"So... in an HTML analogy, your code now has a "style sheet" instead of you typing in the modifiers for every individual tag you use, every time you use it? (You load the main program once, then switch the parameters without re-performing the vast majority of the task?)"
I don't really know CSS (:-p) so I'm not sure how apt the analogy is, but my guess is this is pretty different. The optimizations don't make my code "cleaner" in an aesthetic sense, and they don't reduce my effort in writing the code - the purpose is just to make the code run faster, i.e. reduce the computer's effort in executing the code.
The best metaphor I can think of for the memory allocation situation is this: let's say you're a professor, and before every lecture, you need a lot of material put up on a board, which you'll lecture from. Fortunately, you have a TA to help you with this task (the subfunction you call, metaphorically speaking.) Now, you would probably think the easiest thing to do would just be to give your TA the relevant info that needs to go up on the board each time. So you do that, and classes go fine, but at the end of the semester you notice you've gone way overbudget due to "TA expenses". It turns out the TA has been going out and BUYING A WHOLE NEW FREAKING BLACKBOARD for every lecture. Now, that's obviously not very efficient. But you don't think it would be very efficient to lug the blackboard over to the TA before each lecture, either. Fortunately, there's a simple solution: just tell the TA where the blackboard is, and ask them to just go write on it. In a language like "C", this is simple to do, with something called a "pointer" - you pass a pointer to a big chunk of memory into a function instead of sending the whole thing, and everything's groovy. Matlab, trying to be simpler and easier to use, doesn't want to confuse you with pointers, so you can't do this. What I did was figure out a trick to let me (effectively) pass a pointer . . . and thus, metaphorically, cut out the cost of the TA buying a new blackboard (allocating memory) for every lecture. posted by Miles 8:55 AM
This morning, I had no code for my next planned experiment.
Tonight, I not only have working "demo" code, I've also cleaned up and massively optimized a lot of the underlying code. The optimization work was especially satisfying. Matlab is fruity enough that you kind of have to trick it into being efficient, and while the documentation is great for quickly learning how to make something that will work, it doesn't give you a lot of info on how to make things go fast. So I'm left to explore by trial & error.
Case in point:
I have a function (called repeatedly within a loop) which produces a dot-array image matrix from a set of {x,y} coordinates. Simple. But it was taking TONS of time. Making it a 'uint8' instead of a 'double' matrix helped, but it was still painfully slow. Solution? Instead of (implicitly) declaring the variable for the matrix inside the function (which requires memory allocation), I passed a 'template' matrix - declared once, on the "outside" - into the function. I wouldn't have guessed that this would work, actually, because my initial thinking was that it was costly to pass big variables in and out of functions. Not so; apparently, by using the same name for the argument TO and the output FROM a function, you can sort of create a "tunnel" in and out of the function, allowing it to avoid creating (and allocating memory for) a new variable. Neat, but not intuitive, at least to me. I wonder whether I'm thinking about that the right way, conceptually. I'm not totally sure.
In another function, which creates the coordinate sets, I figured out a way to eliminate two levels of nesting (which Matlab tends to stumble over), and turn an O(N^2) process into an O(N) process. The latter improvement was possible merely because my original algorithm was blindingly idiotic, but fixing it was still really satisfying. This is code that I've been using to create experimental stimuli for about the last 4 years, now. It worked, but it was always annoyingly slow. Now it blazes.
It serves to remind me how silly it is to be obsessed with hardware & CPU clockspeed, when comparing across platforms. If the software you're using is well-designed and optimized, it will run fast. If it's poorly-designed, it will drag.
As an aside, it's pretty sad that Pedro's not gonna' be pitching for the Sox next year. Yeah, he seemed to be getting old and tailing off a little, but he was a heck of a fun character.
I decided this morning (in the shower) that I spend way too much time reading news on the web, and I should quit. I don't really get that much out of it, you know, it's more of a compulsion, and overall I'd be happier if I spent the time (a) working, or (b) actually relaxing and enjoying myself - taking walks along the river, going to museums, watching movies, bowling, getting drunk, that kind of thing.
So I decided to go cold turkey. For 10 days. I'm gonna' ask Jess to go through my web-browser's "history" files over the weekend to check on me, and make sure I haven't slipped.
But like Obi Wan Kenobi said, in Trainspotting (eh-heh) . . . with God's help I will conquer this terrible affliction.
(News: It's the new heroin. Any day now the War on Terror will be passe, and the administration will declare a new "war" to free us from the terrible scourge of news addiction.)
p.s. - Yes, I'm allowed to blog, and yes, it is just about exactly like methadone for me. posted by Miles 5:28 PM
Today, thanks to an applescript I found, I was able to do a calculation I've wanted to do for a long time. Here, in order, are the artists or bands I've listened to the most over the last ~2 years (total playcount > 200):
Liz Phair, Guster, Jump Little Children, The Beatles, Deb Talan, Mos Def, Aimee Mann, Coldplay, Radiohead, The Shins, Ben Folds, The Pixies, R.E.M., The Roots, Joni Mitchell, Evanescence, Elliott Smith, The Foo Fighters
There it is, in the cold light of day. :-)
Liz Phair? 743 listens, total, to the 72 songs in my library. Deb Talan has the highest "density", with 384 listens spread over just 13 songs, for an average of almost 30 plays per song. And yes, you've probably never heard of her. She plays acoustic guitar and sings . . . and writes some really addictive tunes.
Overall, my total iTunes playcount stands at about 24,500. That actually goes back to Nov. 17, 2002, a little more than 2 years ago, or just about 750 days ago . . . which means on average, I've listened to about 32 songs a day, on iTunes & my iPod, combined. Fascinating.
Anyway. Time to walk home through the snow . . . posted by Miles 10:59 PM
I saw the Pixies last night, with Francis & Jordan. Today I can't speak and I'm half-deaf. God, that was good. They closed with "Gigantic", and as I stood, soaked in sweat, eyes closed and a hand in the air, I was hit by a constant rolling wave of endorphins. Listen to the resonance in their guitars in the minute-long closing instrumental to that song. I love the Pixies. And I love endorphins. I haven't moshed like that in years. Gah.
You know, there's something to be said for working hard. There's something to be said for relaxing. There's something to be said for the feeling of being respected. For gettin' paid. For feeling secure.
But fuck all, man, none compare to feeling ALIVE.
I think the Pixies are an acquired taste. To the untrained ear, they can sound too raw, maybe too punk, too angry, too fucked. And since they're frequently credited as the band whose innovations inspired grunge, you might think they're about darkness and pain and depression. But really . . . that's not what the screeching vocals or wailing, driving instrumentals are about. At all. The Pixies are great because they rock, and they rock you. They make your head implode. They make it feel fucking great to be young, and strong, and alive. Their music just embodies everything that Rock is about. In amazing, innovative, pounding, driving, emotive ways.
I don't know - I'm full of shit, I know. I give up. Let's just leave it that the Pixies are awesome.
The domain name "aluminumhat.com" appears to be available.
Who thinks I should register it and make it into a site/blog dedicated to information (& fact checking) related to the "crazy" hypothesis that the Republicans stole the election via massive fraud?
This morning I had my mind on my money, and my money on my mind (like my man Snoop). I was thinking "How can I make the best of a bad situation . . . how can I profit from Bush's re-election?"
My first thought was "Perhaps Bush's re-election will lead to the overall collapse of the U.S. economy under our crushing debt load." So I started looking at companies in Europe, India, Japan, etc.
