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| Friday, May 12th, 2006 | | 10:06 am |
| | Wednesday, April 26th, 2006 | | 3:52 pm |
For crap...I say
Today has been a relatively horrid day. I had to discipline one of my direct reports who wasn't doing his work. I hate being the heavy. I had many meetings and got called into others. I ended up in a 15 minute meeting that went an hour. This is all colored by the fact that I woke up in such a foul angry mood... So, in keeping with tradition, I'm going to go drink tonight...mostly as a method of self medicating to break me out of this cycle. If anybody would like to come along, I promise to be, at least, vaguely entertaining company. I'm thinking either the George and Dragon pub or maybe Murphy's pub in Wallingford. Come, drink with the angry bastard! ps. I promise no heads through plate glass windows, grasping kisses, or howling. | | Wednesday, April 19th, 2006 | | 8:44 am |
Monorail...still causing problems
When the monorail was voted in a couple years ago, I was distraught. Not because I don't like the idea of a monorail, but because the monorail system proposed was, in my opinion, ill conceived, poorly planned, and falsely promoted. The system was heavily supported by local Seattle magnate, Paul Allen. Now when I say the system was supported by Paul Allen, the fourth richest man in the world, I don't mean the actual cost of building the monorail, I mean the cost of campaigning for the monorail. Now, some people will argue he did this as a philanthropist. I maintain he did this out of selfishness, since the monorail plan that was put in place served him very well (as the monorail plan connected to three of his businesses). If he was a philanthropist, I would like to believe he would help with the cost of construction, not with the campaigning. The monorail squeaked by with a very narrow margin, (50.23% of the votes). This should have set off warning bells in people's heads, but people bulled forward with the project. Unsurprisingly to all but the most naive, the monorail commission reveal in its first year of planning that what they had promised was not what they were going to deliver. The route changed, the cost went up, the plans were changed to remove escalators and remove a section of track, and the promise that the monorail would run "cash positive" when it was done, was revealed to be a load of hooey. So, Seattle had a recall vote and the monorail project was quashed. There's still a huge bond to pay for, and it's quite expensive, especially considering we get nothing out of it...but that's not all. With the monorail project dead, they come to the issue of all the land they grabbed for the project. Some was obtained through emminent domain, while other properties were purchased, and many of the properties were purchased with the threat of emminent domain looming like a shadowing figure with brass knuckles in the background. Now that the project is dead, what is to be done with these properties. Well, the state has decided to put the properties up for general sale and not all the sellers are happy about it. I don't blame them, you own a property, are induced to sell it, or lose it through emminent domain, and suddenly it's being sold to a developer that you can't afford to outbid. If you were still the land owner, you would have the power to retain your land, but not now. Now, on the other hand, the state must consider what it can legally do to dispose of this land, which means that they can't just sell it back at cost, or even offer first sale rights to the previous owner. I don't see an easy solution to either, especially with a state constitution that doesn't have any provision for no longer relevant seized properties. I would think the fairest thing to do would be to sell the land back to the original owners for the original sale amount + prime rate interest, but that may not be legal. The long and the short is, here is another effect from the monorail, which continues to cause problems across Seattle, and this segues to my problem with elections. People too often vote for what they want to believe is true, rather than what they can logically infer to be true. The 2002 monorail proposal was pretty clearly flawed from the get go. Not all of it, but the assessments of how many riders it would have, and how it would be cash positive...those numbers were pretty obviously wrong at the start. Yet people voted it in as if Lyle Lanley had called for it from the meeting house floor. However, with a split vote so clearly down the middle, it should have never been put into play. I would like to propose that any multi-billion dollar public works proposal must pass by, at least, 60% majority. We can't play fast and loose with things like this...people get hurt. | | Tuesday, April 18th, 2006 | | 5:05 pm |
| | Saturday, April 15th, 2006 | | 8:10 pm |
ma on my mind
