I remember participating a HBS graduation party (TPMG, a 3-month executive training program). Two British graduates hosted the party and they used all kinds of funny remarks (they are so different from American language…) to bring the party to be one of the most impressive one I’ve ever participated.

Steven Hawking made a bet with an American physicist about a theory (Black holes do not obliterate information about things which fall into them, but mangle information instead. ). The bet was made with John Preskill in 1997. Earlier this year, he agreed that he lost the bet, the winner of the bet is supposed get a huge book from the loser. “John is all American, so naturally he wants an encyclopaedia of baseball,” said Hawking. “I had great difficulty in finding one over here, so I offered him an encyclopaedia of cricket, as an alternative, but John wouldn’t be persuaded of the superiority of cricket.”

Well, for me, at this time: 11:27pm, it is more relevant to ask about “100 things to do before I sleep”. WISE is 10 days away, I’ll have to work out something for presentation. Other projects are also moving on, I just hope I have enough time to go deeper into the dataset I have and dig out gold before I die right in front of the conference participants.

The British people are so funny that even their scientists make me feel so amused after such a long day. See here: “Turn yourself into a diamond: tips from science on a good life, and death “.

“A thinktank of British scientists has come up with a new way of quickening the national intellect – a brain-taxing spin on the old formula of 100 things to do before you die. The list, compiled by New Scientist magazine, suggests booking to see Galileo’s middle finger (preserved in Florence) or ordering liquid nitrogen to make the “world’s smoothest ice-cream” at home.

More complicated options include joining the 300 Club at the South Pole (they take a sauna to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, then run naked to the pole in minus 100 F) or learning Choctaw, a language with two past tenses – one for giving information which is definitely true, the other for passing on material taken without checking from someone else. ”

One of the most intriguing ideas is actually one thing to be done after you die: Become a diamond. LifeGem of Chicago, Illinois, will take a few grains of your cremated remains, subject them to high pressure and temperature, and you will emerge from the process, 18 weeks later, as a sparkling one-carat diamond.