首先，祝大家圣诞快乐。

 

另外，一个省钱的消息：如果你去邮局寄书的话，会比寄普通的东西要便宜一半甚至更多。所以如果你只寄书，一定要告诉柜台的，这样他会选一个寄书的价格。

 

还有，去amazon买东西的话，别忘记我的网站哟：www.laurashawn.net

昨天凌晨西雅图地区刮了几十年不遇的大风，结果造成80万用户及商家停电。微软也是其中之一。Redmond整个瘫痪！主要的桥梁都关闭，520桥还被风吹坏了，但是维修的人都不敢上去，因为晃的太厉害，要等不那么晃了再修。还有好多地方发大水。还好我们家没事，万幸！！

From Seattle Times News:

 

King County Executive Ron Sims issued an emergency proclamation this morning after supercharged winds of up to 70 miles an hour overnight knocked out power to about one million people in greater Seattle.

Utilities across the region worked feverishly to restore lights and heat, but warned that hundreds of thousands of homes in Seattle and its suburbs may remain dark into Saturday. Puget Sound Energy warned of delays of up to five days.

"As storm winds died down this morning, government agencies and individuals began to grapple with the damage and chaos from a storm that has killed at least four people..

In Seattle, hundreds of thousands of gallons of sewage mixed with rainwater was flushed into Puget Sound after two critical parts of King County’s wastewater system were damaged and overwhelmed by flood runoff.

Major roads, including the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and Hood Canal Bridge reopened after periodic closures.

The storm caused an unusual amount of damage the region’s power infrastructure. Dozens of transmission lines — the large power lines that transfer power from dams and other sources to neighborhood substations — were knocked down in the storm, said Dorothy Bracken, a spokeswoman for Puget Sound Energy.

PSE had dispatched a helicopter to pinpoint where trees had cut the transmission lines. PSE said it needed to assess those failures before targeting "feeder" lines that flow out from substations to neighborhoods.

Seattle City Light, which had 110,000 homes still in the dark this afternoon said a typical storm downs two or three feeder lines. Last night’s storm cut 65; 49 were still not working this afternoon, said spokesman Peter Clarke.

Clarke said City Light expected 100,000 homes – about one-third of the utility’s residential customers – to still be without power by midnight tonight, and about 50,000 midnight on Saturday.

"There will be people without power tonight and when we get down to small neighborhoods there may be some of those that are out for more than 24 hours, " Clarke said.

PSE reported 700,000 customers – two thirds of its customer base — without power, most of them in King County, said Bracken. In addition to most Eastside cities, Bracken said "all of Whidbey Island is without power."

来到美国发现很多中国人的名字的拼音是以X开头的，原来在michigan我们一个宿舍的就都是以X开头的，Xiangyu Cao, Xingliang Wang, Xin Geng。房东说我们宿舍是Xman。

还有认识其他的中国人名字：

Xiaochao Yao.

Xiaotian Guo,

Xi Wang,

 

最近我们组面试了一个中国人，也是X开头的。呵呵。似乎他有机会进我们组哟。

 

 

老马的资本论里面详细介绍了一堆主义及其之间关系，严密地推理论证了资本主义必将灭亡，共产主义必然实现（至于怎么论证地，我不知道，感兴趣自己看去）。反正说到最后，物资“极大”丰富，人们按需分配。其实仔细想想，也不是完全没有可能，应该说“理论上”没有错。打个比方，假如现在世界上就一千个人，但还有现在这么多物资，你要住房子？有一千栋给你，要车？有一千辆。要吃的？现在开始吃100辈子也吃不完。还要钱有个屁用，需要什么拿什么就好了。这就是所谓物资“极大”丰富吧。当然一千个人如何创造那么多物资，又另当别论了吧。也许老马那时候人口不多，生产力发展及其迅速，他认为按照当时情况发展下去，就会实现“极大”丰富吧。

 

记得当时上政治思想课的时候就说过，“生产力决定生产关系”，老师用这句话“证明”当生产力极大的时候，共产主义就会实现。我当时就想问，那现在生产力没有极大丰富，中国是不是可以跳过资本主义，直接进入社会主义呢？当然没有问出口。但事实证明，中国还是走的资本主义道路，不过打着社会主义的幌子罢了。相对来说，美国生产力比较大，就有一系列对穷人的补助，至少能维持生活，已经比中国更“社会主义”了。加拿大更是免费医疗，福利更好。可见“生产力决定生产关系”还是对的，不过老师（或者当权者）断章取义，为自己的利益服务罢了。

 

我又想到一个悖论：假设兔子在乌龟后面起跑，然后一起赛跑，当兔子到乌龟的位置的时候，乌龟已经往前走了一段路程了，所以“理论”上，兔子永远也追不到乌龟。有常识的人都知道这是不可能的，所以这个“理论”只在一定范围内有用，超过了这个极限，就不对了。我想老马也许犯了同样的错误，忘记了极限的存在，地球不是无限的，资源也不是无限的。现在人口增长也许比他预计得要快得多，还没有到物资极大丰富，人口已经极大丰富了。这就是我反驳老马的理论。

 

当然，世界上没有绝对的事，如果一定要有绝对，那就是“绝对没有绝对的事”。Anyway，我想说我的理论也不是绝对正确的，假如科技发达，人类移民太空，只要几个人按几个键就能做出一大堆东西啦，用也用不完，吃也吃不掉。老马的理论还是有可能实现的。至于到时候有没有机器人，是不是机器人可以代替人，是不是机器人就是人或者人类的延伸。那又是另外的话题了。

在美国这边（我想在国内也是吧），经常会有广告电话，一天就说，你好，我是某某公司，推荐某某产品。很是烦人。最近看seinfeld，里面有断对话很经典：

广告者：XXXXXXX

jerry seinfeld：对不起，我正忙，你能给我你家里电话，我有空打回去吗？

广告者：e。。。我不能给你我家里电话

jerry seinfeld：哦，你不想别人打你家里电话？

广告者：嗯

jerry seinfeld：THEN YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL NOW! (那你知道我现在的感受了吧？）

 

又想起一件搞笑又气人的事，一次我接到广告电话，没听清她说啥，反正我就打断她说：sorry, I am not interesting. 不知道她出于好心还是没做成生意心里不爽，居然指出我的语法错误，说应该用：I am not interested. 当场ft。不过从那以后，我都会用I am not interested来拒绝广告电话。