Here I am again In my childhood haunts and scenes waiting for a flight | | Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 | | 6:43 am |
Change is seldomn spare
I've been kicking around the following theory for a while. It's still somewhat loose around the edges...and around the middle...and the places in between. I've been looking over our list of domestic issues. They all pretty much come down to money (which shouldn't be too surprising, as we have a capitalist economy). Health Care, Public Education Standards, Layoffs, and Increasing Debt Load of the average American can easily be traced to money (or lack there of), but I want to put out a second thought. Hollywood and the Video Game industry have long been charged with negatively influencing the youth of America. Several groups point directly Hollywood and Video Games as the increase in youth violence and gang behavior. Now, as is often the case, the idea that Video Games and Hollywood are the cause of the problem is only held by a vocal minority, but it's an increasingly vocal and increasingly powerful lobby. I spent a couple nights last week sitting in my bed sussing it out. I play a great deal of video games, as do many of my friends, and none of us are violent. However, we are A) Not youths and B) Self governing. It would be easy for me to toss the idea that video games and Hollywood are to blame without giving it any real consideration, so I actively went the other way. Hypothesis: Video Games and Violent Movies are a significant influencing factor of the United States' youth and directly contributes to anti-social and violent behavior. Logically, then, the areas with the largest per capita expense of video games would be more prone to violence. Well, according to Electronic Gamers Monthly, most video game sales per capita go to the suburbs and rural areas (they theorize it's due to lack of other available entertainment), while the majority of youth violence happens in urban areas. Ok, so we can pretty much assume poverty is a main factor in violence. However, do rural areas with higher video game sales have more violence than rural areas with lower video game sales? Well, I had no numbers to compare to validate or disprove that thought, but on the heels of that thought came the following; If poverty is a matter of degrees, instead of a binary, what are the varying degrees of poverty. For instance, let's say there is a household with 4 members. Two wedded parents and 2 children in public school in the K-6 range. If the family is making 50 grand a year, they government would not see the family as "impoverished". However, let's assume in order to make that wage, both parents work, and one parent works a second job part time (or performs overtime at his/her job for 20 hours a week). Is the family really better off than an equilavent family of 4 members where one parent is able to make 35 grand a year and the other parent stays home? I would say having a parent at home to keep house, augment the children's schooling, and providing day care has a much better situation. The model of the single wage earner family model is less and less applicable these days. Most of the single wage earning families that I'm familiar with have one of the following characteristics. a) They made a decent nest egg in the dot com stock era b) They live a substantial distance from where they work c) They have remarkably well paying jobs (in excess of 100k per year salary) Now, to loop back for a moment, I believe a family that has an engaged parent available at home is less likely to experience a child with violent and anti-social behavior, no matter what media influence the child is exposed to. Furthermore, a community where engaged parents available at home are less likely to experience violence in their schools. I'm figuring that school and home are the primary influences in a child's life, and school will often reflect the home situation of the majority of the students. So, when we talk of poverty in the United States, I think we must address temporal poverty as well as monetary poverty. On NPR, they were discussing the labor movements of the UK vs. the US. The UK demanded "Bread and Roses" which was a metaphor for "sustaining wage" and "time to enjoy life". The US labor movement demanded "Bread and Butter" which was a metaphor for "sustaining wage" and "luxury wage". This leaves us with a country which makes a decent wage (which we do, on average), but has significantly less free time to enjoy life. I know that I make a decent wage, and I probably couldn't afford a house in Seattle (even taking out the IRS piece). I don't know any single people in Seattle that own their own residence who haven't come into several 10s of thousand dollars of stock option money. However, I think the Bread and Roses movement is underway...but the question is whether people will be willing to give up the butter. Will this new generation of workers who seek work/life balance be willing to take the salary hit that is inherent in such a balance? After all, shouldn't you pay more to a worker who works more? | | Monday, April 10th, 2006 | | 9:41 am |
