Irrelevant Innocence

I moved!

2008-04-07T13:52:00.001-05:00

Tenure and Other Concerns About The Academy

2007-04-20T20:13:00.000-05:00

Reading this post on Steven Levitt's blog got me thinking about the issue of tenure (thanks for the link, Zack). The main argument Levitt makes is that tenure does not increase overall productivity in academia because it is too much of an incentive early in the careers of academics and not enough of one later on. On the other hand, the reason we have tenure is that research can be risky and the benefits can be great if the research is successful. Furthermore, at stake is academic freedom: no political climate should be able to stop academics from expressing their thoughts. Both of these points are argued in the comments of the aforementioned post.

Mind you what you are about to read are the perspectives of an inexperienced grad student who has been in contact with academia only a few years, so read on with a grain of salt.

I think the tenure system is a bit broken. Academics don't get too much academic freedom that they wouldn't otherwise have. They don't pursue risky research early in their careers in order to obtain results that lead to the golden dream that is tenure and can become rather unproductive afterward. Of course this doesn't apply to every academic out there, but I can certainly think of at least a few cases. So, it is likely that a university gets stuck with an unproductive employee who can not be fired. While I understand where the idea of tenure comes from, it seems to me that it needs some tweaking.

Why do we think that the same person who is good at doing research should be good at teaching and at administering an academic department? Why do we think that this person should have infinite job security almost irrespective of his performance? How about those not being the same person? The only people that need to have some kind of risk-insurance in a department are those who do research.

I think that there need to be different contracts for different kinds of positions within an academic department. That is, hire people whose main responsibility is either to teach, research or administrate -- not all three. Then the processes for evaluating performance can then be tailored to each kind of contract.

For those who are hired as teachers, their performance is evaluated once every few years based on student class reviews, competence in the subjects they are required to teach and so forth. For those hired as researchers the performance evaluation can be tailored to the research they will be pursuing. "Tenure time" could be handled in ways similar to those used to allocate research funds: via proposals and committees. That is, a committee decides how much time of infinite job-security a researcher gets. During that time the researcher needs to produce results and a her next proposal and then the cycle repeats. This is where the people administrating the department come in. They are the ones in charge of hiring people, evaluating the performance of the department and adjusting accordingly. Perhaps there could even be mechanisms set up to switch roles within a department.

The first problem with some arrangement of this sort I can foresee is that there seem to be very few incentives to become a mere administrator or a teacher. All in all, most of us are in the game for the glory of doing research (maybe not?...), not for the red tape or those pesky undergrads asking questions about basic subjects during office hours! However, hopefully financial and other kinds of incentives could be used to make up the difference.

Another important caveat is that tenure offers a convenient facet when it comes to hiring-committees. They can hire the best possible candidate without fear of hiring their replacement. If there is a mechanism for switching from an administrative contract to a research one, why would an administrator planning on trying to become a researcher hire the competition? I have no good answer to this one, other than perhaps there should not be mechanisms for switching between administrative and research positions. This does make the administrative positions seem very unappealing...

Yet another caveat: how is the performance of the administrators evaluated? Maybe restructuring academic departments in this fashion has implications that require a broader restructuring of the university bureaucracy.

Yet another important caveat is the one about making the transition from the current system to whatever new system. I imagine a university changing their tenure structure to have less risk-insurance would have a harder time hiring people. On the other hand, it seems that the market of newly graduated PhDs and postdocs has enough of a labor surplus that universities could get away with it.

What do you think?

Top 10 Pieces of Advice I Wish Someone Had Given Me When I Was an Undergrad

2007-04-15T00:38:00.000-05:00

Like with any advice, the best advice I can give you about it is that you take what you feel applies to you and toss the rest. In any event, here it is...

10. Explore and get to know yourself, then establish your long-term goals as early as possible. Establish intermediate goals to get you there. Formulate the immediate plan. Execute it. Revise your goals. Redo the last three steps over and over.

9. Lead a healthy lifestyle both physically and mentally. Eat good food, exercise, go outside. Broaden your horizons. Meet people. Learn things unrelated to your field.

8. Get rid of your television.

7. You are too young to be bored. If you are bored it either means you are not pushing yourself enough or not living enough (or both). Don't let yourself be bored. Keep busy. Push yourself.

6. Make the most out of your summers. 15-week vacations will be a lot less frequent later on. A summer without learning or experiencing something significant is a wasted one.

5. Have an independent project in the back or front burner at all times. Have a book you are reading in your off-time (e.g. while riding the bus). Podcasts and books on tape make for great workout music. Finish one such book every few weeks.

4. Read the textbook from cover to cover. Do every problem in the book even if that is not required. It is a pity to pay over $100 for a book you never read. Well... there are some books that are just not worth the effort, but at least do this with the ones you know are important.

3. Be dedicated but make sure you live. You only get to turn 21 once. Make sure your friends tell you what happened. Never spend more than 3 weekends in a row without going to a social gathering and having a great time. Get hammered.

2. Travel.

1. Take your education into your own hands. Don't expect that you will learn by just following professor's, university and program prescriptions. Pursue your interests on your own in as much depth as time allows. Then pursue them some more even at the expense of some schoolwork.

The Hidden Iraq

2007-02-16T20:55:00.001-06:00

Just watched yet another documentary on Iraq. The most astounding fact revealed by it was that there have been 93 journalists killed during the conflict. To give perspective, about (sources vary) 70 journalists died during Vietnam (1955-75). The refreshing bit is that the internet seems to be having an impact on this. The documentary finishes by talking about bloggers from Iraq whom by virtue of fitting in are not targeted like western journalists and manage to get first-hand accounts out via the internet. This makes me wonder about the status of internet availability, though. And even if it is available, I wonder if there is government/US control of it and how much. Furthermore, it seems that it is a matter of time until whomever is targeting western journalists starts targeting the bloggers.

A Failed Coup...

2007-02-13T00:05:00.000-06:00

Just stumbled upon this and watched instead of doing my quantum homework. It is about events that took place in Venezuela 2002. I'm largely ignorant about all the subtleties of the matter, but I can still say that the documentary is rather insightful in that the makers seem to be very close to Chavez himself during everything. This same feature makes it a bit biased perhaps. One way or another, worth the watch.

Open Source Knowledge

2007-02-09T18:39:00.000-06:00

The lack of posts is Jackson's fault.

The overly inactive open-source revolutionary in me spoke the words 'if you ever write a textbook, please make it free' to two different professors this week. Should books be free like Linux is free? Yes, they should. Of course, printing costs are a reasonable thing to charge for and the author's time also has monetary value (which open-source software authors are usually willing to forfeit as probably would some academics). As it is there exist plenty free 'text books' online. Don't believe me? Check this out. Online books are nice, but if you are going to be doing a fair amount of reading it is actually nice to have a reasonable quality hard copy. So, my rough sketch of a solution is to create a 'publishing' company that operates as follows.

Books are made available online for free or for minimal cost (to break even in terms of hosting). People can then order printed copies of the books for an additional cost to cover printing expenses. This is all organized through a web-site... duh, it is me coming up with it, right?

This has its logistical fallacies: it is probably a lot cheaper to print several thousand copies of a book than printing them 'on demand'. But with reasonable popularity measures and printing practices the logistic problems could perhaps be made into manageable ones.
EDIT: Doing about 10 minutes worth of research into publishing costs revealed to me that one can expect to get a paperback quality book published for $5-20 per copy depending on the number of copies. This definitely makes the idea plausible.

Now we can take this to a whole new level. Imagine web-book 2.0. Users can register and have reviews, rankings and recommendations for books. Perhaps one can allow users to upload materials and have the system keep track of what items are related in one way or another. As the number of books and users grow the costs would probably do so as well, but I think that a non-for-profit spirit plus some creativity in ways to earn revenue could make ends meet. For instance, printed books could be sold at a price slightly higher than cost as to cover the other expenses of the site. Or perhaps users could pay a yearly membership fee.

Now a bit of due credit. Zack had a variation of this idea several years ago and it has been in the back of my head since then.

The main problem with all this is that for whatever reason the books that are available for free online are rarely as good as the overpriced published ones. I can think of several possible reasons why this is so, but whatever. In any event, my generation might have just gotten fed up enough with new editions that merely shuffle problems around and price tags over $100 to start producing reasonably good content that can be made available in a non-profit manner. I say it is the duty of our generation to start by writing a better e&m book.

