30 Dec 2000

Read an article in Discovery magazine about measuring the gravitational constant G.   The most common technique is to use a torsion device:   a dumbbell suspended from above by a wire.   Two large weights are brought near the dumbbell ends and the angular twist of the wire is measured by reflecting a light beam off a mirror on the end of the dumbbell.   Once G is determined, one can calculate the earth's mass (based on g).  Then one can calculate the sun's mass (based on the earth's orbital period and radius).

Read A Mediterranean Feast (1999, Clifford Wright).  A cookbook cum history lesson.  Very engrossing!  One refreshing aspect is the pro-Islamic bent of the book.  The author is married to a Palestinian woman.  He gives lots of space and attention to Islamic culture and cuisine.

Speaking of which, I saw the movie Vertical Limit, which was set in Pakistan with some Pakistani characters.   A rare move that portrayed Islam in a positive light.

Found a neat web site:  http://fourmilab.com.   This is the site of John Walker, co-founder of AutoCAD (AutoDesk).   Apparently he retired to Switzerland with his riches, and now lives the high life off the royalties.   His site has all sorts of fun info about astronomy, soft ware, physics, aliens, and web freedom.  Including:

• A basement experiment to measure gravity
• The "Space Travel Dilemma":  No matter when you leave for another galaxy, by the time you get there, humans will already be there because later starships will be much faster than yours.
• Numeric Palindromes:  Query:  recursively add a number to its reverse;  will you eventually get a palindrome?   all numbers from 1 to 10,000 do yield a palindrome, except for the number 196.
• Instructions on how to edit the MS registry to defeat DVD region protections.

24 Dec 2000

Read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1760 - 1780, Gibbons).   Abridged.   Gibbons blames Christianity as the primary factor contributing to the fall of the empire.  When he poses the question of why Christianity spread so fast: 

Of course, the real answer is that Providence [God] willed it. But since Providence usually acts thru mankind, which is imbued with free will, opinions, and ideas; it is fruitful to look into the secondary causes of the spread of Christianity.

... Mohammedans ... struggle with the common difficulties; how to reconcile the prescience of God with the freedom and responsibility of man; how to explain the permission of evil under the reign of infinite power and infinite goodness.

19 Dec 2000

Read an interview with a nurse that was in Puerto Rico in 1941.  She says it was remarkable that there were not very many  birds on the island.   It is still that way.   Theories on why include:

• Use of DDT 1920 to 1940 to kill mosquitoes
• Lizards and iguanas eat bird eggs
• Poaching for pet sales

18 Dec 2000

John Adams, passing through New York city in 1770 has this to say about the residents:  "all talk very fast, very loud and altogether without paying any attention to each other. . . . Nobody has any manners here."  (paraphrase from The Founding Fathers).

Recent headlines:  

• George Bush II is president, in a close, contested election.
• RU-486 was approved, prescription only

26 Nov 2000

Notes on poetry from Matthew Arnold (1853):

We all naturally take pleasure, says Aristotle, in any imitation or representation whatever: this is the basis of our love of Poetry: and we take pleasure in them, he adds, because all knowledge is naturally agreeable to us; not to the philosopher only, but to mankind at large. Every representation therefore which is consistently drawn may be supposed to be interesting, inasmuch as it gratifies this natural interest in knowledge of all kinds. What is not interesting, is that which does not add to our knowledge of any kind; that which is vaguely conceived and loosely drawn; a representation which is general, indeterminate, and faint, instead of being particular, precise, and firm.

Any accurate representation may therefore be expected to be interesting; but, if the representation be a poetical one, more than this is demanded. It is demanded, not only that it shall interest, but also that it shall inspirit and rejoice the reader: that it shall convey a charm, and infuse delight. For the Muses, as Hesiod says, were born that they might be ‘a forgetfulness of evils, and a truce from cares’: and it is i not enough that the Poet should add to the knowledge of men, it is required of him also that he should add to their happiness. ‘All Art,’ says Schiller, ‘is dedicated to Joy, and there is no higher or more serious problem than how to make men happy. The right Art is that alone, which creates the highest enjoyment.

[This reminds me of Garrision Kiellor's comment that good poetry is very concrete: telling a story, rather than vaguely describing emotions]

14 Nov 2000

Saw The Insiders (Michael Mann) about a whistle-blower in the tobacco industry.  I was expecting something boring, but the cinematography was great.   Plus I was really rooting for the protagonist: the underdog fighting for truth and justice.   

Got the Microsoft annual report.   They dont pay dividends, yet they are highly profitable.  They've accumulated $5B cash, $19B bonds, and $18B stocks.   I guess the reason is so that stockholders make $ by selling the stock, which is taxed at the capital gains rate, which is lower than the income/dividend tax rate.

