Artificial Cheese

As I was visiting cnnsi.com to catch up on the Cavs-Spurs NBA finals series, the latest indication of America’s annual summer addiction to football was pressed up against the anger portion of my brain.  The Bengal’s star wide receiver, Chad Johnson, raced a horse in a charity event recently.  He wasn’t on the horse, but rather he was running against the horse.

Fortunately he won, because if he lost we would need to sit through a press conference, and trade/retirement rumors, experts opinions on why a horse was faster than him, a certain hold-out because he wants more money but he’s not getting it because he lost to a horse, etc…

But while the headlines say, “Johnson outpaces a horse”, its just not true.  He was given a 100 meter head start.  Granted, I probably wouldn’t be able to run the length of the race, let alone outrun a horse, but thats not the point.  Why are the headlines worded, without question, that Johnson was faster than a horse?

…And why are we still pitting ourselves in these man vs. beast competitions?  Just look around…we won.  We won a long time ago.  We won so bad that we force the opponents into these lop-sided competitions, then we cut them up and turn their hooves into glue.

Okay I’m gonna go calm down.

I’m finally learning to read.  Not reading literally, but reading as an activity.  High school tried to do it, college tried to do it, but none of them could get me to crack open a book for entertainment or recreation.

What finally did it?  A simple recommendation from my sister combined with short flights between Philly and Montreal.  I know what you’re thinking, “wouldn’t it be better to read on LONG flights?”.  No, it wouldn’t.  Flights are where I use my laptop to get work done.  When you’re on a short flight, technophobic airline regulations don’t let you use electronic devices for a disproprotionate portion of the time in the air.  Reading was the only thing I could do short of staring at other passengers as they struggle with their huge carry-ons.

I finished the book, a well-known bestseller called “Freakonomics”.  I was planning to write a review of the book, bashing the writers Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner for everything from their writing style to their hidden agenda to their motive for writing in the first place.  Everything that I would have said in that review would have been insightful, thought provoking, and above all, true.  But it also would have been unreasonably agressive and loathsome.

I figured that this would be a good opportunity for some self-therapy.  Aristotle was once quoted as saying or writing (not sure), “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”  A few years ago I began taking this to heart.  I played the role of “Devil’s Advocate” at every opportunity to do so.  I wanted to make sure that whoever I was talking to could back up what they had to say. 

For a while I thought it was healthy.  I was refining, reenforcing, and occasionally disproving ideas by arguing them.  Eventually, I thought it was thrilling; I began to do it more and more until I would argue from the most absurd points of view just for sport.

It dawned on my as I read this book that I was no longer playing devil’s advocate…I had become the devil’s advocate.  I couldn’t agree with anything without arguing it, not even thoughts in my own head.  I read this book line by line and tried to find holes in the author’s argument.  When I couldn’t find holes, I found inconsistencies, and when all else failed I found questionable wording that could misconstrue the truth.

It made me a little nervous that my sister or a couple of my co-workers didn’t question anything in this book, because there was a lot to be questioned.  I believe that it is worthwhile to question everything, even your own thoughts and ideas, but always to an extent.  The book was full of insightful thinking and logical breakdowns of real problems, and I highly recommend reading it, but make sure you don’t swallow it without chewing.

For those of you who follow this blog religiously, you may remember an old entry of mine that dealt with the ugly redundency involved with filing paperwork.  It focused on the repetitive time-wasting nature of entering your personal information on every form just because it was going to different people.

You also may remember that I wrote my local congress-person, Representative Patrick Murphy, an email where I asserted my views on the subject and demanded that the government play a role in creating a common form that all packages will “extend”.

Well he actually responded!  He’s a real person!  Here it is…

Dear Dev,

Thank you for your comments and suggestions that the federal government provide standards for data entry forms so that software could automatically enter standard personal data on each form.

There are two commercial efforts that my staff is aware of to provide automatic data entry on forms. One of these is the Microsoft “Passport” system, which seems to have foundered amid concerns of privacy, monopoly, and identity theft. A second is the Google “auto-complete” feature, which does a reasonable job of filling out standard information in Web forms but suffers from similar concerns of privacy and security.

In the discussion of illegal immigration it has become common to discuss the possibility of a national electronically-readable worker ID card with biometric and other information encoded into it. Although I am not necessarily in favor of such an idea, it has been pointed out that this would also provide a very good “security dongle” that would prevent most kinds of computer identity theft. If this system were ever implemented, querying the data in this card would also provide a simple computer-automated method of data entry for forms such as you describe.

