gender and science

From edge.org (May 16th, 2005): a debate between Harvard psychology professors Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke about gender and science. It's basically a nature vs. nurture argument, but they both have some fascinating insights. Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

Pinker, addressing those who refuse to consider that there might be biological gender differences at all:
But it is crucial to distinguish the moral proposition that people should not be discriminated against on account of their sex — which I take to be the core of feminism — and the empirical claim that males and females are biologically indistinguishable.

Men and women show no differences in general intelligence or g — on average, they are exactly the same, right on the money. Also, when it comes to the basic categories of cognition — how we negotiate the world and live our lives; our concept of objects, of numbers, of people, of living things, and so on — there are no differences. [...] Indeed, in cases where there are differences, there are as many instances in which women do slightly better than men as ones in which men do slightly better than women. For example, men are better at throwing, but women are more dexterous. Men are better at mentally rotating shapes; women are better at visual memory. Men are better at mathematical problem-solving; women are better at mathematical calculation.

Spelke, going even further:
I think the big forces causing this gap are social factors. There are no differences in overall intrinsic aptitude for science and mathematics between women and men. Notice that I am not saying the genders are indistinguishable, that men and women are alike in every way, or even that men and women have identical cognitive profiles. I'm saying that when you add up all the things that men are good at, and all the things that women are good at, there is no overall advantage for men that would put them at the top of the fields of math and science.

A somewhat controversial statement about gender variability from Pinker:
One other data set meeting the gold standard is displayed in this graph, showing the entire population of Scotland, who all took an intelligence test in a single year. The X axis represents IQ, where the mean is 100, and the Yaxis represents the proportion of men versus women. As you can see these are extremely orderly data. In the middle part of the range, females predominate; at both extremes, males slightly predominate.

Spelke, on gender and perception:
...when babies do something unambiguous, reports are not affected by the baby's gender. If the baby clearly smiles, everybody says the baby is smiling or happy. Perception of children is not pure hallucination. Second, children often do things that are ambiguous, and parents face questions whose answers aren't easily readable off their child's overt behavior. In those cases, you see some interesting gender labeling effects. For example, in one study a child on a video-clip was playing with a jack-in-the-box. It suddenly popped up, and the child was startled and jumped backward. When people were asked, what's the child feeling, those who were given a female label said, "she's afraid." But the ones given a male label said, "he's angry." Same child, same reaction, different interpretation. [...] I think these perceptions matter. You, as a parent, may be completely committed to treating your male and female children equally. But no sane parents would treat a fearful child the same way they treat an angry child.

There were effects at the tenure level as well. At the tenure level, professors evaluated a very strong candidate, and almost everyone said this looked like a good case for tenure. But people were invited to express their reservations, and they came up with some very reasonable doubts. For example, "This person looks very strong, but before I agree to give her tenure I would need to know, was this her own work or the work of her adviser?" Now that's a perfectly reasonable question to ask. But what ought to give us pause is that those kinds of reservations were expressed four times more often when the name was female than when the name was male.

Spelke making an important distinction:
Biological sex differences are real and important. Sex is not a cultural construction that's imposed on people. [...] But the question on the table is not, Are there biological sex differences? The question is, Why are there fewer women mathematicians and scientists?

I admit I'm especially interested because I took Intro to Psych with Pinker and Developmental Psych with Spelke, while they both were still at MIT.

Why Taiwan Matters

The May 16, 2005 edition of BusinessWeek has an article entitled Why Taiwan Matters, which discusses global IT dependence on Taiwanese technology companies.

It does a good job of illustrating three major points: the extent to which US and other Western economies depend on Taiwanese technology companies, the disastrous economic consequences of armed conflict between Taiwan and China, and the advantage that Taiwan's tech industry (currently) holds over up-and-coming rivals in other countries.

Some key observations in the article:

- Taken together, the revenues of Taiwan's 25 key tech companies should hit $122 billion this year.

- Regarding armed conflict: "It would be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off," says a top executive at a U.S. high-tech giant. Couldn't U.S. industry develop sources of IT supply that don't involve the Taiwanese? "That's like asking, 'What's the second source for Mideast oil?' says this exec. "You might find it, but it's going to cost you." Insiders estimate that it would take a year and a half to even begin to replace the vast web of design shops and mainland factories the Taiwanese have built.

- China may threaten Taiwan as No. 1 IT supplier. But for now it's Taiwanese engineers who provide ever-more-ingenious solutions to manufacturing and design conundrums. "In Taiwan, people say the U.S. understanding of outsourcing is backward," says Victor Zue, co-director of the Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT. "It feels more like the Taiwanese are outsourcing marketing and branding to the rest of the world."

- The Taiwanese also play a vital role for rivals on the mainland. Liu Chuanzhi, chairman of Beijing computer company Lenovo Group Ltd. (LNVNG), which just completed its purchase of IBM's PC division, says Lenovo sources components from Taiwanese companies. According to THT Research, Lenovo even buys notebooks from Quanta, Compal, and MiTAC. Liu says that's not the case.

- Most important of all, the Taiwanese are the real developers of China's semiconductor industry. Chinese companies such as SMIC (SMI) depend on squads of Taiwanese executives for knowhow.

- In effect, Taiwan is hoping to control design and innovation while giving over much of its manufacturing to China.

It will be interesting to see if Taiwan's tech industry can maintain its edge over the next few years.

arts & crafts

I never get to do arts and crafts anymore. It's a combination of being glued to a computer many hours a day, and not having the initiative to come up with good projects.

Last week, I went to a birthday party where we made little stuffed animals. It's been awhile, and the ultrasuede fabric that I chose was awfully hard (and I had no thimble) so the results were less than spectacular, but I'll share anyway.

The green bunny on the left is mine. I stuffed it a little too full, so it doesn't sit up properly, which is why it's leaning on the yellow cat. Obviously, the animals on the right were made by more experienced craftspeople.

mistrusting distrust

A law school friend messaged me today to ask the difference between "mistrust" and "distrust". We'll ignore the irony of a lawyer asking an engineer for vocabulary advice, for today.

My first answer was that they were much the same, except for a slight difference in connotation (which I couldn't describe), but that "distrust" was worse. We both agreed that we used "distrust" more often.

My second answer, obtained using Google, was much more informative. Here it is, courtesy of the Columbia Guide to Standard American English:

Mistrust means “to doubt, to lack confidence in,” as in I mistrust his ability to persuade her. Distrust means much the same but adds suspicion to the mix: He distrusts her because he thinks she’ll cheat him.

It appears that both of us are thoroughly cynical modern women.

paper, please

The network went down today around lunchtime, so I couldn't use IM to coordinate my lunch plans. My first thought was to call around, but it turns out that I use the phone so little that I don't remember the phone numbers of any of my coworkers. I would have looked in our online directory, but the network being down, that wasn't an option. Finally I decided to just walk over to people's desks.

Unfortunately, I work at a company that is very fond of moving people around. I tried two different desks before realizing that both people had moved in the past month, and I had no idea where they sat anymore. And, again, this was information that would normally have been found in our online directory.

I did manage to find some coworkers to eat lunch with, but after I got back and found everything up and running, I copied down about ten phone numbers on a sticky note, and posted it on my monitor for future use.

estate planning

If someone does no estate planning at all, when he/she dies, a probate court supervises the distribution of his/her property according to state and federal law. The whole process usually takes several months and some non-zero amount of money is paid to the lawyers involved, so it's a good idea to try to arrange one's affairs to bypass probate if possible.

People who have kids and large estates usually establish living trusts, but that involves money and lawyers. A coworker recently sent out an informational email entitled "estate planning for the cheap/lazy/single", which I found very useful, being young, healthy, unmarried, and childless. His suggestions:

- Fill out Payable On Death, Transfer On Death, or Directed Beneficiary forms (they're all more or less the same) for all bank or brokerage accounts which allow them.
- Fill out the beneficiary information for all retirement plans (IRA, 401k, etc.)
- Fill out a DMV Transfer Without Probate form to transfer car ownership.
- Use Willmaker (or some other easy-to-use software) to create a will that handles any remaining accounts.

I've done all but the last; apparently I'm cheaper than he is.

popeyes

They just opened a new Popeyes in Sunnyvale, at the corner of El Camino and Hollenbeck. Yay! We used to drive all the way down to the Santa Clara store off of San Tomas sometimes, just for lunch.

Angels x 2

I do find it amusing the Anaheim Angels are now calling themselves "The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim". Or, as Ray Ratto puts it, "The The Angels Angels of Anaheim", if you translate from the original Spanish.

Michael Mina

Last weekend we went to try out the Restaurant Michael Mina, inside of the Westin St. Francis. The three-course prix fixe was a pricey $88, but included a lobster-themed amuse bouche in addition to three elaborate dishes and a couple of chocolate bonbons.

Each course had a central ingredient, but included three different preparations of that ingredient. I chose the crab ravioli, a veal dish, and a trio of citrus desserts:

crab	veal	citrus

All of the food was good, if occasionally a little intense in flavor, and of course the dining room was gorgeous and the service impeccable. I especially enjoyed the citrus trio, which paired tiny lime, lemon, and orange desserts with soft sorbets of matching flavors.

sailing away

Today we had a group offsite with OCSC Sailing, a sailing school that operates out of the Berkeley Marina. It was tons of fun; we sailed pretty close to Richmond, the Golden Gate Bridge, and San Mateo, we learned to "tack" and "gybe", and we raced against our co-workers. Our boat came in second out of six boats, and we were only about 15 seconds behind the leader.

