Thu, 30 June 2005 11:00 pm Comments (0)

Relativity centenary, views of America

  • One century of special relativity: Albert Einstein’s On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies was published on this date in 1905, resulting ever since in astonished cries of “no, the consequences are much too weird to be true” and legions of sci-fi writers dreaming up clever ways to get around the cosmic speed limit.
  • Foreign Policy: In Search of Pro-Americanism
    Imagine that, pro vs. con opinion results are a lot more nuanced than short sound bites suggest. Anyone care to let the politicians in on this secret?
Categories: international, physics, USA, society
Wed, 29 June 2005 7:00 pm Comments (1)

Moonlight Graham, Canadian gay marriage, P2P legal folies, disillusioned officers

  • 100 years ago, Doc moonlighted as baseball player
    I always thought his story in Field of Dreams was just that, but for the most part it’s real. Literary license was applied to make it more poignant, but it’s still an interesting example of a too-brief brush with a dream–not to mention one of the quirks of official MLB statistical rules.
  • Canadian MPs back gay marriages
    • Not really a big surprise that our progressive neighbors to the north would formalize what was essentially already settled at the provicial level. But in reading the various arguments trotted out by both sides during the debate, it occurred to me that this issue will never be put to rest until both sides are willing to sever the links between the legal/economic and social/religious aspects of marriage. Make all legally sanctioned couplings–hetero and homo–’civil unions’, leave ‘marriage’ to religious bodies, and let’s be done with it! Will such a distinction stigmatize gay couples? Perhaps, but such disdain would only emanate from that unavoidable fraction of the population who simply insist that homosexuality is damnable regardless of what anyone else says. Dragging out the battle to ensure a particular wording for the special status of a pair of adults helps no one.
  • After Grokster: why (almost) everything we’re told about P2P is wrong
    Imagine that, neither the entertainment industry nor the P2P hawkers are telling the whole truth about their motives or the future directions of the technology. Nice summary here, in that pox-on-both-your-houses sort of way.
  • The Not-So-Long Gray Line
    The prospect of the U.S. military losing the core of experience, well-trained officers is perhaps even more disturbing than recent trends in regular recruitment, as proper strategic and logistical planning are vastly more important to winning than are the numbers of grunts and bullets. However, what struck me about all this is that this group of people, disillusioned with the dishonesty and mistakes of the current campaigns, will filter out into society and in a few years should start providing an effective counterweight to the current method of thinking in Washington–a natural antidote to the ascendancy of the neocons and others. Let’s just hope we’re not too far gone by the time they have a chance to make their voices heard.
Categories: baseball, international, politics, technology, USA, law, movies
Mon, 27 June 2005 11:38 pm Comments (0)

Educators’ sleight of hand, the rule of law, NASA power to the thinkers

  • False Data on Student Performance
    Given the chronic funding problems of many school districts, held hostage as they often are to the magnanimity of local property owners, is it really any wonder that the threat of further funding loss posed by No Child Left Behind act standards would lead to districts’ cooking their performance numbers? Minimal national standards for education are a good, noble thing, but the rather draconian methods of the current law are more likely to improve the performance of creative accountants than children. To hold the administrators (and teachers?) accountable, at the price of their jobs, for their students’ performance over x number of years would seem to be a more effective use of the punishment style of legislation. Moreover, I really don’t think that any sort of top-down mechanism, whether tax breaks for exceptional teachers or public executions of failing districts’ adminstrators, is going to make any significant difference in the quality of American education unless and until the onus is put on parents to get personally, actively, and continually involved in pushing their children to become effective, eager students.
  • Regaining Respect
    Restoring the faith of the world–and our own citizenry–that the USA stands for nobler principles than mere realpolitik would probably do as much, if not more, to ensuring the nation’s safety than any war effort. It’s sad, really, how straightforward the required policy changes would be if only the neocons and assorted partisan hacks in the current administration would only have the vision to see the larger benefits.
    There may be a need to detain for extended periods persons who pose a clear and present threat. But the authority to do so should come from Congress, not a president’s whim. Any such statute should set out clear criteria for detention and establish some independent periodic review to determine whether detention is still warranted.
    Seriously, I (and probably others too) would be much more willing to give the executive branch broader latitude to preemptively deal with people who could cause wide destruction if I could be assured that an independent review process were there to halt the excesses and correct the mistakes. No power of the government over the individual should ever be beyond review. Is that really too much to ask?
  • NASA Chief Sees Space As Inside Job
    I remember how astonished I was about a decade ago when on a trip to Goddard I learned that nearly all of the Space Shuttle program was run by a NASA contractor. Government agencies are often terrible at running big projects efficiently, but when it comes to science and engineering–projects whose benefits are often intangible and invisible except in hindsight–they are better than the private sector simply because, in lacking the pressure to show some ROI after X quarters, they can base their decisions on the merits of the project. Perfectly? Well, no, but even some freedom to choose metrics based in nobler goals than simple profit is a huge improvement IMHO.
  • Open CRS Network - CRS Reports for the People
    See the reports that members of Congress read (er, well, at least receive)
  • nonadmin - Home
    Wiki to help the Windoze masses migrate to more sensible user-privilege allocations
Categories: politics, science, USA, society, commentary, law, quotes, observations
Wed, 22 June 2005 11:10 pm Comments (0)