The Double Entry bookkeeping system is a very elegant concept .. so elegant I decided to research it a little:

(Aside: Every time I think about bookkeeping, I remember the puzzle about the bookkeeper who was challenged to find a word that contained 3 consecutive double letters, but he couldn’t think of such a word. )

Double-entry bookkeeping is a way of keeping track of the finances of a company. Its key principles are:

• Every company has a balance sheet, listing assets and liabilities.
• At all times, the sum of assets equals the sum of all liabilities (if you use the convention that liabilties have positive values; alternatively, if liabilities are expressed negatively, then the sum of assets and liabilities equals zero).
• Liabilities includes shareholders equity (including paid-in-capital and retained income).   Retained income is a key component of Liabilities, even though it may not seem like a liability.
• Every financial event requires two or more changes to the balance sheet (hence the name double-entry). The changes offset each so the sum of assets equals the sum of liabilities. There can never be an financial event that results in only a single change to the balance sheet. Although most events result in two changes to the balance sheet, some result in 3 or 4.
• For a given financial event, the changes to the balance sheet can be as follows:
  • An increase to an asset, and an increase to a liability
  • A decrease to an asset, and a decrease to a liability
  • An increase to a liability, and a decrease to a liability
  • An increase to an asset and a decrease to an asset
• Financial events are anything that involves a change to an asset value or liability value, such as the following items:

Here is a British tutorial on double entry bookkeeping: http://www.nrbarton.co.uk/Bookkeeping/index.html

One of the tricky things about balance sheets in depreciation.   An object has two values:  One is the depreciated value one uses for tax purposes (value goes down); the other is the actual market value (which, for real estate especially) may increase.

Another confusing thing about depreciation is the need to reconcile the two ways cash is paid out when buying an object.  Say the corp buys a car for $10K.  The entire $10K is paid out in year 1.  But for tax purposes, the corp pretends it is paying, say, $2K a year for five years.      When the car is purchased, $10K is deducted from the corp's cash, but a new asset (the car) appears worth $10K.   The value of the car asset decreases $2K every year, as does the retained income.

One thing I dont understand about depreciation is why it appears in the Cash Flow statement.  Maybe it is related to the fact that when a car is purchased, the corp's cash goes down $10K, but the corps assets is unchanged?

10 Nov 2000

Returned from a 4-night cruise to the Virgin Island.  Went on four dives.  I'm not too enamored with cruises: they seem aimed at people that are into partying: Drinking, feasting, gambling.    The Virgin Islands are probably fine places, but when you arrive on a cruise ship, the port area is a tourist trap.   The islands are inhabited primarily by descendents of slaves.   There doesn't appear to be any industry besides tourism.   Plus I'm bothered by the welfare status of the USVI.   The one part of the cruise I could have enjoyed (a tour of the engineering plant) was off limits.   

4 Nov 2000

Read A Man in Full (1999, Tom Wolfe).   A bit too similar to Bonfire of the Vanities:  a morality tale of downfall following greed.   I most enjoyed the non-fiction portions about prison life, warehouse operations, and Atlanta's history.   But that was always Wolfe's strong suit:  The Right Stuff and The Pumphouse Gang.

18 Oct 2000

Read The Manhattan Project (1962, Stephen Groeff).  Better than Rhode's The Making of the Atomic Bomb in some ways, because it focuses more on the engineering aspects, especially the key problem of refining nearly pure U-235, which took place at Oak Ridge TN.    Raw uranium is 92% U-238, which wont fission, although that can use it  ("depleted uranium") for armor-plating.   A second place that purified A-bomb material was Hanover WA, which produced plutonium.   They shipped the U and Pl to Los Alamos, where the bombs were assembled.

Oak Ridge used three methods to refine the U-235:   (1) Cyclotron with huge magnets to try to separate based on weight (run by GE and Westinghouse);   (2) Gas diffusion:  Passing uranium hexafloruide gas through microscopic filters, hundreds of passes.  UHF gas is highly corrosive and anything it touches must be made from pure nickel (run by Union Carbide).   (3) thermal diffusion: heat UHF gas and the U-235 rises higher than the U-238.

At Hanover (run by DuPont) they produced plutonium, not U-235.  They used breeder reactors: Plain uranium will fission in a reactor, but is not pure enough for a bomb.   A by-product is plutonium.  They used a centrifuge to separate the uranium from plutonium.

The first bomb, at Trinity, was plutonium in a spherical shape.  The second bomb, over Hiroshima, was Uranium in an untested "gun" configuration.

Not coincidence that the TVA project generated lots of electricity for use by Oak Ridge;  and Columbia river dams generated lots of electricity for Hanover (and aluminum plants).

One cool experiment they did to learn more about critical masses was create a donut and drop more U thru the middle, and measure the radiation spike as the center fell thru the donut.

17 Oct 2000

Saw romantic comedy As Good As It gets with Jack Nicholson playing a author with OCD.  "How do you write women characters?"   "Easy:  I just imagine a man without reason or accountability".

14 Oct 2000

Read Dave Barry's Greatest Hits.  "... as I read the tax code - with a strobe light - these deductions are ...".

29 Sept 2000

Read The Pencil (1999, Henry Petroski) about the history of the pencil.   Neat book, I wish there were more like it, giving us insight into the history and engineering of everyday objects.

Read a book about Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy.  Became a 4 star admiral but rarely wore a uniform.   A consummate engineer: he believed in science, standards, testing, quality assurance, empirical tests.  He always got the job done.  His reactors had a perfect safety record!   Two accidents:  The Thresher and the Scorpion were unrelated to the reactors.   He had to be very political to get things done:  he had lots of friends in Congress, and the nuclear work was spread across many states.