Viva la Linux revolucion!

Security Profiteers

2007-01-25T11:18:00.000-06:00

I've been meaning to blog about this since my Florida trip in December. I had a long wait at the Orlando airport and while I was wondering around I stumbled upon a little light-blue and white kiosk that looked as if it came straight out of apple. The name: clear. There was nobody there, but there were some pamphlets. The deal is that you pay this company $100 per year and you get to skip airport security. Bruce Schneier has already blogged about this one.

The current security measures at airports are ineffective at best. They do more to hassle passengers than prevent terrorist attacks and they are a waste of resources. The main problem with something like Clear is that it seems to be out there just to make profits from having a security checkpoint that is run the way they all should be.

Graduate Studies: Some Ideas

2007-01-20T14:44:00.000-06:00

Francesca was telling me about how they do classes at her undergrad school in Italy and a few things seem to be very good. After some more thought, this post came about.

Three things:
There are exceptions but in my experience I've usually felt like professors would rather be spending their time in ways other than teaching.

Secondly, I do most of my learning by reading the prescribed and other books. I think I'm not quite the norm here, but it seems that there is enough literature out there that one can do most learning from books. Of course, there is still trickery and guidance that must be passed on from generation to generation in more interactive ways and books certainly don't answer questions -- not even if you raise your voice, curse, pull your hair or ask nicely!

Finally, it seems safe to assume that graduate students have enough interest and motivation to pursue their own studies without much of someone forcing them to do things like turning in homework assignments for grade in order to make sure they practice problems. Besides, the qualifier will speak for itself.

With all this in mind, it seems that the concept of 'graduate course' could use a bit of revamping. The main idea is to give more freedom to the students while trying to minimize the time that faculty have to devote to them in terms of the basic subjects -- research is a whole different beast. A department could, for instance, run the program so that the students are not required to take a core curriculum of classes. Instead, simply make clear what subjects should the students be responsible for. Learn this. See ya at the qual.

Of course only that would render the department useless. They need to do more for the student, and they may also want to monitor progress. One minimum requirement is for the department to provide tools such as problems and solutions (most schools give old qualifiers to current students as it is) -- according to Francesca in Italy this is fairly standard practice in most classes. Another tool to be provided should be an 'official bibliography' which should include information about what chapters to study. Heaven forbid someone read all of Jackson in hopes of preparing for the qual! Each student should be assigned an academic adviser with whom she is required to meet a few times a term. Finally, instead of the department assigning someone to teach each subject, the department could simply designate a faculty member to be the 'resident expert' in each subject for the year. The 'resident expert' should be available to students a few hours a week and could perhaps host a 2-3 hour group Q&A session each week. One could request that questions be emailed a couple of days in advance so that the Q&A sessions run a bit more smoothly.

Such an approach could have many benefits. For one, research is largely a self-study type activity and is also rather unstructured. I've heard people say that making the transition from classes to research is difficult because one has been trained in a very structured fashion for many years. For another, I think placing most of the responsibility about what and how to learn on the student is valuable preparation. Again, we are trying to train people to be capable of learning things that nobody knows yet. Finally, I think it would allow departments to use their faculty resources better. For example, I've asked a few people why is it that physics departments usually don't teach an undergraduate freshman class on basic mathematical methods for physicists. The answer is invariably: "we would like to, but it is hard to find resources for such a thing." It drains a lot less time to be available by appointment than to prepare lecture, hold office hours and grade homeworks and tests i.e. being the 'resident expert' should be a lot less time consuming than teaching the class.

As far as monitoring the progress of students, the department could require that the student turn in problems a few times a term. Checking for satisfactory progress should be a bit quicker and easier than assigning grades fairly based on homework and tests. In the end, the ultimate progress indicator is the qualifier anyways. But of course, departments may want to ensure that nobody is getting a one-year paid vacation!

As I write this I am thinking of Physics programs, but I have just edited the title to take Physics out. This, with some variation, could apply in most subjects.

EDIT:

A re-formatting of this kind would obviously be very difficult for any department as there are probably a million bureaucratic issues to deal with. More importantly, the current system clearly works (maybe it could be better, but it is certainly good enough). So perhaps a dose of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is in order. There are also several advantages of the current system. My friend David pointed out to me that a class is a good way to set pace and to get people with similar interest focused on the same subject. Also there is that a lecture by a good teacher who likes to teach is likely worth more than the same time spent reading on the same subject.

So maybe all this should just be some possible suggestions on how to run classes rather than how to run the first year of a graduate program.

Income Inequality and Human Nature

2007-01-10T13:59:00.000-06:00

An interesting read from yahoo finance. Most of the arguments should seem familiar: gini indices and crime rates. However, this bit was interesting and a bit surprising:

There's a very interesting strain of economic research showing that our sense of well-being is determined more by our relative wealth than by our absolute wealth.

In other words, we care less about how much money we have than we do about how much money we have relative to everyone else. In a fascinating survey, Cornell economist Robert Frank found that a majority of Americans would prefer to earn $100,000 while everyone else earns $85,000, rather than earning $110,000 while everyone else earns $200,000.

Think about it: People would prefer to have less stuff, as long as they have more stuff than the neighbors.

I suppose it is important to remember that economics is greatly impacted by psychology.

Things To Do With $100 Billion

2007-01-07T22:28:00.000-06:00

The following thoughts originated while discussing a completely different matter with Prof. Hsu at his blog.
As per census.gov there are about 1.2 million k-12 teachers in the US. We could give each of them a $50k salary increase and have $40 billion left over to provide whatever other needs schools have which would yield about $400k for every school (I estimate there are ~100k schools in the US).

Alternatively, we could give every one of the 7.1 million college students who receive financial aid a $14k break on their loans.

We could also do something for people who can't afford health insurance, or treat war veterans better, or many other decent things. Unfortunately, our priorities are not such. Granted the $100bn price tag is payable over the course of a few years, but any of the aforementioned causes would benefit greatly from the money disbursed over that period of time.

Waterrant @ 'The Bistro' No more!

2007-01-07T14:28:00.000-06:00

Yup. He left. Luckily, this doesn't mean that he'll stop blogging, for his blog is a true gem. I can't wait until the book is published, though I fear it isn't going to be as good as the blog.

Mass Predictions

2007-01-07T11:16:00.000-06:00

An interesting article on obtaining a pool of 'experts' making predictions for you. See related post here. It seems that ProbabilityFootball has successfully done what I was talking about in that old post. The most remarkable thing:

Even when we average together the very worst participants — those participants who actually scored below zero in the contest — the resulting predictions are amazingly good.

It seems that it would be worthwhile to try something like this on the stock market. However, it would probably be a lot harder to get people making predictions about the stock market since not so many would care. Also, I keep thinking that with football it is more reasonable that people do well because they can make educated guesses which is harder to do for the stock market. I wonder how educated the pool of 'experts' needs to be in order to produce decent results. Heck... I might even try to do it...

Theoretical Physics in the Third World?

2007-01-02T10:08:00.000-06:00

After reading Smolin's book I became a interested in the Perimeter Institute. PI seems to be like one heck of a place to be at! That's not what spiked my interest, though, but rather how it was formed. In a nutshell, a rich startup CEO decided that he would like to contribute to science by starting an institute for theoretical physics, so he donated the cash and hired an executive director. Five years later we have PI.

To do experimental physics one needs a lot of things. Particularly, one needs large sums of money to buy and develop all kinds of technology to meet the demands of the next experiment. This in turn drives technology and is good for the economy so we like to do it. Theoretical physics is quite a bit different. Other than an office, internet connection, plenty of paper, chalkboard and writing utencils one only needs a salary to pay for food, rent and necessities. It is a much cheaper endeavor. Nonetheless, it is harder to get funding to pursue theoretical research because the return of the investment if not null is always less explicit and usually takes longer to arrive. But, if CEOs or anyone else are willing to donate to the cause, we might as well try to make that money go as far as possible. If this is the number one priority then setting up institutes such as PI in the States or Canada seems to make little sense.

