Let's say you get an unlocked developer's G1. If you're like me, you don't talk very much on the phone, and you spend most of your time in a WiFi zone. But the Android makes for a great convergence device (it's an ipod replacement, and a phone replacement).
It turns out that the AT&T Gophone plan is a pre-paid plan that includes data, but at an exorbitant rate (no big deal if you're mostly in WiFi zone). But the on-line plan wouldn't let me buy a SIM card without a phone, so I dropped by the AT&T store today and waited in line with the iPhone buyers to get a $10 SIM card (even a $5 SIM card will do). I then stuck the SIM card into my G1, dialed 611, and paid $4.99 for 1MB of data. (You can also pay $9.99 for 5MB --- overage is $0.01 cents/KB) Basically, if you use google maps once, you'll chew it all up, so it's strictly for low-data traffic, or for people who spend almost all their time in WiFi zones.
But that's not all. You still have to turn on the EDGE access. From the Settings application, select Wireless Controls->Mobile networks->Access Point Names. Push the menu button to pick "New APN". Then enter the following data:
Name: at&t gophone
APN: wap.cingular
Username: wap@cingulargprs.com
Password: cingular1
MMSC: http://mmsc.cingular.com
MMS Proxy: wireless.cingular.com
MMS port: 80
MCC: 310
MNC: 410
Then select this APN, and you'll be good to go. Instead of paying $55 for voice and data that you'll never use much of, this should get you down to about $5 or $10 a month, provided you're a light user of data. The one downside is that you can't get access to the AT&T 3G network.
And before you ask, yes I asked T-mobile if they had data access with their pre-paid plan, and the answer is no.
Update: Someone pointed out that I should warn users that you should only do this with a prepaid SIM card. Otherwise, you will end up with significant data bills should your pocket end up watching a youtube video!
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Saratoga Gap Hike
The forecast was for iffy weather this morning, but it was supposed to be a rain later, so we set off to Saratoga Gap for a moderate hike. At the top, we met with Phil Sung, Irene, Tracy Wang, and Johnson, and all piled into Phil's car to the trailhead. While I usually descend Charcoal road and climbed Grizzly flat, this time I was worried that inclement weather might do bad things for visibility later, so we opted to hike along Long Ridge open space preserve to see what views there were while there was time. Sure enough, we spotted the Big Sur mountains above a fog bank that was hanging above Monterey Bay.
Following along Long Ridge, we hiked onto Peters Creek Trail towards the Grizzly Flat parking lot, and enjoyed a cool weather hike with no rain and only a few encounters with some mountain bikers. The descent from Grizzly Flat, however, saw quite a number of mountain bikers, one of whom told us that there was a lot of water. It started drizzling soon after, so we stopped to put on rain gear, and since I had boots with me, hiking boots for me and Lisa.
At the creek, we found that there wasn't actually a lot of water at all, and both stream crossings were over and we found the trail to Table Mountain easily. The climb was as pretty as I remember, and soon we were at Table Mountain. Once there, the road widened up into Charcoal road, and the mud was a bit stickier. On a bike it takes about 20 minutes to ride this section, but it took quite a bit longer on foot, but we arrived at the car around 1:00pm, without serious rain until we started down the mountain.
Approximately 9 miles with 1500' or so of elevation gain.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Why Investing is Hard
There are many times when I tell people that do-it-myself financial planning is really easy. In fact, as far as the math goes, it's not even as close as learning to solve differential equations, doing linear algebra, or learning to program in C++. So if the intellectual challenge behind investing just isn't that hard, why do smart, hardworking people consistently fail at it? Why did Nobel prize winner Myron Scholes sit on the board of directors of not one, but two massive hedge fund failures? (LTCM and Platinum Grove)
The answer, I think, is that the challenges that investing pose are not intellectual, but emotional. I'll provide a personal example. Last year in November when Google sat at $700 or so a share, I polled people I knew to see if they were selling. When every one said No, I knew it was time to sell. So I sold. And the stock went up to $712. So I sold some more. And then it went to $723, and I sold some more. And then it went up some more, and I sold. At this point, my hands were shaking as I pressed the sell button with my mouse. I kid you not. Despite everything I knew telling me that this was the right thing to do, it was emotionally very difficult to do it when everybody else (including the stock market) was telling me differently. My mind started constructing scenarios under which Google could be worth $1500 per share in 5 years. I started noticing articles (like this one by Henry Blodget) that were quite optimistic.
Truly, when it comes to investing, your worst enemy is yourself (well, ok, a crooked financial advisor would be even worse). Smart, hardworking people like to do stuff. Society rewards that. Your typical day job rewards that. Yet investing is precisely the opposite. Even as illustrious an investor as Warren Buffet wrote in his 1998 newsletter The portfolio actions I took in 1998 actually decreased our gain for the year. In particular, my decision to sell McDonald's was a very big mistake. Overall, you would have been better off last year if I had regularly snuck off to the movies during market hours. I remember hearing once that 95% of all positions sold to buy another stock (or mutual fund) actually decreases the performance of a portfolio, so typically, sitting on your ass is the right thing to do, but that goes against the grain of everything else society values.
Experience also teaches people that if something works, do more of it. Smart people, in particular learn that really quickly. But that's also the wrong thing to do in investing. When stocks do particularly well for a period, they tend to regress to the mean later. Which means that when your stock portfolio starts doing really well, it's really time to sell it and buy bonds. The asset allocation approach is to periodically re-balance this portfolio and that's what enforces this discipline. But usually when the time comes to re-balance, most people find it really difficult to sell their winners and buy their losers. So that works against you too.
Finally, Financial Planning success is measured in decades, which is completely counter to the way human planning scales want to work. For instance, global warming, which is a multi-decade problem falls into this category, and we have made essentially no progress in that area for the last 10 years or so, nor do I expect the human race to do so until it's too late. Fortunately, unlike international politics and policy, we as individuals can affect our destiny, but again, our evolutionary history works against us.
Financial blogs, books, etc., can help you with the intellectual underpinnings beneath financial planning and investing, but what I've found is that nobody can help you with the emotional part of investing. Heck, over the next few years there are going to be some major buying opportunities that will show up. In fact, some of them are probably already there today. But I expect that when the time comes, it's going to be just as hard for me to push the buy button as it was for me to push the sell button last year.
The answer, I think, is that the challenges that investing pose are not intellectual, but emotional. I'll provide a personal example. Last year in November when Google sat at $700 or so a share, I polled people I knew to see if they were selling. When every one said No, I knew it was time to sell. So I sold. And the stock went up to $712. So I sold some more. And then it went to $723, and I sold some more. And then it went up some more, and I sold. At this point, my hands were shaking as I pressed the sell button with my mouse. I kid you not. Despite everything I knew telling me that this was the right thing to do, it was emotionally very difficult to do it when everybody else (including the stock market) was telling me differently. My mind started constructing scenarios under which Google could be worth $1500 per share in 5 years. I started noticing articles (like this one by Henry Blodget) that were quite optimistic.
Truly, when it comes to investing, your worst enemy is yourself (well, ok, a crooked financial advisor would be even worse). Smart, hardworking people like to do stuff. Society rewards that. Your typical day job rewards that. Yet investing is precisely the opposite. Even as illustrious an investor as Warren Buffet wrote in his 1998 newsletter The portfolio actions I took in 1998 actually decreased our gain for the year. In particular, my decision to sell McDonald's was a very big mistake. Overall, you would have been better off last year if I had regularly snuck off to the movies during market hours. I remember hearing once that 95% of all positions sold to buy another stock (or mutual fund) actually decreases the performance of a portfolio, so typically, sitting on your ass is the right thing to do, but that goes against the grain of everything else society values.
Experience also teaches people that if something works, do more of it. Smart people, in particular learn that really quickly. But that's also the wrong thing to do in investing. When stocks do particularly well for a period, they tend to regress to the mean later. Which means that when your stock portfolio starts doing really well, it's really time to sell it and buy bonds. The asset allocation approach is to periodically re-balance this portfolio and that's what enforces this discipline. But usually when the time comes to re-balance, most people find it really difficult to sell their winners and buy their losers. So that works against you too.
Finally, Financial Planning success is measured in decades, which is completely counter to the way human planning scales want to work. For instance, global warming, which is a multi-decade problem falls into this category, and we have made essentially no progress in that area for the last 10 years or so, nor do I expect the human race to do so until it's too late. Fortunately, unlike international politics and policy, we as individuals can affect our destiny, but again, our evolutionary history works against us.
Financial blogs, books, etc., can help you with the intellectual underpinnings beneath financial planning and investing, but what I've found is that nobody can help you with the emotional part of investing. Heck, over the next few years there are going to be some major buying opportunities that will show up. In fact, some of them are probably already there today. But I expect that when the time comes, it's going to be just as hard for me to push the buy button as it was for me to push the sell button last year.
Review: Archform: Beauty
Archform Beauty (Kindle Edition) is best described as a thriller. While there's suspense, there's not really any mystery --- we learn who the villain is early on, and even get scenes devote to his machinations.
The story is set in the prehistory of Adiamante, around the same era as Flash, but with a narrative set around four people rather than one. They are Professor Cornett, a music professor and singer at the University of Denver, a Trend Analyst from the local police department Eugene Chiang, the Senator from Colorado Mr. Cannon, and a local news researcher Mr. Parsfal. The four narratives revolve around their individual lives and intersect only peripherally until near the end of the story where everything comes together.
Unfortunately, while the jigsaw puzzles do line up and are themselves interesting, this technique robs the overall story of its narrative power. Only midway through the novel do you realize that this seemingly irrelevant piece of news was actually relevant, and even then you never really get a good feel for the political involvements because you never quite feel included in the world, with all this skipping around character by character. The net result is that when the characters are in danger, you're also not really too excited either.
The characters are well-written and well-formed, though Senator Cannon seems a little unrealistic --- he's clearly a womanizer, but doesn't act on his obvious attraction to members of the opposite sex, because he knows he'll get caught. Wait. That doesn't describe any politician I can think of.
I borrowed this book from the library, and while it's not a waste of time, I can't quite recommend it either. Incidentally, this being one of the first paper novels I read since I acquired the Kindle, I did find it annoying to read a dead tree compared to the electronic device --- the book is heavy, won't stay opened or lay flat, and I can't change the font-size. Who would have thought that 7 months of exclusively reading on the Kindle would have made me think that paper books are obsolete?
The story is set in the prehistory of Adiamante, around the same era as Flash, but with a narrative set around four people rather than one. They are Professor Cornett, a music professor and singer at the University of Denver, a Trend Analyst from the local police department Eugene Chiang, the Senator from Colorado Mr. Cannon, and a local news researcher Mr. Parsfal. The four narratives revolve around their individual lives and intersect only peripherally until near the end of the story where everything comes together.
Unfortunately, while the jigsaw puzzles do line up and are themselves interesting, this technique robs the overall story of its narrative power. Only midway through the novel do you realize that this seemingly irrelevant piece of news was actually relevant, and even then you never really get a good feel for the political involvements because you never quite feel included in the world, with all this skipping around character by character. The net result is that when the characters are in danger, you're also not really too excited either.
