学习律师助理课程有感

2019年春季开始在社区学院学习律师助理证书课程，连带上一些执法相关的课程。

初衷只是想增强法律知识，以便以后做法庭口译用。开始跟不足二十岁或四五六十岁的美国学生们同堂上课后，发现自己的写作功底还可以，但语法上的各种小毛病开始显露，尤其是police report writing课。另外，在lega research课上学习了美国法律体系，深感法律体系的严谨、严密和庞大。深思熟虑，逻辑严密地写好一篇作业后，自我感觉良好，甚至有捧着艺术品的感觉。

开始感到前律师同事hl所说，对律师而言，写作相当重要。 要读一些法官写的案例分析，学习他们的逻辑。

下午欣然得知2020年春季的课程目录出来了，很高兴，发现民事诉讼（上）就在下学期开，于是迅速找好了其他要上的课，跃跃欲试就等着选课系统开放了。

第一年上了入门课、法律研究、法律写作、劳工赔偿法。第二年春季准备修民事诉讼（上）、律师助理计算机使用（短学期+网上课程）、高级法律研究与写作；夏季修计算机辅助法律研究（网上课程）；秋季修民事诉讼（下），准备NALA考试 （或者加个criminal、probate、tort之类）。夏天的时候可以问问老师怎么准备这个考试。
https://www.nala.org/sites/default/files/files/users/2019%20CP%20Program%20Handbook_0.pdf
第一年还在另一个社区学院修了一门综合法律课，暑假修了世界宗教，秋季修了警察报告写作。第二年准备修DNA和指纹（仅一个周六）。

下班后走在校园里，想到可以学东西，可以免费借阅图书馆的书，其实还挺开心的。深感过去蹉跎了岁月。现在奋起追赶吧。

最近有点烦

说来都令人惭愧，这把年纪了还为几个小年轻的八卦而烦恼。有人的地方是非多，只是我忽然看到他们如此热衷议论别人，内心有些难以接受。他们怎么能做到人前一副模样，人后一副模样？
可能身体实在太过抗拒，昨天早上本来计划跟其中几人参加活动，闹钟竟然没响，因此错过。颇为难受了一会。不过，一个朋友说可能是身体给我发送信号，可以借此机会跟身体对话。我想她是有道理的。别人的宽恕，让我自己也原谅了自己。既然赶不上其他人的车，就从容的吃了饭，自己穿好行装去公园走路。在老公起来前已经在山里走了一圈，看了马，看了油菜花，去超市买了新鲜的鱼。
回家一起打扫屋子，准备饭菜，迎接亲戚到来。坐着房车去公园，在里面围坐一桌吃了饭，又在草地上坐着聊天，聊了好久，感觉长进挺大。下午回来，七点不到就睡觉了，一直睡到半夜两点多。
四点多又想到令人烦心的事，烦到之前的好心情都一扫而光。决定起身。告诉自己，看淡周围，把一切都交给时间。

背个小包出门去

2018年圣诞，收到一件礼物是nordstrom闪闪的名片夹。一开始心想那同事怎么给我这么不实用的东西，后来她说晚上夜生活可以放卡和一点钱，就不用背大包了。

这个用途让我醍醐灌顶。确实，每天出门，用的卡也就是一两张，为什么拿一个大钱包呢？用了两天名片夹当钱包，发现自己的包有点大而空了，于是开始搜索小包，准备换个小黑包。

在搜索的时候看到一篇文章，说女人出门还是背小包，只带必须的。背大包，里面塞满各种责任，其实自己也很累。用小包，优雅又简单，正好契合最近迷的极简主义Minimalism。于是就这么决定了！出门只背小包！

Life 3.0 Week 3

Why Learning Math and Physics

I am at a loss when I come across paragraphs that contain mathematical or physical explanations, which is frustrating. The good thing is, I now understand the reason we learn them is to be able to imagine the world in an abstract way, which helps us project the future and make good decisions.

The existence of God?