More apt scenarios would be countries where the cost of living is a fraction of that in the US. This seems doable largely because the internet exists. Geographic proximity used to have a definite advantage, but the internet is maturing to the point where one can exclusively use the internet to communicate with peers about technical matters. See here (the comments section), for some discussion on the matter. It seems physical proximity is losing value quickly and may even be at a point where its value is small compared with other factors.

A back of the envelope calculation tells me that one can potentially cut the costs of running a theoretical institute by a factor of 2 or 3 by setting it up in Bolivia. (I mostly used Bolivia as my example as I have some real feel for the cost of living and that of services down there). A brief discussion with Kunal and Nikhil tells me that in India the same calculation would yield a factor of 4 or 5. India, of course, seems to be a much better choice of location based on the fact that the education system (e.g. IITs) seems to be top notch over there -- I know I argued that physical proximity could be of little value, but perhaps we can have both.

Off the top of my head I can think of a couple of reasons why we don't seem to be doing this type of thing just yet. The first, government money. In the case of PI, for example, about half the money is from the Canadian government and their desire to promote science in Canada. This seems to rule out places like Bolivia. But perhaps not places like India. (Is India is the only place like this?)

The other reason is that it may be hard to convince academics to go to relocate to a different continent in order to pursue science. But, given the job market in theoretical physics, this seems to be the easier of the battles.

Not in peace-and-love land anymore

2006-12-31T16:54:00.000-06:00

Kunal just bought himself a nice guitar. Of course, I was involved }:-). At the guitar store, while we were looking around and playing potential guitars somehow it came up in conversation that I give free guitar lessons. A girl overheard me and said "WHY?!?" in the most outraged-sounding tone of voice -- as if there is something terribly wrong with that. I tried to give the usual explanation: that I enjoy doing it, think music is wonderful and that there are things I value more than money. Neither the girl nor the store clerk seemed to be able to fathom the idea. I miss Eugene...

Freshman Advanced Physics

2006-12-23T06:05:00.000-06:00

After a little bit of a silence blogging is back in style in Rigoland.

While reading Smolin's book I stumbled upon the passage in which he talks about how physics students are discouraged by the lack of interesting subjects early on and how at his school they had quantum physics as a freshman class. Smolin makes a good point that most of what is taught in our freshman classes is usually what students have seen in high school and it seems very boring. It is boring on two accounts: The subjects are never "cool" ones such as black holes, quantum physics, cosmology, etc. Secondly, the subjects are never too technical. For example, a rigorous treatment of Newtonian mechanics could be done at a freshman level (not boring), but students are made to solve inclined-plane problems instead (boring).

One thing that I think that is crucial to the overdue scientific revolution Smolin talks about in his book is a revision of how we teach physics at the undergraduate level. Not only in what we teach but in how we do it. In my experience, and I think that this is true for most of my peers trained in US institutions, the way we were taught was as if we weren't ready to learn. The overall attitude being we'll tell you in grad school. This has been doubly frustrating now after encountering the attitude of you should have learned all this in undergrad. I can understand where this comes from: physics requires quite a bit of math. However, me and I think my peers also wish more math had been taught math by the physicists.

Smolin's book never talks about the possible inadequacies of undergrad education (perhaps for good reason), which was a bit disappointing for me. Maybe it will get me to finish the essay I've been writing about this subject some day...

Machine News Reading

2006-12-11T15:34:00.000-06:00

Interesting read from the Times Online. It seems that computers are going to be reading the news for bank and hedge fund managers so that they can spend their times on other more important matters. At this rate, we will end up with computers doing all our work which reminds me of the following joke.

A very wealthy US businessman is visiting the south of Bolivia when he sees a native farmer just sitting under the sun taking a nap while his field is completely empty and not being cropped.

"Why don't you get to work and plant in your field?" asks the businessman.

"And why would I want to do that, sir?"

"So that afterwards you can go into town and sell your product and make some money."

"And why would I want to do that, sir?"

"So that you can start saving and maybe in a couple of years buy a tractor and bring your production rate up."

"And why would I want to do that, sir?"

"So that eventually you can buy another field and a truck and you can develop a whole corporation based on your product."

"And why would I want to do that, sir?"

"So that afterwards you can start exporting your product and have thousands of employees worldwide. You could be on top of the world!"

"And why would I want to do that, sir?"

"So that afterwards you can just sit under the sun and enjoy life"

"And what do you think I'm doing right now sir?"

Cosmic Variance and Scientific Ignorance

2006-12-08T18:18:00.000-06:00

I don't know how is it that I didn't find Cosmic Variance earlier. It is one gem of a blog. No, it is not just geeky science stuff, though it is run by five theoretical physicists so, you know...

Anyways, today I found this. It does bring about a very good point: for some reason people seem to think that learning basic science and math is relatively unimportant but that everyone -- or at least everyone who we call educated -- must know basic history, literature and other humanities. Our appreciation of math and science needs to be elevated to the same status as the other subjects.

Let me clarify what I mean by basic science and math. I don't mean what people typically learn in high school or even in college "math" and "science" classes for non-majors. The math taught in high school is to math what learning to read and write is to literature and something similar can be said about science. I mean that people should have some basic understanding of the important theories and ideas of science. For example, understand what the "big bang" is and how do we "know" that things most likely worked out that way. For another, people should have a basic understanding of a chemical reaction and the second law of thermodynamics (someone once said this is roughly equivalent to having read Hamlet). They should know that their computer is not a magical thing that understands them but just a machine which can be in a lot of states which are meaningful to the person looking at it and that the complexity of this machine is quite astounding. Some may say that this is all possible without math. I disagree. Mathematics is the language in which all this is expressed and therefore people should understand basic math. No, not just how to multiply fractions, mathematicians don't just sit around multiplying really big numbers. Quite a bit, huh? And those are just some examples.

But hey, Shakespeare takes a bit of work to read and so does Virginia Woolf and there is quite a bit to be gained by understanding all that is packed into their works. Much like there is something to be gained in learning 20th century history or what Freud thought about the way we think and those also take a bit of work. I find that many scientists feel this way about the subjects they don't specialize in, but it seems that only scientists care about science. It is utterly unacceptable that an academic doesn't know the difference between friction and impact. I do agree, though, that string theorists may not be the best choice when it comes to teaching freshman physics!

Tax Inequality

2006-11-27T19:51:00.000-06:00

Interesting read from the NYT.

Several highlights:

Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.

It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”

It is no mystery that 10% of ten thousand is not the same as 10% of a hundred thousand or a million. However, I was under the impression that usually the case was that people with higher income paid a higher percentage in taxes. Mr. Buffet's counterexample doesn't prove that this isn't the case, but I can't imagine it is too far from being representative. If anyone has hard figures on this I'd be interested to see them.

By this time, we Republicans had added a mere $2.7 trillion to the national debt. So much for tax cuts adding to revenue. To be fair, corporate profits taxes have increased greatly, as corporate profits have increased stupendously. This may be because of the cut in corporate tax rates. Anything is possible.

Another big(er) moral dilemma, but this one is widely known.

The third argument that kind, well-meaning people made in response to the idea of rolling back the tax cuts was this: “Don’t raise taxes. Cut spending.”

I think it is also widely known that this simply does not happen. The article gives some more evidence supporting this. Certainly it does not happen by fighting unnecessary wars while giving cost-inefficient (at best) contracts in silver plates to big contractors.

The New Prohibition

2006-11-25T19:28:00.000-06:00

While waiting for Nathan to come over I stumbled upon this blog. Very interesting stuff. In particular, this interview with Economics Nobel Laureate Prof. Gary Becker caught my eye. The whole thing is a worthwhile read, however this is most remarkable:

What’s your proposal exactly?

I think you have to legalize drugs. That will eliminate most of these costs, the incarceration costs, the judiciary costs, the police costs. You’ll be able to reallocate the police to better activities, reduce the effects on neighborhoods, and so on. Critics would say you’ll get a big increase in drug consumption. We estimate the effects, it may be pretty large, but you can always handle that in the way we attack cigarette consumption and alcohol consumption: namely, it’s legalized and we impose a tax and we can then concentrate on reducing the amount of underground activities, which is much easier to do than reducing all activities.

I've been of this view since I have use of reason. There are at least two Nobel Prize winners supporting it, Milton Friedman spoke out against the war on drugs when it first started back in the Nixon days and continued to propose that drugs should be legal. He has written extensively about it and you can get small samples of his views here and in this article.

