Review: The Ghost Brigades

I reviewed John Scalzi's latest novel, The Last Colony a while back and found it intriguing enough to place holds on his other books at the library. As luck would have it, the books are arriving in reverse order, so I'm reading his oldest work last.

Fortunately, the novel is self-contained, and provides all the background you need in order to understand its context. The plot revolves around a scientist, Charles Boutin, who has defected to an alien race against the humans. What do you do in response? Well, in Scalzi's universe, what you do is to genetically engineer a brain (with a body, of course), force-grow it in several months, and then transfer an imprint of the renegade's consciousness into the new super-body. (It's a super-body because for whatever reason, the powers that be decided to use the special forces imprint for the body so that the effort will at least produce a super soldier if the original plans don't work out)

Well, the imprint does not take, at least initially, so we get a good view of how Special Forces in the Colonial Union works. The story moves pretty quickly, since with the kind of brainware and special coping mechanisms used to train special forces units, the training can be done in just two weeks (why they don't just use the same type of units in all the soldiers I don't quite understand).

In any case, trauma affects the protaganist, Jared Dirac (all of Scalzi's special forces have last names of twentieth century scientists), and he starts regaining Boutin's memories. After he remembers where Boutin went, he is sent as part of the mission to retrieve Boutin, and things start going horribly awry, leading to a confrontation of Boutin and his motivations.

The book is well-written, though not as polished as his latest novel. It is a real page-turner. I started reading it last night, and found myself ignoring newspapers and other books in favor of reading this. There are a few plot holes that don't quite make sense (a military as paranoid as the Colonial Union would have installed anti-viral safeguards and protected against back-doors), but the plot moves you along and you don't have too many moments to question the premise.

All in all, a good read. Once again, the ideal airplane novel. Recommended.

Review: Fables In Exile, Vol 1-3

It is rare that there are new ideas in fantasy series, but there it is, Fables In Exile, a series that deals with fairy tales. Everybody knows that these stories always end with And they lived happily ever after....

The series begins with a postulate that the fairy tale lands have come under attack from a mysterious Adversary (who's not actually revealed yet). All the fairy tale creatures (including Brer Rabbit, for instance) escape from the fairy tale lands into Mundania, most abandoning their possessions. But all are immortal, in the way stories are, and those that have chosen to live amongst humans adopt human guise, while those who can't live in a secluded area of upstate New York, hidden away from the mundanes.

I can't tell you how much I like the mix of whimsy that Bill Willingham brings to this story. He starts off having a very frustrated Snow White (one of the protagonists and the administrator of the community in New York) having to cope with a marital dispute between Beauty and her Beast. The dialog is beautiful, entertaining, and draws you into the fantasy. But the story is anything but whimsical. The first volume deals with Bigby Wolf's (yes, that's the Big Bad Wolf of the fairy tales) attempt to solve the mystery of the murder of Rose Red. The way the clues are placed and provided to the reader are delightful: those who are used to prose mysteries will be surprised that most of the clues are visual --- one has to read the art as carefully as the prose and the dialog in this story.

Volume 2 is centered around the other Fable community, the one with three little pigs, the three bears, their unhappiness with not being able to fit into mundania, and their plan to do something about it. The result is again an ongoing deluge of beautiful ideas, wonderful characters from childhood revisited, and a plot that keeps you at the edge of your seat.

Fables Vol. 3: Storybook Lovedeals with the consequences of the fallout of volume two, and we find out that fables are really tough to kill. It also begins to resolves a romantic entanglement that we've been teased with so far in the series. Now that you've grown to know the characters, Willigham plays with your expectations for them, and some of them will surprise you.

All throughout the art is consistently great, right up there with the best of The The Sandman, and the stories are consistently better. I kid you not. I think Willingham is a better writer than Gaiman, and the endings are definitely not lame, since he doesn't write himself into a corner.

All in all, two thumbs up, and worth paying full price at Amazon.com for these books if you can't find them at the local library. I've got the entire series on hold at my local library and I await them eagerly!

Review: The Last Colony

I was impressed by how much I liked this book. I started reading on chapter one, and the book just sucked me in and I had to keep going until I finished it. It's been a while since a science fiction novel did this to me, and I even picked up some of the inside jokes and references. (A character, Lieutenant Stross, was an obvious reference to fellow science fiction author Charles Stross)

Basically, a retired major in the human race's Colonial Union is called back (along with his wife, a former Special Forces soldier) to establish a new Earth Colony. Unknown to him, the Colonial Union has a not-so-innocent motive for this new colony, which puts his family, his new colony, and the entire fate of the human race in danger.

One odd technique that John Scalzi uses is to treat the entire novel as a mystery. Not a mystery as in a who-dunnit sense, but he basically treats every major plot point as a puzzle for the reader to solve. In most cases, he plays fair, giving you everything you need to guess what's going to happen next.

Yes, there are action sequences in this book, but no, they don't dominate the story or the plot, and they're not egregious, though Scalzi leaves more loose ends than I like at the end of the novel, they're not that important to the overall outcome.

All in all, while I would not pay hardcover price for this book, the paperback would be worth paying for, and it would make fine airplane reading. This book is the third book in a series, but since I hadn't read the first two books and didn't find that an impediment, you can safely read this book on its own. I'll dig up the other two from the library and write reviews on those as well.

Review: Plan B 2.0

Apparently, Lester R. Brown is a big shot in the environmental movement, but when he came to Google for a talk I didn't know any better, so I went and sat in and got a copy of the book. The talk was lackluster, but I hoped the book would be better.

The book unfortunately, is a litany of the environmental disasters facing us. Divided into 3 parts, Part I covers the problems facing us, part II provides a plan for getting us out of trouble, and Part III waxes rhapsodic about what a brave new world it's going to be.

I'm a card carrying environmentalist, and I don't disagree with any of the problems Lester Brown covers in Part I. But I have a hard time considering many of the problems he delineates really solvable. For instance, I don't believe 3rd world poverty is solvable through 1st world intervention. All our history indicates that 1st world intervention does nothing but exacerbates the problems. All 3rd world countries that have bootstrapped themselves into becoming developing countries and then developed countries have done so without a lot of help from 1st world countries. I am therefore skeptical of any effort placed into the humanitarian corner of Lester Brown's plan.

Brown points out, in Part II, how cheap it is to save the world. All it takes is 10% of the world's military budget. He neglects to point out that the biggest problem is that while everybody benefits from having the world saved, only the ones who voluntarily chose to pay the costs of doing so pay the cost. That makes it a classic tragedy of the commons problem, which means that the chief job of an environmentalist is really to try to convince the public that it's in their self-interest to clean up. Brown does not go over this, and it is clear that he lacks the necessary training as an economist to propose real systems that can solve this problem.

Part III's call to action sounds a bit idealistic to me. He waxes rhapsodic about gas taxes. I'm a cynic because I've seen over and over again how one woman after another would tell me she's an environmentalist, but then refuse to ride her bike to work because it would screw with her hair, because she considers cycling dangerous, or simply because it would take an act of god to pry the steering wheel from her cold dead hands. I don't believe that people are willing to put their money where their mouth is, so the only hope, I guess is for there to be a politician willing to exercise true leadership.

All in all, this book isn't really worth your time to read. The plan is plausible but likely ineffectual and unlikely to gain traction, and the description of the problems at too high a level and too shallow for you to truly learn anything.

Not recommended, even at the price I paid for it ($0). Go buy yourself a copy of Jared Diamond's Collapse instead. (Capsule Review)

Review: Campagnolo Carbon Record Brake Levers

These brake levers came on my Meridian Cascade tandem in 2002. At that time, they were an unspecified upgrade on the bike (I'd specified Campagnolo brake levers, but not the Record type), and I suffered a few remarks from folks who assumed I put it on the bike as a weight weenie measure.

But as I used them over the next 5 years, their value really grew on me (and it's not because of the weight). First of all, they never get cold. Carbon fiber is an insulator, not a conductor, so on cold mornings where metal brake levers would have frozen my fingers to the lever, they remain finger-temperature and keep my fingers happy. Cold hands are one of the most miserable things to experience, and during my 2005 tour of the alps, there were a few days where I wish I had them on my touring bike.

Secondly, these levers have a quick-release built into the lever. Together with Shimano long reach brake calipers, you end up with sufficient throw in both quick releases to clear 700x32mm tires! This is excellent.

