Fruit Bias

There's no doubt that monkeys have probably been on to something all along: bananas are good. Indeed, not only do they taste good, but they are part of a balanced meal. Most sweets, on the other hand, begin to drain your energy after a short term spike.

Unfortunately, most animals are quite poor at time-based learning. It is very difficult for us to establish a time-delayed contiguity between two stimuli. We may know that eating a slice of fudge will drain us of energy in an hour, but when we look at chocolate all we think of is the short term energy boost. My heart rate is speeding up right now from merely writing about chocolate.

When I think about a banana, I reach no such mental nirvana. Let me get this straight: I know that bananas taste good. Every time that I actually eat a banana, or some melon, or an apple, or most any fruit, I am surprised by how good it tastes.

But if presented with the choice between fruit and chocolate as a desert, I will almost always prefer the chocolate. This is counter intuitive to my long-term goals of maintaining good health, my short-term goals of having energy an hour later, and even my immediate goals: a good banana tastes no better nor worse than any type of candy. It is clear that I am biased against fruit. I offer three explanations:

a) Social cues make fruit seem less sexy. You bring an apple to your teacher, you don't steal one and eat it while no one is looking.

b) My aforementioned inability to see a time-delayed relationship, which makes sweets seem nicer than they really are.

c) The clean-up factor involved in most types of fruit. You have to deal with the banana peel, or the apple core, or the little part of the strawberry that nobody eats. Although it is sort of bad ass to throw an apple core on the side of the road, and have somebody look at you funny, only to respond that "it's biodegradable."

Anyway, I'm biased against fruit, and now that I realize that, hopefully I'll begin to work against it.

Diagram of a neuron, and why simple is often (always?) better

The Children's Hospital Boston has an instructive interactive diagram explaining some of the electrical and chemical processes in the neuron. Although it probably goes into slightly less detail, quite frankly it does a solid job of summarizing the information I learned about neurons in my physiological psychology class this semester.

It is strange, then, that it is advertised as "for children." What kind of children are they talking about? I didn't see any references to Digimon. This reminds me of Eliezer Yudkowsky's post about when he tried to explain Bayesian inference at the elementary school level. It ended up being wildly successful for college-level students. I have two conclusions:

1) Don't allow hubris to prevent you from reading things aimed for a lower level than you consider yourself. It will be easier to read and it will help you ground yourself on the basics.

2) If you are explaining something, it might be helpful to pretend that you are explaining it to somebody at a much lower technical level than you really are. You shouldn't admit it, of course (to avoid problem #1 altogether), but it will help the actual understanding of your readers tremendously.

Of course, this all assumes that you know what you're talking about. If you don't, you should probably go ahead and use as much technical jargon and as many acronyms as possible.

Link to the diagram of the neuron. (Hat tip: Mind Hacks)

The Conformity Theory

A couple of weeks ago our basketball team played in The Hudson Valley Shootout in Bard. The games were fun, but the most interesting part of the tournament was how many fans Bard had in their gym. My rough guess was 150 students (out of 1800 undergrads), but it could have been more. And they were rowdy. I heard a story that four years ago when we last played there the fans cut out a picture of our best player's head and stuck it on a poster with a picture of George Bush's body.

Those of you who don't know much about Bard probably assume that it is some sort of big jock school, a liberal arts version of USC or something. But anybody that has seen the student body knows otherwise. These kids are artsy. I saw more wool sweaters and tight jeans during two hours at Bard than I saw in four years of high school. They're too trendy to shop at H&M, too politically heterodox to vote Green. They're too fucking punk rock to listen to punk rock.

So why do they go in droves to watch their basketball team? Basketball, the mainstream sport that was started by a crotchety old guy from the YMCA? I think it's because they're so non-conformist that they conform.

If everybody starts out as conforming, some cool people will probably end up not conforming in order to stand out. But if all of the cool kids are doing it, then everybody else will too. Now most everybody is non-conforming. So the next generation of non-conformists are so-non-conformist that they refuse to conform with their fellow non-conformists, and they conform. Viola, watching Bard basketball is cool again. This diagram should help explain my point (click on the image to make it bigger):

The numbers refer to degrees of coolness. So 0 corresponds to your average Mathlete competitor, and 720 is reserved for Chris Brown driving down to Tijuana in a convertible smoking a blunt, with his arm around Jessica Alba. Moreover, the numbers can apply to both individual people and activities. In the example of Bard basketball, the coolness of the activity jumped from 180, where nobody went, to 360, where suddenly it was cool enough to go again. If this all seems complicated, good. Keeping up with the cool kids can't be easy, otherwise everybody would be cool.

My advice to sports teams at trendy liberal art schools that want to get more fans at their games? Go semi-underground and market the team as conformist or boring. Maybe write an article in the campus newspaper under a pen name about how traditional sports are washed up and irrelevant. Explain in layman's terms why nobody watches the games anymore. Then sit back and watch the crowd tip back in your favor.

Does embracing your narcissism mean that you have to feel superior than other people?

I just took an online psychology study for extra credit, and while I don't want to ruin the experimental integrity of the study (so if you are planning on taking it, don't read this post), one of the questions has stuck with me. The section asks you to rate which attitude you most agree with. So either you believe more strongly that,

a) I am not better or no worse than most people
or b) I think I am a special person.

There are some social cues working against the second answer, and overconfidence bias working against choosing the first answer. I suppose that this question aims to determine which of these forces is stronger, and hopefully illuminate how narcissistic you are.

Tyler Durden insists in Fight Club that you "are not a special, unique snowflake." But I think that for the purposes of positive psychology and pragmatism (ie, getting shit done) it is more useful to consider yourself as at least a little bit special. If you don't think of yourself as special, why should you even do anything? You might as well wait for somebody else to do it first. And as Victor Frankl describes in Man's Search for Meaning, a purposeful life is one of our core human needs. So there is plenty of reason to choose option b, and nobody can fault you for that.

But there may be reason to fault those who believe that they are better or worse than others. To not believe that you are "not better or worse than most people," or in essence to believe that you are intrinsically better than most other people at just life in general, is a scary thought. It's the idea that led Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment that it was forgivable to commit murder. So there is also very good reason to choose option a.

So here's the problem that this question poses us, and I would say that this question is indicative of our society's general view towards narcissism. Either we think of ourselves as special, and better than other people, or we think of ourselves as boring, but the same worth as everybody else. Do you have to feel superior to others in order to embrace your narcissism? Or, can you think of yourselves as special and still assign yourself the same value as you assign everybody else? Let me know what you think.

Do you become happier as you age?

I somehow stumbled across this article about how happiness correlates with age, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. You should check it out. Money graf:

"In a study published in September in Psychological Science, Wood and her collaborator, neuroscientist Michael Kisley of the University of Colorado, recorded the brain activity of 63 adults, ranging in age, who were shown a series of negative and positive images, such as dead animals or a bowl of ice cream. Older adults were about 30% less reactive to the negative images compared with the younger adults."

Anyway, I figured that I could attempt to replicate this article's findings in my own life. I'm sending the article to myself using a 13-year time delay (I'll be 32!), reading it again, and deciding whether or not I agree with the results then.

Two key assumptions: 1) that I'll still have the same e-mail address and 2) that I'll still be alive. But as long as those two points are met, we could be in for some pretty sweet results. Bookmark this page, and come back in 2020.

Edit: By the way, the program I used to send myself the message in the future was called Time Cave. I've never seen a website with more incentive for people to donate.

