I sang this song with the choir back in middle school. We got either second or third place in the Hong Kong wide competition with this.
Although my middle school years were mostly terrible, this song has always stuck with me. It floats into my thoughts every once in a while.
Can You Hear Me?
(By Bob Chilcott)
I look around me as I grow
I'd
like to tell you all I know
I see life with all its energy
The
city streets, the rush time
This is my world, it's where I like to be
So
much to see, so much to find
I sometimes sit and wait a while
See
the sun, it makes me smile
Can you see it
Can you see it too
I
feel life with all its energy
The joy of waking every day
This is
my world, it's where I like to be
So much to do, so much to say
I
sometimes sit and feel the sun
Its warmth is there for everyone
Can
you feel it
Can you feel it too
My world is a silent one
But
it's enough for me
I hear you through your hands
The movement
sets me free
But it could be a special thing
To hear your voice
To
hear your sing
Can you hear me
Can you hear me too
Intermediate
Unknown, 2010-05-15
I have another post in the writing, but I want so share my discovery that my experiment on Craigslist is no unique. At least two other people have done it before: Simon Owens, whose results were "tame" like mine, and Jason Fortuny, who posted all the replies he got on Encyclopedia Dramatica (both of these are definitely NSFW). I believe several people lost their job over the Fortuny case, and more had to deal with problems in their family.
On the ethics over Fortuny's case, I happen to think he should not be punished. Legal considerations aside, I think the fault lies mostly on the people who replied to his ad for giving personal information to a stranger on the Internet. Without evidence otherwise, the worst case assumption should always be made.
That said, I don't think Fortuny is a shining example of how humans should act, either.
On the ethics over Fortuny's case, I happen to think he should not be punished. Legal considerations aside, I think the fault lies mostly on the people who replied to his ad for giving personal information to a stranger on the Internet. Without evidence otherwise, the worst case assumption should always be made.
That said, I don't think Fortuny is a shining example of how humans should act, either.
Prologue to Jurassic Park
Unknown, 2010-05-11
I've only written once about the environment and environmental causes, although that was in reference to a larger issue. My apathy is mentioned in passing elsewhere as well. I might have eventually written more on the subject, but I just discovered that the prologue to Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park (now a major motion picture) very articulately explains my views. It is copied below for your enjoyment.
You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land.
Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years.
Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety.
Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. Do you think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine.
When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time.
A hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.
Cross Acting
Unknown, 2010-05-08
I don't get in trouble often, but I consider myself something of a rebel. I don't like organizations in the general much - I prefer groups that are more self organized and sustained. Sometimes I do weird things for amusement, like pretending I don't know a secret to see whether the secret holder would divulge it.
This time, I posted a Criagslist ad... in Women Seeking Men.
The primary question I wanted answered was whether men on the internet are really crazy. Some of my female friends have posted ads for fun, and later compared their replies. What they found was that some emails were exact copies of each other - some people just write the same response to everything, looking for a shag. That story had a twist ending for my friend, but that's not my story to tell.
A word on the post: I didn't write the ad myself - I would never have passed as a female writer. I won't copy the post here, but it was itself copied from the blog of a friend. We haven't talked since I graduated from Northwester, and even before then I don't think she knew I read her writing. She is an objectivist before I read The Fountainhead, and the post expresses a related sentiment: her wish for someone who doesn't want only to please her, but someone who can contribute something of themselves to her. In the words of Ayn Rand, a prime mover, not a second hander. Regardless, I never told her I used her writing (if you're reading this, you should email me), so I don't feel right posting her work even with attribution.
First, some statistics. I got 50 replies in total, the first within the hour, the last almost a month later. About 60% replied within 5 days. 12 of the 50 replies had photos attached, and a few more had links to either MySpace pages or some other picture hosting site. A small minority didn't bother to write proper English for the task, and a few more asked questions which made me think they didn't read the post at all. Although it wasn't unexpected, there were several older men who replied. For an ad declaring the poster to be 22, I got a reply from someone 17 years older. It reminds me of what OKTrends found. Of the 50 replies, two were duplicates; the senders sent the same email twice.
My most common reaction (subject to availability bias) is: who do you think you are? Granted, the post is a little self indulgent, but they are still the suitors. What I had posted talks about an intellectual pursuits... and a fair number talk about sex, and how they "know what a women [sic] wants in the sex department" and that "[I] want to be seduced". At the bottom of the pile is a reply that promised to "open that box of hidden desire and fantasy". I want to puke.
On the other hand, I suspect some responders are delusional. One ranted on about hidden treasure. One had a "real" picture of himself tensing up. A few wrote poems.