The characters are well-written and well-formed, though Senator Cannon seems a little unrealistic --- he's clearly a womanizer, but doesn't act on his obvious attraction to members of the opposite sex, because he knows he'll get caught. Wait. That doesn't describe any politician I can think of.
I borrowed this book from the library, and while it's not a waste of time, I can't quite recommend it either. Incidentally, this being one of the first paper novels I read since I acquired the Kindle, I did find it annoying to read a dead tree compared to the electronic device --- the book is heavy, won't stay opened or lay flat, and I can't change the font-size. Who would have thought that 7 months of exclusively reading on the Kindle would have made me think that paper books are obsolete?
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Review: A Splendid Exchange
A Splendid Exchange (Kindle Edition) is a history book about trade. If I had any doubt that my knowledge of world history comes largely from playing Civilization, this book dispelled it all. From the early exchanges of stone tools in the Mesapotamian region to the spice trade of the middle ages, this book covers it all. Even the legendary Chinese trader/admiral Zheng He (which Bernstein translates as Cheng Ho) is covered.
The modern era, including the rise of the multi-national trading corporations (which in the tradition of modern corporations started wars and were not at all adverse to using force to achieve their means) and the collapse and rise of the modern international trading regimes such as GATT. At this point, the narrative becomes more interesting for those who are concerned with modern politics and trade policies, with a surface coverage of Stolper-Samuelson, for instance. Bernstein himself is a free-trader, but I was very pleasantly surprised by his balanced coverage of the issues, including his castigation of the free-traders' vilification of labor concerns:
Such sentiments not only unnecessarily antagonize workers but also are unfair; American industry has in fact been much more adept than labor at getting protection, particularly in the form of non-tariff barriers: quotas, subsidies, antidumping legislation and the like. Trade economists are slowly beginning to realize that they must stop being their own worst enemies.
Bernstein goes on to quote Dani Rodrik. I wish that this section of the book was longer, but I'm guessing that Bernstein didn't really want any controversy as part of what is essentially a history book.
All in all, the book is recommended, but it's definitely long going, and you must have an interest in the history of trade, or the middle sections will send you to sleep.
The modern era, including the rise of the multi-national trading corporations (which in the tradition of modern corporations started wars and were not at all adverse to using force to achieve their means) and the collapse and rise of the modern international trading regimes such as GATT. At this point, the narrative becomes more interesting for those who are concerned with modern politics and trade policies, with a surface coverage of Stolper-Samuelson, for instance. Bernstein himself is a free-trader, but I was very pleasantly surprised by his balanced coverage of the issues, including his castigation of the free-traders' vilification of labor concerns:
Such sentiments not only unnecessarily antagonize workers but also are unfair; American industry has in fact been much more adept than labor at getting protection, particularly in the form of non-tariff barriers: quotas, subsidies, antidumping legislation and the like. Trade economists are slowly beginning to realize that they must stop being their own worst enemies.
Bernstein goes on to quote Dani Rodrik. I wish that this section of the book was longer, but I'm guessing that Bernstein didn't really want any controversy as part of what is essentially a history book.
All in all, the book is recommended, but it's definitely long going, and you must have an interest in the history of trade, or the middle sections will send you to sleep.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Chrome 1.0 is Superfast
I've been using Chrome for a while now, and while it was OK, I didn't find it particularly compelling --- it crashes on some web pages, and while the Javascript engine was supposedly faster, it didn't seem to make a difference to me --- until last night, when I upgraded to Chrome 1.0.
My first impression was: Holy crap this is fast! To make sure that it wasn't just my impression, I told my friend Peng-Toh about it. Peng-Toh ran the Sunspider JavaScript Benchmark on his Mac, and came up with:
That's right, even running in a VM, Chrome on the same machine beats native Safari --- by a factor of 2.5X. That's despite both rendering engines being WebKit. Ok, just to make sure that it wasn't just the geeks thinking it's fast, I asked my girlfriend to upgrade on her machine. She too noticed the speed difference.
Bottom-line: Chrome just went from being my secondary browser to being my primary browser. If you haven't been using it for a while, now's the time to try it. Kudos to the Chrome development team!
My first impression was: Holy crap this is fast! To make sure that it wasn't just my impression, I told my friend Peng-Toh about it. Peng-Toh ran the Sunspider JavaScript Benchmark on his Mac, and came up with:
| OS/Browser | Time |
| osx firefox 3.0.4 | 3023ms |
| vmware xp firefox 3.0.4 | 3202ms |
| vmware xp chrome 1.0 | 1271ms |
| osx safari 3.2.1 | 3118ms |
Bottom-line: Chrome just went from being my secondary browser to being my primary browser. If you haven't been using it for a while, now's the time to try it. Kudos to the Chrome development team!
A Book Reviewers Linkup Meme
The Accidental Bard
A Dribble Of Ink
Adventures in Reading
The Agony Column
The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.
Barbara Martin
Bibliophile Stalker
Bibliosnark
BillWardWriter.com
Blood of the Muse
Bookgeeks
Bookslut
Bookspotcentral
The Book Swede
Breeni Books
Cheryl's Musings
Critical Mass
Dark Wolf Fantasy Reviews
Darque Reviews
Dave Brendon's Fantasy and Sci-Fi Weblog
The Deckled Edge
Dragons, Heroes and Wizards
Dusk Before the Dawn
Enter the Octopus
Eve's Alexandria
Fantasy Book Critic
Fantasy Cafe
Fantasy Debut
Fantasy Book Reviews and News
Fantasy and Sci-fi Lovin' Blog
The Fix
The Foghorn Review
From a Sci-Fi Standpoint
The Galaxy Express
Galleycat
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Grasping for the Wind
The Green Man Review
Highlander's Book Reviews
io9
Jumpdrives and Cantrips
Literary Escapism
Michele Lee's Book Love
Monster Librarian
Mostly Harmless Books
My Favourite Books
Neth Space
NextRead
OF Blog of the Fallen
The Old Bat's Belfry
Outside of a Dog
Pat's Fantasy Hotlist
Piaw's Blog
Post-Weird Thoughts
Publisher's Weekly
Reading the Leaves
Realms of Speculative Fiction
Rob's Blog o' Stuff
ScifiChick
SF Diplomat
SciFiGuy
Sci-Fi Songs [Musical Reviews]
Severian's Fantastic Worlds
SF Gospel
SF Reviews.net
SF Revu
SF Signal
SF Site
SFF World's Book Reviews
Silver Reviews
Speculative Fiction Junkie
Speculative Horizons
Sporadic Book Reviews
The Sword Review
Tangent Online
Temple Library Reviews
Tor.com [also a publisher]
The Road Not Taken
Un:Bound
Urban Fantasy Land
Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic
Variety SF
Walker of Worlds
Wands and Worlds
The Wertzone
WJ Fantasy Reviews
The World in a Satin Bag
WriteBlack
A Dribble Of Ink
Adventures in Reading
The Agony Column
The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.
Barbara Martin
Bibliophile Stalker
Bibliosnark
BillWardWriter.com
Blood of the Muse
Bookgeeks
Bookslut
Bookspotcentral
The Book Swede
Breeni Books
Cheryl's Musings
Critical Mass
Dark Wolf Fantasy Reviews
Darque Reviews
Dave Brendon's Fantasy and Sci-Fi Weblog
The Deckled Edge
Dragons, Heroes and Wizards
Dusk Before the Dawn
Enter the Octopus
Eve's Alexandria
Fantasy Book Critic
Fantasy Cafe
Fantasy Debut
Fantasy Book Reviews and News
Fantasy and Sci-fi Lovin' Blog
The Fix
The Foghorn Review
From a Sci-Fi Standpoint
The Galaxy Express
Galleycat
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Grasping for the Wind
The Green Man Review
Highlander's Book Reviews
io9
Jumpdrives and Cantrips
Literary Escapism
Michele Lee's Book Love
Monster Librarian
Mostly Harmless Books
My Favourite Books
Neth Space
NextRead
OF Blog of the Fallen
The Old Bat's Belfry
Outside of a Dog
Pat's Fantasy Hotlist
Piaw's Blog
Post-Weird Thoughts
Publisher's Weekly
Reading the Leaves
Realms of Speculative Fiction
Rob's Blog o' Stuff
ScifiChick
SF Diplomat
SciFiGuy
Sci-Fi Songs [Musical Reviews]
Severian's Fantastic Worlds
SF Gospel
SF Reviews.net
SF Revu
SF Signal
SF Site
SFF World's Book Reviews
Silver Reviews
Speculative Fiction Junkie
Speculative Horizons
Sporadic Book Reviews
The Sword Review
Tangent Online
Temple Library Reviews
Tor.com [also a publisher]
The Road Not Taken
Un:Bound
Urban Fantasy Land
Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic
Variety SF
Walker of Worlds
Wands and Worlds
The Wertzone
WJ Fantasy Reviews
The World in a Satin Bag
WriteBlack
Foreign Language (other than English)
Cititor SF [Romanian, but with English Translation]
Elbakin.net [French]
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
The Limits of Financial Planning
If you're like anyone who's invested in the stock market over the last few years, the past 12 months must have been sobering --- we're seeing drops of close to 40% over market peaks. What's worse, nothing seems to be safe --- gold is down, international markets are down (so much for decoupling), and even Berkshire Hathaway, king of all value stocks is down.
In these times of uncertainty, we should take a moment to reflect on how we know so little about what the future will hold. As Bernstein says, history has not been kind for those seeking stability --- over a 40 year period, the chances of us being caught in some kind of catastrophe is approximately 20% --- and we're talking about war, potential global warming nightmare scenarios, and other such that would cause you to think that your portfolio dropping 40% is the least of your problems. So even though all the retirement calculators might show that your portfolio will survive no matter what, there's always that 20% chance of failure no matter what.
I asked Bernstein about FireCalc and other such tools last year, and this was his response:
as you hinted at, and as paul samuelson famously said, we only have 200 years of history to go on, and the experience of the rest of the world, as well as current expected returns suggest, going by those 200 years are overly optimistic.
forget all the sophisticated methodologies: GIGO, and what goes into these black boxes is most assuredly G.
here are 2 simple ways of looking at it:
1) start with 3.5% real for stocks, and 2.5% for bonds. that's about 3% for a mixed portfolio. if you're going to retire at 50, your time horizon is for all practical purposes "forever," so you can only withdraw your real return, or about 3%. but it's worse than that, since you have to adjust for uncertainty and a bad initial draw. so figure 2%.
2) even simpler: since in the long term, to stay hedonically adjusted you don't just have to keep up merely with inflation, but with the living standard of your non retired peers, which increases at the productivity growth rate, or 2%. add in a soupcon of uncertainty and your hedonically adjusted rate of return is zero. so . . .you have to save one year's living expenses for every year you plan to live, or 50 years, "worst case," or . . .2%
2% is grim, but that's only if you want to be bullet proof. in the real world, if you need 3% or 4%, you're trading off safety for a reasonable standard of living, which is OK, as long as you understand the tradeoff.
In the mean time, I plan to enjoy myself, stick to my asset allocation strategy, and not worry too much about it --- if you or I have to work a few years longer, that's hardly the world's biggest disaster. Even now, I am much more worried about global warming causing us to have an uninhabitable Earth (for humans that is --- cockroaches will survive everything) than about a second great depression.
