Neither Toil Nor Spin

Eliot Spitzer (yes, him) asks a useful question in his article in Slate:

What are we getting for the trillions of dollars in rescue funds?

And makes a proposal:

Two responses are possible: One is to accept the need for gigantic financial institutions and the impossibility of failure—and hence the reality of explicit government guarantees, such as Fannie and Freddie now have—but then to regulate the entities so heavily that they essentially become extensions of the government. To do so could risk the nimbleness we want from economic actors.

The better policy is to return to an era of vibrant competition among multiple, smaller entities—none so essential to the entire structure that it is indispensable.

You can find all kinds of weird things on maps, such as the Manicouagan Reservoir, a huge meteor crater up in northern Quebec. It's a lake, now.

A Great Evil threatens the Realm, but a sage tells our Heroes of a legend that the One, a savior, bearing the Sign, will come in the darkest hour. Now a child has been found, with the Sign upon him, and our Heroes must journey to reach him before the henchmen of the Great Evil do, or all is lost. And they do so, for they are Heroes. And when they first meet the One, they see that he has the Power long foretold.

But he is also a lazy dishonest doofus who nearly gets them all killed. They try hard to make him see his duty, but eventually conclude it is impossible, give up, and go home.

Oh, if only funds had been found to coach the narrator of the "Waffen SS" episode of the Weaponology series in proper German pronunciation. Hint: the W in Waffen is like the V in "verse", not the W in "weapon."

Ooaffen SS. Feh.

John Taylor Gatto is an award-winning teacher who rejects the conventional model of schooling entirely and has written a provocative essay, The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher:

It is time that we squarely face the fact that institutional schoolteaching is destructive to children. Nobody survives the seven-lesson curriculum completely unscathed, not even the instructors. The method is deeply and profoundly anti-educational. No tinkering will fix it. In one of the great ironies of human affairs, the massive rethinking the schools require would cost so much less than we are spending now that powerful interests cannot afford to let it happen. You must understand that first and foremost the business I am in is a jobs project and an agency for letting contracts. We cannot afford to save money by reducing the scope of our operation or by diversifying the product we offer, even to help children grow up right. That is the iron law of institutional schooling -- it is a business, subject neither to normal accounting procedures nor to the rational scalpel of competition.

There's a lot more at the link, above. It's good; go read it.

I do wonder about one of Gatto's specific claims: "No, the truth is that reading, writing, and arithmetic only take about one hundred hours to transmit as long as the audience is eager and willing to learn."

That's fifty days of two-hour days, or ten standard weeks, with weekends off. There's no way you are going to wrap your head around the intricacies of English spelling and formal writing in that time. I suspect he is defining the three R's way the heck down, even after taking into account the gains from teaching a motivated student rather than a reluctant one.

The Democrats have been making much of the fact that McCain voted with George Bush 95 percent of the time. It sure makes a good soundbite, with the maverick revealed to be a lapdog.

After some investigation, I am convinced that while the basic fact is true, the larger picture is much more favorable to McCain. There are two reasons for this. First, to get so high a number, the Democrats have cherry-picked a narrow period, namely the last year. In other years, McCain broke with the president rather more, with the low-water mark at 67% in 2001. Second, politics is a team sport; to get anything done a representative needs to mostly vote with his party, and buck the party line only occasionally. It is noteworthy that Obama voted with his party 97% of the time during his senate career. (link)

It would be interesting to see how McCain compares with other senators in agreement with Bush during the past eight years, but I haven't been able to find any such breakdown.

In his new article in the New York Times, David Frum cites two facts that contradict the commonplace that the Republican party is the party of the rich.

"In 2000, Al Gore beat George Bush, 56-39, among the 4 percent of voters who identified themselves as 'upper class.'"

"Leaving aside the District of Columbia, 7 of America’s 10 best-educated states are strongly 'blue' in national politics, and the others (Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia) have been trending blue. Of the 10 least-educated, only one (Nevada) is not reliably Republican."

Brooks also has some challenging things to say about increasing inequality in America driving voters to the Democratic party, and away from the Republicans. And that makes a lot of sense. If I may lean on stereotype for a moment, the Democrats are the party of the ghetto-poor and the grad-school rich; the Republicans are the party of the patriotic working class and secure middle class. If the traditionally Republican middle is thinning out, with some of its members going up and others down, it makes sense the party of the economic migrants' destinations would be profiting.

I had heard that people can only have approximately 150 acquaintances at once, but here's an article in the New York Times describing the research that came up with the number:

In 1998, the anthropologist Robin Dunbar argued that each human has a hard-wired upper limit on the number of people he or she can personally know at one time. ... Dunbar noticed that ape groups tended to top out at 55 members. Since human brains were proportionally bigger, Dunbar figured that our maximum number of social connections would be similarly larger: about 150 on average. Sure enough, psychological studies have confirmed that human groupings naturally tail off at around 150 people: the “Dunbar number,” as it is known.