As for the good... there aren't the many. The ones I like best (again subject to bias, this time of a different kind) were simpler. They mention how old they are, what they do and like doing (somewhat passionately), and invite me to reply. A picture, if one is included, is a simple face shot. Three people mentioned books/authors, one of them being Ayn Rand. Only a single person mentioned something interesting - by quoting an article on the large hadron collider.
Hypothesis: most men who reply to Craigslist personals are douchebags.
Result: Confirmed.
Maybe next time I'll reply to a men seeking women ad (the doucheist one... is that a word?), and see what I get.
This time, I posted a Criagslist ad... in Women Seeking Men.
The primary question I wanted answered was whether men on the internet are really crazy. Some of my female friends have posted ads for fun, and later compared their replies. What they found was that some emails were exact copies of each other - some people just write the same response to everything, looking for a shag. That story had a twist ending for my friend, but that's not my story to tell.
A word on the post: I didn't write the ad myself - I would never have passed as a female writer. I won't copy the post here, but it was itself copied from the blog of a friend. We haven't talked since I graduated from Northwester, and even before then I don't think she knew I read her writing. She is an objectivist before I read The Fountainhead, and the post expresses a related sentiment: her wish for someone who doesn't want only to please her, but someone who can contribute something of themselves to her. In the words of Ayn Rand, a prime mover, not a second hander. Regardless, I never told her I used her writing (if you're reading this, you should email me), so I don't feel right posting her work even with attribution.
First, some statistics. I got 50 replies in total, the first within the hour, the last almost a month later. About 60% replied within 5 days. 12 of the 50 replies had photos attached, and a few more had links to either MySpace pages or some other picture hosting site. A small minority didn't bother to write proper English for the task, and a few more asked questions which made me think they didn't read the post at all. Although it wasn't unexpected, there were several older men who replied. For an ad declaring the poster to be 22, I got a reply from someone 17 years older. It reminds me of what OKTrends found. Of the 50 replies, two were duplicates; the senders sent the same email twice.
My most common reaction (subject to availability bias) is: who do you think you are? Granted, the post is a little self indulgent, but they are still the suitors. What I had posted talks about an intellectual pursuits... and a fair number talk about sex, and how they "know what a women [sic] wants in the sex department" and that "[I] want to be seduced". At the bottom of the pile is a reply that promised to "open that box of hidden desire and fantasy". I want to puke.
On the other hand, I suspect some responders are delusional. One ranted on about hidden treasure. One had a "real" picture of himself tensing up. A few wrote poems.
As for the good... there aren't the many. The ones I like best (again subject to bias, this time of a different kind) were simpler. They mention how old they are, what they do and like doing (somewhat passionately), and invite me to reply. A picture, if one is included, is a simple face shot. Three people mentioned books/authors, one of them being Ayn Rand. Only a single person mentioned something interesting - by quoting an article on the large hadron collider.
Hypothesis: most men who reply to Craigslist personals are douchebags.
Result: Confirmed.
Maybe next time I'll reply to a men seeking women ad (the doucheist one... is that a word?), and see what I get.
Smashing Cars
Unknown, 2010-05-06
I'm kinda unhappy with the latest MythBusters episode, the one about two cars smashing into each other at 50 mph is equivalent to one car smashing into a wall at 50 mph.
The way they tested the myth on a small scale was by swinging two pendulums into each other, with each pendulum containing a lump of clay and an additional weight in the back. The second weight would squash the clay, and from the deformation the impact of the smash can be visualized. It's a pretty clever rig.
My problem, however, is not with the rig; it's with the interpretation of the myth. There are two ways in which the two crashes can be "equivalent": from the perspective of the car, which is what the MythBusters tested, and from the perspective of something in the middle. Since the original myth is about a compact car being squished between two semis, it would seem that this myth should be about the latter interpretation. And in that case, I believe the crashes are, in fact, equivalent.
As an educational show, I think MythBusters should have at least covered this other scenario, and shown how the "myth" is more of an interpretation issue.
The way they tested the myth on a small scale was by swinging two pendulums into each other, with each pendulum containing a lump of clay and an additional weight in the back. The second weight would squash the clay, and from the deformation the impact of the smash can be visualized. It's a pretty clever rig.
My problem, however, is not with the rig; it's with the interpretation of the myth. There are two ways in which the two crashes can be "equivalent": from the perspective of the car, which is what the MythBusters tested, and from the perspective of something in the middle. Since the original myth is about a compact car being squished between two semis, it would seem that this myth should be about the latter interpretation. And in that case, I believe the crashes are, in fact, equivalent.
