John's Personal Journal

California Propositions for 2008

2008-10-11T02:12:57Z

So it's time to vote, so I thought I'd share public thoughts on the state and local ballot measures. I'm torn on several of them, especially the local. In general, I favor being frugal in government and we are, of course, in a financial crisis right now. However, that doesn't invalidate government spending. In the Great Depression, government-generated jobs were important for getting us through the crisis -- though this depression is different in character than that one.

California Prop 1A (High Speed Rail): Yes.

This one I'm pretty solidly behind. It seems like a good project that is specifically defined, and has income potential down the line. My impression of other train projects like the TGV is generally positive.

California Prop 2 (Farm Animals): Unsure, lean yes.

The main argument against is that this will make us get our eggs from out-of-state. I'm doubtful about that. The requirements don't seem too onerous, and it wouldn't kick in until 2015 so it leaves plenty of time to change.

California Prop 3 (Children's Hospitals): Unsure, lean no.

I'm not sure that of spending on this is a priority compared to other state needs.

California Prop 4 (Parental Notification of Abortion): No.

I'm generally in favor of children's rights and also pro-choice, so this is clear for me.

California Prop 5 (Nonviolent Drug Offenses): Unsure, lean yes.

It seems like a positive thing. I generally favor limited legalization of drugs, and our prison population seems out of control. The arguments against it often invoke the idea that it is a free ticket for some violent criminals, but my reading seems clearly that it is simply an option in the hands of judges.

California Prop 6 (Police Funding): Unsure, lean no.

This seems like something that doesn't need to be a proposition, and it isn't one of my top priorities.

California Prop 7 (Government Use of Renewable Energy): Unsure, lean no.

This seems like a minor shift. We should push the state government to use more renewable energy, but it seems excessive to make it a proposition with a specific timetable. Also, the first deadline of 2010 seems very soon.

California Prop 8 (Eliminate Same-Sex Marriage): No!

This one is obvious to me. Equal rights should always apply.

California Prop 9 (Victim Notification): No.

This seems like grandstanding that is low on substance. Tellingly for me, the official argument for it states boldly in all caps: "CALIFORNIA'S CONSTITUTION GUARANTEES RIGHTS FOR RAPISTS, MURDERERS, CHILD MOLESTERS, AND DANGEROUS CRIMINALS." -- as if this were something terrible. I believe in tough sentences for violent criminals, but that is a part of the regular system.

California Prop 10 (Renewable Energy): No.

This seems vague in how the money would be used, and I'm wary of that in a time of financial crisis. I approve of alternative energy, but it needs to be clear.

California Prop 11 (Redistricting): No.

This is tricky. Redistricting is a problem, but what the right way to do it is a quagmire that I have trouble untangling. This proposition gives guaranteed equal voice to Democrats (5 seats), Republicans (5 seats), and others (4 seats). Schwartzenegger and ACLU Southern California say yes; while the Democrats are against it as creating unaccountable bureaucracy. Cynically, it seems the Democrats oppose it because redistricting currently supports the majority in the state -- furthering their majority. However, I don't like predefining 5 seats for two named parties regardless of how well that represents the population.

California Prop 12 (Veterans' Bond): Unsure, lean no.

Also a spending measure that hasn't been a priority for me. This is difficult, though, because I know there are a lot of disabled people coming out of the war.

San Mateo Measure Q (Tax on Parking in Unincorporated Areas): Yes.
San Mateo Measure R (Tax on Rental Cars): Unsure, lean yes.

This is a little tricky. The first institutes a tax on parking operators on unincorporated area (i.e. airport parking) in San Mateo of 8% -- the same as in San Francisco and San Bruno -- as a way to close the county budget gap. That seems reasonable and doesn't impact the county much. Parking operations are prety much just relying on the property, and seem fair game. The tax on rental car operators seems like it will have more impact.

Redwood City Measure V (Require majority approval for Cargill lands): Unsure, lean yes.
Redwood City Measure W (Require two-thirds approval for any open area): Unsure, lean no.

This is tricky. The background is that there is slated to be a bunch of shoreline development by the Cargill corporation, claimed by some to be among the top ten polluters. Environmentalists set up Measure W to block this, and the Redwood City government set up Measure V as an alternative. I'm suspicious of the No on W campaign because it has flooded us with flyers, suggesting corporate backing (specifically Cargill).

However, reading the text and arguments from Yes on W, I'm not sure about Measure W being right. It requires a two-thirds popular vote, which as we know from California budget problems is nearly impossible. According to the supposedly impartial analysis of Measure W, it will apply to a lot of areas, including 14 parks, 7 homes near Red Morton Park, and others. So while I'm suspicious that Measure V is insufficient, I feel like Measure W is overly broad.

Films adapted from comics

2008-10-09T03:19:03Z

So a few thoughts on comic book films, inspired by watching The Dark Knight a few weeks ago, and a Cracked.com article "5 Upcoming Comic Book Movies That Must Be Stopped" mocking upcoming films Sub-Mariner, Shazam!, Luke Cage, The Mighty Thor, and The Green Lantern -- saying:

In light of the recent surplus of blockbusting superhero films all but guaranteeing monstrous studio revenue, Hollywood has hit the ground running and greenlit every script featuring a violent man in his underwear from Captain Marvel to your drunken father on Thanksgiving.

Yet, for every Batman Begins that graces the theaters, there are 10 useless men in spandex lined up for the next few years. Here are five of the next big-budget superhero films currently in production that simply should not be.

I chafed at this in particular because I disliked Batman Begins.

Batman Begins and The Dark Knight

While it didn't start the trend, I think Batman Begins typifies the formula of the new superhero origin movies. In this formula, the movie tries to reinvent the hero in a "real" world that is otherwise lacking superheroes, and spends much of its time explaining the hero's powers and other quirks.

What was remarkable for me about Batman Begins is how it undermines what I consider the essentials about Batman. Compared to other heroes, Batman is self-made. True, he was born a millionaire, but he gains his "powers" through inspiration, hard work, and study. He is notable in not saving the world, but specifically in improving life for the people of Gotham City. And though he has no powers, he never uses guns and he never kills.

In the film, all of his signature elements -- including the motto "Criminals are a cowardly, superstitious lot" -- were things he was given or stumbled on rather than made. The Batmobile was pre-built that he just happened to find. He was taught by Ra's al Ghul to make a scary figure of himself, and the arm blades of his costume.

Then in the resolution, the poor part of the town was flooded with dangerous gas, and Batman's heroism was to save the rich part of town. It didn't reflect on the character per se since he tried to save both, but it felt wrong to me. And he was hypocritical in dealing with Ra's al Ghul. If he felt that Ra's deserved to die, then he should have killed him. If not, then he should have at least tried to save him.

The Dark Knight was a better movie, and addressed at least some of this. Batman sticks to his moral guns better, and shows himself to be technologically innovative and at least mildly clever. However, he is dull. Heath Ledger gave a show-stealing performance as the Joker, in part because he so outshone Batman.

My Favorite Comic Adaptations

So what do I like? Well, here would be some of my top comic book adaptations, in rough order of preference.

1) X2
2) Mystery Men
3) American Splendor
4) Men in Black
5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
6) The Crow
7) Superman II
8) V for Vendetta
9) Spiderman
10) Ghost World

I haven't seen A History of Violence or Road to Perdition yet, though they are highly regarded.

As I look at that list, something that stands out from films like Batman Begins or Iron Man is that these are films where there is more personal interaction among the leads. This doesn't fit the lone superhero with occaisional personal scenes.

Something that's important for me is that the photography, the action, and the storyline mesh well. So V for Vendetta was a decent attempt, but it was marred by action scenes terribly derivative of The Matrix that didn't fir with the rest of the film in my opinion.

Comic Book Films By Year

In deciding on a list, I went to Wikipedia's List of films based on English-language comics. The following is that same list re-organized by year.