I've been giving a lot of thought to the election, in the last few days. I guess we all have. For the most part, I have simply felt at a loss - unable to comprehend how or why we lost.
Jess pointed me towards this editorial in the NY Times, today, and it resonated with one of the dominant issues on my mind - the division in this country over religion, and how that impacted the election. In my less-magnanimous moods, I equate religiosity with ignorance, and I'm simply disgusted and angry about being a member of an intelligent/secular minority doomed by democracy to lose. A lot of people feel the same way, and the sentiment is expressed in this "new map of the Americas" that has been making its way across the internet in the last two days:
When I first saw it, I thought "yeah, how sad - how frustrating". A minute later I was thinking "wow - what a good idea." I was surprised to find, this evening, that conservatives think it's a good idea, too. This stimulated a productive train of thought: (1) They want it. (2) We want it. (3) It's not plausible. (4) Is there some other way to go about achieving the same ends? I posted the following message on this blog:
I'm an athiest, I'm working on a PhD at Harvard, and I'm fairly generally liberal (unsurprisingly, I suppose). It seems like both liberals & conservatives actually like this idea of splitting the nation in two and being rid of eachother. A lot. (See the freerepublic discussions) Is it plausible? No, probably not. I don't believe any of us actually want civil war, but it would be almost inevitable given the resources that would have to be divided up, and the interweaved populations in many regions of the country. I'm surprised, though, that even the suggestion of liberal secession hasn't elicited expressions of outrage from conservatives about it being traitorous and unamerican. Would it be regarded that way, or would the response truly be "good riddance"?
I find myself wondering what the country would look like if Bush were successful in pushing through (what I regard as) a traditional conservative agenda, shrinking the federal government to almost nothing except national defense, and giving back a great deal of power to the states. Given the vast differences in cultural mores between the Blue & Red states (or between the U.S. of Canada and Jesusland, if you prefer) maybe it really wouldn't be so bad to have dramatically different laws on abortion, marriage, stem-cell research, school prayer, drug legalization, etc. We (liberals) dislike your (conservative) religious values intruding into our lives; you dislike our secular values intruding into yours. Perhaps secession isn't necessary to make us both happy, and the triumph of states-rights conservatism would be enough.
One other aside: why are you folks in the sea of red so concerned about the war on terror? Al-Qaida isn't going to bomb your farmland in West Texas. If they strike again, what would you estimate the chance is they strike a blue (metropolitan) area? I have to guess 90%. Any thoughts?
I really feel like thinking this through has given me a new perspective. My feelings yesterday were of frustration at being ruled over by "one of them" and being subject to the imposition of "their" values. But that's probably akin to what conservatives felt throughout the course of the liberalization of the entire latter half of the twentieth century. Common ground! Empathy! These are important things.
Why do we, as liberals safely tucked away in Blue states, care so much about "imposing" gay rights, school prayer bans, and access to abortion upon those in the vast swath of red states? It is, perhaps, because of a sense of universality in morality - liberals think we should fight for everyone's rights, not just our own. But I don't feel tied to that, being the philosophical amoralist that I am, and with my newfound perspective on the religious right, this leftist attitude seems essentially hippocritical.
So my proposal is this: in response to losing this election, Democrats don't need to give ground and move to the right on "faith and values", as some have suggested. Instead, Democrats need to turn the tables on the Republicans with some political judo, championing a reduction in federal power and the re-expansion of states rights. It's true, this is a fundamentally conservative position. But given the divisions that apparently exist - primarily over cultural/moral issues - perhaps it is the most sensible, most constructive position, even for a liberal.
For an interesting alternative set of views, I suggest the frequently excellent Altercation posted by Miles 1:44 AM
A couple days ago 4 minutes of videotape of Osama Bin Laden were released. Everyone stood up and took notice. But no-one was really surprised by what he had to say.
Time will only tell if others agree with me, but I feel like the real bombshell only came today, with the release of the complete transcript of the full 14 minute video. Bin Laden is a smart fucker. In the extended transcript, he states that the central aim of Al-Qaida is to bankrupt America:
"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations [. . .] the darkness of the black gold blurred [Bush's] vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America. So the war [in Iraq] went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future.
He is, essentially, taunting Bush for falling into his trap by going into Iraq. Until now, this was mere left-wing speculation, the idea that Bin Laden wanted Bush to pursue this kind of aggressive, costly foreign policy. Now it's fact, straight from Bin Laden's mouth.
There are many - including both presidential candidates - who proclaim stridently that we cannot allow the terrorists to dictate our policy, that we cannot show weakness. This is a reasonable argument. But what are these people to think when they see Bin Laden say, straight out, "bring it on - you're stupid, and you have been doing exactly what we want you to"?
I don't even know what to think. I just know this is newsworthy. I hope people stand up and take note.
Okay, I haven't seen it yet so I can't say for sure that it will have an Oscar-quality plot, or that it will change the world with its subtle but powerful political statement. But I'm fairly confident that it will be, as Jim would say, the Citizen Kane of sardonic, apropos marionette action movies.
And that's enough to have me very excited.
The site is all in Flash, so I can't provide direct links, but I recommend the "clips" section . . . the commentary by Matt & Trey and the "Behind The Scenes" bits are pretty cool. posted by Miles 11:28 AM
This is beautiful. Bush just said that the administration before him endangered the environment by not making sure the forests were properly "harvested" in order to protect them from wildfires.
That's just beautiful. I have to say that's very comforting -- I've always considered the wetlands to be a real fire hazard. You know what else is very flammable? Panda bears. They're bone dry. We got at least two or three of those suckers at our national zoos. It's sad, but we should probably kill them for the sake of the greater good.
If I were a small business owner, I think it stands to reason that I would create jobs (hire new employees) if and only if I believed that by doing so, and expanding my business, I could make more money in the long term. I wouldn't create new jobs out of the goodness of my heart, just because I had extra cash lying around. And if I didn't have extra cash lying around, but saw an opportunity to expand and wanted to hire more employees, I would take out a loan, or take on a partner; I would find a way to raise the necessary capital. I might be able to take advantage of a slightly more marginal opportunity if I had capital on hand instead of needing to take out a loan, since I wouldn't have to pay interest in the former case . . . but I think even this is wiped out if you consider opportunity costs: as long as I can make about as much in interest, dividends, or appreciation on my extra capital as I'd have to pay in interest on a loan, it's a total wash.
Doesn't this completely kick the stool out from under the conservative, supply-side argument that tax cuts for wealthy people / business owners are the best tool for spurring job creation and economic growth?
I think that really this requires a somewhat more nuanced analysis, taking into account the affects of incorporation, corporate tax rates, and the capital gains rate, since the immediate economic impact of improved small-business profits for the owner of an incorporated business isn't reflected in his income, but in the value of his assets (I think). I certainly don't have the expertise to analyze the situation at this level, but I'd be interested to read about it. posted by Miles 10:54 AM
M: "Oh no. It is Fuck!"
F: "It is Fuck?"
M: "It is Fuck!"
F: "Ah, you are right. It is Fuck."
...
A: "You guys aren't watching this, right?"
F: "Only halfway sort-of. You can switch it."
M: "Yah. It is Fuck."
F: "It is Fuck!"
M: "It is Fuck!" posted by Miles 1:44 AM
Neuron let us know today that our paper is all set, and they're targeting October 28th for the publication date. Awesome! That was fast. They've also invited us to submit a candidate cover image - how cool! So now I get to put on my graphic designer hat & try to cook something up.
