meme \'me-m\ n 1: a unit of knowledge

my random thoughts,

As opposed to econ specific thoughts , these are just thoughts in general.

Mottos: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds -- Ralph Waldo Emerson and less so: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

-- benho@alum.mit.edu. Back

10.31.04
Stanford Daily Column: Why Democracy Sucks

If you didn't know, I am now a columnist for the
daily following the auspicious footsteps of my
favorite magazine writer, Joel Stein.

My latest column is why democracy sucks and that
you're too ignorant to vote. So don't.

Read it at the daily's website!


10/24/04
a ridiculously busy weekend.

nothing terribly interesting here. just for myself
to remember how insanely busy i tend to keep
myself sometimes.

my exciting friday was spent playing with my new
webcam, but that was time well spent

but saturday, had hang gliding in the morning,
rushed before the rain, a terribl sketchy
instructor and a very short flight, but good
stories.

came back, went to hot pot city, for hot pot,
first time in years.

had reheasal for 3 hours for hms pinafore.
pratciallythe only woodwind there.

rushed back to watch the end of hero with jp

went to bay 101, to conquer my poker fears. won
$100, so now i'm back to even. won $200 at vegas,
lost $300 at oakland.

and then to Lynn's house for her birthday, with
rum and french vodka and ddr and pizza and
moroccan salad

back home late.

today, woke up to play hockey, but too far away,
ran, practiced wushu,

went to rehearsal again.

saw Team America. Shocked how amazingly pro-US it
was.

came back for home made hot pot with julie and
eric. a big family dinner for the first time in a
while.

and now just chillin with the web cam again.

tomorrow back to reality, and the fact that i have
to present in 2 weeks

scary


9/11/04
quickie thought: post colonialism and mexican tourism ads

is anyone else disturbed by the not at all subtle
post colonial denigrating depiction of mexico
offered by their latest tourism ads. Where young
servile Mexican locals happily befriend the older
commanding American elite. The studly (poor)
Mexican tourguide kissing the visiting American
ladies who lunch. Or the powerful Mexican
businessman cheerfully being presented with the
golf balls that the happy mexican caddy had fished
out of the lakes.

i was reminded that this attitude existed in the
post Master and Commander tv showings of of the
1984 Anthony Hopkins Bounty, with the ridiculous
Gaughin-esque idyllic Rouseauian noble savage
depictions of Tahitian natives, but figured we
have now moved past that.

it is surprising that perhaps the anti-PC backlash
has moved so far that it is now producing
advertising memes that bother even a rationalist
like me..

(side note, interesting how for the first time,
the 9/11 date has ceased to be so powerful, with
many random festivals and events being scheduled
for today.)



8.27.04
connecting the swiftboat dots

On the radio today, the bloviating surprisingly
popular rightwing firebrand Michael Savage was
fulminating today about how John Kerry is the most
decorated war hero in this nation's history,
having received 6 medals in only 3.5 months
without ever being wounded. Savage's point, that
this proves Kerry was a self-aggrandizing Boston
Brahmin is way overblown. However, the factoid
spawned a line of thought in me, that helps
connect the swiftboat dots.

I should first say that there is no doubt in my
mind that Kerry is a war hero. Perhaps a flawed
hero, but so are they all. There is also no doubt
in my mind that the 200 or so other swiftboat
veterans (60+ of whom are also decorated) (not to
mention the now deceased veteran who had already
made such charges in a Boston Globe interview 8
years ago) are also heroes in their own way, and
that both sides are recounting what they see as
the truth, albeit tinged by their own biases as
Lord, Ross and Lepper showed, all opinions
invariably are. The actual truth no doubt lies
somewhere in between.

However, the Aha comes when you recall that Kerry
was extremely reluctant to release his war
records, and only did so after extensive prodding
from the Republicans. Was this humility? Everyone
was surprised that when the records were released,
Kerry's record appears phenomenal, again the most
medals received by anyone in such a short period.
And where did the humility go, as Kerry soon whole
heartedly embraced the war veteran role once it
blasted him through the primaries and became a
cornerstone of his campaign. So why the initial
reluctance?

Perhaps Kerry knew that once his war record came
under scrutiny, things would not hold up so well.
Perhaps a younger self-important Kerry saw the
opportunity to talk himself up a bit. Its likely
that given the opportunity, all of us would
inflate just a bit here and there our bravery, our
heroism. Something Kerry was undoubtedly good at.
Perhaps years later, Kerry learned to cover it up,
hoping it would go away. When the Republicans
pried it out, the opportunist in Kerry (every
politician is) decided to run with it, to milk it
for what its worth, and then play hardball damage
control spin when the rest of the story started to
come out.

Elementary my dear Watson

Just a thought.



8.12.04
Long Poli-Philosophical Tirade

(extracted from a long e-mail discussion with my
cousin alex. Haven't posted in a while. long and
wordy, but a few nuggets of wisdom in there.)

so recently i've been taking the attitude  that i
decided to vote for Bush merely to get a rise out
of people, that and it pisses me off that most
everyone i know thinks Bush is the anti-christ. my
vote doesn't count anyway, but i might do more
good, and have more fun anyway, just being a pain
in the butt. its far far far more likely that one
of the people i talk to will go on and have real
power as some political fat cat or something, than
the chance of my vote making a difference, and if
i could influence their thinking just a bit, to
consider a slightly different opinion, then its
all worthwhile.

but someone recently pushed me and asked me, what
if my vote did matter. what if i knew that the
country was going to split dead even, and I had to
cast the tie breaker.

i couldn't answer that question. i like and
dislike both of them for numerous reasons. i'd
likely abstain. well it depends on the
alternative. i guess i think i'm better informed
than the vast majority of others (somewhat elitist
attitude that rubs me the wrong way, but still
something I believe, I am always torn between the
two ideas that people are stupid and people are
all equal. I guess that's almsot the fundamental
debate in political philosophy as some philosophy
grad studnet i met at a wedding last week was
talking about. Classical philosophy versus
neo-classical i guess. Plato vs.  Kant more
specifically. Or liberal (left-wing or classical)
versus Leo Straussian neo-con... end elipsis) but
so i'd either try to find someone better informed,
or i'd have to spend a good deal longer time,
consulting smarter people, get a committee, take
as much time as possible.

if i had to make a snap decision, i'd really not
want to do it. and therein lies the problem with
democracy. because i don't think any of the voters
has adequate information when they vote. there's a
neat paper by maskin and tirole coming out in the
main economics journal this year that kinda
explores whether representatives should be
accoutnable or not (democracy versus
dictatorship), mostly becaues of this feature. its
an interesting and hard problem.

(snip)

but its not just humility it is partially but its
also the relativist in me that prevents me from
saying i'm informed.  to some extent i don't
believe there is some objective measre of
informedness, or it may be multi-dimensional. in
d&d terms, i may have spent a lot of time reading
up on stuff hence a high Int score, but someone
else, some red state cattle rancher who devote
their life to just observing human nature might
have a high Wis score, and a good decision
requires both.  hence also my defense of bush whom
i agree does not seem to care about intellectual
niceties.

but yes, the question between democracy and
republic always was an interesting one. i often
rail against the progressive movement for shifting
the balance too much toward the democracy side...
(aside: the poor state of our education system
these days. i met a recent wesleyan grad this
summer, an engaged interested person who is
teaching for a year before going on to do his phd
in econ, about a recent survey of high school
graduates where nearly all knew about the harlem
renaissance and could describe the japanese
internment during ww ii with great detail and the
small pox blankets and the indians, but less than
half knew the name of the president during ww ii,
or some basic facts about abraham lincoln, or the
nature of the progressive movement -- at which
point this wesleyan grad asked, 'what's the
progressive movement?' end aside)

there was an interesting west wing episode where a
democratic congressman just loses his seat in an
election, and so as a lame duck changes his vote
on an important partisan issue (Abortion perhaps),
because he feels he is a representative of the
people, and in the election, the people clearly
stated their opinions.

economists have always focused on the voting on
issues side, but i think voting on person is very
important too (hence that maskin&tirole paper i
mentioned).

and again, it's not really a lack of faith in the
system. to paraphrase very badly churchilli think,
(sigh, have internet might as well do this right)
"Democracy is the worst form of government except
for all those others that have been tried."



7.15.04
reflections on a set of stationary

I came to europe with a mission. well probably
several, but one of them was to buy a set of
Staedler Triplus Fineliner pens. A truly excellent
piece of german craftsmanship that I managed to
come across on my last trip that I was dismayed
could not be procured anywhere in America, cyber
or brick.

So wandering about in a rare break from networking
at the conference, i happened into the quaint
renaissance austrian residential town of upper
steyr-dorf amidst a drizzling rain, meandered up
old stairs past toy strewn backyards, to find a
cobblestone street with a vintage comic book store
with worn copies of superman in the window, as
well as model car stores that sold the tamiya r/c
cars which while building i severed a finger nerve
so many years ago.

but wandering past quaint row buildings, i finally
found a nice stationary store, and endured the
paintful awkwardness of walking into a local store
and not knowing more than two words of the local
language.  Searching the store, I found my target,
not quite the staedler fineliner, but a similar
german knock-off. It would have to do. but picking
it up, I had a proust madeleineian moment, a
thought I haven't thought for many many years..

when I was perhaps 10 or so, I went to a summer
program called summer plus, back in Morristown,
and took a class I was frankly too old for called
penny power because my mother didn't know any
better. I suppose though that in that class I
exhibited a bit of the arrogance, because I was
older and knew the stuff better than others, and
was a spoiled only child, especially spoiled by a
grandmother who I would always be asking for jiang
ping, rewards and prizes and toys.

so the teacher took me aside one day and promised
that if i acted more maturely, at the end of the
summer session she would buy me any candy i wanted,
though even then, candy held little appeal for me,
so i asked for a set of colored pens. (i always
had a thing for stationary, to the point that I
used to steal the stuff from stores.)

so now the pens are long gone, and even the memory
of the event until now, but i suppose it would be
fair to say that that teacher (alas I forget her
name) was a big part of why I do tend to be rather
more respectful in class, "the most humble" in the
words of one high school recommender. of course
part of that is the confuscianism i got from my
mom, but that teacher definitely played a role. to
this day, i am fairly good about not monopolizing
classroom discussion, and tend only to say
something when no one else is, well aware of the
externality a question imposes. also, my arrogance
was surpressed too for the most part, until
perhaps Dana Peele helped bring it back senior
year of high school. but that's another story...


6.7.04
Reviewlet: Harry Potter III

Chris Columbus hands over the Harry Potter
franchise to Y Tu Mama Tambien director, Alfonso
Cuaron, and gets a Harry Potter movie trying to
look like Lord of the Rings. Still, all in all, a
fair attempt. Cuaron updates the film to be less
fantastic and more modern. He adds lush scenery,
dramatic musical scoring, and imposing set design.
He also has the fortune of working with a much
more mature Rowlings story line, one of my
favorites, with a well constructed mystery plot
(an actually sensibly Quidditch setup for the
first time though it didn't appear in the movie)
and either to Rowling's or Cuaron's credit, only
the second movie I have ever seen properly do time
travel (12 Monkeys was the first). The editing
feels a bit off, "sauntering" as time magazine
calls it, so Rowling's carefully constructed
climax loses a bit of its oomph, as Cuaron forces
the film into under 2:25 Still, an enjoyable film,
an incredible cast, a fair foray.
Final Grade: B+



5/27/04
Reviewlet: Troy

This film was marred by a disappointing first hour
of unnecessary prologue perhaps forced on the
screenwriter/director/editor by the studio. Should
have stuck with Homer's in media res 9th year
Illiad. Instead became something conventional and
forced. Forcing us to deal with flat characters,
Helen, Menelaeus, Paris, Agamemnon, Odysseus, all
come off as boring, though a few are redeemed at
the end. The Helen-Paris relationship came off as
painfully banal especially given A&E's recentlly
well executed mini-series "Helen of Troy." (A&E's
helen was also far hotter than Troy's)

After the prologue, Troy stays fairly true to
Homer (except that they ignore the first 9 years
of war) The writing here picks up somewhat better,
and Achilles is seen to be an interesting
character, with a somewhat enignmatic warrior code
of honor. The others are still only passable
though the remarkable cast (Peter O'Toole, Brad
Pitt, and even Orlando Bloom again with bow and
arrow who is perfect for Paris) does give
respectable performances.

The CGI was quite a let down post LOTR, the armies
looked computer generated as did the fleet, though
still impressive if the bar hadn't been set so
high. Partly, it was made difficult by the weird
diffuse soft lighting which was a nice style for a
movie lost in the vagaries of history.

One thing to be said for Troy is that it has
perhaps the most well choreographed non-East Asian
fight scenes I have ever seen in a movie. Aided,
perhaps a bit much by CGI, but otherwise, very
well done.



5/9/04
I'm a dork.

So I haven't posted anything in a while. Busy with
thesis stuff.

But I went to watch Mean Girls today, only because
of Tina Fey, whom Joel Stein called every
dork's dream girl or something to that effect.
Though SNL has really slumped of late. Perhaps
she's lost it, or perhaps she's got too caught up
in her new super celebrity. Anyway, a right decent
movie, but her math let me down.

Anyway, the movie hinged (sorta) on a math problem.

lim(x->0) ( ln(1-x) - sin x ) / (1 - cos^2 x)

The answer given in the movie was the limit
doesn't exist. But that's wrong.

The limit works out to 0 / 0, but by l'hopital's
rule, which is something that is taught in high
school calculus, if the limit of an indeterminate
form is 0/0, you can differentiate the top and
bottom with respect to x and take the limit again.

So if you do it once you get

(-1/(1-x) - cos x) / (2 sin x cos x)

which if you take the limit, is -2/0 which is
still indeterminate, so you differentiate again
and you get

(-1/(1-x)^2 + sin x ) / (2 (- sin^2 x + cos^2 x) )

and that if you take the limit gives you -1/2

Anyway, just to prove that I was firmly in the
mathlete clique in high school.


4/18/04
Magic

Romina was quite shocked to learn that I believe
in magic. So too are most of my techie friends
when they first find out. I suppose I should
explain.

I am currently reading Philip Pullman, the author
of the latest hip "kids" series _His Dark
Materials_, a modern accessible version of
_Paradise Lost_, in that it is parable about
theology, but it is also a contemplation of
alternate world histories, and of magic and
multi-dimensional existence. It is certainly not
the best exposition of ideas about magic, but far
deeper than Harry Potter, plus it prompted this
entry.

I always shared a common understanding about the
magical world with my cousin Alex, mostly through
a shared appreciation of imho magic's ultimate
text, the White Wolf RPG, Mage: The Ascension.
These views helped crystallize when one Christmas,
Alex gave me a comic book by Alan Moore, "Snakes
and Ladders" which I did not quite understand, but
was a gateway to Moore's more accessible comic
book discourse on magic, the Promoethea series.
(For a more literary reference, Borges deserves
mention as well.)

I have never been able to properly explain my view
on magic. I hold to the maxim that you do not
properly understand something until you can
explain it in less than two minutes, so I will
try, but I recommend the above references for a
better exposition. To start, it takes the
Derrida/Foucault post-modern post-structural view
that reality is socially constructed, from some
sort of collective or even individual will. There
is also the idea that there is something special
about human creativity, heck, even just pure
consciousness is special. Science should have
"meaning," rather than just be purely analytical.
Pullman takes somewhat of a more pop-physics
multi-dimensional quantum view that is less
compelling but interesting. Mage: The Ascension
takes the view that the current world dominated by
Reason is merely one possible equilibrium that
arose only in the last few hundred years (ala
Newton, and elucidated by Wittgenstein and Popper,
and recently explored more prosaically by my
favorite author: Neal Stephenson [see 12/04/2003,
and others]), and ruthlessly maintained perhaps
unconsciously by the "technocratic" (semi-abuse of
term) elite. Yet this Age of Reason that we live
in is only one reality of many, a small part of a
greater "reality." I always liked the notion
proffered in the NJ State K-12 Mathematics
Guidelines that the grasping of paradox is a key
element of intellectual maturity. Godel
demonstrated that mathematics is necessarily
incomplete. Possibilities are endless.

I had a sudden moment of clarity last night, a
touch with the infinite so the speak, regarding my
role in the universe. An instant so pure it had to
be true. My cousin Alex will one day unlock magic
again to become the first True Mage of the Modern
Age, and at the ritual where these cosmic energies
and forces will be unleashed, he will invite me
alone to bear witness, as the one who has at least
a glimmer of understanding. In the novelizations,
and the later movies, I will be the surrogate for
the reader/viewer - the Dr. Watson - and the first
to witness the dawn of a new age of man.


04.15.04
A geeky status symbol

I just wanted to brag about my latest geeky status
symbol:
benjaminho(at)gmail.com
A coveted gmail address. Which is cool in and of
itself. It has very cool features. emacs/vi based
keyboard shortcuts. It follows my philosophy of
e-mail which is never delete, which i have been
following since freshamn year. (8 years of e-mail
now. I'm old). Nice search options. It pre-empts
the new thing in OS tech, the end of hierarchical
folder structures, to be replaced by database type
searches. Supposedly a feature of the next Windows
incarnation. And whatever else they come up with
before it goes public.