Finally, the last 5 years have proven that they are sturdy enough for touring and heavy-duty use. Any levers that have to frequently stop a tandem on major mountain descents are definitely strong enough for any kind of use on a single bike, be it loaded touring, commuting, or just day riding.

I like these levers so much that I'm putting my money where my mouth is: I'm retiring my metal brake levers on my touring bike and replacing them with these. Highly recommended!

Review: The No Asshole Rule

When Robert Sutton came to Google to talk about his book, I thought that most of his points were fairly obvious: assholes are people who beat down on subordinates and kiss up to their superiors. Then again, as I read this book and considered its topics a bit more, I realized that I'd much rather see more books of this type than for instance, Built to Last. Which isn't to say that Built to Last was a bad book, by the way.

Prof. Sutton quantifies how much having an asshole costs the typical organization, and presents a number of examples and anecdotes about it. (A quiz question: who is the biggest asshole in Silion Valley?)

All in all, a quick read, worth the time, but not paying money for.

Charity Rides aren't necessarily good for cycling

I recently rode Big Sur, along the beautiful section of coast left out by the AIDS Lifecycle ride. At first, I thought the AIDS Lifecycle riders aren't cyclists, which leads them to pick the flattest, straightest route from San Francisco to LA. Someone else, however told me it was because the CHP had denied the organization permission from riding Highway 1.

Now this is odd. For instance, if you led a car rally down Highway 1, the CHP can't deny you to use legitimate, public roads. But apparently bicycles need permission. Even that aside, AIDS Lifecycle could have made a stink out of this decision. They have thousands of cyclists, and thousands of donors, and the PR ability and the cause to make a big deal out of this and force the CHP to either change its mind or raise awareness that cyclists are being treated as second class citizens, even as they work to raise money for important causes.

But that's not the purpose of the AIDS ride. As long as they get their money for their cause, they don't really care about cycling per se as a endeavor in and of itself. Hence, they are content to accept their second class citizenship and use a flat, boring route to LA from San Francisco. This type of behavior from charities is all too common, unfortunately, thus as I get older and I ride more, I agree more and more with Sheldon Brown's position on charity rides.

In any case, I'm not so sure it's such a good thing to commingle charity with another activity. Just as an insurance scheme sold as an investment is ultimately suboptimal, I think that your giving to a cause is better done directly, not as part of a commingled activity. (A few years ago, there was a scandal about the AIDS Lifecycle's organizers siphoning off the monies for their own purposes. Who knows if that'll repeat itself) Similarly, if you wish to ride from San Francisco to LA, following the AIDS Lifecycle route is not optimal, and the selection of time is also not optimal. (Riding on the coast is optimal, and the right season is in late September/early October or in mid-April to mid-May).

Review: Dinotte Taillight

Dinotte setup a deal for employees of my company, so I took the opportunity to buy one of their tail-lights, since my next-to-last Vista-lite was failing, and I can't seem to buy Vista-lites anymore. Lots of folks had raved about how bright it was, so it didn't seem like it would be a big risk.

I got the "Pro" version, since that's the one that runs off AA batteries, which would be most useful for touring. For commuting, NiMH batteries from Battery Space have proven themselves over and over again. The light is bright. Indeed, it's so incredibly bright that it can serve as an emergency light at night for flat repair, and it paints the road behind you red if you point it at the ground. The one time I got it mounted on my chainstays, my brother who was drafting me complained that it blinded me and I had to turn the light down to its lowest setting so as not to irritate him.

The Achille's heel of the system, however, is the mount. A rubber O-ring combines with a notch on the light engine itself to mount onto a seat post or a seat tube. A separate pouch with the AA batteries mounts elsewhere with a hook-and-loop fastener. The hook-and-loop fastener is not very secure, and frequently moves during the ride: it's tough to find a place for it on the bike. But the real problem is the seat-post/seat tube mounting. Seat posts won't work if you're in the habit of using a carradice saddlebag. Seat tube mounting has the annoying feature of possibly hitting your thigh, and also not working with panniers. There's also a lot of wasted light in this system, since most of the light goes down to shine on the road instead of penetrating a driver's eyes.

You would think that the same O-ring system could work for mounting the light onto the seat stays, and you would be wrong. Seat stays are angled the other way from a seat tube, and don't angle the light correctly. On top of that, seat stays are too skinny for the O-ring and the light-engine notch to have adequate purchase.

Another fellow on the net suggested using Cateye's Small Parts Store to hunt for parts for mounting the Dinotte light onto the chainstays or seat stays. The BP-5, for instance, will wrap around the light engine with no problems whatsoever. Other collars seem like they would be perfect for wrapping around the stays. I ordered a bunch for $10 and tried them. The problem is that the geometry of the light engine is such that seat stay mounting is not practical: the engine itself gets in the way of you mounting it on the seat stay with the length protruding back into the seat stay. I had better luck with chain stay mounting, but try as I might, I could not get the mounting to be stable: road shock and vibration would knock it loose and then I would lose the correct angle for the light. All in all, it was easier to switch back to seat tube mounting, which is less than satisfactory if you actively commute with panniers or a saddlebag. And of course, there's no easy way to mount it onto a rack as well --- you simply have to keep ordering stuff from the Cateye small parts catalog until you find something that works for your rack, a frustrating experience at best.

In conclusion, I will keep my Dinotte, but am sad that I cannot use it for touring or any kind of serious night utility riding. The fact that I am able to keep a full set of clothes at my employer and do laundry at work is what keeps me from sending it back to the manufacturer. For the cost of the light ($120 MSRP), I feel that a full set of mounting options is necessary without any of the kludges I had to go through to get things to work. As it is, I will stick with my vista-lite for touring, or a $20 Cat-Eye when that vista-lite finally dies. I cannot in all honesty recommend the Dinotte for serious use on utility or touring bicycles: it is clear that their audience is that long distance randonneur or night racer, not the utility cyclist who has to carry any kind of gear at all.

Two thumbs down for the cost and lack of utility.

[Update: I've found a light that addresses my issues for cheaper]

Review: The Wall Street Self-Defense Manual

For those so young they missed the internet bubble, Henry Blodget was the internet analyst who achieved instant fame in 1998 when he predicted that AMZN would go to $400. It did so in less than 2 weeks, winning Blodget guru status on Wall-Street, along with Mary Meeker.

His fate took a turn for the worst, however, when he was accused of securities fraud after the internet bubble burst, and he had to settle with the SEC and was barred from the securities industry for life. His columns in Slate, however, have been interesting and responsible (unlike many other financial journalists), and his arguments about stocks, trends and industry on his blog, Internet Outsider, are cogent and interesting, if not entertaining.

When he published his this book to help the consumer invest intelligently, I read the internet excerpts and found them to be intelligently as well as simply written, so I placed a hold on the book at the library and forgot about it until it came in.

The book's divided into 3 parts: part one focuses on trying to convince you that the common marketing pitches made by most financial firms, advisors, and journalists are false and not in your best interest. Part 2 covers common investment approaches and points out the pitfalls of each of them. Part 3 (the shortest), covers what to actually do with your investment. What's fascinating to me is that part 3 assumes that he failed to convince you in parts 1 and 2!

This lack of self-confidence, perhaps, is justified, since I have run into any number of intelligent folks who are convinced that they can beat the market. And to a large extent, they do --- for a short while. Blodget's coverage of the common fallacies of active investors covers no less than 25 percent of the book. This is good material, and exceptionally well-written. There's no mathematics or equations to scare away the casual reader, but the examples are well-chosen and easily understood. The casual references to his prior life as a securities person also make for good entertainment.

Blodget's coverage of asset allocation and how you should approach it, however, is sadly lacking. He does point you at David Swenson's, so at least you're not stuck with nothing. He does provide 2 example portfolios, but I suspect that most new investors will be left at a loss to extrapolate from this. The subject of asset allocation, how rebalancing works, and how you change your risk profile over time is definitely worth spending more time on, and I wish Blodget had done so.