In these times of uncertainty, we should take a moment to reflect on how we know so little about what the future will hold. As Bernstein says, history has not been kind for those seeking stability --- over a 40 year period, the chances of us being caught in some kind of catastrophe is approximately 20% --- and we're talking about war, potential global warming nightmare scenarios, and other such that would cause you to think that your portfolio dropping 40% is the least of your problems. So even though all the retirement calculators might show that your portfolio will survive no matter what, there's always that 20% chance of failure no matter what.
I asked Bernstein about FireCalc and other such tools last year, and this was his response:
as you hinted at, and as paul samuelson famously said, we only have 200 years of history to go on, and the experience of the rest of the world, as well as current expected returns suggest, going by those 200 years are overly optimistic.
forget all the sophisticated methodologies: GIGO, and what goes into these black boxes is most assuredly G.
here are 2 simple ways of looking at it:
1) start with 3.5% real for stocks, and 2.5% for bonds. that's about 3% for a mixed portfolio. if you're going to retire at 50, your time horizon is for all practical purposes "forever," so you can only withdraw your real return, or about 3%. but it's worse than that, since you have to adjust for uncertainty and a bad initial draw. so figure 2%.
2) even simpler: since in the long term, to stay hedonically adjusted you don't just have to keep up merely with inflation, but with the living standard of your non retired peers, which increases at the productivity growth rate, or 2%. add in a soupcon of uncertainty and your hedonically adjusted rate of return is zero. so . . .you have to save one year's living expenses for every year you plan to live, or 50 years, "worst case," or . . .2%
2% is grim, but that's only if you want to be bullet proof. in the real world, if you need 3% or 4%, you're trading off safety for a reasonable standard of living, which is OK, as long as you understand the tradeoff.
In the mean time, I plan to enjoy myself, stick to my asset allocation strategy, and not worry too much about it --- if you or I have to work a few years longer, that's hardly the world's biggest disaster. Even now, I am much more worried about global warming causing us to have an uninhabitable Earth (for humans that is --- cockroaches will survive everything) than about a second great depression.
Monday, December 08, 2008
StreetView Trike
 |
| Streetview Trike |
I was barely off the plane from Munich when Mike started talking to me about a trike and Monterey. Then Lea started asking me about pedals. Well, I was jet-lagged, and figured that I wasn't going to be productive in the office anyway, so I might as well get some sun to reset my body clock.
When Lea and Mike showed up near my apartment with a truck and a giant-sized trailer, I was impressed. I tossed my still laden with German mud single bike into the back of the truck, and we headed down to Pacific Grove, where I knew a section of road that had enough room to park the bike and the trailer.
The Street View prototype tricycle was huge, and required no less than 2 people to set up. I was quite superfluous, so could take pictures and as the person most familiar with the area, lead everyone else to the bike path, which was too narrow to take the normal Street View car through (and it really wouldn't be socially acceptable to do so either).
Riding a tricycle is nothing like riding a bicycle, not even a tandem bicycle. As Keith Code's book on performance motorcycle racing says, the most cruel trick your parents played on you was to give you a tricycle to ride when you were small, and then switch you to a bicycle and watch you crash. You can't steer a tricycle by balance, only by turning the handlebars. And if the vehicle lists because of a bump in the road or a pothole, or even just going over a rough surface, doing what your cycling instincts tell you to do is exactly the wrong thing --- counter-steering doesn't work at all! At well over 200 pounds, a 4% grade feels like a 12% grade, and I watched Lea stand up with her full body weight on the tricycle pedals and barely move it!
We rode through downtown Monterey and the Wharf as well as cannery row, drawing the occasional friendly comments and curious looks. After we exited the city limits on the far end of town, Mike decided to visit the beach, and we posed with some pictures on the trike.
I can't tell if our experiment was successful or if we collected much data, but we provided quite a bit of feedback to the mechanical engineers behind the prototype, and we'll see how things go from there!
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Why I love YouTube, part whatever!
I found this clip just randomly trolling YouTube...and wow. I watched it twice before realizing I absolutely loved the song. I love the beginning, "no matter who you are, no matter where you are at the point in your life, you're going to need someone to stand by you"....absolutely true..but I love how they took all the covers from the artists they enlisted and mixed them together so absolutely beautiful.
Listening to this song is a religious experience! The Grandpa Elliot portions are just so gorgeous...great voice, great passion in his singing....music folks probably don't need me to tell them this, but the layering of this song is just so beautifully delicious I can't help but get into the song....when they get to the African female chorus, I was almost to the point of tears at the sheer beauty of the song...the video just cements how great the song is....when you look at how the voices mix together, the various instruments, and how they mix each voice to be backing, lead, chorus...its just sheer perfection as far as I'm concerned..
But don't get me wrong, the video part of this song is so important...you can see the passion of each artist...the Grandpa's eyes rolling in to his head, Clarence's sheer power as he's singing...the various instrumentalists (the russian in particular is superb...so stoic, so serious, his chords so stirring!)...
The producers of this mix seem to be part of a bigger movement..Playing for Change...well, they've got a customer lined up for them once they release the DVD and soundtrack for their movie.
First movie I'm going to buy review unseen =).
Ah..the powers of YouTube..and they wonder how they're going to monetize YouTube, sometimes the answer's right in their eyes, I think.
Highly recommended video!!
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Review: Canon G9 Digital Camera
The Canon G9 is an obsolete camera, having been replaced by the G10, which has more mega-pixels but a smaller zoom factor, though a nicer 28mm lens. We got our G9 refurbished through the little known Canon Customer Loyalty Program for $250, which is a fantastic deal and another reason why Canon has me as a customer for life (we traded in an 8 year old 3 mega-pixel camera!).
The Canon takes amazing pictures. The results from our Turkey Sailing Trip where we had both cameras showed that whenever we shot the same picture with both the G9 and our 3 year old SD500, the G9 won. The camera is bulky, but not so much so that I couldn't carry it in a cycling jersey pocket, though I wouldn't do that for more than a few hours. It does fit in a handlebar bag, however.
The picture quality is one thing, but the camera has a great stitch assist mode that's a pleasure to use because of the dial. The other modes are pretty good as well, giving you aperture priority, shutter priority, and even full manual mode, which is admittedly a lot less usable than a real digital SLR, but hey, it's $250! The lens is very nice though I found that 35mm is not wide enough. Then again, with stich-assist, you can make your own wide angle after the fact.
We're so impressed by this camera that we bought an underwater housing for it, despite already having one for the SD500. The downsides: the shutter lag is noticeable, and the inter-frame wait (time between shutter press intervals) is longer than I want it to be. Nevertheless, the last few trips (including the Radstadt/Salzburg Tour in Munich were all shot using the G9 --- the pictures wouldn't have looked at nice on the SD500.
All in all, however, this is the camera that substitutes for a range finder as far as I'm concerned. The zoom lens is good enough, and for $250, it's an excellent value. Recommended. If I can't get a Canon 5D Mk II in time for our trip to Australia, I will still be very happy with this camera. Recommended.
Munich Trips Index
Now that I'm back in the US and mostly over my jet-lag, I can put together a list of trips out of Munich that I did this year (also, folks at work keep asking about it, so this is a good summary page). I have a bunch of Munich-related posts all labeled, but some of them capture more than just weekend trips or visits.
- Tergensee Loop
- Garmisch/Bad Tolz
- Erding Radmarathon
- Holzkirchen Loop
- Walchensee
- Ebersberg/Salzburg/Traunstein
- The Black Forest
- The Romantic Road
- Lauterbrunnen
- Salzkammergut Bike Route
- Rosenlaui
- Assling/Chiemsee/Grafing
- Garmisch Partnach + bike ride
- My Fall Commute
- Zugspitz
- Hollriegelskreuth to Wolfrathausen
- Wolfrathausen/Stanberg/Holzkirchen
- Radstadt to Salzburg Tour
- Stanberg Loop
- Lofer Hike
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Another Kindle Mystery Solved
My brother complained that while he was in Greece, his Kindle suddenly stopped being able to sort by "Most recent". Then the same thing happened to me in Turkey. There are very few software bugs that are location aware, so I just chalked it up to a freak coincidence. Then it happened to me again yesterday!
But this time, I figured out what happened. All these incidences happened during an internal battery change while overseas! When you take out the battery and put in a new one, what happens is that the Kindle's internal clock resets to time 0 Unix time, which is Jan 1st, 1970. Well, that means that the last modified date on the files that you touch (i.e., books that you read) get set to somewhere around 1970, which leads to odd sorting behavior.
This isn't an issue when you're in the USA, because all you have to do is to turn on wireless and the clock will get reset by the cellular phone network that the Kindle uses (no, there's no way for you to set the clock manually on the Kindle). The lesson here is that if you want to get extra reading between recharges while overseas while not losing the sort functionality, use the Gomadic Battery Extender. Or lobby Amazon.com to let us set the date and time on the Kindle in the future.
But this time, I figured out what happened. All these incidences happened during an internal battery change while overseas! When you take out the battery and put in a new one, what happens is that the Kindle's internal clock resets to time 0 Unix time, which is Jan 1st, 1970. Well, that means that the last modified date on the files that you touch (i.e., books that you read) get set to somewhere around 1970, which leads to odd sorting behavior.
This isn't an issue when you're in the USA, because all you have to do is to turn on wireless and the clock will get reset by the cellular phone network that the Kindle uses (no, there's no way for you to set the clock manually on the Kindle). The lesson here is that if you want to get extra reading between recharges while overseas while not losing the sort functionality, use the Gomadic Battery Extender. Or lobby Amazon.com to let us set the date and time on the Kindle in the future.
Review: The Buried Pyramid
The Buried Pyramid (Free Kindle download) was Jane Lindskold's first publshed novel. It's not very good.
The story, which could have used an editor, revolves around a Victorian era exploration/discovery of a hitherto unknown King and undiscovered tomb. Captain Neville Hawthorne accompanied a German man on a previous unsuccessful excursion to find such the Tomb, but was driven away, only to return many years later to make a second and third attempt.
The book is full of stereotypes --- you've got the white man gone native, you've got the American niece toting revolvers and sticking up for women's rights everywhere, you've got the eccentric scholar dragging his books of lore all over the deserts, and the native kid who keeps a monkey pet but and turns out to be surprisingly smart. Not to mention the rival archaeologists who will stop at nothing to get access to the new finds before anyone else does. Hawthorne et al get warnings of a mysterious nature from someone who appears to know all about them, but keeps himself hidden.
With such a hackneyed set of characters, it's not too surprising that the plot is hackneyed as well. In fact, I guessed (correctly) about the identity of the mysterious note-writer, and Lindskold uses the ancient (and silly) cryptographic rot-13 cipher to show off her understanding of cryptography.
The last third of the book ventures into the fantastic, with encounters with long-dead mythologies, and would have been welcomed if the first two-thirds of the book wasn't so inane. As it was, I kept praying for the characters to show some originality, and choose an unconventional ending, but alas, this was not to be. It was a chore to keep my eyes open on the flight with this book. I ventured into reading other books on my Kindle and returned to this only out of a feeling of obligation (and in case something interesting happened in the novel). Well, nothing did, so save yourself some time.