And the best part is I have an account. When I
heard all the buzz about it, I saw one line that I
latched on to. Only available to friends and
family of google employees. Bingo. What are
friends for. I luckily have two at google.

Of course my grand plan didn't work out so well. I
had visions of getting bho(at)gmail.com (how hot is
that), or at worst benho(at)gmail.com
but stupid system, minimum 6 letter usernames, and
a bug made it so it wouldn't even let me take
ben.ho(at)gmail.com oh well. I guess I had to settle.
I somehow lost my old 6 digit ICQ number too. At
least I'm not stuck my benhomit or benjamin_t_ho,
the usernames for hotmail and yahoo.

The stupid things I care about huhn?

Oh, and I also, somehow for the first time in the
history of the internet lost my spot at the top
of the search engines when you search for "Ben Ho"
I've had a webpage back before lycos even existed
and definitely before yahoo, and always, "Ben Ho"
when searched brought you to me. Now, I'm second
to some stupid art gallery run by some Ben Ho in
australia. Who wants to see that. Which means,
you, dear readers, should start linking to my
site!



04.04.04
Journalists and an Auspicious Date

Not much to write about, just an auspicious date.

I thought I would just note that David Brooks is
still one of my two favorite journalists. I don't
even know the names of many, but his always stood
out, from Organization Kid, to Bobos in Paradise,
to today's NY Times Magazine paean to the American
dream: (see also my entry 3/28/03, 4/26/01,
8/17/03)

David Brooks paean to the American Dream

This article, a bit too self aware, and too full
of Brooks mish-mash pop-culture explosion,
pop-anthrpology, but thought provoking and good
nevertheless.  Unfortunately, though  his column
was a welcome addition to the times, what little
that I have read has been right wing Krugman,
boring univocal harping. Oh well.

It is interesting to see former Stanford writer
Joel Stein's (see 8/06/02) range ever-expanding,
who lost his humor column in Time Magazine to
9/11, but has since written for every other
section of the magazine from food to foreign
affairs, all with his wry, self deprecating, and
(i only realized recently)
neo-libertarian/conservative wit.

It is funny, because both writers, I never quite
realized were conservative until much after they
became established as my favorite. Interesting.


3.29.2004
Dream Job: The Sport's World's Not Ready I guess

Not that I ever even watch Sports Center, but I
happened to catch a couple of the last episodes,
just enough to see America reject Aaron Levine,
Stanford senior, but more importantly, half
Asian/half Jewish (where have I seen that before).

Aaron, an early favorite due to his coinage "a big
case of the runs" in regards to a punt return,
seemed to have won the events of last episode,
with a higher score on the sports knowledge part,
and he seemed to be preferred by the judges. But
America's not ready. He lost in the viewer vote to
the indiffernt white guy, but a vote of 60% to
40%.

Asian American males have recently been gaining in
cultural awareness outside of the normal realm of
kung-fu, with
David Wang Louie's book, the Barbarians are Coming (my review)
and Better Luck Tomorrow (my review)
and for better or worse William Hung
but still not ready for the big stage. Aaron
Levine as Sports Center anchor would have been a
huge step. His career may yet take off, but not
with nearly the same impact.

And America has spoken, and I cannot judge. Just
like its ok to expect black people to vote for
Colin Powell because he's black, I have always
felt it is more or less fine for white people to
vote for a white person because he's white. I'm
just a bit disappointed, that's all.


3.25.2004
Obit-Lite: Spalding Gray

I know nothing about Spalding Gray except I once
saw a snippet of one of his monologues on TV one
day which I carry with me (figuratively) when I
travel, of how everytime he's in a new place he is
searching for the Perfect Moment and then he's
ready to leave, "that instant when everything is
in alignment and life is an effortless joy."

I am reading about my gift subscription to Conde
Nast Traveller now, and they talk about getting
off the beaten track, in search of the
"authetntic" like the flower in Manon de Sources,
though they almost make the "authentic" sound
canned.

I talked about this earlier, in my Tao of
Travel/Serendipity entry last June, but I just
wanted to record a few more memories. I covered
many of my Paris ones already, here are some
others. The random Jamaican industrial
psychologist late of Taiwan with a hip coffee shop
in Mitchell South Dakota. Singing and dancing with
abandon with dorky economists on the streets of
Trento, Italy raising the ire of the local
constabulary. Joining the medieval festivals of
Provins home of the Champagne Faires of Milgrom
North and Weingast. Negotiating with a hotel clerk
in French. Meeting an African day trader. Walking
through suburban Kutna Hora. Meeting the white
hippile reiki master amazonian after switching
rooms with the Moroccans. The American tour guide
in Venice who hated Venice... I dunno, good stuff.


2.8.2004
Interesting Times: Presidential Briefings and Beauty Pageants

As this page is primarily to serve as notes for my
memoirs, or less egotistical, a letter from my
current self to my future self, I thought I should
record a couple extraordinary things that happened
recently.

Item 1:

So, a couple weeks ago, I had an exhausting
weekend. My advisor e-mailed Thursday night saying
he needed urgent help. Meeting him Friday
afternoon, he tells me he has a meeting with the
President the following week regarding free trade
and that he needs a briefing by Monday morning. I
was expected to summarize the economics literature
on free trade into a 10 page document over the
weekend. A daunting and stressful task. I am not
much of a trade expert, but somehow I knew more
than my advisor, who is a labor economist. I was
expected to summarize the literature, and possibly
shape policy, on this, the issue that once I was
so passionate about that it convinced me to study
economics.

 Item 2:

 A friend of mine was a contestant in the Miss
 Chinatown USA beauty pageant. An amazing thing
 really. Though she is quite attractive, I never
 saw her as a pageant type, and is some ways it
 showed. Not up to speed with the girly stuff, I
 still thought she might have a shot with her
 breathtaking violin playing and her Stanford Law
 pedigree, as sorta the Sandra Bullock in Miss
 Congeniality long shot. It wasn't to be however.
 But the show was quite fascinating. I had wanted
 to go after hearing about it at an anthropology
 seminar on the Chinese Diaspora. It was conducted
 in mostly Cantonese and some broken English
 though the contestants mostly didn't understand,
 and neither did much of the audience. It in some
 ways represents an attempt for the current San
 Francisco Chinese community to cling to a China
 that no longer exists, and perhaps somewhat
 failing to remain relevant to a new generation.



1.28.2004
B.Ho for President

So I was recently asked, what do I want to do when
I grow up. Here's my answer:

So my standard pat answer for what I want to do
when I grow up, is be the President of the United
States. Jed Bartlett (Martin Sheen's character on
the West Wing) is my hero, and I feel there are so
many things to be fixed in this world that that
would be the best way. Though given that I don't
think I have what it takes to smile at cameras,
kiss babies, lie about my beliefs, and given
inspiring speeches, the chance of me getting
elected is zero. So I dream of somehow getting
appointed Secretary of Treasury perhaps, (maybe a
snowball's chance in hell for that one), and then
I'm only 5 simultaneous assassinations away from
the presidency.

Though now that I'm spent a few more years in
school, I realize that though I thought I had all
the answers, I'm not so sure anymore. A little bit
of economics will make you think, wow, there are
so many dumb things going on in the world. A
little more economics will tell you that, yeah,
maybe there is, but there's no easy way to fix
them.

Perhaps the hardest and most important thing to do
as president is not knowing the right answer, but
being able to make decisions without knowing the
right answer. Which I guess is why SAT scores
don't matter when it comes to choosing a
president. This is something that my friend Reza
helped me understand when he told me flat out that
I would make a terrible president. Perhaps he's
right.



1.12.2004
Practical Calculus - A laundry application

Its funny the math that people consider so
essential for citizenship that it is taught to
every child in America. Like Geometry for example.
One often wonders what the use is. Though perhaps
the mere logic leading to clear thinking is
useful.

Here is one application from calculus class that I
use in everyday life.

Without thinking about it, when I put two dryer
sheets in the dryer I want to space them as far
apart as possible. I guess I have this model that
dryer sheet goodness diffuses radially, and thus
to maximize benefit area, one should space them
out. However, I do not place them on opposite ends
of the dryer. Because given the rotating nature of
the dryer, cylindrical coordinates are more
appropos than cartesian, and thus two sheets at
opposite ends would have different thetas but
very similar r's. So I have this image that once
the dryer starts spinning, the dryer sheets will
follow some basically chaotic path, but one
primarily involving changing thetas. So I thus try
to put one sheet under the clothes, and the other
atop. Aren't you glad you just spend 5 minutes
reading this?




12.29.2003
Hollywood's Fantastic Surgence (LOTR, H. Potter, Star Wars....)

Another e-mail correspondance: (I'm lazy)

> Why are books and films such as Star Wars, The
> Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter series so
> popular?  The answer is that they celebrate the
> power of loyal friendship and individual
> courage, a power that can off even the most
> devastating forces of darkness. 
>
> SNIP
> 
> Luke Skywalker, Frodo and Harry Potter all have
> one thing in they are ordinary people who
> achieve great good through their courage and
> ability to inspire the friendship of others.  

These are all possible explanations. The most
interesting (though somewhat fantastic) analysis
of this recent trend was alluded to in a Time
magazine article on the subject last December
(2002), but most cogently espoused here: 

http://www.davidbrin.com/tolkienarticle1.html


In short, these three movies are indicative of a
dangerous throwback to elitist romantic era
notions of stability, feudalism and social order.
A notion we long for, in an era of uncertainty.

The new Star Wars movies have transformed the Jedi
into a genetically superior master race, of purple
(mitochlorine) blooded unelected knights and lords
whose sense of nobless oblige is all that prevents
despotism.

Harry Potter was always obnoxious for its its
patent disdain for Muggles (again, people who are
not members of the master race, this time of
sorcerers). The normal people are at times
despised, at times treated as pitiable animals, at
times lab specimens, always inferior.

Lord of the Rings is more complex, so I will
direct you to the above mentioned David Bring
article which is very persuasive. His conclusion
in brief, Sauron is the hero, his industrialized
multi-ethnic civilization which had technology
that could potential empower all its citizens, not
merely the technocratic elite, was destroyed by
the denizens of the old order, grasping to retain
their power.

That being said, I still loved all those movies
and saw all of them in the theatres (some multiple
times). However, this was by far the most
interesting connection I have seen on why these
movies are so popular. And the most telling
indicator of the zeitgeist of our times.




12.22.2003
Learning Sports by Video Game

Contepmlating the future of education, I find it
interesting that there are a few sports that I
have acquired skill in purely from video game.

One of the earliest is GameBoy golf, where I
learned to put, guiding the ball across black and
white arrows of different intensity, helped when I
was actually on the greens.

More recently, there has been street hockey, where
after the initial skills of skating and passing
and shooting are acquired, what interest me is the
strategy, the positioning. Where, now,
contemplating whether to drive for the goal, or
where to pass, I see superimposed, Matrix-like,
glowing blue, area of control circles, around
teammates, where a pass is likely to be completed
if the ball enters.  And probabilities of scoring.

Finally, on the slopes of Tahoe, with my fairly
new snowboard on the moguly bumps of ungroomed
trails, I am thinking about Tony Hawk: pro-skater,
where you must align the skateboard properly with
the hill or your onscreen avatar wipes out. I feel
I use judgements developed from the game to guide
my way between the hard unforgiving snow.

So most of these three are mostly just analogies.
Games just provided proper metaphores for thinking
about these games. But still, a neat way of
thinking and interaction with media, I'm thinkin'.




12.16.2003
Impression: Sunset

Again, saw an image, without camera, so I do a
word sketch, ala dickens, if i may be so bold...

Saw a sunset today on the highway, after an
exhaustingly thrilling day on the slopes. Four
feet of fresh powder. First tracks through the
woods. For most of the day, the sky a brilliantly
clear and solid blue, except for the squiggly
contrails that marked the passage of aeroplanes
and left their footprint hours after they passed.

But the clouds rolled in at sunset, just in time
for the Red sun low in the horizon to paint the
sky a lush blood red, interspersed with vivid
lavendars of clouds in the shadows of the last
rays of the sun. At one quadrant of the sky, the
clouds were bumpy like of a weird multifaceted
fungi, but most of the sky was sinuously smooth
like a sand sculpture, with layers of color, red
and lavendar, but also dusky oranges and darkening
blues, all gentling nestling betwixt dark
snowcapped mountains.




12.04.2003
Neal Stephenson, my cyber-fictional platonic analogue: A Diamond Age Review

So I have decided that Neal Stephenson is the
cyber-fictional representation of my own personal
intellectual Weltanschauung. Basically, his books
are perhaps the best expression of how I view the
world, from a research/intellectual point of view
anyway.

Find out what I mean here.
.


11.13.2003
Musings on probability and faith

From an e-mail correspondance. This is totally
incomprehensible, I know but...

on not trusting probability, i feel this is an
idea i've heard before. it actually came to mind
while watching the mutiny on the bounty on amc,
which they're showing over and over because of
master and commander. the commander said, "i think
our *chance* of survival is fair" so the story
takes place in 1780 and i was just wondering if
the concept of chance even made sense to the
seamen at that point or if its a 20th century
notion, or if its older.

even within economics, notions of probability are
not so clear cut. The Ellsberg paradox
(incidentally ellsberg was a decision theorist who
gained notoriety as the leaker of the pentagon
papers that helps sink the Nixon whitehouse)
demonstrates this nicely. In fact, the whole
standard Von-Neumann Morganstern notion of
expected utility is not really entirely believed
by people who think about the axioms on which
economics is based. the main objection is that it
assumes you really can put a tangible probability
on things, and that people know what they are, and
agree on them. Savage has a different formulation
that depends only on subjective evaluation of
probability, though its generally far too abstruse
to be of much good.

i've even begun to question the nature of
probaiblity in general after asking myself a
fairly innocuous question. like after taking an
exam, I will often say, hmm, I give myself a 50%
of getting an A, a 40% chance of getting a B, a
10% chance of getting below that. But then, a) do
these numbers have any meaning at all. b) if i
wanted to collect statistics at how well i am at
judging these probabilities, can i? I haven't been
able to answer these questions though i've asked
many people.

So all this was before i even got to the part on
religion. its an interesting idea. its sort of the
opposite of the idea of God is in the details. Or
maybe that's precisely it. its all the parts that
we cannot explain.

this is somewhat related to one of the uses I
normally invoke God for, which is that there is an
objective truth out there. a black and white
answer for every properly posed question. and this
truth is God. but man is finite. Turing (and
Godel) showed there are questions that cannot be
computed, cannot be known. And computability
theory in general tells of many problems that we
could find out but takes eons to calculate. this
idea comes up a lot while musing about
determinism.

though on your question of what is religion, i
take a much more
practical/sociological/functionalist view.
religion is just the set of rules and heuristics
developed evolutionarily (evidence: we have
religion centers of the brain) that allow society
to function ala Neal Stephenson's cyberpunk novel
Snowcrash. essentially, the mechanism that gets us
to play cooperate in the prisoner's dilemma of
life.

see what happens when you give me a chance to
stand on a soap box. ah, that was fun. probably
totally incomprehensible, but i enjoyed myself.
mastabatory perhaps.




11/3/2003
Noam Chomsky

Astute readers of this site will note that Noam
Chomsky is listed in my bio page as one of the few
people I hate. In some small way, my opinion of
him has somewhat been redeemed in last week's NY
times magazine interview.

link here

In particular the last question:

Have you considered leaving the United States
permanently? 

No. This is the best country in the world. 





10/27/2003
Re: Natural resources are finite.  Period.  The question is not if we'll run out of oil but when.

Another one of my e-mails:

Ok, though this has been somewhat covered, the
issue has been somewhat muddled. What needs to be
said is that your assertion is plainly wrong. We
will not run out of oil, EVER. Well, perhaps in
several thousand years, but I don't really care
about that.

There are many sources of oil, some are very
expensive to extract. As the price of oil goes up,
the alternatives will be exploited until they are
no longer viable.

Now, quite possibly, the price of oil will go up,
though as Ehrlich's foolish wager demonstrated,
this could easily be overstated. But presuming the
price goes up, government intervention is only
necessary if we believe that the markets will not
react fast enough to the changes.

Though this is possible, I am not especially
worried. Hybrid cars are already rapidly becoming
quite mature in an era of record low gas prices.
Fuel Cells are indeed under rapid development as
is wind power, so long as the hypocritical cape
cod millionaires shut up. And OPEC has learned
that it is in its own self interest that the US
economy be kept strong.

Oil prices are very sensitive to information about
the future and one of the most liquid markets in
the world. If there really is a legitimate danger
of skyrocketing oil prices, self interested oil
traders would be quick to adjust prices upward,
gradually, giving technology time to adjust. Can
someone point out the market failure that will
keep this from happening?





10/14/03
Bush is not a Fascist

In response to an e-mail I got over an e-mail list:

Paranoid rants are always amusing.

We all agree with Franklin oft mis-paraphrased
quote, "They that can trade ESSENTIAL liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither
liberty nor safety (emphasis mine).
However, the question lies in the definition of
essential.

