• Best practice: the recipe for formulaic sameness.
  • Operational excellence: doorknob polishing
  • Competitive benchmarking: plagiarism run riot
  • Balanced scorecards: the bureaucrat’s revenge
  • Performance targets: insults for the conscientious

The one thing that keeps us all safe on the road is predictability — both our ability to predict what other drivers will do and their ability to predict what we are going to do. Make sure you follow the rules and never do anything unexpected or sudden.

Money glitters, beauty sparkles, and intelligence shines.

Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.

The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of flowing passion, but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others.

The majority can never replace the man.

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions as truth is of system of thought.

Individuals have rights and there are things that no person or group may do to them without violating those rights.

The minimal state limited to narrow functions of protection against force, theft and fraud, enforcement of contracts and so on, is the most extensive state that can be justified.

Even though books and lectures belong to wisdom or knowledge in the DIKW model, they are the authors’ wisdom and lecturers’ knowledge. They are not ours. The best way to transform the information into our knowledge is to interpret something new to us based on what we have learned and share them.

Interpreting helps us organize and digest information. Sharing is not only a contribution to the information age but also our motivation to keep outputting better works.

An expert’s knowledge is organized in a deep, meaningful, and integrated fashion. As a result, an expert can interpret and apply this knowledge fluently. In contrast, as novices, student approach new knowledge as disconnected pieces of information, and often fail to see the connections between information presented in courses.

Novice learners often fail to organize new knowledge effectively, and as a result, struggle to absorb the information, which in turn impacts their learning. When presented with a large amount of information, novice students typically memorize lists of facts and formulas, whereas an expert would organize their knowledge around the core concepts of “big ideas.”

One important way experts’ and novices’ knowledge organizations differ is in the number or density of connections among the concepts, facts, and skills they know.

Experts’ more complex and highly connected knowledge structures permit them to access and use their knowledge more efficiently and effectively. Indeed, research has shown that experts tend to automatically process information in coherent chunks to build larger, more interconnected knowledge structures.

Đại tướng không sợ trời đất như Quan Vũ, Trương Phi lý nào lại hết mực tôn sùng một kẻ nhu nhược vô năng? Hiền tài ngạo thị quần hùng như Ngoạ Long, Phụng Sồ, lý nào lại cam tâm phò tá một kẻ chỉ biết chạy và khóc?

Những câu đầu Tam Quốc có đề cập đến khía cạnh trầm tĩnh của Lưu Bị: “Ít nói, mừng giận không hề lộ ra mặt.”

Driving a Mercedes symbolizes class, elegance with a hint of flamboyance, an upper hand in the rich class, safety concerned and work oriented.

While BMW aims for sporty looks and aggressive crowd, Mercedes’ body language is more toned down and aimed towards formal high-end working life.

Mercedes stands for grace, style, safety, performance, efficiency, German engineering marvel. It also has a dash of luxury, though it is not a luxury car brand.

Those who have enough money to buy Merc and have personality characteristics similar to brand, chose Merc to announce their arrival, taste and wealth.

Masterpiece, magnum opus, in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person’s career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill, profundity, or workmanship.

The evolution-by-natural-selection model leads to something of an arms race among species competing for limited resources. When one species evolves an advantageous adaptation, a competing species must respond in kind or fail as a species. Standing still can mean falling behind. This arms race is called the Red Queen Effect: “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”

Because they are composed of peoples of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds, all empire are ultimately held together by coercion and the threat of forcible reconquest. Imposing their rule on diverse political structures, they are characterized by the centralization of power and the absence of effective representation of their component parts.

Based on military force and religious belief, the ancient despotisms were legitimized also by their achievements in building great bureaucratic and legal structures, in developing vast irrigation and road systems, and in providing the conditions for the support of high civilizations. Enhancing and transcending all other political structures in their sphere, they could claim to function as effective schemes of universal order.

In practice, however, the League failed its most important tests and was unable to master the crises that led to WW2 and its own collapse.

Confederations usually fail to provide for an effective executive authority and lack viable central governments; their member states typically retain their separate military establishments and separate diplomatic representation; and members are generally accorded equal status with an acknowledged right of secession from the confederation. The term federation is used to refer to groupings of states, often on a regional basis, that establish central executive machinery to implement policies or to supervise joint activities.

My biggest motivator for my first championship was money. To be a pro gamer, it’s like you’ve turn from the path of finishing school and getting a normal job with all the security it offers. So when I first started out, I was hungry for a victory, so I could earn money. However, after winning over the course of several years, I earned as much as I needed, and that motivator faded. Afterwards, how many trophies could I lift up as a pro gamer, that was my goal. It’s like a personal challenge of mine, but it’s also because I’ve kept winning. Obviously I tried harder since it’s my job and what I’ve been doing for a long time.

However, my most recent driving force is self-improvement. I really want to improve myself as a gamer. As a result, on the surface, I’m aiming for winning championships which is a must for a pro gamer, but on the inside, my first priority is working hard to improve my skill as a player more than winning.

Firstly, my schedule has always been packed. However, it’s true that I’m definitely practicing less than I used to. In 2013, I would play for 15 hours a day, but now I only play 10~12. The key to keeping up these hours even with a busy schedule is my desire to win. I absolutely abhor losing. If I fall behind, I get angry and practice more.

Reciprocal favors are the key factor to maintaining one’s guanxi web, while failure to reciprocate is considered an unforgivable offense. Guanxi can perpetuate a never-ending cycle of favors.

Ultimately, the relationships formed by guanxi are personal and not transferrable.

Note that the aforementioned organizational flaws guanxi creates can be diminished by having more efficient institutions (like open market systems that are regulated by formal organizational procedures while promoting competition and innovation) in place to help facilitate business interactions more effectually.

The role of the graphic designer in the communication process is that of encoder or interpreter of the message. They work on the interpretation, ordering, and presentation of visual messages. The design work always starts from a client’s demand, a demand that ends up being established linguistically, either orally or in writing, that is, that graphic design transforms a linguistic message into a graphic manifestation.

Tôi đến gặp chú Văn Tiến Dũng, ông Dũng ngần ngại, tôi phải trình bày rất lâu ông mới nói: “Việc này chú phải trao đổi với bác Lê Đức Thọ.” Vài ngày sau, ông Dũng gọi tôi đến, bảo: “Bác Thọ gạt đi, bảo không được đâu, anh Thanh có mỗi thằng con trai, sang đấy làm sao thì mất giống nhà nó. Mà chị mới mất đưa nó đi làm gì?”

Thật là đáng ngạc nhiên, khi mà một trung uý chỉ xin một việc rất nhỏ là ra mặt trận, mà Bộ trưởng Quốc phòng, Tư lệnh Mặt trận, và cuối cùng là người lãnh đạo cao nhất của Đảng về tổ chức cán bộ phải đưa ra quyết định cuối cùng.

Most products reach only a fraction of their potential. That’s because many designers stop at extrinsic motivators like hitting goals, meeting deadlines, shipping to customers. It’s tempting to stop doing the work when we find something that works. To push past that, you have to be in touch with your intrinsic motivations.

For example, at Pinterest, we worked on “discovery” for 8 years, despite users telling us we were all about “inspiration.” Discovery is practical. It’s intellectual. But inspiration is a complex dynamic that’s deeply woven into each human being’s journey of being, becoming and belonging. It doesn’t stop at the intellect; inspiration is emotional and spiritual.

Of course, founders have strategic and operational responsibilities. But the most important role of the founder is fundamentally a spiritual one.

Start with the work. A great way to find the right designer is to find something that speaks to you and then figure out who designed it. Don’t just look at work — see it. If you email someone and say “I’m reaching out because I admire your work,” you’re more likely to get a response as opposed to “I’m looking to hire.” Designers are busy. They don’t like email. And the nature of their work is rarely appreciated. The best way to hire is to make them feel truly seen.

From the universal testimony of travelers it would appear, that there is scarcely a people, in however early stage of civilization, with whom the desire to ornament is not a strong instinct. Man’s earliest ambition is to create, to stamp on this earth the impress of an individual mind.

Central to his thesis is the notion that anything that is conceived of as beautiful will be in harmony with the laws of nature.

I had a lot of mixed feelings. When I saw him for the first time, I felt sorry for him. He looks like a beggar. He’s a man who didn’t even have a uniform, he didn’t have any pair of boots, he had some pair of leather tied down to his foot. He was very filthy and he really looked like a beggar and it was a tremendous shock, remembering that the image when he visited the Soviet Union and China then to see this man the way he looked at this point in time.

We strive, with varying degrees of success, to define objects that appear effortless. Objects that appear so simple, coherent, and inevitable that there could be no rational alternative.

Although we have been doing this for many years, creating something simple never seems to get any easier. Simplicity is not the absence of complexity. Just removing clutter would result in an uncomplicated but meaningless product. I think a product that is truly simple somehow communicates, with striking clarity, what it is and what it can do.

Above all, I have come to feel sure that human beings sense care in the same way we sense carelessness. I do think we respond, maybe not consciously, to something much bigger than the object. We sense the group of people behind the products, people who do more than make something work, people who sincerely care about the smallest unseen details, as well as the big idea and primary function.

Comfort (or being comfortable) is a sense of physical or psychological ease, often characterized as a lack of hardship. Persons who are lacking in comfort are uncomfortable, or experiencing discomfort. A degree of psychological comfort can be achieved by recreating experiences that are associated with pleasant memories, such as engaging in familiar activities, maintaining the presence of familiar objects, and consumption of comfort foods. Persons who are surrounded with things that provide psychological comfort may be described as being “in their comfort zone.”

Bản phái võ công cũng chẳng khác, yếu quyết đầu tiên là tích súc nội lực. Nội lực đầy đủ rồi, võ công trong thiên hạ ta đều dùng được, khác gì biển bắc, thuyền lớn thuyền nhỏ đều chở được, cá lớn cá nhỏ đều dung được. Cho nên nội lực là gốc, chiêu số là ngọn.

Hoàng Dược Sư vốn rất ghét những người ngốc nghếch và chậm chạp. Nhưng đối với Cô Ngốc, Hoàng Dược Sư không chỉ thi nạp làm đồ đệ mà còn truyền thụ hết mọi võ công của mình cho cô.

Hấp tinh đại pháp tuy là hút nội lực của đối phương vào bản thân, nhưng những luồng chân khí đó không cùng nguồn gốc, không thể dung hoà với nhau, ngược lại còn xung đột lẫn nhau trong kỳ kinh bát mạch. Mỗi lần phát tác đều khiến cho người luyện đau đớn khổ sở như bị tẩu hoả nhập ma. Lần sau càng nghiêm trọng hơn lần trước.

The most difficult thing is to carve out time to think, which is probably the most important time for somebody who’s trying to shift an organization, or in this case, the country, as opposed to doing the same things that have been done before. And I find time slips away.

I’d wake up after 5 or 6 hours and try to squeeze in a workout at whatever facility we could find, before packing up my clothes and gulping down a haphazard breakfast; before hopping into a van and making fundraising calls on the way to the first town hall meeting of the day.

The 2 things that were most important to me was exercise in the morning, hitting the gym. And the second thing was family; having a block of time with my girls and with Michelle that was inviolable unless there was a genuine immediate crisis.

Family time is especially important to Obama to unwind from his day. “The chance to be under the same roof with his kids, essentially to live over the store, to be able to see them whenever he wants, to wake up with them, to have breakfast and dinner with them — that has made him a very happy man.

Obama reflected on his new, “hugely liberating” routine as a former president, “now when I wake up, I can make my own decisions about who do I want to spend my time.”

The biggest epiphany I’ve had this year is that what really matters is the machine that builds the machine the factory and that is at least toward a magnitude harder than the vehicle itself.

I like to do my high-IQ meetings before lunch. Like, anything that’s going to be really mentally challenging, that’s a 10:00 meeting. Because by 5pm, I’m like I can’t think about that today, let’s try this again tomorrow at 10am.