Science lost, demons, sacred symbols

  • Report Says Space Program Is Lacking Money and Focus
    Not surprising, given that American exploration of space is driven by politics rather than science and engineering. At least the new NASA head is a scientist, perhaps that will at least staunch the bleeding.
  • Eye of Sauron?? Nah, just pretty clear evidence for a planet around Fomalhaut
  • No One to Demonize
    I’ve thought for a long time that the 1960s antiwar movement, at least the memorable aspects that seemed steeped in pollyannish excesses, planted the seeds for the right-wing resurgence over the last thirty years. That the lack of a similar organized movement now may contribute to the current administration’s problems is thus a fitting irony. Of course it will be years before anyone could properly gauge the impact, but its not a possibility to be lightly dismissed: political and military leaders have known for millenia that often the most effective way to defeat the opposition is simply to patiently wait for its actions and decisions to catch up.
  • House Passes Constitutional Amendment to Ban Flag Burning
    Sen. Orrin Hatch:
    I think acts of flag desecration are offensive conduct we ought to ban in the interest of protecting the greatest symbol of our country.
    Funny, I always felt that the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights were the greatest symbols of our country. I certainly hope all the people who valiantly fought and died in American service did so for those things–and what they represent–rather than a particular arrangement of colors and shapes.
Categories: astronomy, politics, society, commentary, law, imagery
Tue, 21 June 2005 9:39 pm Comments (0)

Rhymes and expirations

Categories: politics, USA, humor
9:36 pm Comments (0)

Gitmo breeds more red herrings and damn lies

Wow, our own Sen. Dick Durbin sure whipped up a firestorm, starting with eyebrow-raising comments and culminating in his backtracking today:

Now Durbin was technically correct in what he said, and anyone who cared to actually pay attention to what he actually said (as opposed to what spinmeisters wanted people to believe he said) could see that he was careful to couch his Nazi/Gulag comment in a simile connected to the conditions and common expectations–not really accusing any American of anything evil. So, at first I wanted to support him…but I quickly realized that, just like Amnesty International a couple weeks back, his comments were just plain stupid and he should have known better. Contextual and syntactic accuracy are irrelevant because almost immediately the content was lost in the tizzy surrounding a few inflammatory words. Saying nothing at all might have been better.

