I finally got to meet AS last weekend in p-town. He had to be pointed out to me at Spiritus as a) he didn't quite look like what I was expecting and b) he was 3 sheets to the wind (and enjoying himself immensely). We did not talk about politics.
I mention this only becuase, on his site today, is the other half of the story:
Monday, August 22, 2005
APOLOGIES: The wonderful idea of celebrating my last weekend of bloggatical got, well, a little out of hand the last two nights, and I'm a little too hung over today to write anything too coherent. Sorry. I don't know why I leave the big blow-out to the last two days of a vacation but ... there you are. See you in the morning ... fresh as a wilted daisy.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Nuclear Arms
On a more serious topic:
Before the Iraq invasion in 2003, I had conversations with pro-war folks, notably Travis and Geoff, about the possibility that Iraq had nuclear weapons. I went on record as saying I thought there was zero chance, largely because I've talked to a number of Iraqi scientists and weapons inspectors and they all said the same thing, i.e. they were faking progress on weapons to keep Saddam happy and their families alive. Very similar to what Hiezenburg did during WWII. I believed them. The pro-war crowd implied they were lying to us not Saddam and "do you really want to take that risk". I did, but we didn't.
2 years later: there were no nuclear WMD, Iraqi scientists were faking results.
New prediction:
From the NYT today:
EARLIER this month Bush administration officials leaked to the press what they said was a new official estimate of when Iran might be able to build a nuclear weapon. Speaking anonymously, they told reporters that American intelligence agencies now believe it would take at least 6 and maybe as many as 10 years before that fateful day arrives.
I don't buy this for the same reasons I didn't buy the Iraqi story. Building a bomb isn't that hard and enriching the uranium, while tedious, isn’t' that hard either. Also, the Iranian students/scientists I knew were all working hard, getting good grades and had every intention of going back to Iran and building weapons. Hell, there were 2 Iranians in my nuclear weapons design class at Penn State in 1985. They got A's. The scientists I talked to in 2001 were sober, serious, and seemed to think they were going to need nukes soon.
Personally, I think they already have some and are not far from building arbitrary quantities of more.
My concern now is that the army is stretched thin, exhausted from the Iraq war, and the american appitite for taking war to other countries is gone. I think Iran thinks we are too wasted from this to go after them, and they now have a free pass. Our credibility with the rest of the world on this issue is for shit. Far from detering Iran, I think the Iraq War has emboldened them.
Before the Iraq invasion in 2003, I had conversations with pro-war folks, notably Travis and Geoff, about the possibility that Iraq had nuclear weapons. I went on record as saying I thought there was zero chance, largely because I've talked to a number of Iraqi scientists and weapons inspectors and they all said the same thing, i.e. they were faking progress on weapons to keep Saddam happy and their families alive. Very similar to what Hiezenburg did during WWII. I believed them. The pro-war crowd implied they were lying to us not Saddam and "do you really want to take that risk". I did, but we didn't.
2 years later: there were no nuclear WMD, Iraqi scientists were faking results.
New prediction:
From the NYT today:
EARLIER this month Bush administration officials leaked to the press what they said was a new official estimate of when Iran might be able to build a nuclear weapon. Speaking anonymously, they told reporters that American intelligence agencies now believe it would take at least 6 and maybe as many as 10 years before that fateful day arrives.
I don't buy this for the same reasons I didn't buy the Iraqi story. Building a bomb isn't that hard and enriching the uranium, while tedious, isn’t' that hard either. Also, the Iranian students/scientists I knew were all working hard, getting good grades and had every intention of going back to Iran and building weapons. Hell, there were 2 Iranians in my nuclear weapons design class at Penn State in 1985. They got A's. The scientists I talked to in 2001 were sober, serious, and seemed to think they were going to need nukes soon.
Personally, I think they already have some and are not far from building arbitrary quantities of more.
My concern now is that the army is stretched thin, exhausted from the Iraq war, and the american appitite for taking war to other countries is gone. I think Iran thinks we are too wasted from this to go after them, and they now have a free pass. Our credibility with the rest of the world on this issue is for shit. Far from detering Iran, I think the Iraq War has emboldened them.
Confession Update
I got a handful of notes from folks on the confession thread last week, all of them saying essentailly the same thing; most mainstream religions have the tradition of a memberconfiding in a priest/shaman, but other than Catholicism and Scientology, no one else requires it's members to do so.
not even, oddly enough, Satanism.
weird.
not even, oddly enough, Satanism.
weird.
A Failure of Education
There is a good editorial today in the NYT about the depths of time and how 14 billion years play out in cosmology and in evolution. This quote struck me as a truism:
Much has been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth - and humans with it - was created as described in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn't a triumph of faith. It's a failure of education.
And that's really the way I see it. People ask me all the time, "what have you got against religion?". The answer is largely, every religion asks me to give up my freewill to their chosen representatives of their god and, usually soon afterward, the de-education begins.