Read a book on turbines and thermodynamics.  The 2nd law of thermodynamics has me flummoxed.  The 1st law is the conservation of energy (there is no 3rd law, although some say it is "Absolute zero exists").    The 2nd law has about 20 different versions, but the most common are  

• Heat cannot transfer from a cold body to a warmer body (without the help of an external source)
• Entropy increases in a closed system
• Energy in a closed system tends to become dispersed
• Perpetual motion machines are impossible because there is always friction

What is entropy?  The statistical-microscopic definition of entropy is:  a measure of the number of  microscopic configurations that are capable of yielding the observed macroscopic description of the thermodynamic system. 

The classical definition is:  delta entropy = delta heat / Temp.     Example:  if you have a closed system, 1/2 ice at 270 K,  and 1/2 water at 290 K, then when heat H transfers from the water to the ice, the entropy change due to ice melting is +  H/270; but the entropy change due to the air cooling is  - H/290.  So entropy increases (even though heat and energy are conserved).   But this definition seems to be relying on circular logic: Entropy here has no certain definition:  it is simply defined in a way that leads back to "heat cannot transfer from a cold body to a warmer body". 

This doesn't seem right to me for a couple of reasons:  If entropy is chaos and disorder, and you consider a room full of air molecules:  if you wait long enough, the molecules - by pure chance - will line up in perfect rows, thus entropy increased.   

Wouldn't the law be better expressed in terms of probability:  The probability is extremely high that chaos and entropy will increase, but there is a miniscule chance that entropy will decrease.   Granted, for a room-sized system filled with air, the probability of entropy decreasing is 1 in 10 ** 50, but still. 

Also, if the chaos of the air molecules is increasing, what happens if we play time backwards:  reverse all the molecule directions:   Doesn't entropy then decrease?    

A fundamental principle of physics is that all processes can operate forwards or backwards:  There is no "time arrow".   The 2nd law seems to contradict this.  Certainly, macroscopic processes never go backwards (a shattered saucer doesn't repair itself;  a corpses doesn't revive).

Also, if the universe is a closed system, and entropy is increasing, then it will increase forever.   Does that mean cyclical big-bangs are not possible?    2nd law proponents say the the universe is not a closed system, so the 2nd law does not apply.

Maxwell's daemon is a mind experiment where a daemon has a gate that lets only slow molecules into one half of a room; and only fast molecules into the other half.  This violates the 2nd law.  But 2nd law proponents argue that the entropy of the daemon increases with time (he must be a machine of some sort that uses energy and heat), and he is part of this closed system.   Not too persuasive.

Heisenberg uncertainty principle:   is that what this is all about:  You start off with a perfectly known set of initial conditions, and as time moves forward, the locations become more unknowable.

And there is the argument that as civilization (or evolution) progresses, we get more ordered and that violates the 2nd law; but no one would argue that the earth is a closed system:  it receives lots of energy from the sun.   But one hears this argument a lot from creationists who are using the 2nd law to try to prove that evolution did not happen.

Some guy said:   A layman who is  ignorant about the 2nd law of thermodynamics, is like a scientist who has never read Shakespeare.

25 Sept 2000

Ataturk, first president of Turkey and general in WW I who fought against the Australian invasion at Gallopoli later reconciled with the Australians, and invited them to build a memorial at Gallopoli.  Ataturk wrote some of the memorial:

Heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives! You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

Adam Smith:  

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner but from their regard to their self-interest.

18 Sept 2000

We are now in Puerto Rico.  Nice tropical island!   

The status of the island as a commonwealth is a bit annoying:  just like Guam and American Samoa and U.S. Virgin Islands.   They all receive  lots of $$ from the US government, and the residents dont pay any taxes.  At least 50% of the population is on welfare.  In all four islands, the US took over the island for military purposes, but the US government appeased the locals by buying them off.  And the residents get automatic US citizenship!   Although if they move to the US, they have to start paying taxes.    The tax exemption is justifiable because they cannot vote for US president ("no taxation without representation").  And we have to put them on welfare, or they would tell the military to leave the island.   That policy makes sense for Guam and Samoa, but Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands no longer have military bases!   We really should cut them off and give them independence.  Puerto Rico has an independence movement, but it is small: maybe 5% of the population.  About 45% want to become a state; about 45% want to retain the status quo.

10 Sept 2000

Read The Poisonwood Bible (1998, Barbara Kingfisher).   An intelligent, engrossing novel, but flawed by the presence of the token Oppressor Male:  the white guy that either enslaves or subjugates hapless women.  It is just too stereotypical:  too easy to write a novel around it.    The wife, for some reason, doesnt manage to walk out the door and go to a friends house.  Selected for Oprah's book club:  it seems that one requirement is that the book has a victim.   The book reminds me of Mosquito Coast, but the latter  was more original.   

The book includes a one-line poem from William Carlos Williams:

So much depends on a red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.

We are forced to ask:  What depends on the red wheelbarrow?