The reason that the information about the 20
suspicious Arabs enrolling in Flight Schools was
not followed up on by the FBI is that they would
not have been able to get the judge to agree to
the warrants due to civil liberty concerns. As a
result, one chance to prevent 9/11 was missed.

We give up freedoms all the time. We have freedom
of speech, but not the right to shout fire in a
crowded theater. We have the right to property,
but not the right to build a gun or avoid paying
taxes. The constitution enshrines eminent domain.
Lincoln suspended habeus corpus. We even don have
the right to make a joke if it makes someone feel
uncomfortable.

We willingly give up these freedoms, because we
believe it makes society a better place.

Now, the current administration believes that
there are a few more freedoms that we need to give
up. And maybe that ok. It also goes both ways.
There are other freedoms that have been previously
taken away, that the administration now wants to
provide. The freedom to pray in school. The
freedom to trade with other countries. The freedom
to spend more of your money as you please.

Now, we can argue about whether each of these
trade offs are worthwhile. And we can debate about
the relative merits. I actually do think that most
of these trade offs probably are not worth it.
However, holding the belief that certain liberties
may be worth sacrificing for the hope of LASTING
safety, does not make one evil; it does not make
one a fascist.




10/07/03
Chinatown Idyll

I was asked on an application I just filled out to
answer the following:

Please describe an interesting life experience you
have had:

Walking home to Brooklyn from Times Square, the
week before September 11th actually, and passing
through Chinatown, and finding a small park, only
half a block from City Hall, filled with Chinese
immigrants that looked as if it could have been
transplanted from China - leathery old faces
telling fortunes and gambling at cards - except
for the kids playing stick ball, which had as many
Black and Hispanic faces as Chinese.





9/18/03
Re: btw, Ben- you were an intern for *Clinton*..?!

(haven't updated for awhile, this was a recent
e-mail correspondance I had)

Somebody else wrote:
> i asked because i assumed most of the Clinton
> interns were Dems, but maybe not nec. all of
> them.. 

"The people I have met have been extraordinarily
qualified. Their intent is good. Their commitment
is true. They are righteous, and they are
patriots."

"Is it so hard to believe, in this day and age,
that someone would roll up their sleeves, set
aside partisanship, and say, 'What can I do?' "

Not that I especially identify with the republican
party in any case, though it wouldn't stopping me
from working there even if I was. Though probably
more republican than democrat, and I find myself
defending republicans a lot because there's a lot
of stupid anti-republican sentiment on campus, and
one thing I am certainly in favor of is
anti-stupidity.

-- Ben

(bonus points for identifying the quotes)




8/28/03
An Exegesis on Cruisin'

So whilst in Paris, in the midst's of my 5 week
European jaunt, I was watching a lot of television
to recharge my batteries so to speak, whence I
came upon a documentary about the
upstairs/downstairs world of a cruise ship. What
was fascinating was that though it was not
identified until the credits, I instantly
recognized the Mistral as a Princess ship, because
whether it was a US based ship cruisin to Alaska
or a French based ship cruisin to the West Indes,
the ship was virtually identical.

Cruises are fascinating little social eco-systems.
When I was aboard, there were 2000 passengers, and
1000 crew members catering to your every whim.
Some crew members had special status, (the stars)
like in the Love Boat. Their job was to make you
feel like they were your friend, and you got to
know their names, and were actually quite
successful in a very artificial way. They hosted
the shows, ran the contests, and even danced with
people until the dance floor was filled. They must
hate it. Or maybe they're just weird.

The other crew, especially seen through the eyes
of the documentary, live in a world unto
themselves. The vast majority are only rarely seen
by the passengers, before they work themselves up
to a higher spot, where they desperately
ingratiate themselves for tips. But they are an
international bunch, wending their way from
wherever impoverished people come. Speaking por
English as the lingua franca, even though it is a
french based ship. But truly enjoying each other
at least, and earning exorbitant salaries (at
least in their world), though they likely could
never afford one night as a guest, and though
surrounded by pools and other luxury vacation
amentities, only afforded access on the extremely
rare days when there are no passengers aboard.

But from the passenger side, I truly enjoyed my
experience, making instant friends, winning all
the trivia contests (or sharing the winnings with
this other group of over-achieving
Chinese-Americans), taking constitutionals on the
promenade deck, inhaling the crisp sea air, as the
sun set over surfacing whales. Enjoying fine
dining, and being waited on hand and foot, with
someone always ready to sell you something, and
always willing to pretend like s/he's your best
friend. An artificial world, but a nice departure
from reality, which I guess is what a vacation is
all about.

(whilst, whence and wend in one whirl)





8/17/03
L'auberge European

My favorite journalist David Brooks, (see 3/28/03
and 4/26/01 below) (or at least closely tied with
Joel Stein) has another interesting piece in
Atlantic Monthly on diversity, or more precisely,
America's lack of it:


David Brooks on Diversity

While he is overly pessimistic when he laments
America's lack of diversity, he does touch upon a
point that I am sorely aware of, walking the halls
of Academia. Brooks' notes that of the 57 Brown
professors who are registered party members, 54
are democrats. Even at Stanford, home of the
Hoover Institute, I am very hard pressed to find a
single person who voted for Bush, and openly
supports him today, though he is supported by the
(dare i say vast) majority of Americans. Our
social networks do not stray far. This leads to
people saying stupid things like a caller to NPR
saying "Californians are very well informed
voters. All of my friends are." or Clinton saying
that he knew of no smart person who supported the
dividend tax cut. This is easily seen in magazines
like Harper's (which I read) which panders to the
preconceptions of its audience, never challenging
their dogmas.

Yet while I acknowledge these failings, what
should be recognized is that nowhere else in the
world but America is diversity so highly valued
and so successfully achieved. Among the young,
interracial relationships are hardly remarked
upon, and dogma if identified (a big if) is
quickly denounced. Nearly all at least mouth
support for the free exchange of divers ideas,
though ardent self-righteous partisans (left,
right and beyond) often deny it in practice. Yet
as a society, America values diversity highly.

This is not the case elsewhere. Having recently
returned from Europe, one sees the incredible
amount of homogeneity, in France where French
cultural patrimony must above all else be
preserved, entombed and enshrined, or in Germany
where certain ideas are simply illegal.
Nationalism is still a question of skin color and
residence of great grandfather. Not a single
French newspaper took a dissenting position
regarding the party-line view of Iraq. There is,
however, refreshing signs of change.

At a two week workship for Economics PhD Students
(almost as specialized a social network as you can
get) where the 30 students were carefully chosen
so that there were hardly any more than two from
any country, amazing camraderie was formed. High
in the mountains of Trento, Italy, language was no
barrier, and differneces were celebrated. In
particular, there was evidence of the nascent
European identity. Many were involved in serious
cross-national relationships. When I asked one
Portuguese girl studying in the United States if
it was difficult, being far from home, she simply
replied that it was not so bad, there were many
other Europeans in her program. The rosy
cosmopolitan utopia of the recent film L'auberge
espagnol, may come to pass.

Good news for those partisans for diversity.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little
minds." -Ralph Waldo Emerson. Words I live by.





8.7.03
Home sweet home... Memories of Prague

So after a long 5 week jaunt across the pond, I'm
back on the left coast. I have lots of notes and
lots to say about Paris and Venice, Party Animal
Economists and Contemporary Art, Computer Graphics
and Renaissance Perspective, the Tour de France
and Japanese Art Porn, and just the pleasures of
travel, but for now, I will start off with
memories of Prague.

Oh, and of course pictures. I took nearly 1000
pictures on my trip. I love my camera. But my
comptuer having died while I was away, it will be
some time before I get the highlights sorted and
posted. Damn computer. Anyway...

So Prague was the last leg of my five week
buisiness/pleasure trip, and after spending four
weeks in what Bushie calls "Old Europe," Italy,
Austria, France, I was hit by decidedly "New
Europe." Just 12 years out of communism, one is
struck by the unbridled capitalism, from the
dozens of hotel salesman on the train platform
that push hotel rooms onto travelling students. (I
stayed in the very nice converted guest room of a
local resident who has been doing this ever since
capitalism came to Prague). You could also see it
in Wencelas Square, as much a paean for global
brandnames as 5th avenue of the Champs-Elysee. You
could contrast the tourist stores that stay open
until past midnight 7 days a week to the
constrained hours of old europe. Or the tons of
cheesy classical concerts vieing desperately for
tourist attention.

There is an energy and newness in prague today
that is exciting given its 1000 year history. In
contemporary art, this summer marks Prague's first
annual In-Out (unrelated to the cancelled Avignon
festival apparently) exhibition of digital art,
ranging from stunning images in their Old Town
Square, to exhibitions across various art
galleries and jazz clubs. They also had the first
ever Prague Biennale, audaciously coinciding with
the 100th anniverary of the venerable Venice
Biennale. And in food, Prague is excitingly trying
to define itself away from staid communist slavic
palates. In addition to the fact that you can get
quite a nice complete meal at a sit down place for
under $4, it was exciting to sample the variety of
cuisine. Each place was trying to find a new
identity, from the fancy Pekla in a 12th century
monastic wine cellar to the numerous beer gardens.
They are looking to the East, and Chinese food for
inspiration, with Asian sauces and soy sauce a
common condiment. They are experimenting with
their own crepes, with fresh pasta, with crass
franchises, but all in an inchoate way. There is
no consensus, and a lot of it felt a bit tenative
and new, but it was certainly exciting.

That's my snapshot of prague.

For something new, I will leave here the option of
leaving a comment, we'll see how this works out:





6.24.03
Serendipity: The Tao of Travel

Last Friday, coming out of my favorite Singaporean
restaurant for dinner, I had some time to kill,
and seeing four batman-esque spot lights, I
naturally followed. Surprisingly, they led me to
Kepler's book store (a hip college town bookstore)
which had setup a recreated Diagon Alley in
anticipation of the midnight premier of Harry
Potter, complete with the Owlery selling stuffed
owls, the wand shop with wands, the book shop with
books, in addition to face painting, to give kids
the lightening scar and potter glasses, as well as
a hat of choosing which would "magically" announce
one of the four schools. Not to mention of course
six cop cars lots of photographers and the NBC
news van. Quite a re-nao (to borrow the uniquely
Chinese word vaguely meaning hustle-bustle), and
quite neat and quite serendipitous.

I was reminded of my past experiences travelling,
and thoughts of what made them work. I think a big
part comes from what I learned from the Pooh,
specifically the Tao of Pooh, which basically
means to let Serendipity (the Tao) take you where
she may, and to be receptive to her good graces.

One novelist (somehow associated with Apocalypse
Now I believe) remarks that every time he goes to
a new place, there is one moment when it all comes
together, a moment of complete and utter
satisfaction. When I was staying in Paris, I did
even better, for the six weeks I was there, I felt
each day was a truly incredible experience,
whether I was picnicing on fresh tomatoes and cous
cous by a lake at Versaille, or sipping wine and
watching a mime at a cafe on the Champs Elysee,
taking to the streets on the greatest French
victory since the liberation after WWII (world cup
victory) to watching the Three Tenors live at the
foot of the Eiffel Tower.

The trick is to open up and enjoy... drink life to
the lees as Tennyson likes to say. Stuff to
remember as I embark for my five week European
jaunt. And to think I was just complaining...


5.20.03
Matrix Reloaded: Kicks A$$ (ben's indecipherable
brain dump)

so too lazy to write a review. don't worry if you
haven't seen the movie, don't think you could
possibly get anything out of reading this. but
quite frankly, it was one of the best movies i've
seen in a while. better than the first. here's
why:


Determinism vs free will. as the architect
revealed his architecture, literally equations
scrolled before my eyes, economic models, and
epsilon error terms. the limits of predictability.
stochastic processes, divergent brownian motion,
and chaos theory. furthermore, the protestant
problem of free-will, casually discarded by
quantum theory, better addressed by chaos or
computability, godel incompleness, church thesis.
the human spirit. ahh, pop philosophy. gotta love
it.

Animalistic love. lots of sex. gratuitous? no.
sex, the carnal expression all are familiar with,
reproduction, pleasure. undeniably human.

Mage the ascension. the life around us.
highlander, ghosts, vampires, explained. the
hidden world. the expert playing with the standard
sci-fi/fantasy tropes. the keymaker. the uneasy
tension between the real world and the matrix
world, and the world of us the viewer, that was
recaptured despite the first movie revealing all.
the ability to surprise yet again.

Shit dog. that action was tight. the free frame
360 rotation was upped a level, gone are the 35mm
SLR still cameras, here is the CGI that allows
them to move while frozen in the air. fight scenes
in full hong kong glory (perhaps the one failing
of lotr). overhead with the smiths, the orgasmic
pinnacle, Morpheus with Samurai Sword and Handgun.

also, frogs. frog talk. jesus, starwars, council,
believable political economy. amazingly
consistent, and plot hole free.


mostly perhaps, lowered expectations. with
everyone saying it sucked, a movie is easy to
impress. managing expectations as the pundits say.
relative happiness in the world of behavioral
economics. whatever it is, i enjoyed.

Grade: A



3/28/03
Ponderings on Identity: Bobos and Bok Choy

I finished on the plane today, David Brooks'
excellent book, Bobos in Paradise, an excellent
journalist whom I have already written about (see
Organization Kid below), who's thoughtful, erudite
analysis cleared up and answered succinctly, two
questions that have been bothering me for some
time. The first, I considered most recently
talking to my friend Shiyan who commented on the
hypocrisy people tend to exhibit, louding
preaching egalitarian values, but at the same time
striving for elitism. The strange juxtaposition of
today's elites pretending to be average people.
The other is this theory that my cousins and I
have been kicking around, on post-cynicism, (a
manifesto I introduced in my review of the film 
Mallrats), which tries to understand how the
idealism of the 60's merged with the pragmatism of
the 80's. Our conclusion was something we called
post-cyncism. Brooks does us one better.

Brooks' answer is that today, America is dominated
by Bobo culture. Bobos (Brooks' term for Bourgeois
Bohemian) must reconcile the long traditions of
both Bohemia and Bourgeois into one. Thus they
focus on self-improvement, value most the mind,
and are happy to spend their money in the pursuit
of their passions. I cannot do the book justice
here, let it be said this is one of the best (and
also easily readable books) I have read in some
time.

Of course while I very highly identify with
Brook's analysis, one flaw in Brooks analysis is
his focus on American concepts of individualism.
And though many of these ideas were familiar in my
own Chinese-American upbringing, they do not quite
fit, as so eloquently put by episode III of Bill
Moyer's Becoming American: The Chinese Experience
http://www.pbs.org/becomingamerican/ that just
aired on PBS this week. (They will likely repeat
in the very near future).  Skip episode I and II,
they are rather poorly done, but episode III hits
home, and highlights some key concepts of my
personal chinese-american experience. The main one
is that the ideas are not explicit, but implicit.
I do not know exactly what Confuscius said, nor
was the importance of educaiton laid out, but both
are somehow central to my life. Through interviews
with Chinese Americans both young and well
established (Maya Lin, David Ho), Moyer's tale
fills in the other half of my identity.


3.18.3
Fifteen and a Half

Days of skiing this year. Maybe 17 and a half. Not bad at all.
Life is good.


3.8.3
I got Herpes from this girl at Tahoe

So nothing deep this week. Just a lament for a
life-changing experience.

So I was up at Tahoe for a ski trip a few weeks
ago, with a few friends, and I was sitting on the
lift up with one of them. And she makes the
comment that she always makes sure to put on chap
stick when skiing because she always gets cold
sores. I make the comment, something to the effect
of "Darn, I knew I forgot something. My lips
always get horribly chapped." She gamely offers me
hers.

At this point, alarm bells should have gone off,
and they did, silently. I thought, hmm, well cold
sores are caused by the herpes virus, something
that can never be cured, but I already get sores
when I get sick (later I found the ones I was
thinking of are canker sores, a different thing
entirely) so what's the harm. Most people carry
the herpes virus anyway. Oh, how wrong.

Sure enough, two days after the trip, annoying
irritating bulbous cold sores popped up on my
lips, damn them. Stupid me. Last week I was up
skiing again, and sure enough, once again two days
after getting back, they make their nasty
reappearance.  Ahhhh!!!


3.5.3
Movie Micro-reviewlet: Starship Troopers

A recent e-mail exchange:
"I did not just see "Starship Troopers" on your
wishlist, I did not!  Tell me I am hallucinating,
just a typical psychotic symptom during a
hypomanic episode..."

I could say that Starship Troopers is a scathing
social commentary about the perils of war, based
on a book written by a science fiction writer held
in the highest esteem, and a snapshot of the
American reaction to the Vietnam War. Its highly
underrated, highly original director Paul
Verhoeven (director of Show Girls) has been the
subject of college courses (such as at Wesleyan) for
his unique camera style, and demonstrated by his
witty parody of World War II propganda films. As a
marker in movie history, it is the last grand
scale action film to be made without digital
effects. Or I could just say, Giant Ants, Doogie
Howser, and Hot Damn Denise Richards is Hot.


3.3.3
Useful Cultural Psychology: East vs. West (wow, cool date)

On the radio right now is Dick Nisbett, eminent
social psychologist, and good friend of Ross and
Lepper teachers of the renown social psychology
class here at Stanford which I took in my effort
to become the complete social scientist.