Also, I led my first class "section" tonight. I was a little nervous at the start, and there are some ways I can improve, but overall I think it went pretty well. Francis reminded me tonight of his suggestion that I eschew staid instruction and just go with an approach of overwhelming my students with my enthusiasm for the subject matter. It's a good plan. Maybe I'll try it on Thursday. posted by Miles 11:54 PM
Alright! I have internet access from home again! Jim took his wireless router with him when he moved out, and I'll tell ya', it's been a rough week around here.
Wow, have I been neglecting this blog.
Yeah.
So, how 'bout that debate last night?
I was disgruntled and disappointed with Kerry throughout - I kept feeling like he was missing opportunities, like when Lehrer asked him how Bush had misled the country, and he failed to mention the administration's persistent innuendo concerning links between Saddam's regime and Al Qaeda, or on the topic of N. Korea, when he didn't bring up the administration's suppression of N. Korea's admissions regarding nuclear weapons until after the bill to authorize the use of force in Iraq had been voted on. HUGE deceptions, but Kerry stuck to the weak line about "he promised to plan carefully, but didn't", etc.
Weak. But I knew, going in, that I wouldn't be able to judge who was "winning" very well. I'm aware of how disconnected I am from the "moderate" masses, and I'm okay with it. I think Bush pretty much always acts like an ass, but most of the time some 50% of the people in this country seem to like him - so when I thought he came off like an idiot in the debate, that failed to convince me that he was losing the public's affections.
But all appearances are, in the hearts and minds of those who are sufficiently apathetic that they haven't made up their minds yet . . . Kerry kicked Bush's butt! Alright! That's really pretty exciting.
Okay, it's about time for the 7:30 Booty-Call Express to leave the station, en route to Albany. Peace.
So last night I was driving home from my office a little after midnight, listening to my awesome car stereo hooked up to my iPod, when what should come on but D.J. Shadow's "Midnight in A Perfect World". Perfect, right? So I turned the volume all the way up, rolled the windows all the way down, and rolled down Highland St. at about 15 mph, just taking it all in.
It was beautiful. For about 15 seconds. Before I blew out one of my redundant, not-even-supposed-to-be-connected-but-you-can't-trust-bestbuy-to-do-the-job-right-even-the-second-time factory speakers, and it started making farting noises with every base note.
So last night I was driving home from my office a little after midnight., listening to my awesome car stereo hooked up to my iPod, when what should come on but D.J. Shadow's "Midnight in A Perfect World". Perfect, right? So I turned the volume all the way up, rolled the windows all the way down, and rolled down Highland St. at about 15 mph, just taking it all in.
It was beautiful, for about 15 seconds, before I blew out one of my redundant, not-even-supposed-to-be-connected-but-you-can't-trust-bestbuy-to-do-the-job-right-even-the-second-time speakers, and it started making farting noises with every base note.
Take that, you punk-ass journal referee! Read the referenced paper next time, before you start beef! Even the footnotes!
"(b) In some studies, we report the coordinates of subpeaks not reported in the digital papers, which reported a single global maximum for each cluster."
that's why we used {-48,-44,52} and {52,-44,52} instead of {-32,-72,52} and {32,-60,44}.
WHO'S YOUR FACT-CHECKING DADDY NOW?!?!
Give it up! Unh! Unh! Hit that "ACCEPT FOR PUBLICATION" button, baby! You're gonna hit it and you're gonna' like it!
(who? . . . what? . . . where am I? what happened? i'm sitting in lab . . . huh. oh, well. back to work.) posted by Miles 10:22 AM
Jess left for Albany, today. It snuck up on me, a little bit. I've been really busy with work, lately, and then my dad came up for a visit this week. And I'm planning on heading up there for 3-4 days, the end of next week, so it wasn't really seeming like an abrupt end, or transition. This afternoon, though, it really hit me. I felt alone, and vulnerable . . . feelings I haven't really felt in a long time.
I came home a little early, frustrated with my work and feeling kind of overwhelmed. A little while later, a thunderstorm rolled in. "Alright," I thought.
I stripped down to shorts & flip flops, and headed out into the rain. It was barely a sprinkle, at first. 100 feet from my house the wind started kicking up, and the rain started falling harder. A minute later, I could hardly see, sheets of rain were hitting me sideways, and I was drenched through. It felt like I was walking through a hurricane. "WHOOOOOOO!" I screamed, face split in a huge grin, looking up at the sky, at the thunderheads, my arms spread wide.
I walked on, and moments later the storm got even louder. And suddenly, a little more painful. WTF? I dodged under a canopy, and then realized hailstones the size of blueberries were bouncing all over the place, around me. I was lucky the canopy was there - I think they could have done some serious damage.
I waited out the hail, and then started back to the house, still through a steady downpour. I got home completely drenched, and feeling almost reborn.
Ashlee Simpson's "Pieces of Me" (iTunes link) is an absolutely superb piece of power pop. I'm saying it goes to #1 on the charts and stays there a while.
Just listen to her wail,
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh
It seems like I can finally rest my head on something real
I like the way that feels
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .
Better yet, don't just listen, throw your head back and wail with her, your jaw hanging wide open and your eyes almost shut from the effort, and feel the endorphins flow. That is a pop song.
The original configuration was obviously a little less than optimal; I had my laptop as the server, and so the webcam link went down any time I wasn't at my desk. I've fixed it.
I bought an iSight camera, and I've set it up as a webcam using evocam shareware from evological
I can also use it for video chatting via AIM using iChat AV (on my end) and whatever IM software you're running, as long as it's pretty new - and even if you don't have a camera, I can "push" my video feed to you. So don't be shy, drop me a line! :-)
(Can you tell I'm totally geeked out over this?) posted by Miles 12:02 PM
Today I face cleaning up from the tornado that appears to have hit my desk last week, as I was finishing up my paper and resubmitting to Neuron. But hey, I submitted!!!
I played in my third game as a Boston Mariner, on Saturday, and we won our first game since I joined! Everyone was pretty psyched - the team is 2-13 overall, now. I collected my first hit, a 2-RBI single that added insurance runs in the top half of the last inning, walked, and grounded out. In seven plate appearances I've now walked 4 times, gotten out twice, and singled once, so I'm batting .333, with an OBP of .714. :-)
Ever been to whatsbetter.com? It's a neat site; it rank orders everything in the world. I was walking down the hall to get a coke, just now, and thinking that it would be interesting to see a similar site that asked "who would you respect more?" and generated a rank order of occupations. posted by Miles 11:57 AM
Today I went golfing with my dad. It was a perfect day to be out golfing - sunny, 80 degrees, a nice breeze - just perfect. I made par FOUR times; I don't think I've ever made par more than twice in a round of 18 holes, before. So I was psyched. I had decent shots at birdie twice, but my putting . . . wasn't very good. Overall I shot a 110, ending up exactly tied with my dad - a lousy round for him, an excellent one for me.
A few days ago, driving around somewhere with Jess, a song came on the radio; I recognized it, but couldn't place the artist . . . I liked it . . . and then I realized I had a very strong particular association with it: I had listened to the song in the parking lot of a bed-n-breakfast in rural England, while my father went in to ask about rates, a little less than 10 years ago.
The song, as it turns out, is True Faith, by New Order. Who knew? - I like New Order.
