Chinese Festivals: Traditions, Customs and Rituals

Wei Liming
online access from Apabi ebook
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Festivals are the carrier of the national soul and sentiment o f the Chinese people , and are also the essence of the national affinity and cohesion. The culture of festivals roots deeply in the people, and it thus shows its enormous vitality. In spite of the change of times, it has gradually become part of the heritages of the colorful Chinese culture. Some important ones, the four major festivals (the Spring Festival, Pure Brightness Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival) in particular, are still widely celebrated among people. Chinas statutory festivals and memorial days include New Years Day, Womens Day, Tree-planting Day, Labor Day, Youth Day, Childrens Day, Armys Day, Teachers Day and National Day, and etc. Minority people in China boast various festivals and almost every nationality has her own major festivals. Typical examples are the Tibetan New Year Festival, Water-Splashing Festival for Dai people, and Torch Festival for Yi People, the Singing Carnival for Zhuang people and Nadam Fair for Mongolian people.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

私隱即權力 (Privacy is Power)

卡里莎．貝利斯 (Carissa Véliz)
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英國牛津大學副教授Carissa Véliz話題新作
深入探討科技和數據經濟對私隱權的影響

*「我同意相關的私隱條款」
*「我接受向第三者披露個人資料作促銷或宣傳用途」
*「使用本網站即表示同意接受所有cookies」
無意識的點擊背後，代表我們失去了什麼？

科技帶來社會進步的同時，也讓我們的個人資料無聲無息地外洩——社交平台、手機程式透過大數據了解我們的喜好，推送商品及服務廣告；電訊公司、銀行直接出售個人資料予第三方，宣傳我們根本沒必要的東西；演算法下大眾接觸到截然不同的新聞內容和政治訊息，於是各自活在自己的同溫層中⋯⋯我們的性格、興趣、行蹤乃至不欲人知的秘密，是否都透過科技暴露在某些人的眼皮底下？

英國牛津大學副教授Carissa Véliz深入探討科技和數據經濟對私隱權的影響，它們如何撩撥慾望、影響思考、左右決定，並造成差別化待遇，甚至社會對立？建立保護私隱的意識，就是自主的第一步。

從來沒有哪個時代如同今日人類被科技全面滲透，
而私隱則成為生活便捷性的高昂代價。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World

Cade Metz
online access from EBSCOhost Ebooks
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"This colorful page-turner puts artificial intelligence into a human perspective. Through the lives of Geoff Hinton and other major players, Metz explains this transformative technology and makes the quest thrilling." (Walter Isaacson, author of The Code Breaker)

Recipient of starred reviews in both Kirkus and Library Journal

The Untold Tech Story of Our Time

What does it mean to be smart? To be human? What do we really want from life and the intelligence we have, or might create?

With deep and exclusive reporting, across hundreds of interviews, New York Times Silicon Valley journalist Cade Metz brings you into the rooms where these questions are being answered. Where an extraordinarily powerful new artificial intelligence has been built into our biggest companies, our social discourse, and our daily lives, with few of us even noticing.

Long dismissed as a technology of the distant future, artificial intelligence was a project consigned to the fringes of the scientific community. Then two researchers changed everything. One was a 64-year-old computer science professor who didn’t drive and didn’t fly because he could no longer sit down - but still made his way across North America for the moment that would define a new age of technology. The other was a 36-year-old neuroscientist and chess prodigy who laid claim to being the greatest game player of all time before vowing to build a machine that could do anything the human brain could do.

They took two very different paths to that lofty goal, and they disagreed on how quickly it would arrive. But both were soon drawn into the heart of the tech industry. Their ideas drove a new kind of arms race, spanning Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and OpenAI, a new lab founded by Silicon Valley kingpin Elon Musk. But some believed that China would beat them all to the finish line.

Genius Makers dramatically presents the fierce conflict among national interests, shareholder value, the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and the very human concerns about privacy, security, bias, and prejudice. Like a great Victorian novel, this world of eccentric, brilliant, often unimaginably yet suddenly wealthy characters draws you into the most profound moral questions we can ask. And like a great mystery, it presents the story and facts that lead to a core, vital question:

How far will we let it go?

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

透視我城：香港文學文化十二講

蔡益懷
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一個城巿有她的面相，還有內在的肌理，探究一個城巿的文化現象，除了看她的表相，還要掌握脈相，細察肌理。在這次的研究與教學中，集中探究了香港文學文化的一些熱點、焦點議題，如都巿性、現代性、本土性等，並以這些維度展開不同的扇面，對都巿文化空間、社會意識型態、集體記憶、族群意識與身份認同等現象展開論述。此外從不同的側面切入，以點帶面，探索香港文學文化的不同版塊與元素，如香港大眾文化中的忠義元素、生死愛欲、懷舊風潮、流行歌曲、居住空間、飲食文化等，以形成一張大致展現香港文學文化風貌的拼圖。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love

Julie Sedivy
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A celebration of the beauty and mystery of language and how it shapes our lives, our loves, and our world.

If there is one feature that defines the human condition, it is language: written, spoken, signed, understood, and misunderstood, in all its infinite glory. In this ingenious, lyrical exploration, Julie Sedivy draws on years of experience in the lab and a lifetime of linguistic love to bring the discoveries of linguistics home, to the place language itself lives: within the yearnings of the human heart and amid the complex social bonds that it makes possible.

Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love follows the path that language takes through a human life―from an infant’s first attempts at sense-making to the vulnerabilities and losses that accompany aging. As Sedivy shows, however, language and life are inextricable, and here she offers them together: a childish misunderstanding of her mother’s meaning reveals the difficulty of relating to other minds; frustration with “professional” communication styles exposes the labyrinth of standards that define success; the first signs of hearing loss lead to a meditation on society’s discomfort with physical and mental limitations.

Part memoir, part scientific exploration, and part cultural commentary, this book epitomizes the thrills of a life steeped in the aesthetic delights of language and the joys of its scientific scrutiny.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

被遺忘的香港管樂史

連家駿
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管樂，是首種傳入香港的西樂，在香港開埠時，便以軍樂形式來到香港，從此落地生根，蓬勃發展，在香港的音樂歷史中佔有重要的位置。然而，社會對管樂團的重視卻遠遠低於管弦樂團，以致在研究或社會上都會被忽視。

本書從歷史的角度，詳細記述管樂由香港成為英國殖民地至現在一百八十多年的發展，是首本完整而有系統地剖析香港及周邊地區管樂歷史的書籍。作者把這段歷史分為啟蒙時代、轉變時代及當代三大部分，並加入嶺南地區和南洋與香港管樂發展關係的部分，記錄不同時代的重要管樂團，並且仔細闡述社會和管樂的關係，包括政府、社區、學校對管樂的看法，同時觀察香港政治、文化政策、青年政策、教學方針等對管樂發展的影響，以小觀大，展現香港西洋音樂歷史的轉變。作者亦專訪了多位管樂界重要人物，以大量第一手資料及圖片，呈現香港管樂的歷史圖像。最後希望藉着探討本地管樂發展的難處和期望，為日後管樂的發展管理、演奏及研究，提供不同的思考 角度，具有極高的參考價值。

(摘錄自 cityu.edu.hk/upress)