1905: Prehistoric Peeps
1941: Adventures of Captain Marvel
1942: Spy Smasher
1943: Batman
1944: Captain America
1946: Hop Harrigan
1947: Vigilante
1948: Congo Bill; Superman
1949: Batman and Robin
1950: Atom Man vs. Superman
1951: Superman and the Mole Men
1952: Blackhawk
1966: Batman
1972: Fritz the Cat; Tales from the Crypt
1973: Up in Flames; The Vault of Horror
1974: The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat; Wonder Woman
1978: Dr. Strange; The Incredible Hulk: Married; Superman
1979: Captain America; Captain America II: Death Too Soon
1980: Flash Gordon; Popeye
1981: Heavy Metal; Superman II
1982: Swamp Thing
1983: Superman III
1984: Sheena; Supergirl
1985: Red Sonja
1986: Howard the Duck; When the Wind Blows
1987: Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
1988: The Incredible Hulk Returns
1989: Batman; The Trial of the Incredible Hulk; The Punisher; The Return of Swamp Thing
1990: Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again; The Flash; The Death of the Incredible Hulk; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
1991: Captain America; Power Pack; The Rocketeer; Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
1992: Batman Returns
1993: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
1994: The Crow; The Mask; Ri¬¢hie Ri¬¢h; Timecop
1995: Batman Forever; Judge Dredd; Tank Girl
1996: Barb Wire; The Crow: City of Angels; Generation X; Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood; Vampirella
1997: Batman & Robin; Justice League of America; Men in Black; Sabrina the Teenage Witch; Spawn; Steel
1998: Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero; Blade; Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.; Richie Rich's Christmas Wish
1999: Mystery Men; Virus
2000: Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker; The Crow: Salvation; Heavy Metal 2000; Witchblade; X-Men
2001: Faust: Love of the Damned; From Hell; Ghost World; Josie and the Pussycats; Monkeybone; Tales from the Crypt Presents: Ritual
2002: Blade II; Men in Black II; Road to Perdition; Spider-Man
2003: American Splendor; Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman; Bulletproof Monk; Daredevil; Hulk; The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision; X2
2004: Alien vs. Predator; Blade: Trinity; Catwoman; Hellboy; Lady Death; Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy; The Punisher; Spider-Man 2
2005: Batman Begins; The Batman vs. Dracula; Constantine; The Crow: Wicked Prayer; Elektra; Fantastic Four; A History of Violence; Man-Thing; Son of the Mask; El Muerto; Painkiller Jane; Sin City
2006: Art School Confidential; Hellboy: Sword of Storms; Superman: Brainiac Attacks; Superman Returns; Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo; Ultimate Avengers; Ultimate Avengers 2; V for Vendetta; X-Men: The Last Stand; Zsazsa Zaturnnah: Ze Moveeh
2007: 30 Days of Night; 300; Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem; Doctor Strange; Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer; Ghost Rider; Hellboy: Blood and Iron; The Invincible Iron Man; Spider-Man 3; Superman: Doomsday; TMNT; Turok, Son of Stone
2008: The Dark Knight; Batman: Gotham Knight; Hellboy II: The Golden Army; The Incredible Hulk; Iron Man; Justice League: The New Frontier; The Spirit; Wanted

It certainly seems that comic book adaptation films are picking up steam over the last two decades. I think the recent ones are getting better overall, but there are a lot of misteps along the way -- like the origin story formula reinventing a superhero in the "real" world.

Bedtime Songs

2008-09-29T05:25:59Z

A bit more on Milo bedtime songs. I'm still singing him a song pretty much every night. These are the ones I tend to sing, in rough order of popularity these days.

Tree Hugger (by Kimya Dawson)
Baby Driver (by Paul Simon)
Big Yellow Taxi (by Joni Mitchell)
I've Just Seen a Face (by The Beatles)
I am Changing My Name to Chrysler (by Tom Paxton)
Everyday (by Buddy Holly)
Keep the Customer Satisfied (by Paul Simon)
At the Zoo (by Paul Simon)
Mythical Kings and Iguanas (by Dory Previn)
The Garden Song / Inch By Inch (by David Mallett)
Octopus' Garden (by The Beatles)
Doin' What I Like To Do (by Bruce Roper of Sons of the Never Wrong)

When he was younger, I'd sing him other songs -- including Let the Good Times Roll (by Shirley and Lee), Lola (by Ray Davies of The Kinks), and Centerfold (by Seth Justman of the J. Geils Band) -- which were songs he liked but didn't understand. These days I'm letting him pick for the most part.

I am Changing My Name to Chrysler

2008-09-29T04:29:49Z

I just finished singing Milo his bedtime song. I introduced him to this one over a year ago, because it was a favorite of mine when I was an older kid. It was written by Tom Paxton shortly after the "Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act of 1979" was passed, guaranteeing Chrysler over a billion dollars in loans (back when a billion really meant something). It was performed by a variety of folk singers. I heard it first when I went to hear Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger at a concert in upstate New York probably in the early 80s. My sisters and I would sing it for years afterwards, and we made tapes of it somehow. Arlo's performance was hilarious for one thing, where he tried to teach the audience the lyrics through a variety of methods. However, the song's lyrics are also strangely touching to me.

Of course, now the song is again topical, and it's interesting to have Milo hear it. He loves it, by the way, and just joined in on singing a bit more of it from bed after going to sleep.

I am Changing My Name to Chrysler by Tom Paxton

Oh the price of gold is rising out of sight
And the dollar is in sorry shape tonight
What the dollar used to get us
Now won't buy a head of lettuce
No the economic forecast isn't right
But amidst the clouds I spot a shining ray
I can even glimpse a new and better way
And I've devised a plan of action
Worked it down to the last fraction
And I'm going into action here today

CHORUS:
I am changing my name to Chrysler
I am going down to Washington D.C.
I will tell some power broker
What they did for Iacocca
Will be perfectly acceptable to me
I am changing my name to Chrysler
I am headed for that great receiving line
So when they hand a million grand out
I'll be standing with my hand out
Yes sire I'll get mine

When my creditors are screaming for their dough
I'll be proud to tell them all where they can all go
They won't have to scream and holler
They'll be paid to the last dollar
Where the endless streams of money seem to flow
I'll be glad to tell them what they can do
It's a matter of a simple form or two
It's not just remuneration -- it's a liberal education!
Ain't you kind of glad that I'm in debt to you?

CHORUS

Since the first amphibians crawled out of the slime
We've been struggling in an unrelenting climb
We were hardly up and walking before money started talking
And it said that failure is an awful crime
Well it's been that way for a millenium or two
But now it seems that there's a different point of view
If you're a corporate titanic and your failure is gigantic
Down to congress there's a safety net for you

CHORUS

Of course, it has become newly topical again with the talk of the Wall Street bailout. But what I love about the song is the good-natured humor and the compelling wistfulness particularly of the last verse with "and it said that failure is an awful crime".

McCain and Obama's Tax Plans

2008-09-16T04:06:05Z

So last week, the Washington Post included an footnote on "Obama and McCain Tax Proposals", presenting an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. They presented a graph shown below:

This is interesting in itself. However, the ridiculous thing is the averages listed on the bottom line of the chart. These are calculated by giving each of the nine tax brackets equal weight. That is completely out of line with what the average taxpayer will see, which is presumably the most important question. There is even a note explicitly on the graph noting that the bottom third account for 60% of the taxpayers. However, for calculating the average, all are treated as equal. I recalculated this adjusting for population, using the tax numbers from the Washington Post graph and population numbers from the Wikipedia U.S. Household Incomearticle. The results are below:

Income Bracket	Population	McCain	Obama
$2.87M +	0.2% Pop	-4.4%	+11.5%
$603k - $2.87M	0.5% Pop	-3.4%	+8.7%
$227k - $603k	1.3% Pop	-3.1%	+0%
$161k - $227k	3.1% Pop	-3.0%	-1.9%
$112k - $161k	8.0% Pop	-2.5%	-2.1%
$66k - $112k	18.8% Pop	-1.4%	-1.8%
$38k - $66k	24.7% Pop	-0.7%	-2.4%
$19k - $38k	22.9% Pop	-0.5%	-3.6%
Up to $19k	20.1% Pop	-0.2%	-5.5%
Washington Post average		-2%	-0.3%
Population-based average		-0.95%	-3.0%

So really, the average taxpayer's taxes will decrease 3% under Obama's plan, as compared to less than 1% under McCain's plan.

There's some error here because I had to split bins. The population data in Wikipedia are in more finely-grained bins, but don't have the same edges. In particular, the population split between the top two brackets is just guessed. However, since it is only a tiny fraction of the population in the first place, that detail doesn't have much effect on the average.

Edited to add:

Incidentally, regarding taxes, I was interested to see the rhetoric of the RNC when they asked for funds. From a fund-raising letter "Paid for by the Republican National Committee and authorized by John McCain 2008", I found the following:

Let me be perfectly clear about what is at stake for our nation if we fail to elect conservative Republican leadership in Washington, D.C.

If liberals like Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi control the White House, Congress, and statehouses across the country...

