It will be known as "The Speech"

I just finished reading obama's speech. If you haven't seen it, you owe it to yourself to check it out. It's the first time in my politically aware life that I've heard a politician not just refuse to play the stupid controversy games, but actually refer to them directly and call them out for what they are. It doesn't matter to me whether this manages to make more white Pennsylvanians like him or not. Whether he manages to win this year's nomination or not, the fact that he gave that speech makes feel good that I backed him up. And I'll back him up again during his next run, too.

Here's hoping its going to be a run for re-election.

Science Fiction!!!! - 1

Arthur Clarke is dead. He was 90 and lived in Sri Lanka. He wrote a few fantastic science fiction books. I don't know what he'd been doing recently though, except for suffer from respiratory problems.

Scary news about the housing "situation"

I don't consume much tv news. I get mine mostly in text. So I was a bit surprised (shocked?) when I saw this video:

What a beautiful city

The city I call mine (I used to live on the edge, in the red square):

Circus acrobats performing a ballet piece based on swan lake

It's a little bit like magic:

mine is 24 inches, but sometimes 17

According to WSJ, according to a monitor company funded study bigger monitors mean more productivity. I can attest that tasks requiring multiple programs and windows (programming, note taking, database altering) at least seem to be easier when I don't have to alt-tab across windows. But I was surprised by the claim that productivity can increase by as much as 50%.

lies and ethics (and getting preachy about doctrine)

I highly recommend the radio show "radiolab".

One of the more recent episodes is about deception: What is a lie, how do people manage to lie, and what results from lies. In that respect, the claim of the final segment on the show is that to be deceived in a fundamental way (the kind of deception that is like learning that your wife of 2 years is actually a con artist with 3 other husbands in various parts of the country) causes a real deep scar in the fragile psyche of a human being. And this result might or might not be categorical. A big lie causes a big hurt, a medium lie causes a medium hurt, and a little lie causes a little hurt (on average). But that hurt, big or small, can be long lasting and can negatively affect the human interactions of the victim for the rest of her life.

I'd never given the matter much deep thought, but the radio program's topic led me down that path (as many of these radiolab episodes tend to do). I thought about what a society which finds lying acceptable would look like? Could such a society even exist? I posit that it couldn't, that if a group of people living together could not trust one another and thus depend on one another would soon cease to exist. This might sound like an obvious conclusion but it has pretty serious implications.

You see, I was reminded of lying's 9th place on the list of 10 commandments and this reminded me about the argument often made by many middle-of-the-road believers about the fundamental truths we receive from the holy books.

It goes like this (an argument I've actually heard my own ears being made on at least 2 occassions): There are folks who believe that a world free of religion would, much too quickly, descend into chaos because it is the Bible (qoran, torah, etc) which provides those critical lessons of morality. If we stop looking to the holy book for moral guidance, we could lose morality altogether as it is not a knowledge that can be acquired innately or through day to day experience.

I have always looked at a counter-argument from the basic perspective that morality can be achieved through non-religious means, but this train of thought about a society of liars made me think of a similar, but more effective counter-argument. If it is the case that morality is not innate and that it is actually interlinked with the inception of, just for one example, the ten commandments provided on mt Sinai to the Israelites, then we must assume that during the Israelites' wondering of the desert, post-exodus, none of them had a problem with lying to each other. Similarly, if one of them intentionally killed another, the rest of the tribe would not cast the murder away but would find that act simply morally ambiguous at worst (best?). But, lucky for them, once God provided the laws, order was established, that murderers and victims of lies suddenly knew who was right and who was wrong.

Even from a naive sociological perspective, we must admit that

• if lying is accepted within a society, then people would quickly cease to communicate in a meaningful way, that no critical information exchange would take place, and that the members of such a society could never depend on one another
• if intentional killing was acceptable within a society then all of the mild benevolent members would quickly die off leaving rage addicted psychopaths to slowly kill each other off.
  