But what really got me about some of the resultant debate were a couple canards thrown out by some of the right-wing attackers…

  • We are at war. Bullshit! I am so tired of hearing this. The flippant answer is to remind people that nothing has ever been declared. A more serious assessment is that to call our current situation the ‘War on Terror’ is, like those on Drugs or Poverty, a bastardization of the term. In all of these cases neither the Enemy nor the metrics for victory are clearly defined. We should not trivialize the term ‘war’ to describe a vague set of efforts intended to oppose a chronic situation in which some group of people does not live or act in ways that are easily compatible with our desired way of life–especially when invocation of war powers can be used to significantly affect the relationships between people and Authority. (It is hardly better to simultaneously push the nation into an ill-conceived military action so as to legitimize calls for sacrifice in support of the war effort.)
  • Harsh treatment is okay if it helps defeat the Bad Guys. Even if you grant that we are at war, this line of reasoning still fails miserably; torture is not a partisan issue or one of Us-vs-Them. If an interrogator plays a hunch, goes somewhat over the line in roughing someone up, and obtains specific information that helps thwart a specific, imminent event, then such action is perhaps forgiveable. However, that interrogator must also be relieved of duty, for the inability to do the job within the proper rules shows, at minimum, some measure of incompetence. But there’s been zero evidence that any such extractions have happened at Gitmo (and precious little evidence that such ‘good’ results are anything but rare events), so the existence of conditions that offend our sensibilities is simply indefensible. Even if they did work to our tactical advantage more frequently, wouldn’t condoning mistreatment mean that we’ve lost something of our soul along the way? Are we really at the point of seeking survival at all costs?
Categories: international, politics, USA, rants, observations
Mon, 20 June 2005 11:37 pm Comments (0)

Jedi parable, Patriot games, war debates, pluralist morality

  • Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out
    Star Wars as parable for a society that wants its experts to provide a comfy, carefree life but is simultaneously distrustful because it doesn’t care to really understand them. Perhaps a cynical and pessimistic stretch to our current America, but a fun and interesting thesis nonetheless.
  • Libraries Say Yes, Officials Do Quiz Them About Users
    Since the investigators didn’t ‘officially’ invoke the Patriot Act–merely channeled its spirit–then the administration’s recent protestations that the FBI hasn’t used the Act is technically true, I suppose. But to continue opposition to removing the offending provisions on the basis that they haven’t been used is brutally twisted logic. It’s truly sad that such hubris no longer surprises me.
  • Whether This War Was Worth It
    A well-written piece, but it seems to attack a straw-man argument. In my view the more important aspects of opposition to what we’ve done in Iraq are that the Bush administration went in under false pretenses and with woefully inadequate, ideologically-based planning.
  • Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers
    …American politics has been characterized by two phenomena: the increased activism of the Christian right, especially in the Republican Party, and the collapse of bipartisan collegiality. I do not think it is a stretch to suggest a relationship between the two. To assert that I am on God’s side and you are not, that I know God’s will and you do not, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God’s kingdom is certain to produce hostility.
    By contrast, moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God’s truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth. We reject the notion that religion should present a series of wedge issues useful at election time for energizing a political base. We believe it is God’s work to practice humility, to wear tolerance on our sleeves, to reach out to those with whom we disagree, and to overcome the meanness we see in today’s politics.
    As long as a significiant fraction of the population holds beliefs along these lines, there’s hope for this country yet (even if polticians haven’t gotten the memo yet).
  • Not on Faith Alone
    More advisory bodies like New York’s Task Force on Life and Law seem like a great idea to help strike a proper balance between competing–and often diametrically opposed–views on how we legally cope with highly personal life-and-death issues. They might at least allow for more reasoned, sober analysis and less stridency.
Categories: politics, science, technology, USA, society, commentary, quotes
11:25 pm Comments (0)

Time travel, blacklists, terrorism, blog law

  • New model ‘permits time travel’
    Using wave-function collapse to refute certain aspects of time travel. Nifty way to establish the obvious. Of course, its conclusions take away much of the incentive for time travel in the first place. Will that maybe lead to an end to the debates about this time-travel nonsense?
  • The Destiny of Blacklists
    More clear Paul Graham thinking, indicating that internet blacklists are fundamentally prone to abuse. Contains perhaps the most succinct definition of terrorism I’ve seen in a while:
    This is, strictly speaking, terrorism: harming innnocent people as a way to pressure some central authority into doing what you want.
    Would that more people kept that in mind before bandying the term about.
  • EFF: Legal Guide for Bloggers
    Rights and responsibilies for the blogosphere
Categories: physics, web, weblog, commentary, travel, law, quotes
Fri, 17 June 2005 11:12 pm Comments (0)

Cowboy Mouth at Taste of Randolph

Went over to see/hear Cowboy Mouth at Taste of Randolph, again on short notice as they seem to pop up in town once or twice a year. Entertaining, as always. In many ways they’re just another straightforward rock band–not that there’s anything wrong with that especially when all the band members are talented and they play tightly together.