...they will raise your taxes. Already, the Obama Democrats have laid out plans to pass record-setting tax increases.

But if Republicans win, we will make the present tax cuts permanent, work to cut additional taxes and simplify the tax code. Republicans know that raising taxes in tough economic times is a recipe for disaster, but tax cuts are proven medicine for getting the economy growing again.

If the Obama Democrats and liberal organizations like MoveOn.org have their way, our troops will be recklessly pulled out of Iraq and our enemies will be handed a victory they have neither won nor deserve.

But Republicans will not give up. We will see the war through to victory and make sure the radical Islamic extremists have no sanctuary and no victory.

If the Obama Democrats have their way, government spending will skyrocket as they implement government-run health care and resurrect their entire portfolio of the failed welfare state programs of the 60s and 70s.

It's interesting that taxes, Iraq, and government spending are the top topics that the RNC hits. The point about taxes appears to be wrong. I'm also intrigued about the point regarding government spending. The site www.usgovernmentspending.com has statistics on U.S. government spending. It seems to me that government spending skyrocketed during the eighties under Reagan and Bush Sr.

FY 1976	$620B	35.7% GDP
FY 1980	$940B	34.5% GDP
FY 1992	$2335B	37.8% GDP
FY 1994	$2507B	36.0% GDP
FY 2000	$3240B	33.4% GDP
FY 2006	$4704B	36.1% GDP
FY 2008	$5237B	36.6% GDP

Under Carter's term (1976-80), government spending increased (as it always does) but decreased as a percentage of GDP. Under Clinton (1992-2000), spending went from $2.3 trillion (37.8% GDP) to $3.2 trillion (33.4% GDP) -- an increase of +38% in raw dollars, but a decrease in percent of GDP. Under Bush Jr (2000-08), spending has gone up to $5.2 trillion (36.6% GDP), or +61% in raw dollars as well as increasing in percent of GDP.

This is also reflected in the national debt as a percentage of GDP.

Notes on Obama

2008-09-05T17:17:52Z

So some things I've been looking at regarding Barak Obama.

Qualifications and Experience

A common complaint seems to be Obama's lack of qualifications. Some noted that it is difficult to distinguish Obama from VP Palin on this front.

From what I understand: Obama is a lawyer with a B.A. in political science from Columbia University, and who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with his J.D. He was president of the Harvard Law Review, lecturer, and author prior to going into politics. He was a state senator in Illinois for 8 years, and a U.S. senator for 4 years. I'll go more into his senate record below, but I think that his resume is fairly impressive.

For comparison, Palin has a B.A. in journalism from University of Idaho. Since then, she was briefly a local sports reporter and fisherman, then has been city council member and then mayor of Wasilla until becoming governor in 2006. Outside of small-town politics, then, her 2 years experience as governor is her main qualification.

Obama's Senate Record

The next question is how well he did in his job. In a speech at the Republican convention, Palin claimed that Obama had written "not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate."

From what I know, since becoming a senator in 2005, Obama introduced two bills that have made their way into law: the Lugar-Obama threat reduction initiative (which expands previous program to find and dispose of weapons in the former Soviet Union), and the Coburn‚ÄìObama Transparency Act (which requires the full disclosure to the public of all entities or organizations receiving federal funds). I'm not sure about bills that haven't made their way into law. There was a reference to his work on an education bill that hasn't passed.

So are those minor accomplishments not worth mentioning? That depends. What is the baseline expectation for what a senator should manage in four years? Presumably John McCain should be an adequate comparison. During the same term, I know that McCain introduced the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 which passed, and the McCain-Kennedy Immigration Act which failed.

It could be argued that the Immigration act was the most major in scope of these acts -- thus, depending on the definition of "major", Palin's comment could be technically true. However, I don't feel that writing sweeping but failed legislation is a mark of ability as a politician.

Overall, my impression is that both McCain and Obama's accomplishments during the last term are fair track records. They both also talked on various issues, cast votes, and participated in subcommittees. It is hard to measure the success of these, but they both seemed fairly active. While he has not been in the Senate for that long, I think that Obama's actions during the Senate are quite creditable -- and it isn't appropriate for the other side to cast aspersions about it.

Senior Paper

Some conservative commenters seem to be making a great deal about anything about his life. For example, consider this post, "Where in the World is Obama's Missing Thesis?" MSNBC later reported on this issue, "Obama and the case of the missing 'thesis'". In short, this was a complete mistake. According to Columbia spokesman Robert Hornsby, "At the time Barack Obama was a student, the political science department had no mechanism by which undergraduate political science majors in Columbia College could receive recognition for writing an independent thesis."

He wrote an extended paper for his honors course in "American Foreign Policy" with professor Michael Baron. Baron reported that from memory, his course paper was an analysis of the evolution of the arms reduction negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The mystery is why a big deal should be made out of such a course paper.

Annenberg Challenge Work

An even bigger deal has been made regarding his work with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge -- one of eighteen programs from the Rhode Island-based Annenberg Institute. In particular, a big deal has been made that former sixties radical Bill Ayers was also a part of this effort.

Obama worked in the Chicago part of the multi-city education project, as documented in, this Education Weekly post. As far as I can tell, the supposed connection between Ayers and Obama is completely consistent that they are both live in the same area, and were both involved in education reform. Given this, I'd expect that their paths would cross a number of times.

Despite this, there seem to be a variety of accusations regarding Obama's work there, that all amount to leaping from "he knows the guy" to somehow concluding that he is in some secret conspiracy with Ayers. For example, Doug Ross' post on the subject makes a huge deal over finding both of their names in the same 44-page report. Conversely, Alexander Russo's EdWeek response criticizes the original article for giving Obama too much credit in Annenberg, and says that Obama had little to do with the Annenberg challenge beyond chairing it.

A big deal has also been made over the evaluation that the challenge was not successful in raising student achievement, ostensibly wasting millions of dollars. The CAC Wikipedia article cites $110 million funding over 6 years. I see some conflicting reports over the number of schools involved, but I saw 250 more than once. That would be the equivalent of $70k per year for each entire school, which doesn't go all that far.

It sounds like it was an experiment at changing some things about the schools, and it didn't succeed. That's a fact of life with reform attempts -- some new methods are tried and don't work. It's not something that Obama should list as his accomplishments, but it doesn't seem like an embarrassment. It's possible that there was mismanagement from the chair, but there are a ton of other things that can go wrong, many of them outside the project entirely.

Conclusion

My general picture is that he is a bit young to be President, but he is most certainly qualified. His track record is not stellar in all respects, but it appears equal to most other presidential candidates including McCain.

Olympics by Population

2008-08-16T20:00:24Z

Inspired by imnotandrei's post "Minor Olympic Post -- or useless statistics for the day", I was curious about the full stats for Olympics stats by population. So I wrote a CGI script to calculate the full table of countries and their Olympic medal counts.

Olympic Medals by Population

The Wikipedia page ranks countries by gold medals first, with silver and bronze medals only used as tie-breakers.

It's interesting to see how this goes. There are much greater fluctuations from small countries, obviously, so perhaps it would be better to group by regions - or to collect statistics over more years.

A web search shows some similar stats collected for earlier Olympics, including one of 2000 Olympics in Sydney, or a map and chart of all medals from 1996 to 2004. Cuba and Australia are consistently big winners, it seems.

Resigning, and plans

2008-08-09T05:48:32Z

I've been quiet on LJ for a while, mulling over various issues privately. The short form is that I am resigning from my job at Yahoo!, leaving at the end of August. I've informed my bosses and we're planning how to leave my project.

My plan for now is to take at least three months off. I may start working again next year, but between now and then I'll be rethinking my career some. I may be looking at part-time consulting work, and also am considering looking at teaching positions.

Basically, I've just been feeling constantly stressed out over the past few months. It wasn't mainly the particular job I was doing. Liz's disability issues combined with her full-time work since the spring are a factor in that, though I don't think that was all of it. Also, we're quite financially stable -- I had gotten five month's severence from EarthLink, and Liz's job is doing quite well. Really, I haven't had significant time off since college. Grad school wasn't high pressure, but it was full-time -- and I went straight from that to post-doc, to Excite@Home, to EarthLink, to Yahoo!

Actually, it is rather stressful trying to wrap up all of my project at work, but I have an end in sight.

In unrelated news, I'm leaving tomorrow to fly to Florida for my uncle George's funeral. He died of cancer this week after a long time dealing with it. I didn't know him very well, but I'm going there mainly to support my mother who just lost her last sibling.