• if adultery was acceptable this would quickly lead to a generation of illegitimate children for which no one, except for their mothers, could feel responsible. And that such a social problem would lead to the death of many of these children (or their mothers) from poverty.

A society like this would quickly collapse. Therefore we cannot assume that the Israelites (or the Egyptians, or any other group), pre-ten-commandments, were exactly such a culture. So we cannot assume that the 6th-10th commandments really told the Israelites anything that they didn't already know/believe about a moral way to behave.

Critical thinking alone should give one plenty of ideas about where, other than a holy book or religion, morality might come from. But until today, I haven't really thought about what the old testament would tell us about morality if we assume a priori that morality does come from God by way of two stone tablets or spoken word directions to the chosen people.

Of course, one can still argue that our innate sense of right and wrong is a divine gift, but if you are willing to accept that then you really couldn't attribute anyone's immoral behavior, as many people do, to not reading the appropriate biblical passage or attending the right church.

So, the question is, if we are innately moral (whether through divine intervention or as a result of living in a functional society) then what else do we have to learn from the qoran (or torah, or bible, etc) that we can't learn from each other?

PS. One of the problems with bible literalists is that they are easily persuaded to believe that homosexuality is a sin. There are a couple of passages in the bible that, pretty unambiguously say that man-on-man and woman-on-woman sexlove is not acceptable. But this can lead to a paradox involving the fifth commandment (about honoring mom and pop), from what I can tell. Because what happens when the gay man or woman is your mother or father? Has anyone ever asked these crazy protesters, who hold up signs that say "jesus hates fags" what he would do if he found out his father was gay?

How traffic happens

People aren't robots. They operate relatively inefficiently, with lots of errors. For example, they sometimes get tired while driving and let their foot press down on the gas a bit too much or a bit to little and before you know it, you've got this shockwave:

monkeys have a grammar

If the researchers mentioned in these three articles are correct in their analysis, then these putty-nosed monkeys actually combine morphemes to make different meanings. According to conventional thinking about "language," this is not supposed to be attested.

However, if you intuit, like me, that there's nothing special about language vis a vis the Human brain, then this is not really exciting news (unless you plan to use it as a piece of evidence to change non-believers' minds).

The right idea

This guy here has got the right idea:

the unexpected is funny

The comedy troupe "improv everywhere" is a genius. I just watched their newest 'episode': Food Court Musical and was very pleased. Of course, the downside is that to see them live you need to be at the right place at the right time.

Why would you stare into the sun?

Is this evidence that religious conviction is a powerful thing? That it can even lead you, apparently, to throw common sense out of the window? well, 48 people looking at the sun for the image of la Madonna have gone blind.

a priest, a rabbi, and a bodhisattva walk into a bar

As of yesterday afternoon I am now one of those guys who owns computers running all three of the major operating systems currently used in the US - Windows XP, Mac OSX, and Ubuntu. Of course this realization also brought me to realize that I actually own at least 3 computers.

The actual number is 5. I own 5 computers.

One of those is actually over 5 years old and is currently collecting dust, unused for a lack of a monitor. I've thought about donating it, but that would involve wiping the hard-drive and I can't trust any open-source software to do that job thoroughly enough. So since I don't own an industrial strength magnet, and most donation services would not likely accept a computer sans hard-disk, this old pc is just sitting there, collecting dust.

Then, there's a really old laptop that's actually not mine, but my wife's. That one actually is a bit newer than the other desktop, but because it's a laptop, it has less speedy components. It's still working but I'm thinking about installing some really low-intensity linux distro so we can get a few more years' use out of it.

Then, there are the three which are currently in the greatest use, which make up the OS triumvirate previously discussed.

So I own 5 computers... Actually, 6, if you count my playstation. If that's not a mark of privilege, I don't know what is.

USA! USA! USA!