My Amazon search results
So, I was looking for a cheap copy of Civilization IV on Amazon today. So, I go to the Amazon.com and type "Civilization 4" into the search field. Here is a screenshot of my results. Which result seems a bit off? ( screenshot ) | | Sunday, April 9th, 2006 | | 1:57 pm |
Pet Peeve number 145
Book stores that put author names that start with Mc BEFORE authors whose names start with Ma. Come on now, is alphabetical order that difficult? You don't put names that start with Sc before names that start with Sa. All I can imagine is some person looking at the Mc and thinking "M followed by a consonant? That's madness, I have no idea what to do with such a thing". So, to reiterate, Ma comes before Mc. | | Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 | | 9:30 pm |
| | Saturday, April 1st, 2006 | | 10:49 am |
There is no more
I found the pinnacle of human achievement this morning on channel 39. Clearly this is the logical fusion of all our cultural acumen... starring Corey Feldman... | | Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 | | 9:30 am |
Out of no where
Moscow 4/12/06 Moscow 8/20/06 Moscow 11/1/06 Greece 1/7/07 Italy 4/20/07 Better get my crap together. | | 6:51 am |
A consideration of free will and willpower
I've been tossing some basic tenets of free will in my mind for about a week, and thought I might let them spill out here. It began with a consideration if I believed in the concept of "Free Will". In the considerations of electrochemical brain chemisty and associative perceptions, I realized I didn't have a firm definition of what "Free Will" was. Without a firmer definition of free will, I was destined to fail. So, I cobbled together a single sentence definition of free will. Free Will: The ability for a body to act in a manner that is outside the conveyance of environmental influence and resulting logical response. I realize this is a clunky definition, but it was key to boil it down to this concept. Allow me to expound on its meaning using metaphor. If a rock is rolling down a hill, it is under the influence of its environment and the logical response of the those influences. The environment consists of gravity, the slope of the hill, the shape of the rock, friction, texture...etc. When we see these things together, we note that the rock rolls down the hill, not by choice, but at the influences of gravity, landscape etc. In fact, we can even calculate the logical progression of the rock, given accurate enough information of the environment. Furthermore, we have an understanding of how certain environmental changes alter the rocks behavior. If the slope becomes steeper, while all other constrainst remain the same, we expect the rock to roll faster. The rock has no ability to alter its vector counter to the influences of the environment. Thus the rock has no free will. Now, I realize this is a very simplified metaphor and the environment is constrained to the influences of basic Newtonian physics. However, if we expand the roles of the object under influence and the influences, we can see the extrapolation of the metaphor. This one will be briefer... Assume a computer with an array of sensors that receive input from the following conditions; Light Sound Impact Aromatics Also connected to the computer is a set of lightbulbs, 10x10. Each sensor has a routine that can affect all the lights in the 10x10 matrix once a second. Given a certain set of light input, the computer will toggle a certain set of lights reliably (if the light is on, it turns it off, if it's off, it turns it on). Similiarly, if there is a certain set of sounds in the environment, it also affects the 10x10 grid in the same fashion. The computer program is a black box to us (we don't know how it decides which lights to toggle), however, we can see the 10x10 grid of lights. Now, if the computer was sitting out in the world, we would expect regular changing of the 10x10 grid of lights. However, since every sensor can affect every light, it would be near impossible to extrapolate, through observation, the causality that has resulted in a specific light pattern. This is due to the fact that there are many simultaneous influences to track, and the current configuration of lights is based on the previous second's configuration. Thus the pattern of lights is not only dependent on current stimuli, but on the history of stimuli. From an outsider's point of view, we could perceive the pattern of lights as being random, even though it isn't, or a result of choice, which it also isn't. The reality is, from a black box perspective, there is no way to properly quantify if the choice of lit bulbs is a product of free will or