July 2004 Archives

I just figured out how "The Asian Sensation's Photo Gallery" works. There's a lot of flattering pictures of a lot of flattering people.

I'm reading Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt for school and I had an interesting thought about it. It's one of those books that was part of the fabulous explosion of literature from the 1920s. It's not bad, although not fantastic either; it spends a huge amount of time lamenting the superficiality of the era, and particularly criticizes conformance.

This is all well and good, and I agree that a strong conformitory environment is bad for society, but something occurred to me. In Babbitt and many other similar novels, conformance is portrayed as an effect of modernity. I got to thinking about this, and it is completely false. Yes, there was strong conformance in the early 20th century modernization (and still is today), but this conformance has existed in most preceding societies. Major societies from Europe to Asia have exhibited a strong tendency toward encouraging the herd instinct. There have long been strict orthodox religions and strong family traditions in the west and the east. Even more ancient societies (i.e. hunter/gather) show the same trend, albeit manifested in a different way. Cultural conformance is very important in these societies and traditions are held sacred in a way that is akin to conformance. Therefore, although I don't have much time to do so (need to pack for ASE conference at OSU), I would argue that the (post)modernist literary perspective of conformance being a consequence of modernization is largely false. It seems to me that conformance is merely a human instinct: the herd instinct. In fact, I'm beginning to believe that the only reason why this conformance in modern society is so apparent to us is because it is beginning to be challenged. One of the fundamental conflicts of modern societies is balancing tradition with the need for progress. Progress challenges tradition and conformance, and therefore that force within society is much more obvious to the acute modern observer.

We tried out the new cell design today and it is really cool. It's way better than the old design and hopefully should give respectable mass loss. The excess heat results for the day were strong, but were coming from the opposite cell that should have produced it, based on about 35 hours of previous electrolysis data. In any case, Dash was pretty excited about it all.

All of this thermodynamics, or thermal physics (whatever it's called), is pretty messy stuff. That, and the fact that my partial derivative skills aren't so sharp are really frustrating me now. It's filled with experimental proportionality constants and some other screwy things. Curse it all!

I'm just starting to realize that I'm getting a rather large amount of blog-spam: comments that are basically the equivalent to spam. At least the genitalia enlargement ones have stopped. Now we're just getting a bunch of online casino ones from Japan. It's hard work deleting them all.

A subtle irony, or hypocrisy even, occurred to me while I was thinking about Thus Spake Zarathustra. Actually, let me back up. Someone wrote a rather vulgar and brazenly honest (by that, I mean negative) comment of me, personally, in a recent entry. I went something like: "You didn't come to our leadership camp, so therefore you're a bad person [this reasoning is quite lame, so one must assume that there are other unstated actions which have aroused distaste against me], and your future will be filled with misfortune." I was quite surprised by this and figure that the person clearly didn't realize that I didn't go to leadership camp because I'm working 40 hours a week on cold fusion research at PSU, taking a class on differential calculus for 8 hours a week, teaching myself integral caculus and physics, and doing some music. It's called prioritization. But then again, some people don't view science, music, and literature as priorities, just like I don't view the unnecessary superfluities of human interaction to be that great of a priority (I sense bias in that statement). In short, they are the aspects of humanity I find beautiful.

Well, there it was, the word "humanity" had popped into my head and I was reminded of Nietzsche's belief on the overcoming of humanity and the overman and all of that semi-romantic existential optimism, blah, blah, blah. But Nietzsche was a great critic of the quantity, believing that it inhibits quality. He had great trouble believing in the Darwinian version of nature, as it implied that numbers were naturally more important to success than biological quality. This dislike for the masses is easy to aquire in general, given the tendency for the mass to behave using the psychological principle of groupthink, as developed by the Yale psychologist Irving Janis. This is what the Senate Intelligence Committee is accusing CIA analysts of succumbing to (in general, it's absolute balderdash and is merely an example of corrupt politicians covering up for their unbelievable incompetance, John Edwards included). And yet it is to these same masses that I owe my class presidency. It's rather ironic and hypocritical.

As for my role in student government, I believe that it is time for me to work on a major streamlining of function. Now that I am finally older, I should have more power. With Leeor on the cabinet, we should be able to accomplish a massive increase in efficiency: reduction in budget, an increase in money raised, reduction in incompetance, transfer of the saved and additionally raised money to more worthwhile things like science and the arts... oh the list goes on. I'm a strong believer in extending the impeachment powers to combat things like incompetance, laziness, tardiness, and poor attendence within the class. We should not of course punish people if they are simply not naturally as productive as others, but only if they are not trying hard. Social status and equality should be divided on the premise of how hard one tries. I can't speak about the camp that I missed, but I can say that the class already works very well together. The part that I hate though, is that the only thing that the class works well toward is the state of total unproductiveness. I like to view this as an economy. Last year, we were employing anarchist economics due to the previous teacher's miserable job of running things. It is obvious that capitalist reforms need to occur; things need to become more cutthroat. The problem with capitalism is that it leaves people behind and creates social stratification. Using the economic analogy, a capitalist model would not share these same flaws in this instance. Because this is an elective of sorts, participation in our analagous "economy" is not mandatory, nor does failure in the "economy of leadership" constitute a failure of any kind in general society. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that anyone would be "left behind" because everyone in the "economy" would theoretically already be capable of succeeding within it, because they chose to take part. Unlike standard capitalist economies, the success of the individual in this one is not dependent on the failure or subjugation of other individuals within the system. Ha! This is beautiful.