At first I was a little thrown by all the terminology, and freaked out by the boat leaning way over when we were getting a good wind, but by the end I was having a blast. I think it helped that the instructor chose me to helm the boat during the race. She told us some great stories too; about sailing from San Francisco to Europe (through the Panama Canal!) with her father over a period of four years, sailing to Hawaii, and sailing in various crazy weather situations. She also said that with global warming and all, even yachts were starting to be able to sail through the once-fictional Northwest Passage. So much for global warming being a myth.

Anyway, I much enjoyed the outing, and I think I'd definitely go sailing again, especially on a nice clear day like today.

prioritization

I've been working like a crazy person for the past month or so, trying to launch my project. I've managed to stay mostly on track as far as working out goes, but I've been falling behind on stuff like email correspondence (the real kind, like you write to long-distance friends), doing my laundry, balancing my checkbook, and non-computer time, which also means much needed wrist-rest time.

We haven't launched yet, but two days ago I was sitting at my desk with a stress headache and I suddenly realized that we might be trying to launch this thing for another week, and I was in pain (head and wrist), wearing clothes I dug up from the bottom of my closet, and making stupid mistakes. So, I went home, I took a nice long shower, and I took the rest of the night off. We didn't launch, but nothing horrible happened, and I arrived at work the next morning a much happier person.

My conclusion is that crisis is a state of mind.

the Baron has arrived

I started watching the Warriors a bit in the mid to late '80s, when Jordan was ruling the league. Back then, Mullin, Hardaway, and Richmond were doing their thing, and the Warriors weren't the best, but at least they made the playoffs every couple of years.

In late '91, Richmond got traded to the Kings for Billy Owens, and although the Warriors did make the playoffs the year afterwards, I always felt like things started to go downhill from there. There was a faint glimmer of hope in '94 when Mullin, Webber and Sprewell managed to get the Warriors back into the playoffs, but then Webber got traded, and a few years later Sprewell famously tried to choke P.J. Carlesimo. After that, I basically gave up watching basketball at all; although I did read the sports section, so like most Bay Area sports fans, I could always reel off a list of former Warriors who were now stars of other teams.

A couple of years ago, when I started to play basketball, I started to watch the NBA again. I enjoyed watching the Rockets, the Kings, the Pistons, the Spurs, the Mavs, and the Heat, but I never really felt any compulsion to start watching the Warriors again, until a month ago.

On February 25th, the Warriors acquired Baron Davis for Speedy Claxton and Dale Davis. The Chronicle's Ray Ratto said it best: Chris Mullin finally found a talented player on a team so bad that going to the Warriors would seem like a fabulous career move.

A bunch of us happened to have tickets to the Pistons game on the night that Baron Davis made his debut with Golden State. Our anticipation was well rewarded, because as soon as Davis got on the court, the Warriors started to look better. It was obvious that Davis was giving the team some much needed leadership and explosiveness. And, even though the Warriors still lost, the crowd at the Coliseum showed their appreciation (and probably, surprise) throughout.

Since then, the Warriors have gone 8-7, which doesn't sound that great, except to anyone who's lived in the Bay Area in the past 15 years. Players like Richardson, Dunleavy, Cabarkapa, and Pietrus are taking better shots, and putting up significantly higher numbers. I imagine Richardson must thank his lucky stars every day; those monster dunks he's now getting wouldn't be happening with Claxton or Fisher at point.

With the addition of Davis, the Warriors are suddenly fun to watch, they play with energy and best of all, they look like they're on their way up. They've beat a succession of good teams, including Sacramento (twice!) and Phoenix. If Davis can get fully healthy next year (that's one serious worry; he's known to be injury-prone) I think the Warriors will have a real chance to make the playoffs.

that's what we like to see

Hundreds of thousands marched through Taipei on March 26th in protest of China's new "anti-secession" law, which authorizes the use of military force against Taiwan.

overwhelming force

It occurred to me the other day that the "Powell Doctrine" is basically a tight aggressive style of playing poker, applied to warfare.

consistency, please

I ask only for consistency, since logic is obviously too much to expect...

About three weeks ago, I went shopping with my sister in the city and I bought a shirt. Unfortunately, the salesperson forgot to take off the electronic tag, which I discovered later that week when I tried to wear my new shirt.

For the next two weeks, I kept trying to make time to take the shirt to a local branch of the store, but things were pretty busy, so I never got a chance. Finally, yesterday morning, I dragged myself out of bed at about 10am (early for a Sunday, at least for me) so I could go to a mall and get the tag removed.

When I got there, the salesperson refused to take the tag off unless I could produce a receipt. Since I'd been shopping with my sister, and we'd bought a couple of items using the same credit card, my sister had that particular receipt, at my parents' house in Marin. I pointed out nicely that I wasn't about to drive to Marin to get my receipt, especially since I had the "Required for Return" sticker on the paper tag, which allows the salesperson to look up the actual record of the sale in the computer system. She refused, citing "security issues".

Finally, I decided that if I couldn't wear the shirt, I might as well return it and get the money back. Ironically, this was fine, according to store policy, since I had the aforementioned return sticker. Ye gods.

At this point, a supervisor-type person stepped in and told the salesperson to remove the tag, so I kept the shirt, although I was tempted to return it due to sheer frustration and annoyance.

symphonic sound

Last Saturday, we went to Davies to see MTT's San Francisco Symphony (and a guest pianist, Vladimir Feltsman) perform Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. I'm not great with the names of orchestral pieces, so it was best described to me by my roommate as "that really famous one on the piano", accompanied by her humming of a few opening notes. It was preceded by a very short piece, Stravinsky's Scherzo à la russe and followed by Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15. I enjoyed the evening very much, although I did find the Shostakovich a little harder to follow. Of course, the fact that we went to Citizen Cake for dessert didn't hurt.

Ironically, two days later, we were in the city again, this time at the Masonic, to see the Symphony Silicon Valley play a selection of music from Final Fantasy. Yes, the games. It was a very different experience. Several audience members were dressed up as characters from FFVII, FFVIII, and FFX. I had been at the Masonic previously to watch the Barenaked Ladies, and I had thought it a pretty decent venue, but it felt lackluster when compared to the carefully calculated acoustics of Davies Symphony Hall. I felt sorry for the violinists, who were woefully under-miked. The music itself was pleasant and well-played, but I could never get the "background music" concept out of my head, and the fact that scenes from the video games were being projected on three giant screens didn't help. Afterwards we went to Korea House (in Japantown) for a late dinner. Mmm...

ageism

I was having a discussion with someone last week at dinner, about the unfairness of being a kid. Kids can't use certain websites until they're over 13, they can't drive until they're 16, they can't see R-rated movies without their parents until they're 18, they can't vote until they're 18, they can't drink until they're 21, they are subject to various parental notification laws, and are in fact almost totally at the mercy of their parents.

The ageism debate came up again this weekend when we were watching a West Wing episode which featured a group of kids who were lobbying for a reduced voting age. They argued that it was unfair that laws could be imposed on a group who had no voting power, and that if children were given the vote, long term issues like Social Security might be given more consideration. I totally agree, and I think I've discussed this in the past. The only possible reason to deny children suffrage is the "undue influence" argument, which ignores the fact that many adults are also easily swayed by their families, churches, colleagues, and other groups. If a kid actually takes the initiative to register to vote, why shouldn't he/she be allowed to cast a ballot?

Another age-related limit I've never understood is the drinking age. The US has the highest drinking age in the world (Most countries set it at 16 or 18.) Furthermore, I travelled extensively as a kid, and as long as I was with my parents, I was never refused service of alcohol, except in the US. I'm convinced that our ridiculously high drinking age is one of the reasons that our country's universities have such a problem with binge drinking (another one is that we treat our college students like kids, which I'll address later). If it weren't illegal for pledges to drink alcohol, would fraternities bother? Approaching the issue from another angle, it also seems ridiculous that our government thinks that someone who is mature enough to be sent to fight a war for his/her country is not mature enough to consume alcohol.

Similarly, I remember being in high school, and going with my sister to see an R-rated movie, which had no violence, very little bad language, and I think one scene where a woman's breasts were visible. Horror of horrors! Since my sister was 13, even though my mother bought the ticket for her, she wasn't allowed to see the movie unless my mother also bought a ticket and watched the movie with us. Several of our friends' parents got really good at the "buy a ticket, walk into the theatre, and leave out the back door" routine. I'm not sure if maybe the movie theatres were just trying to make an extra buck, or what, but it was a silly charade.

Moving on to a stickier subject, I also disagree with the idea of statutory rape, as it is defined in the US. Many states do not define as statutory rape, sex between a underage male and an adult female. What gives? Teenage girls are too immature to give consent, but teenage guys aren't? In California, if a 18-year-old male has sex with a 17-year-old female, it's a misdemeanor. If a 19-year-old male has sex with a 16-year-old female, it's a felony. I still vaguely remember high school, and I have a bunch of cousins who are in high school now, and I really don't think that 16-year-old girls are all that innocent. Over the holidays, I happened to see part of an IM conversation between two 14-year-old girls, and let's just say that they had extensive "relationship" vocabularies.