It seems rather obvious to me that most of the problems involved in drug production would largely be done away with by simply legalizing the drugs. The one possible caveat, that the drugs being legally available would increase consumption is a weak argument: people who want to do a drug will want to whether it is legal or illegal just the same. Furthermore, availability is hardly affected by the illegality. Just like with alcohol prohibition, the illegality simply serves as a mean to increase profitability at great social cost. Finally, I'll say that this social cost is largely paid outside US borders despite being a result of US domestic and foreign policy.

Richard Dawkins

2006-11-25T01:02:00.000-06:00

Is simply brilliant. I have watched many interviews and read several of his writings though not his latest book. Most of them have always been on the same caliber as the interview with Prof. Weinberg I blogged about sometime ago. However, this Q&A which follows this talk seems a tad more notable than most of the other remarkable things I've heard this man say. His responses are very rational, well thought-out and adequately delivered. But I was amazed at how unintelligent the crowd seemed to be. Just because Prof. Dawkins said something doesn't mean he said something great or something that needs to be applauded. Many of the questions also showed that the people asking them had not spent more than a minute pondering them.

The most interesting part of the talk was the bit about how difficult it is to come out of the atheist closet due to the social attitudes there exist against atheism. This seems like a bit of a problem, though to disagree a bit with Prof. Dawkins, not more so than the problem of being openly gay.

Another passage that I found remarkable was him being surprised by anger on the part of the person coming out of the atheist-closet. That one seems obvious to me and apparently to the audience as well. His surprise is not surprising, though, as he was raised in a home of scientists and I imagine that leads more naturally towards atheism than being raised in a devout catholic home ;-).

I am glad to see that there are people talking about the elephant in the room. I think the world can benefit from discrediting religion quite a bit more than it has been so far.

Paid to get book

2006-11-18T15:37:00.000-06:00

The seller's name should remain undisclosed. However, if you think of online booksellers named similarly to rivers in Brazil you are on the right track.

Over the summer I was buying a book for $15. As I was checking out I noticed that there was an offer to get an $25 discount by signing up for a credit card and putting an order for over a certain amount on it (let's say $50). So, I went ahead and found another book I wanted making my order well over $50 and got the credit card. Figured it was a good deal and I'd just have to look out for the bill and pay for it later. I play games with credit cards all the time so it was no big deal.

My $15 book came in the mail, but the more expensive book was apparently out of print and the bookseller was having a hard time finding it. After a couple of months they finally canceled my order and told me they'd refund the cost of the book to my credit card. I figured they'd take into account the discount and that I'd have to pay the $15 for my other book. However, today I just got a check for $10 in the mail. Ha! I effectively just got a book + $10 courtesy of this bookseller. Thank you very much.

No Id? Tased!

2006-11-16T11:51:00.000-06:00

Police brutality seems to be a bit of a problem as of late. This instance bothers me a bit too much since it hits close to home. There better be a full-blown investigation ending in sanctions to these officers in the next few days. Granted the video does not show how it started, but how long can one "resist" arrest specially while being tased? Besides, it seems that the student was trying to leave when the officers started using force.

These are all from reddit:

Video

Article

Article

Update:

One more article on reddit.

Long Time No Post

2006-11-16T00:28:00.000-06:00

Ten days without a post! Yes, things have been a bit busy, but mostly I just haven't had anything to talk about. No more. I am in the process of writing an essay of sorts about the way physics is taught in the US. Mostly to take some frustration out, but I think that there are some things we can do better. Stay tuned for that.

On a different note, I taught my last lab on tuesday. This term went well as far as that goes. The kids did well. Most of them seem to have learned a thing or two about a thing or two. They also gave me an ego massage in my "course evaluation". I love to teach. Hearing "oh that makes sense!" after guiding someone to an "answer" through a series of questions is one of the most gratifying feelings ever.

Now that teaching is done, I look forward to solely focusing on learning things for the next six weeks. Well... after this weekend's grading. Woot!

Not so strung out!

2006-11-06T09:57:00.000-06:00

Amidst all the media attention and all the bashing string theory has been getting lately this is a refreshing view of the current landscape of theoretical physics. A.J usually writes pretty interesting stuff on his blog and interestingly enough his textbook recommendations come up as the third result on a google search for 'undergraduate arrogance'!

Let my own ignorance and undergraduate arrogance speak, though: I do think that string theory gets a bit too much attention (and funding?) and other approaches to quantum gravity and unification do not. Many a time have I read about it being very difficult and risky to go against the main-stream current in theoretical physics. That has to be a bad. All the theoretical revolutions came out of people not going with the current!

And speaking of currents, I better go grade these analog labs.

"Scandals" at Election Time

2006-11-04T11:21:00.000-06:00

There are days left until the midterm election and what's everyone talking about? Former presidential candidates making bad jokes, pastors buying meth from gay escorts, presidents making bad jokes and inept talk show hosts bashing people with Parkinson disease. Are all these matters of national policy?

It has always amazed me how much people care about little or irrelevant things when it comes to their politicians' and how little they care about the policies those politicians pursue. Somehow it is more important to us to belabor the point about Kerry's bad joke being ok because it was intended as criticism of Bush than it is to wonder what each elected official has in mind about Iraq. And that is one complicated issue, I might add, I don't think it is a matter of 'we should stay' vs 'we should leave'. The issue requires a lot of political discourse. How would we leave? What's the exit strategy? What would we do different if we stayed? But I see no articles on front pages about potential congressmen discussing any of this.

Same story about the inept and ludicrous comments Rush Limbaugh made about Michael J. Fox. Sure, they are outrageous. But why is that the front page story as opposed to interviews with candidates about their views on stem cell research?

Why is nobody talking about the national debt, the budget deficit or about the way government spends its money? How about the Diebold voting machine not-scandal? All of those are plenty alarming real political issues that seem more relevant than jokes or talk show hosts.

Anti gay-marriage pastor caught buying meth from gay escort? Oh the hypocrisy! Do you think that next year the millions of gay people whose lives are affected by the inability to get legally married will have it any easier because we read that story today? Wouldn't it be more relevant to figure out where the candidates stand? Heaven forbid us talk about the issues that are relevant to gay-marriage. No! It is a matter of moral vs. immoral. Period. It is as easy as that. Nobody needs to ask no congressmen what she thinks about it.

Why is nobody asking candidates what they think about the possibility of impeaching the president and other members of his administration? I guess we'd rather watch him making jokes about not being able to find the WMDs.

Physicists Rule?

2006-10-26T20:29:00.000-05:00

This might as well be a strip from phdcomics. 'berto and I were in the grad lounge when Paul showed up. Paul is several years ahead of us, probably close to graduating. He is also the president of the Physics student association or something similar. He is in charge of organizing talks, worrying about what we need in our new lounge and things like that.

"What year are you, Paul?" I asked.

"What year is it? 2006?" Was the reply.

It is too bad that Jorge has already thought of exploiting the abundance of quirks in the world of academic science. One could have a journal (or comic) just about them and never run out of material!

A couple of days ago Israel came down the stairs looking upset.

"Nobody understands Thermodynamics!"

"I think that is true," Said I.

Pita Pete's feels like home. No, not Pita Pit. Pita Pete's. Tons of organic produce. A very Eugene feel. You can stuff as many veggies in your pita as you want. Fresh humus. Wonderful. Today Pete even asked if it was ok with me if they sauteed my veggies on the same skillet they use to cook the meat. Somehow Pete and I got to talking about politics while my falafel was cooking.

"You know what the problem is?" Pete said frustrated.

"There are too many lawyers who are politicians. How much money do lawyers make?"

"Way too much," I answered as Pete continued.

"In other countries being a lawyer is just a middle class profession -- not here! That's because they are in control. I say we need more scientists and engineers in congress!"

Surprisingly, I replied "Well... I agree."

Scientists running for office? I don't think that will happen too soon. Google even seems to think there is something wrong with the phrase! Apparently we should be training for office. Maybe they mean office hours? I heard answering questions from freshman physics students can be quite demanding.