One important way of viewing the world, the
conflict between dispositionalism and
situationalism has proved very useful. (the most
important less from that class, that of perception
of Bias, I touched upon in the 1.14.03 entry), but
the issue of the fundamental attribution error,
where people attribute the actions of others to
their disposition, but the actions of themselves
to their situation. For example, presidents'
are often credited for their leadership, however,
they themselves often say it was all a matter of
circumstance.

Now, Nisbett is talking about the difference
between Westerners and Easterns broadly, or more
poetically, the children of Aristotle and the
children of Confuscius. The individualist
Americans who tend to focus on disposition, and
the other end, the East Asians, who focus more on
situation. The linear logical reasoning, versus
the circular qualitative reasoning.


2.3.03
Po is evil. Don't follow your passions.

Po Bronsen is an excellent story teller, but
ultimately potentially also a dangerous one. In
his latest book What should I do with my life? Po,
as he prefers to be called, relates the stories of
amazing people who followed their passions. A
world class ballerina quit the spotlight to go to
law school, a Cuban-American senior bank vice
president who decided she would rather be a social
worker, an investment banker who wanted time with
family and thus became a fish farmer, a
Chinese-American Yale graduate who disappointed
parents by becoming a teacher, the television
executive who became a kidney transplant advocate,
the Saved By the Bell producer who went back to
academia. Po, himself, turned down a $300,000 a
year bond trader job at the age of 24 to pursue
his career in writing. Heartwarming, Oprah quality
stories, of people who left their job to find
happiness. These people had two things in common.
One, they were true to their heart. Two, they were
all very wealthy people.

I tried confronting Po on this second fact by
comparing by China born cousins against my
American born cousins. The China born came to the
United States, untroubled by these notions of
passions, and have managed to make a comfortable,
if not successful life as accountants, computer
engineers, and investment bankers, surrounded by
new suburban houses, large screen televisions, and
the beginnings of families. By contrast, the
American born, in their dreams of following their
passion, are instead afflicted by dissatisfaction
and malaise as they refuse to be happy and to just
settle.

Po's answer was a good one. He said that in
America, because we have access to more resources,
we have a moral obligation to be true to
ourselves. In this, I must agree. However, I would
also advocate the converse view, being true to
yourself is a luxury recommended only for the
rich.

The people in Po's story's are all tremendously
wealthy. Some, endowed with high bank accounts,
others, merely with high human capital. To be able
to walk away from a high paying job, implies at
least having the choice of taking a high paying
job. For the vast majority of Americans, this is
not an option open to them. One most recognize
that this passion pursuit is a luxury good.

Thus, I am likely to get kicked out of the
economist profession for advocating such a view,
but the danger from Po's book is that it pushes a
myth that is already too prevalent in the United
States, that following your passion is more
important than accepting your place. I might argue
the more Confucian view, to accept your place. The
Taoist view, that one finds happiness by bending
like the reed. The Brave New World view, that
perhaps plain happiness is more important that
passion. That instead of spending your energy to
pursue your passion, perhaps instead you should
learn to find the joy that is already in your
life. Of course, Po might respond tautologically
that if that makes you happy, that is indeed what
you should do. However, his book seems to promise
the key to happiness, but may only offer
unattainable dreams.

From a personal level, I was able to find my
passion, and I am pursing it, and thus much of
what Po said rings true for me. I turned down my
six figure Wall St. job to come pursue my dreams.
Thus, perhaps it is elitist to believe that what's
good for the goose is not necessarily good for the
gander. Or perhaps Po is merely self-indulgent, as
he admits he has been accused of being. I have
contemplated the life of a 9-to-5 job, where
instead of the American model, living to work, I
follow the European model, working to live. My
roommate often dreams of a life of barbeques, beer
and football. Maybe for all the Homer Simpsons out
there, that's good enough.


1.30.03
Virginia Postrel et al.

Viriginia Postrel wrote an article on affirmative
action in today's New York times. It rung with all
the standard 'catch phrases' of objectivism, and
so looking her up htpp://www.dynamist.com , I
found her book,  /The Future and its Enemies/
which sounds like a nice repackaging of Atlas
Shrugged, using nice words like Dynamist (and now
Extropian) rather than Objectivist which is now a
dirty word. Still, her ideas are nice, I agree
that those that fear technology are evil, but
still, the same catch phrases get old pretty
quickly.


David Brin makes a far more interesting case (see
entry from 1.06.03).



1.14.03
Ponderance on Photojournalism

Being heavily involved in photography recently, I
have recently revisited my secret dream to run off
and become a photojournalist. Various Christmas
books have supported that. Plus, the various
pictures I just posted to this website.

I just got back from the end of a talk by George
Azar who presented a heavily biased
pro-palestinian view of the middle east, and I was
struck by the interesting relationship between
photography and truth. At least in written
accounts, you know to look for the author's bias,
but in photography, we are much more trusting,
even though just as much bias creeps into the
picture. Merely by the editing process invovled in
taking the picture. Almost any event imaginable is
taking place somewhere on the earth at any given
moment. By taking a picture to one particular
event, you are giving that one added import,
potentially much added import. And it is
dangerous, because we as a visual species aren't
trained to question photographs as we do words.

Thus after the talk, a group of girls (oddly the
male-female ratio was about 8-1 in the audience)
were having a bitter debate, with the Jewish girls
complaining bitterly about the presentation. It is
always interesting at what biases people notice,
like the Israel-Palestine issue, and what they
don't, the blatant Anti-Bush among the organizers.
Perhaps one of the most important scientific
finding I have learned as pertaining to my daily
life is the Lord, Ross, Lepper on the credibility
of the death penalty study, and how we perceive
facts to fit our preconceptions.

What I did realize from the talk is that I am in
the not cut out to be a photojournalist. Instead
of having a need, as Azar, to spread the truth,
for me I would be motivated only by curiosity, and
perhaps the romance of it all. Perhaps, this is
because, as I stated above, I don't believe
photography is a good arbiter of truth. Or
perhaps, I don't have the drive, the need to
paint, that drives the artist in New York Stories.

Oh well.


1.06.03
Why to root for Sauron

Read this:

http://www.davidbrin.com/tolkienarticle1.html


A brilliant tract espousing just how damn
wonderful modern times are, cleverly disguised as
a review of Lord of the Rings. I always get fed up
with those who dream of "simpler times."

With the same biting irreverence as Kevin Smith's
concern for the plight of the construction workers
on Jedi, Brin considers Sauron's point of view.

In the game Mage, I always find myself supporting
the Technocracy, who destroyed magic, by taking it
from the elite magicians, and giving it to the
people.

I too was especially peeved by how Lucas made the
Jedi a super-class of nobility in Phantom Menace,
by making the force a genetic trait rather than a
mark of character.

I do however, consider myself a romantic, perhaps
not in the 19th century sense, but in the 21st,
the extropian optimist, who believes that all
problems can be solved by human ingenuity.
Whatever that means.

(That was one damn good article though. I like
that. A nice change from things like the highly
one-sided egotistically written anti-IMF tract by
Stiglitz I just read. Another damn good article I
just read [one of the best ever on the US role in
the world, was this week's cover story in NY Times
magazine]).


1.1.02
Magic and Political Theory: Reflections from the Two Towers

So I am just returning from seeing the Two Towers,
(yes, I know it took me a while), and briefly my
opinion of the movie was pretty damn good.
Admittedly, it did feel like a 3 hour long battle
scene, but it was done darn well (which as we saw
in the latest Bond film, good action can be hard
to do) and the editing (and perhaps rewriting) was
good so that it didn't feel forced as the first
one did. Except for this awkward love triangle
that Peter Jackson invented between Aragon, Arwen,
and that Viking chick. Anyway, that is not my
point.

Nor is it my point to comment on how surprisingly
eagerly anticipated it was, even by those I
wouldn't consider the target demographic. perhaps
that is only a reflection of my narrow minded,
old-fashioned point of view. Though Time magazine
and others saw fit to comment on the surprisingly
ascendance of fantasy in popular culture.

My point is the interest notions of Magic and
Political Theory watching the movie invoked.
Firstly, what interested me about the film, was
how it illustrated Tolkein's original vision, of
reearthing Nordic/Celtic Lore, and their images of
valhala, glory and valor, nature and magic,
beowulf style. The story was fascinating because
it all could easily be a reflection of real events
through a story teller's lens. The Magic, like
Alan Moore's magic, or the magic of the Tao, or
the passive magic of Mage, is subtle, as when
Arwen's silent prayer saves Aragorn by having him
drift ashore, or when Gandalf arrives, not
blasting fireballs, but simply leading the
cavalry.

Given that, it was interesting to watch the
sequence of events and attempt to reconstruct the
"real world" situations that could lead to them.
Four nations, at the tip of peace, Moria makes a
deal with Isengard, and by buying off the vizier
of Rohan, attempts to subvert Rohan as well.

All hell breaks loose, war, the thing most feared
as farms are destroyed, livelihoods, people, all
devastated.

Given the seeming ease of all this, and history
implies that this chaos was not very far fetched,
it is a wonder there is a peace today.  What
political institutions developed to create the
world we live in? I suppose the returns to peace
are quite high, so perhaps it is not so surprsing
after all.



12.30.02
Column Ideas

Pre-Destination - mind as computer, quantum
effects, scientific vs. (promothea like) 
ontological emotional reasonsing (akin to my view
on intelligence)

Morality = as steven pinker's overrated as
internal state (see homosexuality/beauty),
morality as social institution, must have purpose,
rawls sorta right.

Property Rights = downloading mp3s is not like
stealing, as information is non-rival, and thus
downloading does not directly deprive others of
property. it is an artificial law, that we use to
grant monoopoly power (Aren't monopolies bad), and
laws can be flauted (see Thoreau, Gandhi, Mandela,
Parks) if we want to jaywalk.

spirit of x-mas. 


12.13.02
The 40 mpg SUV and existential crises (a friday the 13th opinion, ooh, scary)

I have occassionally of late gotten into various
existential crises about the field I have gotten
myself into. Economics, for all its promise,
appears rotten at the core, and I wonder if it is
useful for anything at all. Reading an article in
The Technology Review has reaffirmed my faith.

The cover story of this month's issue was "The
40mpg SUV" an interesting discourse about how the
technologies are available today to build a 40mpg
SUV. However, it was the preamble that attempted
to derive social policy implications that raised
my economistic ire.

Claiming that the technology was possible to
increase average fuel efficiency in the US to 47
mpg, we could alleviate 75% of our dependence on
Middle East oil. ARRRGHHHHHHH. That was me
shouting in existential rage. (Forgive me for my
misuse of existential, I am an economist after
all.)

What this claim neglects is the full analysis. The
article later goes on to state that this could be
done in about 10 years, and only add perhaps one
thousand to two thousand to the cost. People would
take this information and still clamor for
regulation, which is what the article seems to
imply.

Now consider, this technology would take 10 years
before it could be rolled out, and even if all
cars in 10 years were sold to this standard, the
lifespan of the American car is about 30 years. It
would take 30 years before we reach this
hypothetical 47mpg average on the road. And what
about second order effects? The higher prices of
cars would make turnover take even longer. And the
impact on oil? If it really did reduce dependence
on oil so significantly, then the price of oil
would fall which would lead to more oil usage,
more emissions, even in the short run. (Or
potentially lead to a strengthened OPEC, an
equally unpleasant situation.) Thus the imediate
impact of the policy would be to increase oil
usage. The benefits come maybe at least 20 years
in the future. Who knows what the world will be
like 20 years from now. Perhaps we'll all be
flying in personal helicopters or jetpacks or
anti-gravity boots or Segues (tm) by then. And
regulation proponents question the effects of
drilling in ANWR. Bah!

There are many things that popular perception gets
totally wrong, and though there are many things
wrong with economics and many people like that
question its fundamental approaches, there are
certain things that economists are fairly
unanimous about. Incentives matter and you cannot
consider problems in isolation.

I do feel that we perhaps use too much oil. So a
better solution that many if not most economists
would agree with is to raise the price. This can
be done by levying a "carbon tax" or heck, even
allowing OPEC more leeway. (Side point: sure
letting OPEC raise prices, increases costs for
Americans, but it is a transfer of wealth from the
rich to relatively poor countries, and while most
of this wealth is squandered by venal autocrats,
this can be changes, and occassionally it does
good, at least a bit, as in the case of
Venuzuela.)

Americans do change car purchases in response to
oil prices, as seen by the oil glut and then
shortage in the 70's and 80's which led to the
shift from American to Japanse cars. Raising
gasoline taxes is more efficient, more flexible,
and less dependent on accurate forecasts, and
government bureacracies. Best of all, it would
certainly decrease oil usage.

And yes, higher oil prices disproportionaly hurts
the poor, so take the tax money collected and
spend it on programs for their education, for
their healthcare, for lowering taxes, for
increasing the EITC, for public transportation.

These problems are important, and I certainly know
that economists don't have all the answers, but at
least we have some facts, and these facts must be
known to make the proper evaluation.

(I will get into my rant about the West Wing's
comment about the failing US school system and
other international comparison numbers, at some
later point.)


12.2.02
Trouncing

left the airport feeling good last night. Well, i
generally like flying, when else do you have an
excuse to just sit there, read, nap, watch movies,
for 5 hours. but beyond that, near the end, i got
into a conversation with the berkeley style
hippies behind me. quite smart, but then one was
reading fast food nation, and spewing tripe
(pretty image) about how bad fast food is on a
health level and on a social level, and feeling
good at how anti-establishment they are for
knowing all this, and how because people like them
know better, then should impose laws against
mcdonalds to impose the stupid masses who aren't
as enlightenend.

of course i trounced them. bashed them good. i
enjoy this, like the guerilla anti-smoking
campaigns. good tactic, horribly wrong message. to
fix someone's misconceptions but bashing them with
TRUTH, with a capital T, R, U, T, H.

That mcdonalds is not evil for paying low wages,
because of the low wages, teenagers in the us can
actually get jobs (unlike in the rest of the
developed world), and that though the food is bad
for you, it is good in moderation. just like
chocalate cake or bungee diving or going outside
increases your risk of dying, but just a little
bit, and it may well be worth it. that if there
are people hwo don't know the dangers of
mcdonlads, its not just you elitist hippies who
can understand that, we can teach everyone this.
and that we don't have to ban mcdonalds.  so while
they were murmuring about how economists don't
understand, i trumped them by nicely talking about
the power of education, thus taking away their
moral high ground.

of course the best was the fact, which i noted
while browsing the bookstore before undeplaning,
that fast food nation was 4th on the nytimes best
seller list, and that they weren't so special
after all. anyway, i'll shut up now.


12.1.02
Word Watch

"involuntary black immigrants" that is a highly
amusing euphemism for slave. in a nov 30 nytimes
article



11.18.02
Oh Happy Day

Yesterday, Sunday, was a very happy day, the very
pinnacle of happiness almost, and very indicative
of why I am a bit worried about my grad student
career, but just a bit.

It started off the nigth before, sine i got home
at around 2:30, from sf, from a breakdancing/bmx
bike trick thingee in the city, that jerome told
me about. they were awesome, the place was cool,
the music hopping, and i got some nice pictures (i
hope).

then, in the morning 10:30-12:30 , played hockey,
the court was set up well with nice nets, and on
the tennis courts, got a good number of players,
it was fairly competitive, got firm committments,
had a lot of fun, ended with jamba juice.

then had rehearsal from 1-3, for gaities, the
music was rockin, kickin, my part kicks a$$, and
all in all a good time.

then made some money, helped some friends by
turoing in economics.

then went off and played axis and allies and ate
cheap chinese food until late. good fun.


course, the question remains, when did i do work?


11.15.02
don't tread on me.

reading another letter to the editor today, I got
annoyed again, at first I thought because it was
an attack on my civil liberties, but later, i
realized it was something else. her letter was
about bicycle lights, and how we should all be
ashamed for not using them. This reminded me of an
earlier woman indigantly complaining about the
marauding bicyclist who put her to the hospital,
or to the bicyclist in front of me that I almost
crashed into who sneered at me because he stopped
at a meaningless intersection and I didn't.

perhaps I don't follow the bicycle safety laws.
but I know the risks I am taking, and I don't feel
I am endagnering others, so why the attitude dude?
and just because its illegal doesn't make it
wrong. it's also illegal to jaywalk, download
music, buy pot, drink under the age of 21, drive
faster than the speed limit, or have homosexual
sex in many states. so what. i believe people are
capable of being responsible for their own
actions.

what i realize in the end, what truly annoys me
about this whole thing, is the self-righteousness
of it all. the moral absolutism. the judgements
made and passed. the smug supercillious
superiority. the things little people stand behind
to make them feel bigger. "Judge not, lest ye be
judged..."