I would rather optimize for making every hour meaningful — or every minute meaningful — than I would maximizing the number of hours or minutes I’m working on a thing.

I never viewed myself as exceptional. And so whenever I got a job, I was relying on hard work more than anything and a level of enthusiasm and optimism. When I went to ABC Sports, everybody there went to Stanford or Dartmouth or Columbia.

I create a firewall with technology, by the way, in that I try to exercise and think before I read. Because if I read, it throws me off, it’s distracting. I’m immediately thinking about usually someone else’s thoughts instead of my own. I like being alone with my own thoughts, and it gives me an opportunity to not just replenish but to organize, and it’s important.

I think it’s vital, in terms of the ability to run a pretty complicated company in a very, very fast-paced world, to have the energy but also to have spent the time to organize one’s thoughts.

The thing about it is, when you love what you do, you don’t really think of it as work. It’s what you do. And that’s the good fortune of where I find myself.

I’ve always felt that a part of leadership is conveying a sense of urgency in dealing with key issues. Apple operates at an extreme pace, and my experience has been that key issues rarely get smaller on their own.

As a computer scientist and mathematician, Levin approaches his daily routine with data, precision and pattern-recognition. “I tend to come up with precise routines and repeat them obsessively every day. In perfect detail, every morning at home looks the same. By cutting out the contemplation of what to do next, I achieve extreme efficiencies.”

I like having this super intense experience early in the day. It gets me pumped up and energized. But another part of it is psychological — it gives me a great sense of accomplishment. So even if it’s a bad day at work, at least I pedaled really hard.

Sau khi tốt nghiệp cấp 3, Shark Việt được gia đình định hướng theo học tại trường Đại học Thuỷ Lợi. Sau khi tốt nghiệp, chàng thanh niên ấy tự đặt ra những mục tiêu cho mình như: 3 năm phải làm giám đốc xí nghiệp, 6 năm phải làm giám đốc công ty, 10 năm phải làm tổng giám đốc, 15 năm về làm Bộ trưởng, 20 năm sau làm Phó Thủ tướng hay Thủ tướng chính phủ.

Nếu không giao em làm chỉ huy trưởng em sẽ bỏ việc luôn, chứ em không làm nhân viên.

It is not perjury to lie about matters that are immaterial to the legal proceeding. Statements that entail an interpretation of fact are not perjury because people often draw inaccurate conclusion unwittingly or make honest mistakes without the intent to deceive.

Chất lượng thấp cũng là lý do chung cho số phận ngắn ngủi của các tạp chí truyện tranh Việt Nam khác xuất hiện cùng lúc và cả sau này. Mặc dù vậy, không thể phủ nhận giá trị rất lớn của các tạp chí này khi đã phát hiện, quần tụ và nuôi dưỡng, khích lệ các tác giả truyện tranh Việt Nam trẻ, những người sẽ trưởng thành theo sóng gió của thời gian và có thể trở thành tài năng trong những năm sau.

Nếu so sánh thì giống như vận động viên thi đấu ở các cấp độ trẻ, chứ không phải là thể thao đỉnh cao chỉ đánh giá bằng năng lực mà không phân biệt lứa tuổi. Xử lý không khoa học, không rõ ràng về ý đồ, sự tuỳ tiện và ngây ngô, non nớt về kiến thức cho thấy sân chơi này thực chất chỉ mang tính giao lưu cho vui, và một khi niềm vui ủng hộ của người mua cho một sản phẩm Made in Vietnam không còn nữa, số phận của nó cũng sẽ cáo chung.

Nhưng hoá ra với truyện tranh ngoại nhập chúng ta kỹ lưỡng chọn lọc bao nhiêu, thì với truyện tranh trong nước chúng ta lai chỉ đi từ sự dễ dãi này qua sự dễ dãi khác. Chúng ta bao dung với bản thân và bao dung với người đời. Độc giả luôn tự hình thành 2 hệ quy chiếu trong nhận thức: nghệ thuật nước ngoài và nghệ thuật Việt Nam. “Phim Việt Nam được như thế là tốt lắm rồi. Truyện Việt Nam được như thế là tốt lắm rồi. Hãy ủng hộ chứ đừng phê phán.”

Kết quả là ở Việt Nam, nếu biết ngoại ngữ thì bạn có thể tiếp xúc với các sản phẩm văn hoá mang nội dung chứa đựng yếu tố tình dục, bạo lực, những tiếng chửi thề… một cách trọn vẹn, còn nếu chỉ biết tiếng Việt thì rất tiếc là không, bạn sẽ được bảo vệ rốt ráo dù muốn hay chăng.

Năm 1964, sau chuyến thăm Tây Đức, ông Park Chung Hee rất ấn tượng với cao tốc Autobahn. Khi về nước, mỗi lần có thời gian rảnh, ông thường phác thảo hệ thống đường bộ lên một tờ giấy. Năm 1967, trong chiến dịch tranh cử tổng thống, ông cam kết xây một đường cao tốc nối Seoul và Busan.

Mọi người hay hỏi tôi: Điều gì giúp cho anh thành công đến thế? Tôi chỉ có thể trả lời là tôi đã rất may mắn. Vận may ở đây là gì? Là mọi việc xảy ra 1 cách bất ngờ. Câu chuyện của tôi tóm gọn lại là: Tôi rất mê chơi game, đến mức từng chơi game suốt 48 tiếng liên tục hồi còn là sinh viên. Rồi một ngày, cùng vài người bạn, chúng tôi nghĩ, ồ, hay mình thành lập 1 công ty làm game xem sao nhỉ. Và rất may mắn cho chúng tôi là game đầu tiên đã thành công. Hành trình của tôi với VNG khởi đầu 1 cách tình cờ như thế thôi.

Vào thế kỷ 17-18, nước Đức làm được ba việc vĩ đại để chuẩn bị cho thế kỷ 19 huy hoàng là:

  1. Làm công cuộc dịch thuật hầu như tất cả những gì có chữ từ ngôn ngữ Hy Lạp, La Mã, Ả rập;
  2. Thiết lập mô hình Đại học Humboldt;
  3. Trước đó là phát minh của Gutenberg

Hệ quả của ba việc này là nước Đức xuất bản và bán quá nhiều sách. Leibniz đã phải mô tả: “cơn bão xuất bản”, “khối lượng sách khủng khiếp”. Hệ quả là nó dẫn tới một hiện tượng phổ biến trong thế kỷ 18, 19 ở Đức là “chứng cuồng sách” (bibliomania). Và Leibniz đã gọi những quý tộc, trung lưu “cuồng sách” này là những “kẻ làm màu về tri thức”.

“This is good for what it is, but I would never read this in my free time.” I’m sure professors across other disciplines think this all the time. School, then, might breed a habit for aspiring writers and thinkers: the illusion that people will always read your entire essay just because it’s you.

The so-called real world is super competitive. Nobody will read your stuff just because it’s you. The real-world reality is: No one cares what you think. It’s up to you to make people give a shit.

Nobody cares what you did yesterday. Nobody is reading your archives. Nobody is reading your bio. Show me something today.

A successful entrepreneurial economy has a blend of small and big firms, with the small firms producing the radical innovations and the big firms honing and building upon those inventions.

Entrepreneurial capitalism requires capitalism — that is, minimal government intervention in the market so as not to pervert incentives for the small business owners trying to succeed. Beware of the government which tries to arbitrarily “divide up the economic pie rather than increase its total size.”

Western Europe lacks much “creative destruction”: of the 25 of the largest companies in 1998, all 25 were already large in 1960. Contrast to the US, where 8 of the top 25 companies did not exist or were very small in 1960. In Japan, it is difficult to identify any new company which has emerged of late; behemoths like Sony, Panasonic, and Toyota still dominate.

The gap between what one knows and what one thinks one knows may be higher in the ranks of the elite. The result is supposedly-clever government interventions, introduced with excessive confidence, leading to disastrous results.

It’s harmless if reporters and know-it-alls dismiss your startup. They always get things wrong. It’s even ok if investors dismiss your startup; they’ll change their minds when they see growth. The big danger is that you’ll dismiss your startup yourself. I often have to encourage founders who don’t see the full potential of what they’re building. Even Bill Gates made that mistake. He returned to Harvard for the fall semester after starting Microsoft. He didn’t stay long, but he wouldn’t have returned at all if he’d realized Microsoft was going to be even a fraction of the size it turned out to be.

When choosing typefaces, there are 2 key considerations: How does this type make us feel and how does this type work? The emotional response to the shape of letterforms is a very personal experience, and when readers first see type, they react to it in an emotional way before anything else.

There’s a huge temptation to focus on how letterforms make us feel, but it’s important to consider how the text feels as a whole — as a collection of words — rather than looking at just individual characters, or even individual words.

Don’t mistake legibility for communication. In other words, legible letterforms don’t convey meaning by themselves, their arrangement contributes to the message being conveyed. It’s important to remember that typography is not technically about choosing typefaces — it is, in fact, their arrangement.

Management is a set of principles relating to the functions of planning, organizing, directing and controlling, and the application of these principles in harnessing physical, financial, human, and informational resources efficiently and effectively to achieve organizational goals.

Pietrie define management as working with human, financial and physical resources to achieve organizational objectives by performing planning, organizing, leading and controlling functions.

Management is an art of knowing what to do when to do and see that it is done in the best and cheapest way.

If you hit the wrong note, it’s the next note that you play that determines if it’s good or bad.

Companies employ the strategy to increase efficiency. By receiving goods only as they need them for the production process, it reduces inventory costs and wastage, and increases productivity and profit. The downside is that it requires producers to forecast demand accurately as the benefits can be nullified by minor delays in the supply chain. It may also impact negatively on workers due to added stress and inflexible conditions. A successful operation depends on a company having regular outputs, high-quality processes, and reliable suppliers.

Previously a textile company, Toyota moved into building automobiles in 1934.

Critics of Lean argue that this management method has significant drawbacks, especially for the employees of companies operating under Lean. Common criticism is that it fails to take in consideration the employee’s safety and well-being. Lean manufacturing is associated with an increased level of stress among employees, who have a small margin of error in their work environment which require perfection. Lean also over-focuses on cutting waste, which may lead management to cut sectors of the company that are not essential to the company’s short-term productivity but are nevertheless important to the company’s legacy. Lean also over-focuses on the present, which hinders a company’s plans for the future.

More recently, the loosely coupled, self-organizing network of businesses who cooperate to provide product and service offerings has been called the extended enterprise, and the use of the term “chain” and the linear structure it appears to represent have been criticized as “harder to relate to the way supply networks really operate. A chain is actually a complex and dynamic supply and demand network.”

The WSJ suggested that investors “re-think” the “quaint idea” of profits, and CNBC reported on the stock market with the same level of suspense as many networks provided to the broadcasting of sports events.

At the height of the boom, it was possible for a promising dot-com company to become a public company via an IPO and raise a substantial amount of money even if it had never made a profit — or, in some cases, realized any material revenue.

At home, again, the gods have listened to our vows. Parliament has been reformed, and the long-desired mechanical security provided for the voter’s freedom. We no longer aspire after all these things, you may see because our hopes have been realized and our dreams have come true. It is possible that the comparatively prosaic results before our eyes at the end of all have thrown a chill over our political imagination. The old aspirations have vanished, and no new ones have arisen in their place.

Nothing important has ever been built without irrational exuberance.

Looking just at existing competitors can give you a false sense of security. You should compete against what someone else could be doing, not just what you can see people doing.

What YC looks for, above all, are founders who understand some group of users and can make what they want.

If you want to raise money, the best thing you can do is get yourself to the point where you don’t need to.

10 years after the US had withdraw its last man, ignominiously, from Saigon, the journalist Joseph Lelyveld observed acutely, “When we talk about Vietnam, we are seldom talking about the country of that name or the situation of the people who live there. Usually we are talking about ourselves. Probably we always were, which is one conspicuous reason our leaders found it so hard to shape a strategy that fit us and our chosen terrain.”