Thank you for contacting me. I value such correspondence and take seriously the concerns of my constituents. To stay informed of my work, or to sign up for my electronic newsletters, please visit my Web site at www.house.gov/patrickmurphy. Also, please do not hesitate to contact me again if I can help in any way.

Alright, so he didn’t exactly “get it”.  That’s okay!  It wasn’t a real hot-button issue anyway, but I’ll give him a verbal “Pat”-on-the-back.

It only took one morning to put Imus into perspective.  CNN calls it “The deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history,” but this was far from a rampage.  One guy chained up the doors to a building and started shooting everyone inside.  This was a carefully planned assault.

So what now?  I’m sure that the media will fuel the fires of hindsight and cause everyone to start blaming people for not being able to see into the future before this happened.  Then the water cooler conversations will go from, “thats so sad” to suggestions on who is to be blamed.  We’ll start seeing pictures of the shooter dressed in fatigues and bearing assault rifles, and threatening or demonic letters that he wrote over the past few years.

Then the campaign managers for the 2008 election campaigns will chime in.  They’ll go after the popular targets, those targets that people hate because they are not understood.  Ipods, YouTube, hip-hop, video games, those big jeans that black people wear, Iraq, skateboards, marijuana, short skirts, pierced ears, bad grades, dancing, etc. etc.

Then before anyone has a chance to stop and think about the actual root causes for these sorts of incidents, the issue will be thrown into the statsictal abyss only to be used as a benchmark for future mass shootings.  Maybe some Walmarts will think twice before selling Grand Theft Auto 4 to a minor, and thats about it.

So what do I think caused this problem?  I think that its not worth trying to figure out.  With 6 billion corruptable humans wondering all over the planet, there is no way to avoid a few thousand homocidal ones.  Its a bell curve, not a bell square.  In the end, this is an issue because people fear getting shot by a mad man, but what people fear even more is that they are at the mercy of almost anyone at any time.

Yeah, games! I love video games, I would play them all day if I could. Sometimes I can. Sometimes I run out of games to play and I ravage the internet for anything and everything that could be considered a game. I even downloaded a spreadsheet manager once because it had good graphics.

I’ve come across more full free games on the internet than you could fit in John Travolta’s chin-canyon.  I figured, if I spend time looking for games to download on the internet then others probably do too. So I will compile my information related to downloadable games here for anyone who wants to get their kicks for free.

Continue Reading »

Your months of wait are over, its time for another Sunday Night Showdown!

If you’ve read one of my previous Sunday Night Showdowns you’ll know that I like to watch two movies at a time. This gives me a good opportunity to compare and contrast the two productions in unusual ways.

In the left corner: weighing in at 217 lbs is Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone’s extended on-screen apology for the atrocity that was Rocky V. Aside from Star Wars episode 3, this has to be the most anticipated sixth-in-a-series movie ever released. Over-the-top Rocky Balboa is tormented by the loss of his wife, Adrian, and finds himself telling old fight stories to customer’s at his appropriately named restaurant, Adrian’s. When he realizes that he is totally consumed with his yearning for a past life, he decides to start a training montage and revisit the fighting stage one more time. The jist of the movie can be summed up in one line that Sylvester Stallone utters before his fight with Antonio Tarver; “It ain’t ovuh till it’s ovuh.” Following an inspiring and bloody fight, it was over.

In the blue corner, weighing in at 8 lbs and 4 ounces we have Children of Men, a ‘world gone wrong’ thriller with stunning camera work. The movie follows an activist-turned-beaurocrat, played by Clive Owen, 20 years after humans suddenly became infertile. Clive is thurst back into his life as a troublemaking activist when he is asked to do a favor for his woman-stayed-activist ex-wife. One thing leads to another and suddenly he is running from those who wanted his help in an attempt to save the only pregnant woman in the world from twisted immigration rules and homocidal protesters.

The movies that are mentioned here are very different. Perhaps not as different as Waist Deep and Everything is Illuminated, but not similar enough to see any obvious parallels. Both leading men in these stories are driven hard by happy memories of their earlier lives. In the case of Clive Owen, he half-willingly throws away his boring life as a successful paper-pusher to become a born again activist when his ex-wife calls for his aid. Rocky just wants to run up stairs and hit someone again. In either case, its a return to how things used to be to conquer old demons.