The driving age is another stupid one. There are plenty of adults who are horrible drivers, and there's nothing to say that kids can't be great drivers. I argue that people shouldn't be given driver's licenses until they've logged a certain number of miles. So basically, anyone who is tall enough to reach the gas pedals should be able to get a permit. Once you get a permit, you can drive with your parent or guardian, and log miles until you reach 10,000 (or 20,000, or whatever). At that point you can take a test (which should include both parallel parking and driving in reverse) and get your license. My mother used to drive a 40 mile roundtrip to take me (and eventually my sister and brother) to high school, and you can bet she wanted us to get our licenses more than we did. By the time I was fifteen and a half, I was an expert at the Marin to San Francisco commute, and my mom used to sleep in the front seat on the way there. I'm pretty sure I would have been a safer driver than a lot of the crazy people I saw out there on the road.

Finally, there is the whole issue of college students being treated as kids. When I was at MIT, a pledge died after some fraternity ritual during which he drank 16 beers. His parents subsequently sued the school. I had no sympathy for the parents. No one was physically forced to drink anything. If they thought their kid was mature enough to go off to college, then he was mature enough to make his own decisions, and if he was stupid enough to drink himself to death (with or without peer pressure), that was his problem, and their problem, for not teaching him better while he was still a kid.

The problem is that a lot of parents in American society don't want to let go. They're not satisfied with having complete control of their children until they're 18; they want to keep controlling them while they go through college, and after. Since they can't actually be around to do so, they expect schools to do the parenting for them, which is completely ridiculous. The solution is not to police college students, who should rightfully be considered adults, but for parents to realize that the more freedom that they give their children while in high school and middle school, the more their children will learn about time management, and regulating their own behavior.

It all comes down to expectations. If parents expect children not to be able to handle things, they won't. If kids expect their parents to clean up the mess every time they screw up, they will. We should just give kids a little bit more freedom, and teach them to deal with it.

Then again, I'm probably still speaking from the perspective of the kid. We'll see what I think in twenty years.

sports and levels of play

I'm playing in a women's rec league for basketball, where we are easily the worst team in the league. Last season, we won one game. Naturally, some of my teammates are discouraged, and aren't all that excited about returning for next season. I think the problem is that we're improving, since we play against better teams all the time, but our confidence is shot.

My tennis coach used to say that 1/3 of the time, you should play against someone worse than you, 1/3 of the time, you should play against someone at your level, and 1/3 of the time, you should play against someone better than you. The reason is that all of those situations are useful to improving your game. When you play against a weaker opponent, you learn not to play down to the level of your competition, and you raise your confidence. When you play against a stronger opponent, you improve more quickly, because it raises your level of play. And, of course, playing against people your level is the best; both sides benefit, and it's fun all around.

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of women's basketball leagues for players who just learned to play a couple of years ago.

Let's Go Europe, part 2

It seems like forever (but was only five years) ago, that six second-semester seniors decided to take three weeks of January and backpack through Europe.

It was my first backpacking/hostelling experience, and although we had some minor mishaps (two cases of food poisoning, one stolen backpack, one hostel with very cold outdoor shower stalls, an overly zealous customs agent, and many many train-chasing episodes) overall it was a good one. We saw parts of England, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain, and got a pretty decent idea of what we'd want to do when we went back.

Last year, I went on a week-long whirlwind trip through Scandinavia (Denmark, Finland, and Sweden), but somewhere in the back of my head I was still sorting out the logistics of a second major European backpacking vacation. Finally, last week, four of us sealed the deal by buying plane tickets for this September. We'll be flying into Paris and out of Lisbon, and we plan to see as much of France, Spain, and Portugal as we can, in two and a half weeks. I'm already counting the days.

ick

I wish I could plan being sick. It's just my luck that I always have a whole bunch of meetings on the days that I'm sick, so that I end up coughing and sneezing all over everyone and potentially making them sick too. If I knew ahead of time, I could work it into my schedule. If we can't cure the common cold, at least we should be able to detect it a few days beforehand?

Doug Christie's wife...I mean, life

So, most NBA fans are aware of the whole situation with Doug Christie and his demanding and paranoid wife, Jackie. During games, Christie signals an "I love you" to his wife after anything resembling a good play (for the longest time, I thought he was calling plays, which didn't make sense, since he's a shooting guard).

Widespread rumor has it that Christie is forbidden from speaking to female reporters, that Jackie follows the team bus everywhere in a car, and that he changes in a closet when female journalists are in the locker room. It's known for a fact that they re-enact their wedding every year (rings, vows, guests, and all), and that Jackie once smacked a female fan who touched Doug on the arm.

I've been told that among guys, a popular "you're whipped" gift is a Doug Christie jersey.

Anyway, now that Doug Christie has been traded to Orlando, I wonder if his wife is going to be able to continue with her plan to have them star in a reality TV show? It's my morbid curiousity asking.

happy new year!

Yesterday a bunch of us went out to dinner to celebrate the new year. Like most Chinese holidays, the Lunar New Year involves eating, which is fine with me.

I'm curious about how the Chinese co-opted the Lunar New Year and made it commonly known as "Chinese New Year", though. And, I wonder what the Koreans, the Vietnamese, and the Mongolians think about it.

gadgets for clothes

This came up last week in a lunchtime conversation, and was revisited when I was chatting with a friend yesterday: Why aren't there any cool gadgets designed to deal with clothes (and shoes)? My answer: not enough women engineers.

Let me start by saying that I don't think women are intrinsically more interested in clothes. Unfortunately, it seems that in our culture, it is much more acceptable for men to wear the same types of clothes every day, or even the same outfits, than it is for women. I'm reminded of this every time I get invited to yet another wedding, and I have to figure out what to wear, while I watch the guys drag out the same old suits.

But, back to my point. If there were more women engineers, I bet we would have cool closets that would optimize space but easily switch between winter and summer wardrobes. There would be an attached computer which would have a catalogue of all the clothes in the closet; once an article of clothing was selected, it would take only the push of a button to retrieve it. Shoes would be automatically machine-sorted into bins based on color and style, and be kept out of the way.

In fact, the ultimate clothes gadget would be a laundry machine, which would automatically take dirty clothes and determine whether to dry clean, "hand" wash, or machine wash, perform the appropriate action, and then fold or hang the result. Have I mentioned how much I hate laundry? I would pay a fortune for a machine like that.

fontifier

If my handwriting didn't change drastically from page to page (and sometimes from paragraph to paragraph), I might try paying $9 to Fontifier to make a font out of my handwriting.

work and play

Wow, it's been a hectic couple of weeks. Since January 20th, I've skiied Tahoe (two trips of two days each), stayed at a Napa Valley B&B, gone to two company events, hosted out-of-town guests for a weekend, gotten a smog check, paid my property taxes, and changed my auto, home, and umbrella insurance policies.

Yeah. It's amazing that I've gotten anything done at work, but I have. Unfortunately, there's this one big looming deadline, and it's made it impossible for me to get anything else done. All the little tasks have fallen by the wayside, and there's one medium-sized task that I've been meaning to finish since September, and I just can't seem to get it done. What happens is that I start working on it, get interrupted, and end up working on something else for awhile. Two weeks later, it takes me a whole day to get back in the swing of things, just to get interrupted again in a day or two. Must stick to plan and finish it this month.

paperback books

One of my pet peeves is that newly published books always come out in hardcover first, and then trade paperback, and then sometimes mass market paperback.

I understand it has to do with extracting as much money as possible from the book-reading public, but I'm impatient, cheap, and I'm sick of having to maintain a list of "books to buy when they come out in paperback". If it's about the money, I'm willing to live with a system where books are priced according to publication date (most recent being most expensive), instead of by format.

I like holding books in one hand, and hardcover books hurt me. I also like walking around the house with my books (yes, I can ascend and descend stairs while reading), which means the lighter the book is, the better. And, what's the deal with the modern, paper dust jackets? They're totally useless; all they do is rip and give me paper cuts.

I suppose one could argue that hardcover books are more durable, but in twenty years of reading and rereading books, I've only ever had to buy three books for a second time. The first one I dropped in a swimming pool, so the book split into two parts; I bought a second copy for my bookshelf, while I continued to use the original taped-together copy for reading. The second book was nearly 1400 pages long, and I read it probably a hundred times before the pages started to fall out. The last one I lent to a friend, and well...suffice to say that I haven't lent her another book since.

So what's my point? I want to buy small, light, paperback versions of books. I would prefer to buy them immediately, for the lowest possible price, but I am willing to pay more, on occasion, if necessary. What I can do, as a consumer, to convince publishers to print paperback books that are as small as practical, as soon as possible?

mortality

Early this morning, I got a call from the registrar at my old high school. I went to a private high school, with an Asian population of less than 10% (at the time), and she used to serve as kind of an unofficial mentor for a lot of the Asian kids there. We called her the "Asian fairy godmother".

She told me that my high school ex had been found dead late last week, at UC Davis, where he was a graduate student in biophysics. There was no obvious cause of death, and an autopsy didn't result in any additional findings.

I hadn't really had contact with him for a couple of years, and I hadn't seen him in person in over six years, but it was still something of a shock. We were good friends for about a year and a half, dated for about three or four months, and parted amicably when we both went off to college. He was always a bit manic, but according to a mutual friend, he seemed happy and healthy as of a few months ago.