In any event, the question is: do we want the same people who are not sure what year is it or who are convinced that we don't understand one of our oldest theories to be in charge of things? You may have to think about that one, but for me it is a no-brainer. Of course we do! ;-)

Read My Mind

2006-10-23T17:37:00.000-05:00

Google adds have been around for a while and they must do a decent job at showing people relevant things. Otherwise google wouldn't be able to use them as their main source of revenue, no? Nonetheless, I've never been too impressed with google adds. While they are somewhat relevant to what I'm reading/doing at the time I see them, I've never clicked on one out of interest in what the add said, just out of curiosity of what they do once you click a few times.

Today I went to check for a new post at waiterrant.net and the add on the page caught my eye:

If you can't quite see, the amazon add is for a well known General Relativity book that is certainly in my get-when-I-have-money list. Also notice that this is on waiterrant which couldn't have anything less to do with science, math or anything similar. So I figured I was probably still signed on to amazon and it recommends based on a cookie or IP, right? Wrong. I was not signed on to amazon. It must be recommending based on a cookie, though. A few refreshes of waiterrant showed me adds for QFT in a Nutshell by Zee, the book for my GR class next term, Weinberg's QFT book, Peskin and Schroeder's QFT book, a cosmology book, Jackson's E&M and a math book. All but one of these are on my get-when-I-have-money list (the last one sits on my bookshelf already). It seems that amazon does a pretty good job at giving me recommendations. Of course I won't stop reading waiterrant to go buy a physics book that very second, but still, I'm impressed.

Prediction Trading

2006-10-23T02:36:00.000-05:00

TradeSports is a brilliant idea. I had thought about making a site of this nature as a startup idea and even tried a very naive implementation of it for my cis422 project (which failed miserably, btw). This was right after I read about Nassim Taleb (thanks to Prof. Hsu's blog). Taleb proposes that being an 'expert' isn't (perhaps shouldn't be) worth that much because even experts get dominated by statistics when it comes to making predictions and do no better and even worse than non-experts. (this is a good talk on the subject). After having listened/read what Taleb has to say, it seems that he is very right. So, what better than a site which allows everyone to trade on predictions? Not only does it allow to test what Taleb says, but it has other possible implications.

First, if the site becomes popular the people running it get a large database of 'experts' (common people) predicting. They can then use Bayesian techniques to make their own predictions and do better than the best of their 'experts'. See this recent entry on Prof. Dave Bacon's blog, for example.

Second, imagine having a track record of all the times you've been right about something. If you are usually right this is the kind of thing you'd like to show to a potential employer or admissions committee. If nothing else it may give you some bragging rights. Such a record would also be desirable from an employer's perspective: in addition to comparing people based on how perfect they say they are compare them on how often they are right. Selling prediction reports could be a viable business plan if the site was popular. Of course, they already make money on each transaction so perhaps this would be unnecessary, but still.

For now, though, TradeSports seems to be a little too focused of sports betting. This probably because that is the easiest to implement/automate and has a large potential user-base already. Also, I am yet to make sure I understand exactly how TradeSports decides the outcomes of events. For things like sports or stock market predictions this is straight forward. For things like current events, not so much. Probably more on this topic as I look into it. It may be a TradeSports' trade secret, though. :-)

Go Veg!

2006-10-19T00:12:00.000-05:00

I have finally started announcing to the world that I've become vegetarian. Officially it didn't happen until about a month and half ago. Unofficially I had started giving it thought sometime in 2004 and didn't take the idea all that seriously until last year. It may seem like an easy thing to do, but not for me. I really like meat. In fact, some of my closest friends are still skeptical about the whole thing because they know how much I enjoy treating myself to a good stake or a beef burrito. Though I didn't tell anyone, last year has been a 'transition period'. The transition has been painless by following the habits of people like Nathan and Sharon. Thank you both.

In the last few weeks I've been asked "Oh! You are vegetarian? Why?" I'm not used to this! People back in Eugene seem to know the good reasons for being vegetarian inside out. No surprise: every other person is vegetarian or vegan back there. Well either that or there are so many vegetarians that the whole thing goes unquestioned. Either way, things here are different and I've gotten the question more than a few times. I have a few good reasons.

Food Efficiency

It really seems unlikely that raising a cow produces more food than it takes to raise it. I don't have hard numbers on this right now else I'd be stating it as fact. I think the same is true for most kinds of meat (with fish being a possible exception). This seems like an undue luxury in a world of finite resources where way too many people live through famines.

Health

I normally don't keep track of my health in any 'scientific' way. In my last year of 'transition' and these past couple of months I've felt better and I think I've lost a few pounds. That along with a bit of common sense are enough for me for now. I do intend to look into this more 'scientifically', though.

Specifically I have one experiment I'd like to try on myself. Is it possible to do weight-training and get enough protein without eating meat? Certainly it is possible to stay in reasonable shape, but I'm talking a little bit more than that here. Say, follow a relatively rigorous lifting programme. I haven't worked out like that since I was 18, but I think 'berto and I will try (if the profs allow). I'll let the results be known if it happens.

Animal's Rights

Meet your meat.

I'm a Food Snob

Sharon had a hand in this...

While it is true that I will eat just about anything, I enjoy fine dining a bit too much. For me, food tasting "just right" has a high value. This is not compatible with eating meat regularly unless you are planning on spending a bit of money and/or time preparing it. Bad produce can be ok. Bad meat is just not ok.

Cost Efficiency

I spend no more than $4 on tofu every week and most often I spend less than $2. Back in the day my two roommates and I used to get steaks from Winco in order to eat a steak once a week. It usually ran us $10-$15 for three mediocre steaks. Buying 'all natural' turkey breast for sandwiches used to cost me around $8 every week. Enough said.

Easier to Cook

Meat is a pain (specially if you are a food snob).
First there is the thing about storing it: it needs to be either fresh or frozen. If you keep meat in the fridge for too long it'll go bad. If it is frozen you need to plan the meal ahead of time (defrost on the microwave doesn't work very well). If you know me, you know that planning my meals simply does not fit my lifestyle and I like it that way.

If you decide to cook meat, you really need to do it right. Specially for a stake or salmon and a bit less so for chicken.

Tofu could not be any easier.

Save a tree: no homework!

2006-10-17T00:33:00.000-05:00

It is going to be a late night tonight. I have to write up my stat mech homework. No, I don't have to do my homework, just write it up. All the problems have been thought about, worked out and solved. It has been quite a bit of work, I tell ya. The thing is, though, that the solutions consist of blackboards full of equations erased long ago, pieces of scrap paper and thoughts that have not been written down because they were "trivial" details. Some of these details took me months or years to learn back in the day and now they are trivial. Ha! But, I digress.

I miss the good old days. In freshman physics to write up a problem you just had to write a couple of lines about the information given in the problem and then the formula you were going to use. Finally, a couple of lines of algebra and voila. I used to be able to fit ten problems to a page! Now the figure is more like four pages to a problem. I think this is bad for the environment. Too many trees die to make paper so that we can turn in a well-explained, fully-developed and poorly-written treatise on how to solve certain problems for homework each week. I say we do the rainforest a favor and stop assigning homework! ;-)

Strungout

2006-10-16T15:24:00.000-05:00

Dissing string theory seems to be in style nowadays.

Comic courtesy of xkcd.

Mucho de uno, poco del otro

2006-10-15T15:14:00.000-05:00

Things don't seem to be all that well back home. Reading that along with the conflict in the mines and how the constituent assembly is going left me with even more mixed feelings about Morales' government. The previous 'white-elitist' governments were definitely comprised of highly educated people who looked after their interests more than anything else. They also happened to sell half the country to foreign investors while getting very little return (LAB for example). So, it seems they had technical know-how (ie could get things done) but an 'incorrect ideology'. This government seems to be the other way around. How do you start with 80% approval rating and dip to 50% in just 10 months of you attempting to do what you promised?!? That sounds like a feat only dubya could pull. It seems that the current Bolivian government has as a more 'correct ideology' but not the technical know-how. Of course, they are probably also looking out for their own interests as usual. Oh boy... poor Bolivia.

Teaching Physics

2006-10-15T00:12:00.000-05:00

My undergraduate arrogance has just rambled in my mind and blog about how I'd teach a junior/senior/grad class in Physics. The thoughs probably apply to other exact science classes as well. The idea behind writing this down now is that my perspective on this is bound to change as I progress and it seems more important to know how I feel right now in the shoes of a student than later after I've finished my PhD, etc (if I finish and am able to continue! ;-).
You know... the answer is obvious once you know it and it is hard to remember how not knowing it was like afer you do know it. Remembering how it was like to not know is a lot more important to teaching than just knowing the answer, though.

