Fairness

The subtle art of not giving a f*ck, Chapter 7: The failure/success paradox. 

If someone is better than you at something, then it's likely because she has failed at it more than you have. If someone is worse than you, it's likely because he hasn't been through all of the painful learning experiences you have.

Learning and growing

 I feel really lucky to work with two different types of advisors. One is super smart and insightful, and the other is very good at communication. They are highly complementary.

七月七日晴

大四毕业从西藏尼泊尔回家，待了没几日就又收拾行李，和阿冰开始了为期十天的台湾环岛游。

从香港出发，抵达了台北桃源机场，当我们赶到位于市中心的橙舍青旅，夜幕已经降临，西门町四处已经热闹非凡。在台北吃了传说中的永康牛肉面，逛了诚品书店，看了中正纪念堂和台北故宫博物馆，到淡水看日落。我们到了台北附近的新北市九份老街（拖着巨大的行李），这里有点像丽江与千与千寻的结合体，最喜欢这里的民宿，可以直接看到蓝蓝的海。然后到瑞芳的十分车站看天灯。

继续沿着宝岛东线到了以自然风光和原住民著称的太鲁阁，我们走了一段白杨步道，崇峦叠嶂，清泉飞瀑，赏心悦目。到了花莲的时候，我们骑车横跨了大半个花莲市到达七星潭，这绝对是我人生中骑得最累的一次，一路都是上坡！但当我们到达七星潭就觉得一切辛苦都是值得。坐在大陆架的边缘，看着一望无际、浩渺深蓝的太平洋，真是无比震撼！当天深夜11点左右，我们在青旅还经历了连续五次的五级左右的地震，震中就是花莲…这算是我第一次如此近距离接触地震，确实茫然失措，结束后久久不能平静入睡，有劫后余生的感觉。

好久没有那么激动了

六月以来，星火燎原，我们的生活也从暗潮涌动到激情澎湃。第一次那么真切地感受到天象的力量。
突然之间发现自己从农业开始做起了林业😅提醒自己时刻想起这些研究对世界的意义，好好做好自己的事情，尽一份力~

Wooden buildings and fuels may drag us to another gulf

We used to burn trees for energy, and we stopped doing that after we had fossil fuels (ugh), then now people thought, oh maybe we should go back to wood fuels again!

This article written by my supervisor: Why Burning Trees for Energy Harms the Climate? explains that this could be a wrong idea. There are three major reasons:

1. When burned, trees generate more CO2 emissions per unit of energy generated than fossil fuels.
2. Harvesting trees for energy releases carbon that would otherwise have remained stored in the forest. It also forgoes future carbon sequestration that otherwise would have occurred had the trees been allowed to continue growing.
3. The re-sequestration of the released carbon back into biomass is not instantaneous.

We also need to rethink how "green" it is to replace concrete with timber products for construction materials.

I read two articles on the pros and cons of using wood to substitute concrete for buildings:
Article 1: TO SAVE OUR CLIMATE WE NEED TALLER TREES NOT TALLER WOODEN BUILDINGS
Article 2: As Mass Timber Takes Off, How Green Is This New Building Material?

Determining carbon in timber products

• The moisture content of the tree biomass is about 35%.
• The dry matter conversion rate from a tree is 65%. -Source
• Carbon constitutes 50% of the dry mass of trees.
• "The carbon content of vegetation is surprisingly constant across a wide variety of tissue types and species. Schlesinger (1991) noted that C content of biomass is almost always found to be between 45 and 50% (by oven-dry mass)." -Source: FAO

疫情1-5月记录

2020年，一切都是那么地猝不及防。

让我们把时光倒流四个月，1月18号。

这一天，我收拾好了行李，从香港飞到了IAD。在飞机上，隔壁连续打个好几个喷嚏，我心里还有点发怵，只不过当时我脑海里害怕的是流感。两天之后，我和所有人一样看到了央视采访中钟南山院士提到不明肺炎人传人的现象。这几幕似曾相识，当时我就大感不妙，提醒爸妈提高警惕，让我妈赶紧网购N95口罩和酒精。只是没想到这接下来的5天，事情发酵的速度和程度远远超过了大众的想象，疫情随着春运的飞机火车蔓延到了全国各地，根本买不到口罩和消毒用品。后来的事情我们也知道了，疫情还蔓延到了世界各地。

