January 30, 2006
Vietnamese on the Vietnam War
A client recently went to Vietnam. He asked his Vietnamese tour guide there what people in Vietnam think about the Vietnam War, to which the tour guide responded, "I don't know why Americans always obsess over the Vietnam War. It is not our most recent war, it is not our bloodiest war, it is not our longest war, and we've been fighting the Europeans, particularly the French, these wars for independence for centuries, and this is just one in the middle of it."
Posted by Morgan at 01:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
January 29, 2006
Libertarians are odd: Why?
I just want to throw this question out there to get some feedback: libertarians I meet tend to be odd people, generally with idiosyncratic social standards and often making me think that they're all autistic (I might even include myself in this category!). If you've noticed this correlation too, let me ask you: what do you think could be the cause? Is there something about the individuality that libertarianism argues for that attracts, well, people who are very individualistic even in their social behavior? Or...?
Posted by Morgan at 01:02 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
January 28, 2006
Handbook & Manual
Yes, I should have realized it before but it never clicked: "Handbook" and "Manual" (in the sense of, an instruction book) have parallel etymologies: manual coming from the Latin root for hand (think of the Spanish "mano" for hand).
Posted by Morgan at 10:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 26, 2006
Paul Lukasiak
If you happen to went to Penn in the late '90s and read the popular upenn.talk, you will probably find it as so perfectly fitting and as wonderfully funny as I did to discover that Paul Lukasiak has re-emerged into the world, and is claiming credit for leading Mary Mapes of CBS to the Rathergate memos. The humor isn't in the claim, which is entirely believable; it is in the appropriateness of the local campus radical, famous in this small community for a few years for driving everyone away from the causes and spaces he held so dear, has now come back and unintentionally destroyed the career of one of the great public advocates for the causes he believes in, Dan Rather. He says at Kos:
I was rather surprised to see my name in the report, because "the Panel" made absolutely NO EFFORT to contact me at any point, despite the fact that, according to the panel, I was the person who lead 60 Minutes II to the Killian memos when I told Mapes about a rumor that someone had access to additional Bush documents---and I have spoken with Mapes on a number of occasions.
If you don't know who he is... don't worry about it. It's just a moment of local history.
Posted by Morgan at 10:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 23, 2006
Da Vinci Code = America; Umberto Eco = European
The Da Vinci Code seems to be the American version of Umberto Eco.
Umberto Eco is someone that I always should have enjoyed but I never could, and never could quite understand why. But, contrasting it with The Da Vinci Code, the explanation becomes clear. Umberto Eco is hyper-intellectual and historical novels -- which is wonderful in theory. But in practice, it is so European: flaunting their intelligence, being clever. The The Da Vinci Code code took the same formula -- the intellectual historical novel -- even revolving it around the same medieval Europe that is Umberto Eco's playground -- and made it fun: now, this smart genre appeals not just to the nerds, but to everyone.
This is, fundamentally, the culture gap between Europe and the US: we challenge our artists to demonstrate value in the marketplace or, said differently, to make lots of people happy. The European philosophers phrase their arguments in complex ways so that few understand; the American philosophers phrase their arguments in simple ways so everyone can understand. Hollywood vs. the French movie industry. Andy Warhol vs. the Louvre.
Posted by Morgan at 02:57 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
January 22, 2006
Blue Curacao = Triplesec
According to a waitress I was speaking to yesterday, Blue Curacao is Triplesec, colored blue. I had no idea.
Posted by Morgan at 03:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (2)
January 17, 2006
WWIV: Venezuela and Iran Lining up together
In the WSJ, Mary O'Grady, discusses the emerging alliance between Iran and Venezuela. She discusses the possibility that Iran is developing the capability to launch missiles against the continental US from Iranian "factories" being built there. This possibilty raises the stakes in a potential pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear capability.
Iran may take the position that a preemptive attack by the US or Isreal on Iran will result in chemical, biological, or even simply conventional launches against US cities. With US forces in Afghantistan and Iraq, the US is relatively well positioned to fight a war with Iran. War with Venezuela complicates things severely.
If the US also has to keep troops in South America, it for that period of time will lack a credible ability to support Taiwan or South Korea...
So, here is how the teams are shaping up.
Axis: Venezuela, Iran, Syria, China, North Korea, Cuba
Allies: US, England, Israel, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan.
(It is likely that Turkey and the Kurds can't be on the same team but it is hard to say which one will be on which side) (I am ignoring the rest of Europe because they don't have a deployable military capability)
You can make the argument that the allies are MUCH stronger than the axis so this would be a short fight. The issue here is that the fight will be HIGHLY destructive. Even without nukes, North Korea can wipe out much of the GDP of South Korea in 40 minutes. What happens if we lose the port of Miami? How does Saudi Arabia respond when Netanyahu nukes Tehran in retaliation for a chemical attack on Tel Aviv? How do Brazil and Argentina react to a US attack on Venezuela? It is not like they can't turn around a nuclear capability relatively quickly.
Iran's strategy of broadening the conflict outside of the Middle East is really smart of them. If they can do it, they can effectively deter a preemptive strike by the US or Israel. At the same time, their posession of nukes in the context of an alliance with Venezuela is an unacceptable risk for the US and forces it to act.
Iran's current missile technology gives them a reach of about 1500 miles. Close enoough to hit Miami, but not New York City...
2006 will be an interesting year.
Posted by Alex at 01:16 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Diplomacy in Argentina
The great board game Diplomacy was popular in Argentina -- but it was called there 1914. That's an odd name, since Diplomacy begins in 1901, not 1914. Why the different name? Because it's not the original game there -- the game was never authorized to be sold in Argentina -- but a local imitation. And, it's a small world: I know the grandson of the guy who did it!