I once had a discussion with a friend who believed in the existence of God. He believed that there is a being, who introduced thoughts into our mind. “Our brain is made of the material,” he said, “and our thoughts are intangible. How come the material produced intangible thoughts? There must be a god who puts thoughts in us in the first place. ”

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That question got me, and it still does. From the book, I know that when fed enough data and patterns, computers can make good decisions and perform tasks that required human intelligence. But in the very beginning, humans gave the computer a goal to set it off. In the same vein, is there a god who put in something in our mind to set us going? 

Life 3.0 Week 4

1. Once our brain gained consciousness of a thing, it will turn it into unconscious so the consciousness can focus on higher-level challenges

If so, then we need to keep learning new things to avoid losing consciousness of our life. 

I think the last chapter on consciousness is more relevant to my life, compared with other parts on AI.

To be honest, as I was reading the book, I constantly battle with the idea that I am not in the position to think about those concerns-I haven't quite figured out all the philosophical questions such as what happiness is and what is the meaning of life, so building up any thoughts for AI on a non-existent base would be too far fetched. I haven't figured out those questions, why should I be trusted on the discussion of AI?

The author said that once our brain gained consciousness of an action, it will gradually turn it into unconscious actions so that the conscious mind can focus on higher-level challenges. I think it is a good reminder of my life and career: try to maintain consciousness and avoid drifting into a zombie state of mind.

What can be done to achieve consciousness in life? My general list includes: 

a. read books to gain new knowledge and experiences
b. join discussions to exchange ideas
c. learn new skills
d. get on new adventures

A gym employee once told me that the gym started to be filled at the end of January, instead of right after the New Year as I thought. So I guess that now is a good time to take actions to live a more conscious life, and maintain the human part in us as much as possible.

2. Consciousness is substrate-independence twice over.

if consciousness is the way info feels when being processed in certain complex ways, then it is merely structure of the information processing that matters, not the structure of the matter doing the information processing. 

3. "It is not our universe giving meaning to conscious beings, but conscious beings giving meaning to our universe."

4. “theory was wrong, but it was scientific!” 

I gained new understanding in “scientific”-can be tested and falsified

Completed the Personal Training Sessions

Today I completed all my sessions with Joe from Fitness Club Personal Training. It was a no-pressure, no-judgment environment, and I felt good after each session. I did my first deadlift, and my sitting with the bars and forty pounds on my back. I learned that even with knee pains I can still train weights. I am ready to do it on my own in the gym!

Life 3.0 Week 2

Thoughts on robot judges

I find the thought experiments laid out by Tegmark are fascinating. Based on his, I had the following thoughts which might be part of a story.

Tegmark described the scenario of having robot judges to process all the evidence and give verdicts, which will lead to a more fair and efficient legal system. I think this conclusion is based on the condition that the laws are created fair. If, by human error or due to the changes in the definition of "fairness" as the society develops, the laws are no longer fair, robot judges' efficient execution of the laws won't make the legal system more fair.

A question that came to my mind is: what if the AI writes the law? I think that the first stage may be that AI writes laws for human being, so that human being may have laws that are more fair as the law makers are unbiased. It may lead to the second stage: AI writes the laws to govern AI or even the human being? Will there be a Human-AI board to write the laws governing Human-AI relationship? Will the world run by laws written by AI be an orderly one that follows the optimal path? Or will it be a nightmare for the human being if the AI law-makers turn out to be tyrants, or its laws are not quite compatible with the human society due to occasional technical glitch? Also, by the time AI can write laws, a lot of changes might have occurred in the human society. For example, the immigration law will change as the national boundaries may have disappeared by then, but possibly new boundaries based on AI/human content in a resident's body may be created...

On machine translation

Tegmark said that machine translation is quite good nowadays, but he was probably only talking about English <> Spanish translation, which are similar in syntax. For English <> Chinese translation, the results yielded by the machine translation in most cases cannot be used without human post-editing yet.

When I went to the American Translators Association conference last October, some senior translators expressed their concerns about AI. I didn't think much of it, but our discussion on career choices this and last week made me think of my future as a translator.