stimuli while the box exists in the uncontrolled world (it is conceivable, if the computer was moved to a rigidly controlled environment, that its program could be sussed out through experimentation). So, given that humans are not held in a closed environment, and the programming in the brain is only known in the most general and barest senses, how do we resolve the question of whether a human has free will or whether a human is a slave to the programming and surrounding stimuli (environment). We certainly know that we are a slave to some environments, we sweat, shiver, hurt, feel, hear, see, touch without choice. While my eyes are open, I can't choose not to see. While my ears are unblocked, I can't choose not to hear. However, that just means we don't have total control over our brain functions, which does not deny that we have control over others. This means, for me to argue against free will, I must fit the precept "All actions of a human are purely based on the sum of influences that human has been exposed to". Generally, most arguments that start with the term "All" or "None" are fallacious on their face, however, in global science, it's much more common (All matter has mass, all mass has gravity etc). So, if I can prove or disprove the above precept, then I can have my position on free will. Now, for something as elaborate as this, I don't think I could "prove" or "disprove" to my scientific standards while treating this as a purely thought experiment (ie. not locking up a series of newborns in a controlled environment and observing the behavior). The first problem I run into is that most people are strongly and visibly influenced by their environments in very visible ways and respond in very predictable ways. The whole realm of preconception is based off it. We recognize certain behaviors of other people as a combination of program (the type of person they are) and influence (the type of circumstances they encounter). "Oh look, James is drinking again, he must have just talked to his ex-wife" "Look at James' smile, he must have gotten lucky last night.". In these cases, we have effectively stated that James is not exercising free will, he is, instead, following a prescribed response to a specific influence. Now, let's say there is no liquor in the house, and James talks to his ex-wife. The fact that he is not drinking doesn't indicate free will, it's just a new additional environmental factor. So, off the bat, I begin with a modified consideration. If people do possess free will, they do not exercise it very often. While pondering this, I came to another thought. Since people are heavily influenced by their environment and act in predictable patterns, what does it require to break out of that pattern, assuming free will does exist? So, I modified my original precept to a positive assessment of free will statement. "A human demonstrates free will when he acts counter to the sum of influences affecting that human" Ok, I thought, now I have to determine what would be required for a human to resist influence. Well, it would be dependent on two items; A) The force of the influence surrounding them and B) the force at which somebody could exercise their free will. Thus enters willpower. Willpower is defined as the measure of strength one has to resist the influences they have been subjected to. Willpower must, by definition, be directly connected to the concept of free will. The stronger the influence, the more willpower must be present to resist the influence. So, to prove free will, I must denote that any level of willpower indicates free will, even if its ineffective. For instance, if somebody is a smoker and tries to quit, fails after 2 days, we still have seen the effect of the willpower, which was sufficient to stall the smoking for 2 days, but no longer. Of course, it's equally possible that the attempt to quit was merely the sum of anti-smoking influence in combination with physical discomfort caused by prolonged smoking, and the subsequent return caused by influence of nicotine withdrawal and the psychological dependency. So, this gets me no closer to a final argument for free will. I would love to bring this to a nice firm conclusion, but I find myself without a strong argument for free will, and my own internal prejudice does not want to concede that free will is either rare or non-existent. I have found that people are very much a product of their environment, and rarely defy expectations, and these are expectations made with far from perfect knowledge. It seems perfectly likely that with perfect knowledge, a person's future actions would be laid bare. There has been some studies that seem to indicate that the rational part of a person's brain is active AFTER an action, more in the realm of justification than logic. People react first and then come up with the reason why their action was correct and rational. Emotions rule the day, not logic, and emotions are, effectively, our preset programs on how to react to influence. Sure, they can evolve and change, but they tend to change in direct response to something, not be our own choice. I guess what it really comes down to is, can we reprogram ourselves, or is it just an illusion based on stimuli. All the self improvement I've undertaken in my life has been a direct result of not liking where I was at the time. What would be interesting to see would be if a sane and sound person who is happy would choose to alter his life to make it less palatable in all regards. I'm afraid that John Stuart Mill and myself are going to have to throw down. | | 5:32 am |