Anyway, I sent flowers to his family, which was a little surreal as well. I never thought I'd be buying a sympathy bouquet for the parents of a 26-year-old.

time and money

Last week, I spent an hour or so looking at plane tickets on various sites (Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, etc.). Then, I spent another hour reading about digital SLR cameras on dpreview.com, and several minutes using Froogle, Amazon, and other sites to look at current prices. I also read several Epinions reviews about auto insurance, before getting some quotes.

I've found that as information has become widely available online, I've made better purchasing decisions and become better informed about consumer products. I've also spent a lot more of my precious time researching, comparing, and bargain-hunting. Now, instead of calling up my travel agent, giving her a set of parameters, and trusting her to find the best deal, I run through a standard set of at least five travel sites looking for deals that fit my schedule. I wonder if, in the long run, it's all worth it? I do get a small sense of accomplishment from doing all the research, so I guess for now, the answer is "yes".

companies that suck

As I've said before, I use sneakemail to manage my email. By creating a new, disposable email alias for every website, I can track which companies are selling my email address, and I can easily create a new, clean alias, and cut off the old one.

Among the companies that have recently sold me to spammers:

SBC - I use them for phone service. I would prefer not to, but my condo complex has a gate that's hooked up to a phone, so I need a land line. Plus, I have DSL. They sold my email address to a spammer that wanted to manage my online payments.

Chase - I use a Chase Perfect card. I like that your rebate is credited to your account about two months after you earn it. I almost didn't believe this: they sold my email address to a porn site.

DirecTV - They sent me marketing spam, about their own services. I suppose this might not qualify as spam, since we have an "existing business relationship" but their email was malformed and sent from an outside marketing agency, so it's pretty borderline, in my view.

Macy's - Macy's marketing sucks big time. Never, ever, ever use your real email address to buy anything from Macy's or any other company that uses WeddingChannel.com. They use an outside spammer company to send you spam for the rest of your life. They've somehow managed to send me several pieces of spam, through a completely unpublished email alias. I can only conclude that they've stooped to dictionary attacks.

new music in commercials

Recently I've noticed some commercials being released in conjunction with their soundtracks. For example, the new commercial for Gap came out, with Lenny Kravitz singing "Lady" (to Sarah Jessica Parker's make-me-dizzy costume changes), at the same time that he released his new album "Baptism". Similarly, U2 came out with "Vertigo" at the same time the corresponding iPod commercial started to air. I'm blanking on other examples, but I'm sure there are more.

Is this a brand-new phenomenon? Have marketers suddenly decided that musical artists are the key to selling stuff? What gives?

Iron Chef America

The first reviews are in, and apparently Food Network's new Iron Chef America is not horrible (see bugmenot.com), which is more than one could have said about UPN's version. Maybe I'll have to add it to my Tivo.

die already

I wouldn't have wished death on Laci Peterson, and I don't wish death on Scott Peterson, or Sharon Rocha, or Amber Frey. I am, however, so wretchedly sick of hearing about the Petersons, that I do wish death on the whole Peterson-related circus, also known as the media cycle that wouldn't die.

How many people die every year:
...of starvation?
...of curable diseases?
...of violent crimes that are not prosecuted?
...of violent acts that are not considered crimes?
...in this country?
...in the world?

I feel sorry for everyone involved, but really, how is this particular murder worse than any other? I reject that the death of a pregnant woman is more important than the death of a man and/or his child, and I reject that the death of a suburban housewife is more important than the death of a woman living in an inner city ghetto. Unfortunately, importance does not seem to equal newsworthiness.

smart wolf

Yesterday, I was telling the "Three Little Pigs" story to someone. It occurred to me that in reality, wolves are much smarter than pigs. So, I finished the story accordingly:

"So, the wolf said the the third little pig, 'I'll huff and puff and blow your house down!' And then, he went down the chimney."

Who says a wolf has to be stupid enough to try to blow down a brick house, before going down the chimney?

very marin

Somehow this photo (courtesy of SFGate.com) perfectly describes the Marin County that I remember.



I wonder whether I would be more or less cynical if I had grown up in the City, instead of in Marin.

random links

I don't usually like to post entries like this, but here's a bunch of random links that I found interesting recently:

- Stephen Roach is predicting an economic Armageddon for the US, due to our outrageous trade deficit.
- Federally funded abstinence-only programs are teaching students that abortion makes you sterile.
- Here's a list of Top 100 universities put together by someone other than US News & World Report. The twist is that it includes prestigious universities from across the globe.
- Check out Smoosh, a band comprised of a 12-year old and her 10-year old kid sister.
- The NYTimes reports on growing civil unrest in China (use bugmenot.com).
- Here are some horrifying "before and after" satellite pictures of the devastation caused by the tsunami.
- Finally, my rant of the day: Taiwan has been excluded from a tsunami relief summit, despite having committed $50 million USD so far, making it the world's eighth largest donor.

new year

I got back to the Bay Area at 9am on the 31st.

New Year's Eve ended up being fun but pretty low-key this year; we watched some TV, and played board games and video games at a friend's house. Perhaps it was appropriate, given the circumstances.

What's the plan for 2005? As far as resolutions go, I've boiled it down to: a more regular workout routine, a more regular cooking routine, and better productivity (both home and work). Other than that, I think it's time to start off a good ski season, there are a couple of travel plans in the works for later this year, and as always, at least a couple of weddings to attend.

It may also be time to finally splurge and buy a new computer. Yes, I know I should build, but it takes me so long to get around to doing to all the research, that by the time I've picked a case (or a motherboard, or a graphics card), all of my other choices are obsolete. I figure for $500 I can find something ready-made, that's at least five times better than what I've got.

And, it's time to order new books. I finally got a chance to read some of the books that I'd been wanting to read, over my holiday vacation (all worth a look, but the first was by far the best): The Name of the Rose, The Da Vinci Code, The Forest Lover, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and The Rule of Four, so I'll be on the lookout for some new material.

still counting...

The major news outlets were reporting a death toll of 68,000 as of three hours ago.

Honestly, the numbers were counting up so fast they were starting to become meaningless. Then, I got an email this morning from a friend who had flown home to Sri Lanka for the holidays. He was on an east coast beach with some friends, and had to run inland, climb trees to escape the waves, sleep on a "big rock", and get airlifted via helicopter, but he's now safe at home in Colombo. One of his friends is still missing.

It's a bit sad that it takes a personal connection to truly drive home the enormity and horror of such an event, but I guess that's human nature.

Here's a tidbit for the scientifically-minded:

The tremor, the biggest in 40 years, may have caused the Earth to wobble on its axis, permanently accelerating its rotation and shortening days by a fraction of a second, U.S. scientists said.

Really makes you feel small and insignificant and ephemeral, doesn't it?

tsunami animation

Yesterday I was morbidly fascinated with checking the news every hour or so; the experts finally decided the earthquake magnitude was 9.0, and the death toll just kept on growing. I believe it's at at 24,000 now; a not-at-all-subtle reminder that nature is still one of the scariest forces on the planet.

Here's an animated GIF tracing the path of the post-earthquake tsunamis, with an elapsed time counter. It took about 100 minutes for Sri Lanka and India to be hit. I guess early warning systems (like they have in the Pacific) might get more attention after this.

earth shudders

An 8.9 magnitude earthquake centered near Indonesia was reported earlier today. Wow. I didn't know they came that big. It sounds like over 6,000 people have been reported killed so far, either by the earthquake or its resulting tsunamis. Most of the casualties were in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India.

Thoughts:
- The largest earthquake I remember hearing about (ever) was the 8.3 magnitude event centered in Hokkaido last year. Then again, I don't have a great memory for these things; it's not really the kind of event you like to remember.
- The last earthquake of personal significance to me was the "9-21" Taiwan quake; magnitude 7.6. I remember cursing the jammed phone lines.
- The largest earthquake I personally experienced was the 7.0 Loma Prieta quake. I was 80 miles away from the epicenter, and it was quite enough excitement already.
- I was curious, so I looked up the devastating 1906 San Francisco quake. Its magnitude was estimated at 7.8. However, much of the damage was caused by fire.

A couple of months ago we had a 5.0 (or so) tremor in the Bay Area. I made fun of a friend who was excited about his "first earthquake", and told him that if he had to ask other people if they felt it, it wasn't a real earthquake. In retrospect, given my affinity for earthquake-prone regions, I should shut my mouth, not to mention knocking on wood, throwing some salt over my left shoulder, and crossing all my fingers and toes...

small island

There are about 22 million people in Taiwan, which is about two-thirds as many people as there are in California.

Why, then, is it that every person that I meet that is from Taiwan (or whose parents are from Taiwan) is somehow related to me, or knows someone who is related to me? And, everywhere I go, I run into Taiwanese people that are somehow connected to me. I'm tempted to blame my grandmother and her nine brothers and sisters, but that doesn't always work either.

I met a friend in summer school at Berkeley, in a Latin class. It turned out that she was the second cousin of a guy whose father plays golf with my dad. That same guy later went to MIT and lived in a frat next to my dorm.

My second cousin is now the president of the Association of Taiwanese Students at MIT. Her brother goes to Columbia with my sister, where he hangs out with a guy who I first met over ten years ago, at a dinner party with our parents. My sister also became good friends with another girl at Columbia, who we later discovered was a third or fourth cousin a couple of times removed.

