Well, I'm back from Hawai'i. We got in around 11:00 last night, and we took today to run post-vacation errands. Here's a video to whet your appetite for tropical things (the music is mine):



Here's a photo of some of the other family members admiring the scenery:

Mnemonics

I've known about mnemonics since college, but I haven't really used them much (at all) until reading Derren Brown's book.

I am using them extensively in learning Hindi. I am also using them to remember names at parties.

I was describing my method to some co-workers this week. I said:

"Since it's easy to remember faces and other visual things, basically what you do is visualize the other person interacting in some remarkable way with someone else with the same name. So, like, if I met someone named Jeremy, I might remember Jeremy Irons giving the new guy a head lock."

I've been stuttering with increasing frequency in the past three years. Not sure why. But it so happens that I stuttered a bit on that last sentence. Thus, what the others heard was "Jeremy Irons giving the new guy head."

Mmmn-hmmmn. That would be memorable. The joke certainly is: perhaps someday they'll stop making references to it.

[Image blatantly stolen from some news site. Wipe that grin off your face, Irons.]

All I Care To Know About Gangs...

I learned from TED... a few interesting things about gangs.

Gang members have a 7% annual mortality rate. Death row has a 2% mortality rate. American soldiers in Iraq have a 0.5% mortality rate.

"Foot Soldiers" in a gang average $3.50/hr. Twice as much when there's a "war" going on.

Most of these people moonlight at McDonalds and the like.

The "success" rate in a gang is about the same as in the corporate world... very, very few rise to positions of power. ...If they make it, they can earn $100-$300k per year. ...But those people tend to hold power. So you're almost completely barred from "promotion".

The "bling" you see isn't gold; it's gold-plated. The Bentleys are rented. The flashes of lots of money was borrowed.

Go watch the video. It's very entertaining: good information and a few laughs.

Morality

Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug? And which do you think is the least admirable? For most people, it's an easy question.

Yet a deeper look might lead you to rethink your answers. Borlaug, father of the "Green Revolution" that used agricultural science to reduce world hunger, has been credited with saving a billion lives, more than anyone else in history. Gates... determined that he could alleviate the most misery by fighting everyday scourges in the developing world like malaria , diarrhea and parasites. Mother Teresa, for her part, extolled the virtue of suffering and ran her well-financed missions accordingly: their sick patrons were offered plenty of prayer but harsh conditions, few analgesics and dangerously primitive medical care.

...So begins an article by Steven Pinker. Here are some other juicy excerpts:

Much of our recent social history, including the culture wars between liberals and conservatives, consists of the moralization or amoralization of particular kinds of behavior. Even when people agree that an outcome is desirable, they may disagree on whether it should be treated as a matter of preference and prudence or as a matter of sin and virtue. Rozin notes, for example, that smoking has lately been moralized. ...Smokers are ostracized; images of people smoking are censored; and entities touched by smoke are felt to be contaminated...

This wave of amoralization has led the cultural right to lament that morality itself is under assault, as we see in the group that anointed itself the Moral Majority. In fact there seems to be a Law of Conservation of Moralization, so that as old behaviors are taken out of the moralized column, new ones are added to it.

Driving a gas-guzzling Hummer is reprehensible, but driving a gas-guzzling old Volvo is not; eating a Big Mac is unconscionable, but not imported cheese or crème brûlée. The reason for these double standards is obvious: people tend to align their moralization with their own lifestyles.

...Consider [this situation], originally devised by the psychologist Jonathan Haidt:

Julie is traveling in France on summer vacation from college with her brother Mark. One night they decide that it would be interesting and fun if they tried making love. Julie was already taking birth-control pills, but Mark uses a condom, too, just to be safe. They both enjoy the sex but decide not to do it again. They keep the night as a special secret, which makes them feel closer to each other. What do you think about that — was it O.K. for them to make love?

Most people immediately declare that these acts are wrong and then grope to justify why they are wrong. It's not so easy. In the case of Julie and Mark, people raise the possibility of children with birth defects, but they are reminded that the couple were diligent about contraception . They suggest that the siblings will be emotionally hurt, but the story makes it clear that they weren't. They submit that the act would offend the community, but then recall that it was kept a secret. Eventually many people admit, "I don't know, I can't explain it, I just know it's wrong." People don't generally engage in moral reasoning, Haidt argues, but moral rationalization: they begin with the conclusion, coughed up by an unconscious emotion, and then work backward to a plausible justification.