But their live shows are something else…I have yet to see another lead man–who’s the drummer to boot!–work a crowd quite like Fred LeBlanc does.

Categories: Chicago, music, reviews
Wed, 15 June 2005 11:31 pm Comments (1)

Friendly health, supply-side silliness, mild tolerance, pathetic data

  • Friends ‘help people live longer’
    Amusing that the study describes that friends are more theraputic than family since a person can choose his or her friends. If further studies firm up, and perhaps quantify, the health benefits–and thus lower costs for care–of the proper set of friends, how long until HMOs start requiring people to only socialize with people who form part of a properly vetted Friendster network or else deal with lower out-of-network reimbursement rates?
  • Tale of Two Tax Cuts
    Ah, supply-siders…they tend towards the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy even more strongly than the typical economist, which would merely be amusing if they didn’t try to foist their ideas on the public. So now a few are claiming that the recent rise in federal tax revenues following the 2001 tax cuts proves their theory since it follows the same pattern as the 1981 tax cuts. Hmm…aside from the insanely small sample size, didn’t it occur to them that in both cases the tax cuts kicked in near the low point of the business cycle, and thus we’d expect tax revenues to generally rise over the next few years along with the rest of the economy anyway? Oh, wait, there I go again, thinking that hypothesis testing requires consideration of other possible causes for an observation…
  • Religious Right, Left Meet in Middle
    For politicians to draw strength or inspiration from their faith can be a positive force, as can religious leaders’ pushing efforts in the public-policy arena…but when particular stains of religion align too closely with political forces, the results can be disastrous unless the participants look to find balance and compromise from the start. After all the recent, scary alignments in American politics, it’s heartening to read that at least some of the more staunchly religious seem willing to start pulling back from the brink and finding ways to improve things for more than just their own supporters.
  • Inquiry Finds a Weakness in Terror Watch List
    The obvious issue is that of airline safety. The bigger issue is the difficulties our government often encounters in doing something properly useful with the information given to it. When those with a sensible libertarian streak kvetch about government requests for more information and surveillance powers, law-and-order types want to dismiss them as cranks…but really, why should I hand over my personal information, sans pesky niceties like warrants or probable cause, when the government can’t prove that it will reliably improve my life or the public good?
Categories: politics, science, USA, society, commentary, observations
Mon, 13 June 2005 9:38 pm Comments (0)

Jacko follies, left-vs-right media, road funding, meditation

  • From O.J. Simpson to Robert Blake to now Michael Jackson, the apparent ineptness of L.A. prosecutors to put on a solid case in high-profile trials that seem like they could be slam dunks again amazes me. Yes, the American legal system’s ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ can be a high standard (as it should be), but don’t these people realize that wealthy celebrities can hire flashy, talented attorneys who can tapdance around most anything, and thus prosecutors should ensure they have a really clear, airtight case before even filing the charges?
  • Static on the Left
    A recent issue of the Atlantic brought home the point that the rise of conservative talk radio in the ’80s and ’90s was primarly about entertainment and ratings, not politics. Rush Limbaugh and his ilk have a knack for making topics clear and simple while making catchy presentations, while many on the Left have been (and continue to be) some combination of strident, annoying, or boring. Nice to see that Stephanie Miller and others are getting that point and adjusting appropriately…put on a program that will attract ad dollars (without drawing the wrath of the FCC, of course), and Big Radio will put it on the air regardless of its political bent.
  • The right-wing blogger aristocracy
    Politics aside, this describes an interesting comparison of the current state of political discussion beyond the mainstream media. It’s striking how the breakdown seems to mirror the archetypal breakdown of the American Left and Right:
    • The Left tends toward pluralism, from which they gather strength and ideas but can never seem to build on electoral victories since the strain of so many different viewpoints prevents long-term cohesion
    • Conservatives tend toward a more doctrinaire approach whoc clear message lends itself to more decisive strategies but can be too slow to properly react when the underlying political climate has shifted
    It will be interesting to see whether these blogspheric conditions hold through the next few election cycles.
  • Toll Roads Tackle Traffic
    To me there seems great potential in new ways of handling ‘user fees’ for motorists, as I started pondering a couple weeks back after some stories came out of the UK regarding plans for road-tax collections based on mileage. I think that optional express lanes (or other perks, say partial rebates on income taxes or whatnot) for those who feel it’s worth their time and money are a great idea as long as (1) citizens always have the option to drive anonymously on free roadways and (2) some portion of the extra funds collected are earmarked for not only general road maintenance but also–especially–to help subsidize public transit. People will probably never willingly see public transit and roadways as an intertwined, shared resource whose benefit (through taxes) benefits all, but providing some economic and commute-time-relieving incentives to reshape the cost and traffic structures just might accomplish the same thing.
  • Meditation ‘brain training’ clues
    Buddhist-inspired focus as a key to mental health. Impressive regardless of how much one buys into any of the mystical elements of any sect.
Categories: politics, science, USA, weblog, society, commentary, law
Sun, 12 June 2005 9:49 pm Comments (0)