Posted by Morgan at 01:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 15, 2006
The Entrepreneurial Generation
The Belmont Club writes of the "Entrepreneurial Generation (those born between 1977 and 2002)".
But isn't this the same generation that David Brooks (back in the pre-NY Times days, in a cover article for the Atlantic) called the "Organizational Kids"--people who worked within systems, up through them, rather than questioning them at the edges and creating things outside of them. This would be precisely the opposite of an entrepreneurial generation.
So, my question is: what statistical evidence do we have or could we collect that would help us guess whether this generation is more or less entrepreneurial than the one before it?
Posted by Morgan at 11:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 09, 2006
Professionals discussing their profession: Cocktail waitresses
Continuing an offhand point in my last post about learning about the different professions from members of that profession, I randomly came across this web site which is my new favorite site:
Yes, from a cocktail waitress. It is a wonderful read, everything is smart, subtle, perceptive, honest and sincere and without irony. I love it.
The pages on tipping tips, ordering tips, the FAQ. These are intended as instructions on how to buy drinks in casinos in Vegas, but, that aside, it's a great and honest view into how we all behave in bars--and how that comes off! For example:
"Are you going to school?"Maybe I get this question because I look kinda young (I mean, why yes... because I am young), but I think the real question behind this is, "Are you just doing this until you can get a real job?" It's true that some cocktail waitresses are going to school and are headed somewhere else when they graduate. But most of us consider cocktailing a real job. No, it's not emotionally rewarding like saving lives or discovering a new planet, but let's just put it this way...none of us are living in the poorhouse...and isn't that the ultimate goal of any "real" job?
My personal favorite is the page about "Who orders what" - yes, a group-by-group breakdown of which drinks people from each group drink according to her experience. You've always wanted to know what drinks Asians, yuppies, blacks, etc drink--find the list here.
Posted by Morgan at 01:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 08, 2006
Argentine vs. American Psychiatry
Today I was talking to a friend who is finishing up her degree to be psychiatrist -- discussing the possible veracity of the stereotype that all psychiatrists are crazy! -- and this led to her telling me about the differences between Argentine and American psychiatric standards. My friend made the excellent point that, within the psychiatry profession, the Argentine psychiatry schools and methods are known for deeply emphasizing psychoanalysis, psychodynamics, sex, and Freud above everything else. The American school is known for emphasizing cognitivie behavior.
Learning this explained a lot anecdotally - my Argentine psychiatric friends psychanalysis and sex much more than my American psychiatric friends - but more importantly, it reminded me of the harmony in the universe: the difference between the Argentine and American emphases within the psychiatric profession (at least according to this one professional--I know no more data) is consistent with the differences between the Americans and Argentins on almost every other axis that I can think of!
(PS: I love learning about how professionals act, from people within a profession, in regards to professions that I know absolutely nothing about!)
Posted by Morgan at 05:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
January 06, 2006
"Probable Cause" is a Software Specification
The recent discussion of the legality of NSA intercepts has put the general concept of computer surveillance back on the table. The question is whether it is okay for the government to "data-mine" large public communication flows or databases for criminal or enemy activity. Put more directly, the questio is what is the nature of "probable cause" in an era of high speed data communication and large computerized databases.
In the past cops had beats, watched places to which they had access,
learned the patterns of the people in those places, and defined
exceptions to those patterns as probable cause which when approved by
a judge would entitle them to investigate further.
Today, it is data that travels rather than people. Police need the
same broad power to observe standard patterns of behavior that they
have always had. Because humans can't manually process all of this
traffic, they need software to do so. The definition of probable
cause in these cases is therefore embodied in the software used to monitor data networks and search databases. A judge should be able to approve the software a-priori, in which case all results of using this software are automatically approved. Or a-posteriori, in which case, the authorities run the risk that a judge may require that all results must be excluded from evidence (just like any
other evidence obtained without a warrant).
In other words, for modern databases and communication networks, a
search warrant should not need to specify the entity to be searched it should specify the query/program needed to determine that entity.
Posted by Alex at 11:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
January 05, 2006
My, how blogs change
I used to enjoy reading Brad DeLong's blog daily and, after having not looked at it for perhaps two or three years now, I went back (following a link from Marginal Revolution).
The result? I used to enjoy his short, to-the-point, smart analysis of everything--and a couple of ones each day! Denbeste would call him a "thinker." But his blog now: just about all of the ~16 entries are links to and excerpts from other articles and blogs. Denbeste would now call him a "linker." No wonder I stopped reading: his analyses are always more interesting to me than his choice of links.
The slow change in Delong's blog reminds us that it is hard to keep up producing quality content over time. Denbeste's retirement himself demonstrated this point more than anything else. The contrast between the two is interesting: when Denbeste couldn't keep it up anymore, he retired and started a fun blog only about Anime; but when Delong couldn't, he--over time--just slowly and mostly imperceptibly lowered the quality of the blog by writing less and linking more.
Implicit in the above is that linking blogs are of a lower quality than thinking blogs. That may or may not be true (is Glenn Reynolds blog of a lower quality than Denbeste's? I don't know, the answer isn't obvious to me). But what is true is that, if you have the high standards of being one type, and then change into a mediocre version of the other type, then it's the result is more disappointment than anything else.
Another lesson from this: in the blogosphere a few years ago, there was a good ratio of thinkers-to-linkers. But what has happened is that the number of linkers has grown much much more than the number of thinkers (a number which shrunk disproportionately on Denbeste's retirement!). Now, there are endless linkers pointing to the same, small set of content.
Yet another lesson: being a good thinker doesn't imply you're a good linker, and vice-versa--they're different skill sets.
A final lesson: if you see something every day, it's hard to notice change; but if you don't see something for a long time and then return, it becomes obvious what has changed.
Posted by Morgan at 09:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