Part 2 covers the traditional ways of managing investments (investment advisors, mutual funds, hedge funds, paying for research, and reading financial press), and covers why most of these managers do not have their interests aligned with yours. This is valuable reading, and definitely worth reading. Beginning investors ignore Blodget's advise here at their own peril, and this section is written so well that I think it will actually be read and followed. In one section, for instance, he analyzes the package a financial adviser prepared for him, and points out the over-optimistic assumptions, hidden costs, and sales pitches were. This section is worth reading and reflecting upon, if you ever decide to go the adviser route.

Part 3, where Blodget provides his solution for the typical consumer, is extremely short (about 5 pages or so). He assumes that parts 1 and 2 of the book was completely in vain, and that you will want to go ahead and do some speculation anyway, and so advises that you at least do 95% investing, and spend the other 5% proving that you can beat the market. He then advises using the investment account to get some help from Vanguard or TIAA-CREF with low cost funds and get a portfolio evaluation from them. He does bring up the excellent life-cycle funds, which I think are an excellent solution.

All in all, I think this is an excellent book for beginning investors, and the biggest problem I see is that not enough people will read it. He could cover asset allocation in more detail, but as others have demonstrated, that subject could be an entire book all by itself, and Blodget's prose-style-no-numbers approach would not work well there. In any case, the book is well worth the Amazon.com price for the average beginning investor.

Big Sur Trip

Big Sur Trip

I was getting stale, doing the same old pigeon point loop every time I wanted a shakedown cruise. Well, this year, I opted for something different: Big Sur. I've ridden down the coast before, in 1997, but I wanted something that wouldn't take a week. My Western Wheeler friends Dick & Donna had done the Big Sur Loop from Carmel many times before, and since I'd never done it, I thought it was worth doing once, just to see what it was like.

Day 1: 51 miles, 3800': The day started out drizzly and cold. So cold that I had to break out warm jackets and gloves. By lunch time, however, the fog had blown off and we had nice sunny weather. As usual on the tandem, the climbs are much much harder than I remember from my previous ride, but the descents were fast and stable. We arrived at Lucia at 3:00pm, after all the other singles, and had plenty of time to enjoy the wonderful views of the coast and a lovely dinner.

Day 2: 51 miles, 4300': The forecast was for rain today, so I was pleasantly surprised to see clear, beautiful weather when we woke up. After breakfast, we climbed a short hill and descended down along the coast for 5 miles. This part of the coast was gorgeous and dreamy, very very pretty, and I wished we were heading further South, but not today. We climbed Nacimiento Road, a climb estimated at about 7 or 8%, which wound around the hills and gave us gorgeous views of the coast. At the top, we ran into Denise & Larry, a couple who were riding to San Luis Obispo, where they would rent a car and drive back home. Then there was a quick descent into Hunter Liggett military base, where unlike Dick's previous experience, we were quickly let through and had lunch at the snack bar on the base. Then we took the closed old road over to Jolon Road, where a gentle climb greeted us to the summit and then a furiously fast descent. This was, however, followed by a ride into a 30mph gale from King City! This gave us an 8mph speed into the city, where we stayed at the Keefer's Inn, after arriving around 4:00pm.

Day 3: 69 miles, 3000'. The morning started off with another headwind. This wasn't as bad as the day before, but we ended up doing 12mph for 2 hours, before turning into Greenfield and riding into Arroyo Seco, where the Easter weekend brought lots of annoying traffic. Then the turnoff onto Carmel Valley Road, where a gentle climb with a little breeze brought us quickly to within 2 miles of the summit before we got bogged down. Once over the summit, a quick descent (lent some urgency by using up all our water) brought us to Carmel Village, where we had lunch and topped up our water bottles. Then a quick push against a much weakened headwind brought us back to the car at 5:00pm.

My brother also has Web Album up for the trip.

Co-Motion provides new details

After yesterday's post, I got a public statement out of Co-Motion:

This date range is not correct. Piaw Na's frame, which he purchased used in
2000, was built in 1997. By the time Piaw had purchased his frame, we had
been reinforcing the eyelets for 3 years. We began reinforcement of the
Cappuccino and Cappuccino Co-Pilot (or SkyCapp) dropouts in 1997 to prevent
these problems from occuring again. I think the eyelet issue cropped up in
1997, but it would be smart to look at any 1996 or 1997 Cappuccino tandems.

If you own any steel Co-Motion Softride beam-equipped tandem manufactured
in 1996 or 1997, I would encourage you to contact us to see if it might be
prudent to reinforce your dropouts. Check your serial number, stamped into
the front bottom bracket shell. If the last two digits (indicating year of
manufacture) are 96 or 97, take a look at your dropouts. If you see a strong
definition line between the eyelet and dropout body, and you plan to mount a
rear rack carrying loaded panniers, give us a call.

How not to manage product defects

5 years ago, I owned a Co-Motion SkyCapp. It was my first tandem, and amongst other things it taught me what I liked or did not like about tandems, in particular, S&S couplers are evil. Then in 2002, Lisa & I rode down the Pacific Coast on a 5 day bike trip, and the eyelets on the rear (which attach the rack to the frame) broke.

This was annoying to say the least: in 15 years of touring, no other bicycle frame has ever broken down on me in this fashion, but it was near the end of the trip, so a phone call to my brother got me a pick-up, and I brought it to the frame shop for a repair (cost: $60), and proceeded to eventually sell the frame and buy a new one (which I am very happy with).

In the course of interacting with folks on the internet tandem list, I discovered that a few other folks had had their tandems fail in exactly the same way. Well, so I started telling folks who were buying Co-Motions, to check their dropout eyelets, or to just re-do them. Co-Motion's representative then got on-board and said they had no such problem. When I then posted that I'd found others who'd had the same problem happen to their tandems, they changed their tune and said that it was just a bad batch of dropouts (frame components) that had since been fixed. I asked for a list of serial #s or model years affected, but they did not reply.

Fast forward a few years, and I issue another such warning for a frame made in the same era as mine, and suddenly I'm accused of having a grudge against Co-Motion, as evidenced by this e-mail from them:

It seems that somewhere along the way, I have made an enemy of you. I have
long felt that our reputation would speak for itself, and that in time, you
might mellow about this. Perhaps I underestimated the extent of your
determination. Perhaps you are waiting for an apology.

A further exchange determined the extent of their problem:
> Hm... I still remember your respond to my initial posting about
> broken eyelets:
>
> "I will stand our eyelets up against anybody else's". That was what
> prompted me to ask David Love and Pamela Bayley about their eyelet
> experiences on their co-motions. I'd call that a denial, but hey, you
> can call it whatever you want.

Yes, I made the above statement because I felt that our dropout, which was
made by one of the premier dropout forging companies in the world, was
indeed equal to any other company's dropout. We had no problems with any of
their other dropouts, and their other dropouts, made for Ritchey, Trek,
Schwinn and others enjoyed a strong reputation.

However, the Cappuccino/SkyCapp was hard on dropout eyelets because the
rear rack, having to extend so far to meet the upper rack mounts due to the
compact rear triangle, exhibited more lateral movement. This wasn't the
fault of the eyelets, it was more of a problem with the vast array of rack
adaptations to the beam bikes. Still, it was the eyelet that exhibited the
problem, so it was the eyelet we reinforced. We also made an effort to
recommend that anyone using a Capp/SkyCapp for loaded touring should make an
effort to get a nice rigid rack like a Bruce Gordon or Robert Beckman
design. These racks provide much better lateral stability because of their
superior upper mounts, taking the strain off the dropout eyelets.

> So you're saying that you have a problem even now?

Absolutely not.

>At some point, you
> made a manufacturing change to correct eyelet dropout problems, yes?
> So frames after that point are safe, correct?

Yes, the aditional brazing, as seen on Brian Speck's frame.

>So you could
> theoretically say, "Any frames made after this time will be free of
> eyelet problems", right?

Yes.

>And that would translate to a manufacturing
> serial # past a certain # on Co-Motion frames, correct?

Yes. However, the difficulty is in identifying exactly when the problematic
dropout eyelets initiated. It would not be correct to recall all Cappuccinos
and SkyCapps made before X. Not only would it be extremely costly, it would
also involve a lot more bicycles than necessary. We did not track dropout
lots- the new parts would have gone into the same bin as the old batch.
Because we could not positively identify them, we decided to reinforce
everything after it appeared we had a problem and take care of the rest of
them under warranty. Why your repair was charged by Bicycle Outfitter to
you, I do not know- you should not have been charged.

>Or are you
> saying that you still don't know if your new frames would have this
> problem?