Find me a religion where I can keep my scientific skepticism, keep my free will, keep meddlesome priests and shamans out of the line between me and the gods, and leaves me free to strongly hold the possibility that the gods don't exist at all, and maybe I would think about it.
So far, only free thinking allows me those choices.
Much has been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth - and humans with it - was created as described in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn't a triumph of faith. It's a failure of education.
And that's really the way I see it. People ask me all the time, "what have you got against religion?". The answer is largely, every religion asks me to give up my freewill to their chosen representatives of their god and, usually soon afterward, the de-education begins.
Find me a religion where I can keep my scientific skepticism, keep my free will, keep meddlesome priests and shamans out of the line between me and the gods, and leaves me free to strongly hold the possibility that the gods don't exist at all, and maybe I would think about it.
So far, only free thinking allows me those choices.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Bainbridge
goes off his meds. Or I have. Or maybe both of us, I dunno. All I do know is that he's saying what I'm saying and it scares me (but only just a little).
It's time for us conservatives to face facts. George W. Bush has pissed away the conservative moment by pursuing a war of choice via policies that border on the criminally incompetent. We control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and (more-or-less) the judiciary for one of the few times in my nearly 5 decades, but what have we really accomplished? Is government smaller? Have we hacked away at the nanny state? Are the unborn any more protected? Have we really set the stage for a durable conservative majority?
Meanwhile, Bush continues to insult our intelligence with tripe like this:
"Our troops know that they're fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere to protect their fellow Americans from a savage enemy," Bush said in his weekly radio address. {Ed: Full text here}
"They know that if we do not confront these evil men abroad, we will have to face them one day in our own cities and streets, and they know that the safety and security of every American is at stake in this war," he said.
I guess that's all he has left. After all, if Iraq's alleged WMD programs were the casus belli, why aren't we at war with Iran and North Korea? Not to mention Pakistan, which remains the odds-on favorite to supply the Islamofascists with a working nuke. If Saddam's cruelty to his own people was the casus belli, why aren't we taking out Kim Jong Il or any number of other nasty dictators? Indeed, what happened to the W of 2000, who correctly proclaimed nation building a failed cause and an inappropriate use of American military might? And why are we apparently going to allow the Islamists to write a more significant role for Islamic law into the new Iraqi constitution? If throwing a scare into the Saudis was the policy, so as to get them to rethink their deals with the jihadists, which has always struck me as the best rationale for the war, have things really improved on that front?
It's time for us conservatives to face facts. George W. Bush has pissed away the conservative moment by pursuing a war of choice via policies that border on the criminally incompetent. We control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and (more-or-less) the judiciary for one of the few times in my nearly 5 decades, but what have we really accomplished? Is government smaller? Have we hacked away at the nanny state? Are the unborn any more protected? Have we really set the stage for a durable conservative majority?
Meanwhile, Bush continues to insult our intelligence with tripe like this:
"Our troops know that they're fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere to protect their fellow Americans from a savage enemy," Bush said in his weekly radio address. {Ed: Full text here}
"They know that if we do not confront these evil men abroad, we will have to face them one day in our own cities and streets, and they know that the safety and security of every American is at stake in this war," he said.
I guess that's all he has left. After all, if Iraq's alleged WMD programs were the casus belli, why aren't we at war with Iran and North Korea? Not to mention Pakistan, which remains the odds-on favorite to supply the Islamofascists with a working nuke. If Saddam's cruelty to his own people was the casus belli, why aren't we taking out Kim Jong Il or any number of other nasty dictators? Indeed, what happened to the W of 2000, who correctly proclaimed nation building a failed cause and an inappropriate use of American military might? And why are we apparently going to allow the Islamists to write a more significant role for Islamic law into the new Iraqi constitution? If throwing a scare into the Saudis was the policy, so as to get them to rethink their deals with the jihadists, which has always struck me as the best rationale for the war, have things really improved on that front?
Chaotic Attractor in the Markets
One of the members of Long Term Capital Management, Myron Scholes (of Black-Scholes fame) was a student of Eugene Fama, author of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis in 1965. LTCM worked well for many years when the markets were steady and predictable, but failed when a number of 4 or 5 sigma events hit, destabilized their models and sent the whole thing to hell in a hand basket. In Scholes defense, the 4 sigma events should have happened only once in 5000 years, so he made a pretty good bet. That said, there were anomalies in their data which should not have occurred in the history of the universe if the Central Limit Theorem held. One might conclude then that the CLT does not hold and only the weak-EMH holds (if at all).
However, with a lot of non-linear dynamics and fractal math behind me, I can't help but see these kind of high-sigma events not so much as a refutation of the EMH (which it obviously is), but as evidence that there is a low-order chaotic attractor in the markets. With some knowledge of what that attractor looks like, one might be able to do a little better than the EMH in building a model that works in the stable times and squeaks loudly when it sees the influence of an attractor. It obviously wouldn't work *during* the phase change, but it would let you know quite a bit beforehand that the part of the phase space the market was entering was known to be chaotic. It also would not tell you if, during a particular week, the change was going to happen or it was going to miss, i.e. is it really unstable or merely soon-to-be unstable, but it would be better than what currently exists.
