I don't have a TV or the internets in my new apartment, so i've been forced to read alot and sleep early:
The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark
A single woman takes a vacation from her job as an accountant.
A friend of mine has been talking about Muriel Spark since she (Spark) passed away a year ago. Running out of ways to avoid doing work, I finally borrowed the aforementioned book. It's written in a detached style that manages to hold your interest and then totally messes with you at the end. Spark is imaginative and doesn't give you the hollywood ending that you think she is leading you to. After you read it once, you'll want to read it again to see how you could have missed it. Spark is the kind of writer you think that you can be, if only you had any good ideas. Needless to say, I'm now hooked. The next book by Spark that I'm reading is called Memento Mori. It's about the various responses to a prank phone call a group of different people receive reminding them that they will die one day.
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
How a couple (both virgins) spent their awkward wedding night together
I kept hearing about *this* guy and *this* book. Once I realized how short it was, I caved in. Don't read the reviews for this book, they give too much away! I thought it was mostly hilarious and then you get hit with a bad case of "Carpe Diem" at the end. This book is the fancy literary analogue to the movie "American Pie." Be sure to keep track of the number of times that he uses the phrase "a sign of maturity." McEwan is the kind of writer that makes you realize that, even if you had a good idea, you couldn't ever come close to his writing ability.
The Little Book of Plagiarism by Richard A. Posner
Similar topics as my earlier post, but more coherent & incisive, using fewer but bigger words
Posner is a judge who is famous for, among other things, his contributions to law and economics. He defines plagiarism as "unauthorized copying that the copier claims is original with him." In addition, this claim *must* cause the copier's audience "to behave otherwise than it would if it knew the truth." One thing that I learned was that judges are, at most, simply editors of their opinions which are actually written by their clerks. I don't know if this is also true for the supremes. One final point: Posner argues that originality and creativity are two related but very different things (perhaps a future post).
The Big Book of Irony by Jon Winokur
What Irony is and isn't, Who does it well, and Why some people don't like it and why
This little book is funny yet thought-provoking. Winokur is a master quote collector and it shows. He frequently refers to Douglas Coupland, who coined the term Generation-X, and a very bright but strange guy named Jedediah Purdy. Purdy wrote a book in his early twenties lamenting the widespread use of ironic detachment in his peers (people our age).
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Happy Independence Day
A great day for barbeque, baseball, and remembering one of the most significant documents in history. I've seen a few references this year to the rough draft of the Declaration which among other things contains a remarkable attack on slavery:
Pretty amazing. I'd also like to echo a point made by a commenter on Volokh that we were not Americans fighting the British. We were British, and we were fighting our own people and our own government. I cannot imagine what courage and principle it took to sign one's name to such a document, but we owe a lot to them and part of what we owe is to preserve what they fought for.he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating
it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of
a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying
them to slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable
death in their transportations thither. this piratical warfare,
the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian
king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN
should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for
suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain
this excrable commerce
Monday, July 2, 2007
More than Meets the Eye... Really?
I was discussing this Saturday night at a party and thought it would make for a good first post. This is a cautionary tale.
There are many things that I have always wanted to do, and as it so happened recently, several things aligned in a way that allowed me to do one of those things. Like any person who has "sold" out to industry, my easy job (by CalTech standards) gives me plenty of disposable cash and quite a bit of free time on the weekends. Add to that a Hollywood marketing juggernaut, and I quickly found myself longing to complete this specific quest once and for all.
I suppose this particular desire originated sometime around 1985 but has been largely dormant since that time. There was a brief stint when I tried to accomplish it during 1998-9. Jaideep joined me for a while, but alas the zeal for our adventure faded away quite rapidly... until this month.
I am, of course, talking about watching the entire Transformers Generation One Cartoon Series.
By my calculations, this would be a relatively easy task for someone who routinely watches seasons of TV shows (all 5 seasons of 24, Veronica Mars, Lost, etc) in 24 hour chunks. There are 98 original episodes and one animated feature film. Clocking in at 22 minutes an episode, that's only ((98*22)+120)/60 = 38 hrs -> easily manageable as a two weekend event.
So, I blocked off my calendar, invited others who may have been excited by the premise, and got down to business. 51 episodes in, here is what it is like:
Episode begins with Decepticons attacking some sort of hydroelectric dam/oil rig/nuclear plant/energy source. Autobots, notified by their all-knowing computer Teletraan I, go to defend humans. Battle ensues. Everyone shoots at everyone but no one hits anyone. Starscream mocks Megatron's leadership abilities. Decepticons are somehow defeated and escape.
Repeat 51 times.
Granted this was a cartoon series designed to push a toy line, but watching the episodes back to back unexpectedly highlights the obvious redundancy in the first two seasons. My expected glee at reliving my childhood is slowly being replaced by the dreaded realization that my 10-year-old self was easily entertained and possibly stupid.