I had just been with my family out at my parent's summer house in upstate New York the last week of July, which Milo loved. It seems a little strange to me, since I remember it as mostly boring and feeling trapped -- but that may have been more me as a surly teenager.

Solo Parenting

2008-06-26T05:45:38Z

I'm adjusting to having Milo alone for the last few days. Liz will be in Europe for a little over two weeks, which is a while. In the past, I've generally adjust pretty easily to this. The main problem I ahve is that during the weekdays it can get a little lonely, though I have stuff lined up for the weekends.

It's a little tricky getting him to and from Camp Galileo every day. I've been managing it by driving into work instead of taking Caltrain like I normally have been doing. I think I should be able to manage it by train, though, I just have to be careful about how I handle it. (Speaking of which, I was again shocked by gas prices since I hadn't filled up in a while. Still, I know that Europe has always had much higher gas prices than here, so it's not like the end of civilization. We just have to adjust to balance out how we do things.)

Today, I just took Milo to a swimming lesson, which he took better than previous attempts. He's been really excited about going to Lake George again this summer -- and I'm pushing that he should learn to swim for going there. I do feel a little guilty that somehow he really should know how to swim and ride a bike well before now, but he has many other talents.

The new Indiana Jones

2008-06-18T05:39:18Z

I went out to see the new Indiana Jones movie last night with Liz. I didn't have high expectations, and I wasn't rushing to it. However, I realized that I had imprinted pretty heavily on the original films in my youth. I could remember the plots pretty well after many years. I must have seen them on video, but not that I recall since maybe high school.

For the first three-quarters of the new movie, I wasn't disappointed. The first half had an interesting set-up of Indy as an aging hero out of place in the new atomic age. However, they apparently decided to drop the story about three-quarters of the way through in favor of a pure dungeon crawl.

So, on the good side:

The overblown Russian femme fatale, Col. Dr. Spalko, was a groaner of a stereotype when she first appeared. To be fair, though, she did not turn into a sexpot (as femme fatales are wont to), and her schticks of sword-using and psychic powers turned out OK.
I thought the setup of fifties' teenagers contrasted with the aging Indy was pretty good, and the atomic bomb sequence was great except the crash. (Over-the-top is fine for pulp, but being thrown hundred of hards and walking away with some bruises is just ridiculous.)
Mutt was a fine sidekick, and having the chase and action at the university played nicely into the story.
The jungle chase was a lot of fun, and it merged very nicely the Marion-Mutt-Indy dynamic into the action. Nice touches including his mother criticizing Mutt's fencing stance as he fights with the Colonel-Doctor.
The bit with the hat in the epilogue didn't quite work, but it was a cute idea. i.e. It's looks for a moment that the mantle will be passed to Mutt, but Indy grabs his hat to show the theme that old people still have lives.

On the minus side, as soon as they finish the jungle chase, the writers seem to have forgotten that they had a dramatic story at all. Marion and Mutt do nothing for the rest of the movie until the epilogue. The rest of the movie is a rather mechanical amusement park ride that has no point and is mostly retreading earlier films.

The basic plot (as opposed to the dramatic story) is similar to the first movie. Indy wants to keep the Nazis/Russkies from getting a McGuffin, but he fails -- they get exactly what they want, but things turn out OK anyway. In the first movie, the Nazis got the Ark, and here the Russian returned the crystal skull and got her wish. It was just done a lot better in the first movie. The retreading is dumb in the first place, and at least in Raiders Indy was trying to accomplish a noble goal. Even if they couldn't use it, it was reasonable to keep the Ark out of the Nazis' hands. In this movie, he was doing the bidding of jerkwad aliens whom he had no reason to be of service to.

Speaking of the script: Why exactly do mysterious native people twice pop up out of nowhere to wordlessly attack for no apparent reason? Were the writers just not paid enough to give even a passing line to explain them? Or was it just supposed to be obvious that natives are sometimes built into old graves/temples and the thing that they do is attack white people?

The Conclusion, Re-plotted

If I had my druthers, the story would have progressed that Indy would have had to choose between Marion and the McGuffin on the one hand, and the son he didn't want. So, keeping with the current plot until their escape into the river... I'll start with a few assumptions: (1) Let's give the Russians a boat full of reinforcements, to make them credible adversaries instead of clowns. (2) Have Indy figure out how to get to the secret entrance instead of just happening to literally fall right in front of it. He had some brains in the first half of the movie, let's pretend he keeps them. (3) No stupid, pointless natives. (4) Indy has an initial motivation - that the secret of the crystal skull can restore his friend Ox.

So they're on the river, and they're ahead of the Russians. But behind them, the Russians are reconnecting to their boatload of reinforcements. As they are escaping in the boat, Ox begins to speak more coherently. Indy is excited - his friend's mind is returning. Ox tearfully recognizes him. He interprets what Ox is saying and takes a turn on the river. They hide the boat. Mac is about to betray them, when Indy slugs him and takes his gun -- with a hint of new psychic power, he implies he knew what Mac was about to do. However, Mac grabs for a flare and sets it off, signaling to the Russians where they are. Mac acts all superior for a moment, when suddenly there is a whistling as a Russian mortar round lands and he is killed.

They race away from the mortar assault firing from the deck of the Russian boat. From there he figures where the entrance to the secret valley is. He realizes that Ox is getting more coherent, and that he may be able to restore his mind if they get there. He is also having odd psychic flashes, though, and is ambivalent because of his visions of the dark side of the aliens. As they piece that together, though, the Colonel-Doctor is having her own psychic flashes enabling her to follow them -- a worthy adversary.

They marvel for a time at the round secret valley. They begin carefully working their way into the temple along a ridge, wary of traps, when suddenly shots ring out and they dive for cover. Indy and Mutt are on one side of an aisle, while Marion and Ox are on the other with the skull. But Mutt dove too far and is sliding down the side of the ridge. Indy looks at Marion as the Russians close in, with too much open ground between them. He dives to save Mutt, while Marion and Ox are captured. Marion and the Colonel-Doctor now have a conversation, with her noticing Ox's improved mental state and orders him tied up. They advance into the temple while Indy rescues Mutt. There is a harrowing scene as they escape a landslide and then race into the tunnels under the temple.

Marion tries to convince the Colonel-Doctor to give up the quest, pointing to signs that the advanced aliens hadn't just taught things to humans, they had enslaved humans. The Colonel-Doctor, though, is interested only in her ultimate ambitions, not even loyalty to Russia and certainly not family. As they pass into the center of the temple, Ox's mind comes back entirely. Marion is tearful. The Colonel-Doctor activates a stone mechanism to extend a bridge to the inner temple. As they cross that, Marion seizes a moment of distraction and rushes back with Ox, reversing the switch and trapping them. They still have the skull.

Indy and Mutt are working their way through the tunnels, and dodge a few traps on their own as the bond. When they meet with Marion and Ox, though, Indy goes to try to save the Colonel-Doctor. He tries - with a passing reference to having seen the horrors of what can happen to those who meddle in greater forces. However, she says that even if she dies and no good comes to Russia, she must know the truth. She returns the skull, and the automated saucer systems activate to return the now-whole bodies to their origin. Now comes the harrowing but brief escape scene.

So Marion sees that Indy could be a good father to Mutt, and that he had even tried to save the Colonel-Doctor, and she is convinced that he has changed. So they get married at the end with a similar epilogue, but perhaps with a convincing bit of dialogue.

Principles

Give your characters some reason to do what they do. "Aliens want me to do it" isn't a motivation, and even decent actors like Harrison Ford can't do much with it. By the same token, "He's the leading man" isn't a motivation for romance. Even a scandalous line about how he was good in bed would have helped. The character arc that had been set up was about Indy coming to terms with being a father, and for Marion and Mutt to similarly adjust. The action should support that.

On the plausibility side, I can vaguely deal with stupid traps for no good reason as a pulp trope, though really I'd prefer it if there was some thin excuse or logic to them. Mindless attack natives who come out of walls, though, is just plain dumb.

Good Times in Seattle

2008-06-06T19:53:49Z

Had a great time on my trip to Seattle, as I noted in my RPG post "Go Play NorthWest 2008".

Just wanted to give shouts out to people there. I had a nice time Friday hanging out with wiredferret.

At the con, I got to see locals Nancy, Albert, Chris B, and Carl -- people I met from last year like John A, Laura M, Mark, and John H -- along with people I knew from AmberCon NorthWest like defconone and ogremarco -- and some new people like Ping, Rebecca, Willem, and Alan. Thanks, everyone, for a great time.

