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Higher Cohomology is Inevitable
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "rweba" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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11:55 pm
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Vanity Press?
So a few weeks ago this German Publishing company contacted me and claimed they were interested in publishing my thesis. I was pretty surprised as this is not common in computer science.
Turns out this company has been emailing a lot of people and asking to publish their theses so I was not particularly special to be chosen. It seems their business model depends on digitally "publishing" thousands of theses and only physically printing a copy when someone orders a copy. This allows them to publish titles that will sell very few copies (such as phd theses on semi-supervised learning!). If even a few people buy the thesis they've already made a profit.
When I googled them a lot of people seemed to think they might be scam artists. Well from my experience I can report the following:
(1) As far as I can tell they seem perfectly legit. They are a real publisher with an unconventional business model. Most importantly the author doesn't have to pay anything.
(2) They don't edit your manuscript AT ALL. Whatever you send them, they'll publish it. (they will ask you to make some formatting changes like margins and spacing and removing the title page and abstract.)
(3) As a result of (2) this is not particularly prestigious. You probably won't see any royalties unless you have an amazingly popular and accessible thesis (in which case you might go to a "normal" publisher).
Well I did go through the (very straightforward) process and I just checked and they have my thesis up on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Exploiting-Unlabeled-Data-information/dp/3838300033/
The one thing that is somewhat sub-optimal is the pricing. I wouldn't expect it to sell a lot in any case since
(i) It is a PhD thesis on semi-supervised learning
(ii) the exact same contents are freely available
but the pricing of $66 certainly doesn't help. It would be nice if they offered it at $15 which is a more typical paperback price. If it was up to me I would probably price it at $5. I still wouldn't expect it to sell a lot at that price but at least I could picture someone who isn't my parent wanting to buy it!
Lastly this whole saga reminded me when I took Guy and Bruce's class almost 6 years ago and we learned that ISBN is an error detecting code.
So taking my 10 digit ISBN which is (3 8 3 8 3 0 0 0 3 3) we get
(3 X 10 +
8 X 9 +
3 X 8 +
8 X 7 +
3 X 6 +
0 X 5 +
0 X 4 +
0 X 3 +
3 X 2 +
3 X 1 ) mod 11 = (209) mod 11 = 0 (as it supposed to) ... which makes the whole thing that much more legit ;-)
Tags: academia
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11:20 pm
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Computational aspects of Map Projection
So this is something which occurred to me while sitting in a Precision Air office in Bukoba a while back.
On the wall there was a map of Africa. But the proportions seemed a bit off to me. Then I remembered the historical controversy over the use of Mercator's projection because it apparently made Africa look smaller than it really is.
Some even went so far as to claim that the use of Mercator's projection was a conspiracy by evil minded Westerners to diminish the significance of Africa by literally making it look smaller.
Turns out Mercator's projection mainly became popular because it made navigation easier (which doesn't mean there wasn't evil mindedness involved! ... heh heh).
But it got me thinking ... does computer science have anything to say about this?
Recap:
There has been a lot of work on "low distortion embeddings" [PS file] of metrics into other metrics:
For example how to take points in a graph and embed them into a tree graph so that the points are roughly the same distance apart as before.
This is useful because trees are easier to work with so you can run certain algorithms that would be hard to run on general graphs.
Or projecting points in a high dimensional Euclidean space into a lower dimensional Euclidean space. (e.g random projection like the Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma).
So does any of this work apply to taking points on a sphere and projecting them onto a plane with a minimum amount of distortion?
Well there is this remarkable theorem: Theorema Egregium (yes, that is a very weak pun)
This basically states that if you bend any surface without stretching it then the Gaussian curvature will stay the same.
Since a sphere of radius R has Gaussian curvature 1/R^2 and the plane has Gaussian curvature of ZERO clearly we can't bend a sphere into a plane(or vice versa) without stretching things.
... But we already kind of knew that (just think of flattening out an orange peel onto a piece of paper...)
In differential geometry language they would say "There is no isometric diffeomorphism from the sphere to the plane"
In computer science language we would say "There is no distance preserving embedding from the sphere to the plane"
QUESTIONS
SO... where does that leave us?
Well looking at these list of map projections and this one here obviously there are a lot of projections out there.
Most of them seem developed along similar principles (i.e. geometrically using trigonometry and before the computer era).
But as far as I can tell, there is no easy way to compare the degree of distortion.
That might actually be a good first step. Take a sphere, put a 1,000 random points on it, run a dozen different projections and compare the average distortion. I am not sure if this has been done already or if that information is readily available.
So a candidate good question could be (A) "What is the conformal(angle preserving) mapping with minimum distance distortion?"
Or (B) "What is the equal area mapping with minimum distance distortion?"
