New Releases by Charles Tang

這本書是從馬拉松比賽看得勝者的人生。本書所講的"得勝"是一個與"成功"不一樣的概念。一般人說到成功，印象裏該是那個"名財雙得（rich and famous）"的結果。然而，"得勝"卻是一個經歷奮鬥的過程，而非結果。讓我再說一次：得勝是個經歷奮鬥的過程，而非結果。絕大部分的人不會永遠成功，而且一次的成功也許是經歷許多失敗和痛苦纍積的經驗造成的結果。得勝，講的是那個失敗和痛苦纍積經歷的過程，就像是跑馬拉松的運動員，他們不斷的參賽，不斷的練習，到後來，參賽只是爲了練習有一個目標，而練習，那個經常不斷的練習過程，反而成了人生的重心。譬如，一年參賽三次的人，有另外的三百多天經歷練習的過程，而只有三天享受結果，如果那還是成功的結果。所以，如果把這本書的書名倒過來說成"跑馬拉松的得勝者"，那麽似乎就是指那些眾人稱讚的冠軍亞軍，那些獎牌，那些歡呼，而比較沒有可思想的哲理。現在書名是"得勝者的馬拉松"，可以把馬拉松抽象化，是説"得勝者的奮鬥過程"的意思。而且這個過程，不是傳記，而是日記，是心路歷程的描述。 其次，這本書的讀者不見得都有興趣跑馬拉松，但也許會希望知道"得勝者的馬拉松"哲理，因爲這個哲理不止用在跑馬拉松，譬如創業，譬如作戰，譬如當人生遭遇苦難或重大挑戰。這本書就經常用筆者自己在高科技軟體業界的一個始創公司（startup）作爲例子，來説明這個哲理。始創公司必須要創新才能生存，軟體行業又是一種與顧客化/定製化脫離不了關係的行業。所以，雖然好像這只是筆者本人參與的行業，但任何一種行業，無論是傳統行業或高新科技，在未來，如果不能創新，不能顧客化/定製化，就很難生存。譬如，我們在某些散文中經常會提到觀念證明（Proof of concept, POC）,無非就是在接觸顧客的當下，必須證明給顧客看，我們的產品能夠適合顧客的情況。

Boxcar Children see the sights in beautiful cities from coast to coast (and in between) and find a mystery at every destination.

One warm night four children stood in front of a bakery. No one knew them. No one knew where they had come from. Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny used to live alone in a boxcar. Now they have a home with their grandfather, and they have become friends with a famous movie star! While Tate Radison was filming his last movie, a lot of odd things happened. No one knows who was responsible for the canister of film disappearing or for the other problems. Now Tate wants to keep his presence in Greenfield a secret to avoid any more mishaps. But soon a note arrives in his mailbox, and the troubles start again. Why would someone want to ruin Tate's career? It's another mystery for the Boxcar Children!

When the Alden children get jobs as extras on an educational film being made at the Alamo, they discover that someone is causing accidents so that Claire LaBelle, the leading lady, will get fired.

This paper examines the effect of geographic and industrial diversification on firm value for a sample of over 20,000 firm-year observations of U.S. corporations from 1987-1993. Our" multivariate tests indicate the average value of a firm with international operations is 2.2% higher than comparable domestic single activity firms, while the average value of a firm with activities in multiple industrial segments is 5.4% lower than a portfolio of comparable focused domestic firms in similar activities. More importantly, we demonstrate that failure to control simultaneously for both dimensions of diversification results in over-estimation of the negative value impact of industrial diversification, but has little impact on estimates of the positive value impact of geographic diversification