The psychology of hating the referee

Any serious athlete or fan has had multiple experiences dealing with referees (or umpires, or whatever) that they thought had a vendetta against their team. In fact, you probably have dealt with a couple of refs whose faces you've have memorized in case you see them in a dark alley 10 years from now. We've all been there. Having been on both sides of the equation, as a soccer referee, I can attest that it's not as easy as it looks. You have so many different things to keep track of--was that offsides, does that slide tackle warrant a yellow card, is that cute older sister in the stands talking to her boyfriend or just some dude, and all the while you just want the game to be over with so you can get paid. Unfortunately, nobody takes any of that into account. I had parents--of 9 year olds!--yell at me from across the field well after the game, when they were walking back to their cars. One minute its, "here, Johnny, have a couple of orange slices, make sure you stay hydrated slugger," and the next its, "hey ref, you suck, take out your whistle next time, you blew the game!" It's wild. But what you learn to realize as a ref is that everybody loves to vent some anger by getting out of control now and then. Reason #45357 why an iPod is the best money you've ever spent. Anyway, I've come up with a few biases to try to explain why people get so angry at the refs at sporting events (all definitions from Wikipedia, the premiere source for information, whether broad academia is willing to admit it or not): "Illusion of control — the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they clearly cannot." This is a big one in sports, where people at home and in the stands believe that they have an impact on what happens in the games based on their cheering, whether or not they watched a given play, or whatever. While it's fun to feel like part of the team, it probably means that you take any referee errors a little bit too personally. "Impact bias — the tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states." When a referee makes a questionable decision in the game, people have the right to feel a little bit upset. Bill Simmons has a famous Levels of Losing column in which he pretty much talks about how awful it is to lose, and he's right. But generally nobody seems willing to admit that there will be another play, and another game. If they were, they might not care about a couple of bad calls, even if the ref does clearly need LASIK eye surgery. "Actor-observer bias -- the tendency to attribute their own behavior to their circumstances, but tend to attribute other people's behaviors to their dispositions." When a ref makes a call, we automatically assume that it must be their fault--they weren't paying attention or they are racist, even when it's just as likely that the ref had a tough angle or was forced to make the decision on the move in a split second. Any other reasons why we chastise referees so much?

Not everything good is bad for you

We all start out our lives as children believing that anything that is said to be "good" for you, or more likely just what our parents want us to eat, will taste bad. The classic example of this phenomenon is broccoli, which has been shoved down the throat of children or used as a prerequisite for desert since Martin Luther posted his 99 theses.

However, as we get older, we begin to realize that broccoli is really not so bad tasting after all. Indeed, if cooked and tossed with a touch of Parmesan, it can be quite appetizing. Nevertheless, the thought process remains intact, seemingly disregarding a few solid counterexamples. For a long time now, if something is said to be good for me, my first presupposition is that I will find it impetuously disgusting.

Now that all of that nonsense is aside, I can describe to you the best possible test for proving this theory false once and for all. Anybody that has ever bought a multi-pack of Clif Bars knows that you are lukewarm to the Peanut Butter ones, you worship the Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch ones, and you learn to despise Oatmeal Raisin ones faster than you learn to hate Chris Wilton from Match Point.

So with such a healthy hatred of Oatmeal Raisin, and with such a longing for Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch, one would naturally assume that the latter must be substantially less healthy for you. After all, if it tastes better, it must be worse for you. But this is when you compare the nutritional facts and learn one of the greatest life lessons you will ever learn.

Spoiler alert, dear readers. The nutritional facts for these two bars, which differ so tremendously in taste, are exactly the same. The consequences here are broad-reaching, and are probably beyond the scope of this blog to explore fully. So instead I will leave you with a simple forewarning. In the course of your adventures, gustatory or otherwise, do not assume that everything that good is bad for you. We'll all be better off for it.

Knowledge is Dead

My buddy Andrew, one of the many bright young minds attending Claremont McKenna College, poses a fantastic question in his comment to my previous post. Among other things, he writes that,

"Most blogs talk about current events or future events. I haven't seen many blogs on the history of French republics or blogs on the Fed. Papers. It seems history might be hard to chase down in the blogging world."

So the question is, can and will you learn the relevant history of a particular subject just from reading a blog on it? Or, must you take a class in order to read a wide range of information on the subject and have a teacher evaluate your knowledge?

My response would be that blogs once again will trump traditional methods of learning here. While traditional learning tells you to read up so that you can have general knowledge that may or may not be helpful in the future (and so you can get a good grade, ugh), reading up on current happenings demands that you be literate in past events so that you can understand what is going on now.

The difference is one of incentives. Classroom learning posits a long-range reward of understanding French history with the rationale that eventually it will be useful. The current events that you read about in blogs, on the other hand, give you immediate incentive to search for an article about the Marshall Plan on Wikipedia to understand how our foreign intervention policies have morphed into what is going on in Iraq. There's no grading system that rewards cramming online, just your desire to understand the world around you.

In a world where information is so liquid with Google Scholar and Wikipedia at each of our fingertips, and Amazon able to drop any book on your doorstep within two days, I would expect that mass stores of prior knowledge would be even less helpful.

Nevertheless, I'm not about to drop out of Vassar next semester and I intend to finish my stay here, for two main reasons:

a) The social scene, including but not limited to being around a bunch of smart and funny guys on the basketball team, is incredible and probably couldn't be replicated anywhere else.

b) There's little economic incentive to blog and read blogs, because our mainstream society is nowhere near to accepting this form of knowledge. If I want recognition for my studies, which isn't necessary but undoubtedly provides a sense of security, I must grind out the process and receive a formal degree.

Models of Learning

OK, this is an incredibly subjective question, but I'm going to pose it anyway.

What would make you more intelligent, attending the classes of a rigorous four-year college for a semester or reading some of the top influential blogs on a daily basis and blogging your responses for four months? I think that many in the "real world" (ie, people who probably definitely wouldn't read this blog anyway), would knee-jerkily respond that college is the obvious choice here.

But hear me out here. Reading many of the top economics, science, and political blogs over the past four to five months has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Freakonomics and Marginal Revolution have taught me a love for data. Cognitive Daily and Mind Hacks help to reaffirm my belief in the importance of raw, experimental science. And reading David Brooks and Kevin Drum have kept me far more informed on the political scene than I ever was when I used to drone through CNN and the occasional Daily Show. All the while I'm actively learning, and reinforcing this learning by writing about these subjects on my own time.

Compare this experience with college. While Vassar is probably one of the most challenging schools in the country and I have had to engage in each of my classes to keep up, most of the talk among my fellow students is not about the issues, but instead about "beating the system." Respect in many cases comes not through understanding the material the best, but by getting the best grade while doing the least possible amount of work.

I'm sure that this sounds plenty pretentious, and rather rantish, by this point. But it's not meant to be. The point is, I succumb to this groupthink on a daily basis as well. It'd be remarkably difficult not to.

I'm usually not this forthright about the utility of blogging, and perhaps it is the stress of all of the work that is piling up on my shoulders that is forcing me into it. But the next time you fellow bloggers look down upon your writing as merely a hobby, consider the possibility that your supposed hobby might not be as trite as you assume.

Mixing art and science

I was reading this recent article in Nature, which talks about how science could use the aesthetic process and take more risks in order to produce faster results. But I think the article could take it one step further.

What if a new wave of artists in this next century didn't work in oil or pastels but instead in genetic engineering? The next Picasso could engineer new plants that are blue and grow sideways, and display them at the MOMA in New York or San Francisco. Now that would be art that I could really appreciate, instead of this postmodern stuff that I could make in Microsoft Paint in 20 minutes on a whim.

Note to Self

Writer's block doesn't mean you don't have anything to say, it just means that you have too many individual ideas, and when compared to the whole they seem useless. Now, that's not simply to say that the first step is the hardest, in fact it probably isn't because you'll choose the easiest path, the most intuitive topic for your first step. What I'm saying is that writer's block can be a good thing. How else would you form all of your nascent ideas but to let them simmer and heat up in your brain?

So, blog readers, there is no reason to shun a break in the action now and then. As long you aren't a paid writer, taking a week or two off from writing could be quite helpful. It's like Obi-Wan in the first Star Wars. Strike me down now, Darth, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

What I'm Reading

Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl -- I can't imagine how you wouldn't be moved by the description Frankl presents of his time in concentration camps during WWII. He manages to make a multitude of pointed and thoughtful remarks on human nature along the way. One of the few books (as far as I can tell) that is easy to read and interesting, yet still highly regarded as a work of science.

Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior by Phil Jackson and some other guy that co-wrote it but is shirked to the side most of the time and nowhere to be found on amazon (Hugh Delehanty) -- A fun one, especially for somebody who plays basketball, and especially for a basketball player that is especially interested in the Zen and Native American traditions that the book discusses. The thoughts on finding a way for one competitor to win while respecting the humanity of both sides was particularly poignant. Also gets points for funny lines such as, "If you meet Buddha in the lane, feed him the ball."

The Firm by John Grishman -- Thrilling ride that centers on a young lawyer that joins a firm that pays well but is very small. Something seems to be wrong, and when the FBI gets involved, it hits the fan. An excellent travel book. Perhaps the scariest part the novel was that a part of me didn't want him to find out anything about his firm, I just wanted him to keep making money and driving his BMW and spending quality time with his apparently beautiful wife.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway -- I can see why some people might like this book, including the intricate detail it provides over a three day period, but it just wasn't for me. I spent much of the summer toiling over this book, stuck around page 350. While I eventually finished it, I need to accept that sometimes the right call is just putting the book down. Hemingway was a giant, but read this one at your own peril.