WisCon 32 Panels

2008-05-29T06:55:26Z

So, my summary of WisCon panels:

"Elves and Dwarves: Racism in Fantasy" (Fri 8:45PM) -- This was rather disappointing. To start, through no intentional fault, the panelists in a discussion of racism were all white, which is limiting the point of view. My tentative lesson from it -- I think people came to it more interested in elves and dwarves than in the bigger issue of racism, and the discussion didn't really go anywhere.

"Combining Science & Fiction" (Sat 1PM) -- An interesting panel with a lot of participation from the audience. We talked about various author's works -- Nancy Kress came up along with Maureen McHugh and others. Issues included things like when things are presented as science as opposed to just plot devices.

"Here's Where The Story Ends" (Sat 2:30PM) -- A good panel about story endings, with panelists Maureen McHugh, Lyda Morehouse, Rachel Swirsky, Jim Munroe, and Paul Stevens. McHugh had interesting comments about the thematic ending versus the plot ending. Morehouse had lots of interesting comments, noting particularly the two endings to Charlotte's Web. Swirsky stressed the importance of reader's expectations based on genre and other cues. Works cited for interesting use of endings included McHugh's "Ancestor Money" and "Frankenstein's Daughter", Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones", and Kelly Link's work. We talked about classic endings such as Casablanca, "The Lady and the Tiger", and O Henry's twist endings. My question was about what to do about an ending that the readers won't like. The panel was mostly agreed on this -- take responsibility for setting up the ending and communicating the story well to the reader, but don't worry about how the ending is received.

"Why Return a King (or Queen)?" (Sun 10AM) -- A panel on the tendency towards glorifying monarchy in modern-day fantasy, with panelists Georgie Schnobrich, Chris Hill, Tamora Pierce, Sarah Monette, and P.C. Hodgell. Tamora Pierce was hilarious on many things, and brought up some interesting points on myths of King Arthur, the Fisher King, and the Year King. There were some simple points about a king being a useful device for personifying government, or to simplify politics to focus on other matters, or as necessary for believability. Though just being realistic doesn't explain the glorification of making the returned Queen triumphant. Books cited for interesting usage included "A World Lit Only By Fire", "Just Ella", "Goose Girl", "Eagle's Mount", "The Time of the Dark", and "Spindle's End".

"Roleplaying: Gender & Heroism" (Sun 1PM) -- An academic track with two papers: "Queen's Quest: Gender and the Heroic Quest in Adventure Games" by Anastasia Marie Salter; and "Still the Slowest Kid on the Playground: Coming of Age in World of Warcraft" by Robin Woods. I came in late for the first, but there was some intriguing discussion of the development of games. The narrative / puzzle design of adventure games like King's Quest are now being shunned compared to first person shooters and social game design. Social experience was the focus of Woods' paper, going through the newbie experience in WoW and its social effects.

"The Non-Weak Romance Novel Heroine" (Sun 2:30PM) -- A panel I came into late, which became a general talk about ways in which romance novel standards have been shifting over the past decade. The panelists were generally romance authors -- Victoria Janssen, Lori Devoti, Chris Merrill, Diane Greenlee, and Betsy Urbik. To generalize, they felt that heroines were getting stronger. Alpha males are still common, but they are more closely matched by strong women. Explicit sex is more common, but forced sex is now rare. The supernatural romance now has the most dominant men, i.e. vampires, hellhounds, etc. Novels more often give the male point of view, rather than just the female. And by luck of the draw, I got a free copy of one of the novels.

"Faux Diversity vs. Actual Diversity" (Sun 4PM) -- A discussion mainly about racial representation in sci-fi and fantasy television. There were many examples cited, starting from the lack of Asians in Firefly. It was pretty much agreed that basically no sci-fi or fantasy series had racial mix common in modern day series like The Wire or Law & Order. The big question that we went around on without agreeing was about the comparison of having no minority characters versus having stereotypes ones. For example, one fan looked forward to having Hispanic main characters introduced in a series, only to find that they are illegal aliens with dangerous powers. I pushed that while neither were commendable, at least stereotyped characters are a starting point.

So a lot of time not included in there -- discussion among volunteers for next year, child wrangling, drinking and dancing, and so forth. All in all, an excellent con experience.

Enjoying WisCon

2008-05-25T06:52:27Z

Having a nice time here at WisCon 32.

I just had a classic moment of WisCon synchonicity. I talked to rathera at the Cerise Magazine party, and we were talking about gaming and how early computer puzzle games, and her panel on King's Quest, which had one of the first point of view female characters in a real plot. I brought up that I had just gotten Lost in Austen -- a choose-your-own-adventure book based on Jane Austen. Naturally, she had played it as well. But then the kicker -- we both had on our persons our score sheets from playing it and took them out to compare. She had a full two sheets in her notebook, but I just had a few moves in on mine. I did, however, manage to score the accomplishment "Speak Fluent French" that she had missed.

It's all been quite excellent. There have been a few frustrating bits, like the "Elves and Dwarves: Racism in Fantasy" panel -- which it seems to me got people interested more in talking about fun with elves and dwarves than in addressing racism. However, there were many great things as well. I did more singing this year. I sang amusing yet soulful filk with the Carl Brandon society at opening ceremonies, and I did two songs at karaoke: the Isley Brothers' "Shout" (unexpectedly jumping in when some people asked for help with it) and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".

I look forward to the Sunday panels.

Evolutionary Psychology

2008-04-17T06:57:29Z

So I ger very annoyed by evolutionary psychology. I see it pretty regularly, sometimes in jest thankfully, but more often than not completely serious. As far as I have seen, the field is completely unscientific, and primarily exists to spout conservative politics. Some recent examples would be in Mighty Ponygirl's "Science explains why men like games more than women" or Jonathan Tweet's "gender and gaming".

Just to be clear: there is no psychological data on the ancestors of humanity. So instead, evolutionary psychologists make up evolutionary explanations for observed psychological trends in modern humans. Essentially, this means picking trends that they like, and then spinning them as genetically essential rather than environmental or cultural. For that matter, nearly all of the studies cited aren't even cross-cultural. In practice, it is vanishingly rare for a psychological study to be done in different countries at all, let alone in significantly different cultures.

What is particularly notable is that despite massive and obvious cultural differences between men and women -- such as clothing, make-up, and body language -- any subtle difference that can only be seen through extensive statistics is spun to be purely genetic. So if, say, female college students show a statistical difference in how they talk or how they write from male counterparts, it is taken to be a revelation calling for a purely genetic explanation.

The "Hunting Instinct"

As one example of evolutionary logic, I regularly hear about how "hunting instincts" differentiate men from women. For example, Jonathan Tweet's recent blog post suggested that men were "evolved to enjoy hunting and warfare". Similarly, this mega-thread on theRPGsite featured someone claiming that gender differences were explained by men being "bred for hunting and lifting".

In general, modern humans do not seem well adapted to hunting. Up through Homo Habilis, there is no evidence that we hunted at all. Homo Habilis was prey to larger predators, and they had tools for cutting meat but not for stabbing or clubbing prey. There are few indications of physical adaptations for hunting after Homo Habilis. So it is questionable to me how much mental adaptation for hunting we have -- i.e. how deeply ingrained our "hunting instincts" are.

Further, if hunting were a primary point of the male/female split, we might expect to see sexual dimorphism increase after we started hunting. However, actually the opposite happens. The sexes became more similar in size after we begin hunting (around the time of Homo Erectus, approximately 1.8 million years ago).

So while some hunting instincts are within possibility, I think the tendency to assume them is overblown.

The Moving Bar

Anti-feminists throughout the past decades have constantly pointing to whatever the current conditions are as a genetically-determined reality. For example, the lack of women authors and doctors was often cited as evidence that women were genetically unfit for those professions. These days, that is rarely held.

Now, of course, there are real genetic differences between men and women. Some are obvious, and some are less so. However, no one actually grows up under scientifically controlled conditions, and the population differences are subject to a host of environmental and/or cultural influences.

I certainly believe that there are a host of genetic differences between men and women, and I believe in evolution. However, I don't think that any specific difference between modern men and women is "proven" to be purely genetic by supplying an unproveable evolutionary explanation.

P.S. For some more evolutionary psychology annoyances, here are some articles that have galled me over time:

Solmukohta 2008

2008-04-09T21:55:01Z

So I'm back from my trip to Finland, where I was attending Solmukohta, an international larp convention with a focus on analysis and discussion. I'll give a detailed report on the gaming side of things in my role-playing journal, jhkimrpg -- right now I just want to give the social report.