Some possible interesting angles
(1) Could a result like "The Mercator projection is the conformal mapping which achieves the best possible distance distortion" be achievable? That would be cool (assuming it wasn't previously known of course)
(2) It would be interesting if a "computer sciency" method like a Bourgain embedding or Johnson-Lindenstrauss projection or whatever had a lower distortion than the "classical" methods (although it probably wouldn't be conformal or equal area).
(3) It might be interesting to formalize the notion of being "almost conformal" and try to see if you can prove something about that as well.
So my sense is that a question like (A) is either very easy (follows from known results) or very hard (no good techniques available to analyze it).
A survey of the literature shows there has been a lot of work on finding low distortion projections (book1, book2)but nothing from a computer science point of view. There are all based on doing numerical optimization and complex analysis. So CS could contribute (i) New analysis techniques (ii) New projection methods
Of course, this might be all be fruitless ... but thats nothing new in research is it?
Tags: science
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04:25 am
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From the Gapminder Foundation
Saw this video posted by my high school classmate Yilkal on Facebook and was very intrigued:
Poor beats rich in MDG race from Gapminder Foundation on Vimeo.
Here is why I liked it:
(1) What they are doing here is not rocket science, but it struck me as a very slick but relatively uncommon way of presenting a large amount of data. All they are showing really is a matrix of numbers, with the rows representing different years and the columns being the child mortality, GDP per capita and population. But if this data was presented in a table, I bet it would be MUCH less effective.
(2) There is a certain geometrical aspect to this which makes me think of dimensionality reduction. So in this case they only had 2 variables, but what if you took a whole bunch of interesting variables then did dimensionality reduction to project them into a 2-dimensional space and then ran did a visualization of that. Would that yield something even more meaningful?
(3) The best thing about this is that it makes it easy to poke holes in a lot of "conventional wisdom" about international aid and international development. These are debated and controversial but here are a couple of arguments that I've seen.
(i) Widely accepted conventional wisdom: In spite of decades of international aid, there has been NO CHANGE in the poverty level of developing countries.
Reality: Most of these data seem to take regional averages (e.g the whole of Africa or all of South Asia). But when you look at a visualization like this it is easy to see some countries making a lot of progress and others going backwards. It might average out to little OVERALL changes but the implications are obviously vastly different! Particularly when these differences can be directly tied to different policies. Furthermore it does seem that aid can at least make a strong and immediate difference on infant mortality.
(ii) Widely accepted conventional wisdom : SubSaharan Africa is a relatively homogeneous area with little significant differences in development.
Reality: See the previous point
(4) I also like that you can compare for example Sweden in 1900 with Bangladesh in 1950. It puts things in a better perspective. If Sweden had the same child mortality as Bangladesh does now in 1900 and it took them 109 years to get where they are now, we shouldn't be surprised if Bangladesh doesn't get it done overnight. And yes even though we have access to better antibiotics now and better knowledge the overall point still stands.
These guys have a bunch of other videos, e.g this one that the son did at Google:
Tags: science
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11:33 pm
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ACM Doctoral Dissertation Awards 2008
Some time ago I started a page keeping track of all the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award winners.
A few comments:
(1)It carries a relatively substantial cash prize of $20,000 for the winner and $10,000 for Honorable mention. This is fairly generous as far as these kind of things go. For example the prestigious "Paris Kannelakis Theory and Practice Award" only gives an amount of $5,000 - and this is for senior researchers whose contributions have been proven in the "real world." Same amount goes for the "Godel Prize" which is also very prestigious and is typically awarded to prominent theoreticians. The Turing Award on the other hand has $250,000 - but that is for a lifetime of work after all. Google is the current financial sponsor which might partly explain the relative generosity.
(2) A cursory glance seems to indicate that CS Theory won a disproportionate amount of awards around roughly 1986-2003. The period also covered a "Golden Age" of results on hardness of approximation (PCP Theorem etc) and many of the awardees were working on this area. It would be interesting to try and look at this more rigorously and see if there is some correlation with the relative strengths of different areas of research.
This year the overall winner is Constantinos Daskalakis of Berkeley for his thesis “The Complexity of Nash Equilibria.” It seems that he showed that the Nash equilibria may be computationally intractable in certain cases. (see the press release). This certainly seems like an important result and it is not too surprising this work is being honored. Apparently this answered an open question from when John Nash first dreamed up the Nash equilibrium in the 1940s. Of course the language of computational complexity didn't exist back then, so it is certainly a triumph for computer science to be able to successfully build models and tools that can solve important problems that originated in other fields. I am told by a colleague that Dr. Daskalakis was a top theory candidate in the most recent hiring cycle and he will be taking up a tenure track position at MIT.