The most beautiful part of it all though, is the psychological principle being demonstrated. The person who wrote the previously referred comment is probably quaking with rage at my flaming pretension (I think I may have outdone myself this time!). Undoubtedly, this person is also ready to write a comment chastising me for my patronizing, bourgeoisie arrogance. By specifically targeting this predicted impulse, I can obtain a reaction. That is the essence of power and control, something that people forget today. So the point has nothing to do with the petty soap of opera of high school anything. The point is that the human mind is a shallow pitiful thing easily persuaded perversely into a desired action or belief. The war in Iraq is an example of this. How on earth did everyone in America start vehemently supporting evidence that never really existed? In hind sight it was quite obvious that much of it never existed. So whether you support(ed) the war or not, THINK dammit, just THINK. The mind too easily sinks into a passive state these days, when things like TV, video games, etc. are so prolific that they can consume the better part of a person's reality. Passiveness is slavery.

As an aside: Politics these days are enraging me beyond belief. I firmly believe that we should have a recall of the presidency, the entire House, the entire Senate, and consider making the director of the CIA and FBI publically elected positions.

"So act that you will be willing to act in just that manner an infinite number of times."

--Friedrich Nietzsche

Now that the campaign is getting under way and the nominating conventions are just a bit away, I feel that some good political analysis is in order. "Analysis about what?" you ask. Analysis about Dick Cheney. That's right. Mr. Vice President.

Recently, there have been some calls from various factions of Republicans that it may be time for dear Dubya to dup Dick. Undoubtedly, this criticism of the vice president is in response to the temporary jump in opinion that Democrats have experienced since Kerry named Edwards as his running mate. Temporarily, at least, some Republicans are clearly uncomfortable with Dick Cheney as the vice president and here's why. There's three reasons: 1) image 2) health 3) candidacy for president.

Even, the most loyal Republican has to admit that Cheney suffers from a minor image problem, which has only been magnified since the charismatic Edwards has been nominated. Liberals excluded, many moderates sense Cheney as somewhat cold, calculating, and aloof. His incredible experience and intelligence simply can only do so much for his image. It is worrisome that against Edwards he could appear lackluster even though he may be more intellectually acute. With Cheney, Republicans are banking on voters' ability to see through more to the candidates' and their issues. This may be overoptimistic looking at the 2000 Election: it was perfectly obvious to anyone who looked objectively at the issues that Ralph Nader was the best choice. Lo and behold, it was not Nader, nor the cold, stiff Gore, but the humorous and barely-charming Bush that won.

Cheney's poor health only compounds his image problem. People want to have a good guarantee that their vice-president is not going to break down from poor health in the middle of his service. Regardless of the likelihood of this happening to Cheney, it still affects the perception of him.

Perhaps the most concerning problem of all is the fact that Cheney will almost certainly not be the Republican presidential candidate for 2008. There are plenty more Republicans with equally good resumes that have more charisma and vitality for the candidacy. Cheney is simply not good at populist politics, but he excels at working at policy out of the spotlight.

In any case, several factors play to the vice president's advantage. He is extremely popular among much of the Republican base and could help voter turnout. Furthermore, the element of continuity between the current administration and the possible next Bush White House is very important. People will feel much more comfortable voting for Bush if he does not appear to be scrambling so late in the campaign, and if many of the key players in the possible next administration are the same as they are now. As the Republican campaign seems to depend on this element of stability, security, and experience with terrorism and foreign relations, keeping the administration constant may prove advantageous.

Sorry for typos, it's late. I've got to get to bed.

Let's face it, Bernhard Riemann was a pretty incredibly guy. What I still don't understand though is why it took around 200 years for the Riemann sum definition of a definite integral to come around. It seems kind of obvious and intuitive. Then again, most things do seem that way after one learns them. I just spent the last hour computing definite integrals with Riemann sums and it is an incredible pain. My computation for:

⌠2
│ x³ dx
⌡1

takes up 2/3 of a page. That's most likily due to this horrendous habit of writing my math neatly, which is being ingrained into me at my class at PCC (we're starting derivatives!! Woohoo!). My theory is that they do so little teaching there that they have to teach something that can be done quickly and easily, so they may as well force you to write neatly. What a waste of time. As long as the answer is legible, and it's right, that's what matters. I don't know what all of this nonsense about process and such is. Blah, blah, blah. The answer is 3.75, by the way. The experience has turned me into a big fan of Newton and especially Leibniz.

My AP grade report came today. I got a 5 on the US History test (tests graded from 1-5). It was better than I had predicted. I felt that I was squarely in the middle of 4 territory. I'm not complaining.