Saturn, baseball, tinkering, bombast

  • Nature’s canvas: Saturn, its rings, and Mimas
    Wow! Yet another stunning image from Cassini. I especially like the color contrast between the rings and atmosphere.
  • Total Baseball
    Lots and lots of MLB stats of various kinds.
    Of all the various thoughts that could have kept me awake for a while the other night…it was the inability to remember the full lineups and rotations of the 1998 and 1984 Cubs playoff teams (inexplicably, I had the most trouble remembering CF Bob Dernier, even more than immortal righty Dick Ruthven! :). Three cheers for the World Wide Web for providing an easy way to resolve such burning issues!
  • A New Magazine’s Rebellious Credo: Void the Warranty!
    Nice writeup on O’Reilly’s Make magazine and especially the tinkerer’s spirit it attempts to channel. The zealots in the OSS-vs.-commercial software battles, from Stallman to the Microsoft marketroids, would do well to recognize that the true power and importance of Open Source is its maintenance of the spirit of curiosity and creativity.
  • No Smoking Gun
    Nevertheless, I am enjoying it, as an encouraging sign of the revival of the left. Developing a paranoid theory and promoting it to the very edge of national respectability takes a certain amount of ideological self-confidence. It takes a critical mass of citizens with extreme views and the time and energy to obsess about them. It takes a promotional infrastructure and the widely shared self-discipline to settle on a story line, disseminate it and stick to it.
    Hey, the Downing Street Memo indicates that the tactic worked for the neocons, so there’s no reason to think that other sociopolitical stripes can’t successfully use similar tactics…
Categories: astronomy, baseball, politics, technology, USA, commentary, imagery
Sat, 11 June 2005 10:40 am Comments (1)

Stuff found today (2005-06-11)