This pencil I am using is just about to wear out. It's down to six cm now, and when it gets to five, it will be too uncomfortable to use.

I can't remember the last time I wore out a pencil. It must have been back around grade 8 or so, when I started to use a mechanical pencil rather than a regular one.

An In Nomine adventure seed.

The player characters are angels. 9/11 just happened, and it is their job to find out what devilry was behind it.

One twist: the PCs are servitors of Khalid, the distinctly Muslim archangel.

The following is from No god but God, by Reza Aslan, concerning morality in pre-Islamic Arabia:

It was the Sheykh's responsibility to maintain peace and stability in his community by ensuring the proper retribution for all crimes committed within the tribe. Crimes committed against those outside the tribe were not only unpunished, the were not really crimes. Stealing, killing, or injuring another person was not considered a morally reprehensible act per se, and such acts were punished only if they weakened the stability of the tribe.

So, killing outsiders is OK. There might be consequences, of course, since the victim's tribe or family might exact revenge, but killing an outsider is not pre se wrong. I wonder how that compares with other cultures around the same time.

George Lakoff has some interesting things to say to left-wingers about effective communication. I think this point is particularly interesting:

8. The "Misunderestimating" Trap

Too many progressives think that people who vote conservative are just stupid, especially those who vote against their economic self-interest. Progressives believe that we only have to tell them the real economic facts, and they will change the way they vote. The reality is that those who vote conservative have their reasons, and we had better understand them. Conservative populism is cultural--not economic--in nature. Conservative populists see themselves as oppressed by elitist liberals who look down their noses at them, when they are just ordinary, moral, right-thinking folks. They see liberals as trying to impose an immoral "political correctness" on them, and they are angry about it.

Progressives also paint conservative leaders as incompetent and not very smart, based on a misunderstanding of the conservative agenda. This results from looking at conservative goals through progressive values. Looking at conservative goals through conservative values yields insight and shows just how effective conservatives really are.

When Obama accepted the Democratic nomination, he made the following promises:

1. "I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas..."

2. "...I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America."

3. "I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow."

4. "I will cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95 per cent of all working families."

5. "I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East."

6. "I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power."

7. "I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America."

8. "I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars."

9. "And I'll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy"

10. "I'll invest in early childhood education."

11. "I'll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support."

12. "... I'll ask for higher standards and more accountability."

13. "And we will keep our promise to every young American – if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education."

14. "If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums."

15. "If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves."

16. "...I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most."

17. "Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave..."

18. "Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses; and the time to protect Social Security for future generations."

19. "And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work..."

20. "... I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less ..."

21. "... I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home."

22. "I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan."

23. "I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts."

24. "...I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression."

25. "I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease."

26. "And I will restore our moral standing..."

Wow, twenty-six promises. That's a lot. One might of course quibble that not all of these are promises; "now is the time..." and "I will set a clear goal" sound a lot more like mere statements of intentions. But then some of the points contain multiple goals: number 18 addresses both bankruptcy laws and Social security, and number 22 mentions both the Iraq war and Afghanistan. So overall I think 26 is a justifiable enumeration.

Could I have a show of hands of everyone who thinks Obama will be able to meet half of these promises?

There are movie-stars. There are rock-stars. But that's as far as it goes. There are no dance-stars, painting-stars, gardening-stars, or sewing-stars. Only two mass-market big-money artforms use the *-star form for their most celebrated performers. Why is that?

Conan the Barbarian is a just barely tamed savage who kills men (a lot) and beds women (occasionally). And that second one is a bit problematic for the author.

The thing is, Conan can't really ask permission. He's far too rough a customer for that. But on the other hand, he's not going to flat out rape women either. The fans aren't looking for anything that dark; Conan is swords-and-sorcery, not fetish porn. So somewhere between asking nicely and taking what he wants there needs to be a finely-balance middle ground that satisfies readers looking for some titillating vicarious masculine adventure without alienating them with the really rough stuff.

It's a tough problem. I don't envy the author who has to solve it.

Jacob Weisberg has a new analysis piece over at Slate.com, If Obama Loses. His thesis statement is right there in the subhead: racism is the only reason McCain might beat him. Weisberg is a smart guy and a good writer, but here he does not come close to making his case.

Weisberg begins by noting that despite carrying the dead weight of the Bush administration's botched Iraq war, McCain has pulled even with Obama. Casting about for an explanation, Weisberg points the finger at the ancient enemy of liberal intellectuals like him, the racists.

In fairness, Weisberg does go some distance in the following paragraphs to establish that some of the opposition to Obama is due to his race. OK, sure; there are racists in America. But how many? It seems to be hard to tell, since in the current climate of opinion, this isn't the kind of thing people are likely to be forthright about. And this makes Weisberg's job harder, since he doesn't just argue race is one factor; he claims it is the factor.