Nevertheless, I march on, hoping that my memories of a deeper mythology will be justified in upcoming episodes. Indeed, the last few story lines have taken place on other planets and have begun to flashback to the Cybertronian past of these robots in disguise. All the while I keep watching, anticipating the moment when the series will reveal its grand story and show me once again that this cartoon truly was more than meets the eye.
There are many things that I have always wanted to do, and as it so happened recently, several things aligned in a way that allowed me to do one of those things. Like any person who has "sold" out to industry, my easy job (by CalTech standards) gives me plenty of disposable cash and quite a bit of free time on the weekends. Add to that a Hollywood marketing juggernaut, and I quickly found myself longing to complete this specific quest once and for all.
I suppose this particular desire originated sometime around 1985 but has been largely dormant since that time. There was a brief stint when I tried to accomplish it during 1998-9. Jaideep joined me for a while, but alas the zeal for our adventure faded away quite rapidly... until this month.
I am, of course, talking about watching the entire Transformers Generation One Cartoon Series.
By my calculations, this would be a relatively easy task for someone who routinely watches seasons of TV shows (all 5 seasons of 24, Veronica Mars, Lost, etc) in 24 hour chunks. There are 98 original episodes and one animated feature film. Clocking in at 22 minutes an episode, that's only ((98*22)+120)/60 = 38 hrs -> easily manageable as a two weekend event.
So, I blocked off my calendar, invited others who may have been excited by the premise, and got down to business. 51 episodes in, here is what it is like:
Episode begins with Decepticons attacking some sort of hydroelectric dam/oil rig/nuclear plant/energy source. Autobots, notified by their all-knowing computer Teletraan I, go to defend humans. Battle ensues. Everyone shoots at everyone but no one hits anyone. Starscream mocks Megatron's leadership abilities. Decepticons are somehow defeated and escape.
Repeat 51 times.
Granted this was a cartoon series designed to push a toy line, but watching the episodes back to back unexpectedly highlights the obvious redundancy in the first two seasons. My expected glee at reliving my childhood is slowly being replaced by the dreaded realization that my 10-year-old self was easily entertained and possibly stupid.
Nevertheless, I march on, hoping that my memories of a deeper mythology will be justified in upcoming episodes. Indeed, the last few story lines have taken place on other planets and have begun to flashback to the Cybertronian past of these robots in disguise. All the while I keep watching, anticipating the moment when the series will reveal its grand story and show me once again that this cartoon truly was more than meets the eye.
Friday, June 22, 2007
A little bet...
Imagine someone offered you a bet - you pay $1 and pick an integer between 1 and 100. An integer in that range is randomly chosen, and if it matches your choice you win $200. Do you take it?
If you do, it's probably because you do this calculation in your head (whether you realize it or not): $200*(1/100)=$2. Since the expectation of the game is greater than $1, you're better off taking the bet.
Conversely, imagine someone offers you a $1, but if they pick the right number (again out of 100), you owe them $200. Would you take that bet instead (presumably no one thinks it makes sense that you would take both)? Well, towards what I thought was the end of a discussion about economics, a friend of mine did take that bet. Three years later we're still talking about it, so it's time to share it with all of you.
A rational person is expected to undertake any action in which the person believes the marginal benefit outweighs the marginal cost. If someone offers you $2 for something you value at $1, you'd be wise to sell it to them. However, how do you value things that are not definite, but instead have some probability of having a certain value? The conventional explanation is to calculate the expectation. It is the sum over all outcomes of the chance of that outcome happening times the value of that outcome happening.
My friend claims that it is not only the expectation, but also the distribution, that is important in determining what the actual value is. In this case, 99% of the time he wins money. The expectation is closely approached only over a large number of trials, so if he plays only once he is quite likely to come out ahead. Needless to say, since we've argued about this for some time, but I disagree with his reasoning. While I realize that the added information about the distribution may be valuable, I fail to see how. In the end you must make a yes/no decision, and there has to be some point at which your decision changes based on the particular probabilities and payouts. I claim that point is when the total expectation becomes negative. I think it's a significant point that expectation has all sorts of nice properties like additivity.
I think the problem here is a cognitive bias: treating a small probability as if it were zero. I bet the calculation goes: 1/100 is approximately zero, so 0*$200=$0 which is less than $1. So he takes the bet. I wonder if there is some way to test this - at the very least it seems like there are some psych experiments in here somewhere.
If you agree with him, here's the question I'd most like answered: you must go through some decision making process - what's the formula you use to determine whether to play or not?
If you do, it's probably because you do this calculation in your head (whether you realize it or not): $200*(1/100)=$2. Since the expectation of the game is greater than $1, you're better off taking the bet.