9 Sept 2000

Read Isaacs Storm (1999, Erik Larson) about a huge hurricane (one of the 2 or 3 native Puerto Rican words to make it into the English language - like Boondocks from the Philippines) in Galveston in 1900.  From the book:

If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell - Gen. Sheridan

The book often relies on data collected by Jose Fernandez Partagas, a penniless hurricane enthusiast whose ashes were scattered in the eye of a hurricane by the Nat. Hurricane Center.  [Reminds me of Wilson A. Bentley, the Vermont farmer that photographed snowflakes - described in the 1999 book Snowflake Bentley].

Virga - a word that means "rain that falls from a cloud but does not reach earth".  Richard Collier taught me that word, and I keep forgetting it.  I always say Vernal instead. 

30 Aug 2000

Read Seven Years in Tibet (1953, Heinrich Harrar).   Describes a sojourn in Lhasa after WW II.  I think he romanticizes Tibet too much.  Certainly it is a quaint, fascinating place, but when you look closer:

• Caste system of privileged nobility and impoverished peasants
• Total deforestation by centuries of irresponsible use
• Dictatorship led by Dalai Lama
• Irrational and oppressive rules (e.g. proscription against practicing medicine)
• Monks do everything to keep their power, such as prohibits visits by foreigners.

It is trendy these days to oppose the Chinese take over, and the Dalai Lama's exile.  But don't overlook the benefits of the change:    Everyone in Tibet is now on an equal footing, and the monks no longer live in palaces, supported by the peasants.  Medicine has been modernized, and the public has access to foreign goods and information.

It reminds me of the knee-jerk reaction many Americans have to the communist take over in Russia (1917) or China (1947).  Sure, communism has some bad aspects to it, but in both cases, communism was a major improvement over the corrupt regimes that preceded it.   

12 Aug 2000

Al Gore selected Lieberman as a vice president running mate.   I strongly supports Gore's environmental views, but I'm a bit leery of having Lieberman in the white house.   There are many instances where American interests are not aligned with Israel's interests, and Im not sure where Lieberman's loyalties would lie.   When the interests diverge, would Lieberman do what is best for America, or for Israel?  Every Jew, in their heart of hearts, loves Israel and would do anything to ensure its success, prosperity, and longevity.

4 Aug 2000

The Hawaiian Sovereignty movement is making lots of noise.   I cant quite figure out what is behind it:  Either it is the natives, hoping to get a law passed so they dont have to pay income taxes (like Native Americans, Eskimos, Puerto Rico, Guam, etc); or it is the hospitality and gambling industries trying to get casinos built (as on Native American reservations) to boost revenue.    Most likely, it is both.  Im sure the native Hawaiians are envious of the Eskimos and Native Americans, and regret that they did not strike a similar deal when Hawaii became a state.

2 Aug 2000

Played chess online for the first time yesterday.  Wasted lots of time :-)  As much as I dislike the impersonal nature of it, I have to admit it is convenient and you can find opponents at all skill levels.  What is the option?  Drive 20 miles to a once-a-month chess club?   Most players are polite, but one did unleash some profanities.  I've heard that some players cheat by using a computer program to provide moves, but I didn't notice that.  There are some really good players out there, especially in speed chess:  An entire game in 60 seconds.  Wow!

16 July 2000

Investment brokers have one and only one goal when advising you:  To make the biggest commission they can.  As the brokers say:  "The firm made money and the broker made money ... two out of three isn't bad".    

A couple of years ago, some broker from First Command sold L the world's worst mutual fund: it was some foreign fund from Franklin Templeton.   What was wrong with it?  (a) High service fees: tremendously front loaded: about  6% a year for the first few years;  (b) An early withdrawal penalty:  If you pull-out your principal in the first 10 years, you have to pay a 20% penalty!.   The prospectus says this is necessary so that fund managers have a steady, predictable asset base to work with.  Im sure the brokers have a term for this kind of fund: "sucker fund" or similar.  

[Added in 2006: ]  In Dec 2004, the NASD fined First Command $12M for repeatedly deceiving young enlisted people and selling mutual funds with 50% commissions in the first year!   See http://www.nasd.com/PressRoom/NewsReleases/2004NewsReleases/NASDW_012786

First Command is much worse than, say Milliken or Boesky:  they ripped-off average investors.  First Command is ripping-off young service members who can hardly afford it, people serving our country and getting very low pay.   I hope First Command goes out of business.

Read Suburban Nation (2000, Duany, et al).  A polemic arguing for better city planning. Their premise is that modern suburbs are ugly, dangerous,  and bad to live in, while some traditional neighborhoods based on pedestrians and mass transit are better.   Here are some planning goals they outline:

• Lots of trees and open space.    Lakes, ponds, wetlands
• Mixed use.  Zone changes happen in mid-block, not at streets.
• Public transportation;  clean, dignified waiting stations
• Blocks < 600 ft long;  avoid cul-de-sacs
• Slow down traffic with curves, staggered intersections, etc
• Tree strip between sidewalk and street
• Compact (denser) towns, not low density sprawl
• Ugly infrastructure hidden
• Parking lots hidden (Buildings front directly to street)
• Residence garages face alley, not street
• Narrower residential streets

Sounds like they are favoring the old north-east neighborhood of 1920 to 1950.   Are they overly nostalgic?  Would they have the same views on mass transit if fuel were cheap?    They cite some cities that have new codes that incorporate some of these concepts:   Orlando, Columbus, Santa Fe, and Austin.  A key point of the book is that a good community is more important than a good house; and you have to make some sacrifices on the house to get a good community.