When anthropologists like Richard Shweder and Alan Fiske survey moral concerns across the globe, they find that a few themes keep popping up from amid the diversity. ...Haidt counts five — harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty), authority and purity.

By my own introspection, I'm absurdly unmotivated by community, authority, and purity. I've very strongly motivated by harm, and moderately by fairness. ...Well, with some special exceptions: I'm very well-behaved. Basically I believe in transgression with permission in most cases. ; )

In a large Web survey, Haidt found that liberals put a lopsided moral weight on harm and fairness while playing down group loyalty, authority and purity. Conservatives instead place a moderately high weight on all five. It's not surprising that each side thinks it is driven by lofty ethical values and that the other side is base and unprincipled.

Go figure. One last quote:

People have shuddered at all kinds of morally irrelevant violations of purity in their culture: touching an untouchable, drinking from the same water fountain as a Negro, allowing Jewish blood to mix with Aryan blood, tolerating sodomy between consenting men. And if our ancestors' repugnance had carried the day, we never would have had autopsies, vaccinations, blood transfusions, artificial insemination, organ transplants and in vitro fertilization, all of which were denounced as immoral when they were new.

Okay, now go read the whole thing.

Science Blog

I am currently in the market for a good "Science Blog". I've looked at these, and while there were a few good ones, the really popular blogs seem to be at most 20% science, and 80% "creationism can suck it". I don't need to hear about the whackadoos. I am also passing over the big magazines (Science, Nature, etc) because they don't post full articles, only soundbytes with links. (Honestly, I am thinking of nixing Scott Adams' blog because he switched to this format. It's sad.) If I can read the whole thing in Google Reader, I am unlikely to bother.

And no, Rolfe, Repeated Explitives doesn't count as science. And, yes, you can object all you want. : )

The Man Who Could Take Any Medicine

Not one who normally likes diverting my readers to other blogs without explanation of what they're getting into, I must break protocol for Scott Adam's story today. The creator of Dilbert apparantly prizes himself on the ability to take any medicine, regardless of how foul the taste.

Recently, he was defeated.

It's a story worth reading. Please do.

Paper Bags of Firey Fun

In New Mexico, we celebrate the holiday season by putting flaming lunchbags on our lawns.

Sundance Music Festival

I just sent this email to Bad Loop and Recue:

Okay, I've been euphoric about the sundance recording (the Kahvi version) for long enough now that I figured it was high time to comment to you both about it. (Cc'ing Nik cause I know he likes to hear this stuff.) ; )

I think it's fantastic. The style, mood, and tonality are consistent throughout, making for a coherent track. A gearhead like myself has to appreciate the work that's gone into the sound design. The rhythms are all perfectly glitchy and interesting throughout. The melodies, though, are what make this memorable: I find myself humming the various themes on a regular basis. The flow of the set is amazing, with both pauses and climaxes in the right places... it's just an amazing overall experience.

This gets queued up as often as my other favourites, and has officially made it to my "essentials" list. Definitely right up there with esem.

Thanks for making this available (and free). Count yourselves as having one more fan.

I suggest you check it out. You'll get an idea of the kind of music I love, and you may even grow to like it yourself.

Heroes

Damn: add Gandhi to my list of heroes. I'm a little ashamed that I didn't remember him earlier. I've long been a believer in what he did.

Brilliant guy. The fact that he found such brutally effective ways to counter the British occupation of India and Pakistan just astounds me, and his personal sacrifice is something to be thoroughly admired. He's one of my favourite human beings.

I was reminded of him in a conversation with friends about heroes. Specifically, the question:

If you could be any person, past or present, who would you be?

My answer to that was "an artist, in the future, where the ability to create is intimately facilitated by technology."

A friend of mine pointed out that almost everyone--including women--choose men.

Who would you be?

Why are men more "respected" in history?

All I Need Is A Hero [Edited]

Over the past few months, I've given thought (albeit limited) to heroes. And I don't mean the super- kind.

When we're kids, we were asked who our heroes were. Many answered it was their mother/father. I chose my grandfather.

Why don't we ask adults this question?

After thinking about it, I came up with four: E. O. Wilson, Derren Brown, Seth Godin, and Scott Adams. Let that say what it may.

Who are your heroes?

Do you know TED?

Today I discovered (thanks to Amy Hoy) a website called TED. Stands for "Technology, Entertainment, and Design", I think. It's an idea-sharing site, with video contributons from the likes of Jane Gooddall, AL Gore, and Richard Dawkins.

Once upon a time, I used to keep up with Edge. Then it got old-school. TED is new-school. Ideas for geeks. Stuff that matters.