My special bonus prize is that I have four New Order albums on my harddrive that I was given out of a friend's collection, but never bothered to listen to because I thought I didn't like New Order.
I'm psyched. I've been called up to the big leagues!
I tried out for the Boston Men's Baseball League a while ago, but I wasn't drafted based on my tryout. It wasn't a big surprise, but it was a little disappointing. I resigned myself to another season of playing softball with the Gorilla Fingers . . . softball is alright, and it's a fun group of guys . . . but it's not baseball.
Then, this week, I got a call from the manager of one of the teams, saying he'd lost some players, and asking if I'd still be interested in playing. I went to a practice on Wednesday, and I'll be going to my first game as a Boston Mariner tomorrow! How awesome is that?
Looks like the team may not be one of the strongest in the league, with a 1-6 record so far . . . but hey, in college I played on a team that compiled a 0-84 record over four years of conference play, so I can deal with losing some games. The more opportunity I have to play, the better.
Really, though, I'm just excited that I'm going to be putting on a uniform again, and running out onto a green field, on a bright sunny day, to play baseball.
I'm back from an extended weekend trip to Las Vegas, for my roommate's bachelor party. It was a good time. :-) Suffice it to say, I slept hardly at all, won a bit of money gambling, and spent a great deal more on fine food and entertainment.
And that if you're ever in Vegas, you should definitely check out the fountains at the Bellagio. And you should stay at The Hotel at Mandalay Bay.
Now I'm back to real life. And, you know . . . it's pretty alright. posted by Miles 4:39 PM
This is kind of bizarre. I went online to try to buy a back brace, maybe an elbow brace, maybe an underarmour tee. I tried one store, didn't like the selection of back braces. I tried another store, and it had the exactly the same collection. Weird. Then I tried five other stores, and they all had exactly the same eight items under the category "back braces".
Try the game yourself! Just find a sporting goods store on the web and search for "brace". Let's see just how far this conspiracy stretches . . .
Are all of these major national sporting goods chains owned by the same company? Do they sell exactly the same sets of items in their brick & morter stores? Is it just that they've all contracted out online operations to some other company, which sets up one store with a bunch of slightly different fronts?
There is, perhaps, a hint in the URLs for each of the links I list above. I didn't notice it until I was assembling this post, but they all read exactly the same, after the domain name; they're all of the form: "http://www.zzzzzz.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=17985444&cp=710547". The numbers are exactly the same for all the sites.
I want an SEC antitrust investigation . . .
More, though, I just want the back brace I liked the design of in the store, in the right size. It's got a "micro-suction" system that's supposed to wick moisture away from your skin, a key feature. It is apparently impossible to purchase on the web. It's made by Nike (yes, I know, shoot me, I'm supporting sweatshops), but I couldn't find back braces anywhere on their "niketown" store site. And it ain't one of the 8 braces sanctioned by this shadowy internet sporting goods cartel.
So anyway, in conclusion . . . WTF?!? posted by Miles 5:00 PM
Jess and I came back from a movie (Troy) last night, and got off the T in Central Sq. a little past midnight. When we came out of the subway, the street was alive; cops blocking off the street a block away, people bustling around, sounds of a crowd. I wondered what was going on, for a few seconds; then I remembered.
"Hey, want to go check out the gay marriage thing?" I asked Jess.
So we did. We got there around 25 after midnight - 25 minutes after Cambridge City Hall opened its doors for special hours, in order to be the very first place in the state of Massachusetts where gay couples could go to get legally married.
The scene was festive; a throng of thousands filled the street and lawn in front of City Hall, and every time a couple went in or came out, hand in hand, the crowd errupted with cheers. It really struck me as one of the most deeply joyful gatherings I've ever seen. It didn't seem political; I guess there were a few Christian protesters, there, but they weren't noticable. It was, by and large, just a really big group of really happy people. Happy, I think it's worth noting, in a quiet way, despite the volume of the cheers. I've been around Bostonians euphoric over the Patriots winning their first Superbowl. This was just as ecstatic a crowd, but it was a completely, completely different kind of ecstasy. It was deep. And it was meaningful.
It, uh, means life has been exciting. :-) I went to Jazzfest in New Orleans last weekend, for my dad's big 50th birthday / retirement party. It was a wonderful trip . . . thanks, Papa!
So, what do you get, after such a long blogging hiatus? A history of the last few weeks?
No, what you get is some thoughts on why Dawkins, Pinker, & evolutionary psychology, generally, might be completely wrong. Say what?
Here's the idea that hit me:
Dawkins central idea is that selection should work, in an important sense, at the level of individual genes. Thus the book titled "The Selfish Gene". Good. I love the book.
But. Genes are relatively simple things. They act in complex ways, but to the extent that you can take a reductionist approach and break things down into the dissociable effects of different individual genes, you (by definition) have genes with simple, limited effects.
The central idea in evolutionary psychology is that our behavior can be expected to conform to our genetic "interest" - so, we should be more generous to close relatives than to strangers, for instance, because our close relatives share a lot more of our genes.
Looking for Devils in Details, however, isn't there a problem at the intersection of these two central ideas? It's the genes that are selfish; our behavior is based on our genetic interest. Shouldn't this mean (and this sounds circular, but it's not) that our behavior should be based on the genetic interest . . . only of the genes that determine our behavior? Essentially, the question is this: why should "my" gene responsible for (e.g.) identifying close relatives care about the extent to which those close relatives share "my" genes for hair color, blood type, or any other physical, phenotypic features?
If any of y'all reading this have a good answer, drop me a line.
Maybe I need to go back and read Dawkins again - it's been awhile.
Or maybe I'm right, and the world's wrong. Er, well, Dawkins, anyway.
But what the heck would it mean if I were? I don't know, really. I think it would just require a re-evaluation of the appropriate "level of analysis". That is, there are genes, and there are organisms, and there are groups of organisms, and most people have trouble getting their heads around how exactly to deal with these different levels in analyzing natural selection. Maybe, I'm saying, Dawkins isn't exactly right, either.
I lucked into a ticket to Saturday's Red Sox game, against the Yankees. It was a perfect, beautiful day for baseball. I got chills looking around Fenway when the National Anthem played. If America is about anything, to me it's a sunny day, the smell of freshly cut grass, and baseball.
The game started well; Schilling was pitching inspired baseball, striking out 8 in six innings, including Jeter twice & A-Rod once. The Red Sox were hitting, but Mussina got out of enough jams to keep the game decently close. We were out in the bleachers, and they were rowdy all day; not just normal rowdy, but Red Sox - Yankees rowdy. There were N.Y. fans there, and I think the first one made the perp-walk out of the park, surrounded by security, in the third inning. There was about one per inning thereafter, and everyone in the bleachers would stand up to watch and jeer every time. The Sox stretched the lead out by the sixth or seventh, and with the beer really kicking in, the bleachers started to get really ugly. A full-out brawl errupted about 30 feet from us, when a shouting match led Sox fans to start pelting a Yankees fan first with popcorn and then with beer; that's when the shoving started, and soon enough there were punches thrown, and a crowd surge that security had to fight through to break things up.
The rivalry is cool. Kind of. But it's also poisonous. The fans really HATE the Yankees, and Yankees fans, and to some extent New York itself, and all its inhabitants, by extension. Hate is . . . unpleasant. And dumb. It's one thing when it's directed at an essentially abstract construction, like a sports team. It's another thing completely when you see it directed at real people, and turned into mob violence.