To do so, Weisberg would have needed to provide some estimate of what portion of votes against Obama will be driven by his race, as opposed to other factors. He should have listed these other factors, and provided either evidence or argument for why they are likely to contribute fewer anti-Obama votes than race will. And there is nothing like that in the article.

Overall, this piece would have been a decent stab at an article titled "Obama's Race is a Liability" rather than the more ambitious claim Weisberg made in the tagline.

From a comment by Daniel Martin on tor.com: "Students very rarely fail calculus directly. They fail algebra, or geometry, or trig., or something even earlier while taking calculus."

Back in 2005, on the Usenet group rec.arts.sf.fandom, I threw out this question:

Our hero, the time traveling engineer, starts out in 1901, with the goal of
working on the coolest engineering projects of the twentieth century.
Assuming he knows well the history of technical development during that
time, but is not actually allowed to substantially alter history, where is
he working during each of the hundred years?

After some vigorous discussion, we arrived at the following list:

Trans-Siberian Railroad, 1901-1904. Aside from being
a serious engineering feat, the railroad would eventually have a lot to
do with history as it was this route that allowed the Soviet Union to
move troops into Mongolia in 1938 and 1939 to defeat the Japanese and
discourage them from attacking the USSR later, and then move troops the
other way to stall and push back the German attacks in 1942.

HMS Dreadnought, 1905-1906. Generally recognized as being the first
modern battleship of the 20th century. The subsequent naval revolution
and arms race was a trigger to the First World War.

Panama Canal, 1907-1913. Not only changed shipping routes worldwide,
but was one of the keys to making the US an eventual superpower becaus
it could rapidly transfer naval forces from one ocean (and one side of
the planet) to the other. The only other countries that had that
ability in theory were Canada and Russia, but both had to deal with the
fact their passages were clogged with ice most of the time which made
them effectively useless.

Sopwith Aircraft, 1914-1918. Developed the Sopwith Camel (hi, snoopy!),
the leading aircraft on the allied side of the war. Also the Sopwith Snipe,
which was the primary British fighter until the mid-twenties.

Western Electric Company, 1919-1929: Development of movies with sound,
leading to the Vitaphone system. "The Jazz Singer" was released in 1927, and
"The Lights of New York" in 1929.

Empire State Building, 1930-1931: A landmark to this day.

Douglas Aircraft, 1932-1938. The biggest success in aviation before WWII was
the Douglas DC-3. This interval places our hero at Douglas from the earliest
proposals for that aircraft through its delivery in 1935, and continuing on
until the start of the war.

Project Ultra, Project Manhattan, or Radar, 1939-1945: Our hero has
three choices during the war. He can work on the Enigma decryption efforts
in the UK, the atomic bomb in the US, or radar development in either place.
Take your pick, really.

Bell Labs, 1946-1950. Development and refinement of transistor
(invented 1947.)

Electric Boat Division, 1951-1954. USS Nautilus, the first nuclear
submarine.

USSR Space Program, 1955-1960. Includes launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957.

Project Apollo, 1961-1969. The biggest stunt of the late twentieth century.
Gotta be there. There was some neat stuff going on in computing, too, but
big flaming rockets are cooler than boxes mit dem blinkenlighten. Sorry,
programmers, but your day will come. Departure shortly after the
moon-landing.

Intel, 1970-1978. Working on the 4004, the first microprocessor, introduced
in 1971. Also worked on the 8080 and 8088 processors.

Apple Computer, 1979-1985. The computer that took the GUI to the masses was
the Macintosh. This interval places our hero at Apple from the visit by
Apple engineers to Xerox PARC, where they saw the future, through the
development of the Mac, to the year Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple.

Cisco, 1986-1998. Development of switches and software for the
Internet as the public becomes aware of it, and the system is forced
to adapt to orders of magnitude more traffic than it was originally
imagined to accommodate. Much participation with the Internet
Engineering Task Force.

Google, 1999-2000: Search is king. The coolest company in the world.

The complete discussion is here.

As an alumnus of the University of Waterloo, I am allowed to use the campus library for free. Granted, it's not quite full service, but this will be very useful to me.



Equivalent service is available to others for a nominal ($20) yearly fee. Given the cost of running a research library, that seems surprisingly cheap.  The University of Toronto libraries charge $150 per year for the general public.

An old post, but a good one, by Charles Stross on the difficulties of interstellar travel and colonization.

The long and the short of what I'm trying to get across is quite simply that, in the absence of technology indistinguishable from magic — magic tech that, furthermore, does things that from today's perspective appear to play fast and loose with the laws of physics — interstellar travel for human beings is near-as-dammit a non-starter. And while I won't rule out the possibility of such seemingly-magical technology appearing at some time in the future, the conclusion I draw as a science fiction writer is that if interstellar colonization ever happens, it will not follow the pattern of historical colonization drives that are followed by mass emigration and trade between the colonies and the old home soil.

...

Colonize the Gobi desert, colonise the North Atlantic in winter — then get back to me about the rest of the solar system!