Quick thoughts and updates

1) "What kind of classes are you taking?" is a 500 times better class than "what classes are you taking?" Nobody cares about what actual classes people are in unless they are very close and are likely to forget anyway. My parents asked me 189203 times this summer what classes I was taking, and I'm sure they still don't know. Not only that, but most students hate to answer this question because they get asked all the time. I would say it'd be better just to find out generally what type of stuff they're interested in, if anything.

2) I couldn't be more excited for this upcoming year.

3) By the end of last year, I had stopped saying "hella." When I realized this, I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror for three days, I was so ashamed. When you don't say hella, you let the whole bay area down. I pledge to continue saying hella all year this time, and hopefully my whole life. It could be cool to try to work it into writing too. Any thoughts on this? Is it too colloquial?

Book Review: Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek

Tim Ferriss does a lot of things right in his first serious foray into the writing world. He crammed his book full of very useful life-hacking tips, including actual websites where these ideas could be followed up on. He included tons of interesting tidbits about his life and how he has seen angles that others haven't been able to. And perhaps most importantly, he emphasizes that each of us can be just as successful if we put our mind to it and maintain the right attitude. This book doesn't lack details, which separates it from many of the other self-help books I have read and is probably one of the key reasons that it has been so high-grossing.

Nevertheless, his book wasn't flawless. One of the main gripes I had with Ferriss's style was his attitude that the world should be working for you. He suggests that everything be outsourced, from checking your mail to researching column topics, so that you can pursue the things that you ought to care about. This is a cute idea, but there are two problems it doesn't account for:

a) You can't take an order or check a pulse while you're halfway around the world. Doing your business mobile works for some industries, but certainly not all of them.

b) It totally disregards the notion that your occupation is at least partially about doing some good in the world. If you want to be an activist, Ferriss encourages you to streamline your main occupation and commit yourself to volunteering. But what about organizations that provide valuable services or perform research critical to solving novel diseases? Maybe I'm young and idealistic, but I think that some professions might be worth not quitting.

Ferriss writes funny, quick, and interesting. You have to respect the way he has reinvented his own life. But keep in mind that while forging your own path in life is admirable, the way he specifically did it may not be for everybody.

J.K. Rowling's Last Metaphor

One of the reasons that the Harry Potter series has been so successful is Rowling's ability to illuminate problems with her society by portraying slightly altered versions of the same issues in the her fantastical wizarding world. For example, wizards who are not direct descendants of other wizards are considered "half-bloods" if one of their parents is a Muggle (the wizard term for a non-wizard) or, worse yet, "mudbloods" if both their parents were Muggles. This problem is absurd to the reader, which is partly Rowling's point because such name calling is shockingly similar to much of the racism that occurs in our real world. Countless other such metaphors are found in the series, exploring the issues that she finds important in her life through the fictional lives of Harry and friends.

While most of these metaphors make a lot of sense, the one thing that I have never understood is the reason why many in the wizarding world are unwilling to call Voldemort, the main "bad guy," by his real name. They prefer to call him "You-Know-Who," or if they are very serious about the whole thing, "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." Harry never believed in this taboo about Voldermort's name, prefering instead to follow Dumbledore's advice that "fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself." Rowling obviously included this phenomenon for a reason, for yet another social commentary, but I had up until now not been able to figure out why.

It took the death of an old classmate of mine about two weeks ago to enlighten me. While pondering how sad it is that he died, I've reflected upon how we as a society don't really discuss death until it affects us immediately. I've been lucky in that I haven't had to experience much death in my young life, but this classmate was one of the first people my age who I had known for a long time, whose house I had been over to, and who had made an impact upon my life. I think there are many reasons why death is such a hushed topic, one of which must be a fear that it will lead to unnecessary melancholy.

Through this reflection I believe I understand Rowling's last metaphor, the most convoluted yet one of the most powerful points in her series. Fear of a "name," or fear of talking about something, will only increase fear of the thing itself. The less we talk about death publicly, the more we will fear it privately. Do you agree?

No regrets

It's easy to say no regrets when everything is going good, but when you turn down a chance to go to the Giants game where Barry Bonds hits his 756th home run, suddenly it's not so easy.

I was even going to write a line here about my excuse for why I didn't go to the game, but I don't even care. No excuses, no regrets. (Just a blog post.)

The Stress/Creativity Model

I used to think that I couldn't accomplish anything productive unless I was stressed because naturally, stress forces one into action. But not I'm thinking that it's really more that I'm unable to accomplish anything creative, original, or worthwhile without annoying my friends about how much work I have. I think most people will agree with me that it's not hard to do something menial like math homework, but if you have to compose a piece or write an essay, it's hard to do anything good unless you're really stressed out while you're doing it. Here's the model that sums up this phenomenon (if the text is blurry blame Microsoft paint for being so bootleg--click on the image to enlarge): My original game plan was to try to ignore this relationship and do my assignments and such early. It was a great idea, but unfortunately only worked zero times. So I needed something new.

Then I heard about Dostoesvky, famous Russian author, who you if you don't know, you should probably find out. I've read some of his stuff and let me tell you that on the whole the hype is for real. Anyway, the story about him is that after he would have money from the relative success of one of his former books, he would go to the casino and gamble it all away until he was broke again, apparently because he thought that unless he was hungry, he wouldn't be able to write.

My first thought upon hearing this story were that it is pretty legit to gamble away all of your money and not even pretend to try to win. But then his ideas got me thinking, and I realized that he had totally the same problem that I have, only 150 years ago. However, instead of trying the ignore strategy, which legitimately doesn't work at all, he embraced his problems head on and went about finding ways to make himself more stressed. Well, why don't I do that too? My initial thoughts of ways to make myself more stressed, and thus give a much needed early boost to the creative process, are to e-mail my teacher beforehand and tell him that my paper is really nice, thus enhancing the pressure on me to write a really nice paper, or have somebody make me drink lot of hot sauce if they don't like what I've done.

But those ideas are kind of boring. Does anybody have any others? My gpa and coolness are in the hands of you, the loyal reader. Don't let me down.

Failed Blog Post Series, Part II

Failed Blog Post -- "Having a "calling" in life." I was going to write about how I think having a calling in life is a entirely ridiculous and patently absurd concept, but then I decided that just because I don't have one doesn't mean that I can't let others have their fun. I'll just stand and mock from a comfortable distance.

Failed Blog Post -- "The Platform Phenomenon." This was an idea I had while following the upcoming election a little bit and stumbled across some criticism of Barack Obama for his lack of a distinct platform. I would argue that being an effective leader is more about reacting to what's happening around you and working with others more than having good ideas yourself. Part of people's fallacy in overrating the importance of the head in any organization is that the people below him would be making a lot of the decisions. Obviously ideas are important, but a platform is an oversimplification of ideas so that it can be marketed. This post failed because it has blatant contradictions all over it and it's only effective selling point is the alliteration in the title.

Failed Blog Post -- "The Switch." This post was talking about how I was considering changing my name when I introduce myself from Andy to Andrew. It was mainly in response to everybody questioning "Eddy?" after I say Andy, ostensibly because they have issues with their ears. Andrew would reduce this confusion. I'm still definitely throwing this idea around, but somehow I feel like I would be selling out if I did so, and as you guys know, I am 100% about keeping it real around here.

Failed Blog Post -- "The Sports/Life Analogy." I wrote this one in the thick of basketball season when people were beginning to explain to me how sports were so similar to life. I am reticent to agree, because I think in many situations sports value things that might not always be valued outside of sports. Arrogance often trumps all in sports, as can a form of mindlessness, what is sometimes termed in basketball as a player who "has no conscience." But I think that we would all agree that, especially in our evolving ever-neoteric society, these qualities are not exactly fresh to death. Indeed, there are lots of reasons why making blanket statements about sport teaching lessons for life may be misguided. But ultimately, I realized that the better my post and the more well worded my explanations, the more of my own nose I would be cutting off to spite my face.

Editor's Note: These got way too long. Part III will attempt to keep them shorter. You're probably thinking, "What's that you say, there's going to be a part three? Awesome!!" Well, yes, but don't get your hopes up for soon. I've got to come up with some more post ideas and then fail at them. Wish me bad luck!