Still, it is fun to laugh at the fact that Alex "$25,000,000 per year" Rodriguez is batting .156 so far in a Yankees uniform! posted by Miles 8:30 AM
So we'd better get ready for a floweriffic month, because these April showers ain't no joke. We've had about 7.75 inches of rain already this month, about twice the average precipitation for the month of April, and we're only halfway through it. Anh's been saying it reminds him of the rainy season back in Vietnam, where it sometimes rains steadily for weeks on end (literally). It's kinda' depressing.
And even with the rain, there aren't any nice bright green leaves on the trees, yet. Everything's still brown and barren.
Y'all are a dedicated bunch, still showing up to read this as often as you do, considering how low-frequency my posting has been of late. :-)
Let me start this post by just saying that Charlie Kaufmann is a genius. Jess and I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last week, something more than a year after we saw Adaptation together on our first "real" date. Kaufmann's earlier movies were fun, and intelligent, and massively clever; Eternal Sunshine was all of these things, and emotionally pungent, and profound; it's right up there with my favorite movies, ever.
Let me continue this post by just saying that Mel Gibson . . . not so much. We saw The Passion on Saturday night, since it was Easter, so it seemed appropriate. I wasn't as bothered by the gore as I thought I would be, and it was an interesting enough experience, but I couldn't help spending most of my time in the theater pondering the nature of religious belief, in a psychological framework, rather than really getting into the film; in other words, wondering about what other folks are gettin', that I ain't gettin', out of the whole Christianity thing, and why.
Plus, there were no bunnies.
What gives?
Anyway, switching topics, I'd like to introduce you all to my fantasy baseball team, which started off the season with a win last weak despite not being in exactly mid-season form.
The 2004 Ragin' Rhinos, of the Zen Holist League:
C: Craig Wilson
1B: Albert Pujols
2B: Alfonso Soriano
SS: Miguel Tejada
3B: Hank Blalock
OF: Sammy Sosa
OF: Preston Wilson
OF: Miguel Cabrera
DH: David Ortiz
SP: Dontrelle Willis
SP: Kelvim Escobar
SP: Tim Wakefield
SP: Jose Contreras
SP: Brett Myers
RP: Eric Gagne
RP: Jason Isringhausen
As with last year, I should have an absolutely dominant offense. My pitching . . . like Mel Gibson, you know, not so much.
And in two last pieces of minor news, my paper was not accepted at Neuron last week, and I did not get picked onto a team based on my baseball tryout last weekend. Som'bitch. I'm working on revising the paper for resubmission.
And then, there's the secret exciting news, that I can't write about. But it's happy! :-)
(1) I fixed my car by replacing the voltage regulator; the mechanic who'd looked at it had said the alternator was bad and wanted $380 to replace it. The regulator was $25, bought online, and I spent $18 on a multimeter for testing. I rock.
(2) I went to the gym to play basketball today, and couldn't hit a shot. Frustrated, I decided to shoot some threes after everyone had left. I hit 47 of 100. Then I decided to see how I'd do shooting just from the top of the key - straight on. I hit 60 of 100 threes from there. Francis, my boy, get ready. :-)
And one thing I'm not: My dad whupped on me in Scrabble while he was up here visiting. :-) I think he won 7 of 9 games, and held me under 300 in a few of those. Too much defense. (Defense? Scrabble? You betcha. He was killin' me.)
Despite losing at that, and losing at poker, and watching the Sixers get absolutely walloped by the Celtics, it was a really fun visit. :-) We saw an absolutely fantastic concert, Friday night: Baaba Maal, at the Somerville Theater, a ten minute walk from my place, in Davis Sq. posted by Miles 4:00 PM
Back when I was in high school, I won a trip to Space Camp with my science fair project. The day I won that trip was a pretty good day; I still remember parts of it as clearly as if it were yesterday.
I got an email out of the blue, today, from my old & dear friend Cristin.
It was wonderful to hear from her, and hear that she, like me, is still scrabble obsessed. She has an awesome life in NYC which, aside from the scrabble obsession, is completely, totally different than mine.
First consider the strongest hypothesis based on prior research, that HIPS is the neural instantiation of a domain-specific mechanism for representing abstract numerical magnitude. The results listed above seriously challenge this hypothesis. Indeed, they indicate that if HIPS is engaged by non-symbolic number processing, all of the following must be true: I) there must not be domain-specific modulation of activation by task difficulty (Experiment 3), II) number representations for non-symbolic stimuli must be activated in a task-independent fashion (Experiment 1), yet III) not cause response interference (Behavioral results from Experiment 1), and IV) not show adaptation for repeated numerosities (Experiment 2). This new set of constraints seems possible – though perhaps unlikely - when considered alone. However, the existing literature claims that symbolic number processing does elicit activations modulated by difficulty (Pinel et al., 2001), does respond in a domain-specific fashion to numbers and display task-dependent localization of activation (Eger et al., 2003), does cause response-interference (Pavese and Umilta, 1998) and does display adaptation effects (Naccache and Dehaene, 2001). In light of these opposite characteristics, the theory that a single representational system with its locus in this region of parietal cortex underlies both symbolic and non-symbolic processing seems unparsimonious at best.
Now, that's an excerpt from the manuscript Nancy & I just submitted to Neuron. I'm extremely excited about the fact that I've just submitted my first "first author" paper. But I'm not exactly cool like Cristin is. People read or hear or see her shit, and they vibe, they grin, they laugh, they feel. People read my shit and, for the most part, just glaze over. Oh, well. I dig it. :-)
Now that I've been humble for a moment . . . I submitted! Woo-hoo! Done! Free at last, free at last, free at last! And while I really should get back to being productive and, say, move forward with scheduling for my new study . . . it's hard not to just bask in the glow of completion for a little while.
If I could take a break for a week, and do anything I wanted to, what would make me feel relaxed, happy, and fulfilled?
Whatever the answer is, my addiction to information is NOT it. My addiction to games of information (scrabble, fantasy baseball) is also not it. And yet, in the free time that I do have, these addictions are how I tend to spend my time.
I would just like to state here, for the record, that I am not in fear of another terrorist attack, I'd be happy if we cut the homeland security budget, and I'd be happy if we cut the national defense budget. Yes, still. The SCLM appears convinced that any substantive opposition to the elements of Bush's campaign theme - that we need stronger defense and greater security - is politically intractable; that while Democrats may be served by trying to refocus people's minds on the economy, they can't be served at all by saying Bush is wrong.
The fundamental thing is that I'm not convinced ANY of the homeland defense spending is anything more than a placebo. Not that I'm an expert, or that you should take my opinion too seriously, I just haven't been sold, ever. The absurd random airport searches (while undercover U.S. agents testing the system almost uniformly succeed in smuggling weapons aboard planes) are just the tip of the iceberg. Really, what can you do that's going to stop a determined terrorist? Going after them at the roots, yeah, I can understand that. Maybe even the legitimacy of invading Afghanistan (which I was originally strongly opposed to), on the grounds that finding and prosecuting Al-Qaida members in that country would have been impossible with the old regime in place.
But above anything, I think the best thing for us to do, as a nation and as individuals, is to say "Fuck these punks; the only thing to fear is fear itself, and we've faced far worse; let's get on with our lives here."
I've said it before, I know, but it just boggles my mind that I feel like no-one out there shares my attitude.
