The Pebble in Your Shoe

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Lex

“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” – Muhammad Ali

If I learned anything from life, it’s that success comes from years of the daily grind (both hard work and “smart” work). It’s all about deliberate practice in whatever field you wish to master. So it’s not about some grand plans or undertakings. It’s about the little steps you take every day toward one goal, never giving up, but never over-stepping either.

The flip side of that idea is that the thing that makes you quit in the end is not some big obstacle, it’s the wear and tear of the many little obstacles.

So, remove the little obstacles. Remove the pebble in your shoe.

For me, this applies for computer programming, math, and academia in general, as well as the physical activities such as jiu jitsu and judo. But I think, it more practically applies to relationships (at work or at home). Even in my own life I’ve seen little tensions grow over months and years to become major issues.

So I wrote this quick post mostly as a reminder to myself to fix the little problems now before they get out of hand down the line.

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Common Sense Reminder: You Will Get Sick and You Will Have To Pay

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Lex

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of the new health care law’s individual mandate today (hear the arguments on C-SPAN). The individual mandate requires that everyone in America purchase health insurance.

The debate over the morality and fiscal potency of the health care law very interesting, but that’s not what the Supreme Court court is deliberating. They’re simply trying to figure if the federal government has the power to mandate that you buy something, overriding state’s rights. It’s really a debate about the relative power of the federal government relative to state governments.

The constitutional opponents of the law believe that allowing a mandate would remove any identifiable limiting principle. This means that the government can next force you to do anything else because it’s “good for you”.

The best question (in my mind) asked by the proponents of the law (such as myself) is: what happens when an uninsured person shows up at the hospital and can’t pay out of pocket even a small fraction of the cost? In fact, no one is really asking this question fully. It seems everyone assumes that of course we treat the person to the best of our abilities and then the taxpayer has to flip the bill. It seems that the people that are demanding their personal liberty be protected are really operating on the assumption that they will not get sick or will be able to save enough to cover the costs. In their minds, they can do a better job at fighting off sickness than their less-clever neighbor. That assumption reminds of the assumption folks have when they recite the wedding vows. You can’t base a policy that determines the well being of millions on hope.

Just to be clear, whether the health care law is deemed constitutional or not, to me, is much less important than the fact that our current health care system is broken and this law is one of the possible fixes. If it’s not constitutional, then we need to do something else that is, but we can’t afford (literally) to do nothing.

As a side note, I discovered that there are services out there that allow you to hire a person to stand in line for you. The rate I saw was $36 per hour. This came up because people stood in line for days to be able to get one of the 60 seats open to the public for individual mandate hearing.

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The History and Future of C-SPAN

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Lex

Some people are addicted to heroin. Some are addicted to pornography.  Some are alcoholics. Of all the vices one might have, I consider mine to be of the more socially acceptable variety. I am addicted to C-SPAN, NPR, and any other sources of balanced debate and information on current events, history, non-fiction literature, philosophy, science, etc.

Behind every addiction is a tragic flaw. Mine is a kind of manic curiosity about the way the world works. So in that sense, C-SPAN is one of my drug dealers.

The reason I write about it now is that Brian Lamb (founder of C-SPAN) is stepping down from his post as CEO of CSPAN. So why not take this chance to celebrate one of my favorite organizations…

What I like most about CSPAN is the non-political programs such as Book TV. It provides interviews with or presentations by authors of complex and fascinating non-fiction books. The more political programs such as Washington Journal are also interesting. They have a variety of experts (actual ones, not simply pundits) on to discuss the major events of the day. It’s really one of the best methods to get informed in a balanced way about the major happenings of the day.

What I don’t like about the Washington Journal is that they take callers and purposefully are very loose about screening those calls. They don’t just take callers with calm intelligent questions, but they also take the calls that are neither intelligent, well-informed, calm, or even have a question. Even more, some of these people has trouble stringing together words and sentences that make any sense. Some others simply read out talking points they undoubtedly picked up from an ultra-partisan website or radio show. When I listen to Washington Journal, I like to skip over these calls and just listen to the answers, allowing my blood to remain room temperature for the most part.

PS: The tone and style of this blog post reflects not so much my outlook on a life of learning, but the fact that I’ve had several cups of coffee back to back, and believe that this gives me the power to be clever. Denial is a wonderful thing.