One Honorable mention goes to Derek Hoiem of CMU for this thesis "Seeing the World behind the Image: Spatial Layout for 3D Scene Understanding." His work focused on constructing 3-D models of a scene from a single image by using various algorithms to "understand" the components of the scene. Here is a page with some links. This certainly seems like it would have a lot of applications. I actually never met Derek even though we were at CMU at the same time but I do recall seeing his name coming up for a few different awards and fellowships (not surprising). Derek is currently a tenure track professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The other Honorable mention goes to Sachin Katti of MIT for his thesis "Network Coded Wireless Architecture." His work provides a method for dramatically increasing the effective bandwidth of wireless networks by using " wireless mesh networks" ( basically peer to peer) with "network coding protocols" (I don't really understand this but it appears to be a way of combining packets in a fancy way so as to save space). The upshot is that wireless networks could be a lot faster and have greater coverage if this technology is widely deployed. Certainly seems "impactful." His thesis explains it a lot better (naturally!). I actually met Sachin very briefly in Spring 2002 at the CMU open house when we were both admitted students at CMU. Interestingly enough his advisor Dina Katabi ALSO won an ACM DDA Honorable mention back in 2003. This may or may not be the first such pairing on the list. Sachin is currently doing a post doc in idyllic Berkeley.
Congratulations to them all on doing good work and writing it up well!
Tags: academia
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08:18 pm
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Washington, DC
Yesterday I finally went to Metro Center and bought a SmartTrip card [an RFID card for using the subway]. It seems almost everyone uses now except for tourists so this felt like an important step in becoming a "real Washingtonian."
This technology didn't exist when I first moved to DC in August of 1998. Some other little things that have changed since then:
(1) The Green Line was only partly built back then and had a big gap in the middle. So if you lived near Howard and wanted to go to PG Plaza, you had to go to Gallery Place and take the Red line to Fort Totten before getting back on the Green Line. [Basically a long way around]
(2) Those very useful signs in the metro showing the number of minutes until the next train arrives hadn't been invented yet.
(3) Those counters on all the walk signs didn't exist yet either. They're all over the country now.
(4) Gentrification was in a very early (barely visible) stage. It used to be if you walked up Georgia Ave you had to go all the way to Silver Spring before seeing a non-black person. That is definitely not the case anymore.
Of course a lot of things haven't changed. It still gets swelteringly hot in the summer. Still have swarms of tourists anywhere slightly interesting. Still have that mix of Southern charm and Northern efficiency (or is it the other way around? heh).
[To be Continued ... maybe]
Tags: dailyjournal
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09:27 am
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Twenty Year Tenure - THE Solution (On Mark Taylor and Universities)
This idea was percolated by this essay from Monday's NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27taylor.html?_r=1
I will just comment on the tenure issue:
Ok first, tenure is obviously a nice perk from the faculty's point of view, but what is the cost/benefit to society? Can it really be justified?
Here are a couple of (in my opinion fairly weak) justifications given for tenure:
(1) "Tenure promotes freedom of thought (e.g. someone getting fired for unpopular opinions)" - this is not really relevant say for science and engineering and even if it was, is tenure the only way of dealing with it? Seems like some kind of oversight board and regulatory framework could handle it just fine.
(2) "Tenure is a perk to compensate academics for lower pay (hence it saves universities money)" - Not always true, plenty of academics receive salaries not very different from what they would get in industry particularly those in Business schools, Medical schools and quite a lot in Engineering schools. Also academics are free to do consulting gigs and launch start ups (and thus substantially augment their income), something which is much harder to do working for a commercial employer.
Here is one that I think holds at least some merit:
(3) "Tenure helps promote research with long term goals" - The example of Andrew Wiles working in secret for seven years on solving Fermat's last theorem is useful here. If he was under pressure to produce short term results, perhaps he wouldn't have worked on it at all. On the other hand : Was it really necessary for him to work for seven years in secrecy? Perhaps it would have been better for the community if he had published his partial results and allowed others to join in?
It would be interesting to see some EMPIRICAL results on how much benefit there is to faculty being free to pursue long term research agenda without fear of being fired. Does it produce "better" research - or is it not really worth it? Still I think there is obviously some value, particularly in terms of the most risky, speculative and/or long term projects like solving hard open mathematical problems like P vs NP or the Riemann Hypothesis, compiling a dictionary for some obscure language or some kind of very long term ethnographic study. If people didn't have job security they might focus on 'sexier' short term projects and not even bother with those projects which take a long time to even see results (or which might ultimately fail to show any useful results).
On the other hand, it seems like there are some real opportunity costs to tenure
(1) Fewer people get hired - Since universities have to guarantee to pay people regardless of the vagaries of funding, there are very stingy with the positions and make people jump through a lot of hoops. If there was no tenure universities would presumably feel free to hire more full time professors when there are a lot of students and grant money is flowing and correspondingly utilize fewer adjuncts for teaching and postdocs for research. In short more people would get full time jobs with the title "professor" but they would have less job security. Whether this would be 'better' is debatable.
(2) Can't hire new people - Because the tenured 'slots' are so strictly controlled, new hires can often only be done when someone leaves/retires. But since there is no mandatory retirement age it often takes a long time before a slot opens up.