Similarly, typography informs and expresses. It is both invisible and seen, the levels of which are determined by typeface designers (makers) and graphic designers (users). Like fashion, type surrounds us, and it is inextricable from everyday life.

Hồi làm xuất khẩu phần mềm, tôi gặp khó khăn và thất bại liên tục, nhưng tôi không từ bỏ, cứ lầm lũi tiến lên cho đến khi cơ hội thành công đến. Không biết chị có hiểu được cảm giác của tôi không, nhưng sau một chuỗi hết thất bại này đến thất bại khác, từ năm này qua năm khác, cuối cùng cũng nhìn thấy thành công le lói ở phía trước… đó là một cảm giác sướng run rẩy cả người. Nó sung sướng hơn cả việc tôi kiếm được bao nhiêu tiền trong đời mình.

The word “secure” is derived from securus, meaning freedom from anxiety.

In debate about national security strategies, some argue that security depends principally on developing protective and coercive capabilities in order to protect the security referent in a hostile environment (and potentially to project that power into its environment, and dominate it to the point of strategic supremacy). Others argue that security depends principally on building the conditions in which equitable relationships can develop, partly by reducing antagonism between actors, ensuring that fundamental needs can be met, and also that differences of interest can be negotiated effectively.

A number of African states such as South Sudan and Somalia have been unable to govern their security in meaningful ways. Often failing to be able to claim the monopoly of force in their territory and thus being the Sovereign challenged.

Notably, the Act did not define national security, which was conceivably advantageous, as its ambiguity made it a powerful phrase to invoke against diverse threats to interests of the state, such as domestic concerns.

Measures taken to ensure US national security include:

  • Using diplomacy to rally allies and isolate threats.
  • Marshaling economic power to elicit cooperation.
  • Maintaining effective armed forces.
  • Implementing civil defense and emergency preparedness policies (including anti-terrorism legislation).
  • Ensuring the resilience and redundancy of critical infrastructure.
  • Using intelligence services to detect and defeat or avoid threats and espionage, and to protect classified information.
  • Tasking counterintelligence services or secret police to protect the nation from internal threats.

Những năm đó QH có mỗi một chức năng duy nhất là hợp thức hoá đường lối của ĐCSVN. Phải đến năm 1985 QH mới bắt đầu khởi sắc, có những đại biểu lên tiếng phát biểu tự do hơn, thay vì trước kia Tổng thư ký QH phải duyệt trước bài diễn văn của đại biểu.

Chính phủ hầu như chỉ trình các báo cáo lên BCT trước mà không trình QH. Chỉ sau khi BCT kết luận thì báo cáo mới được trình QH.

Vai trò lãnh đạo rõ rệt nhất của ĐCS với QH là cơ quan Đảng đoàn QH. Đảng đoàn QH chịu sự lãnh đạo, chỉ đạo trực tiếp của BCT, Ban Bí thư. Các chức vụ Bí thư, Phó Bí thư và các Uỷ viên Đảng đoàn đều do BCT chỉ định.

QH nắm quyền lập pháp, nhưng thực tế phần lớn các dự thảo luật là do CP và các Bộ nghành soạn thảo, đệ trình.

Quyền lập pháp không phải là quyền làm luật, mà là quyền cho phép ban hành pháp luật, muốn điều chỉnh hành vi thì phải có luật, sau đó trình sang QH.

Điều tôi muốn nói là, cho dù là ai đi chăng nữa, nếu đưa vào các cương vị lãnh đạo Đà Nẵng trước khi đập vỡ các nhóm lợi ích này thì đều rơi vào thảm cảnh. Người không có bản lĩnh thì bị các nhóm lợi ích nhào nặn để sai khiến, người trung kiên bản lĩnh thì sẽ bị đánh bật ra suốt đời phải chịu oan sai thân bại danh liệt.

Đây là nhóm được cho là “tuyệt đối trung thành” nên thường được ưu tiên để đi học, nhận học bổng, đầu tư chuyên ngành, du học, và vào các vị trí quan trọng.

Tuy nhiên, giới chỉ trích cho rằng đây là cách làm phản dân chủ, ưu đãi thân nhân, tạo bè phái, và chỉ đưa đến gia đình trị.

The word collective most of them can’t bring themselves to use — except to describe foreign countries or organizations they don’t work for — but they are keenly aware of how much more deeply beholden they are to organization than were their elders. They are wry about it, to be sure; they talk of the “treadmill,” the “rat race,” of the inability to control one’s direction.

Hereditary or statutory order of succession or effective succession planning are orderly ways to resolve questions of succession to positions of power. When such methods are unavailable, such as in failed dictatorship or civil wars, a power vacuum arises, which prompts a power struggle entailing political competition, violence, or (usually) both. A power vacuum can also occur after a constitutional crisis in which large portion of the government resign or are removed, creating unclear succession.

National power stems from various elements, also called instruments or attributes; these may be put into 2 groups based on their applicability and origin — “natural” and “social”.

Natural:

  • Geography
  • Resources
  • Population

Social:

  • Economic
  • Political
  • Military
  • Psychological
  • Informational

Strange was skeptical of static indicators of power, arguing that it was structural power that mattered. In particular, interactions between states and markets mattered. She pointed to the superiority of the American technology sector, dominance in services, and the position of the US dollar as the top international currency as real indicators of lasting power. She distinguished between relational power (the power to compel A to get B to do something B does not want to do) and structural power (the power to shape and determine the structure of the global political economy).

Power is the capacity to direct the decisions and actions of others. Power derives from strength and will. Strength comes from the transformation of resources into capabilities. Will infuses objectives with resolves. Strategy marshals capabilities and brings them to bear with precision. Statecraft seeks through strategy to magnify the mass, relevance, impact, and irresistibility of power. It guides the ways the state deploys and applies its power abroad. These ways embrace the arts of war, espionage, and diplomacy.

Gross indicators systematically exaggerate the wealth and military capabilities of poor, populous countries, because they tally countries’ resources without deducting the costs countries pay to police, protect, and serve their people. A country with a big population might produce vast output and field a large army, but it also may bear massive welfare and security burdens that drain its wealth and bog down its military, leaving it with few resources for power projection abroad.

Kegan’s theory of adult development

  • Stage 1: Impulsive mind
  • Stage 2: Imperial mind
  • Stage 3: Socialized mind
  • Stage 4: Self-Authoring mind
  • Stage 5: Self-Transforming mind

Stage 5: Self-Transforming mind

  • Very few adults
  • No longer held prisoner by their own identity
  • Not tied to particular identities or roles. Constantly re-created through the exploration of one’s identities and roles and further honed through interactions with others
  • Genuinely willing to learn from others
  • Think in systems (“this is happening because the incentives are set up that way”)
  • Can hold multiple thoughts and ideologies at once
  • Best suited for managing a strong executive team or a product at scale

Our father did not believe in falsely building his sons’ self-esteem by purposefully letting us win, or tolerating sloppy play.

Elitism is the belief or notion that individuals who form an elite — a select group of people perceived as having an intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, power, notability, special skills, or experience — are more likely to be constructive to society as a whole, and therefore deserve influence or authority greater than that of others.

Beliefs that are in opposition to elitism include egalitarianism, anti-intellectualism, populism, and the political theory of pluralism.

A narrative, story or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences.

Aristocracy (from “best”, and “power, strength”) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning “rule of the best.”

At the time of the word’s origins in ancient Greece, the Greeks conceived it as rule by the best-qualified citizens — and often contrasted it favorably with monarchy, rule by an individual. The term was first used to describe a system where only the best of the citizens, chosen through a careful process of selection, would become rulers, and hereditary rule would actually have been forbidden, unless the rulers’ children performed best and were better endowed with the attributes that make a person fit to rule compared with every other citizen in the polity. Hereditary rule in this understanding is more related to Oligarchy, a corrupted form of Aristocracy where there is rule by a few, but not by the best.

Fiat currencies only have value because the government maintains that value; there is no utility to fiat money in itself.

Fiat is inconvertible and cannot be redeemed simply because there is no underlying commodity backing it.

In this sense, US dollars are now “legal tender,” rathe than “lawful money,” which can be exchanged for gold, silver, or any other commodity.

Fiat currencies gained prominence in the 20th century in party because governments and central banks sought to insulate their economies from the worst effect of the natural booms and busts of the business cycle. Since fiat money is not a scarce or fixed resource like gold, central banks have much greater control over its supply, which gives them the power to manage economic variables such as credit supply, liquidity, interest rates, and money velocity. For instance, the Fed has the dual mandate to keep unemployment and inflation low.

A currency tied to gold, for example, is generally more stable than fiat money because of the limited supply of gold. There are more opportunities for the creation of bubbles with fiat money due to its unlimited supply.

One reason this has merit is because governments demand that you pay taxes in the fiat money it issues. Since everybody needs to pay taxes, or else face stiff penalties or prison, people will accept it in exchange.

Hyperinflations have occurred throughout history, even when money was based on precious metals; and all contemporary hyperinflations have begun with a fundamental breakdown in the real production economy and / or political instability in the country.

Legal tender is the legally recognized money within a given political jurisidiction.

The national currency is legal tender in practically every country. A creditor is legally obligated to accept legal tender toward repayment of a debt.

By default (and design), legal tender laws prevent the widespread adoption of anything other than the existing legal tender as money in the economy. A check, or a credit swipe, is not legal tender; it functions as a money substitute and merely represents a means by which the holder of the check can eventually receive legal tender for the debt.

The legal tender also makes monetary policy possible. From the point of view of the issuer, legal tender allows the manipulation, debasement, and devaluation of the currency by the issuer to obtain seigniorage and facilities the issuance of fiduciary media by the banking system to meet the needs of trade.

As a general rule, assets that have a finite useful life depreciate rather than appreciate.

Many directors’ contracts include a disincentive for firing — a golden parachute clause that requires the corporation to pay the director a bonus if they are let go.

What an investor need is the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses. Note that word “selected”: You don’t have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.

Many companies in high-tech businesses or embryonic industries will grow much faster in percentage terms. But I would rather be certain of a good result than hopeful of a great one.

When I don’t have experience with something, I make a list of the people that I think that are the smartest people that I can contact to get advice.

Let me just cut through it, if you believe that your stock is undervalued, you should buy your stock. I thought that was just the simplest way to look at it.

The trick in investing is just sit there and watch pitch after pitch go by and wait for the one right in your sweet spot. And if people are yelling, “Swing, you bum!,” ignore them.

Policy is a deliberative system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol.

Social status is the level of social value person is considered to hold. More specifically, it refers to the relative level of respect, honor, assumed competence, and deference accorded to people, groups, and organization in a society. Status is based in widely shared beliefs about who members of a society think holds comparatively more or less social value, in other words, who they believe is better in terms of competence or moral traits.

Such symbols can include the possession of valued attributes, like being conventionally beautiful or having a prestigious degree. Other status symbols include wealth and its display through conspicuous consumption. Status in face-to-face interaction can also be conveyed through certain controllable behaviors, such as assertive speech, posture, and emotional displays.

Because status is always relative to others, that means a person can enter many situations throughout their life or even a single day in which they hold high, equal, or low status depending on who is around them.

Status helps maintain social inequality. Because status is based on beliefs about social worth and esteem, sociologists argue it can then appear only natural that higher-status people have more material resources and power. Status makes it appear that a person’s rank or position in society is due to their relative merit, and therefore deserved.

When a party pretends to negotiate, but secretly has no intention of compromising, the party is considered negotiating in bad faith.