Fama's refutation of the critiques of the EMH is here and worth a read, in part because it's not persuasive. Basically he says that EMH is the best we have, so it must me right. I think it's only partly right and it's possible to do better.
I am also, BTW, certain someone else has looked for the attractor in the markets, but I want to see how far I get before going to look up the answer.
However, with a lot of non-linear dynamics and fractal math behind me, I can't help but see these kind of high-sigma events not so much as a refutation of the EMH (which it obviously is), but as evidence that there is a low-order chaotic attractor in the markets. With some knowledge of what that attractor looks like, one might be able to do a little better than the EMH in building a model that works in the stable times and squeaks loudly when it sees the influence of an attractor. It obviously wouldn't work *during* the phase change, but it would let you know quite a bit beforehand that the part of the phase space the market was entering was known to be chaotic. It also would not tell you if, during a particular week, the change was going to happen or it was going to miss, i.e. is it really unstable or merely soon-to-be unstable, but it would be better than what currently exists.
Fama's refutation of the critiques of the EMH is here and worth a read, in part because it's not persuasive. Basically he says that EMH is the best we have, so it must me right. I think it's only partly right and it's possible to do better.
I am also, BTW, certain someone else has looked for the attractor in the markets, but I want to see how far I get before going to look up the answer.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Iraqi Constituition: What's The F-ing Problem?
What the hell is the problem with the Iraqi constitution? How hard can this be? Take the US Constitution, do a search and replace on United States with Iraq and presto! Democracy!
What the hell is their problem over there? I'll give them a copy of Office 2003!
Here, I'll even get them started:
We the People of Iraq, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for Iraq.
Article. I.
Section 1.
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of Iraq, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Section. 2.
Clause 1: The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
Clause 2: No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of Iraq, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
Clause 3: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. (See Note 2) The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of Iraq, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative;
Clause 4: When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.
Clause 5: The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Section. 3.
Clause 1: The Senate of Iraq shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, (See Note 3) for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.
Clause 2: Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies. (See Note 4)
Clause 3: No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of Iraq, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
Clause 4: The Vice President of Iraq shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.
etc. and so forth.
The hang up seems to be that they are trying to set up an Islamic government, which they better not 'cause I don't think that's what we had in mind...
$200,000,000,000 for another Islamofacist haven? No way! Now I'm ready to invade the place and knock some sense into them.
What the hell is their problem over there? I'll give them a copy of Office 2003!
Here, I'll even get them started:
We the People of Iraq, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for Iraq.
Article. I.
Section 1.
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of Iraq, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Section. 2.
Clause 1: The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
Clause 2: No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of Iraq, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
Clause 3: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. (See Note 2) The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of Iraq, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative;
Clause 4: When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.
Clause 5: The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Section. 3.
Clause 1: The Senate of Iraq shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, (See Note 3) for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.
Clause 2: Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies. (See Note 4)
Clause 3: No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of Iraq, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
Clause 4: The Vice President of Iraq shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.
etc. and so forth.
The hang up seems to be that they are trying to set up an Islamic government, which they better not 'cause I don't think that's what we had in mind...
$200,000,000,000 for another Islamofacist haven? No way! Now I'm ready to invade the place and knock some sense into them.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Not the Way to do Science
The right way to do science is to criticize the idea, not the author. This is poor form and an embrassment.
Within hours of publication, senior scientists at the Smithsonian Institution -- which has helped fund and run the journal -- lashed out at Sternberg as a shoddy scientist and a closet Bible thumper.
"They were saying I accepted money under the table, that I was a crypto-priest, that I was a sleeper cell operative for the creationists," said Steinberg, 42 , who is a Smithsonian research associate. "I was basically run out of there."
An independent agency has come to the same conclusion, accusing top scientists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History of retaliating against Sternberg by investigating his religion and smearing him as a "creationist."
Within hours of publication, senior scientists at the Smithsonian Institution -- which has helped fund and run the journal -- lashed out at Sternberg as a shoddy scientist and a closet Bible thumper.
"They were saying I accepted money under the table, that I was a crypto-priest, that I was a sleeper cell operative for the creationists," said Steinberg, 42 , who is a Smithsonian research associate. "I was basically run out of there."
An independent agency has come to the same conclusion, accusing top scientists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History of retaliating against Sternberg by investigating his religion and smearing him as a "creationist."
Senate Approval Ratings
This is very interesting, the current Approve/Disapprove of all 100 Senators as rated in their states.
For MA its:
36 MA Kennedy, Edward D SR 61% 33% 28% Senator Approval Tracked for Kennedy, Edward
73 MA Kerry, John D JR 53% 40% 13% Senator Approval Tracked for Kerry, John
which is about what I would expect. I probably won't vote for Kerry (actually I've never voted for Kerry except for president) and Ted, of course, has my unconditional lifetime vote for as long as he wants to be Senator*.