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Codifying Public Transit Routes: Colors, Letters, Numbers, Destinations

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Lex

I have a love/hate relationship with public transit. I think of it as a dysfunctional marriage. As a whole, I’m unhappy with most aspects of it, but on a day-to-day basis, the alternative seems considerably less desirable.

Plus, in the digital age, figuring out how to get from point A to a new far-away point B is a lot easier than I imagine it must’ve been in the ancient times of the 20th century.

In all seriousness though, I truly believe in the power of public transit. It’s just that very few cities (e.g. NYC) have pulled it off effectively, and it seems that they are usually severely underfunded. If you were looking for the silver lining of $4 per gallon gas, it’s that maybe public transit will get a little more attention.

One or two years ago, the Philadelphia public transit authority SEPTA has changed the codifying (I like this word, so I’ll use it) of its regional rail lines from colors and numbers to the names of the destination stops. So, the line that went from Thorndale to Doylestown used to be called R5 (and was colored blue), but now is two lines called Thorndale and Doylestown respectively, both colored black like the vapid nihilistic nature of the reasoning behind the change. Why? According to SEPTA, tourists would get confused about the fact that R5 (and the other lines) went two ways. Apparently most tourists that come to Philadelphia expect their trains to run one way, much like the Soul Asylum’s Runaway Train:

I wrote this quick post to put my two (cynical) cents out there. I believe that saying and remembering colors and numbers is much easier than terminal stop names at least for people like me that don’t ride the regional rail more than once a month.

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Storing DNA At Birth

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Lex

Concerns over violations of privacy can too easily fall into a fear spiral of worst case scenarios. I think privacy is a very important staple of a free society, but we have to keep it in perspective, and weigh both the pros and cons of privacy (and the government-backed violation of it) in a reasonable, calm, logical manner.

I say that because it always surprises me just how outraged people are at the proposed idea that the government will store the DNA of all newborns for the purpose of quickly identifying them via matching of DNA samples at the scene of a crime. It’s a good instinct, but I don’t like how much irrational emotion (vs reason) is often behind it.

DNA, like fingerprints, is biometric information that can be used to efficiently identify an individual with near-perfect accuracy. At hearing this, immediately people begin imagining the oppressive horrors of a mass surveillance state. But does a national DNA database really provide the government with broad oppressive power? And if it did, do we really have the kind of system that would utilize that power to violate the fundamental rights of individuals?

If it’s not clear yet, I’m a proponent of storing DNA of all citizens. I believe that DNA information is the perfect kind of identifier that the government should have. It can’t really be used to track an individual, but it can be used in the case of a crime to identify potential suspects.

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In Search of Dinner and Happiness

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Lex

I saw the photograph on the left in Reuters (taken by Michael Buholzer) of a sheep herder leading a flock of 500 sheep in search of food. Click on it for a bigger version. It gave me a nice reminder, of the kind I get when I look up to the stars, that life is both beautiful and absurd. The daily struggle takes many forms for people across the world, and at least for how I feel now, that photograph is a damn good representation of it: a man, a dog, and 500 sheep searching for dinner, but also searching for a longer term comfort of a peaceful existence.

I just returned from a long run outside in relatively chilly weather, and enjoyed the hell out of it. The feeling of cool air filling up my lungs took away all the mental exhaustion from a long day of reading research papers. My life is simple now in its challenges and its comforts, and I can’t ask for anything more.

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Top 5 Entertaining Politicians

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Lex

These days I have a lot of trouble taking politics seriously. I do take policy debates seriously, but those usually take place outside of Washington, among academics, and usually with a strong emphasis on a historical perspective.

What goes on in Washington is a food fight televised by CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. The more entertaining the food fight, the higher the ratings. An entertaining politician to me is a car wreck. I enjoy watching one as much as the next guy. Here’s what it takes:

  • Some degree of insanity
  • Radical ideology
  • Wit and willingness to use it
  • Bad judgment of what’s appropriate to say to an audience
  • Long list of political and personal enemies

Based on that here are my top 5 entertaining (in a bad way) politicians:

5. Newt Gingrich

“Really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods, have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works, so they have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day; they have no habit of “I do this and you give me cash,” unless it is illegal.”