Commonly used negotiation tactics:

  • Auction: The bidding process is designed to create competition.
  • Brinkmanship: One party aggressively pursues a set of terms to the point where the other negotiating party must either agree or walk away.
  • Bogey: Negotiators use the bogey tactic to pretend that an issue of little or no importance is very important. Then, later in the negotiation, the issue can be traded for a major concession of actual importance.
  • Calling a higher authority: To mitigate too far reaching concessions, deescalate, or overcome a deadlock situation, one party makes the further negotiation process dependent on the decision of a decision maker, not present at the negotiation table.
  • Chicken: Negotiators propose extreme measures, often bluffs, to force the other party to chicken out and give them what they want.
  • Defense in depth: Several layers of decision-making authority is used to allow further concessions each time the agreement goes through a different level of authority. In other words, each time the offer goes to a decision maker, that decision maker asks to add another concession to close the deal.
  • Deadlines: Give the other party a deadline forcing them to make a decision.
  • Flinch: Flinching is showing a strong negative physical reaction to a proposal. Common examples of flinching are gasping for air, or a visible expression of surprise or shock. The flinch signals to the opposite party that you think the offer or proposal is absurd in hopes the other party will lower their aspirations.
  • Forgive Math or Generous Tit Tat
  • Good Cop / Bad Cop.
  • Highball / Low-ball: Sellers or buyers use a ridiculously high or low opening offer that is not achievable. The extreme offer makes the other party reevaluate their own opening offer.
  • Snow Job: Overwhelm the other party with so much information that they have difficulty determining what information is important, and what is a diversion.
  • Anchoring: Establish a reference point first in order to guide the other person more to your suggest price.

Categories are distinct collections of concrete or abstract instances that are considered equivalent by the cognitive system. Using category knowledge requires one to access mental representations that define the core features of category members.

There are 2 kinds of political actors in this world: insiders and outsiders.

Outsiders are free to speak their truths, Summers explains. But the price of such freedom is irrelevance int he halls of power. Insiders, by contrast, have a seat at the table where history is made. But to keep those seats, they must take care not to criticize other insiders. So, Summers ask his dining companion, which are you?

Historically prevalent forms of government include monarchy, aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, theocracy and tyranny. The main aspect of any philosophy of government is how political power is obtained, with the two main forms being electoral contest and hereditary succession.

On occasion a chief of a tribe was elected by various rituals or tests of strength to govern his tribe, sometimes with a group of elder tribesmen as a council.

As farming populations gathered in larger and denser communities, interactions between different groups increased and the social pressure rose until, in a striking parallel with star formation, new structures suddenly appeared, together with a new level of complexity. Like stars, cities and states reorganize and energize the smaller objects within their gravitational field.

Superficially, all governments have an official or ideal form. The US is a constitutional republic, while the USSR was a social republic. However, self-identification is not objective, and defining regimes can be tricky.

An autocracy is a system of government in which supreme power is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints or regularized mechanism of popular control (except perhaps for the implicit threat of a coup d’etat or mass insurrection).

The term “federalism” is also used to describe a system of government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent political units, variously called states, provinces or otherwise. Federalism is a system based upon democratic principals and institutions in which the power to govern is shared between national and provincial/state governments, creating what is often called a federation. Proponents are often called federalists.

Feudalism: A social-economic system of land ownership and duties. Under feudalism, all the land in a kingdom was the king’s. However, the king would give some of the land to the lords or nobles who fought for him. These presents of land were called manors. Then the nobles gave some of their land to vassals. The vassals then had to do duties for the nobles. The lands of vassals were called fiefs.

Socialism: A social-economic system in which workers, democratically and socially own the means of production and the economic framework may be decentralized, distributed or centralized planned or self-managed in autonomic economic units. Public services would be commonly, collectively, or state owned, such as healthcare and education.

Statism: A social-economic system that concentrates power in the state at the expense of individual freedom. Among other variants, the term subsumes theocracy, absolute monarchy, Nazism, fascism, authoritarian socialism, and plain, unadorned dictatorship.

Welfare state: A social-economic system in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions for a good life.

Sovereignty is the supreme authority within a territory. Sovereignty is assigned to the person, body, or institution that has the ultimate authority over other people in order to establish a law or change an existing law.

Medieval monarchs were not sovereign, at least not strongly so, because they were constrained by, and shared power with, their feudal aristocracy. Furthermore, both were strongly constrained by custom.

Bodin rejected the notion of transference of sovereignty from people to the ruler (also known as the sovereign); natural law and divine law confer upon the sovereign the right to rule. And the sovereign is not above the divine law or natural law. He is above (ie. not bound by) only positive law, that is, laws made by humans.

The fact that the sovereign must obey divine and natural law imposes ethical constraints on him.

During the Age of Enlightenment, the idea of sovereignty gained both legal and moral force as the main Western description of the meaning and power of a State. In particular, the “Social contract” as a mechanism for establishing sovereignty was suggested and, by 1800, widely accepted, especially in the new US and France, though also in Great Britain to a lesser extent.

In a federal system of government, sovereignty also refers to powers which a constituent state or republic possesses independently of the national government. In a confederation, constituent entities retain the right to withdraw from the national body and the union is often more temporary than a federation.

The Ottomans used a method of gradual, non-military conquest in which they established suzerainty over their neighbors and then displaced their ruling dynasties. Conquests of this sort did not involve violent revolution but were a process of slow assimilation, established by bureaucratic means such as registers of population and resources as part of the feudal timar system.

Aggression was due to frustration, which was described as an unpleasant emotion resulting from any interference with achieving a rewarding goal.

Finance is a term for the management, creation, and study of money and investments. Specifically, it deals with the questions of how an individual, company or government acquires money — called capital in the context of a business — and how they spend or invest that money.

Finance thus studies the process of channeling money from savers and investors to entities that need it. Savers and investors have money available which could earn interest or dividends if put to productive use. Individuals, companies and governments must obtain money from some external source, such as loans or credit, when they lack sufficient funds to operate.

Financial economics is the branch of economics that studies the interaction of financial variables, such as prices, interest rates and shares, and opposed to real economic variables, i.e. goods and services. It thus centers on pricing, decision making, and risk management in the financial markets, and produce many of the commonly employed financial models.

Investment is the dedication of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort.

The traditional and historically most common example of such a racket is the “protection racket,” in which racketeers offer to protect a business from robbery or vandalism; however, the racketeers will themselves coerce or threaten the business into accepting this service, often with the threat (implicit or otherwise) that failure to acquire the offered services will lead to the racketeers themselves contributing to the existing problem.

Police forces include both preventive (uniformed) police and detectives.

In biology, one of the properties of life is its highly ordered structure, which can be observed at multiple levels such as in cells, tissues, organs, and organisms.

Marx argued that the economic base substantially determined the cultural and political superstructure of a society.

The term bureaucracy refers to both a body of non-elected governing officials (bureaucrats) and to an administrative policy-making group.

There are 2 key dilemmas in bureaucracy. The first one revolves around whether bureaucrats should be autonomous or directly accountable to their political masters. The second revolves around bureaucrats’ behavior should strictly follow the letter of the law or whether they have leeway to determine appropriate solutions for varied circumstances.

Weber argued that bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and rational way in which human activity can be organized and that systematic processes and organized hierarchies which are necessary to maintain order, to maximize efficiency, and to eliminate favoritism. On the other hand, Weber also saw unfettered bureaucracy as a threat to individual freedom, with the potential of trapping individuals in an impersonal “iron cage” of rule-based, rational control.

In modern usage, modern bureaucracy has been defined as comprising 4 features:

  • Hierarchy (clearly defined spheres of competence and divisions of labor)
  • Continuity (a structure where administrators have a full-time salary and advance within the structure)
  • Impersonality (prescribed rules and operating rules rather than arbitrary actions)
  • Expertise (officials are chosen according to merit, have been trained, and hold access to knowledge)

Ancient Egypt also had a hereditary class of scribes that administered the civil-service bureaucracy.

With the translation of Confucian texts during the Enlightenment, the concept of a meritocracy reached intellectuals in the West, who saw it as an alternative to the traditional ancien regime of Europe. Western perception of China even in the 18th century admired the Chinese bureaucratic system as favorable over European governments for its seeming meritocracy; Voltaire claimed that the Chinese had “perfected moral science.”

Cơ bản thì gốm là cốt bằng đất sét, đất gạch, có thể có pha chút bột đá và nung nhẹ lửa (dưới 800 độ). Nung quá là thành sành, dễ bị cháy hoặc vặn vẹo.

Sứ là cốt đá pha cao lanh, nung già lửa, tầm 1100-1300 độ. Cốt thành phẩm chắc chứ ko xốp như gốm, gõ vào kêu đanh hơn. Sành già lửa hơn gốm, tiếng cũng đanh nhưng ko bằng sứ. Và sứ nhiều cao lanh, mỏng thì thấu quang; gốm ko bao giờ thấu quang.

Gốm cốt thấm nước ít nhiều, sứ thì ko.

Đồ đất nung (earthernware/terracotta), đồ sành (stoneware) và đồ sứ (porcelain).

Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs.

“Putin, meanwhile, is a character out of Dostoyevsky. He is a man with a great sense of connection, an inward connection, to Russian history as he sees it.”

The Kremlin took it as a compliment. “Kissinger knows our country really well, he knows our writers and our philosophers so such comparisons from him are quite positive. He has deep knowledge, not superficial.”

Kissinger: To settle the Ukraine crisis, start at the end.

These are principles, not prescriptions. People familiar with the region will know that not all of them will be palatable to all parties. The test is not absolute satisfaction but balanced dissatisfaction. If some solution based on these or comparable elements is not achieved, the drift toward confrontation will accelerate. The time for that will come soon enough.

Ukraine has been independent for only 23 years; it had previously been under some kind of foreign rule since the 14th century. Not surprisingly, its leaders have not learned the art of compromise, even less of historical perspective. The politics of post-independence Ukraine clearly demonstrates that the root of the problem lies in efforts by Ukrainian politicians to impose their will on recalcitrant parts of the country, first by one faction, then by the other.

Once Kissinger moves to examples that his audience is more aware of, the emptiness of the idea of the “national interest” is laid bare. The phrase becomes almost tautological — states do best when statesmen do what’s best for them. The question that is glossed over is how to systematically discover what those true national interests are. Kissinger seems to think that some people have a talent for it and some do not.

Proponents state that the right of conquest acknowledges the status quo, and that denial of the right is meaningless unless one is able and willing to use military force to deny it. Further, the right was traditionally accepted because the conquering force, being by definition stronger than any lawfully entitled governance which it may have replaced, was, therefore more likely to secure peace and stability for the people, and so the right of conquest legitimizes the conqueror towards that end.

Suzerainty is a relationship in which one state or other polity controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. The dominant state is called the “suzerain.”

The Westphalian peace reflected a practical accommodation to reality, not a unique moral insight. It relied on a system of independent states refraining from interference in each other’s domestic affairs and checking each other’s ambitions through a general equilibrium of power. No single claim to truth or universal rule had prevailed in Europe’s contests. Division and multiplicity, an accident of Europe’s history, became the hallmarks of a new system of international order with this own distinct philosophical outlook. In this sense the European effort to end its conflagration shaped and prefigured the modern sensibility: it reserved judgment on the absolute in favor of the practical and ecumenical; it sought to distill order from multiplicity and restraint.

Software architecture is about making fundamental structural choices that are costly to change once implemented.

A set of architectural design decisions: software architecture should not be considered merely a set of models or structures, but it should include the decisions that lead to these particular structures, and the rationale behind them.

People may take the trouble to create bookmarks or to file away documents and then forget about this information so that, in worst case, the original effort is wasted.

I have 2 kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.

Since 2001 the UN has adopted new responsibilities that directly challenge Westphalian principles: asserting the “responsibility to protect and intervention as s duty of care” even within the boundaries of sovereign states.

Kissinger’s emphasis on national interest as a guide to policy — to the near exclusion of moral and humanitarian interests — irks many, but it offers a stable lens for guiding policy in a world where morality isn’t absolute. He believes that any world order is a web of international understanding providing a tenuous and fragile balance of current national interests, constantly threatened by changes in perceived interests and departures from agreed-upon rules, and not greatly affected by sporadic attempts to build good will — good will is fine but it doesn’t bring home the bacon. To Kissinger, a stable world order requires 2 things: legitimacy (the acceptance of each state by other states) and power (the ability to redress aggressions by individual states).