The Colbert Report shows us what a little American innovation can lead to:



In all seriousness, the guys working at the Report are not only funny, but they've got some amazing editing skills. Check out that extra long pause they left in on the penultimate shot. That's gold!

Just like Europe

In my SD-Union/Tribune this morning I found the headline "FBI admits 4th year of privacy abuses" (it's an AP story so I'm sure you can find it online somewheres). I didn't finish the whole article but it got me to thinking about another article I read online somewhere where different EU specialists were arguing about which of the EU countries had the most spied-on populace.

Over the years I've come to realize how truly big Big Brother has become in many of the economically powerful EU nations. By comparison, here in America our privacy is much less invaded. And when the FBI has to 'admit' that "oops, we spied on you more than usual again last year.... our bad!" you know things are changing.

I haven't read this anywhere, and I'm sure that no one with authority would admit that it's true, but I have a feeling that our government agency, and the White House probably are looking to Europe as an example of how spying on your populace works, how the citizens of those countries haven't yet revolted and how it has led to more controlled borders, etc. So having evidence that it works, they feel it's time to implement it here at home.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. But I am afraid that having that kind of power consolidated, that is to control the information of a citizenry, could more easily fall into the hands of a bad leader elected by that apathetic citizenry. It's a scary thought and is not beyond the realm of possibility even for a country like the US. Maybe the benefits outweigh the potential risks, I'm willing to accept that possibility, but I'd like to see the data from those EU countries who've implemented state-wide RFID, or who've got face detecting cameras on every major street corner, etc.

But that's a digression. What I meant to write was: Why are government sectors looking to Europe for techniques to establish surveillance but ignoring the slew of other good ideas that we might borrow?

Clinton WINS!

Needless to say, I'm a little disappointed in the primary results. I stumbled across the following two images on the CNN election summary page:




I really do not want to make assumptions about what those images mean. But I'm going to make an observation which can be interpreted as an assumption.

This is exactly how such states tend to split up, by county, in presidential elections among republican and democratic votes all across the country. As Dan Savage once said [I paraphrase]: even in what we typically consider 'blue states', when you split the results up by county you get these islands of blue sanity clustering around the major urban centers surrounded by a sea of... well... red.

There's no such thing as a blue state (except maybe vermont), only states with really blue cities. So when I see Obama winning in the counties that compose and surround Dallas, Austin, Huston, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, but losing everywhere else, I am reminded of those county breakdown maps from 2004.

Of course, this could mean that Hillary strikes a chord with voters from rural areas and this might put her in a better position to beat McCain in the Big One... maybe. Or maybe that obama-in-somali-clothes photograph affected the plain folk living in the homogenized countryside who are not used to seeing such shockingly un-american images.

But there I go making assumptions again.

Sigh.

Please read this

A good blog post (but a blog post none-the-less, so make sure, if you'd like, to take it with a grain of salt)

Regardless of whether everything in it is true or not, read here a summary of the conclusion:

We asked him directly, how concerned should we be that you haven't had meaningful experience as an executive -- as a manager and leader of people?

He said, watch how I run my campaign -- you'll see my leadership skills in action.

[...]

Well, as any political expert will tell you, it turns out that the Obama campaign has been one of the best organized and executed presidential campaigns in memory. Even Obama's opponents concede that his campaign has been disciplined, methodical, and effective across the full spectrum of activities required to win -- and with a minimum of the negative campaigning and attack ads that normally characterize a race like this, and with almost no staff turnover. By almost any measure, the Obama campaign has simply out-executed both the Clinton and McCain campaigns.

[...]

We then asked, well, what about foreign policy -- should we be concerned that you just don't have much experience there?

He said, directly, two things.

First, he said, I'm on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where I serve with a number of Senators who are widely regarded as leading experts on foreign policy -- and I can tell you that I know as much about foreign policy at this point as most of them.

[..]