First of all, the Finnish reputation for drinking is now confirmed in my mind. I drank more during that week than I had for several months prior. Unfortunately, I think I am becoming more of a loud drunk, and I did some foolish things. Though for the record, when I ran naked up the apartment building stairs in response to a dare, I wasn't very drunk at all. That's just me.

I had a lot of fun in the four larps of the week -- run by Santtu, Andreas, Marthe & Martine, and J. Tuomas. There weren't enough larps for everyone who was there at AWiF, but then really I should have volunteered to run one. I'd have to pick a depressing one to fit in with the mood: one about suicide, one about refugees fleeing Croatia after their village was destroyed, one about a future world war where we were asked about whether to lower the draft age from 16 to 14. The fourth by J. Tuomas was the brightest -- it was just about hungover people who may have killed someone being mean to each other. I think this is telling me something about Finnish psychology. :-)

My pattern for the week was sightseeing in the mornings (mostly by myself), larps in the afternoon, parties in the evening. A lot of thanks to the people organizing. At the parties, I got to hang out more with people I knew from earlier conventions like Claus, Sofia, Martine, and Marthe -- and I got to know some better like Trine and Janetta -- and I got to know new people like Nathan, Santtu, and Brett.

Still, I think my favorite times were the quieter times. I enjoyed a lot going out to the "end of the world" country house following the sauna party -- with interesting discussions that night with Itamar and Trine, along with an unexpectedly nice walk to the lake after being woken up by a fire alarm in the morning. It was very nice countryside, but I'm very glad I didn't have to hike out there every night.

It was only at the hotel on Friday that I got to see the whole crowd. In general, the crowd was now more international than two years ago in Sweden -- big blocks of guys from Germany and Israel, a scattering of Eastern Europeans, and a handful of others. Also, probably not coincidentally, the average was a little older, with more men. I had estimated a little over one-third women at Knutpunkt 2006 (fifty-something out of 147), while it seemed under a third this time.

I enjoyed all the talks and workshops I went to -- props to lots of people here: Malik & Matthijs on educational role-playing, Agnese & Diana on larp in Latvia, Anna-Karin's workshop excellent as always (plus her meta-technique talk), Tor and Even's fascinating split-identity workshop/larp, Anna's workshop on management, and the whole panel on Eastern Europe (though I had trouble focusing Sunday morning).

I enjoyed the evenings there, too. There was a nice impromptu singing session in the stairwell Friday night - kudos to all the singers there. The retro-futurist gala dinner was fine and had a nice show, though I came dangerously close to a wardrobe malfunction as my old metallic grey rubber shirt started to split at the shoulder. And afterwards, dancing the pornapolka with a huge crowd and contributing to the ancient German punch ritual, along with a bit of karaoke. I was starting to get sick by this time, though.

Sunday was a bit of a haze as I was low on sleep and starting to get sick. And mostly there were a lot of goodbyes.

Advice to myself for next time: pick a few times to wander about drinking, dancing, flirting, and singing -- but set aside more time for reflective conversations with people (which may involve a certain amount of alcohol as well).

(Again, more role-playing-specific thoughts will show up on jhkimrpg.)

Prison and Safety Nets

2008-03-27T17:52:36Z

badgerbag's recent post on drawing the line made me think about safety nets in society. Sadly, in the U.S. it seems that our main safety net is in our prisons -- we actually have the highest per-capita rate of prisoners in the world. The U.K. Reports on Prisons has a World Prison Population list. It summarizes:

• The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world, some 701 per 100,000 of the national population, followed by Russia (606), Belarus (554), Kazakhstan and the U.S. Virgin Islands (both 522), the Cayman Islands (501), Turkmenistan (489), Belize (459), Bermuda (447), Suriname (437), Dominica (420) and Ukraine (415).

• 50 However, more than three fifths of countries (60.5%) have rates below 150 per 100,000. (The United Kingdom’s rate of 141 per 100,000 of the national population places it above the mid-point in the World List; it is the highest among countries of the European Union.)

What I'd be curious would be a comparison of the cost of Europe's (usually more extensive) social programs versus the cost of the U.S.'s massive prison program. It seems to me that the anti-socialist stance of trying to minimize our safety net (i.e. "making them pay their own way") may actually be costing us more money, let alone improving the quality of life.

RCSD Budget Crisis

2008-03-13T05:30:39Z

Speaking of education...

I'm writing to my governor and state representatives about school funding. Below is an overview my local the Redwood City School District's page on their Budget Crisis Information 2008-09.

On January 10, Governor Schwarzenegger released a proposed State Budget for 2008-09 that cuts public school funding by $4+ billion in order to make up for a projected $14 billion deficit. If this budget goes through, the Redwood City School District Board of Education will need to find ways to cut programs and services, or find another source of revenue to offset this severe loss of funding to our schools, programs, and staff.

The Governor’s proposed budget cuts targets basic per student funding guaranteed by the State Constitution (Prop. 98 passed in 1988), as well as class size reduction subsidies, special education programs required under federal law, child development programs, child nutrition programs, before and after school grant programs, adult education, and facilities maintenance. In addition, the Governor’s Budget does not provide ‘equalization aid,’ the budget allocation that addresses inequities in school funding and attempts to bring ‘low-wealth’ school districts, such as Redwood City, closer to the state average in per student funding. Finally, the Governor’s Budget proposes to delay funding apportionments (the actual cash we receive to pay our bills) from July to September, and all but eliminates reimbursements the State gives school districts for providing specific required services (referred to as ‘Mandated Cost Reimbursements’).

California is in the lower half of states in per-pupil spending (cf. the Census Report for details). From the 2005 Census report, we seem to be #30 among the states in absolute per-pupil spending -- but that's not figuring in cost of living.

I think it is ridiculous, and about time to start some letter writing.

Teaching Math

2008-03-12T17:03:43Z

So I've been thinking a little more about education some, after some off-topic discussion on an RPG forum, "Fuzzy Math?".

My limited teaching experience is in some grading on the undergrad college level (math and physics), some physics laboratory instruction and help room supervision, a bit of substitute teaching of 5th-6th grade computer science, and a tiny bit of lecturing. I was a member of the American Association of Physics Teachers, and went to their 118th national meeting in Anaheim.

Background

More broadly, I've often been curious has been about how our education system has been progressing. The U.S. National Assessment of Education Progress has collected statistics by giving identical tests over time since its founding in 1969. This is not the same as the the regular tests like the SAT that regularly change, but rather a sampling measure that strives to remain constant. If you want quick info, you can skip to the online executive summary from 1999. The full article has more discussion of methodology. For the even shorter summary:

Generally, the trends in mathematics and science are characterized by declines in the 1970s, followed by increases during the 1980s and early 1990s, and mostly stable performance since then. Some gains are also evident in reading, but they are modest. Overall improvement across the assessment years is most evident in mathematics. National trends in average reading, mathematics, and science scores are depicted in Figure 1.

Two controversial movements in teaching math have been around over the past few decades. In the 1960s, fears about the dominance of Russian mathematicians and physicists motivated the New Math trend -- where a number of advanced math concepts were introduced early, like teaching commutation as a principle to 2nd-3rd graders. As a physicist, I find some of New Math quite fascinating since I can see how parts of it were directly taken from field theory.

The more current controversy is over "reformed math" or "constructivist math", which several sources date back to a report by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in 1989. There is a 17 page short version of their recommendations posted on the Department of Education website here: "Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics". There was a longer report from a few months later, still available paperback on Amazon, that runs 258 pages.

From a roughly look at the NAEP data, it appears that trends concurrent with New Math were unsuccessful -- at least, there was a moderate downturn from 1973 to 1982 -- though really that may have been after the heyday of New Math. The
reformed math effort is only moderately successful. There have been gains in math scores since the eighties. However, most of the gains are between 1986 and 1990, and I think the NCTM recommendations in 1989 are unlikely to have had their full effect by 1990.

Here in California

The current California content standard for mathematics was adopted in 1997. The current California mathematics curriculum framework, adopted in 2005, is also available. Appendix D has sample problems for all grade levels. The latest test scores statewide are also available.

Basically, the current California curriculum is fairly traditional. I believe that this was a shift of several years ago. It considers some of the NCTM recommendations, but does not strongly pursue them -- compared to some of the more controversial curricula.