It has long been recognized that there is a relation between aggression, fear, and curiosity. A cognitive approach to this relationship puts aggression in the broader context of inconsistency reduction, and proposes that aggressive behavior is caused by an inconsistency between a desired, or expected, situation and the actually perceived situation, and functions to forcefully manipulate the perception into matching the expected situation.

Male aggression tended to produce pain or physical injury whereas female aggression tended towards psychological and social harm.

Males regardless of age engaged in more physical and verbal aggression while small effect for females engaging in more indirect aggression such as rumor spreading or gossiping. Males also tend to engage in more unprovoked aggression at higher frequency than females.

Self-determination. Peoples, based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity, have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no interference.

It would be wrong to interpret the right to self-determination as meaning anything but the right to existence as a separate state.

Assertiveness is the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive.

Assertive people tend to have the following characteristics:

  • They feel free to express their feelings, thoughts, and desires.
  • They are “also able to initiate and maintain comfortable relationships with other people.”
  • They know their rights.
  • They have control over their anger.
  • They are willing to compromise with others, rather than always wanting their own way and tend to have good self-esteem.

Impulsive actions are typically poorly conceived, prematurely expressed, unduly risky, or inappropriate to the situation that often result in undesirable consequences, which imperil long-term goals and strategies for success.

For hunter gatherers, every stranger from outside the small tribal group was a potential source of hostility.

In psychological terms, hostility is considered as the attempt to extort validating evidence from the environment to confirm types of social prediction, constructs, that have failed. Instead of reconstructing their constructs to meet disconfirmation with better predictions, the hostile person attempts to force or coerce the world to fit their view, even if this is a forlorn hope, and even if it entails emotional expenditure and / or harm to self or others.

A dominant hierarchy (a pecking order) is a type of social hierarchy that arises when members of animal social groups interact, creating a ranking system. A dominant higher-ranking individual is sometimes called an alpha, and the submissive lower-ranking individual beta. Rather than fighting each time they meet, relative rank is established between individuals of the same sex, with higher-ranking individuals often gaining more access to resources and mates. Based on repetitive interactions, a social order is created that is subject to change each time a dominant animal is challenged by a subordinate one.

Dominance is an individual’s preferential access to resources over another based on coercive capacity baed on strength, threat, and intimidation, compared to prestige (persuasive capacity based on skills, abilities, and knowledge).

In birds, dominant individuals preferentially select higher perches to put themselves in the best position to detect and avoid predators, as well as to display their dominance to other members of their own species.

Age, intelligence, experience, and physical fitness can influence whether or not an individual deems it worthwhile to purse a higher ranking in the hierarchy, which often comes at the expense of conflict.

These opportunities available to subordinates reduce the likelihood of a challenge to the dominant male: mating is no longer an all-or-nothing game and the sharing is enough to placate most subordinates.

There are costs to being a high rank in a hierarchical group which offset the benefits. The most common costs to high-ranking individuals are higher metabolic rates and higher levels of stress hormones.

Human victims typically experience symptoms like low self-esteem (due to low regard by the group), feelings of depression (due to unworthiness of efforts), social withdrawal (reduced investments in the social environment), anxiety (due to a threatening environment), and they can also be shown to experience a plethora of physiological effects.

The key is to subtly find out what it is and then incorporate it into your life. Making a big deal about how you are working out or losing weight or growing a beard isn’t particularly sexy to women. Going about it as if it’s no big deal is far sexier.

Theo cơ sở của quyền lực:

  • Sức mạnh (Force)
  • Vị thế thống trị (Dominance)
  • Thẩm quyền (Authority)
  • Sự lôi cuốn, thuyết phục (Attraction)

Weber cho rằng các yếu tố vật chất không phải là những đặc điểm cơ bản duy nhất của các hệ thống phân tầng xã hội trong xã hội hiện đại; ông lưu ý rằng, địa vị xã hội không phải lúc nào cũng liên quan tới vấn đề sở hữu tư nhân về tư liệu sản xuất. Weber cho rằng, quan niệm phân chia giai cấp của Marx là quá giản đơn. Weber đề xuất sự phân tầng xã hội dựa trên những yếu tố độc lập khác. Đó là 3 yếu tố giai cấp, địa vị và đảng phái — tương ứng với của cải, uy tín và quyền lực.

Hiện nay, hầu hết các nước trên thế giới đều có 2 nhánh là thực thi luật pháp theo con đường hành chính và thực thi theo con đường hình sự. Hành chính và hình sự là 2 cấp độ khác nhau và không thể đồng thời áp dụng lên 1 hành vi vi phạm.

Bản chất của luật pháp phản ánh bản chất của Nhà nước đặt ra nó. Nhà nước kiểu nào thì pháp luật kiểu đó. Chính vì vậy, luật pháp có tính chất giai cấp. Luật pháp còn có tính xã hội vì nó chứa đựng những chuẩn mực chung được số đông trong xã hội ủng hộ. Luật pháp có tính dân tộc, nghĩa là phù hợp với truyền thống, tập quán, giá trị đạo đức của các dân tộc trong đất nước. Bản chất này cho phép luật pháp gần gũi với dân chúng, được dân chúng ủng hộ, do đó mà có hiệu quả điều chỉnh lên các quan hệ xã hội. Luật pháp có tính thời đại, nghĩa là phù hợp với trình độ phát triển kinh tế của đất nước, có khả năng hội nhập với luật pháp quốc tế.

Pháp luật thể chế hoá chủ trương, đường lối, chính sách của lực lượng cầm quyền; là vũ khí chính trị của lực lượng cầm quyền để chống lại sự phản kháng, chống đối trong xã hội.

Pháp luật và Nhà nước là 2 bộ phận của kiến trúc thượng tầng, luôn có mối quan hệ chặt chẽ với nhau. Nhà nước là tổ chức để thực hiện quyền lực chính trị của đảng cầm quyền, nhưng quyền lực đó chỉ có thể được thực hiện và có hiệu lực trên cơ sở thực hiện pháp luật.

Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes “deserving” being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspectives, including the concepts of moral correctness based on ethics, rationality, law, religion, equity and fairness. Consequently, the application of justice differs in every culture.

Plato: chính trị là “nghệ thuật cung đình” liên kết trực tiếp của người anh hùng và sự thông minh. Chính trị là nghệ thuật cai trị. Cai trị bằng sức mạnh là độc tài, cai trị bằng nghệ thuật mới là đích thực.

Hiện nay, trên thế giới đã có 4 cách hiểu khác nhau về chính trị:

  • Nghệ thuật của phép cai trị.
  • Những công việc của chung.
  • Sự thoả hiệp và đồng thuận.
  • Quyền lực và cách phân phối tài nguyên hay lợi ích.

Căn bản trong học thuyết của ông là “quân tử” (người cầm quyền) nên học tự kỉ luật, nên cai trị người dân của mình bằng chính gương của mình, và nên đối xử với họ bằng tình thương và sự quan tâm. Niềm tin chính trị của ông gắn chặt với luân thường đạo lý và đạo đức cá nhân. Ông cho rằng chỉ những người quân tử liêm khiết và tuân theo đạo của người quân tử thì mới được cầm quyền, và những tư cách của những nhân vật đó phải kiên định với địa vị trong xã hội. Ông cho rằng “Triều đại tốt cốt ở vua làm tròn bổn phận của vua, bề tôi làm tròn bổn phận của bề tôi, cha làm tròn bổn phận của cha, và con làm tròn bổn phận của con.”

Sau cuộc binh biến vào năm 1961, Tổng thống Park Chung-hee đã quyết định cải tạo tình trạng nghèo nàn, lạc hậu của đất nước bằng 1 cuộc đại công nghiệp hoá thần tốc thông qua việc khuyến khích và hỗ trợ các doanh nghiệp lớn có sẵn — các Chaebol. Chính phủ đưa ra kế hoạch phát triển công nghiệp, Chaebol thực hiện các kế hoạch này. Để các Chaebol yên tâm thực thi nhiệm vụ, chính phủ chủ động cho các Chaebol vay với lãi suất rất thấp thông qua các ngân hàng nhà nước. Các ngân hàng quốc doanh còn được lệnh phải bảo lãnh nợ nước ngoài cho các Chaebol, để họ có thể vừa thoải mái tiếp cận nguồn tín dụng trong nước, vừa “vô tư” đi vay nợ nước ngoài. Tổng thống Park cũng giảm thuế đánh vào sản phẩm của các Chaebol, đặc biệt là các công ty xây dựng, khi chính phủ bắt đầu xây dựng cơ sở hạ tầng như đường cao tốc và cầu ở Hàn Quốc.

It is understandable that the perspectives of men and women on safety are so different — men and women live in different worlds. Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while women fear rape and death.

The fear is partly instinct, partly imagined, partly taught. If she says yes, his fear is instantly turned into euphoria. If she says no, what’s he do with that? It confirms his worst fears. He’s lost his identity, his role or place among his friends potentially. What kind of man is he? What will he do with that tsunami of emotions?

Theo tôi, nhiếp ảnh VN đang dừng và có nguy cơ thụt lùi. Sau khi làn sóng số hoá đổ bộ vào, chúng ta sản sinh ra quá nhiều “nghệ sĩ” với lối diễn đạt dễ dãi, hời hợt, ít chắt lọc. Mỗi nghệ sĩ nên có lối đi riêng về phong cách, phải biết sáng tạo, tìm tòi cái mới.

Ví dụ điển hình cho kiểu giao tiếp này là văn hoá Mỹ, nơi có nhiều người nhập cư với nguồn gốc và ngôn ngữ khác nhau. Chính vì thế, họ hầu như không có điểm chung. Muốn truyền đạt thông điệp hiệu quả, họ hiểu rằng mọi thứ cần ngắn gọn và rõ ràng nhất có thể. Chính vì thế, lâu dần họ hình thành kiểu nói chuyện low-context.

Efforts have been made to distort my position. It has been said, in effect, that I was a warmonger. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between natnions. From the very tart workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliances, balances of power, Leagues of Nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be the way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blocks out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature, and all material and cultural developments of the past 2000 years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.

But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end.

War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision.

Int war there is no substitute for victory.

“Why,” my soldiers asked of me, “surrender military advantages to an enemy in the field?” I could not answer.

Netflix, with its then near-endless source of cash and no need to please distributors or theaters, could afford to produce more varied content to try and secure people’s subscriptions every month. And it could further rationalize the heavy spending because it was trying to better understand audiences through meticulous analysis of viewer data that its competitors just didn’t have access to.

Art is a very free subject area where you get to observe the environment, creatures as well as our own thoughts. We can choose to show them in whatever way we wish to. Here are some examples to help you understand what art is all about. Give a piece of paper, all colors and brush and ask different people to come up with a picture of rocky mountain from a distance. You will get as many answers to the question you posed as many people attempting to answer. This is because every person has his own individual perception of Rocky Mountains, and thus, uses various color mixes to come up with a picture that he feels best relates with the original.

Theory and concept:

  • Science is theoretical.
  • Art is conceptual.

Art and science seem at first to be 2 very different disciplines. Science looks to help us understand how the world and the universe operate and help us thrive and live better lives. On the other hand, art first served as a means to document current life and is now more commonly a medium for self-expression and exploration. Art is a medium that allows human beings to express themselves and their thoughts differently.

We typically define science as a practical and intellectual activity surrounding the systematic analysis, examination, and deconstruction of the physical and natural world through observation and experimentation.

Scientists use what we know to find out what we don’t know and use all possible resources to find out more about what we don’t know.

Statuses within the tribe are relatively equal, and decisions are reached through general agreement. The ties that bind the tribe are more complex than those of the bands. Leadership is personal — charismatic — and used for special purposes only in tribal society. There are no political offices containing real power, and a chief is a merely a person of influence. The family forms the main social unit, with most members being related by birth or marriage.