11.13.02
What am I up to.

Someone asked me this in an e-mail, and when I
wrote it all down, it does seem quite absurd.
People keep saying how ridiculous how busy I am,
not i sorta believe them but not quite. Anyway,
the list of what i'm up to this quarter, these
last couple weeks even:

photography
tutoring
musical pit orchestras
psychology
social dance
bridge?
martial arts - wushu
running
break dance watching
nsf application

in addition to economics classes and the research
I should be doing...
6 classes this quarter, yeehah


11.10.02
A history of nostalgia

The author of the book /The future of nostalgia/
made an interesting comment. The internet could
have destroyed nostalgia. Nostalgia is about not
being able to go back, but now, with imdb and the
like, that is no longer a constraint. old tv
shows, and the like can be revived into our brains
easily, instead of grasping at the wispy tendrils
of memory.

She also spouted some crap about how the internet
changes the boudnaries of knowledge and transforms
it from a linear time oriented dimension to a
hyper spatial one. That high falutanta gobbledy
gook (which Neal Stephenson happily disparages)
along with trying to talk to Sam about the need
for groups and representation, showed there is
still a level of academic high-brow
post-structural pontificating (mostly in the style
of philosophers and english people) that i have
trouble keeping up in.

i'm typically quite proud of the ability to
converse intelligently on virtually any topic from
physics, to engineering, to computer science, to
pop culture, to films, to art, to being very well
versed in most of social science. however, perhaps
it is the hatred of such forms of discourse by the
likes of stephenson or Any Rand that have kept me
from learning this language, or perhaps it is just
incredibly dense stuff that makes it hard to fake,
as i fake everything else.


11.9.02
Anti-Republican Smugness

I really can't help thinking how right on,
republican claims of liberal elitism are so true, in
the wakeof tuesdays election. All the comments of
how this country has gone to hell, and the like.
Not stopping to consider that maybe a majority of
this country know what they're talking about. No,
they're not at %lt;insert fancy pants schoool here$gt;
therefore they must be idiots.

I'm kinda happy the republicans won (though I
concede William's point that the single party
monolith inhibits debate, and thus may be bad),
but if the democrat won, it wouldn't be so bad
either. Th people have spoken.


10.26.02
Movie Reviewlet: The Ring

"I'll never tell..." and other horror genre tropes
you'll be telling yourself to relieve some of the
boredom encountered in this remake of a purported
Japanese masterpiece. Though some of the genius
was there, like any photocopy or facsimile of an
original, it loses a lot in the retelling (i'm not
expecting much from The Truth About Charlie). While
the general feeling walking out was the boredom,
and comments like "that piece of shit" was
overheard, it does deserve some respect.

Starting out, the film knows it has to work to
gain yor attention, and eases you into the horror
genre using buffonery cliched horror film
cinematography. It begins with a discussion of the
pervasive vapidity of television and the media
(curiously a central theme of the film) and then
jumps right into the plot.

One thing I like about the film is that it is well
constructed. Not a theme is out of place,
everything is important, and every image, every
idea (except for the blatant American Express
product placement, but that's in ever film
nowadays). It has the same quality of everything
fitting together, as the novel Prince of Tides
(not the horrendos Streisand movie), or of a
remake which you get to shoot for the second time,
or of a student film though without any trace of
pretentiousness.

Though perhaps because it was so overly refined
and edited, the movie loses heart, and has
difficulty holding attention throughout. However,
it ends well, and the fact that it is perhaps the
only horror movie i know that doesn't quite
resolve makes it one of the only movies to freak
me out that I can think of.

One final thing, until the surprise ending, the
predictable part of the story i know I've seen
somewhere, whether in an X-files episode or some
japanese anime. If anyone can tell me what it was,
I'd be grateful.

So in summary, nice use of horror genre cliches,
nice economy of expression of ideas, nice ending,
pretty eye candy, all in all, a laudable remake.

Grade: A-/B+



10.26.02
Foxnews irony

isn't it ironic, don't you think, that fox-news,
conservative golden boy of tv news, topping cnn
now in the ratings, that it is spawned by the
network that gave us married with children and the
simpsons? or maybe not.


10.14.02
Word-watch: Anglo?

On the media has a word watch each week. One that
I proposed in an earlier entry was 'trash talk'.
This week, i propose, Anglo.

I have heard the term Anglo used for first time to
refer to white people a couple of weeks ago, at a
convocation at the hpoelessly pc school of
education, (where she qualified it, and apologzied
for borrowing an old term) and have since heard it
all over, from NPR to other live speeches.

Odd if you think about it. I suppose white is
awkward. And caucasion is very awkward. so much so
that I can no longer spell it. Though Anglo, from
Anglo-Saxon I suppose, is quite a misnomer, cause
only a subset (albeit large) of whites are anglo.

On reflection, perhaps the reason for it comes
with the latest 2000 Census, which went to great
pains to classify for the first time, White, vs.
Non-hispanic White. Because I suppose, many
hispanics consider themselves white. And thus,
Anglo becomes an awkward, still incorrect, but
salient term of the moment, au courrent so to
speak.

or perhaps there is more to it than thta.


9.24.02
Movie Review-let: Spirited Away (updated 10/9/02

Alice of Wonderland in land of Japanese mythology.
Comments on environmentalism and anti-capitalist
sensibilities. Subtle leftwing venting of 21st
century Japanese frustration with well drawn
(double entendre) main character, and controlled
cutsey flourishes.

I was a bit let down given that this was the film
that toppled titanic off of Japan's top movie of
all time charts, it probably would have meant more
to me if I were (nice use of subjunctive, if I may
say so myself) Japanese. very very pretty, with
music/music style/music usage very very akin to
the Final Fantasy computer games (not that that's
a bad thing, the final fantasty games had great
music).

Grade: B+


9.18.02
Video Game Introspection

So playing the xbox video game halo reminded me of
the introspection that arises from my video game
performance. In the first game, I got clobbered at
last place. Each and every time after that, I was
first, except for the guy who owned the game.

In most games, and the game of life for that
matter, talent lets me quickly rise to the top of
the scrubs. Whether it's chess or street fighter
or soul calibur or phd program in economics.
However, whether its laziness on my part, or some
other barrier, I never make it in the big leagues.
I can play with the best, but never beat them.

Which is useful when considering my career. Can I
really do well in academia where success is
measured by the homeruns you hit? I tend to think
consulting is the place for me, where rapid
mastery is valued most. It remains to be seen.


9.11.02
9-11

I thought I should put some entry down today.
Let's see, not much happened. I helped a friend
with computer stuff, and then realized my bike was
stolen, days after accepting that my cd-walkman
was lost/stolen. Damn the world. And then we
played duplicate bridge at Sophie's house.

Just goes to show that at least for this part of
the country, life goes on. I did want to plop in
front of a tv, I guess today's society's current
way to connect with each other, to be part of the
survivor II crowd at the water cooler, though
except for some stuff on npr, I missed most of it.
As I said in an early entry, an observation made
by my cousin as we drove/fled cross country along
I-80 in the days right after 9-11, perhaps in New
York, life stopped, but in South Dakota and points
west, people were ready to polka on.

Nothing really chagned in the end. In
institutional game theory terms, a sudden shock
revealed off equilbrium beliefs that despite it
all we are all American (not just me), and the
cynic in me that wanted the US to kick butt in
World Cup Soccer so that we would have a rallying
cry, saw that indeed, given something to rally
around, Americans will rally together. And that
was heartening. That was nice.

That is perhaps all that has changed. Though life
quickly returned to the same patterns, the same
bickering, the same partisanship, the same
anti-American ravings, the same old equilibrium as
before, we are comforted with the knowledge, that
when push comes to shove, Americans can count on
each other.

And as the now defamed Martha Stewart once said,
That's a good thing.


9.3.02
The Sanctity of Information

Ecologists have gone up on the list of people
who's information I don't trust. All information
provided is biased, as people all have their own
personal biases (their own priors as it were),
that is another info, but there are so many
examples of cases where I lose trust in the
information someone provided.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics (quoth Mark
Twain) is one of the first to go, interestingly
enough, from a statistics textbook that went on at
length as to why statistics are often wrong. This
was only further emphasized by the econometric
classes I took later on.

The media frenzy lost much credibility (along with
politicians) during the church burning scare a few
years back, when sober statistics showed that
church burnings were at a 10 year low, and at the
nader of a 10 year steady decline. The current
kidnapping craze in the media (when kidnapping
rates are signicantly lower than last years)
further emphasizes this point.

Politicans lost credibility when I was standing on
a White House lawn, hearing Clinton lie about the
stimulatory effects of a tax cut.

Now add environemntalists to the list for their
scare tactics and their immensely biased
reporting. Lomborg's Skeptical Environmentalists
has just pointed otu what I've known for years,
that those Greens with scary horror stories are
full of it. I'm thinking EO Wilson and Paul
Ehrlich in particular, but they are all guilty.
Damn them all. Yes, life sucks, but it's not bad
as all that. The Ozone layer hole is getting
smaller, the number of hungry is going down, life
expectancy is going up, poverty is decreasing,
water access is increasing. Malthusian predictions
of mass starvation will go the same way Malthusian
predictiosn have gone for the last 200 years. Damn
them all.

Which all goes to the main poitn of the Economist
I supose, and the classical liberal tradition. A
healthy skepticism. Yeah, i like that.



8.17.02
Sub-Cultures

are interesting. Johnpaul was commenting on the
MIT one, that I find myself into a bit
excessively. Then there was the pack of 200 or so
high school cheerleaders on campus here this
weekend. And then, at the local game store,
crammed inside about 100 or so magic the gathering
players. All male all teenagers (though some in
older bodies).


8.06.02
Media Watch: Joel Stein

Joel Stein deserves credit for being perhaps the
only print journalist who's name i can identify.
He first came to my attention with his weekly
humor column i Time Magazine, which quickly became
my favorite part of the magazine. Though
apparently, he got his start with the hillariously
irreverent (both to the interviewees and to the
format) Celebrity Q+A in the back of the
magazine.. Though I found out oddly recently, that
his real first start with as a humor columnists
for our very own (geez, when did Stanford become
"my" school) Stanford Daily..

I hvave always enjoyed Stein's self-deprecating,
irreverent, hmor, laced with sexual innuendo..
which leads to a truly unduplicable
stylegenerously . Which is why I was sorry to see
the death of his column post 9/11. However,
apparently, Stein is branching out, appearing all
accross the magazine, from the Notebook section in
front, to cover story features o teating with
Lewis and Clark, to interviews with dignitatries.
I generally never note the author of any
particular article, but Stein's style is so
unique, it is automatically identifiable. I find
myself often thinking, this must be a Stein piece,
and flipping to the top, and sure enough it is.


7.22.02
Singapore: An Economist's Wet Dream

I wrote this travelogue a few weeks ago in an e-mail to a few people.
Was always too lazy to post it here. Here it is now:

travelogue



7.18.02
Review-let Smorgasborg: Road to Perdition, Lilo and Stitch

Road to Periditon:

So I had my misgivings when I agreed to see Road to Perdition with
friends. The concept intrigued me at first, but eventually, became to
look more and more like a (gimme an Oscar) movie, like that Tom Hanks
on an island movie, that basically flopped. I'd have rather seen Reign
of Fire (Dragons and Helicopters, how can you beat that?).

So almost as expected, the movie was a collection of great scenes, but
lacked the soul. The acting was superb, Newman, Hanks, Tucci, Leigh,
all put on great (dare I say Oscar worthy performances). Each scene
was directed well, had nice imagery. But the damn thing didn't cohere.
The guy didn't know how to tell a story. Whether that was the fault
of the screenplay (it was a graphic novel adaptation) or the editor or
the director (of American Beauty fame), the thing just kinda fell
apart.

The one redeeming factor was the end, which despite all odds, I
finally liked. As the end was approaching, it was so painfully
predictable, that I began calling the last 10 minutes, virtually scene
by scene. Down to the details of "cue the dog". As I was about to
write this off, as another downside, it occurred to me that its very
predictability was because it had built up to it so (much like
American Beauty come to think of it). Admittedly, American Beauty was
far better as it was surprising, but both built up to it, crescendoed
to a fitting climax, and resolved in a chord, with all the pieces
fitting just as they should.

Anyway, I still wouldn't necessarily recommend the movie.
Grade: B-


Lilo and Stitch

Creative, hip, funny, modern, violent. Disney brings hand drawn
animation back to life. (So I ran out of steam, writing that last one)

Grade: A-


7.05.02

Review-let: Minority Report

As I no longer have epinions as an outlet, no longer having time to
carefully craft movie reviews, I will express my ideas here.

Minority Report started nice. He had clearly been channelling Kubrik
for so long, that it showed. He had clever scenes recreating Blade
Runner's (a nod to philip dick) soulless metropolis of light, or
Clockwork Orange's eye prying insanity. The music choice was inspired,
for once not relying on Williams' derivative fare, but classical
pieces that well evoked themes and ideas in surprising ways. Smart
quick camera work atypical of Spielberg was evident early on.

(sidenote: i recognized it as a short story adaptation from the 60's
[acutally it was the 50's i later learned] from the wooden balls the
names were inscribed on. That touch was so ridiculous it could not
have been come up with today, but like parts of lawnmower man, must
have been conceived in a more technologically naive time)

But as the movie wore on, it introduced and could possibly have
explored ideas of pre-destination, civil rights, pre-crime, but never
quite got there, and instead reverted to a Spielbergian "popcorn
muncher" (as spielberg himself admitted he originally intended it to
be) that couldn't seem to end.

All in all, a fun movie, started clever, became typical, and that
dragged on and on.


6.16.02
In the News

I should perhaps spin off a new page, called "In the News" with good
articles. Here is one Dave sent me:


http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/16/movies/16SCOT.html?todaysheadlines


7.2.02
Math is Hard

goddamn it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/02/science/physical/02MATH.html?8hpib


This article about the Riemann hypothesis intrigued me enough to find
out more (I'm also annoyed that the nytimes.com don't take account the
promise of the Internte by providing useful links to more information,
which I always want, especially reporting on the research. It would be
nice to have a link to the original paper, or at least the abstract.
What happenend to the image of the Internet shown in Starship Troopers
(referenced in Minoirty Report along with heavy Kubrik reference [ahh
what massive massive elllipses {isn't it cool how braces in text are
in reerse order from braces in math (though who uses braces in math)}
{though apostraphes might be a better term for what I mean (ok, time
to close all these, that will be tough.)}]) (heh, no prob, comes with
years of programming [particularly Scheme programming {Scheme is a
dialect of Lisp}]) where you could "click here for more info" (wow,
that millionaire aloonist nut looks like he's going to finally make
it)

Anyway, back to the original point, my curiosity piqued, i went to
find out more about the Riemann Zeta function, (mathworks.wolfram.com
proved excellent), but totally blew me away. Goddamn I know so little
math. Though I was a theoretical math major, and arguably my PhD is an
applied math PhD, and yet so much is so So SO far beyond me.

Which has made me reconsider the idea that everyone is equally
capable. I still think everyone's inherent potential is the same, but
if not nurtured (like the language skill), permanant differences
arise. Not that some people are "beter" than others, just not quite a
naive about is as nageeb still is apparently.

ok, enough ramble.


6.3.02
Racial representation on television
A theory of assymetry and morality, equity nad equality.

I just saw a commercial where an Asian man is trying to checkout 15
items at a 12 item or less checkout counter manned by a black woman.
My first impression, was those sneaky asian people. But then, i
realized it was just their attempt to be more racially diverse, though
to me it came off as "those sneaky asian people"

Amid all the cries of minority representation on tv, I am especially
miffed by those who want more asians on telvision, who are highly,
highly overrepresented. Particularly asian women, who make excellent
newscasters because of their submissive sexy exoticness, and to pander
to collective yellow feaver. Asians make up less than 3% of the
country, and so anyone who says that Asians are underepresented are
kidding themselves. Granted, there are in fact practically no leading
Asian male parts, that aren't villains or kung fu heroes, but
underrepresented, hardly.

To some extend, this carries through to african americans on tv as
well, though it is less clear cut. A couple years ago, there was a
huge scandal because the networks put out a new season with pracically
no blacks in any of the shows. That was maybe the year they quickly
added Dule Hill, West Wing's token black guy. However, it was more a
case of market segmentation it seems. Whereas noone had a problem of
saying that the WB catered to black audiences by having many all black
shows, why not say that the networks cater to white audiences by
having all white cast. After all, they are still the vast majority of
the country. In a way, this goes back to the small differences thing i
wrote about earlier. So long as there is any inequality in terms of
racial distribution, it would make sense for equilibrium to be all one
race.

Of course, there is still something inherently hinky with this
argument. It seems wrong to have to wait for perfect numerical
equality among the races before you see a mixed representation on tv.
This may be ok in an economic model, but not the real world.

So what we have is that unequal historical circumstnaces, unequal
current distribution, means that to have equity, we can't have
inequality. This is why its ok for the WB to pander to the black
audience, but not ok for NBC to pander to white. Ok for Chris Rock to
use n*****, but not ok for a white commedian. Ok for Netscape to
exploit its monopoly, but not ok for microsoft.

Curious.



5.30.02
The New Math

I remember a discussion held at a summer science program I did near
the end of high school where a bunch of New Jersey math and science
curriculum designers came and asked us our opinion of the new math
curriculum. There was a big bruhaha on introducing Discrete Math at
all levels, and I remember being talked down to, like how could I miss
the obvious importance. Though even at that point, I had already taken
college level discrete math, had taken it several times in summer cs
theory classes, in high school, in university, I knew far better than
they what it was all about, and how useless it all is.