They blame some of today's ills on the auto industry.  They  say the origin of suburban business parks is because CEOs disliked commuting and so moved their business closer to home.

Surplus wealth enables people to [build] wasteful ... communities and then compensate for the community's failings by buying private vehicles and driving all over the metropolitan area in search of what ought to be available close to home.

14 July 2000

Neat song from VW Cabrio TV commercial:  Pink Moon by Nick Drake.  Glenn says Drake wrote the song in a hotel room, then committed suicide.

3 July 2000

NPR says that Woody Guthrie stole the melody fro This Land is My Land from a gospel tune by the Carter family.

Some headlines:

• Mid-east peace talks in Camp David: Israel holding up USA for  $$
• AIDS rampant in Africa
•  $150B punitive damages against tobacco companies in Florida class action
• FBI found not liable for Waco Branch Davidian lawsuit

24 June 2000

Read Dark Star - The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (1995, Richard Rhodes) a follow-on to his enormously successful The Making of the Atom Bomb.  The H-bomb uses Lithium Deuteride within an atom bomb (dynamite starts the fission, which starts the fusion).   Robert Oppenheimer was the main man on the A-bomb, and Edward Teller was the main man on the H-bomb, though both were team efforts:  Those two guys were just self-promoters (albeit brilliant).   Oppenheimer got his clearance yanked during McCarthism era because he associated with some communists in the 30s.   I remember a story about the A bomb where there were some fears that igniting an A bomb would start some sort of chain reaction in the earth's atmosphere that would destroy the biosphere. 

Letter to the editor on National Geographic:

Your article [on Alexander the Great] cries out for comparison with Genghis Khan.  Both men ... conquered much of their worlds ..  Yet Alexander is portrayed as a spearhead of a cultural advance ... while Ghengis is portrayed ... as a killer .... [Are] European hoards held to a different standard than non-European?

20 June 2000

Was talking to a guy at a party about privacy rights, and he says David Brin (the author of The Postman) wrote a book about that topic, and the book suggests that society would be better off if video cameras were commonplace in public places.  Criminals would be deterred; police brutality would be deterred.  Everyone would behave better in public.  [The book is The Transparent Society, 1999].

15 June 2000

A joke:  A old Irishman is sitting in a pub lamenting the fact that, in spite of his accomplishments around town, he is not known as a mason, or a carpenter, or a fisherman.  "But I fuck one goat ...".

Another joke:  A man is walking down the street when he sees a sign above a bar that says, “free drinks for life for anyone who can pass our test. The man walks into the bar and asks the bartender, “I hear you have free drinks for life for anyone who can pass your test.” “Yup.” The bartender says, “All you have to do is drink this gallon of pepper tequila, then run out back and pull a sore tooth from our alligator. Last, you have to go upstairs and give my daughter an orgasm because she’s never had one before.” The man says, “Well, as much as I’d like free drinks for life, I don’t think I can do that.” The man sits down at the bar and orders a drink. After a while, he gets pretty drunk and says to the bartender, “Where’s that pepper tequila?” So he chugs the tequila and runs out back with everyone cheering him on, and comes back a few minutes later with scratches all over his body. Says the man,  “O.K. now where’s that broad with the sore tooth???”

13 June 2000

Saw The Matrix.  They had some cool special effects that were based on that Gap Khaki commercial from about 2 years ago.

Saw The Gladiator: very nice movie with great cinematography.  Nice story, but a bit on the violent side.

Saw a neat puzzle in Discover magazine:  Place 10 black and 9 white queens on a chess board so that none are attacking an opponent.   I did 8/8 and 9/7, but had to look at the answer for 10/9.

22 April  2000

Read The Ends of the Earth (1996, Robert Kaplan).  A collection of columns by an erudite travel writer for Atlantic Monthly.   His writing is long on history, economics, and cultural analysis, and short on anecdotes, personalities, or scenery.  Paul Theroux he is is not.   He is not afraid to criticize dirty or lazy cultures.   He quotes Joseph Conrad in Lord Jim: 

 It's extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it's just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome.

Saw Shakespeare in Love: great movie.  My favorite parts:   in the frenzy before the play starts, Shakespeare asks the producer how it will ever come off:  'Let me explain to you about the theatre business. The path is paved with insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster...but strangely enough it all works out in the end.'
'How does it?' 'I don't know, it's a mystery.'

And when the executive producer is mad at Shakespeare, Shakespeare turns him around by offering him "a small, but vital, role as the apothecary".

Patrick Moynihan

The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society.  The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.

12 April  2000

Saw a great photo of the Korean War Memorial in

 DC [2006 - cannot find it; here are others]:

.