The story, which could have used an editor, revolves around a Victorian era exploration/discovery of a hitherto unknown King and undiscovered tomb. Captain Neville Hawthorne accompanied a German man on a previous unsuccessful excursion to find such the Tomb, but was driven away, only to return many years later to make a second and third attempt.
The book is full of stereotypes --- you've got the white man gone native, you've got the American niece toting revolvers and sticking up for women's rights everywhere, you've got the eccentric scholar dragging his books of lore all over the deserts, and the native kid who keeps a monkey pet but and turns out to be surprisingly smart. Not to mention the rival archaeologists who will stop at nothing to get access to the new finds before anyone else does. Hawthorne et al get warnings of a mysterious nature from someone who appears to know all about them, but keeps himself hidden.
With such a hackneyed set of characters, it's not too surprising that the plot is hackneyed as well. In fact, I guessed (correctly) about the identity of the mysterious note-writer, and Lindskold uses the ancient (and silly) cryptographic rot-13 cipher to show off her understanding of cryptography.
The last third of the book ventures into the fantastic, with encounters with long-dead mythologies, and would have been welcomed if the first two-thirds of the book wasn't so inane. As it was, I kept praying for the characters to show some originality, and choose an unconventional ending, but alas, this was not to be. It was a chore to keep my eyes open on the flight with this book. I ventured into reading other books on my Kindle and returned to this only out of a feeling of obligation (and in case something interesting happened in the novel). Well, nothing did, so save yourself some time.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Review: Adiamante
I'm wondering why it took me this long to discover L. E. Modesitt. I find myself enjoying his under-stated writing style, the situations and the setup --- this is science fiction at its best, character driven, with the science fiction used to emphasize the essentials of the human condition.
Adiamante (kindle edition) explores one of the late Arthur C. Clarke's quips --- that someone who wants to run for presidency should by definition be disqualified from the job.
How then, would you organize a society around this? Well, you would draft your president of course, since by definition he wouldn't want to do the job, but how would you make it distasteful enough that he wouldn't want to cling to power for as long as he can? The society in Adiamante answers that question in an interesting fashion, which is that the exercise of power has a cost, which must be paid off through labor when the term is up.
The setting is Old Earth, after many struggles between various factions of humanities (one of which was forcibly shipped off to the stars) and where the remnants of humanity have learned to live with a fragile ecosystem. When one of the fragments of humanities returns to Earth to redress old wrongs, the people of the Earth elect Ector as the Coordinator to lead them through this crisis. (Ector was elected because he recently lost his wife, which meant that in this very dangerous position he had less to lose than many)
Old Earth's society is portrayed as a strange Utopia, one in which material goods are rare and expensive, but high technology in the form of an information net is incredibly advanced. The interaction between the invaders and Ector as Coordinator is constrained, as Old Earth's social Construct does not permit pre-emptive strikes:
We are sending you home to Gates, and we're providing a ship as a symbol of trust. That is because the key to the universe, the key to survival, is trust. Trust is acting in good faith when you have no reason so to act. Trust is refraining from attacking an enemy first, no matter what the cost. Why is that wise? Because once any person or society strikes first, that action sows the seeds of corruption. Logic, even pure cyb logic, is formidable enough that it can justify any action, no matter how base or corrupt, as necessary to survival. Physical survival is not enough, not for either a person or a society. A society's principles must also survive, and if you betray your principles for physical survival, then you have doomed your offspring and your society. Principles can be improved, and we have
slowly changed ours for what we believe to be the better, but they should never be changed or discarded for short-term expediency. No matter what the price, we must do what is right, and part of what is right is trust. (Kindle Loc. 3115)
From the above passage you might think that this book might have been written in response to the invasion of Iraq, and you would be wrong --- this book was published in 1996, long before the events of September 11th, 2001. That it has even more relevance today than when it was published I think speaks well of the themes and approach that Modesitt took.
The details of the Construct as well as the Cyb invaders are revealed slowly, and we learn the challenges and the price that Ector and his society will have to pay for the purposes of long-term stability. If you're looking for cheap fast thrills, or a science fiction that you know and love, look elsewhere (Richard Morgan's books are great for that). This is science fiction told in a stately pace, with lots to think about. My only criticism is that the Kindle edition was formatted with several glitches, and I never got to like any of the characters as much as I enjoyed the exploration of a very interesting and well-thought out society and social contract. Nevertheless, the book is recommended, and I'm going to have to read more Modesitt in the future.
Adiamante (kindle edition) explores one of the late Arthur C. Clarke's quips --- that someone who wants to run for presidency should by definition be disqualified from the job.
How then, would you organize a society around this? Well, you would draft your president of course, since by definition he wouldn't want to do the job, but how would you make it distasteful enough that he wouldn't want to cling to power for as long as he can? The society in Adiamante answers that question in an interesting fashion, which is that the exercise of power has a cost, which must be paid off through labor when the term is up.
The setting is Old Earth, after many struggles between various factions of humanities (one of which was forcibly shipped off to the stars) and where the remnants of humanity have learned to live with a fragile ecosystem. When one of the fragments of humanities returns to Earth to redress old wrongs, the people of the Earth elect Ector as the Coordinator to lead them through this crisis. (Ector was elected because he recently lost his wife, which meant that in this very dangerous position he had less to lose than many)
Old Earth's society is portrayed as a strange Utopia, one in which material goods are rare and expensive, but high technology in the form of an information net is incredibly advanced. The interaction between the invaders and Ector as Coordinator is constrained, as Old Earth's social Construct does not permit pre-emptive strikes:
We are sending you home to Gates, and we're providing a ship as a symbol of trust. That is because the key to the universe, the key to survival, is trust. Trust is acting in good faith when you have no reason so to act. Trust is refraining from attacking an enemy first, no matter what the cost. Why is that wise? Because once any person or society strikes first, that action sows the seeds of corruption. Logic, even pure cyb logic, is formidable enough that it can justify any action, no matter how base or corrupt, as necessary to survival. Physical survival is not enough, not for either a person or a society. A society's principles must also survive, and if you betray your principles for physical survival, then you have doomed your offspring and your society. Principles can be improved, and we have
slowly changed ours for what we believe to be the better, but they should never be changed or discarded for short-term expediency. No matter what the price, we must do what is right, and part of what is right is trust. (Kindle Loc. 3115)
From the above passage you might think that this book might have been written in response to the invasion of Iraq, and you would be wrong --- this book was published in 1996, long before the events of September 11th, 2001. That it has even more relevance today than when it was published I think speaks well of the themes and approach that Modesitt took.
The details of the Construct as well as the Cyb invaders are revealed slowly, and we learn the challenges and the price that Ector and his society will have to pay for the purposes of long-term stability. If you're looking for cheap fast thrills, or a science fiction that you know and love, look elsewhere (Richard Morgan's books are great for that). This is science fiction told in a stately pace, with lots to think about. My only criticism is that the Kindle edition was formatted with several glitches, and I never got to like any of the characters as much as I enjoyed the exploration of a very interesting and well-thought out society and social contract. Nevertheless, the book is recommended, and I'm going to have to read more Modesitt in the future.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
My signed Krugman book
Way back in December last year, before he won the Nobel prize, Paul Krugman dropped by Google to give a talk:
After the talk, there was a private session with him where some of us got to ask him question, and he was a great person to ask questions of (especially about the upcoming elections, and policy --- I'll admit to out-sourcing my policy research to him whenever I can).
While I was not smart enough to bring a camera so that I could have a picture with him, but I did manage to get my copy of The Conscience of A Liberal signed:
After Krugman won the Nobel, I remembered that I had the autograph and got my brother to scan it for me to share.
After the talk, there was a private session with him where some of us got to ask him question, and he was a great person to ask questions of (especially about the upcoming elections, and policy --- I'll admit to out-sourcing my policy research to him whenever I can).
While I was not smart enough to bring a camera so that I could have a picture with him, but I did manage to get my copy of The Conscience of A Liberal signed:
After Krugman won the Nobel, I remembered that I had the autograph and got my brother to scan it for me to share.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Review: Talent is Over-Rated
Talent is Overrated (Kindle Edition) is a short, quick read with but one thesis: there is no such thing as talent. While there are certain physical and mental pre-requisites, the difference in performance at a high level can all be attributed to but one thing: the quantity of deliberate practice one is able to achieve.
Deliberate practice isn't just doing what you're good at, but a program aimed at expanding your comfort zone --- the challenge has to be tough enough that it improves your abilities, but not so challenging that you're discouraged --- it requires your full attention. In fact, at the start, most beginners require a teacher or some guided program to tell you how to practice, and in certain fields such as sports (golf, or horseback riding, for instance), a coach is essential even for the best athletes, for the same reason that if you can't see what you're doing, you don't know what you're doing wrong.
Colvin expands on several examples, including an interesting case of a Hungarian couple (who weren't great chess players themselves) deliberately setting out to train three daughters to become eminent chess players. When I think about it, this is how I became a decent programmer --- when I started school, outside class, I would work on my own programs. Each successive project would be more and more complex as my abilities grew. The amount of work I did became obsessive, even to the point where I paid no attention to members of the opposite sex during this period of obsession. One of the reason why there's this stereotype of absent-minded professors or computer-obsessed geeks is because it's real. Colvin even remarks on this:
We often see the price people pay in their rise to the top of any field; even if their marriages or other relationships survive, their interests outside their field typically cannot. Howard Gardner, after studying his seven exceptional achievers, noted that "usually, as a means of being able to continue work, the creator sacrificed normal relationships in the personal sphere." Such people are "committed obsessively to their work. Social life or hobbies are almost immaterial." That may sound like admirable self-sacrifice and direction of purpose, but it often goes much
further, and it can be ugly. As Gardner notes, "the self-confidence merges with egotism, egocentrism, and narcissism: each of the creators seems highly self-absorbed, not only wholly involved in his or her own projects, but likely to pursue them at the cost of other individuals." The story of the great achiever who leaves a wake of anger and betrayal is a common one.(Kindle loc 3266)
This is indeed the price of success, and everywhere I've spoken with folks about famous successful people, it's usually accompanied with whispers about the price paid. (Not that there aren't well-adjusted successful people, I've met some of them and they exist)
One thought comes to mind, in Unlocking the Clubhouse, Margolis and Fisher claim that even though the women in their computer science program came to computers and programming late, they caught up to the men by the end of the four year program. By contrast, this is what Colvin says:
In any field where people can start early, starting late may put one in an eternal and possibly hopeless quest to catch up. For example, when those top-ranked violinists turn professional, they don't stop practicing. On the contrary, they practice even more, averaging more than thirty hours a week, accumulating more than fifteen hundred hours a year. (Kindle loc: 2745)
I was wondering how to reconcile what both books were saying when it struck me --- even at CMU, the computer science program is tracking the mean (or the average) student. The average CS major isn't obsessively writing programs to make himself better every day of the week (unlike the obsessed wizard-wanna-be). Tracking the peak performers probably makes more sense, and there you would expect to see the men and women who were exposed to computers as kids and who grew up programming to far out-strip the average. And in fact, whenever I encounter such men and women, their abilities really shine --- they truly are what others called talented, but I think this book does explain where such apparent talent comes from.