Onion headline proposal: "Volvo car accidents overtake the 9/11 attacks on the list of leading causes of death amongst 18-45 year olds over the last five years." Which is a statistic I just made up, but I'm sure is true. Checking . . . since about 41,000 people die in car crashes each year in the U.S., then if 1.5% of those accidents involve Volvos, my stat would be true.
Uh, so what I'm saying is all the homeland defense money should be spent on hiring highway cops to give speeders tickets and arrest drunk drivers? I dunno if I'd actually support that, but I'm fairly sure it would save more lives.
(1) I ran my first pilot subject on a new training study!
(2) I posted an item on eBay for the first time (my iPod)
Still waiting to hear back from my ole' MIT advisor on my draft article. I was hoping it would be submitted this week; I guess that's looking a little doubtful. Bummer. Nothing I can really do about it, though.
I went and voted, in person, for the first time ever today. Okay, yes, that's lame seeing as I'm 25, but I was doing the absentee ballot thing before. Anyway, the thing I was most impressed by was the total lack of security or verification in the process. The just asked for my address and name - no ID or anything. So, what's stopping an enterprising individual from grabbing a phone book and hopping from polling place to polling place, and voting a dozen times or more?
The organizer of the scrabble tournament I played in a few weeks ago has kind of befriended me and taken me under his wing, since. He's a really nice guy. So anyway, he invited me over to his house in Lexington, yesterday, for an afternoon of scrabble with him and a couple friends. All turned out to be really nice - and really smart. I was shocked (and proud) to actually be competetive with them in the three games I played - two losses, one win. Here was my best game:
Miles
Opponent
MINI
12
BODE
18
BRUNT
14
change 3
0
BOLT
20
TEA
14
JAR
26
HEADY
55
TUX
32
change 4
0
FIVE
17
FRYER
22
KEY
20
PACK
24
REP
15
OAR
3
ADZ
23
MA
16
FALSELY
68
AG
17
ROUTINE
67
ALINERS
83
IODISES
68
SPAWN
39
AW
28
TOUCHE
49
GOON
7
RIG
8
(overtime)
-10
(rack QVIN)
32
Total
408
Total
380
You can see it started off slow, but really heated up towards the end.
And yes, that's right, I bingoed three times in a row.
"Bingo, Bango, Bongo!" is apparently the "technical" term for it. I've never done it before, and I have no idea if I'll ever do it again. But I'll tell ya', damn was it exhilerating. :-)
As you can also see, there really aren't that many uncommon words on the board (well, there may have been cross plays that would have been odd, I'm not sure.) ALINERS, TOUCHE, AG if you're not a scrabble player.
Here are the other two games:
Miles
Opponent
LUTZ
26
JAIL
22
AJAR
11
LAP
14
ZOO
12
CENSURE
95
WOO
29
DAH
31
MA
10
ROTATED
69
NADIR
18
COOLY
24
KLUTZ
42
WEEST
42
PEEVE
28
VINO
26
change 7
0
FAQIR
40
LOG
23
YENTA
27
SAUCE
7
AGONE
20
MUSHY
26
BIAS
10
FIT
24
GIE
9
BRIDE
16
(rack)
6
Total
279
Total
429
Miles
Opponent
RELOSES*
62
MOURNING
60
ZIG
31
PEAKS
22
ETH
14
ODEA
15
(FOLLIENT*)
0
HOARD
31
FILLET
26
SWINE
57
GOY
29
FLEW
30
NOVAE
16
change 5
0
QUAD
16
MEAGER
42
REFACTOR*
92
REFACTORS*
42
BOP
32
JINGLED
34
TAJ
30
GUV
21
OY
19
RAX
26
TIDIER
12
CURTAIN
20
BAN
15
BI
7
(rack)
6
Total
394
Total
413
More unusual words in these two games, obviously. In the latter, there were a bunch of phonies played (denoted *) - including both of my bingos. The first was just kinda' dumb; right after I put it down, I figured out it could have been RESOLES, which is good; also, the R was actually a blank, so (we figured out later, examining the board) it could have been TOELESS, too. I think there were one or two other obscure words in that rack, too. I was really surprised about REFACTOR* being a phony; Ben thought about challenging it, but decided against.
And on top of that, I came to MIT to do some work, and left my headphones behind, so I can't listen to music to provide some distraction from the pain. #@%*!
He lives in the yard
He keeps himself high
He keeps himself homeless and heartless and hard
He sleeps under stairs
Along with the heirs of nothing
And nothing means no one who cares
But I love him dear
And I love him dear
And I've loved him hundreds of thousands of years
Stay
Stay, Stay . . .
So, we've got something going on in Massachussetts that I think deserves everyone's attention. It's getting it.
I decided, this morning, fuck it, I'm going to spend a half hour of my time writing my representatives in the state legislature. I recently registered to vote here (finally) and votes count most locally.
Writing discrimination into the constitution is just plain messed up - and it seems like it would be especially unfortunate for it to happen in this most liberal of states. We have a chance to set an important precedent here - just by following the supreme court's interpretation of the state constitution - and set it in stark contrast to the ignorant, discriminatory, and devisive precedent set in other states, recently, that have explicitly prohibited gays and lesbians from marrying.
If you live in Massachusetts and want to know who your representatives are and how to contact them, you can look here.
Third: Jess and I went to this Finland Steam Baths place in Quincy, yesterday, and I have to highly recommend it. I really want to build a steam room into my house "when I'm grown up". It's extraordinarily relaxing.
Fourth:
So, I've been more-or-less Scrabble obsessed for the last month or so. Jess's mom got me two scrabble books for Christmas, including the excellent Word Freaks, by Stefan Fatsis - a book about the mostly insane world of high-level competitive scrabble. I was inspired . . . and then I found The Internet Scrabble Club. Whoa. A server where you play for free, and can find a game against stiff competition at any hour of any day. Where people I was reading about in Fatsis' book play - you can, if you're not playing, just sit and observe them volley 7-letter bingos back and forth, "MADWORT", "FISTULA", "TEGULAR", finishing with final scores like 509-472. It's awe-inspiring. There are other sites, too, with word study lists ("for beginners" this one says) and strategy guides. There are freeware programs available to help you study. These things didn't exist five years ago. It's awesome.
So, anyway, having compiled a 44-26 record and a 1092 rating, online, I decided to enter a tournament being run by the Cambridge Scrabble Club (NSA local #531). I was pretty psyched.
The tournament was today.
I got my ass handed to me.
I played in the fourth division (out of five) and went 0-4, with a total point differential of about -140. I topped out at 328 in the four games. I was beaten - twice - by the elderly Marjorie Bash, who's been playing Club Scrabble for over 35 years.
It was AWESOME. I've never known anyone, aside from my dad, who can beat me consistently. And here, I've been studying and studying, improving my game . . . and all of these people can beat the crap out of me. What a challenge! Ah, I love this fucking game.
Enough with blogging. It's only 11:30. Time to get at least one more game in online. posted by Miles 10:37 PM
44 Degrees! We're breaking the 40 degree barrier in Cambridge today!
Meanwhile, despite a win in Oklahoma and second place finishes in Arizona, New Mexico, and North Dakota, my man Wesley "" Clark saw his stock drop in the futures market where I bought him at $4-$8; he's down to $1-$4 as of this writing. Bummer. posted by Miles 12:13 PM
Some random thoughts, starting with juvenalia and moving towards more serious matters.
We were all very disappointed, last night, that we didn't get to see more of this: The Fearless Streaker
How would you define "middle class"? First, think in terms of income percentiles . . .
Okay, now think in terms of actual dollar amounts, for a family of four.