The most poetic difference between these movies lies with the main goal and impact both men have on their surroundings. Rocky leaves a path of mending and healing through punching and violence. Through his inspiring efforts, he changes his son’s whiny outlook on life and even inspires some heart in the man that is trying to punch him in the face. Clive Owen, on the other hand, leaves a path of death and destruction in his wake as he tries to heal the world through creation. Everywhere he goes he ends up killing the people he loves or blowing up people he doesn’t really know that well, so he can save a woman that can save the world in turn.

If you’re wondering which movie I thought was better, than you’ve been reading all this time just to be disappointed. I have to admit that I am a closet Rocky fan. I love those movies. I don’t care how many times I hear that Rocky music during a training montage, it gets me fired up. But just like my fellow Rocky fans, Rocky V left a horrible taste in my mouth. Rocky IV was bad but forgivable; Rocky V was just a slap in the face to those looking for something to remember. When I first heard that a new Rocky movie was in production, I was giddy like a little school girl. After a few months, however, I was not looking forward to another step in the downward regression of Rocky movies.

Rocky Balboa turned out to be much better than I anticipated. The entire movie was filled with subtleties and a very appropriate approach to the story. At times it was almost like Sylvester Stallone himself was acting in the movie, trying to attone for the injustice that was Rocky V. I’m sure he has had the ugliness of Rocky V sitting inside of him for the past decade and he finally punched it out all over Antonio Tarver’s face.

Thats not to say that it was better than Children of Men. I was also looking forward to this movie for quite some time, partly because of my man-crush on Clive Owen, and partly because of the techniques being implemented to shoot the movie. The single-shot scenes had me very interested, and the story wasn’t too shabby either. The movie did not meet my high expectations, but it was my own fault for letting those expectations simmer until the movie was released on DVD.

I would strongly recommend Rocky Balboa to any Rocky fan, it is a very soothing and conclusive movie experience. If you’ve seen Rocky V, then consider Rocky Balboa your long awaited antidote. The elderly will love this movie because it is an inspiring movie of how an old Italian man can still beat up a big muscular black man. If you’re not a fan of the original Rocky or Rocky II, you probably want to avoid this movie.

Children of Men is not for everyone either. The character development is a bit shady, the story is very straightforward, and the movie hinges its quality on extremely subtle references and internal cross-references that almost no one but the director will pick up. But I have to say that the single shot scenes really added to the gritty feel of the movie, and they could be reason alone for anyone to watch this movie.

Portable digital media has got the business men and money makers trippin’. They see a huge demand for MP3s and videos, and in trying to satisfy that demand they realize that the product is uncontrollable. Well known and proven methods of manufacturing and distribution are inapplicable to products that are not manifested physically. Also, the product can be replicated and distributed free of charge after it enters the marketplace.

Companies crazy enough to enter this arena have been faced with these new and complicated problems. The response has been hiring think-tanks and implenting complicated technology-driven protection schemes that are in place to prevent the propagation of their products.

The result has been an annoying, perplexing and cumbersome process to retrieve and play music. Proprietary software and unintuative methods have impaired a simple consumer’s ability to get online and buy what they want without thinking too much. Digital media distribution companies such as Rhapsody and iTunes have approached a complex problem with an equally complex solution.

My message to these companies is blunt, MAKE IT SIMPLE. Get rid of your silly protection schemes and cryptic formats. Your customers don’t know about DRM and they don’t want to know about DRM. The competing P2P community is more than accomodating to even the least computer savvy users, and their product is free. Those honest customers who choose to actually pay for music and videos are met with unfriendly interfaces and overcomplicated payment plans that inspire them to steal. They end up returning to the simple and easy world of piracy.

Still good, despite the lack of coco puffs.

Ah hahahahaha…that is all.

Mystic Jewel carpenter’s tool, parochial school.  Rhymezone.com. deal with it.

My old friend Fidel Castro has returned from the brink of death once more, just to hold up the newspaper and condemn the minimal efforts that the United States is making towards a better future for the United States.  Castro’s target?  Corn.

Castro claims that 3 billion people are going to die because the US is using corn for fuel instead of feeding hungry people.  This is because there is obviously a fixed amount of corn on this planet and we can’t waste it on efforts to save the Earth against a manifestation of Kevin Costner’s Waterworld.

Car’s don’t run on pessimism, and they won’t run on irony either when Cuba becomes the next Atlantis.  Oddly enough, they do run on corn.  It just appears to me that Castro is throwing claims left and right so he can get some ‘told-you-so’s after he dies, and a brief remake of Weekend at Bernie’s.