SOLUTION:
(1) Do the normal tenure process drill
(2) If successful grant guaranteed employment for a period of TWENTY YEARS.
(3) After twenty years elapse, shift to five year contracts.
I think this sufficiently allows for long term research while also giving SOME flexibility to the universities. You could even have a series of flexible long term deals with various incentive clauses like you have in professional sports, e.g.
"May 4, 2012 - Professor Lance Fortnow reaches new 2 million dollar, 13 year deal with Northwestern thus ending speculation about his upcoming free agency status. The deal includes substantial incentive clauses for STOC/FOCS publications and 'major' professional awards. Fortnow's agent Scott Boras is reportedly 'very pleased.'"
"May 5, 2012 - Northwestern University trades Lance Fortnow and Jason Hartline to UC Berkeley for Luca Trevisan and consideration for future draft picks." *
Hee hee ... OK there are a lot of reasons why this sports model doesn't completely carry over (e.g. faculty are generally free to quit at any time, also a draft doesn't really make any sense in this context) , but I think we can all agree it would be an entertaining scenario. And it is not COMPLETELY different to what goes on right now when faculty move to different institutions.
*These names are used for purely illustrative purposes, no disrespect intended!
NOTE 1: Just to be clear I don't really think tenure is going away any time soon (at least at top tier institutions), too many people like it and not much incentive to change. This is just something to throw out there if that situation ever changes.
NOTE 2: This "long term contract" idea is obvious enough that I am pretty sure it has been proposed before but I am not really familiar with the literature on this debate.
NOTE 3: There is some other interesting stuff in Taylor's essay(e.g. against specialization and in favor of more applicable interdisciplinary research), but it seems most applicable to the humanities so I will leave that to others.
NOTE 4: It seems another large part of the justificatin for tenure is that universities see themselves as 'independent self governing intellectual communities' (and not just research centers or job training centers), unfortunately this can clash with how the people who paying the bills see it (often state government for large public schools), and this creates the problem. There is always tension when the person paying the bills sees things differently from the person doing the work.
Tags: academia
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12:34 pm
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Obama on Science
The President gave what I thought was a REALLY good speech on science this morning:
http://thepage.time.com/obama-remarks-at-the-national-academy-of-sciences/
It was a long speech so I will only try to highlight some of the points which struck me the most as someone at least somewhat involved in the broader scientific enterprise as outlined by the President.
The first thing that struck me was that he really does seem to have an expansive view of the benefits of scientific research to the broader community. Public funding of scientific research has always been somewhat controversial as some have questioned whether this was a worth while use of public resources. This passage in his speech should be delightful to the scientific community:
The fact is, an investigation into a particular physical, chemical, or biological process might not pay off for a year, or a decade, or at all. And when it does, the rewards are often broadly shared, enjoyed by those who bore its costs but also by those who did not.
That's why the private sector under-invests in basic science – and why the public sector must invest in this kind of research. Because while the risks may be large, so are the rewards for our economy and our society.
This passage immediately struck me, and I think it struck a lot of scientists, because trying to justify funding for long term speculative basic research is usually one of the most challenging aspects of engaging in such research. This passage shows that Obama thinks it is valuable to fund research even if there is no immediate pay off in terms of applications or start ups.
Of course many scientists would go further and argue that the increase of knowledge is intrinsically worthy regardless of any potential applications just as a measure of being a decent and civilized society, but it is perfectly understandable that the President would seek to emphasize some of the potentially more tangible benefits in selling it to the tax paying public.
Furthermore he backs up his rhetoric by proposing massive increases in funding.
I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than three percent of our GDP to research and development. We will not just meet, but we will exceed the level achieved at the height of the Space Race, through policies that invest in basic and applied research, create new incentives for private innovation, promote breakthroughs in energy and medicine, and improve education in math and science. This represents the largest commitment to scientific research and innovation in American history.
In short, he sees MASSIVE public investment in scientific research as a key driver for US economic growth and necessary method for confronting American challenges in Education, energy, the environment and healthcare. Naturally this will be music to the years of the scientific research community which will have the responsibility of receiving these funds and implementing this research agenda.
There are several other things mentioned (e.g.related to education) but I will just conclude with his closing peroration in which the president mentions the famous "Earthrise" picture taken by Apollo astronauts and discusses the interaction of science and our ethical values.
For we must always remember that somewhere in America there's an entrepreneur seeking a loan to start a business that could transform an industry – but she hasn't secured it yet. There's a researcher with an idea for an experiment that might offer a new cancer treatment – but he hasn't found the funding yet. There is a child with an inquisitive mind staring up at the night sky. Maybe she has the potential to change our world – but she just doesn't know it yet.
As you know, scientific discovery takes far more than the occasional flash of brilliance – as important as that can be. Usually, it takes time, hard work, patience; it takes training; often, it requires the support of a nation.
But it holds a promise like no other area of human endeavor.