Not at all.


The reason why this is a case study on how not to deal with a product defect is that once a manufacturer has denied there's a problem, and then realizes that there's one, there's an honest way to deal with it: post it on your web-site, made it known there are are problems, and either issue a recall or tell folks that if you have a possibly affected frame we'll take care of you. To try to tell everyone else that my frame was suspect because it was bought used and because of its history, is being disingenuous. To then try to brush it off because it's too expensive to recall all affected frames, but not to explain to the general public what the problem was, and that they could be affected is to be cavalier about the most important part of a relationship between a producer and consumer: trust. If I can't trust you to always tell me what's wrong with even minor things, how can I trust you to tell me about major problems? If future Co-Motions were to have a manufacturing defect in their steerer tube which could cause a serious crash, would their past performance/waffling about their eyelet problems tell you that they would do the right thing and lose money and replace bad steerers? Or would they try to cover up, and fight the inevitable lawsuits.

I'll take the reverse example: when Rivendell Bicycles sold me a custom frame 10 years ago, they made it with a seat tube slightly too big. It was a 27.2mm seat tube instead of a 27mm seat tube. Just 0.2mm difference. I wouldn't have noticed. If the bike shop had called me about the problem I would have said, "no problem, put in a 27.2mm American Classic seat post." But my shop called Rivendell, and I immediately got e-mail from the company apologizing for the mistake, the employee on the shop floor berated himself, telling me he'd betrayed my trust had let me down and would never do this to me again. The company sent a UPS tag back to the shop, took back the frame, and sent me another custom frame. Let me tell you that if Grant Petersen had a bad batch of dropouts, he would personally see to it that every frame with the potential for this problem would be fixed. The man (and the company) has shown that he will never ever let making money get in the way of doing the right thing, and I will heartily recommend a Rivendell bicycle to anyone.

To me, these potential breaches of trust are what cause me to tell friends who ask me to steer away from Co-Motion bicycles. They might ride great, but integrity in business and personal relations on products that might potentially cause you and your partner great damage is just too important to me.

Marathon Pictures!

Finally I got my pictures from the folks who took them...it wasn't cheap, about 50 bucks, but I figured its worth it since I don't know if I'll do another full marathon anytime soon!

My favourites...

Me crossing the finish line






























Me about 2 miles from the finish line
And me looking quite energetic..must have been before the halfway point =)

Review: Shen Wei Dance Arts

Last night, I saw one of the most impressive dance performances in my relatively short dance experience. The Shen Wei Dance Arts was up at my old school, Berkeley, so I took the opportunity to go up there and see this.

The short review goes like this, there are 2 sequences, with an intermission between each sequence. The first sequence went on for 40 minutes and was composed of the exploration between what seems to be random movement and how one dancer's random movement can affect another dancer's movement. A lot of it seemed like water effects and the dance moves themselves were a mix of Chinese Kung Fu katas and traditional western ballet dance moves. It was interesting, a little thought provoking, but nothing spectacular.

The second sequence however, completely blew my mind away. The curtain opened to a still painting, a moving painting if one will. Inspired by a painting that the choreographer saw years ago, he has transformed that painting into a surreal piece of dance, not too much unlike something you'll see from a Salvador Dali painting..except its motion. The entire theatre was deathly quiet and you could hear people's breathing as somehow tension was brought onto everyone. At the end of the 20 minute sequence, everyone finally started breathing regularly again, and then gave a standing ovation.

Together, the random motion of the first sequence of the dance arts coupled with the slow and deliberate second sequence of the dance painting simply serves to give me my most memorable and intense dance performance that I've ever witnessed.

To summarize, if you get the chance to see this, don't pass it up. The tickets weren't terribly expensive and it is one of the most surreal and incredibly intense dance performances that I think I'l bear witness to

The only bad thing...it has a very limited showing, and I believe there are no more shows in the Bay Area...but for those of you reading outside the Bay Area, definitely something to look forward to if it shows up in your area! Here's a schedule.

An explanation of the mortgage alphabet soup

Calculated Risk is one of the best bloggers around on the housing bubble and its effect on the economy. His posts are incisive, and he also has a great habit of picking up comments from his blog and hoisting them up to the main page. I consider the blog a must-read for those who wish to understand the housing market, how it works, and how it affects the economy.

The post I'm linking to here is a good explanation of what conforming loans are, and why they were created: to effectively homogenize and streamline loans that are easy for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy (both are quasi-government agencies whose goals are to subsidize housing for as many Americans as possible by buying up loans from banks so that fresh capital is injected into the housing market).

In recent years, however, non-conforming loans have become the norm, since rising housing prices made loans made to folks who couldn't handle the prior requirements "less risky." Of course, that created a moral hazard, which drove the risk up until today, when housing prices stopped rising. Now with Mortgage REITs going out of business, it will be interesting to see if housing prices drop since there won't be any new money coming into the market for awhile.

The high prices of plane tickets...

This year seems to be exceedingly expensive for plane travel. 3 years ago when I bought plane tickets for Zurich, I found tickets for $650 each. Last year, for the Coast to Coast, we only found tickets for $775 each. This year, tickets to Zurich are going for about $1050 each, though a few weeks ago we found some for $950 or so. Record high oil prices are definitely partly to blame, but I also think that the airlines seem to have wised up a bit and not released discount fairs so early (last October's prices were still insanely high, while October 2004 had very nice prices for June 2005). It might be that in the future, last minute tickets will end up being much cheaper than pre-booked tickets. We'll have to track prices a bit more to see.

Review: Rising Stars

This is a review of J. M. Straczynski's series, Rising Stars. It's published in 3 parts: Rising Stars , Power (Rising Stars, Book 2), and Rising Stars Volume 3: Fire And Ash.

Part one covers the origins of the Pedersen 113, the children who were in the town of Pedersen when a strange fireball appeared in the sky. The children turn out to be special. Most of them develop interesting special powers, and the story begins when one of them is murdered. It turns out that the death of one of the specials increases the powers of the survivors. A lesser writer would make the story about the mystery behind the murders, and how the narrator solves it. Instead, Straczynski solves the mystery almost immediately, and misdirects the reader into thinking that this would end in a big Highlander-style battle until there is only one.

Instead, the story turns into one of betrayal and recovery from betrayal, followed by an Authority-style exploration of what true superpowers with a humanitarian bent would really do for the Earth, and humanity in general. The stories leap forward in time, spanning decades at a time in between books, and the ending was unpredictable, leaving you guessing all the way until the end. (It does get a bit hokey at the end, but not in a bad way)

Recommended.

26.2 in 4:30

So this past sunday was the culmination of about 6 months worth of training. From the time I returned to the Bay Area in July and decided that I wanted to run a Marathon, to my first Half Marathon in October, to this Marathon in March....its been a long road. After 400 miles of running since last late october (probably closer to 600 if I add the training for my half-marathon, but I didn't keep track of mileage as meticulously as I do now...), this is an extremely satisfying culmination of all that hard work.

The blow by blow went like, this...I flew by the first 13 miles, getting a sub 2 hour time at the half marathon mark...felt good all the way to mile 17 or 18, and then just had to slow down. It felt like my heart was going to pop and decided to walk a minute or two per mile after that. Even before my body gave up, I had slowed down already, but not by too much, from a 6.6 to a 6.0 pace. But after mile 18, I think I was going at about a sub 6 pace. I maintained that pace all the way to the finish line.

I had an incredibly good kick for the last few hundred yards though, I kept telling myself, almost yelling "GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!" and I blew by about 10 or 15 folks, the cheering really kept me going and the people at the finish line was worried I was going to collapse, but did congratulate me for finishing. They were also surprised that I had such a strong finish for such a lousy time =p

This was an incredibly well organized and supported Marathon. I showed up at the finish line at 5:45, caught the bus to Calistoga that took about 45 minutes, took a leak, got some hydration and some extra Guu, and then at 7 promptly, we went. I started my clock at 7:01 because of the crowd in front of me and my official time was 4:31:44. The course was gorgeous, a little shivery in the 7 o'clock hour, warming up at 8 o'clock, got really comfy at 9 o'clock, then got uncomfortably warm at 10, but a great cloud cover came at around 10:30 and the last hour of my run was in relative shade and comfort.