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

This post may contain spoilers, but to be honest if you haven't finished reading the book you probably shouldn't even be on the internet anyway.

I'm really too mentally exhausted to write anything beyond a few simple sentences about J.K. Rowling's last installment, but I felt an obligation to my fans to give a couple of remarks about the finish to probably the greatest book series ever.

The book is very ambitious in it explorations of death, examining what may happen after you die, the way people react to the death of others, and the apparent honor in overcoming one's fear of death. It uses a lot of the surreal elements that her world allows to allow for some pretty creative angles. It works because she's built up each of these characters so much throughout the series and because we care so much when each of the characters dies. But as a stand-alone book I don't think it would be that effective, because it didn't have any of the fun side-plot like the Triwizard tournament or Harry's various love affairs that the other books had to help advance the plot. Reading the last 200 pages is a draining process; an absolute emotional roller coaster ride.

That said, I loved it, and (serious spoiler alert!) I'm really happy that she didn't kill off Harry at the end. There was a moment there when you had to be pretty sure that he was going to die, but then Rowling pulled off a cool effect where everyone thought he was dead and he sort of got to visit his own funeral, which I think is sort of a weird dream that lots of people have. That and the stuff about Dumbledore imperfect character were the strongest parts of the book. I also liked the epilogue if only because it effectively prevented anybody from making a sequel. All in all a strong finish, and I don't have to recommend the book to anybody, because if you're not a dweeb you'll read it anyway.

The Failed Blog Post Series, Part I

Failed blog posts are like mistakes that you sort of regret the next day. You aren't exactly happy about it, and you tell yourself you wouldn't do it again, but you don't tell anyone about them, and subconsciously save them for a future lazy Sunday afternoon when you can't think of anything else to write about.

Of course, you forget that your Sundays are generally pretty busy after all, and before you know it you have tons and tons of old blog posts that you have no use for. So that's where this series is coming in: I'm going to briefly list the general scheme of these posts for your viewing pleasure, and them delete them from my drafts folder so I never have to see them again.

Failed Blog Post: "I Hate Political Parties." This was an old idea I had that mixes up a serving size of unrealistic idealism with a helping of ignorance, tossed with some sprinkles of teen angst. Then again, I still don't like the idea of political parties, I just don't see how not voting is going to help anything.

Failed Blog Post: "Scientific Articles Aren't Really as Complicated as they Appear." I thought this could be an awesome post until I realized that it was just a thinly veiled attempt to brag about something that really wasn't worth boasting about in the first place. It's been in my draft folder for over 6 months now.

Failed Blog Post: "In Defense of Normal People." This was supposed to be a post wondering aloud why the weird was valued so much more highly than the normal in our society. Then I remembered that this didn't apply in our society at all, just in the bubble that is Vassar. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

Failed Blog Post: "Never Question Enthusiasm." This post was inspired by how annoying it is when somebody is really into something and then somebody else is like, "dude, why do you care so much?," and the first person just feels stupid. I decided not to post it because I thought it might hit too close to home.

Well, that's it for now! Part II will probably be coming up soon though, because this feels like spring cleaning all over again, only with ideas instead of dust, and a keyboard instead of Windex.

Palindromaholics Anonymous

Do you ever find yourself looking for palindromes on the digital clock on your DVD player more often than you actually watch the movie? Do you make a wish whenever you see a palindrome like 12:21 or 6:46 on your computer? Do you certainly not condone, but can see why a cult would agree to a mass suicide on a day, and at a time, that is a palindrome? Do you think that today is hands down the most legit day of the year?

If so, then palindromaholics anonymous is the place for you. Welcome, you're one of us now.

Once someone has great talent, we assume that they must have great taste

I was listening to KDFC, classical radio at 102.1, on my way back from the gym today when I heard that the next song they were to play was composed by "Beethoven's favorite contemporary musician." I think it was they said his name was Cherubini or something. Anyway, when I heard that he was one of Beethoven's favorites, I perked up. I don't know much about classical music, but I do know that Beethoven was really nice, and if he thought this Cherubini cat was all right, then I should probably listen up. Right?

The more I thought about it (and the more I thought the piece was boring), the more I realized that this we go through this sort of thought process all of the time. If somebody excels in their field, then we assume that they must be apt at deciphering who else is talented in their field. For the most part, I think that we are correct in reserving talent analysis to those that have had success in their field. Certainly a soccer pro would be better at determining talent among a high school team than one of the parents. But I think that it is not always the case, and I have come up with two reasons to support my opposition:

a) If somebody is really skillful, it is possible that they will be focused too much on the details while everybody else cares more about the bigger picture. For example, a director or two might really appreciate a movie because there are some great angle and lighting shots, but the rest of the audience might think the movie sucks because there is little plot and no excitement (ahem, Rear Window, ahem). In this case a an experts opinion is clouded by his obsession for minutia, which is essential when working at the highest levels, but not always necessary for functioning in the more intermediate.

b) Experts in some fields may be more likely to support up-and-comers in which they see bits of themselves over the up-and-comer with the most overall talent. To continue with the soccer analogy, if a pro is known for his prowess in the air, he may overrate a young player with a penchant for heading, or even a player who excels at crossing the ball into the box, because that was his niche. In doing so, he may underrate the midfielder with good ball control or the striker with exceptional speed.

There you have it, simultaneously a theory about Beethoven's ability as a movie critic and concrete proof that Classical music promotes the creative thought process.

We all know that it's coming

So, I was thinking today about what terrible timing it would be if there was an earthquake while I was in the middle of doing squats at the gym. I think about good and bad times for earthquakes all the time; for example, it would be good during a really hard test, but bad during wisdom teeth surgery. But then it hit me: not everybody knows that we Californians/San Franciscans think about this stuff all the time. I had a flash in my head of news reports after an earthquake in the future, with reporters and analysts alike accepting it as fact that "nobody expected this to happen."

Well, let me set all of you people in the future straight. We realize that an earthquake will probably hit California soon, and hard. It will probably be bad timing for most but may be good timing for some. Either way, the important thing to remember is that we all know [knew] that it is [was] coming.

Buddhism Part II

There was some reaction to my previous post that Buddhism would be a hard religion for a working man to follow. You can read the post and the comments here. Dario and Ben had a pretty interesting idea of taking only the parts of eliminating worldly desire that you can, and keeping the desires that you have to have in order to maintain a business and social life.

The natural progression of this idea is to segregate worldly desires into "things that you can't control" and "things that you can control," and only care about the things you can control. This would be a great idea except that a) it's impossible and b) well, (a) pretty much sums it up.

Why? Because first of all, it's very easy to argue and truly believe that nearly everything which matters is in your life is conceivably either in your control, or not in your control. Most things that you care about you probably could have had more control over, if you could go back and change something you did, even if you didn't think you were didn't anything bad at the time.¹ On the flip side, you could also say that you can't control much stuff, because your bosses may have previous experiences that predispose them to dislike people like you, or you may be really weak and skinny not because of a lack of power cleans and protein shakes, but because of bad genes. It's hard to say.

People's experiences and genes collide at a million miles each day, and most of the time that it happens I'm left reeling. I'm just trying to remember what the person's name was, much less what what we talked about, what type of person he is, or whether his influence made me do something, because perhaps I would have done it anyway.

It is much too confusing and time consuming to try to accurately determine which things you can control and should worry about and which things you can't and shouldn't. In fact, the successful completion of the task itself could be easily construed as a desire, meaning that by actually becoming a Buddhist, you are probably living a less Buddhist lifestyle.

Which leads me to the only way to make Buddhism really work. To make everything simpler, you define which parts of your life you think are most important to you, the things that you need to maintain your healthy professional and social life, and you invest all your desire in only those things. This idea works in theory, and is actually a very appealing notion, until you realize that you are now actually considering what is essentially a virtue ethics philosophy and are nearly as far away from Buddhism as you can possibly be.

So here I am, at the crossroads of deciding whether or not it is both possible and reasonable for me to be Buddhist in our society. I've come to the conclusion that my whole life I'm going to have this conundrum looming in the back of my mind and thriving in the periods of my stress. My whole life I'm going to struggle with this. And then the moment that I'm about to die, whenever it is, I'm going to be absolutely positively sure that I've have reached a state where I lack desire, what many would consider enlightenment. Maybe I'll even say something profound, or write a death poem. But then, I think I'm going to have to laugh, because I'll know it's all just bullocks anyways.

1: This phenomenon is known as regret. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask--I am the unofficial king of regret.