Controversy

In the thread, John Morrow cited news articles such as the 2001 Time Magazine article "This is Math?" by Romesh Ratnesar; and the April 2000 New York Times article, "The New, Flexible Math Meets Parental Rebellion" by Anemona Hartocollis. These were extremely critical of the new curricula based on the NCTM recommendations, but did not cite any widespread drop in scores. The Time suggested mixed results -- In a few states that have emphasized new-new math, such as Connecticut, there are early indicators of improved student performance. Critics in California, on the other hand, point to test scores in cities like Santa Barbara and Palo Alto that show at least temporary drop-offs after whole math has been introduced.

The articles also cite some examples of approaches clearly pitched as "horror stories", yet most of these seemed perfectly reasonable to me. In my experience, interactive and lab sessions are often more rewarding in learning than lectures. At the college level, it seemed to me that they were used less because they demanded more individual attention. Lab sections had only a dozen students and were lead by graduate students, while full professors would lecture to 50 or more students.

What the NCTM Really Says

Here are some key quotes from the NCTM's 1988 "Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics"...

For many students the study of mathematics begins and ends with computational skill; mastery of pencil-and-paper procedures is believed by many to be prerequisite to the investigation of applied problems, algebra, geometry, or other mathematics. Those students not demonstrating an early ability at fast and accurate computation are often relegated to remedial classes dominated by repetitive drill. At the secondary level these students typically end their mathematical studies by the ninth or tenth grade, denied the opportunity for many careers.

In order to correct imbalances in the mathematical content studied by students, the report proposes that schools: 1) require all students take 12 years of mathematics (K-11; 13 years is suggested, particularly for college-intending students); 2) implement a core curriculum that allows all students the opportunity to study the important ideas and methods of mathematics; and 3) remove pencil-and-paper computational ability as a necessary prerequisite to the study of other mathematics.

The standards report states bluntly that no basis exists for the belief that pencil-and-paper skills are prerequisite to the study of other mathematical ideas, recommending that all students be exposed to essentially the same topics -- a much broader set than is currently included in any of the present tracks. Obviously, not all students need to, or will be able to, study these topics at the same level of mathematical rigor. And, in adding a wide variety of new topics to an already crowded curriculum, something must go.

The proposed solution to differing ability in the classroom is to vary not the content, itself, but the "depth and breadth" in which content is covered. For examples, all tenth graders would study some geometry -- some would study geometry at an informal level emphasizing spatial visualization and simple problem situations, others would experience a more formal, axiomatic approach including a stronger emphasis on formal proof and introduction to non-Euclidean geometries.

Some things stood out to me from it. The report is clearly in reaction to some prior practices where topics like geometry or word problems relating numbers to real-world situations were considered "advanced". It implies that students wouldn't get to them at all until after years of only drilling through doing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division on paper -- sometimes not ever getting to anything else.

My Two Cents

The basic recommendations of the NCTM seem reasonable to me, and they reference studies on the effectiveness of teaching methods. I'm not sure about all of them, but the test results seem to be fair although they do not show marked improvement.

One issue it emphasizes is how different the world of today is. In the 1960s, the skills of working out multi-digit computations on pencil and paper were absolutely vital to the workforce. Those were core skills used by people at their jobs every day for critical tasks, and a slide rule was an important instrument. I remember being amazed when watching the movie Apollo 13 to see astronauts sharpening their pencils to calculate their changed orbit. It was good sense for this to be emphasized in schools at the time, and it prepared students well for the world they would enter.

However, the necessary skills of working adults today are notably different. Adults are rarely, if ever, called on to do multi-digit operations with pencil and paper. Conversely, there are a lot of key mathematical skills used every day by people now that were rare or non-existent in 1970. Someone who goes to work in an office will not be asked to add up columns in a book, but rather to do tasks like sorting accounts in a spreadsheet and making a graph of projected growth.

The objections seem to be that fast/efficient pencil-and-paper operations are a critical prerequisite skill for any other mathematical understanding -- a contradiction to the NCTM's assertion. Personally, I don't buy it. As a physicist, there was an old joke:

A reporter asks a mathematician, a physicist, and an accountant "What's 3 times 3?" The mathematician thinks for a moment, and replies "An answer exists... and it is rational." The physicist shrugs and says "It's order 10." The accountant smiles and asks, "Well... what would you like it to be?"

It's a joke I've told a lot because it felt very true. Physicists are used to having 10% or more margins of error, and thus skipping exact calculation in favor of estimation.

I'm not completely set on the specific changes recommended by the NCTM, but they aren't unreasonable. They don't seem to have improved things majorly, but by the numbers I've seen they seem moderately successful.

Presidential Election History

2008-02-24T18:20:55Z

I was sort of curious about this, after some comments about how the two American political parties have been matching the voters' interest. I didn't see it collected together in one place from a basic Google search, so I collected together some statistics from the ElectionsCentral pages at HistoryCentral.com.

The following is the popular presidential votes for the past 80 years.

1928: 17.5% - 58.3% vs 40.8% vs 0.9% - Hoover(R) vs Smith(D) vs Other
1932: 17.8% - 57.4% vs 39.6% vs 3.0% - Roosevelt(D) vs Hoover(R) vs Other
1936: 24.3% - 60.8% vs 36.5% vs 2.7% - Roosevelt(D) vs Landon(R) vs Other
1940: 9.9% - 54.7% vs 44.8% vs 0.4% - Roosevelt(D) vs Wilkie(R) vs Other
1944: 7.5% - 53.4% vs 45.9% vs 0.8% - Roosevelt(D) vs Dewey(R) vs Other
1948: 4.5% - 49.6% vs 45.1% vs 5.3% - Truman(D) vs Dewey(R) vs Other
1952: 10.7% - 55.1% vs 44.4% vs 0.4% - Eisenhower(R) vs Stevenson(D) vs Other
1956: 15.5% - 57.4% vs 41.9% vs 0.7% - Eisenhower(R) vs Stevenson(D) vs Other
1960: 0.2% - 49.7% vs 49.5% vs 0.8% - Kennedy(D) vs Nixon(R) vs Other
1964: 22.6% - 61.1% vs 38.5% vs 0.5% - Johnson(D) vs Goldwater(R) vs Other
1968: 0.7% - 43.4% vs 42.7% vs 13.5% - Nixon(R) vs Humphrey(D) vs Wallace(I)
1972: 23.2% - 60.7% vs 37.5% vs 1.8% - Nixon(R) vs McGovern(D) vs Other
1976: 1.9% - 50.1% vs 48.2% vs 0.7% - Carter(D) vs Ford(R) vs Other
1980: 9.7% - 50.7% vs 41.0% vs 6.6% - Reagan(R) vs Carter(D) vs Anderson
1984: 18.2% - 58.8% vs 40.6% vs 0.6% - Reagan(R) vs Mondale(D) vs Other
1988: 7.8% - 53.4% vs 45.6% vs 1.0% - Bush(R) vs Dukakis(D) vs Other
1992: 5.6% - 43.3% vs 37.7% vs 19.0% - Clinton(D) vs Bush(R) vs Perot(I)
1996: 8.0% - 50% vs 42% vs 8% - Clinton(D) vs Dole(R) vs Perot(I)
2000: -0.5% - 47.9% vs 48.4% vs 2.7% - Bush(R) vs Gore(D) vs Nader(I)
2004: 3.0% - 51.3% vs 48.3% vs 0.3% - Bush(R) vs Kerry(D) vs Nader(I)

I have heard various talk about how the age of television and carefully analyzed polling has made elections closer now than in past ages, as both parties cleave close to the center and tailor their message carefully. However, when I look at the results, it doesn't seem to be that strong an effect.

Pokémon Programming!

2008-02-19T19:44:17Z

I did a little Perl programming project over the weekend that I'm rather proud of. Thanks to Danny and Liz for help and feedback.

I had been trying to think of some way to help my son get into programming. I personally am rather fond of Perl, and in some ways it is a good language to get started in. There are a lot of things that make syntax easier. For example, the default accepts bare words as strings, so you can say $a = hello rather than requiring quotes. It has many simple operations like its loops for (1..10) or sorting.

The really crucial problem with kids programming, though, is what they are supposed to do with it. Most starting programming tasks have boring applications. I noticed that my son has been obsessively going through the lists of Pokémon information -- and that it taught him how to use a search form, for example. That's data!! So over the weekend I set up two Perl modules and a CGI script for some simple Pokémon programming. The form takes standard Perl code, with a few imported functions for Pokémon data. Here's the result:

Milo's Pokémon Program Tester

For grown-up programmers, I have the underlying code online for perusal. There are many things that I would do differently if this were a module for grown-ups. Keeping that in mind, though, I'd be glad to hear various people's comments.