If this is true, then if we want more women and minorities in Computer Science, then we have to dig deeper than at the university level. We'll have reach students at the elementary or high school level, and engender enthusiasm there. I suspect that our current approaches are too little, too late, at least, to produce the kind of advances that software engineers in top performing companies are expected to do.
The flaws of the book show up in the last few chapters, when Colvin tries to think about how deliberate practice might be applied to business management, and how things might work there. I think it's a stretch. Personally, I think that when you look at successful technology companies, for instance, they almost always succeed when you have a founder (or two) who is steeped in the technology leading the company --- it's not clear that they are great businessmen, but their technical knowledge of the domain their firms work in is impeccable, so other firms that are more marketing-driven or financially-driven eventually cannot compete as long as the field requires constant technical innovation (once the field matures, though, history suggests that all bets are off).
All in all, this is a book worth reading, and gave me plenty of think about. Recommended. If you're too cheap to buy the book, read the article in the New York Times instead.
Deliberate practice isn't just doing what you're good at, but a program aimed at expanding your comfort zone --- the challenge has to be tough enough that it improves your abilities, but not so challenging that you're discouraged --- it requires your full attention. In fact, at the start, most beginners require a teacher or some guided program to tell you how to practice, and in certain fields such as sports (golf, or horseback riding, for instance), a coach is essential even for the best athletes, for the same reason that if you can't see what you're doing, you don't know what you're doing wrong.
Colvin expands on several examples, including an interesting case of a Hungarian couple (who weren't great chess players themselves) deliberately setting out to train three daughters to become eminent chess players. When I think about it, this is how I became a decent programmer --- when I started school, outside class, I would work on my own programs. Each successive project would be more and more complex as my abilities grew. The amount of work I did became obsessive, even to the point where I paid no attention to members of the opposite sex during this period of obsession. One of the reason why there's this stereotype of absent-minded professors or computer-obsessed geeks is because it's real. Colvin even remarks on this:
We often see the price people pay in their rise to the top of any field; even if their marriages or other relationships survive, their interests outside their field typically cannot. Howard Gardner, after studying his seven exceptional achievers, noted that "usually, as a means of being able to continue work, the creator sacrificed normal relationships in the personal sphere." Such people are "committed obsessively to their work. Social life or hobbies are almost immaterial." That may sound like admirable self-sacrifice and direction of purpose, but it often goes much
further, and it can be ugly. As Gardner notes, "the self-confidence merges with egotism, egocentrism, and narcissism: each of the creators seems highly self-absorbed, not only wholly involved in his or her own projects, but likely to pursue them at the cost of other individuals." The story of the great achiever who leaves a wake of anger and betrayal is a common one.(Kindle loc 3266)
This is indeed the price of success, and everywhere I've spoken with folks about famous successful people, it's usually accompanied with whispers about the price paid. (Not that there aren't well-adjusted successful people, I've met some of them and they exist)
One thought comes to mind, in Unlocking the Clubhouse, Margolis and Fisher claim that even though the women in their computer science program came to computers and programming late, they caught up to the men by the end of the four year program. By contrast, this is what Colvin says:
In any field where people can start early, starting late may put one in an eternal and possibly hopeless quest to catch up. For example, when those top-ranked violinists turn professional, they don't stop practicing. On the contrary, they practice even more, averaging more than thirty hours a week, accumulating more than fifteen hundred hours a year. (Kindle loc: 2745)
I was wondering how to reconcile what both books were saying when it struck me --- even at CMU, the computer science program is tracking the mean (or the average) student. The average CS major isn't obsessively writing programs to make himself better every day of the week (unlike the obsessed wizard-wanna-be). Tracking the peak performers probably makes more sense, and there you would expect to see the men and women who were exposed to computers as kids and who grew up programming to far out-strip the average. And in fact, whenever I encounter such men and women, their abilities really shine --- they truly are what others called talented, but I think this book does explain where such apparent talent comes from.
If this is true, then if we want more women and minorities in Computer Science, then we have to dig deeper than at the university level. We'll have reach students at the elementary or high school level, and engender enthusiasm there. I suspect that our current approaches are too little, too late, at least, to produce the kind of advances that software engineers in top performing companies are expected to do.
The flaws of the book show up in the last few chapters, when Colvin tries to think about how deliberate practice might be applied to business management, and how things might work there. I think it's a stretch. Personally, I think that when you look at successful technology companies, for instance, they almost always succeed when you have a founder (or two) who is steeped in the technology leading the company --- it's not clear that they are great businessmen, but their technical knowledge of the domain their firms work in is impeccable, so other firms that are more marketing-driven or financially-driven eventually cannot compete as long as the field requires constant technical innovation (once the field matures, though, history suggests that all bets are off).
All in all, this is a book worth reading, and gave me plenty of think about. Recommended. If you're too cheap to buy the book, read the article in the New York Times instead.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Review: Valiant
Valiant(Kindle Edition) is the fourth book in the Lost Fleet series featuring Captain John "Blackjack" Geary, who was rescued from an escape pod from 100 years ago to lead a fleet back into Alliance space. The series is mostly brain candy, good for airplane reading or between heavy reads.
Once again, we have relativistic set-pieces of battles in space, but this time, the focus is on relationships --- both fleet level politics, and the romantic kind. As you can imagine from Campbell's past, the romantic relationships are handled extremely badly, with characters behaving for the sake of plot, rather than as human beings would. Fleet level politics is handled a little better, and John Geary learns to finally delegate. It is perhaps a truism that naval novels are mostly morality plays about leadership, a theme dating back to the Hornblow novels, so this isn't a surprise.
There's also a background plot that's been playing along throughout the novel series, and I won't spoil it here, but rest assured that it moves along as well. Unfortunately, with so little space, we basically finish the novel feeling as though not much happened. Only recommended if you're a fan of the series.
Once again, we have relativistic set-pieces of battles in space, but this time, the focus is on relationships --- both fleet level politics, and the romantic kind. As you can imagine from Campbell's past, the romantic relationships are handled extremely badly, with characters behaving for the sake of plot, rather than as human beings would. Fleet level politics is handled a little better, and John Geary learns to finally delegate. It is perhaps a truism that naval novels are mostly morality plays about leadership, a theme dating back to the Hornblow novels, so this isn't a surprise.
There's also a background plot that's been playing along throughout the novel series, and I won't spoil it here, but rest assured that it moves along as well. Unfortunately, with so little space, we basically finish the novel feeling as though not much happened. Only recommended if you're a fan of the series.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Miyuki Nakajima
People who hang out with my brothers and I know that we are musically omnivorous --- one example of that is that I enjoy Japanese music, despite not knowing enough Japanese to get out of trouble (thanks to a year of Berkeley's language lab, though, my Japanese accent is good enough that even Japanese folks think I know more than I do). Now, you might think that I got to like Japanese music in Japanese class, and you'd be wrong. Or perhaps I picked it up in Singapore, and you'd be wrong too --- we didn't get access to a lot of Japanese music until we got to the US.
What did happen once we did get access to Japanese pop music, though was that we realized how much of the Chinese pop music we heard in Singapore owed its origins to music produced by some Japanese artist. It was very disconcerting to realize that the same music (with translated lyrics, even) was being heard in multiple languages around the same time in Asia, thanks to the hegemony of music companies such as EMI.
One of the results of this mixed-mode musical sharing is that (as in this example video) music videos in Asia tend to be subtitled --- in the language that they are sung in! This is very helpful if you're trying to learn the language, but for someone who knows both Chinese and a little bit of Japanese, it's also fascinating. For instance, in this video at 2:01 (and other times --- it's part of the chorus), she sings, "私は大丈夫", meaning "I'm OK." Now, most folks know that 私 means "I" (female form) in Japanese. But in Chinese, the same character means "private" --- you can see how "private" evolves to "I". 大丈夫, however, is typically only used in Chinese in the context 男子汉大丈夫, which translates (roughly) to "A manly man." I'm always entertained by these almost, but not quite matches between Japanese and Chinese. (The last two characters by themselves, 丈夫, means husband in Chinese)
In any case, as you can tell from this song, "Maybe", the Japanese aren't shy about mixing English in, just so you can get a little triple-language action there. I'm a fan of Miyuki Nakajima, and this video shows why. She's not particularly pretty, but she's very expressive, and at the very least, her songs tell a story and she tries to tell it visually (though again in classically exaggerated Japanese fashion). Enjoy! (My favorite song of hers has an English title, "With", but I can't find a good enough video to post)
Snow in Munich
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| Munich Snow |
It was cold, but I had to go to town for supplies and do some other random activities anyway. When I came out of the S-Bahn in town it was sunny, and on the spur of the moment I decided to climb the stairs to the top of the tower on Peters Kirche. The top here is much better looking than from Frauen Kirche, because you're exposed out in the open, and have a great 360 degree view. It can get crowded, however, since the staircases were narrow, and so was the top of the tower. Fortunately, I hit a quiet period:
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| From Munich Snow |
Then I had to find the toy museum. Turned out to be not at all where I expected it --- I had ridden my bike and walked past it countless times without registering what it was! It's a tiny museum, but had a nice collection of stuffed animals and even a Barbie collection.
While the weather was nice, I decided to take a quick walk in the English garden, where I found crepuscular beams coming through a hole in the clouds:
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| From Munich Snow |
But it was still so cold that after just half an hour of walking I had to turn and head towards the U-Bahn, where my fingers could at least get warm (yes, I was wearing gloves!).
Snow!
That's right. The night brought snow to my part of Munich. Flurries are still falling. I guess that's it, no more hanging up clothing on the balcony to dry.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Review: The Audacity of Hope
I will admit that I voted for Hilary Clinton during the Democratic primary in California, largely on the basis of her policy on Healthcare Mandates, which makes much more economic sense than not having mandates. Interestingly enough, it looks like the plans circulating in the senate recently do push for mandates (and I think it will have to be part of the compromise).