As an educational show, I think MythBusters should have at least covered this other scenario, and shown how the "myth" is more of an interpretation issue.
Pascal's Wager, Part 2
Unknown, 2010-05-03
I have written about Pascal's Wager before, but I never finished that post. A few days ago I came across a video, which finally closed the case on that argument for me.
The inspiration is this, which I found on Reddit. Most of the video is junk and doesn't hold up to my standards of reason. Something at the end caught my attention though, and I came up with the following argument.
Recall that the problem with Pascal's wager is that, unlike most arguments about God, it's a completely rational. It frames the problem in turns of expected utilities, which is the standard practice in decision theory. The following payoff matrix summarizes the wager:
Richard Dawkin's argument, that believing in God has a cost while living, doesn't hold up, as any cost incurred while alive is only finite, and does not offset the infinite payoff of being in heaven.
Pascal's wager is that simple. The video over-complicates and sets up several straw men (eg. Pascal not knowing what God is but then contradicting himself) and ad hominem attacks (eg. Pascal's bias towards Christianity). While the claim that Pascal ignores other gods is true, his wager still works - as long as gods reward belief, the expected utility is still to believe in god(s). The existence of non-god systems (frog's dream, video game, etc), doesn't matter, as they don't offer any utility. The gem of the video is in a 3 second frame: for every unknowable idea that rewards a particular behavior, another unknowable idea will punish that very same behavior.
Here's my new argument. Pascal's wager depends on supposing a Christian god, with the payoff matrix above. Since, however, the existence of the Christian god is unknown, it is equally valid to posit a different god (let's call Him AntiPascal), with different payoffs. In particular, let's imagine a god that will send people to heaven only if they don't believe in any god, and will send people to hell if they do. What does the payoff matrix look like?
That's right - everything looks almost exactly the same, except the signs on those infinities switched. By this payoff matrix, people should not believe in gods at all.
So which payoff matrix is right? We don't know. To properly calculate the expected utility of believing in god(s), we need to know the probability of each payoff matrix itself - that is, the probability that the Christian god is real (and has the payoff matrix specified), and the probability that the AntiPascal god exists. Both of these probabilities, it turns out, is unknowable - and therefore the expected utility of believing or not believe in god cannot be compared.
Given the odds, Pascal's wager is not one you want to bet on - there's simply no telling whether you win or lose. While this is no argument against the belief in god, it is no longer the purely rational argument for it either.
The funny thing is, although this argument is new to me, the reasoning behind it is not. As Richard Dawkins himself has said several times, most theists are in fact atheists to all other religions. Real atheists just go one further.
The inspiration is this, which I found on Reddit. Most of the video is junk and doesn't hold up to my standards of reason. Something at the end caught my attention though, and I came up with the following argument.
Recall that the problem with Pascal's wager is that, unlike most arguments about God, it's a completely rational. It frames the problem in turns of expected utilities, which is the standard practice in decision theory. The following payoff matrix summarizes the wager:
| God Exists | God Doesn't Exist | |
|---|---|---|
| Believe in God | +Infinity | 0 |
| Don't Believe in God | -Infinity | 0 |
Richard Dawkin's argument, that believing in God has a cost while living, doesn't hold up, as any cost incurred while alive is only finite, and does not offset the infinite payoff of being in heaven.
Pascal's wager is that simple. The video over-complicates and sets up several straw men (eg. Pascal not knowing what God is but then contradicting himself) and ad hominem attacks (eg. Pascal's bias towards Christianity). While the claim that Pascal ignores other gods is true, his wager still works - as long as gods reward belief, the expected utility is still to believe in god(s). The existence of non-god systems (frog's dream, video game, etc), doesn't matter, as they don't offer any utility. The gem of the video is in a 3 second frame: for every unknowable idea that rewards a particular behavior, another unknowable idea will punish that very same behavior.
Here's my new argument. Pascal's wager depends on supposing a Christian god, with the payoff matrix above. Since, however, the existence of the Christian god is unknown, it is equally valid to posit a different god (let's call Him AntiPascal), with different payoffs. In particular, let's imagine a god that will send people to heaven only if they don't believe in any god, and will send people to hell if they do. What does the payoff matrix look like?
| God Exists | God Doesn't Exist | |
|---|---|---|
| Believe in God(s) | -Infinity | 0 |
| Don't Believe in God(s) | +Infinity | 0 |
That's right - everything looks almost exactly the same, except the signs on those infinities switched. By this payoff matrix, people should not believe in gods at all.