The Stem Cell Debate

The stem cell debate has always struck me as slightly off-base because the two sides seem to be arguing separate problems. The opponents of it have been saying that it is morally wrong, while supporters argue two distinct issues, a) that the government shouldn't legislate morality issues that like, and b) even if the government did legislate morality, this should still be legal because it probably would save more lives at no real human cost.

Probably because it is simpler, the opponents to stem cell research actually have some credibility, although let's remember that these embryos for the stem cells were generally taken from failed fertility trials, which weren't going to lead to a pregnancy. The supporters of it, on the other hand, haven't been able to get their case straight. From my perspective, they really should give up trying to argue that the government can't legislate morality because they pretty much do; a lot of the laws in this country have been based on our moral code (what is equality if not a moral value?). The point they should be making is that stem cells could potentially lead to new discoveries which could help current people, and wouldn't stop anybody from having kids if they wanted them.

These are the issues I was thinking about when I saw the bill to allow stem cell research passed in congress, but which would soon be vetoed by the White House. Then, later today I saw this article from the NYT Science section pop up on my Google reader explaining this sweet new technique where you can essentially replicate all the effects you want from a stem cell in skin cells. The process has only been shown in rats, but then again stem cells themselves were still rather experimental. Pretty cool stuff, and it certainly could be the quickest end to this debate that I, at least, can imagine.

Is Buddhism only for the very rich and fairly poor?

I've wanted to be a Buddhist for pretty much as long as I've heard of it. The idea of ridding oneself of worldly desires, and the stress and worries that accompany the pursuit of it, really appeals to me.

But as I've become more serious about actual applying this lofty goal to my life, I've come to the realization that it would be pretty much impossible for me to accomplish without completely overhauling the structure of my life. If I completely rid myself of these desires, which is what I am told to do, then what reason would I have for ever going to a basketball practice that I don't want to at the moment, what reason would I have to write a tedious lab manuscript on soil, what reason would I even have to get a job over the summer? These are all things that I have to do in order to maintain a relatively "normal" life by society's standards, in order to pass my classes, have somewhat of a social life, and have enough money to do things like buy food. So, reasonably, there is no way that I can get rid of my desires because if I think it would be nearly impossible for me to have a normal life.

As the title of this post suggests, I think that there are two exceptions to this rule: the very rich, who have enough money to pretty much put every thing on auto pilot and not worry at all, and the fairly poor, who would be able to survive pretty much just on subsistence living and generally do their own thing. But for a normal person that wants to live a normal life in our current society, we have to have desire in order to have ambition, which you have to have in order to do really anything at all.

All of this leads us to the question, is Buddhism still a viable way of living even if you cannot completely follow its tenants? Is it an all or nothing thing, or can you follow most of the basic ideas while still having a little bit of ambition and still consider yourself a Buddhist?

Small conversations can have a large impact

About four years ago when I was a rising sophomore in high school I was a regular at the Presidio YMCA, where I try to throw up plates on the bench press while completely disregarding my form. Sometimes I would see a tall white guy on the basketball court who would threes from all over, while his trainer rebounded. Pretty soon word got around that his name was Dan Grunfeld and that he would be a junior at Stanford, where he got some playing time on the basketball team. At the time I thought it was pretty cool but I didn't really think twice about it. What did he have to do with me?

The winter changed all that. Both of us ended up with torn ACLs, me for the second time and he for the first time. I actually watched the game that when it happened, and I "called" that he had torn his ACL (I did that with every leg injury at the time, but that's besides the point). It was a somber moment for me when I saw a tough player who I had seen in person have his career ostensibly ruined just as my fledgling career was ostensibly ruined at the time.

That summer, we were both rehabbing at the YMCA. Of course, I knew why he was there, but he had really no idea why I was there. Finally, I mustered up the courage to tell him that I too had torn my ACL, that I knew how hard the process of recovery would be, and that I wished him the best of luck. From what I remember, he thanked me but seemed a little bit reserved.

The summer ended and I watched him on TV play out his senior year. He did much better than I expected him to, and as his rehab process went faster than mine did, I felt confident that I too would be able to get back after it.

Two years had passed until I saw him again in person today. It was rush hour at the gym, so only one hoop was available, next to the hoop he was shooting at. He was still bombing tres from deep and he still had the same trainer working him out.

Then all of a sudden after he missed a shot, he looked at me, said hi, and asked how my knee was doing. It really blew me away that he remembered me and even took an interest in me. We chatted for a while about what we were each doing with basketball. Apparently his knee is stronger than it has ever been and he's still working at and playing the game he loves. He seemed like an awesome guy, and was happy for me to be playing at a "great school" like Vassar.

I have no moral to draw from this story. While it might sound corny, it was really just one of those moments that made me feel happy to be alive. Sometimes a seemingly small interaction can have a large impact.

Chess misdiagnosed as a game of intellect

My brother and I were playing an intense game of chess this afternoon at a pretty sweet bar in downtown Denton, Texas, called the Jupiter. As my mom came back from antique shopping (she is an addict), she asked who was winning, adding the caveat that no matter who was winning, she would still consider us both very smart.

But while it was a kind gesture to make my brother feel better, her statement has no basis in reality. Chess is not about how book smart you are or how quickly you can do long division. It's about imposing your will on your opponent, and crushing him completely. While chess is a noble pursuit, don't make the mistake that my mom made in considering chess an intellectual game. It is a game of strength, mental fortitude, and willpower. So the next time that you beat somebody in chess and they try to give the excuse that you must have just been a little bit more alert that day, calmly explain to them that what you really did was enforce your will. That especially goes for you, Bingo.

Are you there God? It's me, LeBron.

In case you missed the pivotal game 5 of the Pistons -- Cavaliers series last night, the synopsis of the game went something like this: the Pistons were a better team, and they were playing at home, and they were probably about to win until near the end of the 4th quarter. Then LeBron James decided that his team was going to win. He scored the last 25--that's right, count 'em 25--points for the Cavs and they won in double overtime. If you remember back in the Warriors series, I posted a couple of photos of guys dunking over people that were trying to block them. James doesn't have any of those photos because nobody tries to block his dunks. Instead, they back away and cower in fear. He is on a whole other level right now. Last night he thanked God after the game for blessing him with his abilities, which I generally scoff at because clearly even if God exists he wouldn't care about a sporting event. But last night when James was talking about how he was given his abilities by God, I found myself nodding along. To quote David Blaine, if you watch the NBA playoffs, there's really no other explanation.

The Modern Utilitarians

In philosophy this year we learned about utilitarianism, which is essentially the idea that every action is good if it is in the interest of producing the greatest amount of pleasure, or happiness, for the greatest number of people. Of course, this was an extremely difficult task, and as John Stuart Mill, a later utilitarian pointed out, it is difficult to tell because there are different types of pleasure or happiness for different people. Following on that problem, one of the main reasons that it has been generally disregarded as a philosophy is that its tenants are essentially impossible to propagate. Who can tell what produces the greatest amount of pleasure, or happiness, is for the greatest number of people?

Well, up until recently, the answer was nobody. But now that we are beginning to understand more about the brain, and can do very intricate brain-imaging surveys, we may literally be able to tell which activities and which emotions contribute to the greatest amount of pleasure and happiness for the average person. We could determine, based on the average life span, and the average amount of this activation expected to occur during a day, on average how much pleasure and happiness individuals will experience during their lifetimes. We could then intricately calculate the value, perhaps in terms of happiness but especially in terms of pleasure, of each individual's life. Eventually, we may even be able to figure out each decision that we make based on whether or not it was for the greatest good of society.

Now, I'm not saying that we should do this. I'm just saying that it could form the background for a sick science-fiction novel. You heard it here first.

The role of techno in our lives

It's no secret that I love techno and really any electronica music in general, but I have often had trouble explaining to non-believers exactly why it is, to quote my brother, "so money."

That is to say, I had trouble explaining why until last night. That's when I had the realization that if classical music is the Thinking Man's music, then techno is the Thinking Man Who Also Wants To Party's music. The beautiful thing about classical music is that it is sort of in the background, leaving you able to think your own thoughts and generally do your own thing while it is on. Techno, for much of the song, functions in the same way, allowing you to think on your own while it chimes away in the background. But while much classical music is always in this prepubescent state, techno merely begins as such, as a prelude to something bigger, to something greater.