Least popular is Santorum
100 PA Santorum, Rick R JR 42% 46% -4% Senator Approval Tracked for Santorum, Rick
For this rating I fully and whole blame Dan Savage.
*He was one of 3 Senators who had the balls to stand up to Bush-41's Flag Burning Constituional Amendment which passed the Senate 97-3, and I pledged my lifetime support.
For MA its:
36 MA Kennedy, Edward D SR 61% 33% 28% Senator Approval Tracked for Kennedy, Edward
73 MA Kerry, John D JR 53% 40% 13% Senator Approval Tracked for Kerry, John
which is about what I would expect. I probably won't vote for Kerry (actually I've never voted for Kerry except for president) and Ted, of course, has my unconditional lifetime vote for as long as he wants to be Senator*.
Least popular is Santorum
100 PA Santorum, Rick R JR 42% 46% -4% Senator Approval Tracked for Santorum, Rick
For this rating I fully and whole blame Dan Savage.
*He was one of 3 Senators who had the balls to stand up to Bush-41's Flag Burning Constituional Amendment which passed the Senate 97-3, and I pledged my lifetime support.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
New Toy!
I bought a DVD-RW drive today and have been burning disks like a mad-man. I've got 1.5 TB of storage on the main server and have been a little bit nervous about the quality of my backup procedures.
So far, so good!
So far, so good!
The Divine Comedy
I started reading Dante's Divine Comedy yesterday afternoon, finished it today.
Wow.
A great piece of fiction on a lot of levels. Part of Paradisio really sounds like an NDE.
Wow.
A great piece of fiction on a lot of levels. Part of Paradisio really sounds like an NDE.
The Smartest Person I Know
Background: I have a Meeting with Ballmer next month, part of the week where people get locked away with him for a few days, throw around ideas and think about where to take the company in the next few years. It's apparently a Big Deal and, in fact, is a Bigger Deal than I was expecting. Part of this Deal is doing a whole bunch of prep-work, i.e. write a bio so Ballmer knows who you are and your background, write a summary of 3 ideas you think might be interesting, fill out this Form a month in advance. Okay, fine. I'm working on the Form which is actually a form of Intelligence Test. One of the questions is; who is the smartest person you've met?
This is an Intelligence Test in that, I strongly suspect, if you fill in Ballmer or Gates, you will fail to progress to the meeting.
This is a Good Thing, but it did get me thinking about my answer.
First I want to distinguish between Intelligent and Smart. I know LOTS of intelligent people, based on types of friends I make, my education, work etc. I'm a good estimator of IQ to within 5 points (until you get over 165 where IQ is, for all intents and purposes, not reliably measurable). However, Intelligent is not necessarily smart. Many of the most intelligent people I know have crippling intellectual pathologies which prevent them from progressing, e.g. phobias, delusions, self-consistent/self-contained personal mythologies which reject any outside evidence (not religion here, but personal beliefs about their own intellectual infallibility), etc. This keeps a depressingly large number of highly intelligent folks from being smarter than they should be. I try to root this out when I see it but realistically I've never been successful. It's a waste and, unfortunately I have to strike those names from the roster.
Smart, on the other hand, is rarer and only loosely coupled to intelligence. It's impossible to measure objectively, but I look for things like knowledge from multiple disciplines, free thinking, novel approaches to problems using synthesis from other fields (i.e. not necessarily coming up with a new idea but recognizing similar problems in other fields and transferring solutions over). Further, rather than a strict hierarchy, I have a bin of the 100 smartest people I know (and another of the smartest 1000) and occasionally add or remove names form the bin. FTR, I am *not* in the bin of 100, but I am in the bin of 1000. To qualify, I need to have had a conversation with the person of more than a few minutes and exchanged a few ideas.
So, winnowing the bin down to 10, I was left with this list (in no order).
Stephen Hawking (astrophysicist)
Moti Yung (mathematician)
Daniel Blaize (poet)
Ted Harrison (astrophysicist)
Carl Sagan (astronomer, butthead-class)
John Flemming (financier-Morgan Stanley)
Paul Tsongas (politician)
Alan Greenspan (Federal Reserve Chairman)
Dennis Maroney (moral compass)
Alistair Reynolds (writer)
and now, it gets tough. Some of these folks I know well (Dennis, Ted) some I've only met once or a few times (Greenspan, Reynolds). It's tough to say, and tougher to rate. In the end though, I decided to look at whose thinking has most directly effected my actions, thoughts or views. That narrows it down to:
Ted Harrison
Carl Sagan
Alan Greenspan
Finally, taking into account intellectual diversity, practicality and just sheer talent at being smart it comes down to:
Ted Harrison
Which was not the answer I was expecting, but I am very comfortable with it. If I could end up as smart as Ted, I'd be a very happy camper.
This is an Intelligence Test in that, I strongly suspect, if you fill in Ballmer or Gates, you will fail to progress to the meeting.
This is a Good Thing, but it did get me thinking about my answer.
