My Parting Gift to the English Department

(1) When Chomsky and Halliday show up, ask them to build a working model or a prototype. If they refuse or if they can't, laugh in their faces or roll your eyes.

(2) When Sylvia Plath and co show up, ask them to write without a formula, If they refuse or if they can't, laugh in their faces.

(3) When fake ESP(English for specific purposes), EAP(English for academic purposes), EPP(English for professional purposes) experts show up, ask them how many hotel staffs, business people, geologists, chemical engineers, doctors, nurses, sailors, insurance people, software engineers have found their stuffs useful. If they don't have a specific number/figure, laugh in their faces.

As this lovely book illustrates, keep this in mind: Sophisticated elaborate ruses can be easily countered with very simple moves. Be simple, be even stupid.

Simplicity : Be Stupid --- 2

For years, I didn't dare to read Sylvia Plath, thinking she is too deep, arty, subtle for me.

This morning I read this book in my morning commute. Reading it from back to front, I first met Maya Angelo's "Still I Rise," brave, bold and inspiring, and simple and to the point.

Then I met Plath's "Daddy." No big deal.

Next came Anne Sexton's "Wanting to Die."  No big deal either.

To my shock, these 2 suicidal poetesses wrote to a formula! "The phone is off the hook" in both poems. So much for authenticity, sincerity and originality.  They both seemed to be paraphrasing Freud and bogus psychoanalysis.

They are far too simpler than simple poets like Frost, Wordsworth or Maya Angelo.


Don't be intimidated by complexity, so-called sophistication  and airs. Just look at it calmly. Just keep your cool. Fake art can never stand that kind of gaze or stare or even wink.

Software Secrets --- 1 : Let's be humble

We love Disney. So, last week when we watched Looney Tunes ... for the first 1 or 2 episodes, I felt really sorry for Disney.Whatever Disney team can do, Warner Bros Team can do too. Then their episodes started falling apart.

A movie, even a short episode, is more than cameras, sounds, lighting. images, effects and animation. There are higher level structures and systems too.





So, software is more than iOS, javascript, and Hadoop and Radis. It is even more than data structures and algorithms. Let's be humble.