And when it finally reaches the zenith, the breakdown, all you can think about doing is having a party. You've been tricked into relaxing during the beginning of the song, making the moment when it changes that much more palpable.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that you don't have to listen to or appreciate techno. If you enjoy just thinking, you should probably listen to less obtrusive music, and if all you ever want to do is party, then there's probably music for you too. But if you, like me, enjoy both thinking and partying, then turn the radio station to 92.7 the next time you're driving around. Just be careful not to swerve into oncoming lanes once you get the urge to dance.

Life without cell phones

People always talk about how the internet has such an impact on our lives--and it undoubtedly has. The problem is that the invention has had such an impact that it's very difficult to imagine life without the internet. Businesses would be changed so much--it's not only that things would go slower, it's also that certain, major parts of my life would simply not exist. 

But cell phones are a different story. I can imagine life without cell phones and other mobile devices. And let me tell you, it is a terrible, terrible existence. At college, parties would be smaller and things would never be coordinated as easily. Without cell phones, parents have more reason to be worried about their kids, kids have less freedom, and if something bad does happen when the kid is separated from the parent, it's harder to deal with the situation. 

 My friend Austin and I went to the MOMA in New York a few days ago, and both sort of wanted to go our own ways and check it out on our own. Without cell phones? Would have been complicated and probably not worth the risk. But with cell phones it was an absolute non-issue. So for anybody who thinks that I don't count my blessings often enough--you're wrong. I think about the blessing of mobile communication all the time.

A few quick links

I've pretty much become obsessed with Amazon over the past couple of days because my friend Ben made the top 100 yesterday with his book, which I haven't read yet but I'm sure will be fantastic. Congrats Ben!

But while I was looking around Amazon I also saw this list, describing the top Harry Potter reading towns in America per capita. I was proud to see that my very own Mill Valley was one of the tops on this list, at #36. Frankly, I'm surprised that we weren't higher, considering that practically everybody I know has read Harry Potter. Maybe its a matter of correlation versus causation, because I would never consciously hang out with somebody that had denied themselves the pleasure of reading these books.

So, if you're in Mill Valley, buy Harry Potter online and boost our rating on the list. And no matter where you are, check out Ben's book, if only to find out more about one of my best friends and how he thinks.

Is there any true altruism?

Historically, there have been two camps in this debate. One says that there is absolutely such a thing as true altruism, and it is possible to give to others at your own expense. The other says that all altruism is based on the selfish desires of making yourself look good or feeling more at peace about your other less-than-altruistic actions. Both sides have somewhat strong arguments and there is no reason why the argument wouldn't continue into perpetuity.

But I am going to spice up the argument a little bit and toss a third candidate into the fray: pure laziness. I don't know what else to do with them and seemingly all of my classes are changing the textbook next semester, so I have decided to donate my textbooks to apparently needy people in Africa. While I suppose that they might need the books more than I do, my real reason for doing so is that I am too lazy to send them across the country to California. I would argue that more altruism stems from laziness than one would otherwise presume. I call this theory the "Procrastination from Econ Theory." If you'd like, leave a comment and let me know if you agree with it or not. I am more serious about this than you'd probably assume.

Warriors at a glance

Yes, we lost tonight, and yes, Bill Simmons was right in his prediction of the Jazz in 5. But let us not forget that the Warriors are still one of the youngest teams in the league, and losing in the second round of the playoffs is quite impressive, especially considering that about a month ago I was wondering whether or not we would even make the playoffs. Our trip to the second round is undeniably a good development. If we can improve our free throw shooting over the off-season, re-sign Matt Barnes, and Biedrens and Ellis continue to develop, I see no reason why we couldn't be even more competitive next season.

I compare the Warriors today to the adolescent bear. As a cub, he bides his time, content to suffer minor defeats and cherishes every minor victory while he is still growing and learning his place in his society. As he gets older, he starts to show potential for greatness, but he still is held back by a quick temper and an undeserved feeling of entitlement. We are the adolescent bear, feeling that we deserve calls from the refs instead of earning our respect. But soon, we will break out, grow into an adult bear, and show the world what we can do. But that will have to wait for next season. For now, we hibernate, and grow stronger.

You can do anything, but you can't do everything

When I was younger, teachers would sometimes reminded us not to answer questions to tests in a way that they coined the "shotgun method," which is just writing down everything you can think of relevant to the question and hoping that somewhere in there is the right answer. Apparently, this was nefarious and teachers weren't going to get pushed around by a bunch of little kids screaming, "but look! I have the answer right there!"

Aside from the obvious flashback fear it gives me to think of prepubescent kids being told about how a shotgun works, the whole phenomenon frustrates me to this very day. Whose to say that there is only one right answer? Clearly, if an answer contradicts itself it isn't as good, but an answer that approaches all side of the issue should be valued, perhaps valued even above the conventional one-sided approach.

Anyway, I've come to like the idea so much that I've decided to adopt it as my new approach to thinking about stuff. The shotgun approach. Chuck Klosterman once talked in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs about how he believed in everything. I don't agree with him completely, but there's definitely something appealing about that; something so appealing that it just might be worth society considering you a hypocrite. Many of us have been told our whole lives that we can do anything. I've taken that to heart, and I still do. But implicit in that advice that you can do anything is the slightly condescending warning that you can't do everything.

But why not? So what if I don't study enough for the test to know exactly what the supposed "correct" answer is? It might be easier for a teacher to grade, but there's no reason we have to continue to impose those restrictions on ourselves once we leave school. What's wrong with the shotgun approach to life?

Entourage

Everybody likes HBO's Entourage. It's a big hit here at Vassar, and just about everybody that's seen it regards it as a "good" show. But here's the thing: nobody knows why.

I too also really had no idea why I liked it, until last night, at the end of a very long day, when I heard Mims' hit "This is Why I'm Hot." One of the most famous lines is his lyric, "I don't even need to rap//I could sell a mill saying nothing on the track." That's when I realized that people like Entourage because it is the television equivalent of a cocky rapper.

Think about it. From the very first show, the show took it as granted that Vince was pretty much a massive star. Sure, he might not have busted out yet with the highest grossing film of all-time, Aquaman, but he was already successful and famous. But in reality, nobody knew who Adrian Grenier (the guy that plays Vince) was. He certainly didn't have enough cash to support a whole entourage with such a lavish lifestyle, and he certainly didn't have enough money to live in such a sweet crib. But the show pretended that he did anyways, and everybody bought it.

The same thing goes for Mims before he busted out with, "This is Why I'm Hot," which hit #1 on the iTunes most downloaded list and was once famously played 40+ times one night at one of our basketball parties. Before he recorded the song, Mims wasn't shit. Maybe he was big with his friends because he had signed on with a record label, but he certainly wasn't big enough to justify rapping that he could sell a mill without saying anything on the track. Claiming that you are big before you really are is probably the most intriguing rapping paradigm because while it's possible that they will one day make it big, they were not big when they first said it. You're betting that you will become successful. If you succeed, you'll be even more revered because you somehow knew that you would. But if you fail, you'll lose all credibility whatsoever because now are you not only not popular, but none of your songs even make sense.

Entourage went the same direction with their TV show, claiming that they were really big and just exploring the problems that an entourage would endure once they had reached that point. And here's the kicker, which explains why both of them do it: people love to hear that other people are making it. As much as America loves the underdog, what we really love to see is people having success, basking in it, and just generally living it up. We don't really care about the irony of Mims saying that he was hot before he really was, what we care about is the fact that he is hot now, he knows it, and he's loving every minute of it. Vince and his entourage are attractive for the same reasons.

This is not to say that you and I gullible for falling for the ploy, America. In fact, you could aruge that our tastes are simply now more refined. All entertainers have at least a touch of cockiness to them. Perhaps it's just that in our never-ending search for legitimacy and transparency, we're starting to like the ones who admit it.

Solve this problem quickly, using your basic instincts

A baseball bat and a ball combined cost 1 dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

####

You should give your answer before you have time to read this sentence, and if you already have read it, you have completely ruined everything and and you are an absolute waste to society.

ANYWAY, if you did answer the question quickly, like I did today when it was posed to me, and apparently like 55% of Harvard grads did as well, you probably answered incorrectly. You probably said that the ball costs 10 cents. But this is not an algebra question. The issue the question raises is whether we can ever really trust our own reasoning. If we make simple computational errors like this all the time, which we probably do, then how can we be so sure that any conclusions we come to are ever objectively right?