Please leave comments on this one! The only reason behind my making this post on here also is to have it serve as an RFC of sorts.

100 Million Sinfest Each Day!

2006-10-08T15:56:00.000-05:00

Tatsuya Ishida is the man. Kudos if you know who he is. If not, click here, then go here, read the comic, click 'next' and repeat until you get back to the comic which is currently on the front page. No, really, it is that good.

I started reading it sometime in 2002. It was one of those things Seth introduced me to back in our dorky days in room 17 of Willamette Hall (aka "the lab"). Amazon rankings seem to suggest that Sinfest is not as popular as Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes. This has always surprised me for I think Sinfest is at least just as good. Nevertheless, Sinfest seems to have been gaining quite a bit of terrain over the last few years. According to Alexa about 100 million people read Tatsuya's brilliant and hilarious politically-incorrect social commentary. Maybe there is still a little bit of hope left...

Theorizing About Religion

2006-10-08T13:17:00.000-05:00

This interview with Prof. Steven Weinberg is number 48 on reddit right now. It is getting an up vote from me! I've never heard my views on religion echoed so much by someone else's. No surprise, though, Weinberg is a theoretical physicist. :-)

I have been trying to decide whether I call myself agnostic or atheist for a few years now with the period of the oscillation between the two labels being on the order of months. A little bit because of I'm not sure exactly what I believe, but more so because of the social repercussions the later one may have. There must be some Latin America left in me!

However, after the interview I think I can safely say I know which of the two a-words I am going to start calling myself now. I'll let you figure out which, though... oh mira las cosas q me haces llajta querida!

The Times' Clothes

2006-10-07T23:42:00.000-05:00

I like the New York Times. It is usually my main source of awareness about what's going on in the mainstream media. Some say it has a liberal bias, but Colbert pointed out that so does reality. ;-) I am a bit frustrated with the coverage of Bolivian politics it the Times, though. I wouldn't mind it too much if there wasn't any: Bolivia is a tiny country whose politics don't affect DC's very much and whose happenings usually don't reach and much less affect the US or New York. However, Bolivia has been in the NYT several times over the last few months. A few of those articles have been good, but there has also been the infamous sweater article that I am so fond of. If Bolivia is being covered, is there really nothing more important going on than the president wearing a sweater? As if that wasn't enough, today in the Americas section I found this article about the current vicepresident Alvaro Garcia Linera. The article is a little bit informative, but not much more than the more succinct wikipedia article on him. In the NYT there are at least two paragraphs devoted to how Mr. Linera looks, sounds and dresses like. Yet, there are none about the currently ongoing conflict in the mines which have taken 16 lives and the role Mr. Linera is or should be playing in it.

To give a bit of credit where it is due, I should say that I am reading the free online version of the newspaper as I can't justify a subscription for myself. Furthermore, a search for articles about Bolivia does yield an article about the ongoing crisis in the mines. However, this article is not as easily found as the one on Mr. Linera and is approximately half as long. Does anyone else see a problem with this?

The End of Science Part Deux: Tied Up?

2006-10-04T12:36:00.000-05:00

This time by means of Prof. Hsu's blog I stumbled upon this article in the New Yorker. It looks as if string theory has tied itself into a bit of a knot. Now I really want to read Smolin's book.

I like the fact that someone from within the theoretical physics clan published a book admitting that there are sociological factors which may be hindering the progress of science. Of course, Smolin's book is about a lot more than that, but still, that is one of the few things that I have noticed in my brief and limited interaction with physics. It always seemed like the kind of thing only an outsider would notice and like the kind of thing that someone who becomes an insider might forget despite having noticed earlier on.

Another interesting bit from the article is the one about the number of graduating particle theorists and how many of them will actually find jobs. This is interesting to me on two accounts. Firstly, because theoretical particle physics would probably be my career of choice right now. Secondly, it really seems like something that would hurt the progress of science. Theoretical science is really a cheap endeavor as it is and I doubt that making it a bit more appealing of a career choice would hurt matters.

Whatever the case, the more numbers I read and the more I talk to people it seems to make very little sense to pursue a career in theoretical particle physics. Don't get me wrong, it is one sexy subject, but is it sexy enough to spend four, five or six years obtaining a PhD so that you can be unemployed or sold out (think wall street) at the end? There seem to be other areas of theoretical research in which one may have a shot at a career, the top one on my list being quantum information. However, I am not exactly sure what the state of the field is, it may well be that now we are just waiting for the experiments to catch up (just like in particle physics). It may also turn out that the LHC turns up all kinds of new physics and by virtue of magic the US government decides to spend money investigating this. Right. I am rather skeptical about both of these happening, specially the latter. Hey maybe it is even time to start thinking about shifting gears into applied science as it very well may be that we know all the relevant rules of the game already and there is no more significant theoretical work to be done as was argued in the article from my earlier post about this.

This having to pick a field is becoming a bit of a burden. Mostly because it is like taking a shot in the dark. Well, not quite in the dark, but in a poorly lit room at best. It really is hard to know if there is room for work or what the work is like without having gone and gotten the PhD already. I wonder what's going to be of me in the next five years. Whatever it is, I better make the decision soon.

Oh my childrens...

2006-09-27T00:11:00.001-05:00

First day of class was today. Well, first day I've had to teach. I love to teach.

From back in my days on the ICSP I remember very distinctively that even after four years in the program I'd be nervous about presentations before them. It always went away as soon as I started talking, though. The same kind of thing happened today. I had been a bit nervous about teaching here since last week. Mostly because these kids (or their parents, rather) drop $45k or so per year in tuition. That better buy them a knowledgeable TA who can teach them a thing or two. And although I've had plenty of TA experience in the past, I was shaking to my boots.

The lab was just groovy. I like the kids in the class a lot. They are mostly engineering majors which means that, unlike most of the pre-meds that I've normally taught in labs like these, they are not offended when the answer to a question is "well...let's think about this". Of course that's never all I say! I was pleasantly surprised by their willingness to think about things and work them out for themselves. I guess I shouldn't be too pleasantly surprised by their abilities until I grade their labs, though. Still, the lab went fine and that's all I really needed today.

Now I just need little phrase to finish this post...oh wait...cool!

Income Inequality in America

2006-09-25T23:52:00.001-05:00

I was reading one of my favorites, Prof. Hsu's blog. The latest post talks about recent research done on income inequality in the US. Trying to understand what was being said lead me to Gini coefficients.

The first thing that struck me as interesting was the color of Bolivia vs that of the US in the world map of Gini indices. That turns out to not be interesting, though, as one finds out by reading the disadvantages section of the article: since Bolivia is a lot smaller of an economy comparison of Gini coefficients between the US and Bolivia yields little or no information about the relative amount of inequality in both countries.

However, one can still make some comparisons in America. The picture is plenty bad. Notice that Canada is green, US is orange and Latin America is red. Maybe including the US in that comparison is not in order as it has an economy (judging by the GDP) ~10 times larger than that of Canada or Latin America. Nonetheless, the redness of Latin America is certainly an unacceptable and sad state of affairs. Specially since it is a place where a lot of people get by on $1/day or less.

The End of Science Part Un: Science no more?

2006-09-24T22:21:00.000-05:00

Thanks Zack, for pointing me to the excellent essay.

Horgan has many good points. Specially the one about diminished returns. Even if we experimentally detected extra dimensions or could verify what dark matter is, does it really matter all that much? To us who like this stuff, sure. Will it change the world the way QM did? Not so sure. But, I guess you never know. I still believe, though, that there are enough problems scientists care about to keep us busy discovering stuff for a few decades at least.

Secondly, I agree with the 'technological evangelists' that science is headed towards application. We know the rules of the game now, time to start playing. I think the possibilities here are endless. They may not be the ones we originally thought of (e.g. nuclear fusion) but certainly there are exciting things out there that still need a lot of work. Hey... maybe we'll get a quantum computer in the mid-future and its computing power will lead to some breakthroughs about the nature of the universe.

So is science over? Not quite yet, but we may be getting there.

Narrowing Interests

2006-09-24T13:14:00.000-05:00

I was called an "English major in the closet" last night.