In 1968, a year defined by loss and conflict, Apollo 8 carried into space the first human beings ever to slip beyond the earth's gravity. The ship would circle the moon ten times before returning home. But on its fourth orbit, the capsule rotated and for the first time earth became visible through the windows.
Bill Anders, one of the astronauts aboard Apollo 8, could not believe what he saw. He scrambled for a camera. He took a photo that showed the earth coming up over the moon's horizon. It was the first ever taken from so distant a vantage point, soon to become known as “Earthrise.”
Anders would say that the moment forever changed him, to see our world – this pale blue sphere – without borders, without divisions, at once so tranquil and beautiful and alone.
“We came all this way to explore the moon,” he said, “and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.”
Yes, scientific innovation offers us the chance to achieve prosperity. It has offered us benefits that have improved our health and our lives – often improvements we take too easily for granted. But it also gives us something more.
At root, science forces us to reckon with the truth as best as we can ascertain it. Some truths fill us with awe. Others force us to question long held views. Science cannot answer every question; indeed, it seems at times the more we plumb the mysteries of the physical world, the more humble we must be. Science cannot supplant our ethics, our values, our principles, or our faith, but science can inform those things, and help put these values, these moral sentiments, that faith, to work – to feed a child, to heal the sick, to be good stewards of this earth.
We are reminded that with each new discovery and the new power it brings, comes new responsibility; that the fragility and the sheer specialness of life requires us to move past our differences, to address our common problems, to endure and continue humanity's strivings for a better world.
As President Kennedy said when he addressed the National Academy of Sciences more than 45 years ago: “The challenge, in short, may be our salvation.”
I really like his fairly humanistic and positive view of scientific progress. New technologies can indeed really challenge our most basic views (e.g. genetic engineering etc.) but they are still very much worth pursuing and offer humanity's best hope. It almost harks back to a "Star Trek" sense of optimism.(actually the fact that Obama is president still seems like an episode of Star Trek sometimes :-))
Tags: politics
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02:42 pm
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My first YouTube Video! (Obama...)
So last June when I was in DC, my ten year old niece was trying to show me that I actually had the software to create videos on my laptop and that it wasn't that hard. (yes, I do see the irony of a computer science grad student being schooled in computers by a fourth grader ...).
But I had to leave before she could finish schooling me ... (BTW she also tried to teach me violin,but we didn't get too far with that either ;-))
Last month I watched "Prince Caspian blah blah Narnia" on a flight from New York to Dubai. At the end there was a song by Regina Spektor which stuck in my head, but I wasn't able to listen to it again until I got back to the States a month later.
So yesterday an idea for a video occurred to me and I finally figured out how to make a (very rudimentary) video.
As far as the technical aspects I just had to download an mp3 of the song, google the relevant images and throw everything into Window Movie Maker(which came free with my laptop). So it wasn't a huge amount of work technically; to the extent that it "works" I really do think there is a good match between the music and the subject matter.
On the artistic side, the challenge was to match up the images with the corresponding music and lyrics, which was trickier than expected. I initially intended to feature Barack and Michelle Obama equally but it ended up being more about Barack.
So yes, it is just a glorified slide show with a soundtrack, but for the effort expended I think it turned out OK.
Without further ado: Youtube+Obama+"The Call":
Direct Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLupIs6ONew
BTW, yesterday was Michelle Obama's 45th birthday. ¡Feliz cumpleaños First Lady Elect!
Tags: politics
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03:53 pm
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Academic Genealogy
So Avrim was advised by Ronald who was advised by Bob who was adviced by No one, since he never got a PhD.
This is pretty unusual, but I guess its more understandable considering computer science was in its infancy. He even taught at CMU in the 60s. Cool.
Lafferty was advised by Edward who was advised by Irving who was advised by Einar who apparently was his OWN PhD advisor which is rather odd.
Einar obtained something called a "Lic. Phil" (which was in between a masters and a PhD) while supervised by Marcel and he later got his PhD while in the army working under no supervision. That must have been hard, dodging bullets while proving theorems. So if you consider Marcel as his advisor the tree goes on and on all the way back to Carl and even beyond; but if you don't it stops there.
Sources: TMGP, TTCSG, MacTutor, the Google, the Wiki etc.
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This website seems to have almost every PhD issued by an American university in the last 50 years.