He said -- and I'm going to paraphrase a little here: think about who I am -- my father was Kenyan; I have close relatives in a small rural village in Kenya to this day; and I spent several years of my childhood living in Jakarta, Indonesia. Think about what it's going to mean in many parts of the world -- parts of the world that we really care about -- when I show up as the President of the United States. I'll be fundamentally changing the world's perception of what the United States is all about.

Regardless of whether Obama actually said this (or something like this) or not, isn't that a really good point?

I would have gone further, though I wouldn't have to be as worried of being branded an elitist. I've said this before - the new perspective that traveling abroad gives you is forceful enough to fundamentally alter your understanding of the world and its inhabitants. It is an incredibly powerful experience and I don't yet have the skill to convey it into words. Actually living abroad for an extended period of time is a similar type of experience but intensified a thousand times. I could go on and on trying to describe how immersing yourself in a foreign culture affects you as a person (mostly positively) by keening your intellect regarding how people think and how the world operates. I know some people believe that you can gain that same understanding by flipping through the pages of national geographic, or reading a biography of a famous foreigner like, say, Nelson Mendela. Those things help, but they are not the same.

I would say that it's a critical perspective to have when you are in charge with dealing with the world as president of the US. I don't know which of our previous presidents have ever had such an experience, but I'd really like to find out how that might correlate with their foreign policy.

I know, I know

Just to show that I'm actually much more even keeled than I may have seemed from a previous post, I am perfectly happy to admit that Norway is certainly NOT a Utopia, that a Utopia does not exist on this planet, I acknowledge the existence of Norwegian ridiculosity: Eat whale and save the planet says Norwegian pro-whale-huntin lobby.

No, I'm not doing google searches for "norway" in my spare time... This article popped up on my rss feed for Metafilter.

Please zeus... let this be for reals

Speaking of Norway

For the past 5 years I've been considering moving away from the US, specifically to a Scandinavian country, preferably Norway.

I first considered it in 2002 when I read somewhere that the UN had rated Norway as the best country with respect to the human development index for the second year in a row. Norway went on to get 1st place for the next 4 years as well, being beaten out by Iceland in 2007.

I did some research back in 2002 and learned all sorts of interesting things about Norway's educational system (though I still always forget that Oslo is the capital) and their political system and their relatively progressive ways. But then I realized that it was going to be bothersome to learn how to speak Norwegian (Nyorsk?), so I sort of dropped the idea.

Recently I've been reconsidering it. At first I thought it was because my quality of life would improve if I moved there because of things like their universal health care, their fantastic worker rights/laws, or their generally slower pace of life, and their progressive educational system. But then I was awakened to the fact that, because I have the means to be quite successful in life (a good education, good sense of thrift, etc), should I choose to live the rest of my life here, me and my family will probably be just fine.

It would seem that moving to Norway would not really improve things for me all that much, simply because I'm currently in the solid middle class, with a small chance of climbing up a half step to upper middle class (barring unforeseen troubles). I'll probably make enough money to live in a decent neighborhood which will have a great free clinic (which won't matter because my insurance will probably be pretty good) and a wonderfully well equipped and well staffed public or private school (which might not matter because I may also be able to afford private school for at least one child if necessary).

I hadn't really given it serious enough thought though. I have a new reason to want to move to Norway now and that's simply because I want to live in a country where the voting public feels at least a bit more like I do about what I consider to be important elements of public policy. I don't want the arguments on public policy to be about whether or not we should allow water-boarding. I want them to be about whether we should put together a task force using our own tax dollars, to go educate the people and politicians of other countries who want to use water-boarding about the horrors and realities of torture tactics like water-boarding.

Currently I feel like I belong to a political minority in the US when it comes to what I want my policy makers to do. Most people here seem to be either unconcerned about immigration, or wanting to lock the borders down. They seem to be either unconcerned with political reform, or unaware with the problems of corporate lobbying. They seem to be either unconcerned about military spending, or comfortable with increasing it. They seem to be either unconcerned about rights of privacy, or willing to forfeit those rights in exchange for a false sense of security. They seem to be unconcerned about basic human rights of our prisoners (both foreign and domestic), or expect that they are getting what's coming to them. They seem to be unconcerned about the world outside of their own state/country, or they feel it should all be subordinate to their own government. And, what hurts me the absolute most: They seem to be simply unconcerned about the quality of public education.