Now, as a doctoral student, top of the academic food chain, I can look
back at some of the math that was taught and be bemused.

Larry just came over and mentioned how he thought it was funny that
both he and his 10 year old son were studying convex graphs. Which
reminded me of how so much elementary school curriculum is taught that
is not really useful until doctoral level work. For example, the
"clock arithmatic" in 3rd grade, where 5+8=1, which presaged modular
arithmatic, a concept from highly theoretical abstract algebra.
Similarly, multiplation tables of non-associative systems. Again, a
concept of highly advanced algebra, this taught in 7th grade.

Perhaps this promotes higher order thinking, and creates engaged
learners. But it it just something that bemuses me.


5.26.02
Childhood memories

So today was nice. Played some tennis, then spent like 10 hours just
talking/chilling with a couple pals from undergrad days. Meandering
thoughts on topics we felt both incredibly deep and also incredible
inane.

Two in particular dealt with my childhood, that I haven't dredged up
in a long time. (also dredged up my first epinion) One was my fear of
aliens. I don't fear much, but as a kid, with a mom obsessed with
alien abuductions, I who watched those alien abuduction specials
popular in the late 80's early 90's, even did a report in like 7th
grade, so I know all the famous stories. I was damn afeareed whenever
it was dark, to see the glowing green dark bug eyed aliens with the
triangular faces. I remember keenly especially when I was forced to do
the garbage late at night.  I remember theorizing that they were
humans from the future. I remember finally rationalizing the fear when
I realized it was essentially a fear of being alone, and later when
sleeping in the same room as my brother, it somehow felt better,
knowing there was somebody else there. anyway..

the other happier thought was Allyson Emond (I still remember the
funny way she spelt her name). I havne't thought of her in a long
time. All the boys had a crush on her in middle school. She came up
talking about left handers, and so having a crush, I took particular
note of the odd way, she as a lefty wrote. I still remember the times
when I took over anthony's flower delivery gig in the hospital, when i
would pass her in her candy striper uniform in the hall, and flash me
a winning smile. ahh, heaven. It never occurred to me to smile at
people before then, or the whole point of it, but actually, whenever I
smile at someone, I still have her in the back of mind. ahh,
childhood.


5.16.02
Star Wars: Episode II

So I thought this might finally break my epinions retirement. But
alas, to do a proper review still takes precious time and energy I do
not have. However, given that I braved opening night to make it to the
theater at 12:01 am open day, to a theater showing it on 19
screens!!!, I thought it would be nice to record some thoughts.

I personally loved it. 

see my review in epinions.
http://www.epinions.com/content_64140054148


5.4.02
Labels

"Just How do you do it, Pooh?"
"Do What?" asked Pooh.
"Become so Effortless."
"I don't do much of anything," he said.
"But all those things of yours get done."
"They just sort of happen," he said

-Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

I saw this quote somewhere recently, and it describes my philosophy
pretty well. I have become quite Taoist in recent years. And
Confuscian for that matter. Not to mention, neo-liberal, Marxist,
institutionalist constructivist, with neo-conservative libertarian
republican north-eastern intelectual artsy elite super patriot
computer hacker nerd economist.

(with a vulgar vocabulary)


4.28.02
Language of a mind-set

It's funny, i can always tell, by reading their writings, that someone
is an objectivist/libertarian/extropian/etc. Being brainwashed by the 
Foundation for Free Enterprise sometime during high school, I am well 
schooled in their language. There are certain terms that keep coming 
up, that I have difficulty articulating, but are unmistakeable. 1+1+2, 
monopoly of violence, life, liberty, property, coercion, freedom, plus 
much more that I can't say, but I know is there. It's just funny, 
that's all.

4.26.02
Why does Europe hate Israel?

Time this week ran an article about this, but I have been asking this
question for quite some time now. Why do US and European opinions
diverge so. When even the BBC offers harsh condemnation of US support
for Israel. Possible answers:
* oil dependence - The Europeans, unlike the US, are far more
  dependent on Middle Eastern Oil
* latent anti-semitism - so this is very pessimistic, but it does have
  a longer history of it, and there are so few Jews left there.
* better informed about Jewish atrocities
* colonial guilt


4.25.02
Turning Points in personal values

So i listed late last night turning points in my view on art. Here are
similar turning points in view on light. Much less complete, I will
add to as they occur to me.

1) Needed a Motto in High School for yearbook. Didn't come up with
one, later figured it out: Ralph Waldo Emerson, "A foolish consistency
is the hobgoblin of little minds"

2) Disc personality test. the first one where I didn't wind up in the
middle. Weird results, led to me being the Achiever. Main value:
credit goes were credit's due.

3) Arguments in Education classes. Someone suggested we should "agree
to disagree" I realize that that bothers me. There is a correct answer
damn it. We just may not know it yet.

4) Post-cynicism. Has been remarked upon elsewhere.

5) Everything in moderation, including moderation.

6) Finally being yelled at as a kid by my father, when I refused to
take as tance as to where to eat for dinner, saying "it doesn't
matter" damn straight it matters. It's a problem that persists with my
friends to this day. I always just choose if noone else is going to.

7) If people ask you to go do stuff, and you say no too often, they'll
stop asking. I learned that as a kid growing up.

8) I would be remiss to forget Ayn Rand and the Foundation for Free
Enterprise, which awakened Latent Alex P. Keatonism in me, and 
potentially led me to economics.

... (more as they come to me)


4.25.02
Turning Points in My view of Art

An article in the NYTimes today reminded me of those schmatlzy college
essay questions. One thing this reminded me of was turning points in
art appreciation for me.

1) Dr. Siegel? for Academic Decathalon doing the art section. Though
it was very proforma, and very bam bam, memorize rattle off the
answers, the skills in deep looking and more importantly, the sheer
excitement of it all, got me started.

2) Perhaps NYU (though you don't call it that), grad student Joe Hill,
takign art in Paris. Very learned the tools to analyze neo-classical
art and art in general. But still viewed art mechanically,
analytically purely.

3) Rachel in the Whitney. The story I tell of the Rothko. And the very
simple question, "I ask if I like it first, then I ask why?"

4) Moma exhibit of the all white. 20 or so canvases that were
basically all just squares of white. And yet each so different. At the
same day, there were some solid colors that were just so powerful, so
tangible so artifical...

5) Viewing art on the computer. Makes you appreciate that even though
a computer can show 16 million diferent colors between black and
white it still can't come close to reproducing a painting. Which
emphasizes all the dimensions that a comptuer can't replicate.

6) Photography. one might think a photograph might do better than a
computer. but all the ways that colros can be adjusted using different
exposure techniques, different film, different light conditions, etc,
show how much more to art there is.


4.24.02
lost among the stars

So Ira Glass and Terry Gross were here and gave a talk yesterday.
Gloria Steinem last Thursday. D'nesh D'Souza last Tuesday. Bill Gates
Tommorrow. Derrida Friday. Jimmy Carter next Monday. Elizabeth Shue
tonight. Goddamn. It's good to be in school.

and goddamn, in an auditorium with 2000 people there were probably 10
non whites.


4.20.02
Democracy

Now ideas, it is taken as a given that Democracy is the end all and be
all. I just read a lament on how global structures aren't democratic.
In many senses, they shouldn't be. Democracy is a horrible system. The
United States was founded not on democracy, but on a Federated
Republic that was democratic. Those that claim otherwise forget the
important lessons, and the great debates conversed in the Federalist
Papers. It would be good for people to remember this.

4.20.02
Social Entrepreneurship Business Plan

Bulletproof OS for schools in developing countries. I am sure the army
has developed scaled down OS's that are bulletproof. Like NASA and
their 386's.

I am struck by the issue of computer literacy in developing countries.
In the end, it is not the issue of comptuer costs, computers are
cheap, we throw them away here, it is the issue of fixing and dealing
with the software problems. The human capital of computer expertise is
tremendously expensive, even in the US, exponentially so in the 3rd
world.

so bulletproof OS would be very useful. but i guess that is what all
the excitement at the media lab was all about...


4.14.02
The SNL connoisseur

So a friend of mine in the program, (a true wannabe intellectual)
commented on Tina Fey's declining presence in the skits of SNL. I
never even was conscious of it, or ever considered trying to analyze
SNL from that point of view, like a great painting, where one pours
over the artistic lineage.

But some of the best shows recently, I do feel I notice the Fey
influence. In addition to the great great ian mckellen episode,
there's been a lot of weird, clever humor. Like the newscaster party
for Ted Koppel where they break out in song, or today, the subway
scene with Fred and that chick singing weird 60's style musicals. And
even some parts of the gaydar skit.

Anyway, deep analysis of SNL. What a concept. MAkes me realize, i'm
merely a wannable wannable intellectual.

(the Cardinals! "i gotta one thinga to say to yoo gies, keepa yor
peckas in yor pants")
(ononism - the pretensious new england professors,
"the free fall release" suBaru)
(france - aholes, feces, anti-semites, jew-hating, us-hating, effete
men)


4.14.02
Theories of Learning

Another friend of mine recently brought up an interesting point. How
do I learn? I apply all these theories and analytical tools to
studying how the world works, but how do I work? I do pretty well. An
on first appearances, I don't do the normal things, study super hard,
stay organized, etc... I get bored easily. So easy answers may ignore
the truth.

One thing I do is that I am fairly conscientious, I go to every class,
do the readings before hand, care about learning. I don't know.
Probably deserves more introspection.


4.6.02
Advertising

An interesting phenomenon someone mentioned to me. NBC recently tried
to start allowing hard liquor to advertise (after decades long self
imposed ban), but got tons of flack, so they quickly retracted. So, in
response, both baccardi and now skyy have introduced "soft" versions
of their brands, allowing them to advetsise and put their brand on,
and circumvent and demonstrate just how silly the former bans really
were.


4.2.02
Alexander hamilton

Watching a show on New York reminded me of Alexander Hamilton. Ric
Burns great documentary shows him well. Responsible for establishing
the US financial system. The first great economic policy maker of the
US, if not the first great American economist.  What a shame he was
killed before he was able to take his otherwise inevitable turn as
president.

(I am a proud graduate of Alexander Hamilton elementary school in
Morristown, NJ).


3.24.02
The Academy and Screenwriter

Something I noted last Oscars, just after the writer's strike was
headed off. Is just how much they're pandering to the labor demands.
An example of how threat of strike is effective. Last year, they took
pains to mention the contributions of screen writers, and for first
time, mentioned screenwriters in the obituaries. And this year,
letting the writers write the little intro's (a good idea).

On the Oscars themselves, the production value was great this year.
From the well written intros some even performed with reasonable
conviction amazingly enough (Halle Berry, Cameron Diaz), Woody Allen's
New York piece, which while not great, was ok, the intro which was all
about everyday famous people that talked about the magic of movies,
that was all about pulling memories out, to the amazingly stupid
Cirque de Soleil that worked amazingly well. not bad so far...

Plus the incomparable John Williams...

Halle Berry's emotional response was much better than Julia Robert's
last year. Much more authentic (i just feel Julia's was inauthentic is
the best word for it). And the best song guy, was funny...

Interesting, they crediting the makers of the video montages this year.
Oscar really is looking back this year.

3.24.02
101 things about myself...

So Maryanne has this interesting thing at:
benho@alum.mit.edu.


11.30.01
Thanksgiving Shenanigans and Freedom

"Those who would give up essential liberties for a measure of
security, deserve neither liberty nor security" - Ben Franklin

So I flew into Newark for Thanksgiving, from San Francisco. Before I
left, I called to yell at my Mom who told me to get to the airport 3
hours early. It took me all of 5 minutes to check in and get through
security. So arriving at Newark, at 5:30 in the morning, I was
shocked, a) to see men in army fatigues and massive machien guns (I
felt like I was in France!) and b) a massive security line that
stretched the length of the terminal.

So I bought a nice fancy new camera a couple months ago, and so was
eager to get a picture of the scene, I tried to stand inconspiculously
out of the way, and I snapped a picture. "Stop!" yelled one of the
army dudes. Soon enough cops started showing up demanding I turn over
the film. I refused. More cops showed up. I had a full roll, I was not
about to turn it over. Cop number 6 was an older nice state police,
who looked rather senior, and he eventually said ok, if I promise
never to do it again, I could go. Which was great, until this fat
officious local cop showed up (cop number 8) all full of himself, and
said no, it was his jurisdiciton and that he would not allow it. After
more bitter bickering, he threatened to call the FBI, I called his
bluff and said fine. So eventually, he got his hand cuffs out and
moved to arrest me. Though he was probably bluffing, at that point, I
relented.

So I walked away rather mad. I support Bush, but at that moment, I was
happy of the the Libertarian Party Membership card in my wallet that
justified my anger. What a stupid rule anyway. If a terrorist wanted
to take pictures, he could easily do so, and not get caught.

In the end, it was much ado about nothing. They have their reasons I
suppose. But it did raise my support for the aclu up a notch.



11.28.01
More hypocrisy and low wage workers

Hypocrisy to me is one of the worst offenses. There's enough of a
relativist in me (or perhaps it's just I often recognize the futility)
that it's impossible to decisively decide which among multiple points
of view is best. Howvver, for me, A And Not A (hypocrisy) will never
be ok.

So, back to this idea that only the left cares about the little
people, and those who disagree are heartless. It is interesting
reading an article in the Daily today about how the hospital can't
outsource part of it's cleaning staff with lower wager workers because
they are untrustworthy and incompetant. How racist is that?

This reminds me of how everytime I walk by the security line at the
airport, I wonder how they must feel with everyone calling them
incompetant, though they can hardly be blamed for 9-11. No one else
seems to notice this though.


11.25.01
Three Ponderances from the Economist

Where does the water in the Great Lake flow to?

Saccade is the quick eye movement that makes the second hand seem to
stop Something I always pondered, and always tried to figure out, and
now science doesn't even nkow. cool. something about the brain
reconstructs continuous time from pre-recorded snippets.

Tempered tuning is cool. I remember trying to reconcile what I knew
about math, 3^m/2^n != 1 for all m,n element of Z. with the circle of
fifths. it makes music seem so arbitrary.


11.17.01
A history of books

A couple things recently made me acutely aware of the evolution of a
book, any particular book. First, was Eco's incomparable Name of the
Rose, which detailed the life of the dedicated monks that preserved
learning. Then, was the Stoppard play, Invention of Love, about the
scholar A.E. Hausman who devoted his life to fixing the errors in
latin texts, the numerous errors that pop up, because books are never
copied correctly. An intersting concept that a book has a life of its
own, and then science of its restoration. I thought that profession
died years ago, but reading the intro of my copy of Lord of the Rings,
in antitipcation of the upcoming mega-event film, it was interesting
how they note how much the book changes with each reprinting, as
wording is changend, falsely corrected, etc.  Even in today's modern
age, typesetters foul things up. Of course, now with digital
everything, that might finally end. THe implications of this are
staggering. Or pehraps insignificant. Who really cares waht Catullus
said about love two millenia ago. Or perhaps we do...


11.14.01
Red Cross

ok, i haven't written anything in a while, and felt I should. there
were a couple things today, but I forgot what. so I will just say that
I feel the Red Cross was perfectly justified ni not providing all the
money to the victims families. I think a quarter billion was more than
enough, to the only 5000 victims are there are millions of other far
more needy people. Anyway, most people will tear into me for saying
this, and saying i'm heartless. Oh well, i disagree. I feel it is
heartless to favor the money to those vicitms we see on tv, and to
ignore the ones we don't.


10.30.01
Stanford Drama

Something that blows my mind for those considering colleges. Though as
a tour guide, I would talk about how great MIT activities were, but
never really believed it until now. Compare Drama, Stanford this
quarter has no gilbert and sullivan show, it has only student
musicals, it is only this year starting a shakespeare ensemble for the
first time, it is just now starting a chinese folk dance thingee. It
really is quite amazing how I took those things at mit for granted.
ok, that's it.


10.07.01
hierarchy of knowledge part II

i perhaps shouldn't talk so soon, but i was quite surprised how easily
I can manage in the education class I am taking, despite the fact that
it's filled with english and sociology type people, and me, am a
mathematician. i was expecting to have to work butt hard to keep up,
after all, i'm willing to bet if any of them came into one of my econ
classes most of them would be totally lost. so it came as quite a
surprise how I seem to be as well if not better prepared than most of
the class (i.e. busting out Gramsce which I learned from lernerj on
epinions). Jp said it's part of the hierarchy, which of course he
would say, cause that puts him at the top of the food chain. If out
material is so badass, that we can understand their stuff, but not
vice versa (and i will admit, it works with physics and econ as well,
i'm fairly sure jp could handle my econ classes reasonably well,
whereas i'd be lost in his), what are we at the top of this hierarchy
missing out on. AFter all, assuming equally smart people do both mathy
stuff and artsy stuff, then since their brain power doesn't go into a
complicated language or framework, it must go somewhere.