Here is the entry for my dad's thesis:
<input ... > DETERMINATION OF STRUCTURAL LAYER PROPERTIES OF AGGREGATE AND ASPHALT SURFACED ROADS
by RWEBANGIRA, THEOPHIL Ph.D., DETERMINATION OF STRUCTURAL LAYER PROPERTIES OF AGGREGATE AND ASPHALT SURFACED ROADS, Oregon State University, 1987, 269 pages; AAT 8724491 Condoleezza Rice <input ... > THE POLITICS OF CLIENT COMMAND: PARTY-MILITARY RELATIONS IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA: 1948-1975
by RICE, CONDOLEEZZA Ph.D., THE POLITICS OF CLIENT COMMAND: PARTY-MILITARY RELATIONS IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA: 1948-1975, University of Denver, 1981, 373 pages; AAT 8216695 Madeleine Albright <input ... > THE ROLE OF THE PRESS IN POLITICAL CHANGE: CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1968
by ALBRIGHT, MADELEINE KORBEL Ph.D., THE ROLE OF THE PRESS IN POLITICAL CHANGE: CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1968, Columbia University, 1976, 413 pages; AAT 7628647 Henry Kissinger PEACE, LEGITIMACY, AND THE EQUILIBRIUM (A STUDY OF THE STATESMANSHIP OF CASTLEREAGH AND METERNICH)
by KISSINGER, HENRY A. Ph.D., PEACE, LEGITIMACY, AND THE EQUILIBRIUM (A STUDY OF THE STATESMANSHIP OF CASTLEREAGH AND METERNICH), Harvard University, 1954, 0 pages; AAT 0196430 These were all the "famous" non-academic PhDs that I could think of off the top of my head. Oh, I just thought of Dr. Phil, Dr. Ruth, Dr Joyce Brothers, Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski(all of their PhDs are also available) (ETA: Dr Susan Rice and Dr Rachel Maddow obtained their PhDs in the UK) . . . This website is fun, I am pretty sure I was paid from this for some time. Thanks Uncle Sam! Tags: academia
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10:52 pm
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The Closing Argument (Obama)
The first time I saw Barack Obama was on April 21 at a rally at the University of Pittsburgh.
It was the night before the Pennsylvania primary and Barack had been going through a tough stretch (two separate eruptions of Reverand Wright plus a dose of "Bittergate").
Obama ended up speaking around 10 p.m and he looked really tired.
He delivered his Hope/Change message as usual but he wasn't really "On."
Today I saw him at Mellon Arena and he was definitely ON.
The overall theme was "The Closing Argument" and he naturally used many of the themes of his standard stump speech.
But this was a new sharpened version, it really felt fresh and pared down and effective.
The focal point was obviously economics, and the argument was very very simple and straightforward:
Premise A: The "financial meltdown/economic crisis" is conclusive proof of the failure of "Bush/Supply Side/ Trickle Down" economics. This shit simply isn't working.
Premise B: McCain has not explained even one major economic policy in which he differs from Bush.
Common sense Axiom: If you do the same thing you've always been doing you'll get the same result.
Conclusion: The election of John McCain will lead to the continuation of Bush's economic policies, the very policies which aren't working.
(He elaborated on each of these points with appropriately pithy phrases).
Now obviously McCain will try to dispute these points, especially Premise B, but the inference looks pretty sound to me.
But perhaps more importantly was the delivery.
Barack looked very relaxed, confident and convincing.
I honestly find it hard to believe that anyone who was not a die hard conservative or a single issue voter on abortion or taxes would walk away completely unswayed.
He also persuasively talked about his other key policies on energy independence, foreign policy, education and health care but Economics is obviously the lynch pin;
the "golden snitch" of this campaign.
It is an issue people care about enormously and McCain doesn't really have any argument on this issue.
So I think as far as issues are concerned McCain is pretty much check mated, no room to manoeuvre, cornered like a rat, whatever you want to call it.
Also I believe Obama is going to give a version of this speech on primetime on Wednesday.
I really think if a lot of "hard working Americans" from the "pro-America" sections of "real America" hear this argument the effects will be devestating for McCain's campaign.
Here is the version he delivered in Canton, Ohio earlier in the day. I believe he said pretty much the same thing in Pittsburgh:
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X3eE18dfmE
Text: http://thepage.time.com/full-remarks-from-obama-in-closing-argument-speech/
Tags: politics
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01:12 am
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At the Symphony
Heinz Hall is quite a nice building. I have no point of comparison of course, but I suppose it looks like a place where symphonies are played should look like.
There was quite a good crowd, but it definitely skewed to the older side. Some young'uns were there, but from my position I could see a sea of grey hair.
I was half expecting I would be totally confused and not really getting it (like listening to an animated conversation in a foreign language) but the pieces they played were pretty easy to appreciate. Some sections sounded like the scores of epic movies like "Gladiator" or the music in big dramatic scenes in Oscar nominated dramas (swelling violins etc.). I am not sure if thats a compliment or not, but to me it was a comforting sense of familiarity.
I would probably have enjoyed it even more if I had more music knowledge or if I even played an instrument, but it was sufficiently enjoyable that I could see myself doing this on a semi-regular basis.
The performances tonight:
John Adams : Slonimsky's Earbox
Derek Bermel : The Good Life (Pittsburgh 250 Celebration commission) World Premiere
Antonín Dvorák : Symphony No. 9, "From the New World"
There actually will be an encore of this program on Sunday afternoon.