My sister now has a new FFXI buddy whose family runs a pharmaceutical company in Taichung. Based on that information and their last name, my mother was able to figure out exactly who this friend was, and how we knew him (and his family).

And on it goes...every classmate or colleague who I meet, who is from Taiwan, is somehow traceable to a distant (or sometimes not-so-distant) relative or family friend. I thought about it for awhile, and decided the community of Taiwanese-Americans is much smaller and is likely to be more closely networked, and that's why everyone knows everyone.

But, that doesn't explain this: Yesterday, for my birthday dinner, we went to Alice's, which is one of my favorite Taipei restaurants; a steakhouse with super-yummy black pepper steak sauce. We ran into a guy who turned out to be my uncle's wife's cousin on my dad's side, and my great-uncle's wife's nephew on my mom's side. Scary.

GQ Taiwan

My sister, my brother, my cousin and I stopped by the new Mitsukoshi department store in Tien Mu today, and my sister bought a copy of GQ Taiwan.



Our aunt (more specifically, our uncle's wife) has a friend named Lin Chi-ling, who is a model here in Taiwan. Apparently, her career has really taken off recently, and my sister spotted her on the GQ cover in a really nice dress.

the big three, dismantled

Wow. Billy Beane better know what he's doing.

Three days ago, he traded Tim Hudson to the Braves. Just today, he traded Mark Mulder to the Cardinals. That leaves the A's with Zito, Harden, and...umm...Redman? Is he still around?

If this works out, I'll gladly admit that Beane's a genius, but I can't stop thinking about three other guys from Oakland...Mullin, Hardaway, and Richmond. Let's think for a second; how've the Warriors done in the 15+ years since Run TMC?

commercials as cultural barometers?

I arrived in Taipei yesterday, only to discover that it's over 20 degrees Celsius here, and humid. At least I was somewhat intelligent and brought layers, so only half of my clothes are useless.

Anyway, I was watching TV this afternoon and made a couple of observations about the commercials. First, more than half of them are in Taiwanese (as opposed to Mandarin Chinese). I don't remember exactly, but I'm fairly certain that this was not the case, five or ten years ago.

Also, the commercials here seem to rely a lot less on putting young, good-looking people on the air. For example, I saw several ads for cold medicines, featuring very average-looking, middle-aged women, telling some (only moderately attractive) young adults that a particular product would cure their colds. To me, it was quite a contrast, compared with American cold commercials, which typically feature impossibly young and attractive mothers ministering to their cute-as-a-button kids.

choices, choices

A tidbit I found on an internal Sales blog:

In 2003, there were more households with internet access than households with children. By the end of 2004, there will be almost as many households with broadband access as with children under 18.

Statistics courtesy of eMarketer and the US Census Bureau.

United Premier

I'm flying to Taipei on Friday, via Tokyo.

When I was buying my airlines tickets, I had the option of flying direct, for about $200 less, on a different airline (EVA). Unfortunately, EVA is not a United partner, so I wouldn't have received United miles.

I really enjoy my Premier benefits, especially the Economy Plus seats and early boarding, since I hate checking in baggage. The priority standby list also came in handy a couple of times this year, and there's the Premier reservations line, if I want to get a real person on the phone ASAP.

Anyway, I calculated and figured out that this trip would put me over and give me Premier for next year, so I caved and bought the more expensive, one-stop tickets. Yes, United, you win.

prenuptial agreements

At lunch today, we got onto the subject of prenuptial agreements. The group consensus seemed to be that they were strongly recommended, almost a necessity.

For me, the best argument is that a prenuptial agreement dictates what happens in case one party dies. While wills and trusts can be modified, prenups are binding agreements. Existing assets can be allocated to children from a previous marriage, aging parents, siblings, and/or other relatives. Besides, if a couple can't get through negotiating a prenuptial agreement, what does that say about their relationship?

But I digress. The whole discussion made me wonder about the current percentages (the number of couples who sign prenups, out of the number of total marriages), so I went back to my desk and tried to find out.

According to several sites, it is very difficult to track numbers on prenups, because they can be written at home and do not need to be filed until they are about to be enforced. However, according to anecdotal and indirect evidence (lawyers drawing up prenups, number of divorces which are settled using prenups, etc.) the numbers have been on the rise since the 1970s, and prenups are widely used in the United States.

There is more resistance abroad; for example, the Chinese are about evenly divided on whether prenups are a good thing. One reason is that according to Chinese superstition, it's unlucky to mention divorce, when a couple is about to be married. Honestly, I think it would be more unlucky not to mention it.

Tora!

I just realized it's Pearl Harbor day.

I'll have to see if I can Tivo a showing of Tora! Tora! Tora!; it's a very good Pearl Harbor movie told from both the American and Japanese viewpoints, and I haven't watched it since I was about ten.

rose bowl blues

Even more perplexing than the NFL's quarterback rating formula (max 158.3) is the BCS college football ranking system: Cal has been denied a Rose Bowl berth.

I'm not a big college football fan, but even I can see how frustrating it must be to have rules like this:

The champions of the six major conferences automatically receive six of the eight berths in the four big-money BCS games, and Cal was hoping to land one of the two BCS at-large berths, which would have put the Bears into the Rose Bowl.

Utah took one of those at-large spots because of a BCS rule instituted in 2001 that guaranteed a team -- such as Utah -- from a non-BCS conference an at-large BCS berth if it finishes in the top six of the final BCS standings. Utah (11-0) finished No. 6 and will become the first team from a non-BCS conference to play in a BCS game when it plays in the Fiesta Bowl against Big East champion Pittsburgh, which is 8-3 and ranked No. 19 in the AP poll.

Another rule added in 2001 provides that a team from one of the major conferences, such as the Big 12 or Pac-10, is guaranteed an at-large BCS berth if it finishes in the top four of the BCS standings. If either of those two selection rules had not been added, the Rose Bowl would have been free to take Cal, and Rose Bowl officials made no secret of the fact that they preferred the Bears.

So, the 10-1 Bears, whose only loss was to #1 USC on the road, by six points, will play #23 Texas Tech in the Holiday Bowl.

UTC

From the National Institute of Standards and Technology:

Why is UTC used as the acronym for Coordinated Universal Time instead of CUT?

In 1970 the Coordinated Universal Time system was devised by an international advisory group of technical experts within the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The ITU felt it was best to designate a single abbreviation for use in all languages in order to minimize confusion. Since unanimous agreement could not be achieved on using either the English word order, CUT, or the French word order, TUC, the acronym UTC was chosen as a compromise.

where is Macedonia?

I found this tidbit in an article about Oliver Stone's new Alexander:

With the world waiting and wondering where the president will start the next war, Bush chose as his first major foreign-policy decision of his second term to recognise Fyrom by its "proper" name as the Republic of Macedonia, prompting paroxysms of Greeks anger across the globe and Athens to vow to block Macedonia's entry into the EU and Nato.

In other quasi-political news, last night's West Wing focused on Taiwanese independence, and did a not-awful job of addressing the current tensions, if not the historical motivations. I'm still trying to figure out what it meant when Josh got overruled by CJ, after he was convinced by the older Congressman (Hurtt?) to give the Taiwanese some leeway.

free credit reports

How did I not hear about this earlier?

Starting today, residents of California (and 12 other states) can get a free copy of their credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus, once a year. Better yet, there's a centralized website for requests: www.annualcreditreport.com (for some reason the site requires that the URL be pasted into the browser).

I'm thinking I'll request one now, and save the other two for later.

BART to San Jose

Just got back from five days in Texas, sans Internet.

Our flight home was delayed an hour, but we couldn't call the person who was picking us up, because we left Houston at 5:30am Pacific, so she ended up coming to the airport twice. Ick.

As we were waiting for our baggage, I was thinking, if it weren't such a pain to take public transportation (Caltrain + BART) to the airport, I might actually do it. I've never understood why BART wasn't extended to the Peninsula a long time ago. Even now, the only expansion under construction is to San Jose.

women in Asia

Numbers and facts extracted from various news articles and websites:

- In China, the gender imbalance for newborns is currently at about 117 to 100, and as high as 130 to 100 in Guangdong and Hainan. That means, in 20 years, when these babies become adults, there will be 117 men for every 100 women. Japan Times

- Japan's estimated 2004 fertility rate is 1.38 children per woman. CIA Factbook

- Around 40 percent of South Korean women are single at 30, compared to 14 percent twenty years ago. SFGate.com

- In Taiwan, the divorce rate is estimated at 25-30%, which is twice as much as it was 10 years ago. Interestingly, divorce laws in Taiwan were changed in 1985; previously, men had exclusive rights to their wives' property and personal belongings. MercuryNews.com

watch out, trick-or-treaters

I guess they weren't kidding about inspecting your Halloween candy for drugs.

My favorite:

LARGE ELECTRONIC CAPACITORS CONTAINING HEROIN IN PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

Can't even trust the geeks.

Taipei's cloaking device

No, not that kind of cloaking device.

A company in Taipei is planning to build a city-wide wireless network, covering about 100 square miles, and costing US$70 million.