Third Eye Blind explains existentialism

Wikipedia tells us that the San Francisco based-band got its name because lead singer Stephan Jenkins had just read a book about the metaphysical idea of a third mind's eye, and the rest of the band apparently agreed that the name didn't suck. But this has nothing to do with why their music helps me to understand a relatively obscure philosophical form of thought. Nor does my understanding have anything to do with Stephan Jenkins at all, who by all accounts is a loud-mouthed prick. Instead, it has to do with turning 16, getting my license, and having to commute to the city every day. 

 I think that we can all agree that we don't really have much choice over what kind of music that we listen to until we start to drive. When you're in the house, you either listen to the kind of music that the rest of family listens to, or the opposite of the kind of music the rest of your family listens to. This applies in all situations with some generational gaps; for example, if your parents listened to The Rolling Stones, our generations logical equivalent would be Nirvana, The Eagles probably correlate with Fall Out Boy, and Marvin Gaye probably leads to Jay-Z. Then again, if you choose to react against the music the rest of your family listens to, that could potentially lead to the awkward situation where the mom that grew up listening to The Beach Boys walks in to her son's room while he's blasting the Wu Tang Clan's "Gravel Pit." 

 But the thing is, all of this changes once you turn 16 and start to drive. Suddenly you technically have control over the radio, you have control over the volume, and you have control over what CD is blaring at any specific moment. Which brings us back to existentialism, which is (grossly simplified) the idea that we control each of our own universes and as such ought to take accountability for our actions. The classic example that is posed to explain the theory is that anybody who worked for the Nazis in WWII made a choice to do so, despite what kind of pressures they may have been facing to take part. But we all know that it would be unfair to apply this theory to anybody too young, because they have been proportionally influenced by their parents. 

So, what better cut off date than when you turn 16 and start to drive? Your parents might not like it, but when you get behind the steering wheel and put the pedal to the medal, you can go wherever you want. And listen to whatever kind of shitty music you'd like to. And when I was 16 I started to listen to Third Eye Blind heavily. For the longest time, I rationalized my liking of the band whenever anyone questioned me by saying that my brother stored all of their CDs in the car anyway or that I was obligated to support them since they hail from San Francisco. But when I heard two months ago that they were coming to Poughkeepsie for a show, I faced the theoretically existential but very real dilemma of whether I was obligated to drop everything and go see them. Does listening to their stuff for such a long time mandate that I am a fan, or can I just right it off to mere circumstance that I ended up hearing so much of their music? Do you blame everyone that participated in the Holocaust, or just those with a certain degree of autonomy? 

Sitting at the Chance Theater last Wednesday, with its overpriced drinks but surprisingly clean bathrooms, I realized that it doesn't really matter, and I realized that it really matters a lot. It doesn't matter why I was there because I was there anyway, but it matters why I was there a lot because I would have to explain to everybody why I went. Which, in a way, is a lot like Third Eye Blind's music: if you really listen, it's not that deep, but if you don't expect anything and just listen, it's really deep. So, best of luck to Third Eye Blind as they continue on their tour across the country. I hope they bust out again in 2007 with their fourth album. They are from San Francisco, after all.

The Warriors in the Playoffs?

I've been both a basketball and a Bay Area sports fan my whole life. That's why it has always been so sad for me to deal with the perpetually downtrodden Warriors, a team that for as long as I can remember have been absolutely terrible. And when I say terrible, I mean terrible. The team hasn't made the playoffs in thirteen years, and considering that more than half of the teams make the playoffs each year, that number appears to be borderline statistically impossible. Yet I've watched year after year as we've overpaid slow and overrated players (Adonal Foyle, Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy... the list continues) to go out and lose ballgames.

Finally, this year they seem to have gotten their act together to a certain extent. They traded two of the slowest players in the league and got back some youth and excitement from the Pacers. We've rattled off 15 out of 20 games, and if we win tonight, we're in the playoffs for the first time ever. It's hard not to get excited. But I've been let down by anybody in life, it's been the Warriors, and with every national media source seemingly handing them the playoff spot, I'm not exactly overzealous with confidence. If the Clippers win and we lose tonight, they have the tiebreaker over us, so they'll get into the playoffs instead.

That said, I believe in the Warriors. It's been too long, and now it's our time. Give 'em hell, boys. You've got supporters all across the country.

Andy's tips on how to make a paper look longer than it really is

One of the reasons that it's weird for me to do a blog is because I have nothing really that this blog is "about." But the problem with this criticism is that I want to blog, and I don't really have an area of expertise, so my only real option is to write about a lot of random stuff. But if there were to be something that I could definitively claim expertize on, making papers for school seem longer than they really are would be it. So, on the eve of just writing two long papers for school, I'm inspired to share my knowledge. I've split it up into three sections for your viewing convenience, a beginner level (middle school), an intermediate level (high school), and an advanced level (college). The key to remember is that this post is not about trying to cheat or gain an edge over your fellow student, it's about beating the system against an archaic rule (page minimums), and generally bringing down the man.

Beginner:

- One of the most obvious tricks is to change the font. If you want to be obvious about it you can go with Century Gothic or Arial Bold, but the classy move is to change it to Palatino Linotype. It makes the characters a little bit longer vertically without making it look comically large. Some teachers even think it looks better. What they don't know won't hurt them, right?

- Make the margins smaller. Not much too to it here. Once you get out of middle school, teachers will start checking for this kind of stuff, but when you're this young, everything still thinks you're innocent. Please, I haven't been innocent since the first grade when I used to cheat in kickball.

- Use tons of quotes, and if you can, include block quotes where you make the margins smaller. Once you get to the intermediate level teachers will start telling you that you need to "analyze the text" and other liberal bullshit like that. For now, take advantage of the fact that people are just happy to see that you've done the reading.

Intermediate:

- If the beginner method was to make the margins narrower, then the intermediate method is to make the pages shorter. Primarily this should be done at the bottom, because the way that word documents auto-format the paragraphs is always weird and it is easy to claim innocence if your page is a little too short. This is in the intermediate section, however, because it requires slightly more tact.

- Once you've reached the intermediate level, you've probably already begin to understand the beauty that is Google images. What you probably haven't realized is how these images can be your best friends in papers. Simply add a map of Paris in your paper about the French Revolution, or a picture of a typical 18th century bachelor in your essay on Pride and Prejudice, text wrap it, and you're good to go. Whoever said that a picture is worth a thousand words was a wise man indeed.

Advanced:

- Make the periods bigger. The teacher can tell by this point if you make the font size of most of the paper much larger, but just by making the periods font size 16 or 18, you can increase the length of the paper (by making the length between lines longer), and no one will be the wiser.

- People seem to have an idea that you can only put footnotes on history research papers. But who made up that rule? Footnote words from urbandictionary.com in your english papers, some existential thinker in your philosophy papers, and Keynesian thought in your econ papers. Not only does the footnote lengthen the line it's on, it also adds the descriptive line at the bottom of the page, and the useful black line separating your text from your footnote descriptions. This is why endnotes are for dorks and footnotes are for the cool kids.

All these tips are legit, tried and true. If any teacher calls you on one of them, good. Calmly explain to them that page minimums are a joke and that most geniuses weren't understand as children anyway. If possible, swipe the evidence from their clutches and run like hell. Happy lengthening!

Farming in the Snow

I've been doing field work this semester at the Vassar Farm this semester because I wanted to a) get my hands a little bit dirty, b) be outside more often, and c) see what it is like to work at a farm. Of course, all three of those desires have backfired because my hands have gotten a lot dirty, I've subsequently realized that I could have just as easily gone outside to throw a frisbee, and discovered that I not only would get to see what it is like to work at a farm, but I would actually have to do the work.

Luckily, I've been sort of enjoying it in an ironic "I deserve this" self-masticating kind-of way, and that's something. This Thursday was a prime example, when we were measuring out the fields and pounding stakes into the ground. Suddenly, white specks began to fall from the ground. Some of them hit me on my sweatshirt, and I had to push them off. It became apparent that they weren't going to stop falling anytime soon, and I wondered what we were going to do about it. Would we seek refuge somewhere? "It's snowing, Andy, in case you haven't noticed," Asher, the guy I was working with, finally remarked. I guess people don't stop being hungry when it's cold out. And that was when I found that it's much easier to count your blessings when they are staring you in the face.