(of course, this is all the same spurious reasoing i use to justify my
belief that intelligence can't be based on genetics, since that would
imply that certain races are genetically superior to others, and I 
would rather belief that differences in the races performance is
culture based on background, or inital conditions rather than some
genetic predisposition. Of course, economists use this kind of
reasoning all the time, when they have models that blow up to
infinity, and so they add a constraint that neatly sidesteps the
problem for no justifiable reason. Ah, circular reasoning with PC
undertones. you gotta love it. -end aside-)

so what am I missing with my focus on nomothetic knowledge rather than
idiographic. I guess i'll have to find out. perhaps they got something
valuable to learn...


9.11.01
A date which will live in infamy

Here are a couple of my scattered thoughts from my first impressiosn of today.

* increased surreality

yesterday, ridiculous weather in terms of intermittent bouts of
spastically powerful rain

fire at newark airport

crashed completely closing both 287N, and 80 

now today, as I was preparing to go to New York... BANG!

* osama bin laden

i have always been curious at just how responsible he is, or if he is
merely a convenient target, invented by the CIA, ala 1984 or animal
farm or some such communist strategery manifesto, to solidify american
support and give Americans a comforting enemy rather than some
nebulous terrorist cloud.

* consequences...

how can terrorism be stopped? the movie the siege conceptually deals
with this issue well. In a free society, we have few tools to combat
crime, to combat corruption, to combat terrorism. We can only hope
that cultural institutions, some cultural morays prevent people from
committing such atrocities.

perhaps the only wall we have against intelligence is the CIA and NSA
(even though our free society tendencies makes us suspicious of them
as well).

* personal stories of heroism

this tragedy played out so like a movie, that I started imaginging
various plot lines...  (fictional and imagined perhaps, or perhaps
not)

the people on the hijacked plane

the pilot that crashed the plane outside pittsburgh rather than follow
terrorist orders

the cia agents both ersatz and exotic who were instantly mobilized
around the world.


* nbc

leave it to tom brokaw to put the event into such global context.

i trust nbc for some reason.

after flipping through the channels. my first reaction is fox news
which I like, until I realize it must be covered everywhere. cnn was
disappointing, being behidn the ball, with info on the pentagon, as
well as not noticing the towers collapsing behidn the commentators.

"this race is tighter than spandex on a hot day"

* palestinians are celebrating and passing out candy.

nuke'em till they glow

* Contact

need for other people

it would have been nice to be at work, somewhere public, with other
people to share the experience with. I can understand the need to be
in lobby 10, to watch.

that's why i called esther, and we stayed on the phone for 90 minutes.
the need for "Contact" and why I went online to see who's online for
zephyr.

* power of images

The impact of the loss became all the more tangible after seeing in
person. i suppose because on tv, everything is artificial. 

but more importantly, the impact of the loss would be all the more
powerful if only one tower had fallen. Standing alone, emphasizing its
alone ness, missing its brother, a giant middle finger, saying f*ck
you America, making it impossible to ignore what is missing. With both
gone, the loss is more tragic, but the imagery is less so.


8.16.01
Contact

The broadway dance-musical is about making Contact. A very powerful
concept really. I will write more on this later, but Contact is what
we are all looking for. And part of what the Internet is all about.


8.16.01
Sexy Nuclear Physicists

Interesting recent trend of hot nuclear physicists from Elizabeth Shue
(Hollow Man, the Saint), Denise Richards (James Bond), or Nicole
Kidman (Peacemaker), a very common theme indeed.


8.12.01
Vision in the park.

Summoned to the window yesterday, by the blaring trumpets and drums of
a marching band with carribean rhythms emanating from the park accross
the street, I found myself quickly dressing to see what all the
commotion (or in Chiense, the renao) was all about. Entering the park,
past various uhauls and parade trailers and into the park.

I immediately wished I had a camera to record the event. Finding
myself sans-camera, I took a page from Charles Dickens (who then
called himself Boz), and decided to try a written sketch. I will
attempt to do so now:

I found myself amid a riot of colors. Crowds of people (despite the
light rain) in multicolored shirts, squeezed in and between the tables
and carts peddling merchandice, cheap made-in-taiwan toys, and
carribean foods. Everything was green, in the grassy park, strewn with
heavy wet drippy trees, and then the constant din of the band. The
band was dressed in matching loosefitting floral sea-blue patterned
shirts, short sleeves and buttoned down, and un-tucked in, they
bespoke happiness and good times. The band had a fairly typical
complement, snare and base, glockenspiel (i think that's what it's
called, in which case, hurrah for me for remembering), and horns of
all sorts.

They were a pretty atrocious band, they only knew one song, an upbeat
tune, which I later guessed is the anthem to panama. I found out,
first from various bags people were carrying. Many had flags, a square
red white and blue flag with a red and blue star in the two white
squares.  That was of no help to me. (When younger, I used to have
books and the like with flags, which never interested me, mostly
because I was never one to explore, never one of those
learning-by-doers which is supposed to be all the rage in education. I
am fascinated now, because now I have background info, and make
connecitons, that's how I think, and so I can connect the flags to
what I know of history, and be interested how it seems most latin
american flags are very similar to the American one perhaps?)

But when the ceremonies fully began, they announced Panama, (perhaps
an independence day celebration [thanks to dear teddy roosevelt]), and
then played the national anthem of hte U.S. and I was pleased to see
at the head of the marching band, in addition to a panamanian flag,
there was an American one, and they led off with the national anthem.
I was prepared for a stirring rendtion by the earnest band, but
instead, i was played by only one glockenspiel, likely since they
didn't know it, but that's fine.

I did evenually notice that of the crowds, they were all black, save 3
who were clearly yuppy genrifiers like me, two whites, and one asian,
dressed in the preppy way yuppy gentrifiers dress. I attend many of
these events in this park and is environs, like an African drumming
circle last week, and often there are also white hippy dinosaurs as
well in the mix, but no today.

Anyway, the band got repetitive, and after about half an hour, and
headed over to the brooklyn museum next door, to see their current
show on digital printmaking, and also on Anime!

Interestingly enough, that night, I wound up seeing my style marching
band on broadway, blast! which I am currently reviewing.


8.10.01
Bush and the Trebek Effect.

Much has been made on Bush's first statement to the American peopley
yesterday at 9, amidst Must See TV Thursday.  Speculatoins that it is
the most important policy decision of his presidency.  Comparisons to
a discussion and declaration of war. But all that is true, but let's
look deeper.

The NYTimes today has a very nice analysis of it, discussion how the
structure was 3 fold, from student to teacher to philosopher, but one
thing they neglect to mention is the Trebek effect. Psychologists talk
about how people think Alex Trebek (host of jeapordy) is smart because
he asks hard questiosn. Simple association. This speech was clearly
designed to make Bush look smarter. As Esther pointed out, he still
had that "deer in headlights" look in his eye, but I am sure for many
people, it worked.


8.08.01
HBO and the bleeding edge of advertising

TiVo has launched a good deal of debate on the future of advertising.
With the ability to strip at will commercials from Tv shows, tv shows
will need to find new income. Much has been said of the mutable
billboards in sports television, as well as the proposed post
production placement in TNT's Law and Order run. However, leave it to
HBO to take the first step.

I have already praised HBo's business model and ability to become
indispensible in the economics section.  Here, i will bring up Sex in
the City's blatant product placement.

From the episode about AOL and e-mail, to the episode about
Macintoshes (even selling the cute Carrie laptop, and promoting
Macintosh's Tekserve), to how this week's episode gratuitously plugged
TGI Friday's for no apparent reason throughout the show, to the
various restaurants they promote, to other blatant product promotions.

Many might be offended, but I recognize this as a necessary evolution.
Just as I recognize the need for banner ads, and obnoxious banner ads
for that matter. Kudos HBO. Well done.


7.26.01
Eternal Descent

A common paradox is the infinite ascent (and its converse, the eternal
descent).  Like an M.C. Escher staircase picture, or an infinite
scale. However, this is also the case with movies and SNL (up till
recently). In both those cases, they appeared to be locked in an
infinite downward spiral.

I say, step back, it's only a quesiton of perception. Movies are not
getting worse, they only appear that way because of a trick of human
perception and memory. ok, s'all.


7.21.01
John Kerry and Predator

Whenever I heard about that senator that supposedly killed those
civilians in Vietnam. He and his squad empited their clips, and like
thousands of rounds, including grenade launchers and anti-tank
missiles, though they claimed not to have seen anything.

I can't help bu laugh and think of that scene in Predator where Arnold
and his  posse just let it rip into the forrest for far too long.


7.22.01 Monopoly

I used to play it quite a lot (I even got to the finals of a local
tournament when I was younger), until my friends and I found the games
fatal flaw. Like the real world, if two players collude, they are
unbeatable. and like the real world, you just hope that individual
greed will prevent such alliances from lasting, but that is not always
the case.


7.21.01 Theory of comptuer games

What I see in computer games. I never got into them religiously (my
mom restricting me from playing any computer games but ones I wrote
myself was god for two reasons), in colege I did, but only multiplayer
ones where I could beat up on my friends. Today, though I don't play,
I root for games that attempt to recreate reality, and do as in the
Matrix or Strange Days, which let us lie vicariously what we can't do
ourselves.

I shall always remember a talk at this video game confeence in my last
mnths at MIT, where they talked about Everquest, an online world the
size of England, with stories of how an old lady in a nursing home
delights in just walking around exploring, and how she spent an entire
afteroon watching the fish jump out of the lake. Something that sounds
absurd, but if you think about it, it's a nice way to spend an
afternoon in the real world, so why not in the virtual one?


7.18.01
Sex Scandals

Well the politicans are at it again.  Pundits say that Condit's career
is over, but I am not so sure. A) he's a democrat, and b) what he did
is no worse than Ted Kennedy, who could have been charged with
reckless endangerment if not manslaughter.

I just wanted to point out again that while all politicans commit
these scandas, the democrats get away with it. Kennedy (ted), Kennedy
(JF), Clinton, FDR, etc. Where as the likes of Newt Gingrich, Bob
Packwood, Bon Livingstone were all forced out of office.


6.25.01
Ultimate nerd test

At the urging from a little frommage, I have decided to finally post
the much promised ultimate nerd test. This test has only been passed
by 1.5 people, and is not so much a nerd test, as a test for a certain
kind of thinking, that perhaps only I possess.  The 1 full person that
passed this was related. Anyway, here it is:

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace opened to much much hoopla and
huge massive unparallelled anticipation (this is before we all
realized how bad it was, [though I still think it deserves more credit
than it got]), and a week before opening night, a devoted friend
through much persistance somehow managed to be one of the few to log
into moviefone.com to purchase the opening night tickets. And once
logged in, you can buy unlimited tickets. So of course, he called all
of his friends over to buy tickets.

When it came to my turn, I looked at the choices. Though there were
like 15 showings playing at the theatre that day, most of the later
ones were already sold out. The 7:30 show, (this was the 9th show of
the day; given the enormity of the event, the first show was in the
morning) was available, and I urged my friend to get me tickets for
that time asap.  Unfortunately, just as we clicked confirm, that show
sold out as well. 

My friend was about to get me instead tickets for the 6:15 showing,
but I stopped him and insisted he purchase tickets for the 5:05 show
instead. The question is why?

The answer is not the most satisfying in the world, but my reasoning
at the time was perfectly obvious to me, and is something I often
think about. In the end, my reasoning proved unnecessary anyway, but,
there is still good reason for my decision, and the question as posed
is perfectly solveable given the information provided.

(hint: the answer has nothing to do with money, or worries about
the 6:00 selling out, or plans I had that day.)


6.21.01
Father's day

So i'm a few days late. I never really got to know my father, but I
think he still has shaped my life. In part, I got some of his
skepticism, his inability to speak clearly in public, and a general
pessimistic view of things, but one very important thing, which really
sticks to me, a large part of my fascination in physics comes from
him, a lot of it embodied by a tape he partially taped for me off PBS,
"The Creation of the Universe," (PBS, 1984) which stuck with my whole
life. The fascinating lighthouse of the universe, the 4 forced, the
GUT and TOE theories, quaarks and nuclear forces. Good good stuff!


6.20.01
The military fascionates me.

The hierarchy. The efficiency. The team work, and uniformity. The raw
power of it all. The self sacrifice (Air Force One comes to mind for
some reason). I would join perhaps, especially in times of need. Not
good for innovation, but good none-the-less.

(incidentally, my dreams of becoming a notary public became less
glossy today).


6.20.01
Reject all ideology

I think I realized, along with my everything in moderation, including
moderation philosophy, it also means I am fairly non-ideological. I
think I heard that term in some article/magazine, describing good
policy wonks.  But unlike the Economist, I don't accept the idea of
classical liberalism based on ideology like Ayn Rand, etc, but on
practicality, and it was interesting how a recent book review bashed
someone for that same thing. I don't hold much sacred. Perhaps the
rationality of science, but even then, I am willing to concede points
to foucault and the like, and even economics, I am a lot less
ideological than many, even Sara, perhaps I have Jon to thank for
that.

05.31.01
Motto in life

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ever since I was totally lost as to what to put for my Senior Quote,
and around the same time saw all these profiles in Business Week and
the like about famous people with personal quotes, I figured, I needed
to adopt one.

This one has been very good for me. I've only seen it twice in my life
really. The first was in a rulebook for this LARP game I used to play
in early high school. The second was in the movie Next Stop
Wonderland, which has earned that movie a special place in my heart.
(along with being in Boston).

There are always two sides of every issue. I tend to prefer to choose
the more moderate one. I guess that is the best way to explain me.
Everything in moderation. Which conflicts me, because I tend to feel
that even doing that should be in moderation. I feel I am too moderate
sometimes.  So: Everything in moderation: including moderation in
moderation.

05.30.01
Existentialism

hey, so what is existentialism?  For me, existentialism is like that
senator's definition of porn.  I can't say what it is, but i'll know
it when i see it.  i think existentialism is way overtaught, and way
focused on, in school, and yet, I still can't say what it is.


05.30.01
The Hegelian dialect and neo-feminism

Beware: remember that hierarchy of bull$hit I posited a few entries
back?  This entry will be very high on that level.

So passing a display on Sex in the City recently, and recently
marvelling at the new Sex and the City Ad that both my Mom and Esther
liked where the four of them ooze sex appeal, I was wont to ponder the
neo 90's feminism. The feminism of the oughties (I like that solution
to the connundrum that I first posited before it was en vogue to do so
years ago, oughties sounds so naughty), but anyway, the feminism of
the oughties, exemplified by Ally McBeal and Keri from Sex in the
City, Buffy, or more recently Bridget Jones. The new liberated women,
profiled by Time Magazine, who knows what she wants, and she wants a
man.

Further ponderances led to the hegelian dialectic.
Thesis: June Cleaver. Florence Henderson.
Antithesis: Gloria Steinem, bra burners
Synthesis: Ally McBeal

Ah philosophy!


05.29.01
lessons learned: polling

On epoll today, I am struck by how poorly their polls are designed. I
learned my lesson about poor poll design way back when Jon was running
a BBS, and I was Co-Sysop (geez, that was like a decade ago), and I
put up the poll, Which was better, Aladdin or Lion King, was lambasted
for things like, Aladdin was first and there was no No Opinion, or
About the Same. That lesson perhaps led the way to my healthy
skepticism for polling resutls and studies, especially iwth
endogeneity problems, which I see every week in the Economist, like
today where they say that tobacco funded researchers tend to produce
tobacco friendly results. 


05.25.01
and now for something completely different

"I just looked down at my pants, and I realize I like my pants. They
are these light summer Slates slacks from Macy's, which I just got on
sale and wore for the first time today. I'm not sure why I just told
you that, but I wanted to share that with someone."
- Ben (in a e-mail i wrote today.)


05.25.01
jeffords

ARGHGHGHGHGGGHGHG!!!!!

Endless frustration. This jeffords thing was on the surface annoying,
because of all the committee leadership switches, but on the whole,
its not so bad. the american people prefer "cohabitation" as the
french call it, this leads to government inaction (often good) and
cooperation, equally good. However, on one issue, there is a very clear
bad going on here. (first school vouhcers and charter schools have no
chance of passing now but they didn't have much chance of passing
before either, so that's not a big deal)

But free trade, Bush is a big proponent of this. (He also amazing does
seem to favor free trade, and not just big business. he has so far
been reserved in promoting subsides for businesses. just reduced
regulations).

So the democrat head of the senate finance committee is a hard core
protectionist becuae of (environmental/labor) issues.  Goddamn him.
And now, he wants to raise Steel Protections again, driving prices for
cars.

See I realize now the problem with those who argue that developing
econmies need protections to grow. that's fine. Let them keep their
protections. Nobody in Africa could afford to buy our computers/high
end services (financial and otherwise)/high tech stuff/software and
otherwise. BUT, we would like to buy their products, their sugar,
their textiles, making clothes and soda cheaper and better tasting in
the US, pumping tons of money into their economies, and making the
lives of 300 million us consumers better off, and the expense of a few
thousand jobs here and there, that we could afford to retrain. I
haven't felt this bad since my summer of (banana wars, China wto
collapse, steel tariff) hell.  So I just want to say,

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGHGHHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGGHHHHHGGGHHGHGGHGGHG!

thank you.