I ran all the way with my Nano and could not use my Nike+ kit cause I lost the bluetooth portion that attached to my Nano. This was a race that I didn't really need it though, since I knew the start time AND the exact distance =).

Back to the marathon being organized, there was rest stops every 2 miles officially, but there were lots more in actuality, closer to 14 I counted. And yes, these were the ones that were official. At the 21 mile mark they actually had sorbet! That was great even though I'm not a sorbet person and only took one or two licks.

So although I'm 30 minutes later than my desired time, I'm still extremely happy that I finished and this 30 minutes only gives me more incentive to improve should I choose to run another one.

In retrospect, I should have done a practice run up to 23 miles a few times before the event, and I should have paced myself a lot better during the event. Towards the end of the training, I just did not have enough long runs under my belt, so that might explain why I'm just glad to have finished at the 4:30 mark (the lowest boundary of my desired time).

My stat line:
Bib Name Time Overall Place Gender Place Pace
1707 Sy Na 4:31:44 882 569 64 / Men 30 to 34 10:22/M

I also signed up for the San Jose Rock & Roll Marathon for October, right now i'm tentatively saying a time of 1:50! So at least I won't be hanging up those sneakers anytime soon!

Pics forthcoming! I want to see the pics of my incredible (for me anyway) finish! =)

gtags 1.0 released

And there's even the official blog post written by me. Most of the work, however, was done by my intern, Stephen Chen, so thanks, Stephen! I have been fortunate in finding such amazingly good interns.

The 1.5% Real Return Estimate

Last night I had dinner with folks that included a couple who worked in the financial industry. As might be expected, the dinner conversation turned to financial planning, and what strategies are involved. The folks involved did private account management and financial planning, and as you might expect were quite financially sophisticated. I asked one of my favorite financial planning questions: if you needed $X in income over the next 60 years, how much in assets in a diversified portfolio (one that's close to the efficient frontier) would you need to be able to generate that much income in inflation adjusted terms?

Long time readers of my blog, of course, are well aware that the answer can be found on the retire early safe withdrawal spreadsheet. I wanted, however, to see what a conventional financial planner would say. The answer came out to be 150% of what the retire early number was. What was very interesting to me was that the number the planner used for the return from the average portfolio was described as a conservative 1.5% over inflation.

1.5% over inflation. Think about what that means. Current I-bond rates are at 1.4%. What that would mean is that the equity risk premium is only 0.1%. Can it really be that low? Even Warren Buffett, the pessimist, has been quoted as being able to expect a 4% real rate of return from businesses. So 1.5% seemed excessively conservative. Then I thought about the numbers from the conventional planner's perspective: the average cost of a separately managed account is approximately 1.5%. So that 4% real return now is really a 2.5% real return. Taxes can easily eat up another 1% of the remaining return, so now you're down to 1.5% real return.

So from an conventional financial planning perspective, the planner was absolutely correct! The lesson here, of course, is that paying someone else conventional financial planning fees is extremely costly, quite possibly costing you your retirement!. Which means that if you aren't doing your own financial management, you're really giving up half your real returns (to your financial planner, who probably blows 1/2 million a year flying private planes!).

Phil teaches Emacs

One of my former gtags interns, Phil, went back to school at MIT and taught a class about Emacs. His slides were great (much better than the ones I did for Google), and will soon be incorporated into the GNU Emacs distributions. Awesome work, Phil!

Beautiful Aptos Beach

 

Turbo Tax 2007 Review

This is a review of TurboTax for the Mac versus TurboTax for Windows. I've been a Turbo Tax for Windows user for years. This year, as an experiment, and since I had a Mac Mini, I installed the Mac version to see what the difference was.

The first two returns were for my mom and for Lisa. Neither were very complicated, though at least one involved the earned income tax credit. In both cases, I could download W-2s through Turbo Tax. So far so good. Both taxes were done in under 2 hours total (an hour on average).

Then I got to my own taxes. I'll admit that my taxes aren't the least complicated possible, but compared to another colleague who had to spend 50 hours on her taxes last year (because of multiple state taxes), I still consider mine easy. The first sign that all was not well was the investment downloads page. The investment download from Vanguard was straightforward, but the overview screen refused to show me the details of which investments yielded which numbers (capital gains, dividends, etc). This made it quite painful to use the downloaded results, since I couldn't corroborate the sells and buys with my knowledge of what happened.

OK, I know how to type, so I wiped out the imported data and entered all the data manually. This was fine until I got to individual stock sales. I entered all the data, saved and quit the application to get reboot my Mac for an unrelated reason, and then started up Turbo Tax again. To my surprise it refused to start from the saved file!

Chalking it up to user error, I started my return all over again and did my taxes again. The same thing happened when I saved and reloaded the application, this time, without rebooting.

I opened up Turbo Tax for Windows in a Parallels Virtual Machine and proceeded to do my taxes there. To my relief, not only does the Windows version of Turbo Tax happily load and reload my saved files (though it wouldn't load the Macintosh saved files, of course), the investment downloads page on the Windows version is usable, and saved me at least 10-20 minutes of data entry.

The moral: if your finances are non-trivial, get a Windows license and run the Windows version of Turbo Tax. This is another reason my next machine will not be a Macintosh.

No, I did not cheat...

Your results:
You are Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom 68% Magneto 60% Lex Luthor 52% Green Goblin 52% The Joker 52% Apocalypse 49% Two-Face 48% Riddler 47% Mr. Freeze 43% Venom 36% Catwoman 36% Mystique 32% Kingpin 28% Juggernaut 24% Poison Ivy 23% Dark Phoenix 15%

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

Review: Dreaming In Code

Scott Rosenberg follows the Chandler project as a reporter, unraveling the mysteries of software development gone wrong. What's interesting for me, at a personal level, is that I know several of the principles through work at a previous life: Katie Capps Parlante, and Aparna were both with me at Escalate, ironically, a startup that failed for business reasons. (To give you an idea of the quality of the folks at Escalate, at this point, 4 of its first 20 engineers are at Google, while another 4 or 5 are at Yahoo)

The part of the narrative that sticks out to me like a sore thumb is the lack of impatience at OSAF. In fact, the general approach was so muddled that even software luminaries like Andy Hertzfeld left. When building a project, the most important thing to do right away is to build something that works as quickly as possible and get it out there. It doesn't have to be pretty, and it definitely doesn't have to have a fancy object layer. It has to work and do something useful. That gives you a user base that can drive more feedback to help you refine future versions. On top of that, once you have a significant user base among early adopters, you'll get more contributors to your open source program, and the code will snowball. The architecture astronauts approach, however, seemed to have overtaken OSAF, which led them down the garden path of building infrastructure first without an application in mind. I don't under-estimate the importance of infrastructure: I build it all the time, as does the company I work for, but infrastructure for the sake of infrastructure is wasteful, as you'll invariably build the wrong thing.

The book is well-written, and worth reading, even if you work in software on a daily basis. If you're successful, you'll say to yourself, "at least I'll never get caught in this morass." If you're unsuccessful, you'll comfort yourself by Rosenberg's repeated assertions that software is hard. Ultimately, however, there are lots and lots of ways for software projects to fail, and only a few ways for them to succeed, so this book is another reminder that unfortunately, the state of software engineering is such that you can go years without reading many new books and still be ahead of most of the field.

I met Rosenberg when he visited Google to promote the book. As he signed my copy, I quoted one of the original hackers Brian Harvey, "All the best software is written by one person." Rosenberg repeated something obviously told to him by many other practitioners, "The software systems we build now are too big, too complicated for one person." I told him that I didn't believe that for a minute. Even in his book, you could trace many programs to one person: Alan Kay and Smalltalk, Charles Simonyi and Bravo. I can name more modern examples: Paul Buchheit and Gmail, Louis Monier and AltaVista, Larry Wall and Perl, Linus Torvalds and Linux. Sure, as the programs evolved and grew, more and more people got involved and ended up building a big system. But right at the beginning you can only have a program written by one or two engineers to scratch their itch. While Rosenberg wasn't willing to write-off Chandler yet, I am. Today, Google's calendar does everything Chandler's trying to do --- by designing the program by committee instead of Mitch Kapor rolling up his sleeves and just writing code, OSAF has doomed Chandler to permanent irrelevancy.