A few US cities have announced similar plans, but I'm thinking this one has a better chance of becoming a reality. First of all, the cost projection is much more reasonable than Philly's estimated US$10 million (plus an ongoing yearly cost). Secondly, the project seems to have broad support from city officials, due to the proposed 1-3% revenue tax. Finally, Taiwan seems to be on a roll with major projects:

Taipei's subway system (of 4 underground lines and a light rail line) was designed, approved, and constructed in record time. There are several expansions under construction through 2006. Kaohsiung, not to be outdone, is opening its own subway system (of 2 lines and 2 more in the future) in 2005.

Taipei 101, completed this year, is currently the world's tallest building, at 509 meters. It has built on the success of the adjacent Warner Village shopping center, also a recent development, and helped revitalize eastern Taipei.

A new high speed railway, based on Japan's Shinkansen, is scheduled for completion in 2005, and will transport passengers from Taipei to Kaohsiung in 90 minutes. Currently it's a four to six hour ride, or a one hour flight.

On the other side of the world, San Francisco has finished tearing down the Central Freeway, and has no plans to build another highway through (or under, or around) the city. I've taken to encouraging my parents to move from Marin to the Peninsula, so I can avoid slogging through two hours of tourist-infested traffic to go visit them.

fight club

A friend of mine is moving to Seattle, so last night a bunch of us took him out for dinner, and then we all went to B Street Billiards to shoot some pool.

I was standing around, waiting my turn, watching the Kings game, when ESPN interrupted the game to show footage of a huge fight at the Pistons-Pacers game. Apparently, Ron Artest fouled Ben Wallace pretty hard right near the end of the game, and Wallace responded with a hard shove. When it was all over, both benches had cleared, O'Neal, Artest, and Steven Jackson had landed punches on Detroit fans, another fan had thrown a chair, the refs had called the game, and the Pacers had exited the stadium under a barrage of beer, popcorn, and other concession goodies.

ESPN figured out what sports fans really cared about, as usual, and started running the tagline, "What will the suspensions be?" Here's my guess as to what will happen:

- Artest and Jackson will be suspended for the season. They both went running into the stands to attack fans, which is comparable to Latrell Sprewell choking his coach, for which he got 68 games.
- O'Neal will be suspended for somewhere between 20-40 games. He did punch a fan, but the fan was on the court.
- (Ben) Wallace will be suspended for 4-8 games. He shoved Artest, which is a 2-4 game penalty, but then he threw a folder at him, which doubles it.
- Richard Hamilton and Rasheed Wallace will be suspended for 2-3 games. They were both involved in some pushing and shoving on the court.
- The rest of the Pistons will be suspended for one game. The NBA is pretty strict on the rule that if you leave the bench, you're suspended.
- The rest of the Pacers might also be suspended for one game, since they also came off the bench, but it's possible some of them could argue that they were getting out of the way for their own safety.

I guess the next question is what lawsuits will be filed. Artest and Jackson will likely be sued, and maybe O'Neal also. Looks like the Pistons just took out their biggest division rival in one night.

two steps forward, one step back

Republicans in Congress are seeking to suspend the sale of RU-486 for six months while they review its approval.

I believe their logic is that since one person died after using RU-486, it must be dangerous. Let's not forget that when one event follows another, that indicates causality. Of course, no one has ever died from a miscarriage.

saying sorry

I ran across these sites the other day:

sorryeverybody.com and apologiesaccepted.com

I think it's a little self-righteous to apologize on behalf of other people, but it was interesting to look through the photos.

sunrise, sunset

Yesterday afternoon, I was trying to figure out what time the sun would set, so we could shoot some hoops before it got dark. Thanks to Google, I found this site from the US Naval Observatory, which can be used to generate a full year's worth of daily sunrise and sunset times for any US city. Yummy.

images from Iraq

Maybe this guy will be the Matthew Brady of the Iraq war. (Flash required)

death of a hard drive

The other day, my work computer started making strange (and annoying) clicking noises, so I filed a ticket, and the Helpdesk people diagnosed the problem as the hard drive going bad.

That afternoon, they came by with a new hard drive, swapped it in, and I was up and running in about ten minutes. All of my data except the binaries I'd compiled were in my home directory (stored remotely on the network) so I just ran a couple of compilations and I was back in business.

I did lose my local installations of Firefox and Thunderbird, but luckily Ops had added both to our standard Linux desktop configuration at some point, so in effect I just got a version upgrade.

Yay Firefox!

Mozilla announced the release of Firefox 1.0 today!

I've been using Firefox since 0.7 and it kicks Internet Explorer's ass. It's way better than the regular Mozilla browser too, from a stability standpoint.

Trust me, once you've tried Tabbed Browsing and Find As You Type, you'll be hooked.

WB night

I spent most of tonight catching up on episodes of Gilmore Girls, Everwood, and Jack & Bobby. It's really too bad that WB is messing with their schedule: I can't stop watching even the Sorkin-less West Wing, so I'm going to have to give up on Jack & Bobby, though I really liked the episodes with the religious Arab student and the sexual harassment case.

Anyway, I finally saw the episode where Rory gets kidnapped by Logan and the "Life and Death Brigade". I'm not going to get into the whole big discussion about secret societies and I'm not going to comment (very much) on the surprising amounts of time and money those poor hardworking Yale college students have on their hands.

I am going to say that Logan's character is really starting to grow on me. He's not as boring as Dean, he's not as annoying as Tristan, and he's not as angsty as Jess. He's not good looking, but he's definitely charming. And, in the words of one TWoP poster, "Holy crap, if Logan picked out that gorgeous dress (for Rory) then he's definitely a keeper...or gay."

The Incredibles

I went to see The Incredibles last Friday, and in my opinion, it did live up to the hype. The story was simple but nuanced, and the visuals were stunning, as we've come to expect from Pixar. The characterization was fairly good: I did cringe a bit at Elastigirl turning into a stereotypical soccer-mom type, but I liked the wardrobe artist Edna (I hear she was voiced by the director) and the subplots for the children, Dash and Violet. Plus, the movie was genuinely funny; not in a slapstick way but in an intelligent way.

This afternoon I was reading a Slashdot review of the movie, and I ran across an interesting comment about the "weird streak of Ayn Randism" running through the plot:

There were a couple of lines thrown in like "And when everybody's super, then no one is," announced by the bad guy. Or when Dash is told by his parents that everyone is special, he retorts with "that's just a way of saying that nobody is."

This movie encouraged exceptionalism in a way that was striking for a kid's movie. It actively lobbied against the idea of everybody being unique in their own way, it argued in favor of there being Nietzche-esque supermen among us who should be lifted up above the masses for the betterment of society.

I don't know if I agree that the movie was subscribing to a Rand-like belief system, but I like that the question was raised at all. When was the last time anyone came out of a Disney film debating philosophy?

post election quantitative analysis

In the last couple of days, there have been lots of red and blue maps floating around online. Unsurprisingly, they show a vast divide between the Northeast/West and the rest of the country.

Here are some more interesting maps:

From USA Today, a county-by-county map:


From informedpublic.com, one of many snarky what-if maps:


From the New York Times, a US population density map:


...and a map weighted by electoral vote:


From a professor at Princeton, a shaded county-by-county map:

post election day thoughts

It looks like Bush has beaten Kerry, as of Kerry's concession speech this morning. Here's hoping no liberal Supreme Court justices kick the bucket in the next four years. Otherwise, Roe vs. Wade may be the stuff of history books.

According to some political analysts, the difference was the Bush did a good job of getting his core constituency, the religious right, to go out and vote. As a result, the higher turnout wasn't as good for Kerry as people had predicted.

Overall, nationwide voter turnout was just under 60%, which is the highest percentage turnout since Kennedy beat Nixon. Very cool, but we can still do better. I will continue to beat my dead horse about Taiwan's 80% voter turnout.

Ohio didn't close their polls until almost midnight, even though they were scheduled to close at 8pm, because the lines were up to four hours long. It's ridiculous that people have to wait that long, but I think it's awesome that the voting precincts refused to close until everyone got their chance.

For the first time, San Francisco used an instant runoff method to elect their City Supervisors. I'm a big fan of this method, since it really helps out third party candidates, and also seems like the most fair way of counting votes. Basically, everyone ranks one candidate as his/her first choice, another candidate as his/her second choice, and so on. The voter can stop ranking at any time; he/she isn't forced to rank all the candidates. Afterwards, all the first place votes are counted, and if no candidate has a majority, the lowest vote-getter is eliminated, and his/her votes are allocated to the other candidates according to the second place rankings. This continues until one candidate has a majority of the votes. The primary complaint against this method is that it's confusing. I'll conceed that lots of voters are morons, but can they really not even understand ranking their choices?

Governor Schwarzenegger is certainly making his mark on California politics. According to the polls, Proposition 66, which would have restricted the three strikes law, is likely to fail. It was showing strong support up until last week, when Arnold voiced his opposition. Granted, it also could have been the last minute ad blitz that made the difference.

Dan Gillmor says:

People say there are two Americas. I think there are at least three.

One is Bush's America: an amalgam of the extreme Christian "conservatives," corporate interests and the builders of the burgeoning national-security state.

Another is the Democratic "left": wedded to the old, discredited politics in a time that demands creative thinking.

I suspect there's a third America: members of an increasingly radical middle that will become more obvious in the next few years, tolerant of those who are different and aware that the big problems of our times are being ignored -- or made worse -- by those in power today.

That third America needs a candidate. Or, maybe, a new party.

Yes. I want my new party.