05.23.01
The Media annoys me

It has seemed to me that in recent years, the media has goten a lot
better. I have written previously that under Bush I/Clinton/(Bush
II+Gore), good economic thikning has finally come to America, and the
media was reflecting that. Sure the dumb extremists like Nader and
Buchanan are still there fulminating (ooh, great word) but mainstream
America seems to accept sound economics. Oh, how wrong I was. Well,
not totally, but I think Clinton helped. Like only Nixon could go to
China, Clinton was able to say non-PC things that may defy common
sense but follow economic precepts, without getting demolished by the
media. Bush isn't afforded this luxury.

The warmup example is arsenic. Sure, arsenic causes cancer, that kills
people, but so do cars. I can probably do a scientific study, that the
only acceptable speed limit for =cars would be 10 mph to ensure noone
dies. But that is unreasonable, and would cost so much money, that it
would slow the economy down and lead to deaths from other things.  So
arsenic reduction would cost $34 million per live saved (granted, this
is an Economist Magazine quote, take that however you want). There are
much cheaper ways to save lives. A rule of thumb is an American's life
is worth about $1-$2 million. That's how much Gruber used to say it
costs to reduce infant mortality by one in an inner city hospital.
It's also the hazard pay premium for dangerous jobs. I like how two
drastically different measures turn up the same number.

The big example is this oil price thing. Sure oil is expensive. But
what I can't stand is people lamenting *both* high oil prices *and*
too much oil use.  you can't complain about both.  You need one to
stop the other.  Bush has it right, to say the best way to deal iwth
the oil crisis is a tax cut. Because higher oil prices is a good
thing, to get people to use less. But, he gets lambasted by the media
for that, who think they are smarter than him, but are wrong in this
case. Bush or at least one of his advisors, has got it right. (it's
sad we can't trust the president to understand the things he does.
maybe he does, but maybe he doesn't. oh well. maybe that's bush's
fault, or maybe it's the media's).

05.21.01
Ads in movies

Hmm, 3 new thoughts in one day. That's a record or something. Ads in
movies. So the bigcheese
just mentioned something about seeing a Myst III commercial at a movie
recently. And seeing Shrek Friday, for the first time there was an
extensive series of commercials. Not just the mountain dew (which
broke the ice), but for a bunch of other products which I have
forgotten now.

Now it was cute at first, because it reminded me of France. Watching
movies in France always started with a bunch of nice commercials.
Mostly because since TV shows have no commercials, they have to
advertise somewehre. I always thought that was cute, and seeing it in
the US brought back that nostalgia. But part of that cute nostaligia
(sorry, not cute, which I have been overusing, chouette), was knwoing
the US doesn't do that. I guess that wall has finally broken, and I'm
sure we'll be seeing lots more commercials in the future now.

05.21.01
Time lags

It's weird.. A simpsons episode takes 9 months to produce. No wonder
it's hard to be timely. Movvies like Shrek take like 2-3 years. So
it's a big risk if actors are no longer hot by the time the movie gets
made. And sattelites take upwards of a decade. DirectTV's been in the
words for a while. Windows takes years.  Weird. In a pipelined world
like ours, you don't notice these things.


05.18.01
The Art of Buzz: Engineering a Global Conspiracy
cloudmakers

look at: http://www.cloudmakers.org/

This reveals the secrets to the most amazing movie advertising
campaign ever. If you watch ads and trailers for the new movie AI, you
will see curious phrasees and hidden messages that if you search for
the web, you will unlock a vast conspiracy that is being cracked using
everything from high stakes crpyotgraphy to knowledge of sanskrit to
messages coming in on fax machines. Someone at my school obtained a
business card of one of the key architects of this conspiracy, and
many have glimpsed them in person.

Somehow Dreamworks has created this hidden underworld out of the AI
universe using mostly the internet, but also tv and live appearnces
and sneaked it into our own.  This blows "All your base are belong to
us" out of the water.  And blows my mind.

While interviewing for consulting companies last year, they all seem
focused on this concept of the BlairWitch campaign (formerly the
Disney effect). Advertising by word of mouth. Crouching Tiger did this
reasonably by marketing to such diverse constituents as using Naomi
Wolf (feminists at Smith), and the WuTang Clan (Li Mu Bai was from
Wudan (wutang) mountain), or Yankees players.

Nifty stuff.


5.10.01
Damning the status quo.
(reject conventional antiestablishment)

I hate easy activists. Perhaps it is because I live in New York, one
of those very blue states (from the electoral map) of overeducated
elitists who profess socialist beliefs but have no faith in the people
they claim to champion. People who take easy contrarian positions.
They damn pro-lifers. They damn suburban sprawal. They casually damn
racial profiling. They damn free trade. They damn Bush II. They damn
corporations in general. They damn sweat shops. They damn a strong
China policy. They damn environment regulations they don't understand.
Heck, everything they damn they don't really understand. Sure,
sometimes they get it right, but most of the time, they just remain
self satisfied and smug because they are the elite, who renounce the
status quo. And that makes them better.

(it's funny how funny the word damn begins to sound when you use it so
much)

Just a thought by an overeducated elitist who typically takes a
different point of view from the rest of his kind..


5.08.01
Interesting Trend: Forced unpaid vacation

Perhaps these have always been around in down turns, but maybe not,
Dell today announced that in addition to layoff, it would be
implementing forced unpaid vacation time. Charles Schwabb did the
same. Is this new?  This is odd, n'est pas?

5.07.01
Libertarians on the airwaves

Interesting Recent Trend: John Stossel -- Bill Mahr -- O'Reilley -- Fox News
(even Dennis Miller)
The times they are a changing.
Good.

5.04.01
A Taxonomy of Learning (the bull sh!t measure)

A friend of mine once commented that it sucks to study economics
because you can't talk over any body's head. I responded, ah, you just
haven't learned enough, and busted out Pooling Equilibria, Tiebout
choice, Marshaallian Demand, and Coase's theorem among others. But
more recently, I realize he's right. Economics, really, is based on
Common Sense, and any theory that can't be explained in those terms is
typically useless. Which is why anybody can have an opinion, and any
opinion must be considered no matter how unschooled.

I then thought about other sciences. I can Bull Sh!t about Biology,
fairly easily, but with Chemistry is harder, physics, harder still,
and math really hard.  With a little more though, I came up with the
following (it is more complicated in my head, but here is a rough
idea:

Math               Philosophy
 Physics          Literature
  Chemistry      Psychology
   Biology      Sociology
    Economics  Poli Sci

The higher, the harder to bull sh!t your way into sounding like you
know something.

(I later added Logic at the top to connect math and philosophy to get
a circle, I'm not sure what that means.)



4.26.01
Positively spectacular article in Atlantic Monthly

Go read:

The Next Ruling Class: The Organization Kid by David Brooks


David Brooks, I now concede. You won. After my co-worker Bill Allen
(the smart liberal), introduced me to the Atlantic, I find it has
great articles. True they are biased, but great articles none the
less.

So this week's Time had a reference to Brooks article, looking at
current college kids at Princeton. From what I heard, I came to find
this article ready to fight. Here are some quotes:

  "The young men and women of America's future elite work their
  laptops to the bone, rarely question authority, and happily accept
  their positions at the top of the heap as part of the natural order
  of life "
  
  "The Gap's television ads don't show edgy individualists; they show
  perky conformists, a bunch of happy kids all wearing the same clothes
  and all swing-dancing the same moves."
   
  "incredibly wholesome youths who will correct the narcissism and
  nihilism of their Boomer parents"
  
But the strength of his reasoning was implacable. And though he used
clear exaggerations and had a very clear selection bias in how he
picked his test subjects, he had a point. Today's kids are incredible
good at what they do, living. being a student. getting ahead. What
they perhaps lack is a center.

I see it all the time. Here is another quote (it mentions MIT, so it
has to be good:

  "1966 booklet called "College Admissions and the Public Interest,"
  written by a retired MIT admissions director named Brainerd Alden
  Thresher. Thresher made a distinction between students who come to
  campus in a "poetic" frame of mind and those who come in a
  "prudential" frame of mind. "Certainly more kids are entering in a
  prudential frame of mind," Hargadon said. "Most kids see their
  education as a means to an end."

This was clearly true at MIT, with the complaints about how useless
course 6 is. Those who just want to learn how to program vs those who
want to learn. With the lack of deep conversation at times. This is
what the extropians were reacting to.

They are lacking the intellectual curiousity to just understand the
world and enjoy it. Instead of using it.  To just be, rather than do.
Very Tao I suppose.

Authority is the other issue.  Kids are too respectful perhaps. As
a good Confuscian I see this as a good thing. But Brooks made me
understand his complaint.

Today's kids are the product of the boomers.  They have the same
boomers drive for achivement and success that came from the boomers as
the reached the 80's (scientifically raised children), and they also
have the same boomer rejection of absolutes. This leads to moral
ambiguity. No one willing to take a stand in this post modernist world
of ambiguous morality, and meek political correctness. But at least
they are willing to think for themselves.

And clearly the article is too quick to blanket judgement. As shown by
the whole scott Kreuger thing at MIT, kids still get inflamed. But not
as much. And part of what inflamed us, is we knew in 4 years, as the
students are turned over, no one will care about the old ways, and
simply bow to the mandate from above. Now that this is necessarily a
bad thing.

There are two types of people. People who work to live and people who
live to work. This and the story about rocks and a cathedral seem to
have only tenuous connections, but I will at some point elaborate.

(addendum, 6.10.01)
(forgot to mention this when I wrote the original)
The big thing that the article missed, however, is that perhaps there
are no activists because there are no big issues. Those who protest
free-trade are hurting more people than they are helping. Perhaps the
energies we used to see have now been sublimated into some good, the
entrepreneurship that has taken its place. Kids in colleges seem to
devote huge energies to making a difference, not in the activist
arena, but in the capitalist. And is that such a bad thing?

also, don't forget the huge selection bias. The guy only intereviews
the teacher's pets.  Not a representative sample at all.



4.25.01
Intel Pocket Concert

Props to the Intel Pocket Concert marketing people. Those Internet
advertising people, and the people who depend on advertrising
(basically most everyone) got together a couple months ago and decided
that banner ads weren't working, and ads had to be more in your face,
and bigger.  So within days, that's what they did.  One of the first
of these, was the Intel Pocket Concert Mp3 player, which frankly,
their big add on salon.com, with the nifty graphics got my attention.
I was drooling over it, and put it on my amazon wish list. It quickly
spiked to #1 on amazon sales rank even before it came out. I'm sure a
large part was the successful ad campaign. Therefore, proof-positive
that Internet advertrising can work.  Good for you.


4.19.01
rating inflation?
My ratings for things on imdb.com or epinions are always all good.
That's partly the rose color glasses by which I see the world I
suppose, but also, the filtering I do to only spend time on worthwhile
things, plus only great things inflame me enough to rate/write.


4.04.01
Trends: The Dining Experience

"Have you dined with us before?" A question overheard at many
restaurants I've been to recently. It comes from the need to
differenetiate perhaps.  Ruth's Chris, Macaroni Grill, Ruby Foos, Blue
Ribbon, Roy's.  All try to make your time there unqiue, a dining
experience. If not, then the waiter is prepared with "instructions" on
how to eat there, ranging from the complex, the entrees are served
super hot, are really big, and are served without sides, which are
ordered seperate and are to be shared (Ruth's Chris), to the banal,
the specials are printed in red (Blue Ribbon). At Ruby Foos and Roy's,
two upsclae asian fusion places, they explain the dishes are meant to
be shared, and the appetizers are out of this world. I don't know.  I
find this odd.  Perhaps I am late noticing it, but it is definitely a
trend I am seeing more of.


3.30.01
Estimation

A underappreciated skill taught in school, some buffoons who thought
they were so smart on the subway, were ridiculing the sign that said
half a billion people pass by this sign (the one in the times square)
a year.  Morons.

Let's do the math. 250 weekdays a year, 2 million a day. A person
passing in the morning is likely to pass again in the evening.  1
million people to account for. Weekends in new york are pretty busy
too, especially counting for tourists.  the roads are certainly
equally congested, the the weekday/weekend assumption is too much, so
we scale by 5/7th, = .714285.  We need to account for 700,000 people.
My building has about 40 floors, even on the smaller floors, there are
500 people (i.e. creative services), so that means 20,000 people work
here. I use that station, and yet I am 5 blocks away.  It is
reasonable to assume that within 5 blocks of time square, there are 50
such buildings, meaning 1 million or so people.  If 70% of them
use/walk by that station we're set. This is not counting the people
passing by for lunch, or the daily tourists, or the innumerable cars,
(there are 4 lanes, say standing there, 100 pass in a minute, 6000 an
hour, perhaps 100,000 by day end).  But heck, put a simpler way (let's
take a macro view) there are 6 million people that work in manhattan
alone each day, wouldn't you expect at least 10% to walk by the
central transportation hub of the city (the main subway stop, grand
central station, near penn statin, etc).

To be fair, I guess it somwhat defies imagination, but as I see the
incredible flows of people walking by each day, I never cease to be
impressed by the sheer mass of humanity concentrated here.


3.29.01
Interesting Concepts: (after reading the-tech)

Affirmative Action == Racial Profiling?
    I agree and disagree with both for the same reasons.
	One difference though, dignity. dignity is a diode. But even there...
Slavery Reparations, even if morally legitimate, practically as
	ill-conceived as legitimate ones.
It is interesting that you can identify an Objectivists writing as
	easily as a christian evangelist.


2.26.01
Long live the US Empire

I wanted a title that somehow used the old phrase, "how the west was
won." but couldn't figure out how.

Anyway, Cryptonomicon near the end explains why the US won the war.
Because the scientists beat the engineers.  He didn't use those words,
but they fit the thesis of this thought. Both US and Germany had lots
of devastating research. What is instructive is the what was
researched. In Germany, dramatic advances were made in faster jets,
longer living submarines, and bigger rockets and cannons. Devastating,
yet incremental. The US countered, not with incremental, but wiht
Cryptography, Radar, and Nuclear Power. Paradigm shifting (took me a
second to recall the correct consulting style buzzword) innovations.

This goes back to my thoughts that have come and gone, of why the
United States hegemony is here to stay, whereas all the ones of
history have fallen.  (of course its easy to talk like this while at
its height, but...).  Rome was great, but never innovated, they just
copied from the Greeks and others. The vaunted roman science, was
mostly engineering projects, like roads and aquaducts.  China was
great, but because of Confusciou also failed to innovate. And fell
from stagnation.

Also, it can be mentioned that the US really isn't absolute, its more
subtle. But it shares qualities, like English being the universal
language.


2.08.01
Holistic-ness

Just like "meta" is not a real noun that I use to describe an
important noun, holistic is a new one. Everything from holistic
medicine and holistic learning. But the concept has come up 3 times in
the last two days, and I feel a need to comment on it.  One, was
yesterday, where Michael Dertouzos (head of the MIT Lab for computer
science) came to vet his new book, the Unfinished Revolution, saying
that computer interface design is leaving out the human component. In
this push to build and improve individual pieces, we forget the
ultimate goal. The build something for humans to use.  Forget the
features, what's important is the whole.

Another, reading this great article I saw on plastic.com
(an interesting new way to introduce open source, or user-innovation,
into editing news content), about what I will call "holistic
policing." The article, "broken windows"
said that though the problem with police is they now focus on
inidvidual crimes, and breakin the law, instead of their old duty: to
maintain order. Police walking the streets don't reduce crime, but
they maintain order.  Promote well being. Consider a building with
many windows. It may stand for years, with its windows intact. As soon
as one is broken, and not fixed, the rest will quickly follow. There
is currently a reaction against victimless crimes because they trample
the rights of the individual. However, what is left unconsidered is
the well being of the community.


1.18.01
Clinton's Legacy

Atlantic Monthly published a retrospective on Clinton's legacy, and so
discussed it on NPR's all things considered.  Normally such things are
great, but this distrubed me because it seemed a uniformly Naderite
perspective uniformally missing the point. There are 3 reasonable
interpretations of Clinton's legacy. None of which came up.

1) He served in an age of new efficiency in the politics market
2) He served in an age when economic academics became policy
3) He presided over what Bush Sr. and Gingrich deserve credit for

I should elaborate on this at some point.


12.22.00
Technology in the classroom.
What annoys me is why people castigate school board's focusing on
buying computers as opposed to reducing class sizes. Minor point:
there is no evidence that class size has any effect on quality of
education.  Major point: thought experiment: consider, a typical high
school, 1000 kids, class size high, pushing 30.  Either hire one
teacher, which for around $100k, ($50-60k salary, +benefits, +real
estate, +taxes), will reduce class size by half a kid.  Or, for the
same price, promise a new computer for every freshman that comes into
the school each year. Yes, teachers are important, technology is
cheap. Maybe teachers are better, but technology is under used, steep
marginal return cure, have much higher marginal rate of substitution.

12.22.00
Policy by Anecdote

12.22.00
Bad Statistics
when even NPR and the Economist quoting studies that seem to ttally
misintepret statistics.

1.2.01
Link to look at today:

http://web.mit.edu/murj/www/

(Reports/murj3specificity.pdf)