You thought about it and came up with answers, right?
Right, so here's what the real numbers are, from the census bureau.
The reasonable definition of "middle class" it seems to me, is some region around the median; the middle three quintiles, for instance. This doesn't correspond at all to the way the term is used by politicians - they talk about repealing some of Bush's tax cuts, while keeping the "middle class tax cuts" for people making less than $200,000 a year. That means stretching the definition all the way up to about the 97th percentile.
Wes Clark's proposal, conversely, is to exempt families of four making less than $50,000 a year from paying any income tax; this would actually cover almost 60% of the population. It's not getting much attention.
The deficit, we are assured by the Bush administration, is only 4.5% of GDP, well below the record levels of the early 80's (when we hit a peak deficit of 6.0% of GDP). Deficits accumulate, though. The GDP last year was about $11 Trillion. The debt is now slightly more than $7 Trillion. That's 64% of GDP.
On another subject, I was watching The Chris Matthews Show on ABC, Sunday Morning, and the topic of discussion was the www.bushin30seconds.org "Child's Play" ad, and the superbowl controversy. Tucker Carlson, from Fox News, was on, and he stated that it was all a publicity stunt on the part of Move-On, and nothing more, because "they didn't have the money to pay for it". Which is just completely untrue, as far as I can tell. The ad is being played regularly on CNN, now, and according to the website they've raised a total of $8.9 Million in their latest fund-raising drive, centered on this ad contest. So Tucker Carlson was lying, outright, and no-one called him on it - there were four other panelists, plus Matthews, who's generally really well informed about issues he raises.
Finally, I've been bothered, constantly, by political analysts and politicians defending the Iraq war by saying "the best available intelligence at the time" indicated that they did have WMD, or that "no one was opposed at the time". There was a great deal of opposition before the war started, and a great deal of doubt about whether Iraq had WMD. The rest of the world, in fact, had serious doubts about whether Iraq had WMD. Remember? And remember those weapons inspectors who were roaming around Iraq for months, before the war? They didn't find anything. Some people (see "the rest of the world", above) thought that might be an indication that there weren't any WMD.
Also, with regard to the congressional vote authorizing the use of force, which has been a major issue in the primary campaign so far . . . no one, then or now, has made much of the fact that the whitehouse suppressed information about North Korea's nuclear capabilities until after the vote on the Iraq war was taken. A high level North Korean official had offered an open admission that they were actively developing nuclear weapons, in talks with U.S. officials during the week prior to the vote. The whitehouse knew about this, but didn't tell congress (or the press) until after the use-of-force authorization was on the books. I thought, at the time, that this should be a huge, huge issue. Nothing. Weird. posted by Miles 12:05 AM
I spent the last week working on a paper reviewing the debate in the literature on whether the internal mental representation of number is logarithmic or linear. I'm excited about this paper, and since it fits the title of the blog so well, I thought it would be cool to put it up. However, I think it's got a real shot at publication, and I don't want to screw that up by pre-publishing it on the web, so as a compromise I've decided just to post the introduction and a few highlights. :-)
;-p
If you're really interested in reading the whole thing, I'd be more than happy to send it to you; just zap me an email. posted by Miles 10:30 PM
Despite the excellent Superbowl yesterday, and an optimistic, eager attitude about the week to come when I went to bed last night, today I'm depressed. Haven't left the house.
My iPod is broken.
Just yesterday, I was listening to it over my living room stereo. This morning, when I was about to set off for work, I plugged in my headphones, and only got one channel. I wiggled the connector. Nothing. I fussed with it more, and more. I cleaned the contacts. I tried different headphones. No good. Left-channel audio only. Which is pretty crappy to listen to.
This is apparently a not-too-uncommon problem; I found some discussion of it on a few bulletin-board type sites. Sending it in to apple for service costs a whopping $250 + shipping, which is pretty ridiculous. I got a quote of $110 with no promises from a Western Michigan University student who claims to be an expert iPod repairman, but I'm not sure about sending it off to him. I followed instructions I found on the web, and pried the Pod open, examined everything, found nothing visibly amiss. When I put it back together, it still worked/failed in the same way. Aaargh. This when my Cambridge resident permit has just expired, meaning I'll be having to walk to work everyday from my new place in Somerville.
I'm so, so frustrated.
And on top of all that, I've been feeling vaguely sick all day.
In further developments . . . scientistsfordean.org exists, but doesn't have much content; attacks on Bush, but nothing of substance about Dean's positions. Clark has a similar supporter blog page, which is also somewhat sparse on content, but does include one gem - this quote from Clark: (thanks, Patrick!)
"I always had good spatial orientation," he said. "I always saw big patterns in life and how things would move." He offered two examples. The first was from high school. The math class was trying to figure out how to integrate x sin(x). The textbook was silent on it. "All of a sudden I realized how to integrate x sin(x)," he said. "And I was so incredibly happy."
Expanding on last night's blog . . . I was having fun imagining a presidential primary version of "Jeopardy". How cool would that be?!? Who the hell wouldn't watch?
Trebek: "Today our categories are "World Leaders", "American History", "Consitutional Law", "Math and Science", and "Pop Culture". Howard, where shall we start?"
Dean:"Math and Science for 100 seconds of ad time please, Alex"
Trebek:"This everyday letter is the natural logarithm of e^x"
Kerry:"I'll get to that question in just a moment, Alex, but first I'd like to speak for a moment about what I will do as president to fight the special interests that have too much influence in Washington and have for too long . . ."
Buzzer: "EEENNNHHHHHHHHH"
Then I thought, "okay, it ain't gonna' happen, but what's something a little more sedate and sensible?" How about some kind of basic aptitude testing? We have this whole "No Child Left Behind" paradigm of "standards based education", where everything is focused on standardized tests. Now, true, this is a terrible idea . . . but what's good enough for our nation's children ought to be good enough for our presidential candidates, right?!?
Okay, so again, it's never going to happen. But what does this highlight? Despite some talk about qualifications and experience, we don't, as a nation, really seem to care about how intelligent or knowledgable candidates are. (Please supress your cheap-shot-at-Bush urge, and consider the big picture with me for a second.) Debates and candidate platforms are all about opinion, not aptitude, not even structured argument; political commentary is the same. I think this is reflected, deeply, in the fact that except for the limited domain of medicine, no candidate has any platform statement that says "this is a problem that we need to figure out how to solve, and the way to solve problems is through research, so as a leader and decision maker what I'm going to do is fund research." posted by Miles 11:13 AM
I decided that nothing he was talking about was really all that important to me, and resolved to vote for the first candidate I could find with a science platform. Any kind of science platform.
Not one single candidate has one.
I'm appalled.
Is federal funding for basic research really such a complete non-issue? I guess so. They have environmental plans, and health care plans, but you'd think, from reading the platforms, that there is no science beyond ecology and medicine. Not only is no-one interested in funding scientific research aimed at improving education (rather than pouring money into the current nonfunctional system), no one is particularly interested in promoting research as a way of solving any problem.
My new conviction is to vote for the first candidate I can find who can tell me, off the top of his head, what the derivative of e^x is. In my dreams, Peter Jennings busts this question out at the next debate.
Oh, and Jess beat me at Scrabble, tonight.
Whoa.
The damage: "Patterned" and "Fishiest".
And yes, I want that f*@%ing period outside the quotation marks. It's my form of civil disobedience / social protest / FYM / . . . goddamnit, she didn't put a "." down on the board, so why should it be inside the ""?