First I want to distinguish between Intelligent and Smart. I know LOTS of intelligent people, based on types of friends I make, my education, work etc. I'm a good estimator of IQ to within 5 points (until you get over 165 where IQ is, for all intents and purposes, not reliably measurable). However, Intelligent is not necessarily smart. Many of the most intelligent people I know have crippling intellectual pathologies which prevent them from progressing, e.g. phobias, delusions, self-consistent/self-contained personal mythologies which reject any outside evidence (not religion here, but personal beliefs about their own intellectual infallibility), etc. This keeps a depressingly large number of highly intelligent folks from being smarter than they should be. I try to root this out when I see it but realistically I've never been successful. It's a waste and, unfortunately I have to strike those names from the roster.
Smart, on the other hand, is rarer and only loosely coupled to intelligence. It's impossible to measure objectively, but I look for things like knowledge from multiple disciplines, free thinking, novel approaches to problems using synthesis from other fields (i.e. not necessarily coming up with a new idea but recognizing similar problems in other fields and transferring solutions over). Further, rather than a strict hierarchy, I have a bin of the 100 smartest people I know (and another of the smartest 1000) and occasionally add or remove names form the bin. FTR, I am *not* in the bin of 100, but I am in the bin of 1000. To qualify, I need to have had a conversation with the person of more than a few minutes and exchanged a few ideas.
So, winnowing the bin down to 10, I was left with this list (in no order).
Stephen Hawking (astrophysicist)
Moti Yung (mathematician)
Daniel Blaize (poet)
Ted Harrison (astrophysicist)
Carl Sagan (astronomer, butthead-class)
John Flemming (financier-Morgan Stanley)
Paul Tsongas (politician)
Alan Greenspan (Federal Reserve Chairman)
Dennis Maroney (moral compass)
Alistair Reynolds (writer)
and now, it gets tough. Some of these folks I know well (Dennis, Ted) some I've only met once or a few times (Greenspan, Reynolds). It's tough to say, and tougher to rate. In the end though, I decided to look at whose thinking has most directly effected my actions, thoughts or views. That narrows it down to:
Ted Harrison
Carl Sagan
Alan Greenspan
Finally, taking into account intellectual diversity, practicality and just sheer talent at being smart it comes down to:
Ted Harrison
Which was not the answer I was expecting, but I am very comfortable with it. If I could end up as smart as Ted, I'd be a very happy camper.
Ted Kennedy Story
Andrew Sullivan is on vacation (in p-town appearently although I haven't seen him) and has been lending out his site to various bloggers to fill in the time. Last week was Dan Savage who was amusing but intellectually light and, some would say, a little too gay all the time.
This week is Walter Kim, who is in quite a different vein. Yesterday he dropped a "drunken Ted Kennedy" story in, although I have to say, it wasn't as gratutious as it sounds.
Quick story. In the mid 1980s I went to a fancy Fifth Av. party for Senator Ted Kennedy. There were journalists there and lots of other bigwigs. The only time I'd seen Kennedy before was at a campaign stop in 1979 when he'd been seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He might have won, but I realized at the party that it would have been a terrible thing because he was the drunkest human being I had ever encountered in my life, and chances were that it hadn't just started that night. Sure, he already had this reputation, but it was a vague reputation, all myth and gossip, while the intoxicated wreck in front of me was as vivid and specific as a car wreck. How many thousands of times, I wondered, had such behavior as I was witnessing been quietly countenanced by journalists, and how much other wild, scary stuff pertaining to other movers and shakers who had a shot at ruling the free world, say, had they deftly slipped into their back pockets in return for the right to attend such parties as this one?
This week is Walter Kim, who is in quite a different vein. Yesterday he dropped a "drunken Ted Kennedy" story in, although I have to say, it wasn't as gratutious as it sounds.
Quick story. In the mid 1980s I went to a fancy Fifth Av. party for Senator Ted Kennedy. There were journalists there and lots of other bigwigs. The only time I'd seen Kennedy before was at a campaign stop in 1979 when he'd been seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He might have won, but I realized at the party that it would have been a terrible thing because he was the drunkest human being I had ever encountered in my life, and chances were that it hadn't just started that night. Sure, he already had this reputation, but it was a vague reputation, all myth and gossip, while the intoxicated wreck in front of me was as vivid and specific as a car wreck. How many thousands of times, I wondered, had such behavior as I was witnessing been quietly countenanced by journalists, and how much other wild, scary stuff pertaining to other movers and shakers who had a shot at ruling the free world, say, had they deftly slipped into their back pockets in return for the right to attend such parties as this one?
Pathos
This is a well-written piece of persuasive writing written in the style of Pathos (Persuasive rhetoric having three basic types of appeal, Logos, Ethos and Pathos with Pathos being the weakest and least effective of the three). I tend to write arguments in the logos mode and tend to immediately dismiss pathos as already being half-lost. Still, this is well-written (to the guy who drove over memorial crosses at Cindy Sheehan's protest in Crawford) and serves as a good example of the form when done properly:
Mr. Northern:
I am a Veteran of the Iraq war, having served with the 4th Infantry Division on the initial invasion with Force Package One.