The dawn's early light
An open letter to my friend, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dorkartDear M., Congratulations on getting your American citizenship. You've been here a long time and contributed to what makes our country great for a long time, and now I'm so very glad to have you as a fellow citizen. Citizenship, in and of itself, is a small thing, and, too often, we take it for granted. With you becoming a citizen, I am reminded that beyond our fractious politics and increasingly polarized attitudes, we are all citizens of the United States, and we are bound together by a common will to be made proud by our country. I know your unique (and sometimes penetrating) voice, strong will, and general ethics is a boon to be added to this country that I love so much. I'm very honored to be able to stand side by side with you, as a countryman. Thank you for becoming a citizen! -Jake | | Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006 | | 4:30 pm |
In other news
Happy BirthdayI'm glad you were born. ...you know who you are! | | 9:40 am |
I'm spending too long with the sad song
Interesting curve on yesterday. Yesterday was a pretty awful day until around 6:30. It was just one of those "wrong side of the bed" days, where I wake up still tired, and wander to work where silly annoyances just stack up. By 1pm I was literally seething, and had 3 hours of meetings to push through. Meetings are the worst place to be seething, because you'll never see a more blatant waste of time and more obvious self promoting than in a meeting. When your work is piling up, to have to spend an hour in a meeting that should take 15 minutes if people weren't trying to impress the higher ups, can drive you to distraction. However, I knew I was going to have a pleasure of spending a large piece of the evening with burgunder and her super awesome boyfriend (The first boyfriend of hers that I've known that I've liked...and I totally love hanging with A). We spent some time talking and playing chess (which I haven't done for a while, but was able to acquit myself without too much humility). This put a fresh feel on the day as I walked back to my motorcycle. My motorcycle had been knocked over, and had taken some damage, particularly to the blinker, front fairing, and steering column. HOWEVER, it was still a good day because THE PERSON HAD LEFT A NOTE! This shocked and delighted me, because it showed some personal responsibility on the part of a stranger to another stranger. Even with an injured bike, it was worth it to know that there are people out there who have consideration for a stranger. | | Monday, March 20th, 2006 | | 9:44 am |
| | Friday, March 17th, 2006 | | 11:11 pm |
The simplified Jake compatibility test
This is a simple compatibility test to determine how compatible you are to me, as a friend, lover, partner in crime...you name it. The higher the number, the more compatible you are. How incredibly cool is this10 = Oh My God....so very awesome 8 = That is excellent! 6 = Pretty neat 4 = Eh, it's time to give it up 2 = Puhlease 0 = It's for crap | | 2:31 pm |
| | Thursday, March 16th, 2006 | | 6:37 pm |
in other news
So, today was a day of gaining items. Not only did my company give me a 30 gig video ipod, but a friend gave me a scarf to replace the rainbow scarf I used to wear (given to me by savannarama) before it was pilfered by some ill mannered hooligan. ( new swag ) | | Wednesday, March 15th, 2006 | | 11:38 am |
Thrifty McCheapypants
So, I've been a big fan of the Entertainment books...you know, those books they sell at fundraisers. My 2006 book is about halfway to expirations...and I paid 35 dollars for it. From that, I have used coupons as follows. 15.00 off at safeway 2 free movies at Hollywood video (let's call it 5.00) 14.00 off at TS Mchughes 12.00 off at Taste of India 6.00 off at elliot bay subs 3 free six inch subs at subway (12.00) 11.00 off at Steel Pig BBQ 8.00 off at Kaosamai 6.00 off at Leilani lanes 40.00 off at the Seattle Rep 3 free coffee's at Cafe Ladro (10.00) So, with half a year left to go I have saved about 139 dollars. Now to find a use for the rest of the coupons. |
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