I've heard myself say "I am interested in just about any subject you throw at me" multiple times throughout the week to other grad students and professors.

This is bad. Really bad. Well, not really.

I like being interested in just about anything. I like the idea of trying to be aware, knowledgeable, well-informed and well rounded. However, PhD theses are not meant to be broad! Damn... I was hoping I could do mine on the sociological implications that quantum information and CP violation have in literature circles. :-)

Evo and Amy

2006-09-24T10:59:00.000-05:00

This one will be long as Bolivian politics are involved. Please bear with.

And I quote Colbert:

Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know, fiction!

Luckily for us, Amy Goodman is not fiction. If you want to know why we are so lucky, this is a good sample. Democracy Now! Nonetheless, I didn't set out to talk about Amy, rather, about her recent interview with Evo Morales.

During my ICSP times I oftentimes got some variation of the question "how do people feel about the US in Bolivia?" My answer was invariably that to Bolivia the US was a lot like a ('84 pun intended) Big Brother: a big brother will always be there to teach you things, help you when you really need it, and also roughen you up a bit or take your candy by abusive means.

In between the nationalization, books are evil, unemployment-induced crime rates and the "constituyente a golpes", I have lots of mixed feelings about Morales' presidency. Regardless, though, Morales does deserve quite a bit of credit in terms of getting international exposure, obtaining a majority (a first for elections in Bolivia) and, most importantly, for having done what few Bolivian politicians have done in the past couple of decades of democracy: make a stance that is what people wanted, not what the US embassy would approve of, and remain consistent with it throughout.

I like that Evo seemed relatively humble, and of course, his sweater. Nah, really... why exactly should he have to dress in a suit and tie? Now, I won't start talking about why the article really bothers me, but y'all can probably guess. I liked that Evo brought what I see as his main shortcoming out to the open: he never went to college. Certainly, though, his past as an activist and union leader makes him more qualified for his job than the US-college education and IBM-sales posts that Tuto had and certainly Evo's VP is a well-read man to say the least.

In February, when I heard about it, I was very pleasantly surprised that Morales cut his salary and that of many of his colleagues. It is a noble thing to do. Why do politicians need to make so much money anyways? Notice that this topic worked itself into the interview with Goodman. I believe that most people will have that reaction: think it is a noble thing to do. But, only as long as they are not from Bolivia! I see the 50% salary-slashing as a bit of a international-marketing stunt. Everyone in Bolivia will tell you that the relatively large salaries the politicians make is not a problem and much less the problem. The problem is the atrocious level of corruption in all sectors of government. Skyrocketing corruption is probably the only constant that Bolivia has seen throughout its governments and that's where all of politician's money comes from. So, their salaries are highly irrelevant. But, to Evo's credit he did talk a bit about corruption.

I'd be surprised if Amy did not know about Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz. Either way, I am glad she asked the question about who he was. His was probably one of the most lucid and brave minds Bolivian politics has ever seen. His death was one of the most despicable acts committed by the 'condor' dictatorships. It always saddens me how unknown he is to people here.

I liked the fact that Evo pointed out that coca is not white. Even if it was, though, I still think it should be legal. The illegality of cocaine feels too much like prohibition. The illegality does not seem to do anything in terms of people not using the drug, it only formidably helps the rate at which those who profit from it do so. But, more importantly, chewing coca in Bolivia is a tradition much older than the name Bolivia, the Spanish colony and even the Inca empire. It is completely unreasonable to expect that people just drop it because government in the US has decided to fight a war on drugs. How would the US feel about some third country imposing that corn should be illegal in the states? Jim Schultz pointed out that it is very ironic that the police guard in front of the DEA office in Cochabamba probably chews coca to withstand his night shift.

The gas nationalization is tricky business. I am yet to read the democracy center's analysis of the decree along with several other pieces of literature about it (including the decree itself). Nevertheless, so far I think that nationalization is almost a misnomer for what is going on. I think Morales is playing a rhetorical game with that more than anything. The decree seems very 'mild' and aims just at looking out for the countries interests a bit more than the "capitalization" of the 90s did.

I also liked how Evo tried to distance himself from Chavez a little bit, or at least from his statement at the UN. Now, don't get me wrong, anyone who wonders about dubya smelling of sulfur is cool in my book, but I think Chavez was way out of line with that and it probably hurt his causes more than help them. I like a lot of the Venezuelan's policies; but, mom is right about one thing, he is just a bit too 'folklorico' for his own good. It'd be a smarter move for Evo to distance himself from Chavez in front of Bolivian audiences, though. There seems to be a fairly popular fear back home that Venezuela is gaining too much terrain in Bolivia through Evo's closest ally.

My main dissatisfaction about the interview was the lack of 'tough questions'. I would've liked to see what Evo has to say to an American audience about how the constituent assembly is going, what his plans are to reduce the unemployment rate and to better the terrible economical crisis that is happening. But, those questions are probably better suited for the Bolivian media (and yes, they ask them) and not for the audience up here. Maybe Amy knows what she's doing :-). A question relevant both back home and here, though, would be what his efforts are in terms of reducing the outward-immigration of Bolivians. I foresee this as being one of the main problems Bolivia will deal with in the intermediate future if not sooner. And yes, I'm guilty when it comes to that issue.

Alright, this is long enough, but I can't guarantee that a second installment won't follow. </rant>

Thai coup d'etat

2006-09-20T10:15:00.000-05:00

If you haven't heard about it read the news!

I know most of you, probably by my being an unpaid unofficial reddit sales person, read articles from reddit. Nonetheless, I have to point this one out. Late last night, I stumbled upon this. It reminded me a lot about the old videos and books about the many coups in Bolivia. The neat thing, though, is that usually accounts like this one come up months if not years or decades after the actual coup because one of the first items in most coup's agenda is to prevent the free flow of information and to arrest, torture and kill people who have not-so-positive things to say.

Just in case you didn't read through the whole thing (I don't blame you it is long!) here are some interesting links that come up towards the middle: 19Sep and pictures.

The internet is changing the way we go about business, ain't it? I wonder if one day we'll have the equivalent of the open source movement for news coverage. The main problem I can foresee is the one wikipedia struggles with: the credibility of the sources. However, you don't have to believe everything you read. After a while (much like with wikipedia) you know when a source is good and when one isn't. I think this problem would be a lot more bearable than the corporate control of the media that we have going on now around here.

On a completely different note, I hope king george doesn't decide that it is time for the US to go enforcing democracy in Thailand. So far, it seems that it is going to be this way, luckily. I've always believed that most peoples have the power to do away with their tyrants and I am sure the Thai people are no exception -- specially after reading the live internet journalism. That is the kind of thing that gets you arrested in times of coup yet Alpha_Binary doesn't seem to be scared that much. Hats off to her!

What is Popeye to do now?

2006-09-19T11:23:00.000-05:00

I was reading Cecilia's blog since there wasn't a new comic today. I had heard about the e-coli spinach infection and all that, but I didn't realize it was causing so much havoc. I guess the fact that my mother all the way back in Bolivia heard about it should've clued me in (yes, I've been slacking and not reading the news these last few days).

In any event, whatever news article about this I skimmed this morning was so paranoic! Be scared, be very scared, the evil spinach is out to get you. It reminds me a bit of the airport-security debate I've gotten myself into a few times recently. Why do we react before we think?

Do not buy spinach! Avoid greens! Careful you might die in a car crash...oh wait, we don't worry about that one.

The first few results of a google search on e coli facts seem to suggest that if you cook your spinach at 160 fahrenheit you will be ok. Second, suppose there have been 1000 cases (an overestimate I think), that is 1 in 3 million people or 0.0000033 of the population. Of course, I couldn't find that info on the news (I admit I didn't do the best job at looking since I have to go to class soon). All the info the news seem to have given is about where the first cases were found, how many people got it, what you should avoid, etcetera. Be very scared!

All in all, Cecilia is right: you are more likely to die in your daily commute than by eating a spinach salad for lunch. So, I say Popeye should eat himself a can's worth and go kick the meida's rear. I would, but I better head to class.