In any case, Obama has won the election (there was no question in my mind who I was going to vote for in the general election), and the result is that I found myself reading The Audacity of Hope (dead tree edition) to see the kind of person who could get elected while just a junior senator. (There's a theory that if we know too much about someone we have a tendency not to vote for them, so it might be that being a junior senator is a good thing --- you have name recognition, but no history)
On to the book proper. First of all, it's not ghost written. That's incredibly rare. Even Robert Rubin's In an Uncertain World had to involve a ghost writer. Now, Krugman characterized Obama as the most establishment-type candidate of the Democrats running for president, so I didn't know what to expect. I definitely had heard fragments of his speech on the radio (the media never got tired of There's no Red America, there's no Blue America, there's only the United States of America), and knew that many considered him eloquent, but I was unprepared for how well he writes. For instance, Brad Delong often complains about the press corps, but here's Obama putting forward the same complaint:
This element of convenience also helps explain why, even among the most scrupulous reporters, objectivity often means publishing the talking points of different sides of a debate without any perspective on which side might actually be right. A typical story might begin: “The White House today reported that despite the latest round of tax cuts, the deficit is projected to be cut in half by the year
2010.” This lead will then be followed by a quote from a liberal analyst attacking the White House numbers and a conservative analyst defending the White House numbers. Is one analyst more credible than the other? Is there an independent analyst somewhere who might walk us through the numbers? Who knows? Rarely does the reporter have time for such details; the story is not really about the merits of the tax cut or the dangers of the deficit but rather about the dispute between the parties. After a few paragraphs, the reader can conclude that Republicans and Democrats are just bickering again and turn to the sports page, where the story line is less predictable and the box score tells you who won. (Kindle Loc 1865)
Obama has assuaged my fears, especially when he does say the things that those of us who've been unabashed liberals all along, though with much more diplomatic words that I could summon --- the Republicans have failed to govern, and cannot be trusted with governance. The conservative values seem to see Gay Marriage as much more important than helping the poor, and that is certainly not Christian. As much as any of us, he is also concerned with the increasing inequality in the country:
But over the long term, doing nothing probably means an America very different from the one most of us grew up in. It will mean a nation even more stratified economically and socially than it currently is: one in which an increasingly prosperous knowledge class, living in exclusive enclaves, will be able to purchase whatever they want on the marketplace—private schools, private health care, private security, and private jets—while a growing number of their fellow citizens are consigned to low-paying service jobs, vulnerable to dislocation, pressed to work longer hours, dependent on an underfunded, overburdened, and underperforming public sector for their health care, their retirement, and their children’s educations. It will mean an America in which we continue to mortgage our assets to foreign lenders and expose ourselves to the whims of oil producers; an America in which we underinvest in the basic scientific research and workforce training that will determine our long-term economic prospects and neglect potential environmental crises. It will mean an America that’s more politically polarized and more politically unstable, as economic frustration boils over and leads people to turn on each other. Worst of all, it will mean fewer opportunities for younger Americans, a decline in the upward mobility that’s been at the heart of this country’s promise since its founding. (Kindle Loc: 2196)
The rest of the book covers more personal details, such as how he met his wife, what her family's struggle means to him, and why he chose to become a politician. It's all worth reading, and you get quite a lot of his thoughts for $4.39. Certainly, after all this, I'm proud of the party I belong to: it is quite clear that Obama could only have come out of the Democratic party. Highly recommended.
In any case, Obama has won the election (there was no question in my mind who I was going to vote for in the general election), and the result is that I found myself reading The Audacity of Hope (dead tree edition) to see the kind of person who could get elected while just a junior senator. (There's a theory that if we know too much about someone we have a tendency not to vote for them, so it might be that being a junior senator is a good thing --- you have name recognition, but no history)
On to the book proper. First of all, it's not ghost written. That's incredibly rare. Even Robert Rubin's In an Uncertain World had to involve a ghost writer. Now, Krugman characterized Obama as the most establishment-type candidate of the Democrats running for president, so I didn't know what to expect. I definitely had heard fragments of his speech on the radio (the media never got tired of There's no Red America, there's no Blue America, there's only the United States of America), and knew that many considered him eloquent, but I was unprepared for how well he writes. For instance, Brad Delong often complains about the press corps, but here's Obama putting forward the same complaint:
This element of convenience also helps explain why, even among the most scrupulous reporters, objectivity often means publishing the talking points of different sides of a debate without any perspective on which side might actually be right. A typical story might begin: “The White House today reported that despite the latest round of tax cuts, the deficit is projected to be cut in half by the year
2010.” This lead will then be followed by a quote from a liberal analyst attacking the White House numbers and a conservative analyst defending the White House numbers. Is one analyst more credible than the other? Is there an independent analyst somewhere who might walk us through the numbers? Who knows? Rarely does the reporter have time for such details; the story is not really about the merits of the tax cut or the dangers of the deficit but rather about the dispute between the parties. After a few paragraphs, the reader can conclude that Republicans and Democrats are just bickering again and turn to the sports page, where the story line is less predictable and the box score tells you who won. (Kindle Loc 1865)
Obama has assuaged my fears, especially when he does say the things that those of us who've been unabashed liberals all along, though with much more diplomatic words that I could summon --- the Republicans have failed to govern, and cannot be trusted with governance. The conservative values seem to see Gay Marriage as much more important than helping the poor, and that is certainly not Christian. As much as any of us, he is also concerned with the increasing inequality in the country:
But over the long term, doing nothing probably means an America very different from the one most of us grew up in. It will mean a nation even more stratified economically and socially than it currently is: one in which an increasingly prosperous knowledge class, living in exclusive enclaves, will be able to purchase whatever they want on the marketplace—private schools, private health care, private security, and private jets—while a growing number of their fellow citizens are consigned to low-paying service jobs, vulnerable to dislocation, pressed to work longer hours, dependent on an underfunded, overburdened, and underperforming public sector for their health care, their retirement, and their children’s educations. It will mean an America in which we continue to mortgage our assets to foreign lenders and expose ourselves to the whims of oil producers; an America in which we underinvest in the basic scientific research and workforce training that will determine our long-term economic prospects and neglect potential environmental crises. It will mean an America that’s more politically polarized and more politically unstable, as economic frustration boils over and leads people to turn on each other. Worst of all, it will mean fewer opportunities for younger Americans, a decline in the upward mobility that’s been at the heart of this country’s promise since its founding. (Kindle Loc: 2196)
The rest of the book covers more personal details, such as how he met his wife, what her family's struggle means to him, and why he chose to become a politician. It's all worth reading, and you get quite a lot of his thoughts for $4.39. Certainly, after all this, I'm proud of the party I belong to: it is quite clear that Obama could only have come out of the Democratic party. Highly recommended.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Pulp Fiction in trouble
I was reading this article about the state of Pulp Fiction magazine sales, and it does not look good. They've been bleeding subscribers heavily, despite being profitable because they have very low costs. My conversation with the publisher of F&SF, however, indicates that they don't understand electronic media, and are being dragged kicking and screaming there. F&SF, for instance doesn't publish on the Amazon Kindle. Worse than that, both F&SF and Asimov's Science Fiction both charger higher for their subscription prices to the electronic magazine than they do for the print version! Electronic publishing and distribution is even cheaper than the pulp magazines. Charge $1 an issue on the Kindle, and you'll get a large number of subscribers. Fictionwise sells the DRM-free e-magazines for the outrageous price of $4-6 an issue.
I was an Asimov's print subscriber. Obviously, the subscription didn't move with me to Germany. The electronic version has the potential to move all the way to Germany (or all over the world for me), and it annoys the heck out of me that these guys don't understand the potential of electronic subscriptions and devices such as the Kindle. I suppose they'll keep ignoring it as their subscribers age and their magazines fail, since that's the way of the business.
I was an Asimov's print subscriber. Obviously, the subscription didn't move with me to Germany. The electronic version has the potential to move all the way to Germany (or all over the world for me), and it annoys the heck out of me that these guys don't understand the potential of electronic subscriptions and devices such as the Kindle. I suppose they'll keep ignoring it as their subscribers age and their magazines fail, since that's the way of the business.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Review: Brain Rules
I bought Brain Rules (kindle edition) after watching John Medina give a talk at Google:
Not only is he a great speaker, he also does a better job of explaining the way the brain works than Welcome to Your Brain, and he even does a better job of explaining sleep than Take a Nap!, a book dedicated to the entire topic of sleep. For instance, he's not afraid to tell you about the difference between the morning people and the night owls:
About 1 in 10 of us is like Dilbert’s Adams. The scientific literature calls such people larks (more palatable than the proper term, “early chronotype”). In general, larks report being most alert around noon and feel most productive at work a few hours before they eat lunch. They don’t need an alarm clock, because they invariably get up before the alarm rings—often before 6 a.m. Larks cheerfully report their favorite mealtime as breakfast and generally consume much less coffee than non-larks. Getting increasingly drowsy in the early evening, most larks go to bed (or want to go to bed) around 9 p.m. Larks are the mortal enemy of the 2 in 10 humans who lie at the other extreme of the sleep spectrum: “late chronotypes,” or owls. In general, owls report being most alert around 6 p.m., experiencing their most productive work times in the late evening. They rarely want to go to bed before 3 a.m. Owls invariably need an alarm clock to get them up in the morning, with extreme owls requiring multiple alarms to ensure arousal. Indeed, if owls had their druthers, most would not wake up much before 10 a.m. Not surprisingly, late chronotypes report their favorite mealtime as dinner, and they would drink gallons of coffee all day long to prop themselves up at work if given the opportunity. If it sounds to you as though owls do not sleep as well as larks in our society, you are right on the money. Indeed, late chronotypes usually accumulate a massive “sleep debt” as they go through life.(Kindle Loc 1801)
Many other books on neuroscience and brain rules look at such data without actually giving you actionable advise. Not so with Brain Rules! For instance, he prescribes what to do for better development of children (it has nothing to do with teachers as far as early development is concerned, but has everything to do with educating parents!). Medina also eschews giving you the simple rules without context --- nearly everything is explained --- either through an exposition and reasoning through evolutionary biology, or with references to extensive research and experiments. In fact, he makes it a rule that he will not consider including the results of an experiment unless it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal and the results have been replicated!
As a result of his understanding of neuroscience, this book is entertaining, never dry, and has immediate, practical use for what you learn. If you have only the time to read one popular book on neuroscience, make it this book. Highly recommended!
Not only is he a great speaker, he also does a better job of explaining the way the brain works than Welcome to Your Brain, and he even does a better job of explaining sleep than Take a Nap!, a book dedicated to the entire topic of sleep. For instance, he's not afraid to tell you about the difference between the morning people and the night owls:
About 1 in 10 of us is like Dilbert’s Adams. The scientific literature calls such people larks (more palatable than the proper term, “early chronotype”). In general, larks report being most alert around noon and feel most productive at work a few hours before they eat lunch. They don’t need an alarm clock, because they invariably get up before the alarm rings—often before 6 a.m. Larks cheerfully report their favorite mealtime as breakfast and generally consume much less coffee than non-larks. Getting increasingly drowsy in the early evening, most larks go to bed (or want to go to bed) around 9 p.m. Larks are the mortal enemy of the 2 in 10 humans who lie at the other extreme of the sleep spectrum: “late chronotypes,” or owls. In general, owls report being most alert around 6 p.m., experiencing their most productive work times in the late evening. They rarely want to go to bed before 3 a.m. Owls invariably need an alarm clock to get them up in the morning, with extreme owls requiring multiple alarms to ensure arousal. Indeed, if owls had their druthers, most would not wake up much before 10 a.m. Not surprisingly, late chronotypes report their favorite mealtime as dinner, and they would drink gallons of coffee all day long to prop themselves up at work if given the opportunity. If it sounds to you as though owls do not sleep as well as larks in our society, you are right on the money. Indeed, late chronotypes usually accumulate a massive “sleep debt” as they go through life.(Kindle Loc 1801)
Many other books on neuroscience and brain rules look at such data without actually giving you actionable advise. Not so with Brain Rules! For instance, he prescribes what to do for better development of children (it has nothing to do with teachers as far as early development is concerned, but has everything to do with educating parents!). Medina also eschews giving you the simple rules without context --- nearly everything is explained --- either through an exposition and reasoning through evolutionary biology, or with references to extensive research and experiments. In fact, he makes it a rule that he will not consider including the results of an experiment unless it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal and the results have been replicated!
As a result of his understanding of neuroscience, this book is entertaining, never dry, and has immediate, practical use for what you learn. If you have only the time to read one popular book on neuroscience, make it this book. Highly recommended!