10 April  2000

Intel engineers say:  Intel giveth and Microsoft taketh away.

Critics of Microsoft describe one of its business strategies as Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.  Meaning MS creates a new, unique version of some standard, and by sheer volume forces the standard version to be viewed as aberrant. 

31 March  2000

Some neat foreign phrases:

• sic transit gloria mundi - Thus passes [away] the glory of the world (said, e.g., when observing a washed-up athlete or actor)
• hoi polloi - Common people (greek)
• beau geste - A noble gesture, often futile or quixotic
• comme il faut - As it should be; fitting
• ipso facto - by the fact itself; obvious

27 March  2000

Read an article in National Geographic about the Brothers Grimm.  The original stories were very brutal, and often it was the mother that was the evil character.  Revisionists later changed them to step-mothers.

25 March  2000

Read The Professor and the Madman (1998, Simon Winchester).   25th printing!  About a criminally insane Civil War veteran who moves to England and contributes tens of thousands of quotes to the OED during its creation (1870 to 1920;  insane guy active 1880 to 1901).  Great story, at least for anyone into etymology.  Makes me want to get a copy of the OED.   One puzzling thing is the term "forms" used in the definitions, as in:

Murder  sb.  Forms: A I. morpor, -u, 3-4 morbre, 3-4, 6 murthre, 4, myrper,  4-6 murthir, morther, 5 sc. murthour, murthyr, 5-6 murther, ...

The question is:  what do the numbers mean?  Are they time periods, as in 3 = 1000 - 1200 AD?

For any given word, the important thing in the OED are the earliest citations, the earliest usages.  Scholars are continually finding earlier citations, and it is a real honor to submit an early citation to the OED "... all of which oxford's editors accept with disdainful equanimity, professing neither infallibility nor monopoly".

Read Margaret Mead - A Life (1984, Jane Howard).  MM is the source of the famous quote "Don't think that a small group of dedicated people cannot change the world, indeed it is the only thing that has".  A superstar in the field of anthropology, this book give her decidedly mixed reviews: 

• Shameless self promoter
• Not loyal to her three husbands
• Aloof from her primitive subjects
• Wouldn't learn primitive languages
• Arrogant and conceited
• More concerned with fame than science
• Often distorted the truth to make her books more popular
• Did not raise her own daughter

But she was a pioneer in a field dominated by men.  And she did spend a lot of time in the field (south pacific, mostly) although she tended to live in aristocratic conditions with linens, showers, slaves, etc.  She investigated some of the big questions like

• To what extend is human behavior genetically determined vs. influenced by surroundings?
• Do cultures on isolated islands provide a glimpse into the natural human character?
• Can unhappiness (anxiety, depression, perversion, etc) be traced to characteristics of modern society that are contrary to mans natural character?
• Are there natural differences in the roles of genders?
• What changes should we make in our modern culture in order to achieve some of the desirable characteristics of primitive cultures?
• Do all cultures evolve along similar paths (nudity to clothes; polygamy to monogamy; hereditary leaders to elected)
• How does climate and geography affect culture?

Anthropology is a "soft" science like sociology or psychology.  Very malleable and prone to bias.  You can prove anything you want,  and it you dont have to fear being wrong.  The soft sciences dont get as much respect as the hard sciences.  

MM's first book was Coming of Age in Somoa (1925) and it posited that Americans could be a lot happier if they weren't so up-tight about sex.  A confirmation of Freud, who was publishing at the same time.

Read Mein Kampf [My Struggle] (1925-27, Adolf Hitler).   A hard book to read.   A translator's note says "His style is without color or movement ... Often there is no visible connection between one paragraph and the next".    The book could be condensed a lot:  it is really just a polemic pushing certain hot buttons.  He was a politician out of power at the time he wrote it.  The main points are:

• Germany's government let down the German people during and after WW I (e.g. signing the Versailles treaty)
• The Nat. Socialist Workers Party (Nazi) should lead Germany
• Jews are bad because they only care about themselves and divert wealth from Germany
• Jews control international finance and the media
• Communists are bad
• Use of force is okay to advance righteous ideals
• The Aryan race is superior to other races and should not be diluted by cross-breeding
• Germans need more territory (lebensraum)
• Germany should reclaim the land they gave up at the end of WW I
• Government should be run by elite, not by popular election

One fact I learned, was that German workers engaged in a very large strike in 1918 during WW I, which precipitated the German defeat.

22 March  2000

Reading about the Arts and Crafts movement (and the related Mission style and Craftsman style).  Mottos of Gustave Stickley:

By Hammer and Hand Do All Things Stand

That Plainnesss Which is beauty

And a motto by E. Hubbard, a contemporary of Stickley

Boredom is a matter of choice, not circumstance.

The chronology is:

John Ruskin (1819 to 1900, English) posits that hand-made gods are superior to factory made goods.  Also job satisfaction is much higher.

William Morris ( 1834 - 1896, England) formed Arts and Crafts movement in UK around 1880;  Morris & Co. makes textiles, wallpaper, glass, furniture, and decorations.   Redefined art to include handicrafts.