Notes for grown-up programmers

I have lots of ideas for extensions -- especially making it handle simple mistakes more nicely and give helpful messages. More concretely: inserting semicolons at the ends of lines if they aren't there, and re-phrasing some of the error messages returned.

First 4 Weeks at Yahoo!

2008-02-01T18:03:32Z

So I'm wrapping up my fourth week at Yahoo! (While I do like it here, that's not enthusiasm -- the company name has an exclamation point in it, which induces some snark in me.)

Work is going pretty well. I'm helping make tools for the Operations department -- my group mostly makes Perl scripts and PHP sites, plus a few C++ utilities controlled by the scripts. Yahoo! does have an impressive set of tools compared to my time at EarthLink -- which is unsurprising considering its size, but still interesting to note. A nice has been taking the train into work, since I live right by the Caltrain station and Yahoo! has a shuttle from the station right to the offices. On the down side have been a lot of 5:00, 5:30, and 6PM meetings (especially when my mornings are meeting-free).

This week we confirmed laying off around 5% of the employees worldwide, and we just got the news of an official offer from Microsoft:

Microsoft offers $44.6B for Yahoo

So, just after I was just wishing wiredferret good luck at getting a Microsoft job, I find that I might end up working for Microsoft in the not-too-distant future.

Happy Birthday to Me

2008-01-08T07:25:53Z

So my first day on the new job at Yahoo! was fine. I got a badge and a cube and a desktop, a bunch of paperwork, and various orientation talks -- which was about all that I was expecting. My new boss was still on vacation, and forgot to tell the others that I was coming -- which was a bit disturbing, but he was apologetic when I called his cell phone. At least he doesn't seem like a micromanaging type. :-)

I just had a quiet nice dinner at home with cake for dessert, which was just what I was looking for.

Oh, and I got season two of Avatar: The Last Airbender! Hoody-hoo!

The past year has had its ups and downs. My main events were my outing to Burning Man in August and some trips to New York to see my family. Life changes have been Liz's health, Milo's change to his new school North Star, and my layoff and new job. Things could be better, but they could be a whole lot worse.

My time at home these days

2007-12-13T00:46:25Z

So I've been at home now the last few weeks, since the EarthLink SJ office closed at the end of October -- though I'm not officially laid off until December 21. I haven't been talking about badgerbag's health situation, I guess since it seems kind of personal to her, but I realize I can't really talk about what's going on with me without covering that.

Liz has owned a wheelchair since I've known her, but it has been for uncommon times when she wasn't feeling well. Her problems walking had been attributed to fibromyalgia, combined with some old hip and knee problems. However, she took a turn for the worse in March. She would often need a cane, and had to use the wheelchair for any long walks. It was slowly getting better, until at the end of October when she got nerve conduction electric shock tests to help diagnose. Then things suddenly got much worse. She had to use the wheelchair all the time, and suddenly there have been a lot of doctor visits including a new neurologist, three MRIs of different parts, and some rehab and physical therapy.

There's no diagnosis yet, but candidates include Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), Primary Lateral Sclerosis (PLS), or an uncommon type of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). PLS and MS don't have known causes -- they're really just names for collections of symptoms shown. It doesn't seem to be sharply degenerative, but it's also not something that's going to be cured. At best, it will be very slow in progress and the symptoms can be lessened with treatment.

So I'm adjusting to this. We made a bunch of changes around the house -- including a new deck outside our door with a ramp, and new french doors that go out onto our patio with the hot tub (with mini-ramp). The big thing to deal with is that it's a lot harder to go out to places.

Liz wonders how I'm going to process this, which I find hard to answer. I have supportive friends, but mostly processing changes is very personal for me. I don't like therapy or support groups, and to some degree the explicit psychological talk that goes with them.

It's not like my choices are all that hard. I'm starting my new job in January, and working to improve our house to adapt. Until my new job, I'm going to spend a lot of time with Liz and Milo, and take some time for myself as well. I am making an effort to relax more. I've been watching a lot more movies and reading books. I'm not writing all that much, partly because I don't have a good workspace. My laptop kind of sucks at this point, and the wireless on it is terrible, and I don't have a nice desk, though I have set up a stand with keyboard and mouse on the kitchen table.

Once upon a time, I had thought that my time off before the new job would be a good time for my projects. However, reflecting on this, I think relaxing and hanging out for once would be just fine. I've basically never really had time off since college. I went straight from college to grad school, from grad school to my post-doc, from post-doc to Excite@Home, and from Excite@Home to EarthLink. So I figure it should be fine for me to have no big plans.

Thoughts on Jo Walton's "Ha'Penny"

2007-12-07T06:05:08Z

So I just finished reading Jo Walton's Ha'Penny -- the sequel to her alternate-history murder mystery Farthing. Both are very well-written books, and I love the characters. However, I was upset at the implied portrayal of fascism and how it was used. I ended up staying up late last night finishing Ha'Penny, but then couldn't sleep afterwards.

The background of the books is that England makes peace with Germany in early 1941 after the fall of France. Subsequently, England sees a rise in anti-Semitism and repressive government. The books ask important questions about the rise of power, but I think they also misrepresent in many ways.

Killing Hitler?

Alternate histories about WWII abound, and I think that they are still relevant for the modern day. One of the most popular alternate history ideas is killing Hitler prior to or during the war, and what that would do to the Nazi party. (A variant of this appears in Ha'Penny.) This has a lot of relevance to people in our dealings with Iraq and other repressive countries. Our key mistake in Iraq came from the idea (promoted by G.W. Bush and others) that if we just got rid of Saddam Hussein, then Iraq would get better. This isn't unique to Bush, though. Clinton similarly fumbled in his attempts to snatch up clan leaders in Mogadishu in 1993.

Leaders can be important, but they aren't the movement. One of the problems I had with Walton's books was that England was vastly different politically and socially from pre-war Germany and Italy. It had a fairly long history as a unified nation and an established government. Nazism and Fascism were rooted in their countries' culture. The general agreement among historians I know is that killing Hitler during the war would have been a boon to Nazi Germany, letting the military commanders do their jobs better under a less influential leader. Killing him early on before the Nazis rise to power might have changed things, but its not clear that it would be any improvement overall.

As far as I know, assassination is almost always a misperception that killing the leader will eliminate the movement. I'm hard-pressed to think of an example when political assassination worked to achieve its broader goals. I am inclined to think that public resistance is better. This includes passive resistance, but also armed resistance to violence. Still, even violent protest is different than assassination.

Have there been assassinations that worked to improve things?

What particularly annoyed me about Ha'Penny was that the choice outlined was between the assassination plot and actively helping the Farthing regime. That is, there were arguments against assassination -- namely that someone else would take over the party, the bombing would justify more draconian laws to suppress terrorism. I don't think it was mentioned, but in addition, it would completely discredit the political opposition that Lord Scott was party to the assassination attempt. However, since no one else was doing anything to resist the regime, those came across as weak excuses.

For example, even though Carmichael considered leaving the country, he never even considered releasing the story of Thirkie's murder, which would discredit him and benefit the falsely-accused David Kahn. There were many other options as well. The book strongly implied that working in the system as Carmichael seemed to inherently meant selling out, which I think is unfair to the heroism of figures like Oskar Schindler.

Incidentally, it seems to me that there are parallels drawn between Carmichael and Ernst Röhm, who was the founder of the SA (stormtroopers). Röhm was a homosexual man of socialist politics who supported the Nazis until he was killed in a move to suppress the SA's power.

More on the new job

2007-11-26T21:51:03Z

So just before leaving for Thanksgiving, I accepted a job offer from Yahoo! It's a hair more base salary than my previous EarthLink job that is ending in December. I had also been interviewing with Linden Labs, but they turned me down for lack of C++ experience, which is true enough. (I've done a lot of C, Perl, and Java -- but little C++.)

Yahoo! is in Sunnyvale, which is roughly as long a commute. However, it looks like I can take Caltrain down and take a shuttle from the Caltrain station to the Yahoo! offices.

I'll be working in network tools development -- building stuff in C and Perl for analyzing traffic data and network rules. I have to say that building networked Perl scripts is something I do for fun, so this seems like pretty good day-to-day work. Not an exciting end application, but work that is likely to be used and useful (as opposed to projects likely to get shelved as many of my EarthLink projects did).