"We've consistently overinvested in infrastructure and design, the fruits of which won't be realized in the next development cycle or even two---that is, not in the next six or twelve months. You pay a price for that in a loss of agility. The advice I would give is to do even more of what we've been doing in the last couple of years, which is to sequence the innovation, stage things, and be less ambitious..."

Review: Ex Machina

Note: My copy of The First Hundred Days was checked out from my local library, and it had pages missing.

Ex Machina is about a superhero who retires and runs for the Mayor of New York in 2001. Where his powers come from, what his past exploits were, and what the limits of his powers are is secondary to the story of his career as a politician.

The first collection (The First Hundred Days) covers his first days in political office, his origins, and a mysterious murder of snowplow men, as well as introducing the characters. The second collection, Tag covers a bit of the period before his election, gay marriage, and the a mysterious series of murders.

The plotting is tight, the art is acceptable, and the use of his abilities very well thought out. I'm considering buying up all the comics I can find.

Recommended.

Review: Whistling Past Dixie

This book is an excellent companion and counter-point to Gene Sperling's The Pro-Growth Progressive. Rather than pontificate on policy that would be good ideas if the Democrats regained control of the government, Schaller focuses on how to win.

Schaller's thesis is that the Democrats have shot themselves hard in the foot by trying in vain to appeal to the South, the most racist, backwards, and evangelical part of the country. Since that requires the party to hew harder to the right than its base wants to be, you get two problems: first of all, you get the general population thinking that there's no difference between the two parties (which is as wrong as you can get), since the Democrats try to blur the differences between them and the Republicans in the South, and secondly, the public gets the impression that the Democrats don't stand for anything by pandering to whatever the public says it wants through the polls, rather than leading the Nation.

Schaller brings plenty of evidence to the table, with charts, graphs, and statistics and numbers peppering the book. His answer is that the right thing to do is to stand strong on the Democratic progressive values by pointing out that the Republicans want to reach into America's bedroom by proscribing behavior ranging from sexual preferences to what women are allowed to do with their body. These themes resonate everywhere in America except the South, and the Democrats do not need the South's electoral votes to win (and they're not going to get them anyway, so why tarnish your brand by seeming desparate). Schaller proposes vilifying the most racist and evangelical and backwards citizens in the South the way the Republicans have turned all Democrats into latte-drinking liberals, and using that as a wedge issue to force the Republicans to defend themselves in the rest of the country.

Fortunately, I think the current Democratic candidates for the presidencywill have no choice but to follow Schaller's strategy: Hilary Clinton is too hated in the South to even have a chance there, and she knows it. Barack Obama is black, and doesn't stand a popsicle's chance in the South, and he knows it. So unless there's an unexpected entrant who beats out these two, we'll get a chance to see Schaller's theory in action. This book is highly recommended.

To build and unify themselves, and begin to drive a wedge straight through the heart of the conservative base of the Republican Party, the Democrats need to spend a little less time micro-targeting messages to this or that group based on the latest focus group results. Chasing voters only scares them away, and so Democrats ought to spend less time in pursuit and more effort luring voters by staking out firm positions and showing the resolve not to budge... No party should define itself entirely by its base, but neither should a party define itself by starting with the elements of its coalitionfarthest from that base. That said, it is time for Democrats to replace the party's passive, confused, and muddled national message with a muscular, unapologetic advocacy of an elevator pitch that will not only poll well in the swing states and regions of the country but, properly politicized, can win elections too.

Review: Nintendo Wii

I've never bought a game console in my life, though I did own an Atari Lynx once upon a time. But when a colleague brought in his Wii and I tried it, I thought that this game would be something that Lisa would love. So over the holidays, I brought her over to another friend's place to test that theory. Needless to say, she was hooked. She got so into the Tennis game that she kept hitting me by mistake. When she tried the boxing game, her palms were so sweaty that my friend had to wipe the controls dry when she was finished.

The hard part was to find a console. I was fortunate that Kekoa worked down the hall from me and had a script that scraped Amazon's Wii page, and when it was available (for all of 5 minutes) I got one. The console only comes with one controller and one nunchuk, so I immediately bought another set, and then signed up for Gamefly, the Netflix of computer games.

I've had the console for a week, and tried a couple of games with Lisa and a few friends. The choice of Wii sports as the game to bundle with the game is nothing short of inspired. Lisa would start having to remove jackets or sweaters by the second round of tennis, because she was getting such a workout. The internet features are a little disappointing, and I've crashed the console a few times, so it's not the most stable right now, but when playing the games you won't notice. (It's mostly crashed when I was running the beta Opera browser)

I also tried two games, Zelda: Twilight Princess is a fun console RPG. (Note the emphasis on console RPG. Balder's Gate or Neverwinter Nights this is not --- the story is strictly linear) The controls are very intuitive and a lot of fun, and the story is nice. But it's a little involving, and there are a few places where if you don't quite follow the story line you might have to do a lot of backtracking. Nevetheless, if the game appeals to you, it's worth buying since it's quite a long rental to finish it.

Trauma Center: Second Opinion turned out to be another winner. It's got amazingly intuitive controls (especially the defibrillator, which vibrates just enough when you activate it to feel real), and fast, short, uninvolved gameplay. You could pick this up and play for half an hour every other day, which I doubt you can do with Zelda.

In any case, the Wii has proved to be an amazingly good game, and in terms of the amount of use we'll get out of it, I think it will prove to be a fantastic purchase. My only complaint is that the SDK is extremely expensive (and not at all easy to get), as there are quite a number of games I can think of that can use this intuitive interface amazingly well. I think the Wii is the first truly original video game concept I've seen for a long while, and I am convinced that it's going to stay the runaway success it's been for the past few months.

Review: Jersey Boys

Jersey Boys is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. If you've never heard of either one of those, I assure you that you've heard their songs before, but perhaps not by them directly.

Here's a link to one of the most famous Frankie Valli Song. Go ahead, Click on it. =)

Most people probably have heard of that song from one source or the other...at least I hope. With that background information, this story tells you the story of the group. How it came to be, the rise to stardom, the problems they faced, and the eventual split of the group into just Frankie Valli. It is a most poignant tale and the directorship of the story was simply amazing.

If you watch the link on the header, one of the talking points of the director was that they wanted to tell the story first and foremost, and then retrofit the songs in the places within the story where it best fit. This is quite different from most musicals of this sort, like say, Mama Mia, where the music is selected first, and a story written around it.

As it turns out, this style of direction gives you the best of everything. The songs are shown more or less in chronological order, the story is first rate, and the choreography and stage work is most excellent as is expected from Broadway productions nowadays.

The story is presented in seasons, with Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter representing one each of the Four Seasons. Each of the Four Seasons also represent an epoch in the timeline of the band, and their individual perspectives drives and perhaps even steals the show! This is one musical where the story actually is as good as or even better than the music!

All in all, I highly recommend this show and its well worth an Orchestra level seat as you can see the nuances of the actors even better. As I said, this is one musical where the dancing is kept to a minimum, and the emphasis is on the story and songs. Not all the songs are presented in full, as its not a concert, but its always more than enough to get you grooving to the tunes.

The Four Seasons never quite gathered the attention of the media the way the Beatles or other more glamarous bands did, and this story serves very nicely their story, and what a compelling story it is!

A must see!

Michael Pollan on Nutritionism

I frequently like to write off the New York Times (especially since their science articles are overly simplistic, and in many cases simply wrong), but Michael Pollan's book was exceptionally good, and this article is worth reading.

For those who don't have time, here's the quick summary:

1. Eat food.
   
2. Avoid food products bearing health claims
   
3. Avoid food with too many ingredients or contain high fructose corn syrup.
   
4. Get out of the supermarket
   
5. Pay more, eat less
   
6. Eat mostly plants
   
7. Eat ethnic foods
   
8. Cook
   
9. Eat like an omnivore
   

Review: Pan's Labyrinth

Run, don't walk to see this movie. There is nothing that I am going to say here that will give you a better understanding or any higher urgings than what I said in the first sentence of this review.

Billed as a fairy tale for adults, it really is the best way to describe this movie. It is a fairy tale in the mood of what fairy tales are really supposed to be, or what they were before fairy tales were disneyfied. When fairy tales were about cautionary warnings about what happens to bad children if they disobeyed, when consequences were more real, fairy tales were dark, cruel, and very often did not have a happy ending.

