合家棧

行到水窮處 坐看雲起時

Browsing Posts published in October, 2007

上星期李柱銘在華爾街日報發表的署名文章,呼籲美國總統布殊藉08奧運,向中國政府提出兌現其改善民主民生的承諾。 李柱銘在國外發表反共言論,根本不是新鮮事。當初看到這則新聞,我只是一笑置至。沒想到事件竟然愈演愈烈,一眾左派愛國人士如嗜血的鯊魚,群起而攻,"漢奸"、"吳三柱", "賣國賊"一頂一頂的帽子扣上,左派親共親政府等各路傳媒配合報道大加鞭撻,一時間可謂一石激起千層浪。 幾日過去,看到各謊旦膠論,我仍然無動於中。(或許是我向來對民主黨沒大好感) 直到我在電視新聞片段中,譚耀宗說自己英語程度能正確理解李柱銘的文章,另外一個不知什麼名稱的左派地方組織發言人說道只要中七程度的英文水準,都能讀出李的文章確是要求外國政府介入拖壓,支持杯葛08奧運。但另一邊,李柱銘及民主黨人又信誓旦旦的說這是歪曲原義,有組織迫害。這就引起我的興趣來。很想知道究竟為何兩邊的人解讀同一篇文章的意思時,竟可如此南轅北轍。網上找來原文細讀,找到出事的兩處地方:

……He should use the next 10 months to press for a significant improvement of basic human rights in my country, including press, assembly and religious freedoms……….

李大狀勸美國總統用未來10個月(距離奧運時間)press 一下中國改善人權。press for 可解作'促請' / '敦促', 但斷沒有'施壓'之義。查了幾個網上字曲 (yahoo, webster)都沒有這個意思。或許,如林忌所言,權威字典解錯英文了! 另一處:

……In the U.S. and elsewhere, there are campaigns to boycott the Beijing Games over the Chinese government's trade with and support for regimes in Sudan and Burma. As a Chinese person, I would encourage backers of these efforts to consider the positive effects Olympic exposure could still have in China, including scrutiny by the world's journalists……

不記得是哪份報章的報道,說李柱銘鼓勵那些支持杯葛奧運的人。好明顯,這是斷章取義。李的原文是鼓勵那些支持杯葛奧運的人好好考慮其他更為正面的方法(去改變中國) 民主黨褔氣好:今次事件原以為會打擊泛民,尤其是陳太的選情。可幸那幫左派人士,扶不起的阿斗,又一次壞了阿公事,幫了泛民一把;怹們青根暴現的表現,上綱上線(2)的批鬥思維,又一次勾起一般市民的恐共心及對'土共'的反感。泛民或許可借東風,稍為調整選舉議題,摒棄那被葉太成功偷取的2012普選,改為用支持vs反對言語暴力為議題,相信不少中間遊離的中產人士又會再次投向泛民的懷包。

Quote from my classmate Gary’s post

“Well, this magic number came from the assumption of normal distibution, that most occurances will be in the middle of the range and then spreads off in a bell-shape on the chart, and Sigma is the SD of such.

So by definition 99.99999980268% of total value would lie within Mean +/- 6 x Sigma. Then, one obvious follow-up question would be why 3.4 instead of 0.002, following that logic. For this, let me quote from the literature,

“The difference occurs because Motorola presumes that the process mean can drift 1.5 sigma in either direction. The area of a normal distribution beyond 4.5 sigma from the mean is indeed 3.4 parts per million. Because control charts will easily detect any process shift of this magnitude in a single sample, the 3.4 parts per million represents a very conservative upper bound on the nonconformance rate.”

So it’s still based on the fundamental assumption of normal distribution, with a little twist. Hope this helps tame your curiousity.”

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