Gustave Stickly ( around 1890 to 1915; USA) Arts and Crafts movement.  Forms Craftsman corp.  Focus is on simplicity and lack of clutter.   Roycroft is a contemporary.  Centered in NY.

Mission Style - Mass produced craftsman-like sold by many companies (1910 to 1920) incl Sears.

F. L. Wright - Stickly contemporary for the wealthy.

2 March  2000

Re-reading The Power and the Glory (1940, Graham Green).  Perhaps my all time favorite novel (tied with The Magus?).   The book is just so perfect:  it doesnt matter if you know about Mexico, or the conflict between the Catholic church and Mexico's secular authorities: the characters and story-telling are just so entrancing.  Is the unnamed priest the Power?  and the police lieutenant the Glory?  Somewhat reminiscent of Les Miserables.

Where does the Power and Glory take place?   Somewhere in southern Mexico: the Bay of Campeche is mentioned, so perhaps Chiapas?  But the geography is confusing:  the book as the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and the mountains to the north, and there is no such place.    Reminds me of the puzzle about the location of Mosquito Coast.

Id llike to learn more about Mexico's fight against the Catholic church; the red shirts, taking back property and wealth from the church.  

Cloning of humans is inevitable:  People want immortality, and cloning is one way to get it.  But what sort of regulations will govern it?  Maybe

• The clone will have full rights as an individual
• Clones cannot be discriminated against
• The clone will have a separate legal identity from the cloner
• The cloner cannot enslave or abuse the clone
• A clone cannot be created without the permission of the cloner
• The rights of the womb-provider must be established by contract
• Whoever initiates the cloning is responsible for the costs and responsibilities of the clones upbringing

28 Feb 2000

Read Harry Potter #1.  Great story: every kids fantasy come true.

Presidential election is heating up.  I refuse to vote for Bush on principal:  This pattern we are establishing of electing relatives of prior presidents is sickening.   One of the reasons America revolted against the British was to get away from hereditary leadership.  Our leaders should be selected based on merit, not based on bloodline.  It started with Adams so long ago, but picked up steam in the 20th century with Roosevelt and now Bush.  I suppose the parties are to blame:  They figure the name recognition is worth quite a few votes.   But really, out of the thousands of qualified candidates, we get the son of a former president (and what a coincidence:  another son is governor of Florida).

26 Feb 2000

Saw a hilarious parody on MTV: "2Gether".  Similar to Spinal Tap, but about a boy band (parody of Backstreet Boys or NSync).   The 2Gether band has the 5 stereotypical members: The heartthrob, the rebel-bad boy, the older brother, the young cute one, and the shy sensitive one.

20 Feb 2000

The rise of commerce on the Web must be having a negative impact on state sales tax revenues.  I cant see states putting up this this much longer:  it incentivizes customers to purchase items from out-of-state vendors.   I predict we will see interstate sales tax collection in a few years.

16 Feb 2000

Watched a great Nova TV show about hedge funds, especially the LTCM company which went bankrupt in 1998, and was bailed-out by the federal government in a very shady deal (I'd like to hear the producer's pitch for this show:  it must have sounded boring and hard to put into visual form for TV).

Hedge funds are a secretive financial instrument used by the very, very wealthy: individuals and corporations.  Hoi polloi need not apply.   Hedges are simply insurance against a drop in value of an investment.  So an investor that owns lots of stock in XYZ can buy a hedge on XYZ, so that if the price of XYZ falls substantially, the investor gets paid some $ from the hedge, to partially compensate for the loss.  Insurance, nothing more.

Hedges are options.   Options are a right (but not an obligation) to sell a commodity (e.g. stock) at a given price (the "strike price") at a given future date in the future.    If the commodity falls substantially in value (before the strike date) the owner of the option gets some money from the hedge.  If it doesnt fall, the owner gets nothing.   Hedges (and options) cost money to buy, just like an insurance policy.

Futures  are very similar to options, except (1) futures can be buy or sell; and (2) futures  are an obligation to buy/sell (vs options which are just the right).    

Futures are gambling.  If you think a commodity will rise in value, you purchase a future to buy the commodity at a given price.   Conversely, if you think a commodity will fall in price, you purchase a future to sell the commodity at a future date.   

A future to sell is called "selling short" or a "short position".    Selling short means you predict (and hope) the commodity will fall in value.

A future to buy is called a "long position".  A long position means you predict and hope the commodity rises in value.  A long future  is similar to just buying the commodity outright (in both cases you want the commodity to rise in value)  but the future is cheaper to purchase, and doesnt require actually taking possession of the commodity.

A hedge (or option) is similar to a future to sell.   The big difference is that if the commodity price rises, you lose money with a short future; but you dont lose anything with the hedge/option (except for your initial purchase price).   

Another difference is that futures dont cost anything to buy (except a brokers fee) whereas a hedge costs a substantial sum (the insurance premium).

The TV show spent most of the time talking about mathematical formulae used to establish prices (insurance premiums) for hedges (options).   The goal is to predict the odds that the commodity will fall below a given price (and how much it might fall).    One famous predictor is the Merton-Scholes formula (they won the Nobel prize in 1997 for their work in the 1970s).