While I was in Iraq,a very good friend of mine, Christopher Cutchall,was killed in an unarmoredHMMWV outside of Baghdad. He was a cavalry scout serving with the 3d ID.Once he had declined the award of a medal because Soldiers assigned to him did not receive similar awards that he had recommended. He left two sons and awonderful wife. On Monday night, August 16, you ran down the memorial cross erected for him by Arlington West.
One of my Soldiers in Iraq was Roger Turner. We gave him a hard time because he always wore all of his protective equipment, including three pairs of glasses or goggles. He did this because he wanted to make sure that he returned home to his family. He rode a bicycle to work every day to make sure that he was able to save enough money on his Army salary to send his son to college. At Camp Anaconda, where the squadron briefly stayed, a rocket landed inside a tent, sending a piece of debris or fragment into him and killed him. On Monday night, August 16, you ran down the memorial cross erected for him by Arlington West.
One of my Soldiers was Henry Bacon. He was one of the finest men I ever met. He was in perfect shape for a man over forty, working hard at night. He told me that he did that because he didn't have much money to buy nice things for his wife, who he loved so much, so he had to be in good shape for her. He was like a father to many young men in his section of maintenance mechanics. They fixed our vehicles with almost no support and fabricated parts and made repairs that kept our squadron rolling on the longest, fastest armor advance ever made under fire. He was so very proud of his son-in-law that married the beautiful daughter so well raised by Henry. His son-in-law was a helicopter pilot with the 1st Cavalry Division, who died last year. Henry stopped to rescue a vehicle belonging to another unit on what was to be his last day in Iraq. He could have kept rolling - he was headed to Kuwait after a year's tour. But he stopped. He could have sent others to do the work, but he was on the ground, leading by example, when he was killed. On Monday night, August 16, you took it upon yourself to go out in the country, where a peaceful group was exercising their constitutional rights, and harming no one, and you ran down the memorial cross erected for Henry and for his son-in-law by Arlington West.
Mr. Northern - I know little about Cindy Sheehan except that she is a grieving mother, a gentle soul, and wants to bring harm to no one. I know little about you except that you found your way to Crawford on Monday night in August with chains and a pipe attached to your truck for the sole purpose of dishonoring a memorial erected for my friends and lost Soldiers and hundreds of others that served this nation when they were called. I find it disheartening that good men like these have died so that people like you can threaten a mother who lost a child with your actions.
I hope that you are ashamed of yourself.
Perry Jefferies, First Sergeant, USA (retired)
I suspect that far from being ashamed of himself, Mr. Northern is quite proud of the fact he defended the president from his critics.
Mr. Northern:
I am a Veteran of the Iraq war, having served with the 4th Infantry Division on the initial invasion with Force Package One.
While I was in Iraq,a very good friend of mine, Christopher Cutchall,was killed in an unarmoredHMMWV outside of Baghdad. He was a cavalry scout serving with the 3d ID.Once he had declined the award of a medal because Soldiers assigned to him did not receive similar awards that he had recommended. He left two sons and awonderful wife. On Monday night, August 16, you ran down the memorial cross erected for him by Arlington West.
One of my Soldiers in Iraq was Roger Turner. We gave him a hard time because he always wore all of his protective equipment, including three pairs of glasses or goggles. He did this because he wanted to make sure that he returned home to his family. He rode a bicycle to work every day to make sure that he was able to save enough money on his Army salary to send his son to college. At Camp Anaconda, where the squadron briefly stayed, a rocket landed inside a tent, sending a piece of debris or fragment into him and killed him. On Monday night, August 16, you ran down the memorial cross erected for him by Arlington West.
One of my Soldiers was Henry Bacon. He was one of the finest men I ever met. He was in perfect shape for a man over forty, working hard at night. He told me that he did that because he didn't have much money to buy nice things for his wife, who he loved so much, so he had to be in good shape for her. He was like a father to many young men in his section of maintenance mechanics. They fixed our vehicles with almost no support and fabricated parts and made repairs that kept our squadron rolling on the longest, fastest armor advance ever made under fire. He was so very proud of his son-in-law that married the beautiful daughter so well raised by Henry. His son-in-law was a helicopter pilot with the 1st Cavalry Division, who died last year. Henry stopped to rescue a vehicle belonging to another unit on what was to be his last day in Iraq. He could have kept rolling - he was headed to Kuwait after a year's tour. But he stopped. He could have sent others to do the work, but he was on the ground, leading by example, when he was killed. On Monday night, August 16, you took it upon yourself to go out in the country, where a peaceful group was exercising their constitutional rights, and harming no one, and you ran down the memorial cross erected for Henry and for his son-in-law by Arlington West.