"So there!" I say, with great force. posted by Miles 12:04 AM
Chris Bartok, a friend of mine from Caltech, died last month. The first thing most of us heard was that it was being investigated as a possible homicide; Chris' body was found in the Potomac River in Washington D.C., not far from where he'd been out with friends the night before. Evidence has since come to light suggesting his death was accidental; the autopsy indicated he most likely died by drowning, and his wallet, pants, and shoes were all found near a campus boathouse.
I hadn't seen him in over a year; the last I knew was that he was applying to Law Schools, but I didn't know he'd been accepted and started at G.W. I had been planning on taking a trip to California this winter to see friends and escape the cold, and Chris was one of the people I was looking forward to visiting. When I flew out to L.A. for his memorial service last weekend, everywhere I went I expected to see Chris. All the shock, sadness, and cacophony of other emotion I'd felt, and all the time I'd spent thinking about his death, and at some level it still hadn't sunk in; I was in L.A. for Chris, and every time I was with a group of old friends, I caught myself thinking, almost subconsciously, "so, where's Chris?"
His memorial service was held under a bright blue sky, on a warm, breezy, absolutely beautiful day. I thought, a few times, that it seemed like a very nice place to spend a long, long time doing nothing at all. I thought, and thought, and thought, "Chris, I wish I could just give you a hug. God I wish I could give you a hug. I wish. A hug. I wish I could just give you a hug." After the religious ceremony was over, Chris' dad came out to where all us from Caltech were and said a few words, thanking us for being Chris' friends and thanking us for coming. "Thank you for Chris!" Juna yelled out in response. Thank you, Juna; that was perfect.
We went out for drinks in Pasadena directly afterwards, thinking that what Chris would most want, definitively, would be for us all to get sloshed and have a good time in his honor. We started at about five in the afternoon, and I think most of us kept going, in the Dabney courtyard, until around four in the morning. There were stories swapped, memories of good times shared, but there was also just a lot of fun, and a lot of enjoying the reassembled community of friends.
I stayed for three days, and had a wonderful, wonderful time. I miss you all, so much, and it was great to be with you - Juancarlos, Sam, Rebecca, Jim, Juna, Dave, Lori, Walker, Vanessa, Agi, Joy, Jordan, Francis, Sara, Florian, Dana, Noel, Matt, Sam, Robin, Dev, Alastair, Zack . . . and Chris.
Coming back home to Boston, this week, has been hard. It took a visit for me to realize just how much I miss that community of friends. Chris is gone, and that's a permanent loss, but the community is gone too, and will only rarely if ever be reassembled again in full. Weddings, funerals, reunions. I've got a big hole in my chest, this week, resonant with missing.
I love you, Chris. Rest peacefully. posted by Miles 1:34 AM
If you look slightly up and to the left, you will see what I'm listening to right now in iTunes*. I'm really happy about this (for some reason), but . . . iTunes, with it's "playcount" feature, was bad enough by itself, telling me what "crappy" music I really listen to frequently, and mocking me with low play counts for albums that I consider evidence of my coolness and good taste. Now, if I find myself listening to a song like "One Moment In Time" by Whitney Houston, it's a potential public embarrassment instead of just a guilty private pleasure.
But hey, that's what blogging is all about.
Today: 47 of 100 on threes. Nice.
Time to play some cards . . .
* or, for now, the last thing I listened to; I'm going to try to fix the code up to reflect status, but I already wasted about half a day getting the scripting and the "iframe" tags to work. :-) It's an applescript that runs in the background on my machine, queries iTunes periodically, and uses scp to send a little html file to a server at MIT; this is embedded in the template to my blog with "iframe" tags. posted by Miles 7:15 PM
Tonight at my house we will once again be playing The State of the Union Drinking Game. The rules (adapted from here) will be as follows:
1. Whenever George W mentions the liberation of the freedom loving Iraqi people, the last person to grab his throat in a choking motion has to drink four shots of beer.
2. Whenever George W mentions the European Union or the United Nations, everyone must swear in a foreign language, preferably French or German. Anyone who does not know how to swear in another language may instead drink a shot of Bud Light.
3. Whenever George W uses the phrase "Tax cuts", everyone eats a little slice of pie, and everyone "borrows" a shot and takes their medicine later (at the end of the game). For every full glass of "debt", an additional glass will be added as interest.
4. Whenever George W mentions the phrase "sanctity of marriage", the following rules apply: men who are part of a couple should say "honey, can you get me a beer?", and beer should be supplied. Single men must go to the kitchen and fetch beers of their own. Single women may take beer from or force beer on anyone they like.
5. Whenever George W smirks during a standing ovation, take turns drinking shots of beer until the audience sits down. Do it double time if his shoulders shake with silent laughter.
6. If George W Bush attempts to make a joke, anybody who laughs drinks three shots of beer.
7. Whenever George W Bush quotes the Bible or uses the word "evildoers" in a sentence, the last person to fall to their knees drinks two shots of beer. If he pulls a quote from the Bible about "evildoers," the last person to get prostrate drinks an entire beer.
8. Should George W Bush actually have the cojones to utter the phrase "Weapons of Mass Destruction", the last person to raise two fingers while saying "three!" must take a prepared shot of tequila, along with one of vodka, shout "I knew they were here!" with gusto, and down both.
I encourage all of you, out there, to do your Civic Duty, watch the speech, and play along. posted by Miles 3:16 PM
Toots and the Maytals came on in my iPod playlist while I was standing at a corner waiting for a light to change, near Porter Sq. I burst in to a grin and started bouncin' a little, one hand raised, palm up to the sky. Such a perfect moment . . . reggae in bright morning sunlight and -2 degrees. And under all I was wearing, no one could possibly identify me; to them, I was the abstraction of an anonymous frozen/bundled pedestrian . . . dancing.
I've got a new phone - a Samsung E105 - and a new T-Mobile service plan. It's been a mostly painless transition; I got to keep my number, I pay $10 per month less, and I have more minutes and better signal strength in Cambridge & Somerville than I did with Sprint PCS. The one glitch was that the first new phone I got, a Samsung X105 had an incredibly annoying (to me) high frequency buzz of white noise, and I had some trouble getting the T-Mobile folks to let me exchange it for the E105. The "t-zones" web-browser is actually a little slower than Sprint's WAP service, but it is prettier, since I now have a higher resolution color screen. posted by Miles 11:07 AM
I get annoyed with MoveOn.org sometimes, when I feel like they're cluttering my mailbox. But some of what they do is pretty good.
They recently orchestrated a contest called "Bush In Thirty Seconds", soliciting 30 second spots with only these guidelines:
We're NOT looking for the same old slick political ads from Washington media consultants. Instead, we're looking for really creative ads that will engage and enlighten viewers and help them understand the truth about George Bush.
The contest was open to anyone, and over 1000 ads were submitted.
15 finalists have been selected via internet voting, and some of them, I think, are really, really good. You should check 'em out. They're hard hitting in a way that you don't see from the DNC or the Democratic candidates, in a way that's probably only possible, politically, for an independent organization. Maybe, too, only possible creatively for people totally on the outside of the business - I haven't really been that thrilled with other ads MoveOn has run.
There are an additional 12 ads that didn't make the finals, but have been nominated for special awards in the categories "Funniest Ad", "Best Youth Ad", and "Best Animation" - I like some of these quite a lot, too. posted by Miles 4:05 PM