The US is the 1st country to have over half of its workforce employed in service industries. Service industries include government, research, education, health, sales, law, and banking.

Organization skills include the tidiness of your physical and digital spaces as well as your ability to plan, schedule and prioritize. Good organization can help save time, prevent miscommunications and improve efficiency.

Problem-solving is your ability to handle challenging or surprising situations. Good problem-solvers can stay calm when they encounter obstacles and assess all their options to find the best solution.

Self-confidence is the belief in your abilities, actions and decisions. If you have confidence in yourself, you might be more likely to pursue ambitious goals, try new things and believe you can succeed.

Adaptability is your ability to adjust quickly and easily to new things. People who handle change well often get along with a variety of personalities and thrive in any environment. They can also remain calm in surprising situations.

Integrity: People tend to trust those who are honest and stand by their values. Integrity means doing what is right and telling the truth, even if doing so presents challenges. Having integrity can lead to a good reputation and opportunities for advancement.

Work ethic includes not only hard work but also reliability, responsibility, quality, determination and discipline. People with good work ethic tend to be productive and have a positive attitude.

Leadership is the ability to guide people. Good leaders can motivate others and help them reach a shared goal. They build confidence and improve morale.

Học sinh được dạy “Toán là chìa khoá cho mọi vấn đề,” nhưng học xong không biết dùng nó mở bất kỳ vấn đề nào trong cuộc sống; cuối cùng đành an ủi rằng nó giúp ích cho tư duy, mặc dù không biết sự giúp đỡ ở mức nào, và có cách nào hiệu quả hơn không.

Tiktok: 180K views = $1. Instagram: 9.5K views = $1

Các nước giàu khi viện trợ ODA đều gắn với những lợi ích và chiến lược như mở rộng thị trường, mở rộng hợp tác có lợi cho họ, đảm bảo mục tiêu về an ninh – quốc phòng hoặc theo đuổi mục tiêu chính trị… Vì vậy, họ đều có chính sách riêng hướng vào một số lĩnh vực mà họ quan tâm hay họ có lợi thế (những mục tiêu ưu tiên này thay đổi cùng với tình hình phát triển kinh tế – chính trị – xã hội trong nước, khu vực và trên thế giới). Ví dụ:

  • Về kinh tế, nước tiếp nhận ODA phải chấp nhận dỡ bỏ dần hàng rào thuế quan bảo hộ các ngành công nghiệp non trẻ và bảng thuế xuất nhập khẩu hàng hoá của nước tài trợ. Nước tiếp nhận ODA cũng được yêu cầu từng bước mở cửa thị trường bảo hộ cho những danh mục hàng hoá mới của nước tài trợ; yêu cầu có những ưu đãi đối với các nhà đầu tư trực tiếp nước ngoài như cho phép họ đầu tư vào những lĩnh vực hạn chế, có khả năng sinh lời cao.
  • Nguồn vốn ODA từ các nước giàu cung cấp cho các nước nghèo cũng thường gắn với việc mua các sản phẩm từ các nước này mà không hoàn toàn phù hợp, thậm chí là không cần thiết đối với các nước nghèo. Ví như các dự án ODA trong lĩnh vực đào tạo, lập dự án và tư vấn kỹ thuật, phần trả cho các chuyên gia nước ngoài thường chiếm đến hơn 90% (bên nước tài trợ ODA thường yêu cầu trả lương cho các chuyên gia, cố vấn dự án của họ quá cao so với chi phí thực tế cần thuê chuyên gia như vậy trên thị trường lao động thế giới).

Giải pháp nâng cao hiệu quả sử dụng vốn ODA ở Việt Nam:

Một là, nhận thức đúng đắn về bản chất nguồn vốn ODA với 2 mặt chính trị và kinh tế gắn kết chặt chẽ với nhau để trên cơ sở đó khai thác tác động tích cực về chính trị và kinh tế của vốn ODA có lợi cho sự nghiệp phát triển của đất nước. Trong bối cảnh là nước có mức thu nhập trung bình, Việt Nam cần xác định rõ định hướng tổng thể về thu hút và sử dụng nguồn vốn ODA để làm căn cứ cụ thể hoá các chủ trương, chính sách của Đảng và Nhà nước trong việc huy động nguồn lực này; xác định được những lĩnh vực ưu tiên cần sử dụng vốn ODA tránh tình trạng phân bổ dàn trải, tạo tâm lý ỷ lại, không nỗ lực tìm kiếm các nguồn vốn khác. 

Hai là, tăng cường vốn đối ứng, đặc biệt vốn đối ứng cho công tác giải phóng mặt bằng và tái định cư đối với các dự án đầu tư xây dựng.

It is interesting to note that there is no idea of revolt to a great extent in revolution. It is actually a kind of movement that aims at the betterment of socio-economic conditions of a country or a province. On the other hand, rebellion is filled with the idea of revolt. It is a kind of total disagreement with the policies of a government or a rule.

Rebellion often results in war. On the other hand, revolution does not often result in war. In fact, revolution aims at newer methods and approaches of solving socio-economic problems. Most revolutions are started by a person who is generally considered as the revolutionary leader. He is hailed as the leader of the revolutionary movement.

One way to describe different types of infrastructure is to classify them as 2 distinct kinds: hard infrastructure and soft infrastructure. Hard infrastructure refers to the physical networks necessary for the functioning of a modern industry. This includes roads, bridges, and railways. Soft infrastructure refers to all the institutions that maintain the economic, health, social, environmental, and cultural standards of a country. This includes educational programs, official statistics, parks and recreational facilities, law enforcement agencies, and emergency services.

Human capital is distinctly different from the tangible monetary capital due to the extraordinary characteristic of human capital to grow cumulatively over a long period of time. The growth of tangible monetary capital is not always linear due to the shocks of business cycles. On the other hand, human capital has uniformly rising rate of growth over a long period of time because the foundation of this human capital is laid down by the educational and health inputs.

Momen xoắn được xem là đại lượng đặc trưng cho khả năng chịu tải tức thời của động cơ xe hơi. Đây là đại lượng có hướng, nên giá trị thu về còn tùy thuộc vào hệ quy chiếu. Do đó, để đo lường sức mạnh của một chiếc xe thì người ta hay nhắc tới thông số momen xoắn. Thông số càng cao thì lực quay của bánh xe càng mạnh.

Ngoài ra, giá trị này còn phụ thuộc vào tốc độ vòng tua máy và tại một vòng tua nào đó thì nó sẽ đạt giá trị cực đại. Trong bảng thông số động cơ, momen xoắn được ghi chính là giá trị cực đại. 

Hiểu đơn giản là momen xoắn càng nhiều thì động cơ có thể tạo ra công suất càng lớn. Động cơ xe có nhiều momen xoắn sẽ giúp xe tăng tốc nhanh hơn khi mới bắt đầu nổ máy.

Điều mà các học giả TQ định nghĩa là thể chế chính trị ở nước này chỉ đơn giản là các quy chuẩn. Kể từ thời Đặng Tiểu Bình, các quy chuẩn này đã được xây dựng và được bảo vệ bởi các nhân vật lớn tuổi trong ĐCS TQ, những người này là lực lượng duy trì sự ổn định trong nội bộ Đảng.

Các vị nguyên lão này là những nhà lãnh đạo quốc gia đã nghỉ hưu nhưng vẫn có ảnh hưởng về mặt chính trị thông qua mạng lưới quan hệ và những người được họ bảo trợ. Trong lịch sử, họ đóng 1 vai trò quan trọng trong nền chính trị TQ: làm trung gian hoà giải các cuộc xung đột của giới tinh hoa, kiến tạo sự đồng thuận giữa các phe phái, và định hướng chính sách. Họ cũng đóng vai trò quan trọng trong các vấn đề nhân sự khi thăng tiến cho những người ủng hộ mình, chỉ định người kế nhiệm, và thậm chí phế truất nhà lãnh đạo cao nhất.

Trong 5 năm hỗn loạn, từ 1987-1992, chính trị nguyên lão ở TQ đã chuyển sang 1 hướng mới: bát đại nguyên lão, đặc biệt là Đặng Tiểu Bình, thực sự trở thành những người có quyền tấn phong hoặc phế truất lãnh đạo đứng đầu. Họ thẳng tay loại bỏ 2 TBT sau những gì họ cho là “sai lầm chính trị.”

Mùa đông năm 1992, Đặng đến thăm Đặc khu kinh tế Thâm Quyến và có 1 bài phát biểu, trong đó ông đe doạ Giang, nói rằng “bất cứ ai phản đối cải cách sẽ bị hạ bệ.” Theo Lý Duệ, người có quan hệ mật thiết với bát đại nguyên lão, Đặng rất lo lắng về tiến trình cải cách, thậm chí đã đi đến quyết định phế truất Giang. Tuy nhiên, các lãnh đạo cấp cao khác như Trần Vân, Lý Tiên Niệm, và Bạc Nhất Ba đã ngăn cản ông. “Ông đã hạ Hoa Quốc Phong, Hồ Diệu Bang và Triệu Tử Dương rồi; ông không thể cứ làm theo ý mình được, hãy nhớ rằng sự quá bất tam.”

Trong khi đó, Hồ bị coi là 1 nhà lãnh đạo yếu thế, cầm quyền dưới cái bóng của Giang. Ông không thể củng cố quyền lực 1 cách hiệu quả như Giang, gặp khó khăn trong việc kiểm soát PLA vốn ủng hộ Giang, và thậm chí không nhận được danh hiệu “lãnh đạo hạt nhân.” Sự yếu thế của Hồ còn được thể hiện rõ hơn khi ông không thể đề bạt người mà mình bảo trợ vào Thường vụ BCT năm 2012.

Việc Tập có thể củng cố quyền lực là kết quả của sự đồng thuận giữa các nguyên lão. Nhiều người trong nhóm này tin rằng vị trí lãnh đạo kiểu “cá mè 1 lứa” của Hồ đã cản trở việc triển khai chính sách, vì quyền lực bị phân mảnh quá nhiều. Họ cho rằng TQ cần 1 “chủ tịch” cấp cao với quyền lực tập trung để thúc đẩy thực hiện những cải cách khó khăn.

It led to far too much boasting. This is an irreversible mistake because once you boast, even if you shut up, people are not going to forget what you said.

Diplomats should be able to be very tough if necessary in order to achieve their goals. It is not all about being nice and polite. This is what I used to tell my younger diplomats. Your job is to advance Singapore’s national interests. Preferably by being nice and polite but if required, by using whatever means necessary, even if it means being nasty. But the point is to advance your goals.

The fundamental reason why they are going to find it very hard to catch up and take a long time to do so is that all or the most vital parts of the supply chain are controlled by the US, its friends or its allies. There are so many small parts, and the most vital ones are controlled by the US.

Conceptual abstractions may be formed by filtering the information content of a concept or an observable phenomenon, selecting only those aspects which are relevant for a particular purpose.

An abstraction can be seen as a compression process, mapping multiple different pieces of constituent data to a single piece of abstract data.

Fukuyama defines history as a deliberate attempt of abstraction in which we separate out important from unimportant events.

So words are used to stand as outward marks of our internal ideas, which are taken from particular things; but if every particular idea that we take in had its own special name, there would be no end to names. To prevent this, the mind makes particular ideas received from particular things become general; which it does by considering them as they are in the mind — mental appearances — separate from all other existences, and from the circumstances of real existence, such as time, place, and so on. This procedure is called abstraction. In it, an idea taken from a particular thing becomes a general representative of all of the same kind, and its name becomes a general name that is applicable to any existing thing that fits that abstract idea.

Carl Jung’s definition of abstraction broadened its scope beyond the thinking process to include exactly 4 mutual exclusive, different complimentary psychological functions: sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking.

For well-structured problems, it is easy to determine which steps need to be taken to solve them, but executing these steps may still be difficult. For ill-structured problems, on the other hand, it is not clear what steps need to be taken. In this case, the solution may sometimes come in a flash of insight in which the problem is suddenly seen in a new light.