Hofer Hike
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| Lofer Hike |
The forecast was supposed to be clear today, with a chance of showers at night, so I decided to join the Wayfarers group from Toytown Germany on a hike. Driving to the trail-head, it looked like it was going to be really foggy, as we could not see the peaks around us. At 9am, the hike started and it was pretty obvious from the start that I was going to be suffering --- these folks were fast!
I had decided that given my general lack of conditioning (this was my first serious hike since July), I should go for something less than the 2500m summit the rest of the folks were doing --- so I opted to visit the 1977m hut (which was closed for the season). After about an hour, we broke out into clear air and got gorgeous views of the surroundings:
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| From Lofer Hike |
We had hiked above the fog. Another half hour later, I had to swap out the running shoes for the hiking boots on account of snow. Not being used to hiking in snow, I went slowly despite having two hiking sticks. At the trail junction, Angus gave me his car keys so I wouldn't have to freeze while waiting for everyone at the car --- the others were expecting to have to hike down in the dark.
I hung out at the hut for about 15 minutes, admiring the view, and the pristine snow on the terrace. Then I hiked down slowly. The snow was slippery and it took me about as much time to descend as it took to climb. At the snowline, I breathed a sigh of relief, but quickly discovered that things didn't improve --- the thick layer of leaves from the fall was just as slippery!
Nevertheless, I made it back to the cars at 3:30pm with trembling knees, and sat and read until everyone showed up at about 5:30pm. A good hike, and I guess with snow predicted for this weekend I won't be doing much more before I have to leave Germany.
K.D. Lang is Amazing Live!
Although she's never been my favourite singer or performer, I've always appreciated K.D. Lang because of a few hits she had. Constant Craving, Miss Chateline, mostly stuff from her Ingenue album.
When tickets came up for her show at Oakland, I jumped at the chance and snapped them up. They were good seats too, 20 rows or so from the stage, and its supposedly the hall where the Oakland symphony plays at, so the acoustics must be pretty darn good.
Well, I wasn't disappointed. It was absolutely amazing.
The one thing I didn't realize about K.D. Lang when I listened to her is that her voice is literally an instrument. Its not a quality that's easy to describe or something that you can train, and very few people have it (or else all the American Idols would have gone to a school that made them all have it). Its not quite operatic, but its probably one of the most powerful voices I've ever heard. Her voice will literally move you, like a good bass system does. It touches you somewhere on the inside just like hearing something low and resonant.
I guess for most people, the closest thing would be to listening to Sarah Brightman's Time to Say Goodbye, where you don't really care so much about the words as much as what she displays in voice virtuosity. K.D. Lang is exactly like that as well, just in a different tonal quality!
And this is probably something you only get live.
Most of the time when she was singing, she would sing off the mic, as if she knew that if she sang into the mic, she'll break the sound system or something. Half the times I felt like she probably didn't even need the mic!
Her song set list was incredibly well chosen, somber because of the passing of prop 8, but delightfully hopeful. In case you didn't already know, K.D. has outed herself for a very long time, her audience shows it too with a myraid of marriage proposals (she declines), and love affirmations. =)
Her band is also worth mentioning. I don't know how long they've been touring together, but they're absolutely amazing as well. She had a band of four, one drummer, one guitarist, one zitarist/lead guitar/banjo player/syth guy, and one primarily keyboards person/synth guy.
They would switch out their instruments almost every song and it was a delight to see them be such a great backdrop to show off K.D.'s voice.
In short, if you have a chance to see her life, go! Even at 47, with the way her voice is, she will doubtless amaze you with the power that is her voice!
When tickets came up for her show at Oakland, I jumped at the chance and snapped them up. They were good seats too, 20 rows or so from the stage, and its supposedly the hall where the Oakland symphony plays at, so the acoustics must be pretty darn good.
Well, I wasn't disappointed. It was absolutely amazing.
The one thing I didn't realize about K.D. Lang when I listened to her is that her voice is literally an instrument. Its not a quality that's easy to describe or something that you can train, and very few people have it (or else all the American Idols would have gone to a school that made them all have it). Its not quite operatic, but its probably one of the most powerful voices I've ever heard. Her voice will literally move you, like a good bass system does. It touches you somewhere on the inside just like hearing something low and resonant.
I guess for most people, the closest thing would be to listening to Sarah Brightman's Time to Say Goodbye, where you don't really care so much about the words as much as what she displays in voice virtuosity. K.D. Lang is exactly like that as well, just in a different tonal quality!
And this is probably something you only get live.
Most of the time when she was singing, she would sing off the mic, as if she knew that if she sang into the mic, she'll break the sound system or something. Half the times I felt like she probably didn't even need the mic!
Her song set list was incredibly well chosen, somber because of the passing of prop 8, but delightfully hopeful. In case you didn't already know, K.D. has outed herself for a very long time, her audience shows it too with a myraid of marriage proposals (she declines), and love affirmations. =)
Her band is also worth mentioning. I don't know how long they've been touring together, but they're absolutely amazing as well. She had a band of four, one drummer, one guitarist, one zitarist/lead guitar/banjo player/syth guy, and one primarily keyboards person/synth guy.
They would switch out their instruments almost every song and it was a delight to see them be such a great backdrop to show off K.D.'s voice.
In short, if you have a chance to see her life, go! Even at 47, with the way her voice is, she will doubtless amaze you with the power that is her voice!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
My last weekend ride in Germany
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| Another Stanberg Loop |
I had to take care of things in the morning, including shopping for groceries, cleaning the house, and lifting weights. I was amazed by how cold it was in the morning at 11am when I went out to buy stuff! Winter, if it is not quite here yet, is coming!
After lunch, however, the sun came out, so I quickly laid down a route. It had occured to me that I had not done a ride from my house without getting on a train somewhere, or coming back by the train, so I decided to do a short ride --- just 25 miles and see what I could see. I picked Starnberg Lake, since it was surprisingly close, and then proceeded down the bike path.
There's quite a number of hills between my place and Starnberg lake, but nothing really bad (though I did see an 11% grade marker). When I got to Starnberg Lake I rode down to the shores for a few pictures, and then rode along the lake for a while. Then I followed my GPS route back, around rolling hills and ended up through some picturesque little towns near where I lived that I had never visited before.
The movers show up on Thursday to pick up my bike (and all the other stuff that needs to get shipped back to the US), and the weather's going to be iffy between now and there. I guess that's how it ends, with a wimpy little ride.
Review: Buyology
Buyology (kindle edition) is about the merging of Neuroscience and Marketing. If that sentence doesn't scare you, it should. Basically, the concept is that we'll take MRIs and other tools of neuroscience and use that to figure out what makes you buy certain brands.
Here's an excerpt:
Do you know why most modern supermarkets now have bakeries so close to the store entrance? Not only does the fragrance of just-baked bread signal freshness and evoke powerful feelings of comfort and domesticity, but store managers know that when the aroma of baking bread or doughnuts assails your nose, you'll get hungry --- to the point where you just may discard your shopping list and start picking up food you hadn't planned on buying... Some Northern European supermarkets don't even bother with actual bakeries, they just pump artificial fresh-baked-bread smell straight into the store aisles from ceiling vents.
In other words, we know now exactly how to manipulate you to get the shopping behavior we want. From aroma therapy to product placement, we can get our brands to stick in your mind. There's an interesting section there about American Idol and how Coca Cola uses it and integrates itself so completely into the show that the audience has a 60% recall rate. And most of it is very subtle, from the shape of the studio dressing to the color of the curtains. There's another section about how a Neuroscience technique was used to monitor viewer's reactions to show, and how despite an audience saying they hated the show, their minds were actively engaged, leading to a successful launch of a TV show.
With this arsenal of weapons at corporations' disposal, is it any wonder that the average consumer is helpless in the face of the barrage of advertising?
Most of us can’t really say, “I bought that Louis Vuitton bag because it appealed to my sense of vanity, and I want my friends to know I can afford a $500 purse, too,” or “I bought that Ralph Lauren shirt because I want to be perceived as an easygoing prepster who doesn’t have to work, even though all my credit cards are maxed out.” (kindle edition, loc 2512)
The tools in this book are highly sophisticated, so your neighborhood stores won't be able to do it. But corporations and political parties can and will use it. Now, you might think that if you knew about how it worked, you'd be immune, right? The truth is that these techniques probably work so well that they work even when you know what they are doing and how they are doing it. As an example, the warning label on cigarette boxes actually make smoking more attractive. And pictures of lung cancer? Even more so!
I guess this book is worth reading, and is hence recommended, but I definitely fear for the future. Fortunately, as someone who doesn't watch TV, my exposure to this is very limited. Perhaps if geeks got together and ran experiments like this and figured out how to make it work for us, we might be able to rule the world too.
Here's an excerpt:
Do you know why most modern supermarkets now have bakeries so close to the store entrance? Not only does the fragrance of just-baked bread signal freshness and evoke powerful feelings of comfort and domesticity, but store managers know that when the aroma of baking bread or doughnuts assails your nose, you'll get hungry --- to the point where you just may discard your shopping list and start picking up food you hadn't planned on buying... Some Northern European supermarkets don't even bother with actual bakeries, they just pump artificial fresh-baked-bread smell straight into the store aisles from ceiling vents.
In other words, we know now exactly how to manipulate you to get the shopping behavior we want. From aroma therapy to product placement, we can get our brands to stick in your mind. There's an interesting section there about American Idol and how Coca Cola uses it and integrates itself so completely into the show that the audience has a 60% recall rate. And most of it is very subtle, from the shape of the studio dressing to the color of the curtains. There's another section about how a Neuroscience technique was used to monitor viewer's reactions to show, and how despite an audience saying they hated the show, their minds were actively engaged, leading to a successful launch of a TV show.
With this arsenal of weapons at corporations' disposal, is it any wonder that the average consumer is helpless in the face of the barrage of advertising?
Most of us can’t really say, “I bought that Louis Vuitton bag because it appealed to my sense of vanity, and I want my friends to know I can afford a $500 purse, too,” or “I bought that Ralph Lauren shirt because I want to be perceived as an easygoing prepster who doesn’t have to work, even though all my credit cards are maxed out.” (kindle edition, loc 2512)
The tools in this book are highly sophisticated, so your neighborhood stores won't be able to do it. But corporations and political parties can and will use it. Now, you might think that if you knew about how it worked, you'd be immune, right? The truth is that these techniques probably work so well that they work even when you know what they are doing and how they are doing it. As an example, the warning label on cigarette boxes actually make smoking more attractive. And pictures of lung cancer? Even more so!
I guess this book is worth reading, and is hence recommended, but I definitely fear for the future. Fortunately, as someone who doesn't watch TV, my exposure to this is very limited. Perhaps if geeks got together and ran experiments like this and figured out how to make it work for us, we might be able to rule the world too.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Review: Wild Cards
Wild Cards was one of the first shared-universe story-lines set in a science fiction universe (as opposed to the fantasy Thieves' World. Launched in the 1980s, at that time it was a fresh take on super-heroes, and took a great approach of telling a story that spanned decades starting from 1945 (right after the second world war) to the 1980s.