That in a nutshell is the best way to describe this movie. If you've ever read any of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, when he turns a fairy tale into something much more than you assume, this movie comes very close to that sentiment, and surpasses it in many ways. It has great warmth for a very dark movie, glimpses of hope in a hopeless situation, and an ending that has so many interpretations for it that no two conversations about the ending will be quite the same.

In other words, run, don't wait, to see the movie. It is gorgeous.

I'll stop here before I start gushing more praise for the movie.

Scott Burns: Americans not that badly off

There's a lot of doom and gloom usually about how little Americans save, so it's nice to see a bit of good news (especially from Scott Burns, who's usually a pessimist).

One household in four owns its home mortgage-free. An impressive 61 percent of households age 65 and over have no mortgage.

What's amusing is that he's mystified by apparel expenditure:

The survey shows that spending on apparel and services is only $1,509 a year for middle income households, rising to only $3,704 for top quintile households. I know we’ve got the most efficient distribution system in the world, but if that’s what we spend, what’s supporting all those Wal-Marts, Kmarts and Targets — not to mention a zillion other clothing retailers?

A quick search finds that there are about 100 million households in the US. If each of them spends $1500 a year, then apparel is a $150 billion market. The Gap only had 16 billion in revenues, so the US market can support 10 companies of approximately that size, plus or minus a couple to account for Wal-Mart.

$1500 a year still sounds like a lot of clothing to me, but I guess that's only 10 sets of cycling jerseys + shorts at full retail. I guess if you have to buy suits for work, that $1500 goes really quickly.

China's Capitalistic Healthcare System

(Link good for 7 days only)

Ironically, it's China that's first to suffer from the ravages of a capitalistic healthcare system. This doesn't happen here (yet), but one gets the feeling that the Republicans would love to have this kind of scenario:

Resentment over health care is increasing. In November, some 2,000 people mobbed a hospital in southwest China after a boy died there. The boy was rushed in by his grandfather after swallowing pesticides, according to a report by the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. Doctors sent the old man away to fetch more cash, according to the report, but by the time he returned, the boy -- 3 or 4 years old -- was dead. There are conflicting accounts about what treatment the boy received. But angry crowds were convinced that doctors let him die while they waited for money. They smashed hospital windows and equipment and clashed with police. At least 10 people were injured.

Of course, most of the Republican Base of "have-mores" wouldn't even notice, since they are presumably already on one of the concierge type healthplans.

Review: Ship of Fools

Richard Paul Russo came to my attention several years ago for his delightful twin thrillers set in San Francisco, Destroying Angel, Carliucci's Edge, and Carliucci's Heart, hard-hitting, realistic science fiction which is highly recommended.

Ship of Fools combines two frequently encountered devices in Science Fiction, the Generation Ship, and the first encounter with an Alien object. Unlike other Generation ships, however, the ship in question, the Argonos isn't a generation ship intended for one destination, but is actually an FTL-capable ship whose mission has been lost in time.

The narrator, a deformed person with prosthetics starts the story as a confidant of the ship's Captain, the last of his line of hereditary captains, with political jockeying for his position already happening. The ship discovers a signal, and finds the ruins of a civilization. The landing party discovers some horrors, and a signal is sent from the ruins to an object elsewhere. Following the signal finds an alien ship, and the story proceeds apace from there.

There are several subplots, including a mutiny by members of the underclass, a love interest (which does not turn out the way you might expect, and is extremely effective that way), so as a reader your mind is occupied by a lot of distractions. Unfortunately, this doesn't quite make the mystery of the alien ship a surprise, which is disappointing since Russo's previous books did quite well in surprising me.

This book was worth reading, but I'll be having a very bad year for reading if it made even the top three books this year.

Time. There wasn't much of it left to Nikos because the ship was in crisis---we had not made landfall in all these years, and we had no unified mission. We were travelling almost at random through the galaxy, had been for decades, if not centuries, and there was no consensus of purpose or goal. This had always been the case, at least during my lifetime...

Review: The Perfect Thing

Steve Levy's latest book is yet another example supporting my thesis the English majors/journalists are no longer capable of explaining the complex world we live in. The Perfect Thing is a love paean to the ipod, about how cool it is, how nice one is to use. In imitation of the ipod's shuffle function, Levy even has different copies of the book with the chapters out of order, so each person would read the chapters in a different order. The cute little device works, but that's all it is, cute.

I read the book hoping for an insight about the design and the development of the ipod. Levy has proved himself in the past capable of understanding the people dynamics of software, but in this case he was so caught up with love for the ipod, that he skimmed over the development process in 1 short chapter that was mostly about how good Apple was at UI design. From anyone else, I might understand an excuse saying that he was not given sufficient access, but Levy makes a point of bragging about how many meetings he had with Steve Jobs. And of course, any question of journalistic integrity was long gone when he bragged about being one of the first recipients of the first review products from Apple (presumably he gets all his ipods for free for writing such positive articles about Apple, the ipod, and Steve Jobs).

The last straw for this book came when he spent an entire chapter on the shuffle feature, on how it wasn't really random for him, but his personal ipod liked Steely Dan anyway. Anyone with even a slight understanding of probability theory should be insulted by this chapter.

All in all, the 3 hours spent reading this book is time wasted. This book does not deserve shelf-space in any thinking person's home, not even if you're a fan of the ipod.

Review: Battlestar Galactica Mini-Series and Season One

As a note to people who buy DVDs, do not buy the original mini-series DVD. Buy the Season One DVDs because that includes the mini-series in the first disk.

I did originally watch quite a few episodes of the first season (as well as the entire mini-series) last year. However, because of some snafus, I missed the last few episodes until recently, when I managed to borrow them from a friend. So now I can review the entire series with a complete picture.

I can't emphasize how important it is that you watch the mini-series before starting on the series. When I first saw the first episode of the series (the Hugo-award winning 33) out of context, I was impressed mostly by how boring the series was. Watching it in context, after seeing the entire mini-series, on the DVD without ads and with a good sound system, I was blown away. The soundtrack, the tension, and the characters already made sense, and the pacing, which I've already commented on before, was spot on.

I was not a fan of the old Battlestar Galactica show . It was one of those shows that I'd watch as a kid and promptly forgot. This version starts with the Cylons infiltrating the defense systems of the Humans, and then launching an attack by complete surprise on the Human fleet. The only surviving military ship was the Battlestar Galactica, by virtue of its equipment being so old and un-networked that old-style AT&T type phone units were still the major means of communications throughout the ship. The Galactica was about to be mothballed, and the surviving President of the Colonies is the former Minister of Education, who was 33rd in succession to the President.

The remaining civilian fleet, along with Battlestar Galactica head for Earth, a mystical place lost in the past, and concocted up by the heads of state just to keep hopes up amongst the survivors. Unknown to the crew, the Cylons have already infiltrated the Galactica, with human-lookalikes that are programmed as sleeper agents...

As if the plot wasn't complicated enough, the relationships between the characters are also tangled. Captain Lee Adama, the son of the Galactica commander Adama, has a complicated relationship with Starbuck and his father. The second in command of the Galactica is a perpetual drunk, and the civilian and military leaders do not always get along. Laura Roslin, the President of the colonies, has terminal breast cancer, and takes drugs that give her visions that may or may not be true. The casting is excellent: Edward James Olmos as Commander Adama steals every scene he's in. Mary McDonnell plays President Roslin as a serious woman contemplating her fate, but her delight at certain events (such as a baby being born in the fleet) lights up her face in ways words cannot express. Katee Sackhoff plays a very tomboyish Starbuck, whose self-confidence and brashness has you wondering when she's going to be taken down, but in the grand tradition of mavericks, she always gets away with it.

This is a dark show, with serious themes, though not as serious as the ones that will come up in season two . If you look for happy endings all the time and a lot of comedy, this is not the show for you. But for serious drama, intelligent writing, first class acting, and a science fiction show that takes all of science fiction's possibilities and runs with them, this is the show to watch.

Nike+ Resolution

Not sure how this will turn out, but I figure I'll give it a shot. =) So Nike+ is letting you do resolutions, and here I am, deciding to do another easy one, just for fun. So here it is!

Review: Battlestar Galactica Season Two

If I had to vote for a show that I think is the modern successor to Buffy, it would be Battlestar Galactica. The show is incredibly well-written, the actors excellent, the plot (up to season two anyway) believable and interesting, and above all, the pacing is nothing short of astounding.