Tags: dailyjournal
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03:51 pm
[Link] |
MRO at PITT
As predicted we were waiting for quite some time (there is always a lot of waiting involved in politics). I got there about 10:30am and Michelle didn't start speaking until 12:30pm. Time passed by very quickly though, I met some new people and struck up some interesting conversations. That is the nice thing about political events, there is a high probability of meeting like minded people.
Soldiers and Sailors Hall is quite nice. It looks a little bit ornate and historical for a campus building, like it belongs on the Washington mall instead of on an urban campus. Fittingly there is a large excerpt from the Gettysburg address behind the main podium. (Now that is a nice speech.)
The one interesting part was when mayor Luke Ravenstahl got introduced ... to a wide scattering of booos! This was very noticeable given the otherwise jovial and positive nature of the event. Not too popular our mayor.(He is widely seen an incompetent, corrupt and generally not on top of things. Not to mention a bit of a jerk)
Michelle's remarks were pretty much as expected. She was eloquent, she was commanding, she was funny, she was just plain Good. She stuck to some familiar themes: healthcare, the economy, student loans, Barack and Michelle's working class background, Barack gets it, we can't afford to do the same things we've been doing etc/
It was convincing but not necessarily new material. The crowd was loving it though, she was interrupted by a standing ovations every time she made a particularly telling point.
There were also several exhortations to volunteer, to get involved, to get out the vote, to talk to people etc. So in the end I think this was more of a "rally the base"" kind of rally rather than a "convince new people to vote for me" rally and in that respect I think it was successful.
Tags: politics
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10:03 am
[Link] |
Barack's Rock
This is the third similar event that I have gone to so I can make some reliable predictions:
There will be very long lines that start very early.
Everything will start quite late.
Massive media presence, 20 TV cameras trained on Michelle, 50 reporters milling around etc.
The people behind Michelle will get special treatment and cool signs, but not so much for the rest of us.
What I am curious about is who will introduce her and what issues she will focus on.
I wonder if I will get closer to the stage than I was last time -this is unlikely as I am already running late.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/pamopittsburgh
Tags: politics
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07:21 pm
[Link] |
Closer to Russia
From McCain's wife, Cindy, came a geographic assessment of qualification: "Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia. So, it's not as if she doesn't understand what's at stake here."
Source: AP
Tags: politics
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11:35 am
[Link] |
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula
The first thing I noticed were the ubiquitous palm trees. They look very similar to the coconut trees we have back home so perhaps my reaction was simply homesickness.
My impression is that the area is very flat - but after living in Pittsburgh for 6 years almost everywhere seems very flat.
The stereotype of a sprawling metropolis with no real center criss-crossed with 24 lane superhighways - it looks like it is pretty much true.
As my host was describing the weather patterns here(apparently it hardly ever rains)a program on the radio was going on about water shortages in the area and I learned that much of the plentiful vegetation I saw was sustained by ubiquitous sprinkler systems (although I would suppose palm trees are particularly well adapted for dry conditions) - I realized that these people were living in mildly desert like conditions. Wikipedia confirms it, the 384mm of precipitation per year would qualify for semi-arid designation although the area is officially classed as having a Mediterranean climate.
Long Beach is a lot bigger than I thought, apparently it is 50% bigger population-wise than Pittsburgh. The campus of Cal State Long Beach looked bigger than both Pitt and CMU combined. The most interesting place we went to tourist-wise was Signal Hill from which you can get a panaromic view of most of Long Beach and the surrounding areas.
From the sprawl point of view it reminded me a lot of Toronto(although Toronto appeared to have more distinct neighborhoods and a distinct center), but as far as "flavor" it reminded me a lot of Miami and San Diego (Miami was more colorful and San Diego had a higher proportion of white stucco Spanish Colonial type buildings).
Tags: science
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02:21 am
[Link] |
Barack Obama coming to Oakland (again!)
http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/pittsburgh
So on Friday March 28, Barack Obama held a rally at Soldier's and Sailor's on Pitt's campus.
Apparently it was quite difficult to get tickets to the event partly due to the small size of the building I think. (It only seats 2,500 while Obama rallies can be up to 35,000 people).
Well on Monday night he is going to speak at the Petersen Events Center which I believe is the "main" building used by Pitt for these kind of things and has a capacity of up 12,500 so hopefully everyone can get in.
I suspect there aren't really any larger auditoriums in Oakland.
Also its interesting that both times he was in Pittsburgh he has had his events in Oakland and not anywhere else in the Pittsburgh area (North Hills, South Hills, downtown, etc.)
Maybe this is the only area of Pittsburgh where you get the sizable college crowd and have facilities to do stuff like that?
The details are here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/pittsburgh
So at this event (assuming I can get in), I will be looking at:
- How big the crowd is.
- Any major differences with Michelle's rally at Skibo on April 2 in terms of the organization of the event or the tone.
- Any new tack on issues or vision that I haven't heard from him before.