Furthermore, unlike Thieves' World, where the stories by different authors were largely unrelated (in fact, Marion Zimmer Bradley even took her character out of the shared universe eventually), Wild Cards took the much more ambitious approach of weaving a single story through multiple authors, so that the shared setting felt a lot more real, almost as though a single author plotted them all. There was also no jarring transition between authors, as George R. R. Martin in his role as editor wrote interludes between the segments to bring tie it all together.
A second reading (now more than 20 years after this book was published) demonstrates that it holds up well --- the characters still aren't cliche (Croyd, who changes powers every time he sleeps, Fortunato, a pimp who gets his powers through tantric sex), and the stories themselves are great, except for the one about Puppetman, which feels a bit dated only because the evil politician feels overdone due to the X-men series. (Not too surprising, considering the folks like Roger Zelazny were contributors) It definitely makes me feel like reading the entire series all over again (it's a pity the books themselves have gotten in and out of print sporadically over the years).
Recommended.
Furthermore, unlike Thieves' World, where the stories by different authors were largely unrelated (in fact, Marion Zimmer Bradley even took her character out of the shared universe eventually), Wild Cards took the much more ambitious approach of weaving a single story through multiple authors, so that the shared setting felt a lot more real, almost as though a single author plotted them all. There was also no jarring transition between authors, as George R. R. Martin in his role as editor wrote interludes between the segments to bring tie it all together.
A second reading (now more than 20 years after this book was published) demonstrates that it holds up well --- the characters still aren't cliche (Croyd, who changes powers every time he sleeps, Fortunato, a pimp who gets his powers through tantric sex), and the stories themselves are great, except for the one about Puppetman, which feels a bit dated only because the evil politician feels overdone due to the X-men series. (Not too surprising, considering the folks like Roger Zelazny were contributors) It definitely makes me feel like reading the entire series all over again (it's a pity the books themselves have gotten in and out of print sporadically over the years).
Recommended.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Beautiful Moonlight Commute
I just had one of those beautiful moonlight commutes. Full moon, clear skies, and an uncrowded bike path along the Isar river. In fact, it was so clear once I crossed the river and out of tree cover that I turned off my battery powered light and relied on my generator light even though I was on a dirt path.
Yes, it was cold (so cold that I noticed it through my gloves and winter wear), but the haunting image of the moon rising over the river valley and reflected in the ripples of the Isar will be one I treasure forever.
Yes, it was cold (so cold that I noticed it through my gloves and winter wear), but the haunting image of the moon rising over the river valley and reflected in the ripples of the Isar will be one I treasure forever.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Review: The Farthest Shore
The Farthest Shore is the last book in the original trilogy of Earthsea (I remember the fourth book, Tehanu, being disappointing, so I might very well not go on the review the next two).
Set during the twilight of Ged's career as Archmage of Earthsea, this book is of course, about the youth who accompanies him on this last adventure, Arren. Arren apparently has quite the destiny ahead of him, but he doesn't know what it is. Ged though, having been stuck as the Archmage for years, now leaps at the latest quest as a means of leaving Roke (and his responsibilities).
And what is the danger this time? Magic is fading --- or so it seems. Sorcerers have forgotten the true names of things, and men have started wondering if magic is real. Ged and Arren run around in a wild goose chase until Dragons start asking Ged for help. Now Le Guin (for what she thought was the last book) pulls out all stops, granting us dragons upon dragons, a trip across the Farthest shore, and Ged giving up his magic for one final feat.
The theme of this novel is death and the acceptance thereof. I'm not sure I approve of Ursula Le Guin's philosophical "death is part of life" approach, as I am very much in favor of Dylan Thomas' approach:
Nevertheless, as a young adult novel that still bears up to reading years later as an adult, this is one of the rare ones. I do feel that Le Guin cops out at the end and grants us a less than satisfying ending as a result, but I suspect that many of her readers will disagree, having found the ending to their taste. Recommended, though less so (again) than A Wizard of Earthsea
Set during the twilight of Ged's career as Archmage of Earthsea, this book is of course, about the youth who accompanies him on this last adventure, Arren. Arren apparently has quite the destiny ahead of him, but he doesn't know what it is. Ged though, having been stuck as the Archmage for years, now leaps at the latest quest as a means of leaving Roke (and his responsibilities).
And what is the danger this time? Magic is fading --- or so it seems. Sorcerers have forgotten the true names of things, and men have started wondering if magic is real. Ged and Arren run around in a wild goose chase until Dragons start asking Ged for help. Now Le Guin (for what she thought was the last book) pulls out all stops, granting us dragons upon dragons, a trip across the Farthest shore, and Ged giving up his magic for one final feat.
The theme of this novel is death and the acceptance thereof. I'm not sure I approve of Ursula Le Guin's philosophical "death is part of life" approach, as I am very much in favor of Dylan Thomas' approach:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Nevertheless, as a young adult novel that still bears up to reading years later as an adult, this is one of the rare ones. I do feel that Le Guin cops out at the end and grants us a less than satisfying ending as a result, but I suspect that many of her readers will disagree, having found the ending to their taste. Recommended, though less so (again) than A Wizard of Earthsea
Radstadt/Salzburg Tour
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| Radstadt |
The weather forecast looked good for Saturday and Sunday, so I found myself in the Euraide office on Friday morning talking to Alan Wissenberg about a trip to Radstadt. (Alan by the way was tickled pink when he found this blog ranked highly for a search for Euraide during the summer --- undoubtedly due to a ranking glitch) Why Radstadt? On one of my first bike tours in Germany, I ran into an English lorry driver in Seeham, who when asked to tell me a place that was pretty, said Radstadt. "I'd recommend Radstadt to anyone," he said, holding up his beer. (English lorry drivers, by the way, don't conform to the beer gut stereotypes that American lorry drivers seem to have done) Unlike other tours, I also booked my lodging --- during the late season, it's very likely that most hotels are closed, along with the tourist information office, so I figured I would make the booking in Radstadt, dump my lugguage there, and do a day trip.
So I found myself hustling aboard the 7:26am train to Bischohofen on Saturday morning. The train was late, but fortunately my connection was for 20 minutes, so I had plenty of time. It was cold and overcast while I waited for the train, and I started wondering if I had made a mistake in believing the forecast. My doubts grew when I arrived in Radstadt to find wet roads, though it wasn't raining. Having set my GPS for my hotel, I rode to the hotel and found it without incident, and discovered that I was the only guest! The hotel owner was very nice, however, and let me check in and leave my stuff --- there's even a locked bicycle closet! I immediately set out to ride the loop I had planned so many months ago (this was one of the trips that I had waiting to go but never could find the weather to do so), albeit cut short since I was starting late, and really, didn't want to push it in the winter.
The loop first took me through Radstadt proper, where I bought some fruits for lunch, and then headed West to Eben, and then North and back East through the mountains. The hills rolled around a bit, but soon I was flat smack in the middle of what had to be an access highway for skiiers. It not being skiing season, the traffic was light and I could enjoy the scenery. I could see that the sun was trying to come out, and low and behold around the bend I saw mountains shrouded with clouds. They even had snow on them!
I rode past Ubermoos, which had a shack serving a hot lunch, but decided that I'd rather not bogmyself down with food. Soon, I was riding past the ski resort towns of Hachau. It's a bit spooky riding past a ski resort town during the dead season --- nothing is open, all the ski lifts aren't moving and neither are the cable cars used for moving hikers during the summer. Together with the very light traffic --- I was seeing a car every 15 minutes at most --- I felt like I was riding through a post-holocaust scenario, except it was so pretty. I took a break every so often, not being in shape, but also to eat. Then swept past a minor ridge, and past Schildehen, started my climb up to Vorberg.
Up to now the road had been marked scenic, but really, was nothing to write home about. I had taken a few pictures, but looking at them now, my equipment, technique, and the weather didn't make it worth writing home about. Vorberg changed all that. Now I was on a high ridge looking down across the valley and into the valley. The scenery was spectacular --- I stopped often for pictures, and had great views everywhere I turned. Even the weather started to coperate as the sun started to peek out through the clouds. I rode past gorgeous houses, with men in lederhosen pounding fenceposts down. I rode past horses and horsefields, and a children's playground that had a few cows assigned to mow down the grass. The mood, the lighting, and the scenery all combined to make me feel really glad I did this loop, and sad when it came down to descent into Pichl, where I picked up the Enns bike trail towards Radstadt.
But even the flat bike trail had a consolation prize, for as I rode along it, the sun suddenly came out and lit up a farmhouse and its surrounds with a crisp golden light that this picture barely managed to capture:
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| From Radstadt |
By the time I got back to the hotel I was wondering if I shouldn't have made a longer loop, it being but 3:00pm. This hotel didn't serve dinner, so I quickly unpacked, washed up a bit, and discovered I had no soap either. I rode out to the city to try to find soap and see if there were restaurants within walking distance. Well, soap was not a problem, as I found a drug store open very quickly. But I discovered all the surrounding hotel/restaurants near me were closed, so ended up riding into town, where I bought some emergency snacks in a super market. I looked around town and to my surprise, found a Konditerei that served dinner even though it was only 4pm. I parked my bike outside (unlocked, as I hadn't bothered to bring a lock), went in, and ordered hot tea, the fixed menu (noodle soup and Wiener Schnitzel) and then topped up with a dessert pastry. I was impressed by the entire works. The meal was good, the price was reasonable (14 Euros for the entire thing), and of course, the waitress was pretty.
I then went back and retired for the night.
The next morning, I got up and ate a nice big breakfast before hopping onto my bike and riding down the Ennstall towards Bischofshofen. The bike path led in the wrong direction, so pretty soon I found myself on B99. Fortunately, B99 parallels a freeway, so it had light traffic, though in Huttau there was a parade of some sort involving horses, which I was glad to get past, as the road was quite nasty. It was overcast and I got quite cold on the descents, discovering at this point that I had a hole in my gloves.
Near Bischofshofen, I picked up the Tauern Radweg, a bike path that would lead all the way to Salzburg. Unlike other bike paths, however, this one was really a bike lane along the highway --- the one time I saw a sign to a separated path, it turned out that the segment of the separated path was close. This was just as well, since while approaching Werfen, I saw the big castle on a hill. On the spur of the moment I decided to visit it, and rode up along the pedestrain path until it got too steep and had to walk. Fortunately, the walking was very limited, and I got to the castle entrance only to find that the place was closed for the season. I had good views though, so it wasn't wasted effort.
I picked the paved cable-car route down to the parking lot, and started heading down the hill when I saw a gorgeous view in front of me:
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| From Radstadt |
Now I wasn't unhappy that I hadn't opted for my 100km original route which would have bypassed this portion. I kept going and the route got prettier, giving me better and better views until I got to Pass Lueg, which was so short a climb I didn't notice it. From there, the scenery changed, giving me more greenery rather than granite mountains. I had a quick lunch at Hallein, and thereafter picked up the Salzach dirt path that led into Salzburg, arriving finally in the Salzburg train station in time to catch the 2:11pm train. As usual, the train was late and it was dark by the time I got home.
Still, it was a good trip with 140km and 1393m of climbing. Considering the restricted daylight I was getting, this worked out as well as I could have hoped for. I'm finding that after about 7 months in Munich, my only regret is not spending more time in Austria. I'll need to explore this country more in the future!
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