Edit yourself

我们的故事
像一本遗失的日记
在什么时候写过
在什么地方读过

[Excel] Basic functions

Compare two columns

• see if there are mismatched values (most of them are correct, want to check inconsistency)

Conditional Formatting > Hightlight Cell Rules >  Duplicate Values > Select "Unique"

• see if there are matched values (only want to find a limited amount of similar values)

Conditional Formatting > Hightlight Cell Rules >  Duplicate Values > Select "Duplicate"

Merge two sheets based on the same key/column

=INDEX(input column, MATCH(reference key, keys of input column, 0))

Get the rank by group 

=SUMPRODUCT((A2=$A$2:$A$205)*(B2<$B$2:$B$205))+1
see this webpage

A glimmer into a dark forest

It's like a dormant soul rising from a deep slumber.

The racing thoughts remain like embers in a once tempestuous fire.

[TV] the Midnight Gospel S1 E1

When I first watched a short excerpt of the Midnight Gospel, the shoddy quality does not appeal to me at all. While I questioned the look of the characters, it turns out I become attracted to the disentanglement of the lines and the scenes. The lines are super thought-invoking but the plots are so irrelevant. This contrast makes it like a late-night talk show with some laid-back background noises, mostly country music and guitars.

Episode 1 so far is quite mind blowing, already. I am more interested in the meditation part than the drug and pro-pot part, but they are certainly deeply connected. I note down my favorite lines.

[Python] built-in parallel computing

import multiprocessing as mp

def do_some_thing(args):

     implement a block of code

     return

pool = mp.Pool(processes=8)

# do 8 countries at a time

args = [[iso, scenario] for iso in countries]

results = pool.map(do_some_thing, args)

2050 如何养活世界

本文介绍的报告来自十年前的2009年FAO的专家论坛，讲述了未来全球农业面临的挑战（English version，中文版）。

到2050年，为养活新增加的23亿人口，全球粮食产量需要增加70%。(这个数字应该是针对2000年的，我们最新的WRR报告预测的数字，人口增加28亿，粮食产量增加相对于2010年是56%)

发展中国家的粮食产量几乎需要翻番。

由于人口增速放缓，产量增速不需要像过去几十年那样快，但由于收入不断增长，数量的需求仍然十分显著：例如到2050年每年需要额外生产10亿吨谷物和2亿吨肉类。

在发展中国家，预计增产的80%来自于提高单产和种植密度，只有20%来自于扩大耕地面积。在土地资源匮乏的国家，几乎全部增产都会通过提高单产而实现。但事实是，全球范围内各主要谷类作物的产量增长率在逐步下降。例如， 全球谷物产量的增幅从1960年的每年3.2%下降至2000年的1.5%。

我们面临的技术挑战是如何扭转这一下降趋势，因为全球范围的产量如果按照过去五十年确立的模式持续线性增长，将不能满足粮食需求。这项挑战由于气候变化而变得更加迫切，气候变化预计会对农业生产造成重大影响。 据政府间气候变化专门委员会研究，如果气温上升超过2℃， 全球粮食生产潜力预计将严重收缩，玉米等主要农作物的产量可能在全球范围下降。在低纬度地区跌势将尤为显著。例如，在非洲、亚洲和拉丁美洲，如果不采取有效的适应措施，产量可能减少20%至40%。此外，诸如干旱和洪水等极端天气事件变得更加频繁，造成更大的作物和牲畜损失。

同时对生物燃料原料的需求不断增长，可能给全球农业生产造成额外的压力。需要新技术来解决缺水情况迅速恶化的问题，并减少收获后的损失。应对这些挑战需要推动技术前沿向外发展，包括在边缘地区。可以通过开发和推广新技术和作物 管理技术以及通过向发展中国家的小农推广现有技术来要做到这一点。为确保现代技术的 广泛应用，必须保证资源贫乏的小农户不被技术进步所忽视。

回顾2019 展望2020

工作

2019上半年，持续以一个月一章节的速度完成了毕业论文，虽然没有达到发表的水平，每 一章节的质量我还是比较满意的。总体而言，我的优势是在打目标明确的短平快攻坚战，劣势也太明显，不擅长计划时间、打持久战。论文的顺利完成，爸爸的持久战概念功不可没，与我咬紧牙关、抓住时间关键节点也有密切关系。和以前比起来，是一个相当大的飞跃，论文的成功完成应该作为一个自信心提升的案例。 2020年争取把之前的文章采用晚上和早起的时间完成投稿。