My future kids might get a pretty good education here in the US because I'm likely to be financially well enough off when they will begin school. But that's not good enough for me. I want to live in a country where it doesn't matter how rich or poor you are, or what neighborhood you live in, your kids are going to get the same education as everyone else's. I want all of my children's friends to be cleverer than my child, I want my child's teacher to be cleverer than me. I want my bus driver to know CPR and I want my boss to be able to chat about the fauna of the arctic tundra with me.

But, of course, as I've mentioned in a previous post, I believe that a child's quality of education is critically dependent on the parent's attitudes on education, more so than the quality of the school and its teachers. So fixing all of the public schools in the country is not going to be enough. And there's not quick way to change parent's attitudes about education in this country. So the best way for me to achieve this goal is to move to a country where the majority of the citizens feel the same way I feel about educating our children. Luckily in Norway, the majority of people seem to feel the same way that I do about a lot of things beside education.

And that's really what it's about. When I go vote I want my voice to be heard, and the way that democracy works, it's the voice of the majority that gets heard. We voted for Bush twice in this country and my voice wasn't heard. How many more times will I go to my polling place and then come home to watch my candidate fail? More scary still, when my candidate does win, how many times will it be because she was the lesser of two evils? How many times am I going to have to watch him sign a bill that I disagree with? How many times before I become disillusioned with my political system and my fellow voters?

I realize that this is the kind of blog post that will prevent me from ever holding any kind of serious public office in the future. It looks as if I'm, in essence, promoting a socialist state. But horrible flashbacks of a certain tuesday (and early wednesday) in november 2004 have struck back with a vengeance, and they're shaking my faith. And there's another such tuesday coming up soon.

The Finnish educational system

I'm not saying that I agree with everything about the Finnish system completely, but it's definitely a system that the US could learn a bit from.

My Hero: Richard Feynman

Richard Feynman seemed like an amazing guy. I never met him, but I've read some of his books and I've read/heard other people's impressions of the guy. So as good as those can be expected to be for judging a guy's character, they make me wish I had known him personally.

He was an amazingly clever guy, he won the nobel prize in physics, he was an unbelievably great physics lecturer (at all levels of instruction), his interests went way beyond the world of physics, he had an insatiable curiosity, and was an overall friendly and personable man. All of these are wonderful qualities for a graduate student to look up to and learn from and be inspired by. But these aren't really the reasons why he's one of my heroes.

In Oslo, I believe at the city hall where they award the nobel prize laureates every year, on the wall are portraits of all of them from the first to the most recent. And you can travel from one end of the hall admiring all of these stately looking gentlemen (and a bit later on women as well). I'm sure you can imagine it, as one travels from photo to photo and you would see all of these old guys in suits looking very posh and proper, each with their heads either staring directly at you or at a 45 degree angle to the right - one after the other, exactly the same, they begin to blend together. Of course as "time goes by" the people in the portraits begin to get more relaxed, wearing less formal suits instead of the tuxedos of their predecessors, smiling a bit more often than frowning. But eventually, you get to one portrait that is just completely different from all the others. This portrait just catches your eye and doesn't let it go. This is Richard Feynman, with his head resting on an oak desk, perpendicular to the floor.

Here, Feynman was being awarded the highest prize in his field, achieving what many believe to be the apex of the academic profession, and he demands to be photographed with his head perpendicular to the floor, forever marking his place in this hall of nobel prize winners. And that's why he's my hero. No matter what you read or hear about this guy you always come away with the sense that he didn't take himself so seriously, yet managed to balance this aspect of his personality with the seriousness required to become a giant in his field.