Lee Yearly's lecture on the Toaist idea of useless wandering

Lee Yearly, professor at Stanford University and teacher of my current philosophy professor, was the philosophy department's main speaker this year. Flushed with curiosity, I attended. Some random thoughts from his presentation:

1) The best orators all seem to all include tons of stories when they talk. I think we all love stories because they are such a good way of showing ideas without having to explicitly explain them. I want to make a point to learn more stories. I think that the practice has been looked down upon because it may not the best way to construct a persuasive argument, but there is lots of upside to telling a short story.

2) One of his main points was that society seems to have a way of using up "useful" people, and that we all seem to have a good idea of the use of being useful, but we don't have a very good idea of the use of the useless. I don't really understand the idea, but at the time I found it quite profound, because his prime example was pre-medicine students taking organic chemistry for the sole purpose of becoming a doctor in the future, even though they hated the class. Everyone always enjoys a good pre-med joke. Stupid pre-med students.

3) One point that did resonate with me was that we shouldn't take things in the present so seriously, because we have no way of knowing whether or not they will be "good" or "bad" in the long run. That point sort of reminded me of a refrigerator magnet I once saw that said something along the lines of, "Things will work out okay in the end. If they aren't okay, then it's not the end." As was the motto of our junior year basketball team, "indeed."

I still don't love philosophy, but if it's growing on me it's because it really has a way of getting you to think. I mean, the use of the useless? That's ridiculous. But somehow, if you start to think about these things for way longer than you should, they start to grow on you. And it's pretty money.

The phenomenon that is imdb.com

I just saw Children of Men at a Film League screening here at Vassar last night, and it was an excellent movie; I highly recommend it. But the thing was, I knew it was going to be good before I even saw it. How? Because of it's high rating on the imdb.com, the world's largest compilation of reviews from people all around the world. 40,000+ people had already seen the movie and liked it; in fact, they even liked it enough to rate it the 145th movie of all-time (you can check out the whole list here). 

Think about it. If a couple of your friends tell you that they like a movie, you'll think about watching it. If 20 of your friends tell you that they liked a movie, you'll probably head down to your local movie store and rent it. But imagine if 40,000 people gave you their opinion, and the majority of them really liked it. You'd make watching the movie a very high priority, right? That is essentially what imdb does. And yet some if not many people still don't take the site seriously, debunking it's importance for various uninformed opinions. Well, I'm here to set you all straight. Here are the most common criticisms that I have heard: 

 - "I don't like it because they didn't rate movie x or movie y high enough and that's my favorite movie of all time blah blah blah." The problem with having a movie review site, or with having a "best ever" list in general, is that not every movie can be #1. Nobody ever claimed that the whole world was going to have the exact same taste as you. But the general idea about the site is that the good movies will be rated high and the bad movies will be rated low. Of course, some people disagree with that idea too, which brings me to my next point. 

 - "I don't like it because my taste is just so unique and nobody understands me." The problem with this mentality is that you have to understand the nature of people voting on these movies. They aren't interested in playing favorites, they just vote on which they think are the best movies for the same reason that you or I would: they thought it was funny, interesting, had beautiful camera work, etc. Of course, some people still want to cling to the belief that they are special unique snowflakes, and admitting that their taste is essentially like other people's would hurt their self-esteem. I suppose that those people cannot be saved. But for the rest of us rational people, making this leap and admitting that our taste is similar to others is very rewarding because then we start watching better, more entertaining movies. Good looks all around. 

 - "I don't like any of those online voting sites because somebody could just vote 902384 times and screw up the voting." While the other points could probably be argued for (incorrectly, but argued for nonetheless), this one is flawed beyond comprehension. If you want to vote, you have to create an account, which takes a certain amount of time, and you have to have your account verified with a valid e-mail address. On top of that, you have to vote for at least 10 movies and be considered a "regular voter" before your vote will be taken into consideration for the top 250 list. So while I suppose that it would be possible to skew the voting, one would have to do it literally full-time for a good amount of time to make any sort of statistical difference. 

 Now, I'm not saying that you have to (or should) base every movie you see completely on this site. But if you want to find a cool movie and don't know where to start, imdb.com can be a sweet resource. Happy watching.

The One-Year Anniversary

I've been jingling around the idea of doing a one-year anniversary post in my head for awhile now, and my anticipation of it has been palpable. My intention was to have the anniversary coincide with my 100th post, but alas, I was too giddy about writing those last couple of posts to stop myself from writing them. Luckily 101 is debatably (did you know that's not technically a word?) a cooler number, so it's gravy.

Anyway, now that I am 1 year and 100 posts in, I think it's fair to actually begin to consider myself a blogger (I hadn't really before because, eh, I didn't really know enough about it to say so). A few observations along the way:

-Blogging is a mentality. I find myself constantly searching my day for blog-worthy moments, typing myself notes in the datebook on my phone (which is bootleg since I can only type 55 characters), and generally being more curious about what's going on around me, because you never know, I could want to write about it later.

- The more you blog, the less importance you place on each individual post. I used to not post as much as I have been in the last two or three months, and I found it much more difficult to post. Each thing I wrote had more pressure on it because I wasn't doing many of them and it was likely going to stay at the top of my page for awhile. That problem no longer exists. If one of my posts is sub-par, I can just bury it by prolific updates until it is safely archived (I suppose I could delete it, but that seems like a cop out if I have ever seen one).

- Blogging creates communities. The main reason for this, I find, is that people who blog tend to be the people that read other people's blogs. They probably do this because a) they are more likely to be on the internet and generally reading articles to blog about themselves and b) they are more likely to respect the amount of effort that goes into your average post (OK, it's not all that much, but the idea is there). So when I tell somebody that they should start a blog, it's not only because I think they would enjoy it, it's also because they will be more likely to read mine and my friend's blogs. The blog community is a very real phenomenon.

Anyway, if this was my one year test, then count me in for the real thing. I enjoy it too much now to let go. Thanks for everyone that encourages me to keep doing it also, because while I often claim that I write mainly for myself, I love reading and responding to everyone's comments and I love the support. You all keep me on my toes. Here's to another year!

"Science is only about truth"

Coming back from a lecture the other day my friends and I were discussing how the speaker would have been more effective if he had been more dynamic and engaging. While I was interested enough in the subject matter to pay attention anyway, I could see why somebody would have been distracted by the somewhat bland manner of presentation.

Anyway, while we were walking, somebody walking behind us and unabashedly eavesdropping jumped into the conversation (which is money, btw, I completely respect the move) to make his point. His problem with our criticism was that to him science shouldn't need to engage the reader, because, in his own words, "science is only about the truth." While it was pretty funny to hear him say that, he's not the only one who shares that conviction. Listen, I realize that scientists can't explain every point using 5th grade terms, and that they need to be able to communicate efficiently with their colleagues. But I don't see any reason why they can't strive to be engaging to their audience and present their material in an interesting fashion. Many scientific articles and lectures are already presented in this manner, but there are still a certain subset of people that don't appear to believe that it matters, and it does. Science isn't only about the truth, it's also about making sure that people actually care enough to pay attention to it.

Climate change lecture

A couple of days ago Wally Broeker, Columbia University professor and leader in the fields of geology and earth science, came to speak at Vassar. He is widely respected for his work among his colleagues: he's written 9 books, 400+ scientific papers, and was awarded the national medal of science. Naturally, he has lots of ideas on global warming, and some of them were pretty interesting:

- Like most scientists I have heard on the subject, he agrees that the big question is not whether or not adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will increase the temperature, but instead how the earth will react to additional heat. Apparently there really is no precedent because the earth has never been this hot in recent eras.

- While he admits that at some point we will run out of oil, he told us that fossil fuels can be made out of coal too, so it will be a long time before we run out of fossil fuels. Given that 85% of our energy right now comes from fossil fuels, it is evident that we're going to have to find something to do about our fossil fuel problem.

- He claims that right now we are in a position where it will be nearly impossible to stop the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from doubling, but it is of the utmost importance that we stop it from tripling.

- While he advocates all sorts of alternative energy sources, the idea that he stressed was CO2 removal. Apparently, carbon dioxide can be liquefied at a pressure of 14 atmospheres. If it is liquefied, it will obviously be much more difficult to get into our atmosphere. According to Broeker, scientists right now are working on a prototype machine that will be able to do this, and they are going to announce it in a few months. They have not gone public earlier because they are worried that they won't get the patents. If this worked, we could find a way to release this liquid (which there would not be that much of) in a safe manner, such as at the bottom of the ocean where 85% of it would ionize.

Obviously, this last idea of Broeker's was the most interesting. I certainly hope it works, because based on the rest of his speach, we can use all the help we can get.