4. Barney Frank

“Gay people have a different role than other minority groups. … Very few black kids have ever had to worry about telling their parents that they were black.”

3. Herman Cain

“We need a leader, not a reader.”

 

 

2. Donald Trump

On Muammar Gaddafi: “I rented him a piece of land. … and then I didn’t let him use the land. … I don’t want to use the word `screw,’ but I screwed him.”

1. Sarah Palin

“Polls are for strippers and cross-country skiers”

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Instant-Runoff Voting: Giving the Underdog a Chance

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Lex

Many folks complain about the rigidity and sameness of the two-party system American system of government. Unfortunately, it’s damn hard for a third party candidate to win, because most people feel like they’re throwing their vote away when they vote for the third party guy.

Instant-runoff voting (IRV) to the rescue! (PS: It’s also called “ranked choice voting” in some places). Instead of picking just one person, you have the option of ranking any number of the available options. So, for example, if you’re a Republican, instead of voting for just Romney, you might rank the candidates in the following way:

  1. Ron Paul
  2. Romney
  3. Gingrich
  4. Santorum

If none of the candidates have more than 50% of the vote, then the other choices start coming into play. For more details check out the wiki page.

Unlike our current system, IRV gives the voter confidence to choose candidates they actually want even if it seems like they have no chance of winning, because such a choice will not damage the chances of others. A republican might vote for a Ron Paul and a democrat might vote for a Bernie Sanders (not that he is running).

The instant-runoff voting system is one of those things that obviously needs to be embraced but isn’t for some godforsaken reason. Another example of one of those things is the metric system.

It has a chance of being put into place for the 2016 presidential election. Unfortunately, all the organizations pushing for it are having quite a bit of trouble raising funds. The biggest that I know of is FairVote.org and they’ve only raised $400,000 last year. How are they supposed to buy influence in Washington with that kind of cash ;-)

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The Mind is Not a Boomerang

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Lex

“The mind is not a boomerang, if you throw it too far it may not come back.”

I’m not sure where I heard his quote or who it’s from, but there it is, simple and honest.

It’s a nice way to bring up something that I have been becoming very aware of recently. I have frequent intelligent conversations with people who are arguably dwelling on the proverbial edge of society (and sanity). Whether they are political activist or just unpublished (and almost-but-not-quite-alcoholic) part-time philosophers, they have denied themselves the comfort of conformity for the comfort of free-thinking rebelliousness.

These folks claim to have a handle on the truth that the majority of the population is too pre-occupied with the hassles of life to discover. The sad fact about making such claims is that it makes you an outcast, which I believe is not neccessarily a bad thing. What I think is a bad thing is the kind of spiraling effect that it often produces in the person when they pull on the string of “truth” and uncover a whole underworld of conspiracies that can easily take over their mind.

So, I say to all my well-read comrades: tread carefully… A rare successful example I always think about is Friedrich Nietzsche, who masterfully walked the line of insanity and radical free-thought all his life, in the process producing some of the most brilliant philosophical works in the history of our little civilization. But for every Nietzsche, there are millions who did not develop the kind of rigor, deep-rooted knowledge, and mental fortitude required to survive the journey.

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When Being Gay Was Illegal

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Lex

The mathematician I admire more than any other in the 20th century is Alan Turing. He is widely considered to be the father of computer science. I’ve studied his work and the consequences of his work for the last 10 years, but not until recently did I learn about the man himself.

I won’t get into a long Wikipedia-style retelling of his life, but focus on its tragic end. He was arrested in 1952 for “homosexual acts” which at the time were illegal in England (and remained so until 1967). Two years after that, Turing committed suicide.

Gay rights have been in the courts and in public discourse recently. The point of contention is whether homosexuals should be allowed to marry. I believe that of course they should (though I do believe marriage is a religious practice, and government should only just grant civil unions to everyone). Many people disagree. However, what bothers me is the amount of value the opponents of gay marriage assign to this issue. It seems the Christian community is making this its primary battle cry under the umbrella of “values”.

So whenever someone brings up the issue of gay marriage to me, I think of Alan Turing, and the suffering he endured at the hands of a society that couldn’t accept who the man wanted to love, but sure as hell could accept the brilliant contributions to technology and science that he provided.

To this day, the British government has not pardoned Alan Turing for having sex with another man.

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