The formula is actually not very complex:  I think they just had the luck to be the first to research this and publish their findings.  People in the financial world were so desperate for a concrete way of establishing hedge/option prices, that they were profusely grateful when the formula become widely known.  

This situation is no different from that of the insurance industry:  they rely on actuaries to use formulas to establish insurance premiums based on life expectancy, etc.

The inputs to the Scholes formula are:  current commodity price; strike price; strike date; volatility of this commodity;   The output is the cost of the hedge/option (i.e. the insurance premium). 

The formula is a bit tricky, because it requires the computation of the integral (area under the curve) of a poisson distribution or gaussian curve, and there is no closed-form solution for that, so the formula must use either a table-lookup, or an approximation to the poisson.

Simply put:  the future price of the commodity is a gaussian curve that gets broader the farther into the future you go (also proportional to the volatility of the commodity).  The curve is centered on the current (start) price.  The cost of the hedge/option is simply the weighted area under the curve (below the strike price).

What are the options to purchasing a hedge for insurance?  One is buying futures, but as explained above, they do not behave the same way as hedges: they can cost a lot more if the stock really goes the wrong way, and they dont have a fixed, predictable price. 

Another option to hedges is to simply sell the commodity and hold onto the cash. After all, if the goal is to avoid a drop in value, why not park your $$ in cash, which never decreases in value?   The answer is that there is no upside to cash, that is, if you assume no inflation, cash will not increase your worth.  But commodity XYZ may increase in value, and in fact will probably keep up with inflation better than cash.

7 Feb 2000

Read Hells Angels (1987, M. LaVigne).  Although they are notorious, in fact they are just petty criminals that primarily make and sell methamphetamines.  Still, the mystique is undeniable.

Read The American Heritage Illustrated History of the Civil War.  Great picture book.   Pulitzer prize winner  McClellan will go down in history as a real loser.  One picture was of a modern union ship with a propeller.  Question:  When were propellers invented?  Who invented them?

6 Feb 2000

Read My American Journey (1995, Colin Powell).  Good reading, but a lot like any military memoir, filled with stories of honor, courage, and leadership.   The discussions are the Byzantine DC politics is scary.  I like his leadership tips:

• Taking care of your subordinates is #1 priority
• Dont follow management fads
• Sharing problems with superiors is encouraged ( a sign of trust, not weakness); but dont bother superiors with insignificant problems.
• Before making  a decision, gather honest opinions from subordinates.  But after making a decision, stick to it.
• Tell a leader if he is doing something wrong.
• Reveal bad news early.
• Dont hold grudges.
• Give clear guidance to subordinates.  Give them the resources they need.
• Ask questions if you dont understand.    

27 Jan 2000

An important computer algorithm is that of computers playing competitive games like chess or checkers.  How are such programs structured?    

function nonRecursiveMeasure ( player, board) { 

    // measures quality of board's situation from player's point of view

    // non-recursive:  simply counts pieces, and evaluates their positions

}

function recursiveFindBestMove ( player, board ) }

    for ( B =  apply all possible "player" moves to "board" ) {

        opposingMove = recursiveFindBestMove  ( ~ player, B );

        newB = updateBoard ( board, opposingMove );

        goodness[B] = nonRecursiveMeasure ( player, newB );

    }

   return ( findBest  ( goodness[] ) );

}

But it is much more complex than this.  At some point, the recursion has to terminate (limit to some fixed depth?).  Also, it is very wasteful to continually reevaluate the goodness:  it would be simpler to just incrementally update it based on each individual move.

17 Jan 2000

Read Travels (1988, Michael Chrichton).  Sort of an autobiography.  The guy is brilliant, and a successful novelist, indeed, but he comes off as a selfish, conceited, ambitious jerk.   He is also unusually interested in the paranormal (unusual considering all his scientific training):  auras, astral planes, clairvoyance, etc.   One interesting point in the book:  Do you think it is possible for a person to throw a ball 60 meters and hit a target 1 meter across, while six angry men are charging him, intent on flattening him?  But a quarterback does that every day.  Chrichton's point is that ordinary people can perform extraordinary mental feats, if only they practice.

16 Jan 2000

Read a book about The Great White Hope.  The term refers to a white boxer, Jim Jeffries, who challenged black Jack Johnson for the heavyweight title in Reno in 1910.   Johnson won handily.  Johnson was controversial because he was flamboyant and refused to play the role of the submissive black.     Later he was jailed, on trumped up charges (reminiscent of Hurricane Carter).

Read a book about Henry Ford:  Although everyone remembers his cars and assembly line, he was also deserves to be remembered for his labor practices:  He wanted his workers to be well paid and satisfied, and he instituted many progressive labor policies.   He had a small socialist or utopian bent, and saw no reason workers and owners couldn't both be happy.

5 Jan 2000

Happy New Year:  Y2K turned out to be a non-event.  Lots of computer consultants got rich, but then they might argue that the lack of catastrophe was due to their diligence

Heard Rush Limbaugh on the radio ... funny, entertaining guy.  I don't agree with all his stances, but I do agree with his criticism of the federal government:  it is too large, with uncontrolled spending, and is encroaching on the state's power.