  • Evolution Resources
    The National Acadamies of Science antidote to ‘intelligent design’ efforts
  • Panel Faults Tactics in Rush to Install Antimissile System
    I’ll avoid the easy potshots at the deficiencies and cost overruns of the current anti-missle technologies, what caught my eye here was this sentiment:
    Manage quality first and then schedule…be event-driven rather than schedule-driven.
    Taking project-management advice from the military? Astonishing, but in this case absolutely! As anyone who’s worked on a big project (especially a technical one) knows, if it is schedule-driven there is plenty of time wasted talking about the schedule, why the schedule is slipping, and/or how to adjust resources to get back on schedule, all of which time could be better spent actually doing work if stakeholders would simply focus more on what they want rather than when. Yes, there comes a point when things are so far behind the envisioned schedule that it’s time to cut your losses, but that still should be predicated on the resources necessary to get to the next set of deliverables, not on how long it will take to do so.
  • From Thomas, Original Views
    Krauthammer’s columns usually have me rolling my eyes by the secord or third paragraph, but this one is a good insightful analysis of SCOTUS and judicial nominations, especially here:
    With Thomas’s originalism at one end of the spectrum and Scalia’s originalism tempered by precedent — rolling originalism, as it were — in the middle, there is a third notion, championed most explicitly by Justice Stephen Breyer, that the Constitution is a living document and that the role of the court is to interpret and reinterpret it continually in the light of new ideas and new norms. This is what our debate about judges should be about. Instead, it constantly degenerates into arguments about results.
    Personally I’d prefer my judiciary to follow Breyer’s philosophy, but when judges consistently use well-thought arguments rooted in a differing philosophy I can at least respect their opinions even when I don’t agree with the results in particular cases (Rehnquist is a good example). Whether ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’, a judge who continually rules based on an informed view of what the law (and its interactions with society and government) should be is going to reach decisions contrary to the desires of his/her ‘base’–life and law are messy, you can’t always get what you want–but will probably keep the law evolving in the proper direction. In considering judicial elevations, we need to look beyond a judge’s rulings and statements–in particular whether we like X percentage of them–and examine the reasoning behind them.
  • Many Scientists Admit Unethical Practices
    Disheartening, but as shown here at least the problem isn’t rampant. I’ll quibble a bit with the suggestion that ‘Dropping data from analysis based on a gut feeling’ is a lapse: outliers happen, and the job of a scientist is to interperet observations to find the underpinning laws of nature–not just to collect and report data. Of course, it’s only an acceptable practice if the scientist clearly indicates data have been omitted, explains why, and makes them available.
Categories: science, society, commentary, law
Thu, 9 June 2005 9:46 pm Comments (0)

Science and techology stuff found today (2005-06-09)

Categories: astronomy, technology, society
9:44 pm Comments (0)

Stuff found today (2005-06-09)

Today is Donald Duck’s 71st birthday.

  • Gartner lambasts security FUDmongers
    Yep, trying to meet the ‘absolutely, 100% no vulnerabilities here’ will result in absolutely nothing getting accomplished. If a weakness isn’t likely to be exploited and/or really catastrophic if breached, spending too many resources defending it is simply wasteful. Now, after beseeching the IT industry to look at things this way, can we get Congress and DHS to do the same regarding national security?
  • Academic Journals Open to Change
    The major astronomy and physics journals accept no advertising and are relatively straightforward with their editorial policies, so it came as a bit of a surprise to me later in grad school when I found that wasn’t the case in other disciplines. It just seems wrong to have them be profit centers, and the belief of some (many?) journals that they can take the hard work of others and only dole it out in small, money-making chunks is disappointing. Sure, printing and staff costs require revenue, and there’s nothing wrong with charging a premium to get the latest info, but after six or twelve months papers should be generally available. I hope PLoS has some luck in changing the publishing culture a bit to open up access along these lines. However, their idea to go with a wiki-style peer review process goes a bit too far. Science isn’t about popularity, it’s about being correct–or at least rigorous. Certainly the blind peer-review system is vulnerable to abuse by a vain, persnickety academic who doesn’t like competing theories, but some solid editorial rules (e.g. requiring a thorough, annotated explanation of why a paper should be rejected) can prevent that from becoming too rampant.
  • Adjustable Rate Mortgages and the Housing Bubble
    Another downside to the drive for McMansions (not that there weren’t enough already). Yikes.
  • Disobedience Can Save Your Life
    A provocative title sure to annoy many of the public-safety types who, while well-meaning, want people simply to follow the rules they lay down. However, I found this most interesting not as a case study of a building evacuation but rather for the implications regarding our views of authority. Many of the WTC survivors didn’t stay put and (gasp!) took the elevators, violating the edict of the Authorities. But since those rules were laid down months (years?) before and nominally enforced by people who had less first-hand knowledge of the situation than those actually in the building, was it really appropriate to consider the Authorities authoritative? So many people are prone to associate authority with an office or a personality; it would be really helpful if more people used reports like this to understand that true authority depends greatly on relevant knowledge and experience. No amount of money or votes or awards or press attention can really, truly change that.
Categories: science, technology, society, commentary