Seriously, Castro’s prediction is very narrow sighted.  Predicting the future cannot be done by focusing on one simple cause-and-effect relationship.  Less Corn = More Starvation.  There are other factors that will increase the world’s overall food supply, like Frankenfood, which brings with it another set of ethical and unpredictable health concerns.

But while we’re on the topic of cause and effect, how about Global Warming = Less Corn?

If there is any reason for concern, its that we are relying on corn to prevent global warming.  This is like burning both ends of a candle.  We are using a resource to solve a problem that will eradicate the resource; Corn will disappear due to the effects of global warming, and we’re trying to remedy global warming using corn.

I would recommend some solutions, but its just so much easier to blame George W.

One perk involved with a consulting gig is being able to drive a different car every week.  I used to believe that all cars that looked alike drove alike, but that has not been the case.  Over the past three weeks I have driven four rental cars, here is a summary of each.

Kia Sportage – What a terrible car.  I’m not even sure if it had an engine.  Just awful…It was like driving Ms. Daisy, literally.

Chevrolet Malibu – Smooth ride, but a bit lethargic on the gas.  Definately a huge improvement over the Sportage but not you’re not going to beat anyone off of the block when a light turns green.

Chevrolet HHR – Ugly, ugly, ugly.  This must have been Chevrolet’s response to the 2006 Dodge Lyle Lovett.  Aside from the terrible shape of the car, the interior is surprisingly nice.  Very roomy and great seats.  The car is a pleasure to drive as well, probably the smoothest of the four cars that I mentioned here; it made LA traffic seem bearable.

Mazda R6 – The only car on the list with a spoiler.  This car has lots of zip, but unfortunately I didn’t need to do any highway driving in this car because my hotel is a mile from my job.  Its a very short mile with the R6.  My only gripe would be the turn radius.  This car turns like a figure skating rhino, and Mazda has weak power steering which doesn’t make things any better.

 

A pair of recent advancements in related fields have made me question the role of pure mathematicians in our society.

Researchers took a huge step towards cutting down the world’s malaria problem this week.  Millions of people die from malaria each year, so Jason Rasgon decided to do something about it.  He took part in developing a mosquito that is resistant to malaria, thus playing god by putting the evolutionary engine of natural selection into the geneticically engineered hot rod in his garage.  Many people may end up owing their lives to Jason Rasgon and his super mosquitos.

Meanwhile, 19 mathematicians spend 4 years of their lives to solve a math problem.  The problem has been named E8, a 248-dimensional math puzzle that is a part of the “Lie Group”, which descrbes symmetrical objects.  The “solution” worked out to a matrix with 205 trillion elements that are themselves equations.  A very popular way to describe this solution is as follows:

If written out on paper, the calculation describing this structure, known as E8, would cover an area the size of Manhattan.

Well, congratulations.  I cannot find any conclusive information on how solving E8 will lead to a better standard of living, and I suspect that there is no such information.  I’m not saying that the 19 mathematicians that took four years to solve this problem wasted their time, but as Jason Rasgon proved, there are more important real-life problems that need the attention of intelligent minds.

It appears that I wrote my summary of Austin hastily.  I was proven wrong; not by facts, not by the unfolding of poorly predicted happenings, but by relativity.

I wrote that the traffic in Austin was bad.  Now I will defend myself by saying that this is true; traffic in Austin is worse than the traffic around Philadelphia.  What I failed to realize is that using Philadelphia as a benchmark will result in a lot of disappointment.

I took my first trip out to California last weekend, after spending two weeks in Austin.  I made the mistake of staying in downtown LA for a wedding out in the lavish suburbs.  So I was wrong about that, but thats not the subject here.  I ended up landing at LAX at 7am, and reaching my hotel at 10am.  Thats about 25-30 miles in 2 hours if you factor in baggage claim and car rental.

The rest of the weekend was just a melody of navigating through miles of parking lots.  The weekend’s events were great but what other city has traffic at 3am?

When I got back to Austin I realized that I sold the city short.  So I was wrong…you have to remember that I have lived on the East Coast for 24 years, how was I supposed to know that traffic could get so miserable?  Its not like Austin has the best traffic either, so I’m not completely wrong.  You just like to point out people’s flaws so no one see’s your own, don’t you?  I don’t need to justify anything to you.

Stay tuned for more blogging!