Ron Moore, the producer/director is I believe the best modern user of negative spaces on TV. The show is filled with silences. Characters stare and look at each other for long moments, allowing your mind to fill in the details in the thoughts and the interactions between the characters. The soundtrack is moody, slow, percussion heavy, and heavy with foreboding. The tension builds until it's unbearable, and the release when it comes is a complete relief.

But the show is by no means plodding! When plot is revealed, the revelation is real, uncontrived. When you learn something new about a character (such as the Cylon agent in Season One), it really causes you to think, "Oh yeah. That's why he behaved like this previously!" There are frantic battle sequences which punctuated the story, but the battles are always meaningful, as though the producer said, "Here's the budget we've got. Better make every special effect count!" And indeed it does.

I never expected the modern remake of the extremely cheesy original Battlestar Galactica to be excellent, but I think this show beats recent shows I've seen, even Veronica Mars and Smallville. To make things even better, the writers do not shy away from possibly controversial themes, including terrorism, the trade off between security and freedom, when brutality towards the enemy ultimately robs us of our own humanity, and ultimately whether survival is sufficient, or whether we need more justification for that for the human race. The themes are not hammered home with obvious morals, and each episode is written with care and respect for the theme as well as the milleu.

Characters are complex and realistic --- even good people do bad things, and sympathetic characters can turn out to be extremely cold-blooded and willing to do harsh things to enemies. There is but one obvious villain --- Gaius Baltur, a scientist who betrays humanity to the Cylons but nevertheless manages to insinuate himself into high office. Yet even he does pull miracles out of a hat sometimes and does something unexpected.

In any case, this show (the mini-series, seasons one and two) are very much worth watching, and highly recommended. Worth paying full price at the DVD shop for.

Little Asia on the Hill - New York Times

The New York Times has an article lamenting the number of Asian students in school, especially top Universities like Berkeley, which is apparently is apparently now 41 percent Asian.

Even at that apparently high percentage, Asian students apparently do so well that the schools still turn away more qualified Asian candidates than they should. And of course, there's the usual complaint that Asian students are nerds, uncreative, and don't ask questions in class.

As someone who grew up in Singapore, where we had 40 students per classroom, and only half-day classes and an incredibly uncreative teaching curriculum, I have to say that the excuses of poor high schools for other minority groups are just bunk. If there's a culture of learning and education, the students will do well and become great students. If not, then it doesn't matter how much creativity the school tries to give them, without a mastery of the fundamentals, all the creativity in the world just produces junk.

As someone who grew up in a much tougher academic environment than most Americans can imagine, all I can say is that if we continue to place value on ridiculous unimportant measures of quality and ignore the important ones, our living standards will drop. The argument should be about why our Math and Science education is so poor, not why there are so many Asians in America's best colleges.

2007 Book Reviews

A new year, another book review Index.

Update: The books of the year for 2007 have been announced!

Fiction

• Magic for Beginners
• Ship of Fools
• The Last Colony
• The Ghost Brigades
• Bardic Voices: Lark and Wren
  
• Glasshouse
• Old Man's War
• The Privilege of the Sword
• The Fall of Kings
• The Other Boleyn Girl
• Acacia: The War Against The Mein
• The Android's Dream
• Agent to the Stars
• The Accidental Time Machine
• While I was Gone
  

Non-Fiction

• The Perfect Thing
• Whistling Past Dixie
• Dreaming in Code
• The Wall Street Self-Defense Manual
• The No Asshole Rule
• Plan B 2.0
• Raising The Bar
• Positively False
• James Tiptree Jr: The Double Life of Alice B Sheldon
• The Cyclist's Training Bible
• The Bottom Billion
• Making Comics
• The Dynamic Path
• The Blind Side
• The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
• The Birth of Plenty
• Take a Nap! Change your life.
• The Age of Turbulence
• Bicycling & The Law: Your Rights as a Cyclist
• Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography
• The Trouble with Islam Today
• iWoz
• One Economics, Many Recipes
• The Conscience of a Liberal
  

Graphic Novels (aka Comic Books)

• Ex Machina
• Rising Stars
• Fables: Vol 1-3
• 1001 Nights of Snowfall and other Fables
• Order of the Stick Print Comics
  

Review: Magic for Beginners

When Kelly Link and Karen Joy Fowler visited Google, I asked them questions about the demise of short fiction magazines (their circulation is dwindling, especially amongst science fiction and fantasy readers). They claimed that it was tougher to compete against non-fiction, which has really taken off in recent years.

Having read Kelly Link's book, if it was representative of modern fiction, I disagree. One reads Science Fiction for ideas, and even as lackluster as Vernor Vinge's lastest book was, it was full of ideas worth thinking about and contemplating. One reads fantasy for world-building, or exploration of a character in a consistent world.

Link's book is entirely in the mode of magical realism (the classic book of the genre is One Hundred Years of Solitude). I don't know what one reads magical realism for. As far as I'm concerned, it's an entirely bankrupt mode of fiction. The world has no rules to speak of, since anything can happen (and frequently anything does), so it can't be about world building. It might be a character study, except that if the kind of random things that happened in a magical realism world happened to me, I'm pretty sure my character wouldn't be worth studying --- insanity isn't pretty.

But for some reason people who like magical realism think that because I enjoy science fiction and fantasy, I would like magical realism. Link's book has two stories that are interesting: The Faery Handbag, about a tribe of folks who live in a handbag, and Magic for Beginners, a story about an intriguing TV show that comes alive. Neither stories have resolution, but the language is well done and at least the ideas are interesting. I also found Catskin worth reading, a twist on the usual story of the heir of a dying monarch.

Fox is a television character, and she isn't dead yet. But she will be, soon. She's a character on a television show called The Library. You've never seen The Library on TV, but I bet you wish you had.

Ramen Inventor Dies!

I usually won't do a news post, but I thought this was...rather significant. Inventor of the Ramen, Momofuku Ando, has passed away. As someone who lived through quite a lot of college years on not much more than Ramen and an egg, I thought I would post a little ditty about it here.

A personal anecdote, I remember when I was growing up, my parents would refuse to allow us to eat ramen on the grounds that it was unhealthy. Well, it turns out that they were right and msg and salt and fried fatty noodles are really not good for you. But still, it was a significant part of my chlidhood and college adulthood, and it never occured to me that there was someone who invented it, and now I know. =)

Rest in Peace, Momofuku san, and rest assured, your legacy will likely outlive the human race. =)

The Queen's Classroom or JuuOu no Kyoushitsu Review

So over the Holidays a friend recommended that I take a look at this not-so-new TV series that came out in Japan. The link in the title links to the first episode of it at YouTube, the quality is not great, the sound is a bit stuttered, but you should be able to follow the show and hopefully, it'll rope you in as it did me.

The basic premise of it is simple, a 6th grade classroom gets a new homeroom teacher, and she is basically a tyrant. She decides to take the fun out of schooling, and makes the entire class a meritocracy. The show chronicles how the class reacts to it, and the subsequent consequences suffered by both the teacher, and the class itself.

At the heart of the show, is a very raw and basic social commentary about the state of schooling as it is in many 1st world countries, and the failures of the conventional schooling methodology. A lot of the commentary is incredibly valid and succinct, and surprisingly is perhaps even more valid about the state of schooling in the US than it really does in Japan. Japan has its problems to be sure, but it is still nowhere as poor as the schooling seems to be becoming in the US.

Certainly the show has caused controversies of its own and you can see this as sponsors dwindle on an episode by episode basis. Fortunately, the show in and of itself is very short, only 11 episodes, with two specials that are really optional. Each episode runs about 45 minutes and going through the entire show takes less than 10 hours.

All in all, I highly recommend you watch the first episode and judge if the show is for you. It broaches on topics that I believe every parent of children should be concerned about, and never stoops to condescension or derision to get its point across. When the show aired in Japan, it was broadcasted on a Saturday night so that both parents and children could watch it at the same time.

You can find more that has been said about this show here and if you follow the commentary, can find higher quality downloads of the entire series for your perusal.

Very recommended, one of the most thoughtful and entertaining TV shows I've watched in the last 10 years. =) Given that I don't watch much TV that probably doesn't say much!