If you already knew about TED, please tell me about these things! I am always looking for a good source of geekery! Take one look at the (large) stack of books by my bedside, and you'll see some role-playing books, sure, but 90% of it is non-fiction. Bordering on reference, even: biology textbooks, language instruction, knot-tying, science overviews, and art instruction.

Where do you go to get your geek on?

Be Nice.

The other day, I went out for brunch with my wife and house-mate. Coming out of the restaurant, we decided to head over to an art supply store, two buildings down. We were stopped by an obnoxious woman who "informed" us that where we were parked was for the plaza with the restaurant only, and not for the art store: we would have to move our vehicle.

This made me see red. I seriously contemplated confronting her: we had just eaten at the plaza, so we'd essentially paid for our parking. There's no way to easily move the car from here to there: it took me a full five minutes to drive around a very large block to move the car 100 yards. We were only going to be in the art store for 10 minutes, and there were plenty of parking spaces in the plaza lot. There was no need to interrupt us, no need to be so snippy, no need to waste our time. She had no right.

I kept it to myself, though. Still, I was still fuming an hour later. Part of me wished I had stood my ground.

What do you do when people aren't being nice?

Weekend Update

Three things to report:

My son and I played three games this weekend. The first was one called Heroscape, and it was the most age-appropriate of the three (we played the "simple" version). I won, but just barely. The second was Dungeons and Dragons Miatures. ...The rules were a little too hard, but he did quite well. And I have to admit: he was faster than I was with the math! He kicked my butt. The third was Star Wars Miatures. He mauled me.

Anyway, this is newsworthy only because I've long felt guilt about not spending enough time "playing" with my son. This was a good start. I have to say I was impressed... he lost the first game very gracefully, he learned the rules fairly quickly, and he didn't do anything overtly "stupid", tactically speaking. He did get overly excited about the game, especially the last one, where he was really wiping the floor with me. ...but that's him: he can't sit still and can't stop talking. ; )

I had a medical "slip" this past week. Last week, the doctor upped my dosage of Levothyroxine from 100 micrograms to 125. ...I had been having these occasional episodes of lightheadedness and chest "weirdness", that I couldn't quite describe. After the dosage changed, I started having them all the time. (Well, okay, several times an hour.) I noticed that if I took my pulse while these were happening, my heart-rate was all screwy. So I looked up cardiac arhythmia on Wikipedia and, lo and behold, this is a symptom of hyperthyroidism.

But it didn't stop there. Since I work with a dozen pharmacists, I asked around about it. I also work with six people who either have a thyroid imbalance or their spouse does... and I learned that the way my doctor was giving me my medication was prone to heart palplitations: this is why people normally start at very low levels of thyroxine and titrate up to the levels they need.

Anyway, I called the doctor--we was out--but another doctor at the office told me to go back to 100 micrograms, and to make an appointment for when my regular doctor gets back. I did both. The heart palpitations are completely gone now (three days later). All is well again.

It looks like I really will be using ruby at work! On Thursday, I had a meeting with all the other programmers about a new web-project that the center will be doing, and I argued for heavy use of Ajax. I showed my own code as an example--they were all very impressed--and then I showed the programmer who will head the new project how I was accomplishing it with Cold Fusion. I went on to explain a lot of the leg-work I was doing in CF was built-in to Ruby on Rails, and he was totally sold. We will pilot Rails next week, doing some pair-programming.

Not only that, but the center's lead deveopler asked me to schedule some sessions with the other programmers to teach them Ruby (and Rails), so we can all add it to our arsenal.

(I don't know if I logged this or not, but we recently switched from Visual Basic to C#, and have started pair-programming in it: it's insanely fun. Ruby will only be an improvement.)

With RubyCLR coming to maturity, and Ruby in Steel another option, I can't think of any reason why we wouldn't use it. A lot.

The lead programmer and I have already been joking about using IronPython (their main site isn't up at the moment). I wouldn't mind that. ...Though I admit, I've got a bias for Ruby at the moment. ;)

Perl is beautiful, and I will always love it... but I have come to admore "real" OO programming, and while it's possible in Perl... it's hackish.

Perl 6, of course, will be a god-send. ...But I am not holding my breath.

Ruby is, IMO, currently the most ideal scripting language. Java's bulky, and C# is... well... Microsofty (but I do enjoy it). C++ still reigns supreme in terms of speed and capability... but I'm a high-level programmer. ...But, most importantly, Ruby is fun, and has an amazing community. And Rails is pretty slick. : )