to earth, as Martin Luther says “Beer is made by man, wine by God”, if we are not teetotaler, why not just try some wine to relax?