Ojos de vainilla

2006-09-18T20:32:00.000-05:00

Wanalee has rated 237 netflix movies and has 130 movies in her queue. That is a movie a week for the next 2.5 years. Netcrackix sounds like a better name for that. Anyways, last night, among those 237 movies came up Vanilla Sky which got 3 stars in Wanalee's book. It'd get only 1 or 2 in mine. However, we both seemed to agree that Abre Los Ojos was phenomenal. But, but, but... it is the exact same script and even the same lead actress! How is it that the Hollywood version managed to leave me with a "man, that was stupid!" while the Spanish version somehow made it neat, and left me with some kind of warm and fuzzy yet nostalgic feeling? It is the exact same script!

Wanalee hypothesizes that it is the cinematography and I think I agree. Sort of the same reason that the first photo seems much better than the second one or the same reason that the acoustic Hotel California seems a lot richer than the first one. Alas, perhaps that is all subjective but it seems to be there nonetheless (oh, I know I have a better case with the photograph than with the song -- the solo at the end in the original version is fantastic).

In any event, I think there is a second component to all this. Vanilla Sky is a Hollywood movie whereas Abre Los Ojos is a pelicula española. Watching the first one is nothing, you go to the movies and you watch it. To watch the second you have to go out of your way a bit, research it a bit, know the director or study a bit -- something. I think people who do that also tend to think that the are refining their taste by going out of their way. Hey, at least I know I'm guilty of this. In fewer words, it seems that it is easy to be biased towards liking the foreign version because it is (or makes you feel) more "culturally rich" or something similar. Again, I'm certainly guilty of this. But, given the track record of Hollywood, I think the bias is fair. And yes, this is the all-american foreigner saying all this. Ha!

In any event, the nerd in me says that an experiment is in order to show that the bias is a fair one. When I have time I'll put them both in the netckrackix queue and watch them one right after the other trying to make notes about what makes Abre Los Ojos better than its counterpart. I think the claim I'd like to make is that what makes it better is not just subjective, but there are some tangible things as well. We'll see. I'll publish the report in this peer-reviewed space, though all y'all don't get to tell me that my stuff is crap before I publish it, only afterwards. Take that PRL!

Holy peppers batman!

2006-09-16T13:13:00.000-05:00

What's the best way to find good produce? Well... Wanalee would have me believe that it is by looking. Turns out that Evanston has a farmer's market. It was good, albeit, nothing close to the celebration that is the saturday market back in the Eugeneland (as expected). We bought 8 peppers, 1.5 lbs of onions and some greens for the price of 1 pepper at wild oats. So, I'm glad she found it. And yeah, I guess this posting counts as somewhat retracting all the shit-talk about the availability of organic produce I did in a previous one. So there.

Talent and Ability

2006-09-10T17:35:00.000-05:00

How does one find out if one is talented?

In music it is easy. Just listen to what you play. Does it sound good? Does it paint a picture? Convey emotion? Are all the scales used properly? How about harmony? Do people like it? And really, the first and last ones are all there is to it.

Computer science is a bit trickier, but it also seems doable. Can you write code that is bug-free? Is it readable? Do you know all the key technologies relevant? Do you mind reading documentation for a long time before starting? Do you sit a think about the problem before you jump into emacs? Can you evaluate your time-cost to benefit ratio for tasks?

But, my wife seems harder. How does one find out if one should -- rather, if one is good enough to -- do physics. Well, I certainly have a passion, no doubt there. I love the subject and it gets more and more interesting and lovable as I progress (hehe...some may say that's not the natural progression of marriage! :-). Nonetheless, I can't get myself to do a qual problem in less than 2 or 3 hours or even longer sometimes. I usually know how to proceed relatively quickly, but then it takes a long while to get all the details straight. I think I'm expected to be able to do these in about 45 minutes time or so. Is that a bad sign? Does that mean that I'm not clever enough to see all the tricks that would allow it to be done quicker? And if so, is that bad?

To an experimentalist, probably not too bad, so long you can pass them by studying, memorizing and such. And there is quite a few things that attract me to the experimental world. Specially in, say, Quantum Optics. However, I think I'm a theorist at heart. I find it a lot neater to come up with models and theories and work some mathematical witchery to come up with answers and predictions than to have to work around the ~5x10^6 experimental details that come about because the world hasn't been bought at the physics store. You know, the place where you get massless strings, frictionless surfaces, perfect thermal insulation and other kinds of idealizations. Yeah, definitely, figuring out how to do Gaussian integrals the other day was neat. And even neater to use it to do stat mech. But, do a measurement? Sure. Eh...where do I stick the thermometer?... What do you mean it is not so simple? Yuk dude. Okay, this is just a long way to explain that I am rather theoretically inclined.

So, the question remains. Am I good enough to do this stuff? Is it like Davey said: too late for you need to start in high school to be a successful theoretical physicist? Given the job market I'd like to know if I'd be shooting myself in the foot twice, by becoming a theoretical (bang!) physicist (bang!) or attempting to anyways.

I guess we'll find out a bit about this by friday. I am almost certain that I'm not going to do as well as I had hoped on the quals -- I'm diagnosing failure on all three (that's ok, I don't have to pass them before I start the program). It is frustrating, though! I know how to do the problems, but not quick enough and I make tons of errors along the way despite that they eventually get fixed (that takes time). I wish there was a simple boolean function to which I could plug myself into to tell me whether or not I have the ability and talent necessary. Oh yeah, and I hope that said function is not the subject GRE -- sore subject! :-)

The Little Apple

2006-09-08T17:23:00.000-05:00

It is not Boston and not the Big Apple, lacks the hospitality of a small town and the political/social consciousness of Portland. Nonetheless, Chicagoland is awesome. Heck, what do I know anyway? I've never been to either NY or Boston and all I do is "like" said consciousness in p-town.

Mis primeras impresiones fueron digitales... me las tomaron con tinta hecha de comida organica cara mientras me miraban raro por decirles buen dia! More on this afterwards.

I like what Paul Graham has to say about cities:

I find every ambitious town sends you a message. New York tells you "you should make more money." LA tells you "you should be better looking." Rome tells you "you should dress better." London tells you "you should be hipper." The Bay Area tells you "you should live better." And Cambridge tells you "you should read some of those books you've been meaning to."

Chicago seems to be an ambitious town. I haven't deciphered what the message is exactly, though. All I know right now is that it seems like a good place to be a nerd though I'm not sure what kind of a nerd would do the best here (e.g. computer nerds seem to do the best in the Bay Area). I've also figured out that the message is going to be some hybrid of what New York, London and the Bay Area tell you. I like the fact that there are good schools here, concentrated in the urban area. Of course, it is no Boston, but it seems that the schools manage to drive things a bit in terms of startups, which is a very good thing as startuping is in my calendar of future endeavors.

Public transportation rocks. doubleplusgood. I could use an "L" with fewer and farther in between stops that moved a bit faster, but it is still pretty damn good.

I love the diversity. Commuting on the "L" is always interesting in terms of this. Lots of people, many cultural identities and even several different languages!

The city is not shiny and clean. It is as if the city is too busy to clean itself up. I love that. It is the same excuse I give for having a messy apartment/desk :-P.

I have been disappointed so far (I haven't seriously looked) with the availability, quality and price of organic foods. I really miss The Kiva. This is probably more of a problem with Evanston than with Chicago. And, frankly, the fact that Jewel and Wild Oats are less than two blocks away from home may bias my assessment :-).

The other thing that was a bit of a shock was that people seem to be thrown for a loop when you are nice. This was one of the first things Sharon noticed when she was here and it is so true. Holding doors or smiling at people seem to be uncommon around here. Also, it weirds me out how self-involved a lot of people seem to be. In the "L": Most sit idle, with little white ear-adjuncts sticking out the side of their head, abstracted away in thoughts about their own idiosyncrasies, relations and careers. Or, so it seems anyways. I am yet to see a conversation being stricken up by two strangers. I'm not sure why exactly am I surprised by this, it seems like one of the most natural problems of a busy city filled with busy people.

Going downtown is always a treat, specially when a visit to the Art Institute is involved -- that place is magnificent. The twelve-mile bike ride into downtown also makes for a pleasant summer day. Now, being that I'm a bit broke, I haven't managed to go do "cultural" activities such as going to bars, plays, concerts and such as much as I'd like to. This should change over the year provided Physics and the Professors allow. The place seems to be packed with culture.

All in all, I was thirsty for some urban life and I've got it. I may want to move out of Evanston and more into the city sooner or later, but the Little Apple rocks. I like them apples.