California gets propositioned

There were 16 statewide propositions on the ballot for this election. Consequently, the volume of useless propaganda (for decision-making purposes, anyway) that California voters have been subjected to over the past few weeks has been astounding.

I found the pamphlet sent out on behalf of Governor Arnold especially disturbing, yet amusing, with its one-liners ("Job Killing Health Care Tax!") and its handy-dandy pull-out "cheat sheet".

I myself spent most of last night looking at the "impartial" summaries and the actual text of the propositions, trying to figure out what they really meant. As a result, I felt pretty good this morning about voting on all of the state and local offices and issues.

However, after doing a pretty thorough investigation of all the third-party candidates, I abstained from voting in the presidential election.

Ju-On

Yesterday, for Halloween, a group of us got together to watch Ju-On, the Japanese horror movie that The Grudge is based on. It was certainly creepy enough, but I felt like I was waiting for a twist or a revelation of some sort which never came.

Afterwards I went and searched online for an explanation, and found this timeline which helped clear up at least the sequence of events, but I still feel like the movie doesn't hang together well. Maybe I just don't get it.

pumpkin time

I'm going to a pumpkin-carving party tonight; it'll be the first time in three years that I've carved a pumpkin.

Last night, in preparation, I went to Safeway to buy a pumpkin. On the way there, I remembered that it was lunar eclipse night, so after I parked my car I looked around for the moon. It was about 8pm, which was perfect timing; it was just after it had started to get really dark, and before the eclipse started to wane at all.

So, for about 10 minutes, I had a very good view of a large brown moon. Honestly, I was less than totally impressed. I've seen some solar eclipses, and those have been much more spectacular.

Others have been calling the color "blood red" and remarking on the eclipse's coincidence with Halloween. I guess it would have been cool if the eclipse had actually happened on Halloween night, and I'd been young enough to be out trick-or-treating.

What's the world coming to?

From uk.gay.com:

One of the fashion world's most celebrated gay relationships may be over, according to press reports.

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have reportedly split up after nearly 20 years together.

However, fans of the pair's clothes can take heart - apparently the couple will continue to work together on the D&G brand, which has become one of the world's biggest.

jetlag is for wimps

Okay, not really. I used to think that people who had severe jetlag were just being wimpy, but since then I've decided that there are several factors that contribute to jetlag, and some of them are not controllable. Still, I do think there are things that can be done to reduce the effects of jetlag.

Things that can't be helped:

- Air sickness: If you get sick on airplanes, chances are you're going to feel horrible once you get off. Dramamine and/or other pills can help, but those have side effects too. My sister gets horribly airsick and she can't eat anything on planes except bread and water, so she is always weak getting off a plane, especially after 12-hour Asia flights.

- Not being able to sleep on the plane: One of my theories about jetlag is that what you do on the plane and what you do on the first day that you arrive in a new time zone is crucial. If you plan everything right, and force yourself to sleep or not sleep on the plane, you can do a 12-hour shift in a day or so. I've done it several times myself after flying from Boston to Taipei. Unfortunately, if you are unable to sleep on the plane, you're pretty much screwed. I'm pretty lucky since I've always been able to sleep anywhere: a carpeted floor, on the window seat in my HS library, in any MIT lecture hall (6-120 especially), in a bus/train/airplane seat, on a dining table with a blanket...

- Getting sick easily due to lack of sleep: Junior year in college, I averaged 4 hours of sleep, and I pulled all-nighters on a regular basis, but I hardly ever got sick. Now, I go to Vegas for the weekend, average 6-7 hours of sleep, and get sick. Getting sick is pretty hard to control. Eating and hydrating properly does help a little bit, though.

Things that can be helped:

- Sleeping according to the new time zone as soon as possible: When I get on a plane, I figure out what time it is at the arrival location, and do whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing there. When I get on a 10:30pm red-eye on the West Coast, I figure out that it's 1:30am on the East Coast, and I go to sleep ASAP. When I get on a 1:00pm flight in San Francisco, I figure out it's 4:00am in Taipei, set my watch alarm for 10:00am Taipei time, and go to sleep ASAP.

- Eating and drinking properly: I like to take food and especially water onto planes with me. That way, you can eat whenever you like, not when the airline decides to feed you, and remain properly hydrated throughout the flight. Nothing makes me feel like crap as much as being dehydrated.

- Fighting through the first day: Now, back to my theory that the first day in the new time zone is the key. If you succumb to jetlag and sleep at 7pm on the first night, then you're pretty much screwed the next couple of days. If you fight until 11pm before you crash, you're in much better shape the next day. I find that if I fight through the first day, I don't have to fight very hard to get through any of the subsequent days. The best way to fight through jetlag is to play video games. Passive activities such as watching TV and reading books aren't nearly as good. Video games demand your complete attention, as well as hand-eye coordination. The other way to deal with the first day is to cram in so many activities that you can't sleep. For example, on last week's Boston trip, I arrived on the 7am red-eye, and I was scheduled to meet our group in the hotel lobby at 8am, before a full day of interviews starting at 9am. Similarly, my mom used to book us on a trans-Pacific flight leaving Saturday morning, which would arrive in Taipei Sunday night, and we would be expected at Chinese school at 10am Monday morning. It's amazing what you can do when you have no other choice.

I wonder if I'll look back at this in ten years and conclude that it's only young people who can ward off jetlag. Although, my mother usually does a pretty good job.

busy Boston week

I was in Boston most of last week doing recruiting. It was kind of fun; usually when I go back it's just for a weekend, and usually for someone's wedding, so I never get to do much. This time, I had almost two whole free days just to hang out and visit with people. It was still pretty hectic though, now that I think about it.

Let me think...

I took the Tuesday night red-eye, and checked into my hotel Wednesday morning with just enough time to shower before I was supposed to meet up with the whole group at 8am. Interviews started at 9am, and pretty much ran through the rest of the day. I did get to eat at the food trucks for lunch (Goosebeary's!) We did a feedback session and then I went to meet a friend who was in town from New York (and some of his co-workers). We went to a nice French-Cuban place near Harvard Square called Chez Henri, which was fun except that the three of them were Yankees fans and so did not greatly enjoy the screaming and hollering coming from the bar in the next room (mostly during Damon's grand slam).

The next day I woke up late, went to the Coop to pick up some more MIT gear for my mom, and then spent the rest of the day walking around Boston. I dragged a co-worker down to Kenmore Square, where we fought through a horde of crazy people to grab a couple Red Sox AL Championship T-shirts, gawked at the broken signs and glass, and wondered about the police investigation on Landsdowne Street (we later learned about the Emerson College student who was killed). We had lunch at the Elephant Walk, went to Dunkin Donuts, walked around Newbury Street and Boston Common, and then finally wound up at BU where we were supposed to answer questions after a co-worker gave a talk. Afterwards, some of us headed out to the Pourhouse, where there was supposed to be an MIT alum event, but as far as I could tell, only about 30 people showed up. I won a Budweiser baseball cap by answering some cheesy 80's trivia question, we had some burgers, and then we stopped by Crossroads before heading back for almost 6 hours of sleep.

Friday, I had another full slate of interviews, but afterwards a friend took me to eat at Oishii, a very small (14 seats) but very good sushi restaurant. Apparently one of the chefs used to work at Nobu. We had dessert and coffee at a little place in Davis Square, which was nice because the temperature was getting down into the 30s. The next morning I met some friends at Mary Chung's for Saturday brunch, and then visited another friend's apartment in Brookline before having dinner at a Southern restaurant called Magnolia's. Afterwards, I crashed in front of the TV watching Game 1 of the World Series, and then caught an early morning flight Sunday morning.

Whew! Boston was fun and nostalgic, but I'm glad to be back.

As an aside, the entire greater Boston area has become Sox-crazy. Every other window has a ALCS pennant in it, and most people have a Red Sox logo somewhere on their person. The Patriots are finally starting to get some love too, with their incredible 21-game winning streak and two Super Bowl wins. Seems like it's still a baseball town, though.

Neopets

Neopets is a website that allows users to adopt and care for their own virtual pets. Kind of like Tamagotchi, but online, and instead of just feeding your pets, you play games to get money, and then use the money to buy the food. It's extremely popular with the under-10 crowd, and my mother has been addicted for the past year or so.

Anyway, I recently came across this article. Apparently, some parents in Australia got upset about their children playing Neopet games like blackjack and poker, and as a result the gambling-type games have been disabled for Australian Neopet owners. Personally, I would be more worried about the advertising-type games.

I told my mother, and she couldn't understand the fuss. Then again, my mother has always been unusually cool.

atheism

Here's a random quote that I liked:

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Sir Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-1971)

Millionaires for Bush, Billionaires for Kerry

I just read a very intriguing article entitled "Millionaires for Bush, Billionaires for Kerry" which tries to explain why the uber-rich tend to lean Democrat.

My favorite part:

On Wall Street, veterans speak of "f***-you money": the nice round figure a guy needs to set himself up for life, buy (and decorate) multiple residences, create trust funds for kids, and still have enough cash to buy expensive toys and pursue new business ventures. At a certain point—somewhere north of $10 million—wealth may become "f*** you and f*** you, Republicans" money.

I object to the "guy" part, though.

storage media

I just recently finished backing up all of my digital photos to CD. I made two copies of everything, but I still felt a little weird deleting the photos from my hard drive.