Conversely, imagine someone offers you a $1, but if they pick the right number (again out of 100), you owe them $200. Would you take that bet instead (presumably no one thinks it makes sense that you would take both)? Well, towards what I thought was the end of a discussion about economics, a friend of mine did take that bet. Three years later we're still talking about it, so it's time to share it with all of you.
A rational person is expected to undertake any action in which the person believes the marginal benefit outweighs the marginal cost. If someone offers you $2 for something you value at $1, you'd be wise to sell it to them. However, how do you value things that are not definite, but instead have some probability of having a certain value? The conventional explanation is to calculate the expectation. It is the sum over all outcomes of the chance of that outcome happening times the value of that outcome happening.
My friend claims that it is not only the expectation, but also the distribution, that is important in determining what the actual value is. In this case, 99% of the time he wins money. The expectation is closely approached only over a large number of trials, so if he plays only once he is quite likely to come out ahead. Needless to say, since we've argued about this for some time, but I disagree with his reasoning. While I realize that the added information about the distribution may be valuable, I fail to see how. In the end you must make a yes/no decision, and there has to be some point at which your decision changes based on the particular probabilities and payouts. I claim that point is when the total expectation becomes negative. I think it's a significant point that expectation has all sorts of nice properties like additivity.
I think the problem here is a cognitive bias: treating a small probability as if it were zero. I bet the calculation goes: 1/100 is approximately zero, so 0*$200=$0 which is less than $1. So he takes the bet. I wonder if there is some way to test this - at the very least it seems like there are some psych experiments in here somewhere.
If you agree with him, here's the question I'd most like answered: you must go through some decision making process - what's the formula you use to determine whether to play or not?
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Genarlow Wilson ordered released
Before my highly anticipated post on the use of expectation in decision making, I thought I'd pass along what I think is some great news (if a bit old) - last week a Superior court judge ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson. For those of you who are not familiar, Wilson was sentenced to ten years in a Georgia prison for having consensual oral sex with a 15 year old girl when he was 17. After his trial, the Georgia legislature changed the penalty for his crime to a misdemeanor, and at the time consensual intercourse was also a misdemeanor. The law was applied so harshly in part because he was accused of raping another girl and refused to plea to that charge. He was aquitted of rape but convicted of statutory rape and the jury was not allowed to know that a mandatory 10 year sentence was required.
Understandably there was a great deal of outrage over this case, and he got coverage in ESPN, the New York Times and even from Mark Cuban. He is still in jail pending the Attorney General's appeal, but this decision is a big step towards his freedom. This Volkh Conspiracy post discusses the legal reasoning and chances of it being upheld on appeal.
Understandably there was a great deal of outrage over this case, and he got coverage in ESPN, the New York Times and even from Mark Cuban. He is still in jail pending the Attorney General's appeal, but this decision is a big step towards his freedom. This Volkh Conspiracy post discusses the legal reasoning and chances of it being upheld on appeal.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Blatant self-promotion
As some of you know, I've decided to take the rest of the year off to travel. If you want to keep track of where I am and what I'm up to, take a look at my travel blog.
Hodgepodge
Some things I've seen in recent weeks that I found interesting but weren't blog-worthy
on their own:
Stopping Menstration with the Pill (Slate): One thing I found interesting was the argument that menstruation was actually somewhat unnatural because for much of human history women spent most of their fertile years either pregnant or breastfeeding.
Reverse Contact Lenses (The Independent): Lenses you wear at night which squish your eyes back to the right shape, restoring perfect vision for up to 48 hrs.
Living Streets (itofd.com): An interesting article (and a cool site by the way) about how to get people to drive carefully on residential streets. One neat idea is to make the street environment more vague, forcing the driver to slow down to figure out what's going on. I can't explain it as well as he can, so just read the article.
AT&T and the NSA (arstechnica.com): Recently published documents show that AT&T has installed sophisticated NSA equipment into its internet backbone which an expert claims has the capacity to filter through up to 10% of all traffic passing through it. I'm sure this isn't a shock to many, but it's pretty disturbing that there is now evidence.
on their own:
Stopping Menstration with the Pill (Slate): One thing I found interesting was the argument that menstruation was actually somewhat unnatural because for much of human history women spent most of their fertile years either pregnant or breastfeeding.
Reverse Contact Lenses (The Independent): Lenses you wear at night which squish your eyes back to the right shape, restoring perfect vision for up to 48 hrs.
Living Streets (itofd.com): An interesting article (and a cool site by the way) about how to get people to drive carefully on residential streets. One neat idea is to make the street environment more vague, forcing the driver to slow down to figure out what's going on. I can't explain it as well as he can, so just read the article.
AT&T and the NSA (arstechnica.com): Recently published documents show that AT&T has installed sophisticated NSA equipment into its internet backbone which an expert claims has the capacity to filter through up to 10% of all traffic passing through it. I'm sure this isn't a shock to many, but it's pretty disturbing that there is now evidence.
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