Congratulations to everyone who didn't waste their parents' $88+ by passing their APs. And double congratulations to everyone who contributed to the congenial atmosphere of academic arse-whooping by scoring 5s on them.

Whoa, so now I read an article in the Oregonian saying that the Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously endorsed a report stating that most of the evidence upon which the invasion of Iraq was based is false. It's absolutely mindboggling that so much of this so-called intelligence could be entirely false. What's even more mindboggling is that people didn't realize this earlier. Neither the Bush administration nor the Senate nor the House, nor anyone else ever present tangible evidence of a significant threat from Iraq since 1998. They worked awfully hard at it though. Remember those mobile weapons labs that were moving unchecking and unseen by UN weapons inspectors around Iraq? Remember how no one ever found them? I'm not saying that they couldn't have existed, I'm just pointing out how "horrible" of a threat Iraq posed to us. Even Colin Powell's absurdly overhyped speech to the UN General Assembly that was supposed to "make the case" for war presented hardly any hard evidence that placed the threat from Iraq even close to that from North Korea. It's turned out that all of my pessimistic worst-case scenarios of the Iraq invasion have all come true. There was no occupation plan, there were no weapons of mass destruction, and it's incredibly costly and difficult to implant democracy in a place that is: highly religious, ethnically polarized, without a tradition of representative government, and not economically prosperous.

For sure, the latest report plants the blame clearly on the intelligence community, but should they be the only ones to blame. The question remains as to how more than 90% of the Senate voted for the war, and why Bush lobbied extensively in the international arena to create support for the war when there was never much hard evidence for it. Or, was there hard evidence that was just fabricated by the CIA or NSA or something? The pieces never fit together, and even with this latest report they still don't fit together.

I forgot to mention the most exciting news! We calculated 4 watts of excess power for our experiment today!! With an input of about 15.5 W that is incredible. The effect seems to be enhanced by having the electrolyte temperature closer to boiling. We hit 95° C today. I'm still quite doubtful as to whether today's calculation was truly accurate. I'll need more evidence before I'll begin to be impressed. At best, it's encouraging thus far. At worst, it's downright baffling. I'm thinking that it's a bit more of the latter, especially given the occasional mild heckling by my peers.

I was thinking about writing and I came up with a mildly compelling idea for an essay that's only (tragically) mildly satiric and sarcastic. Does anyone here know anything about the social organization of various species of ants, most specifically the genera Polyergus and Formica? Now there's some interesting stamp-collecting--I mean, biology... (cough), (cough).

I just got home and my room is a mess from all of the things that my sister has desposited in it. Necesito ir. I can barely speak Spanish anymore. Prepare yourself for a very long and interesting entry to come. It will make up for all of my recent speechlessness.

Oh, and one more quick story. Now that I'm sort of working in a semi-academic setting, I ran into the famed "data: plural or singular?" argument. I hope that everyone knows that it's not really an argument. It's more like a matter of convention, but even that is pushing it. I like to think of it as a matter of right and wrong, because in reality that's what it is: the illiterati messing up everyone else's grammar in their ignorance. Anyway, this other high school student with whom I'm working argued vehemently with me for several minutes that the word "data" is actually like "water" or "wheat" in the sense that it can be used in the singular with collective meaning. Eventually I deconstructed his argument so he was arguing purely from some Anglo-centric aesthete perspective. He never broke down completely. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it very much because of stories I've heard from readers who have had papers rejected on account of using the wrong number demonstrative or context with "data" or "datum." It kind of felt like I was holding up some kind of sacred rule: like the grammar of the Latin language perhaps?

Well, I'm finally over the hump of derivatives and into the promised land: integrals. It's slightly ironic that they teach the much more ancient calculus after the more modern, but I guess it makes sense because derivatives are easier than integrals. The profound power of the limit also struck me today. It doesn't seem very special at first, but it's quite amazing.

I told you I'd fix the bug when I had time. It took about 45 seconds.

Do, hodiaŭ estas la 4-a de julio kaj mi volas ĉiun havi bonan ferion. Ni iris al Hood River, urbeto en la Kolombia Interkrutejo, kaj ĝi estas tre malgranda sed intereseta. La pelado estis longeta ankaŭ.

Pli frue ĉi tiu semajno mi akiris tre fabelegan libron nomitan "Being Colloquial in Esperanto: A Reference Guide." La libraro akiris ĝin pro mia peto. Ĝi estas plenuza gvido de progresintaj aspektoj de Esperanto. Estas ankaŭ multa humuro. Havu ĉi tiun ekzemplon pri la vortordo kaj la vortkunmetado en la lingvo: "Oranĝkantonpafillimigaktivulmalamanto" (mi kredas...). Tiu libro estas tiel bona, ke ĝin mi eble aĉetos.

En aliaj novaĵoj, bone fartas mi internservo ĉe Portlandŝtata Universitato. Tre proksimtempo havos mi rapidan interretkontaktiĝon. Ĉi tiu vendrede ricevos la bazajn materialojn por krei la kontaktiĝon. Baldaŭ post tiu, la sendratan reton mi finos. Feliĉeco!

"In science, there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting."

-Ernest Rutherford