Tags: politics
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10:17 pm
[Link] |
To 100 Billion and More
As a kid, I remember reading a short story or essay where the author made the observation that since there were 100 billion stars in our galaxy and it was estimated that 100 billion human beings had ever existed, each human being could be assigned to his or her own solar system and hence create their own private heaven or hell.
A rather fanciful image and a clear allusion to the persistent belief in an after life, but theology aside, I did find the image striking and the question of "How Many Human Beings Have Ever Existed?" would occasionally pop into my head.
Well modern computer science takes all the angst out of such unprofitable speculations, and so we find that according to this website, the estimate of 100 billion is actually very plausible.
Everyone who has ever existed, all the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, artists, scientists, poets, crooks, gangsters, all of them drawn out of this finite number.
Everyone you have ever met and will ever meet.
1 out of 14 people who have ever lived is alive right now. Indeed more people are currently existing than have ever existed at any single moment in the past.
So if you are reading this you have reason to feel special indeed, after all you are "one in a hundred billion".
Tags: science
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12:52 am
[Link] |
The Battle for Algiers
Absolutely brilliant.
Basically, its a wonderful art house movie which also happens to have all the grip and suspense of a first-class action movie.
Part of what makes it soo good is that the "documentary" style used is very effective it making it seem much more real than if a modern more "touchy feely" approach was used.
The fact that a key military commander on the Algerian side was an actor and producer in the movie obviously helped a lot in getting the details right.
But ultimately what makes it work is that you really get a feeling of what it was like to be there, why the Algerians felt they had to resort to terrorism, why the French felt they had to resort to torture and extrajudicial executions, and how the bloody conclusion was pretty much inevitable.
For a long time this movie was not widely available, which is a shame since it is one of those movies which is absolutely watchable even by people who don't have much interest in the stereotypical "artsy" movie.
Luckily, it is now available as part of the Criterion collection so it can be obtained from Netflix, Amazon and most public libraries.
Tags: reviews
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02:15 am
[Link] |
Video of Michelle Obama at CMU
Keeping in mind that the event lasted about 65 minutes and this video is only 3 minutes of that.
Also it was quite different being there.
From the Obama campaign blog.
Tags: politics
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05:25 pm
[Link] |
Michelle Obama's Rally at CMU
I got there around 12:50pm and although the doors were supposed to open at 1pm, the actual event was only scheduled to start around 2:15pm so I didn't think there would be too many people there.
Well, there were already about 400 people in line.
I was worried about security so I didn't bring my camera, but actually security wasn't that tight and they didn't even search us.
In fact I didn't even see the secret service, just the regular campus police.
I am sure the Secret Service was around though.
While waiting around I had a chance to talk to this other Obama supporter about how this primary race is dragging on and we hope it ends soon.
She was an early 40-ish white woman, REALLY politically involved, very anti-Bush (who isn't?) and the biggest Obama supporter ever.
She even managed to convert her nearly 80 year old mom from Clinton to Obama.
One thing I slightly regret is that I didn't get a chance to mingle as much as I would've wanted while waiting, sitting in the the bleachers made it kind of awkward to get around.
Then around 2:30pm Teresa Heinz Kerry opened the event.
She is a very self-assured woman and she looks really young for someone who talked about battling apartheid in the 1950s.
Then Michelle came on.
The first thing I noticed is that, she is REALLY tall.
She looked almost 6 ft.
She was definitely TOWERING over Teresa Heinz Kerry.
She spoke for about an hour WITHOUT NOTES.
Basically, she is a REALLY good speaker: smart, funny, engaging, charismatic, warm, relatable.
First she spoke about the primary race, and how the pundits were totally counting Obama out when he entered.
She then segued to talking about some of the issues, particularly hitting on the economy, education and health care.
She then asserted that the main problem preventing the solution of these problems wasn't lack of resources, but an "empathy gap".
Then she hit on some familiar Obama themes, how Obama's message can help to address this issue, break the gridlock and bring about change.
She finished off on a more personal note, talking about her childhood (in a working class black family on the South Side of Chicago), how she "wasn't supposed to be here" ("running" for First Lady), but when she got to the places where people said she wasn't supposed to be (Princeton, Harvard, etc.), she found that actually YEAH, she WAS supposed to be there just as much as the people who "fit the profile."
And so her message to young people (e.g. CMU students) is that they should never allow their dreams to be limited by the expectations of others.
I think her speech was VERY well received, every few lines was interrupted with considerable applause.
Of course it was a crowd of mostly supporters, but she also delivered it VERY well.
I found that the emotional experience in seeing a candidate in person is quite different than seeing them on TV/You tube.
Perhaps its partly the crowd atmosphere, and giving them your undivided attention.
But perhaps there is something in us that responds more to a live person than recorded images and sounds?
Of course, it helps if you agree with them on basically all issues and they project a very likable demeanor.
Anyway, based on this performance I might have to switch to supporting the "other" Obama in 2008!
Tags: politics
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