So which payoff matrix is right? We don't know. To properly calculate the expected utility of believing in god(s), we need to know the probability of each payoff matrix itself - that is, the probability that the Christian god is real (and has the payoff matrix specified), and the probability that the AntiPascal god exists. Both of these probabilities, it turns out, is unknowable - and therefore the expected utility of believing or not believe in god cannot be compared.
Given the odds, Pascal's wager is not one you want to bet on - there's simply no telling whether you win or lose. While this is no argument against the belief in god, it is no longer the purely rational argument for it either.
The funny thing is, although this argument is new to me, the reasoning behind it is not. As Richard Dawkins himself has said several times, most theists are in fact atheists to all other religions. Real atheists just go one further.
Updates
Unknown, 2010-04-28
I clearly haven't written here for a while. I have a post halfway written about an adventure on Craigslist (no, it's not from the m2m personals...), which I will finish eventually. For now, here's part of an email I sent to my family.
It was because both of these projects were due last week
that I didn't have time to write this email. I was awake both Monday
night and Thursday night writing reports, and so had very little sleep.
It was fun though; I felt invigorated by how much work I was doing.
There's a quote from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (Dominique, for those curious), when a character says,
"This is how I want to keep going - if there's a reason for it." That
was how I felt on morning after staying up - that having a reason to
drive myself that hard is the best feeling.
I'm also done with my teaching duties for now. The final exam for that class was on Friday, so we graded everything by Saturday evening. My discussion sections and the class in general is smaller this semester than the last. I got to know the students a little better, but not in pro[portion to the decrease in size. I did realize something though - that I should spend the first few session actively encouraging the students to talk to each other. It's really annoying when you ask a question and no one wants to answer it. So the discussions were not as lively, there were less jokes, and overall it was a little less enjoyable.
Oh, I got an award for being a good TA last semester, which is nice. It also came with an extra check, which is also nice.
On the research front... I'm really digging in now. For a short while back in February I was really uncertain how everything would turn out. That period of doubt clarified my feelings a little - I'm sure now that teaching would have a part in my future, more so than research. On the other hand, very soon after that, I found a topic that I'm pretty interested in, so much that I spent all of this morning reading. We'll see how it turns out. I got put on the spot today to give a 10 minute presentation at a workshop in three weeks time, which means I really have to get my thoughts together and present a coherent picture of what's going on in the field, and what I want to do.
I just got done with the semester over the weekend. If you'll
remember, I'm taking two classes:
- Advanced AI. Like I said last time, this course is oriented towards getting students to read current research and to think critically about it. I think the course did a good job of that - we had to read a large number of papers, all over the map in terms of area. It's interesting too to see how different students react to ideas differently, as well as what areas of AI they are interested in. The final project for the course is to reimplement a study, and see whether their claims hold up. In retrospect, I should have chosen a different paper. Mine was on a relatively simple method of understanding how the world around you changes due to your actions. Although it was an interesting paper, the algorithms and methods were not very well specified, which makes it hard to test. It was also short with very few references, so there's no extra material I could refer to either. I finished it, but I would have enjoyed it more if the paper was more substantial.
- Programming Languages turned out to be more fun than I thought. The
basic premise of the course is how to prevent programmers from doing
stupid things, and how the computer can automatically detect these
errors and notify the coder. We also read a lot of papers here, although
a lot of them were older papers. The areas were also more biased
towards people without much background, so although we looked at four
different methods, we only studied one or two in depth. The final
project here was up to us, and I decided to (again) reimplement a paper,
this time checking for errors in their presentation. I discovered a few
of them, as well as a general problem with the approach it was taking.
Because this work is actually someone's thesis back in 2006, everything
was documented properly, and I have very little trouble following their
work. All this means that I should make my code public when I publish a
paper.
I'm also done with my teaching duties for now. The final exam for that class was on Friday, so we graded everything by Saturday evening. My discussion sections and the class in general is smaller this semester than the last. I got to know the students a little better, but not in pro[portion to the decrease in size. I did realize something though - that I should spend the first few session actively encouraging the students to talk to each other. It's really annoying when you ask a question and no one wants to answer it. So the discussions were not as lively, there were less jokes, and overall it was a little less enjoyable.
Oh, I got an award for being a good TA last semester, which is nice. It also came with an extra check, which is also nice.
On the research front... I'm really digging in now. For a short while back in February I was really uncertain how everything would turn out. That period of doubt clarified my feelings a little - I'm sure now that teaching would have a part in my future, more so than research. On the other hand, very soon after that, I found a topic that I'm pretty interested in, so much that I spent all of this morning reading. We'll see how it turns out. I got put on the spot today to give a 10 minute presentation at a workshop in three weeks time, which means I really have to get my thoughts together and present a coherent picture of what's going on in the field, and what I want to do.
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