Another way to categorize different forms of problem solving is by distinguishing between algorithms and heuristics. An algorithm is a formal procedure in which each step is clearly defined. It guarantees success if applied correctly. Heuristics, on the other hand, are informal procedures. They are rough rules-of-thumb that tend to bring the thinker closer to the solution but success is not guaranteed in every case even if followed correctly.

I saw that article it was like I don’t know if I’m freaking out or not, but it’s worth the risk. I was thinking this is probably going to be something where everyone makes fun of me for being an early panicky person. And that’s fine because there’s no upside for not being early person to worry that I won’t get 3.5% on some of our money for 2 weeks, if I’m wrong.

He defined cultural inheritance as the knowledge, techniques and processes that have accrued to us incrementally from the origins of civilization (i.e. progress). Consequently, mankind does not have to keep “reinventing the wheel.” We are merely the administrators of that cultural inheritance.

I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn’t have to go far to find them. I was wrong. I was foolish.

The concept of chain of command also implies that higher rank alone does not entitle a higher-ranking service member to give commands to anyone of lower rank.

Hiện nay, Việt Nam có hệ thống pháp luật phức tạp bậc nhất thế giới. Hệ thống này được đặc trưng bởi sự đồ sộ, rắc rối do có quá nhiều loại văn bản pháp luật được ban hành, nhưng lại có quá nhiều kẽ hở và lỗ hổng, các quy định chồng chéo, mâu thuẫn, thiếu đồng bộ với nhau, gây cản trở và đè nặng lên người dân, doanh nghiệp. Hệ thống pháp luật bị coi là thiếu tính thực tiễn và tính khả thi, thiếu sự minh bạch và không đi vào cuộc sống do quá trình xây dựng pháp luật thiếu tư duy, tầm nhìn, đầy cục bộ, thiếu công bằng và thể hiện lợi ích nhóm.

As an artist, however, Ma is forever striving to achieve perfection in his work. Like he would in the very early stage of his career, Ma still draws obsessively every day. There was a time when Ma would work more than 10 hours a day, sleep in his office at night and would only return home once a week to have dinner with his family.

So which of his characters did he identify the most at the time?

Ma goes for Mo Dik, a villain in Chinese Hero. Mo Dik, says Ma, is a simple-minded person who gives up everything he owns, including his family members and loyal servant, not wishing to get distracted from his goal of achieving excellence in martial arts.

“Maybe it sounds crazy, but the truth is that I have never visited a bank, rode a bicycle or went to a hospital to get a health check done before I finished the final chapter of Fung Wan a few years ago,” Ma said. “But I never regretted devoting myself to creating art. It is my only passion and purpose in life,” he added, with a candidness that only small children are capable of.

Kim Dung đã từng nói: “Nhân vật và sự kiện lịch sử phải đặt vào trong hoàn cảnh lịch sử khi đó để xem. Quan điểm chính trị, ý thức xã hội luôn luôn thay đổi nhưng nhân tính lại biến động vô cùng nhỏ”.

Log all your key thoughts, realizations, decisions and taken steps on paper. It shouldn’t be long or long-term clear, only clear to today’s you. Gibberish to a bystander.

It’s your L2 cache. L1 is fast but short and prone to distraction. If you log everything into L2, then returning to the task becomes much easier, because the whole context is right there.

The downside is you have to spend time drawing. The unintuitive upside is that by writing you may make it clear to yourself what maybe wasn’t clear.

IDE may be good at where you were, but it doesn’t know what you thought.

The gist is to treat your brain, during a deep work session, as a stage. As a session starts, you slowly introduce essential actors (objects, tasks, and pieces of information) into a scene (short-term memory aka cache). To properly light up a scene, you need to use some energy — mental energy.

When you get distracted, the entire stage collapses, and it takes effort to rebuild it from the ground up.

European merchants, backed by state controls, subsidies and monopolies, made most of their profits by buying and selling goods. The purpose of mercantilism was “the opening and well-balancing of trade; the cherishing of manufacturers; the banishing of idleness; the repressing of waste and excess by sumptuary laws; the improvement and husbanding of the soil; the regulation of prices…”

In the mid-18th century a group of economic theorists, led by David Hume and Adam Smith, challenged fundamental mercantilist doctrines — such as the belief that the world’s wealth remained constant and that a state could only increase its wealth at the expense of another state.

During the Industrial Revolution, industrialists replaced merchants as a dominant factor in the capitalist system and effected the decline of the traditional handicraft skills of artisans, guilds and journeymen.

Capitalism 1.0 during the 19th century entailed largely unregulated markets with a minimal role for the state (aside from national defense, and protecting property rights).

Capitalism 2.0 during the post-WW2 years entailed Keynesianism, a substantial role for the state in regulating markets, and strong welfare states.

Capitalism 2.1 entailed a combination of unregulated markets, globalization, and various national obligations by states.

He argued that the market mechanism is the only way of deciding what to produce and how to distribute the items without using coercion.

Defenders of the capitalist system often replaced the term “capitalism” with phrases such as free enterprise and private enterprise and replaced “capitalist” with rentier and investor in reaction to the negative connotations associated with capitalism.

Stated differently, the reason for a business’s existence is to turn a profit. The profit motive functions according to rational choice theory, or the theory that individuals tend to pursue what is in their own best interests.

Competition is widespread throughout the market process. It is a condition where “buyers tend to compete with other buyers, and sellers tend to compete with other sellers.” Competition results from scarcity, as it is not possible to satisfy all conceivable human wants, and occurs as people try to meet the criteria being used to determine allocation.

Mercantilism is a nationalist economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports for an economy. In other words, it seeks to maximize the accumulation of resources within the country and use those resources for one-sided trade. It promotes imperialism, colonialism, protectionism, currency manipulation, and tariffs and subsidies on traded goods to achieve that goal.

Tenets of mercantilism:

  • Every little bit of a country’s soil be utilized for agriculture, mining or manufacturing.
  • All raws materials found in a country be used in domestic manufacture, since finished goods have a higher value than raw materials.
  • A large, working population be encouraged.
  • All exports of gold and silver be prohibited and all domestic money be kept in circulation.
  • All imports of foreign goods be discouraged as much as possible.
  • Where certain imports are indispensable they be obtained at first hand, in exchange for other domestic goods instead of gold and silver.
  • As much as possible, imports be confined to raw materials that can be finished in the home country.
  • Opportunities be constantly sought for selling a country’s surplus manufactures to foreigners, so far as necessary, for gold and silver.
  • No importation be allowed if such goods are sufficiently and suitably supplied at home.

The policies have included:

  • High tariffs, especially on manufactured goods.
  • Forbidding colonies to trade with other nations.
  • Monopolizing markets with staple ports.
  • Banning the export of gold and silver, even for payments.
  • Forbidding trade to be carried in foreign ships.
  • Subsidies on exports.
  • Promoting manufacturing and industry through research or direct subsidies.
  • Limiting wages.
  • Maximizing the use of domestic resources.
  • Restricting domestic consumption through non-tariff barriers to trade.

The Nobel laureate Herbert Simon, who rejected the assumption of perfect rationality in mainstream economics, proposed the theory of bounded rationality instead. This theory says that people are not always able to obtain all the information they would need to make the best possible decision. Simon argued that knowledge of all alternatives, or all consequences that follow from each alternative, is realistically impossible for most decisions that humans make.

A larger context naturally emerges with a bigger screen real estate.

Warren Buffet, despite owning companies with hundreds of thousands of employees, isn’t as busy as you are. By his own estimate, he has spent 80% of his career reading and thinking.

Intellectual capital will always trump financial capital.

Natural selection is often described as “survival of the fittest,” but fittest does not necessarily mean biggest, fastest, or strongest. Fitness refers to whatever traits make an organism more likely to survive and reproduce in a given environment.

Some scholars believe Picasso’s many relationships were essential to the progression of his hart. Picasso invented a new style each time he fell in love with a new woman.

Ronaldo cried after he lost a game and Messi didn’t talk to anyone after a defeat. That’s the kind of behavior I like to see.

In 1999, Iran mooted pricing its oil in euros, and in late 2000 Sadam made the switch for Iraqi oil. In early 2002, Bush placed Iran and Iraq in the axis of evil.

We must remind ourselves again that the historian, like the journalist, is forever tempted to sacrifice the normal to the dramatic, and never quite conveys an adequate picture of any age.

Do you envy someone who is popular at work, invited to parties, and spoken of in social circles? If they attract love because of character qualities, be glad for them. If they attract attention because of negative character qualities, be glad you don’t share them.

Do not expect to equal anyone in effect without putting forth a similar effort. A person who rarely leaves home, who doesn’t converse with, praise, and encourage others, will not attract friends.

Everything has its price. So, if you have not been invited to a party, it is because you haven’t paid the price of the invitation. It costs social engagement, conversation, encouragement, and praise. If you are not willing to pay this price, do not be upset when you don’t receive an invitation.

The 4 agreements:

  1. Be impeccable with your word
    • Speak with integrity.
    • Say only what you mean.
    • Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others.
    • Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love
  2. Don’t take anything personally
    • Nothing others do is because of you.
    • What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream.
    • When you are immune to the options and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
  3. Don’t make assumptions
    • Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want.
    • Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama.
  4. Always do you best
    • Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick.
    • Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

Acceptance.

When you lust someone, you obsess over their positive, and mostly physical, features. You like their body, their face, and their sexy parts. You like their laugh, their smile, and all the good things they do. Really, the part of them you enjoy is their good side.

Then, you eventually see their bad side. You see their weaknesses, their shortfalls, and the things they hate about themselves. They might have a feature that’s not perfectly symmetrical. They might have a short temper. They might be bad at certain things. They might not handle stress well.

They key thing that defines love is your reaction to those negatives. If you lust for them, the minute you see their bad side, you will try to walk away. However, if you can look at their bad side, and still see the person that you enjoy inside there, it’s love.

Theo nhiều người thì án tử hình là chưa đủ cho Lai về những hành động của mình. Tuy nhiên, với người dân Hạ Môn, Phúc Kiến thì Lai lại là 1 “anh hùng” đúng nghĩa. “Lai đã đóng góp được cho Hạ Môn hơn tất cả những vị lãnh đạo hiện nay tại đây.”

It’s rarely the terrible decisions, processes, or even people that’ll sink your organization. It’s the accumulation and inertia of the mediocre ones. Dealing with the truly bad is easy. It’s painfully obvious to all that change is required. The danger is imminent. It’s much harder to find the will to act when the danger lurks in inadequate urgency, cumbersome collaboration, or just a missing spark. But act you must, before inertia sets in to devour you whole.

The insidious nature of inertia is in its ability to compound the cost of action as time goes on. Letting go of an employee that just didn’t meet the bar after 3 months is endlessly easier than doing the same after 3 years. Same with reverting a bad organizational restructuring or poor development practices or awkward reporting protocols.

The sad truth is that most of us are cowards whenever we can be. We usually know what needs to be done, but we shrink from the responsibility to do it. Unless occasion calls upon us without a choice, we’ll find a way around.

Look at some of the most beloved brands of the 20th century. The Leicas, the Rolexes, the Porsches of the world. Companies that proudly embrace their legacy, and ensure that enthusiasts can still service their camera, watch, or car, even if it’s 50-plus years old. What a beautiful model, and what a contrast to what passes for product dedication these days in the digital realm.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

People tend to assume that more experience (read: an increase in skills) will get them access to those networks with higher earning potential and therefore higher wages. But that’s not how high wage earners hunt for talent. In every profession there’s a point where further improvements in skills are so subtle that the difference between one level and another can only be appreciated by another expert. Customers tends not to be experts. So after a certain level of skill has been achieved, any improvements that are made through experience are invisible to the people you’re selling to.

We want quality to speak for itself, but it almost never does. Instead people tend to judge value by reference point. Rich clients attract more rich clients. A piece of art owned by a famous person is more valuable than it was before it was bought. A freelancer worker who’s done work for someone important is more attractive to a higher class of client.