I wonder what the numbers are on the reliability of CD as a data storage medium? Is DVD any better? Tape backup? Those USB sticks that are so popular now? What's the state of the art in consumer data storage media?

biking to work

The other day, I was getting crap from someone about not biking to work. I do live 3-4 miles away from work, and I agree that being afraid of drivers and weather are not very good reasons not to bike to work, so here's my primary reason: I use my car as a mobile garage.

Just of off the top of my head, here are some of the things that I keep in my car so that I can have them whenever I want them: two crates of water, two six-packs of Gatorade, a couple of Power Bars, a first aid kit, extra tape (for jammed fingers), a nice basketball and an old basketball, a frisbee, a softball and glove, bug spray (lots of mosquitoes next to the Bay when you're playing sports outdoors), warmup pants, an extra jacket and an extra sweatshirt, two boxes of Kleenex, hockey skates and a stick (I may have taken the stick out recently), my tennis racquet and three cans of balls, one pair of basketball shoes, one pair of tennis shoes, one pair of cross trainers, one pair of sandals, sunglasses, sunscreen, baby wipes (for hands), a towel, duct tape, and a cell phone headset. Honestly, if you wanted, you could go look in my car right now, and find all of those things.

Granted, I could bike home to get those things before going off to do whatever, but frequently they're useful at unexpected times, and I'm an inherently lazy person. And so, because other people are lazy like me, we end up with these terrible foreign policies based on our need for oil. Sigh.

winless no longer

The Niners won today! In overtime!

My overall expectations for the Niners this season are somewhere below basement level. I've already mourned the death of the golden era many times since the mid-90s, with the Niners missing back-to-back playoffs in 1999 and 2000 (for the first time since the 1970s), Jerry Rice leaving in 2001, and the Niners getting shut out two weeks ago, for the first time since before I was born.

So, I was pleasantly surprised to come back from basketball practice, only to learn that Tim Rattay had somehow pulled off a miracle 4th quarter comeback today, after being behind 28-12 with 8 minutes to go. Granted, Julian Peterson, the heart of the Niners defense, went down in the first quarter with a season-ending torn Achilles tendon, but at least my team won't set an NFL record for ineptness by somehow managing to go winless. Not this year.

women in computing

I recently went to a talk by the authors of Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing.

Some of the data presented was interesting. For example, they showed that women and men tend to enter college with different levels of computer experience, which negatively affects women who are considering the computer science field. They also found that women were more affected than men by bad teaching, poorly formulated curricula, and non-constructive criticism.

I definitely agree with the first point, and my suggestion is that all high schools have a mandatory computer class requirement, where real computer science is taught, instead of the usual touch typing, word processing, and spreadsheet skills. I am curious as to the reason behind the second observation; I'm not satisfied with the hypothesis that women are intrinsically less confident, whether for natural or environmental reasons.

On the other hand, there was quite a bit of material presented (mostly by Jane Margolis and not Allan Fisher) that I found irritating. I think it just pisses me off when people think and act like they have me all figured out, and try to tell me things about myself that aren't even true. Immature, huh?

I was trying to pinpoint the source of my irritation, and I think it boils down to this: Those of us who are women and have been successful in pursuing a career in computer science aren't really the women that these studies are about. We are "double outsiders" (a term I heard during the subsequent Q&A session) since we are neither men, nor do we conform to the "normal" woman stereotype.

We are told that as women, we needed extra help in order to succeed in computer science classes. Except we didn't. We are told that we didn't grow up with PCs and video games in our bedrooms, and that we didn't seek out computer experience in junior high and high school. Except we did. And, we are told that we don't code in our spare time, and that we don't enjoy talking about computers with our friends outside of work. Except we do.

This is the reason, I think, that I find most analyses of women in computing irritating, and sometimes insulting.

yearly Vegas pilgrimage

Just got back from Vegas after three days of gambling, shopping, eating, and other random fun things.

This time around I finally saw "O" by Cirque du Soleil, which I had been resisting because of the ridiculous price tag ($125 for rear orchestra). I grudgingly admit it's worth the price of admission, if only because of the coolness of the special effects.

I'm mostly awake today, but I'm feeling a kind of tiredness that is unrelated to sleep deprivation (I slept for 10+ hours when I got back) or physical activity (unless walking around outlet malls counts as exercise). I plan on much television-watching and book-reading this week.

presidential debate

I watched bits and pieces of the debate last night, in a conference room at work. Some thoughts:

- To me, it's telling that both President Bush and Secretary Rumsfield seem to mix up Osama bin Laden with Saddam Hussein on a regular basis.

- Jim Lehrer is the man. He asked good questions, he was respectful but authoritative, and he kept the audience in line. Although, I wish he could have said something when he asked if the invasion of Iraq made it more or less likely that we would use force in another country, and the president ducked the question.

- I try to avoid watching President Bush speak, because it makes me ill. As a result, I was surprised and horrified by his speaking skills, while others apparently had lower expectations.

- I still don't like Senator Kerry. He did a good job as a debator, and he made some great points (not hard to do in his situation), but he's too much of a lawyer and a politician. If he loses, I think that will be why.

I was listening to the radio after work and one of the radio commentators said he was an "isolationist libertarian" and a registered Republican but he was going to vote for Kerry because for him, this was a one-issue election, and that issue was the war on Iraq.

To me, this is a two-issue election. I can't vote for President Bush because of the terrible mistake he has made in declaring war on Iraq. I can't vote for Senator Kerry because he has said the US does not have an obligation to help Taiwan, at a time when US military support is crucial to Taiwan's future. I also dislike Ralph Nader very much. I guess I will research other "third party" candidates.

geek alert

I was watching Everwood on Tivo tonight, and I was absurdly excited to see Dr. Abbott putting in a new computer system in his office, complete with a Dell Ultrasharp 2001FP monitor.

I have two of those at work, mounted on a set of monitor arms, and I don't remember how I did without them. I'm thinking of buying one for my home computer.

cooking for engineers

I ran across this blog the other day, thanks to the new blogger nav bar. I really like the way the recipes are written; compared to standard step-by-step recipes, it's much easier to see which actions apply to which ingredients.

hard contacts vs soft contacts

Yesterday when I was playing pickup, a rebound deflected off of an arm and hit me in the eye. I was wearing hard contacts due to some dry eye issues, so it hurt more than usual, and my left contact popped out and fell on the ground. I yelled at everyone to stop moving, picked it up, rinsed it off in the water fountain, and popped it back in.

To me, that incident perfectly illustrates the pros and cons of hard contacts. It hurts pretty bad when you get hit in the eye. Also, if you step on one, it's done. On the bright side, you can use plain water to rinse them, and you don't have to worry about them drying out your eyes.

Actually, there are a couple additional downsides. Hard contacts are less comfortable in general, since you can kind of feel them in your eye all day. If you ever get a speck of dirt in your eye while wearing hard contacts, it'll hurt like hell. Plus, no one has made disposable hard contacts yet, so there's all that cleaning overhead and worrying about losing them.

I've been switching back and forth depending on how dry my eyes are in a given week.

do I look like an HR person?

When engineering candidates come onsite, we usually schedule them so that they jump right into technical interviews, rather than having a meeting with a recruiter first. It's expected that they will have talked to the recruiter over the phone already, and given limited HR resources, it makes more sense for the candidate to get a wrap-up meeting than an intro meeting.

Today, I was the first person on an interview schedule, and apparently the candidate thought I was an HR person, until I started asking him technical questions. Envision this:

me:	How was your flight? Did you come in yesterday?
him:	Good, yeah I got in yesterday evening.
me:	So, do you want anything to eat or drink?
him:	Sure, I'll have a coffee, thanks.
me:	Here you go. Okay, so how would you reverse a linked list?
him:	Eh??

I'm not sure what to take away from that experience. Maybe I should stop making small talk with candidates. Maybe I should make sure to wear clothes with big MIT logos. Or maybe I should just be amused.

dentists

I keep forgetting to schedule my next dentist appointment. It just isn't the kind of thing you have a lot of motivation to remember.

Although, I've been mostly lucky when it comes to teeth. I still have all of my wisdom teeth, and none of my dentists have ever suggested pulling them. I've never had braces, and I've never had a root canal. (Knock on wood.)

Once I did have to have four fillings, but I made him do them all together so I wouldn't have to have novacaine twice. I don't understand why dentists think it's better to come back again and again, for multiple fillings. I swear the worst part of going to the dentist is when you can feel him aiming that needle all around your mouth. Ugh.

hero, again

Someone sent me an article about Zhang Yimou's Hero, which does a better job than I did of examining the message of the movie:

Nameless chooses loyalty, and his own death, after a long conversation with the King of Qin. The king asserts that Nameless’s quest is only negative, he acts out of hatred and revenge. He reveals that he himself is misunderstood, that the king’s strength is used for the sake of unifying a great Chinese nation, a nation that will comprise “everything under heaven” (this crucial phrase was translated in english as "our land"). And the king asserts that the truest understanding of Nameless’s martial art is to choose peace, which the king asserts is also the end of what he does. Attaining universal empire will finally bring peace to China.

The king’s speech in effect asserts there are no claims the individual might make that the state must honor. A powerful, unified China, which finds its strength in his kingship, should be the object of everyone’s devotion.

It's a bit too creepy for me. Too bad, because otherwise it's a beautiful movie.