Mr. Northern - I know little about Cindy Sheehan except that she is a grieving mother, a gentle soul, and wants to bring harm to no one. I know little about you except that you found your way to Crawford on Monday night in August with chains and a pipe attached to your truck for the sole purpose of dishonoring a memorial erected for my friends and lost Soldiers and hundreds of others that served this nation when they were called. I find it disheartening that good men like these have died so that people like you can threaten a mother who lost a child with your actions.
I hope that you are ashamed of yourself.
Perry Jefferies, First Sergeant, USA (retired)
I suspect that far from being ashamed of himself, Mr. Northern is quite proud of the fact he defended the president from his critics.
Reunion!
I had dinner last night with the larger portion of my graduate class, which was lots and lots of fun. Mostly they all hang in the same circle and bump into each other on a semi-annual basis, but for me it was the first time I had gotten together with the group in 3 or 4 years. Lots of fun.
There's more history among us than many sibling have, so it's sometimes a little awkward and, of course, not everyone showed up (This one is still a little miffed at that one), but overall it was a great time.
One especially interesting thing: apparently the ID debate is coming to the Smithsonian in the next year. A group of GOP congressmen are threatening to substantively cut funding to it (and by extension the SAO) unless the Smithsonian "get on board" with ID. Travis would, no doubt, say this was a Good Thing since science (or anything else) shouldn't be funded with public money. As I've said before, I think this is a narrow, short-sighted and ultimately self-defeating view (countries that don’t' fund science get beat to the Moon by countries that do). OTOH, If this is really going to happen, it might be a chance to draw a bright line on the battlefield and show ID and the GOP as being anti-science. In a world where Koreans are cloning dogs, the Chinese are heading to the Moon, and India has more programmers, maybe it isn't such a great idea to start insisting that our R&D incorporate mythological elements. I could see this as another PBS-type debate with the strong, historical reputation of the Smithsonian coming into play against the more hysterical anto-science arguments.
We'll see I suppose.
There's more history among us than many sibling have, so it's sometimes a little awkward and, of course, not everyone showed up (This one is still a little miffed at that one), but overall it was a great time.
One especially interesting thing: apparently the ID debate is coming to the Smithsonian in the next year. A group of GOP congressmen are threatening to substantively cut funding to it (and by extension the SAO) unless the Smithsonian "get on board" with ID. Travis would, no doubt, say this was a Good Thing since science (or anything else) shouldn't be funded with public money. As I've said before, I think this is a narrow, short-sighted and ultimately self-defeating view (countries that don’t' fund science get beat to the Moon by countries that do). OTOH, If this is really going to happen, it might be a chance to draw a bright line on the battlefield and show ID and the GOP as being anti-science. In a world where Koreans are cloning dogs, the Chinese are heading to the Moon, and India has more programmers, maybe it isn't such a great idea to start insisting that our R&D incorporate mythological elements. I could see this as another PBS-type debate with the strong, historical reputation of the Smithsonian coming into play against the more hysterical anto-science arguments.
We'll see I suppose.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Taking Prudie to task
Finally, in catching up on my reading over this mini-vacation, I dashed off a note to Prudie for this advice of hers:
Dear Prudence,
Am I being prickly, or do I have a valid complaint? It drives me absolutely batty when I thank a waiter, sales clerk, or other paid service person and the response is "no problem." I paid you to bring me my meal or find those shoes in my size, and the fact that it was or wasn't a problem is of no interest to me. A few times I've actually responded that "I don't really care if it was a problem or not," which I know was wrong, but I was aflame with ire and it just came out. As for myself, whenever I am thanked, I always respond with, "You're welcome," "I'm happy to help," or "My pleasure." Is it too much to ask that others do the same?
—David M.
Dear Dave,
You have come to the right place. Prudie, herself, is a bit of a churl about that "No problem" business. It has, unfortunately, crept into the language and does not seem about to be displaced. Some phrases take hold and then go on to lose all meaning. Another regrettable example is the phrase "soul mate" which has become the supposed ultimate accolade to a spouse, fiancee, what have you. "No problem" is meant to be polite. That is, people who say it are not trying to be annoying, they are just linguistic sheep. In a hotel once, the music from a neighboring room was way too loud, and Prudie called the desk to ask them to please inform the offender. The answer of course was, "No problem." When there were no results, and Prudie called back to repeat the request, again there was the mindless "No problem." With exactly your feeling of "aaarrrgh," Prudie's response was, "Apparently you are mistaken, because it is proving to be a problem."
To which, the old grammar curmudgeon in me came out to say:
Dear Prudie,
I've read and enjoyed your column for a long time and, and often agree with your advice. I often find it practical and no-nonsense.
I'm writing about your advice to David M. on the use of "No Problem" as a response to thanks. I use this phrase quite a bit myself when the effort was, in fact, not actually a problem for me to do. People ask favors all the time, many of which are minor problems of some degree or another. For the small ones, "No Problem" is accurate, concise and reflects the degree of difficulty of the favor. This seems to me to be more honest and accurate than something like "My Pleasure", which often it is not (although when it is, I'll use that) and quite a bit less formal than "You're Welcome". I use it consciously and accurately and until I read your column I had no idea that anyone found it objectionable.