That means people do not work their way up to higher wages when they’re independent agents. There’s no amount of work done at a middle price point that leads to an offer to charge more. You get to the higher wage group by changing the network you’re sourcing clients from.

Let’s call this point the ‘vocab point’ — that is, the point (per Duncan) ‘where you begin to make up your own language to describe the nuances of expertise you can see.’

To be selected for the Top 100 is to be anointed by Jobs, an honor not necessarily based on rank. “My job is to work with sort of the Top 100 people. That doesn’t mean they’re all VPs. Some of them are just key individual contributors. So when a good idea comes, part of my job is to move it around and get ideas moving among that group of 100 people.” If he had to recreate the company, these are the 100 people he’d bring along.

We use equipment to avoid the hard work of photography.

The easy part of photography is getting the gear and learning how to use it. The harder part is finding something to say, having ideas and vision, and setting up the projects that will give you access to great subjects and stories. It can be daunting to really question what your photography is saying, and it can be a lot of work to organize the photo projects that will let you say it.

I call this the ghost father. It’s tricky because the father never beat you or was abusive to you but he was just there, floating around. So you can’t say he’s a bad father, he was just a father. You grow up not knowing why he won’t communicate with you thinking that’s how all fathers act. But then you grow up and once you see you can’t unsee it. There’s an inherent confidence that people with great fathers have, an ability to assert a certain presence of mind and spirit. You can only acknowledge it when you lack it.

What are some of the ways to become an interesting person?

Keep learning, keep seeking out new experiences.

Big picture: engage in the world with a mindset of curiosity, rather than judgment.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.

A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.

If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?

Ability is a poor man’s wealth.

Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.

Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.

The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.

All currency is based on a belief that it’s worth money. Gold has value because people are willing to pay for it. Someone’s word is only worth something if it’s valued, if you believe it’s worth something. The more often a Lannister pays his debts, the more his word is worth, because you have a belief that you’ll be paid back. So it’s in their interest to repay you, and it’s in there interest to remind your that they’ll repay you.

Honor is a matter of public opinion. Honor societies develop where instability and violence are endemic, and where the institutions of the state are weak and corrupt. Being a “man of honor” has real, tangible benefits: you can get better terms on loans, your legal testimony has more weight, people will conduct business with you, etc.

Power is the ability to influence or control the behavior of people and outcomes. It’s about the capacity to effect or prevent change, regardless of whether one has the formal right to do so.

Authority is a specific type of power; it’s the legitimate or socially approved use of power that is based on one’s position or role within a structure or system.

Compliance with authority is often voluntary and based on the perceived legitimacy of the person or role. Compliance with power, especially when it’s not based on authority, might be grudging or forced.

National security: Protecting the homeland and American citizens from external threats remain a primary objective. This includes military preparedness, intelligence gathering, and forming strategic alliances.

In a meritocratic system, rewards such as jobs, opportunities, and advancements are based on individual merit, which is often measured through education, examination, experience, or demonstrated achievement.

Critics argue that meritocracy can overlook the fact that individuals have varying access to opportunities and resources. For example, differences in quality of education and socioeconomic background can significantly impact one’s ability to compete on “merit.”

There is a risk of creating a new elite class based on education and skills. This can lead to social stratification where the successful meritocratic class consolidates its position and privileges.

Culture: The social behavior and norms found in human societies. Culture encompasses language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music, and arts, playing a central role in shaping human experiences and identities.

10 năm vô địch trong Thiên Kiếm Lâu, Kiếm Thánh hiểu ra vô địch là sự đáng sợ, là sự cô độc, là sự buồn chán, chứ chẳng hay ho gì như người ta vẫn nghĩ.

Vì không có đối thủ xứng tầm nên kiếm đạo sẽ bị dậm chân tại chỗ. Có câu “kẻ mạnh ắt phải tìm kẻ mạnh hơn.” Đúng thế, muốn nâng cao bản thân thì cần có 1 người mạnh hơn, để thúc phát ham muốn cầu thắng, để nâng cao kiếm pháp của chính mình và tạo ra được cái để mà phấn đấu.

Số phận của cường giả kiếm dạo không được hưởng niềm vui từ tính yêu, cũng giống như những tối cường kiếm thủ khác như Vô Danh, BKV, Kiếm Thánh cũng phải chịu số phận cô độc.

Mộ Ứng Hùng thì không tỏ ra lo lắng với cái án tử vẫn đang treo trên đầu. Vì anh ta cho rằng làm người thì phải trông cậy vào mình, quyết không tin vào vận mệnh. Mộ Ứng Hùng tin rằng nhân tất thắng thiên, sinh mạng của mình là tự do mình làm chủ, không phải phụ thuộc vào bất kỳ ai hết.

Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself.

The safest way to try to get what you want is to try to deserve what you want. It’s such a simple idea. It’s the golden rule. You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end.

There is no ethos, in my opinion, that is better for any person to have. By and large, the people who have had this ethos win in life, and they don’t win just money and honors — they win the respect and the deserved trust of the people they deal with.

Plus, there is huge pleasure in life to be obtained from getting deserved trust. Reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets — and can be lot in a heartbeat.

All of the human technology stack is based upon investment. Not merely in the modern, financial, sense, but the investment of effort.

If I am a protohuman, using a stone as a pounding tool, I do not care if you take my stone. I will simply pick up another stone. But if I chip my stone into a spearhead, then I will not let you take my spearhead, because that would take away the effort I have invested.

From the moment humans gained the ability to build and farm, land became something they could invest effort in.

And land ownership became necessary so they would do that.

All of the bullshit ya’ll think is so important: governments, laws, philosophical principles about rights, etc… these are all just tools, possible means of protecting investment.

It doesn’t matter what set of tools you use, so long as they work and investments are protected. If a man can be certain his investments will not be taken away from him by parasites, thieves, and robbers, he will invest. If he is certain that they will, he will not invest.

The brain is designed to seek quick, guaranteed dopamine hits, and that behaviors that feel productive are a prime way for it to accomplish that desire. The biggest example out there is the amount of time spent reading and responding to e-mail, Slack messages, and other asynchronous communication methodologies. The act of checking e-mail actually produces a tiny dopamine hit, a way of the brain rewarding yourself for doing something that may produce social value.

Few Americans today are surprised at the volatility of real estate markets or at their capacity for quixotic exploitation in sudden “booms.” Indeed, growing rich or at least affluent from the capital gain on a home sale has become a legitimate part of the American dream. But few Americans actually experience an appreciation of double or triple their land values in just a matter of months. Those who do are usually considered as lucky as lottery winners.

But what if it weren’t luck? What if such a spectacular, exponential rise in the values of all land in, say Los Angeles, occurred in only 36 months? What if it were known to have happened as the direct result of a calculated release of hundreds of millions of dollars in speculator funds into that city’s real estate market by all of the nation’s largest banks? What if the Federal Reserve had made those funds available through the banks, just for that purpose, and allowed the banks to require no other collateral than the skyrocketing value of the land itself—and to loan the money at the lowest commercial interest rates in the world?

Americans who ask themselves how the Japanese managed to buy up a quarter of California’s banking market in such a short time, how they effortlessly outbid all comers for the Rockefeller Group or any of dozens of other major and minor U.S. corporations, or how they are so rapidly and successfully transferring manufacturing onto an international base after decades of insisting that such a thing was impossible, will find large elements of the answer in Tokyo’s real estate listings. The creation of massive amounts of paper assets, the collateralization of them through huge volumes of low-interest lending against such assets, or the realization of cash based on the same assets through the volcanic upwelling of share prices on the Tokyo stock market, and the export of the resulting capital through conversion of the yen into vastly cheapened dollars is a process that defines both how big and far-reaching this new Japanese “money machine” is. It also shows how simply and efficiently it works.

The Japanese can now afford to buy whatever they want that is for sale in capital, financial, manufacturing, high-technology, knowledge-intensive, distribution, processing, and services industries anywhere in the world. And they can afford to outbid anyone else who might want it. Like a fully realized version of the apocryphal oil sheik of the 1970s, they now have a virtually endless source of cash flowing right out of the ground at their feet—and encounter no risk or any other discomforting accountabilities in spending it.

Perhaps the greatest surprise of Japan’s money machine, however, and the United States’s greatest vulnerability to it, is the paradox that it is really built on no foundation. Since Japanese land is the nation’s only tradable commodity not subject, directly or indirectly, to the disciplines and interventions of the international market, the land’s value is whatever the Japanese owners and the lenders who finance the trade in it say it is. The higher the prices go, the brighter the economic future for both the owners and their creditors. And the prices are still going up.

Land speculating is, of course, as old a practice in Japan as it is in any capitalist country. But a big inflator of the bubbles in Japan has always been the favorable climate of government attitude: little land regulation; less land-use policy; low tax rates and loophole-ridden tax laws on capital gains from land; and strictly regulated interest rates and artificially mandated credit ratings that have allowed major players, such as trading companies, and minor ones, such as real estate agencies, to raise speculative capital easily at low cost, no matter how high the debt-to-equity ratio on any corporation’s books.

Tiền mới chỉ sự thô tục, thiếu nhã nhặn và tính khoe khoang của những người mới giàu, những người chưa có kinh nghiệm sống trong tầng lớp này và không biết đến hệ thống các giá trị của những người thuộc dòng dõi “trâm anh thế phiệt,” những người thừa kế sự giàu có từ thế hệ trước.

Just sit down and start chewing on it.

Don’t think: I should finish this within X days/weeks/years.

Read it sentence by sentence, pausing whenever you encounter anything you do not understand, and then apply all means at your disposal to understand it (including asking others, letting your subconscious do its work, etc.). Do not set any time limits for this, but don’t give up on it either, but whenever you are stuck and wrestling with something say to yourself: this is precisely why I have embarked on this enterprise. It is only when we are stuck that we have a real opportunity to learn something.

I think that it is also important to be willing not to read things sentence by sentence, but to skip results, proofs, sections, … without guilt. I have known graduate students who could not make serious progress because they would not even try to read Section 2 of a paper until they understood every detail in Section 1. This is in some sense admirable, but in anoher sense it means that you never have a chance to build up an intuition that can be assisted by later rigour, and are forced instead always to build up the rigour first and hope that the intuition comes along with it.

If the paper is really that important, then chances are there are other people who have studied it carefully and have said useful things about it. So start by reading as much commentary as you can get your hands on (and talking to experts, if they are willing to give you their time). This should help you get some sense of the overall structure of the argument. Perhaps some parts are simply computational and there’s not much for you to do other than verify that the argument is formally correct. But there may be parts which are driven by some key ideas that aren’t articulated explicitly in the paper itself, but that have been pointed out by commentators. In these cases, it’s important to know what the guiding ideas are when you’re struggling through the argument.

However good I am is however good I am. I don’t need to try to be better than I am, and just see where that takes me. Maybe it’s winning this and maybe it’s not, and I’m okay with that. I know what I put into this game. Trying to get every ounce back doesn’t really work. I’ve tried that.

“In ‘21 I had an amazing year, got my first major at KPMG. Just a lot of doubt crept into my mind in 2022 and especially 2023,” said Korda. “I heard some outside voices from other people saying that they don’t know if I’ll ever be able to win another major again, and I stuck to working extremely hard on and off the golf course.

“I think of all the sad times and the health scares that I have gone through have made me who I am today. I think it has matured me a lot, and I would say it’s shaped me into the person I am today, and I’m very grateful for the ups and downs.”

After all of her wins, Korda has continually talked about staying in what she refers to as her “bubble,” refusing to look forward or back at her success too closely and instead choosing to be where her feet are – focusing on the next challenge, task or shot at hand.

If you’re handy, the correct tool for the job. Nothing beats the exact thing that you need doing exactly what it’s designed to do.

Buy the first one cheap, then if/when it breaks, splurge on the second.

If someone was really the person that solved it they’ll be able to answer multiple levels. Anyone who struggled hard with a problem never forgets it.