Accurately,
-Mark
Dear Prudence,
Am I being prickly, or do I have a valid complaint? It drives me absolutely batty when I thank a waiter, sales clerk, or other paid service person and the response is "no problem." I paid you to bring me my meal or find those shoes in my size, and the fact that it was or wasn't a problem is of no interest to me. A few times I've actually responded that "I don't really care if it was a problem or not," which I know was wrong, but I was aflame with ire and it just came out. As for myself, whenever I am thanked, I always respond with, "You're welcome," "I'm happy to help," or "My pleasure." Is it too much to ask that others do the same?
—David M.
Dear Dave,
You have come to the right place. Prudie, herself, is a bit of a churl about that "No problem" business. It has, unfortunately, crept into the language and does not seem about to be displaced. Some phrases take hold and then go on to lose all meaning. Another regrettable example is the phrase "soul mate" which has become the supposed ultimate accolade to a spouse, fiancee, what have you. "No problem" is meant to be polite. That is, people who say it are not trying to be annoying, they are just linguistic sheep. In a hotel once, the music from a neighboring room was way too loud, and Prudie called the desk to ask them to please inform the offender. The answer of course was, "No problem." When there were no results, and Prudie called back to repeat the request, again there was the mindless "No problem." With exactly your feeling of "aaarrrgh," Prudie's response was, "Apparently you are mistaken, because it is proving to be a problem."
To which, the old grammar curmudgeon in me came out to say:
Dear Prudie,
I've read and enjoyed your column for a long time and, and often agree with your advice. I often find it practical and no-nonsense.
I'm writing about your advice to David M. on the use of "No Problem" as a response to thanks. I use this phrase quite a bit myself when the effort was, in fact, not actually a problem for me to do. People ask favors all the time, many of which are minor problems of some degree or another. For the small ones, "No Problem" is accurate, concise and reflects the degree of difficulty of the favor. This seems to me to be more honest and accurate than something like "My Pleasure", which often it is not (although when it is, I'll use that) and quite a bit less formal than "You're Welcome". I use it consciously and accurately and until I read your column I had no idea that anyone found it objectionable.
Accurately,
-Mark
Roberts on the SCOTUS?
Also, in Slate, a good article on Roberts and why I have a hard time getting worked up into a lather about him.
The same conservatism that leads him to decry judicial overreaching in the privacy and civil rights contexts is part and parcel of a larger conservatism that distrusts reckless grandiosity. The same quality, in short, that kept Roberts from sneaking off into the woods to smoke may be the same quality that keeps him from torching Roe v. Wade. The Clarence Thomases of this world—men unafraid of tearing down centuries of constitutional scaffolding in order to impose their own theories of constitutional construction—are far scarier to me. Those are the guys who probably did barf off the clock towers in college; guys with the hubris and drive to change the world without going through the confirmation process first. Scalia doesn't care what anyone thinks of him, and Thomas is happiest when he's provoking outrage. Roberts cares a lot about looking temperate, and that isn't a bad thing in a judge.
When I want to alter the constitutional framework, I'll elect folk to do it. What I want are judges with a sense of, well, judgement.
The same conservatism that leads him to decry judicial overreaching in the privacy and civil rights contexts is part and parcel of a larger conservatism that distrusts reckless grandiosity. The same quality, in short, that kept Roberts from sneaking off into the woods to smoke may be the same quality that keeps him from torching Roe v. Wade. The Clarence Thomases of this world—men unafraid of tearing down centuries of constitutional scaffolding in order to impose their own theories of constitutional construction—are far scarier to me. Those are the guys who probably did barf off the clock towers in college; guys with the hubris and drive to change the world without going through the confirmation process first. Scalia doesn't care what anyone thinks of him, and Thomas is happiest when he's provoking outrage. Roberts cares a lot about looking temperate, and that isn't a bad thing in a judge.
When I want to alter the constitutional framework, I'll elect folk to do it. What I want are judges with a sense of, well, judgement.
Best Understatement of the Week
From Slate:
Matt LeBlanc opens up. The Enquirer must have something good on Matt LeBlanc, because the married Joey star sits down for a contrite photo session and interview in which he explains how he came to be groping a stripper in Canada. "The stripper was all over me," he says. "I was pretty drunk. … I could not wait to get home." Critics are calling the tale "improbable."
Matt LeBlanc opens up. The Enquirer must have something good on Matt LeBlanc, because the married Joey star sits down for a contrite photo session and interview in which he explains how he came to be groping a stripper in Canada. "The stripper was all over me," he says. "I was pretty drunk. … I could not wait to get home." Critics are calling the tale "improbable."
An Unrepentant Gravisist
Whenever the Creationist or ID tell me "Evolution is just a theory", I always respond with a version of, "yes, it is. Just like Relativity or Gravitation", which almost always ends the argument Usually my arguments with the religious simply end at this point, they generally know they are losing ground and stop digging.
Thus I remain an unrepentant gravisist.
Thus I remain an unrepentant gravisist.
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