Guesswork Theory

Your Phone Can Fly You to the Moon

2009-12-19T00:20:00.007-05:00

Ever since my 4th grade teacher explained to me and my classmates that our classroom computer was hundreds of times faster than the computer which sent a man to the moon, I've been fascinated by how NASA has affected technological innovation in the U.S. and the world. Living in DC I have the ability to take a short walk and see the spacecraft which actually orbited the moon and brought our boys safely back to earth, and I'm inspired by it every time. After seeing Apollo 13 again a few weeks ago, I've come to realize that the space program, in particular the Apollo missions, has been a powerful inspiration for me in my pursuit of engineering craft. To put it mildly, I'm a huge fan.

Last month I entered the world of 24/7 internet access by buying a fancy phone, the Motorola Droid. Remembering the words of my 4th grade teacher, I became curious to know how my tiny phone compares with the computer that was used onboard the Apollo 11 moon mission. I knew my phone would be many times more powerful, but the nerd in me wanted to see some actual numbers. So here, for your enjoyment (if you're into this kindof thing), is a comparison of my phone and the Apollo 11 AGC.

The Apollo 11 AGC vs. the Motorola Droid

Clock Speed
Apollo 11 AGC: 1.024 MHz
Motorola Droid: 600 Mhz
Difference: The Droid has 586 times the clock speed of the Apollo 11 AGC.

Memory
Apollo 11 AGC: 72KB ROM / 4KB RAM
Motorola Droid: 512MB ROM / 256MB RAM
Difference: The Motorola Droid has 7,282 times the ROM and 65,536 times the RAM of the Apollo 11 AGC.

Storage
Apollo 11 AGC: None
Motorola Droid: 16GB
Difference: The Motorola Droid has 16 Gigabytes of digital storage space. The Apollo 11 AGC had none; everything was stored in ROM.

Power Consumption
Apollo 11 AGC: 70 W
Motorola Droid: 740 mW (roughly, while making a call)
Difference: The Apollo 11 AGC consumed 95 times more power than the Motorola Droid.

Weight
Apollo 11 AGC: 70.1 lb
Motorola Droid: 5.96 oz
Difference: The Apollo 11 AGC weighed 188 times more than the Motorola Droid.

By the way don't worry, even if you don't have one of those fancy schmancy phones, you've still got the AGC licked. There's no way the AGC could have handled a phone call.

References:
Motorola Droid Specs
Wikipedia: Apollo Guidance Computer
Download Squad: How Powerful was the Apollo Guidance Computer?
IET: Apollo Guidance Computer Revisited

Quotes: Happiness, Economists, and Anonymous Attacks

2009-12-15T07:00:00.000-05:00

"Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults." Thomas Szasz

"An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today." Laurence J. Peter

"No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously." Jim Lehrer

Top 5 Things Which Have Recently Blown My Mind

2009-12-14T07:00:00.007-05:00

1. Not only is Obama's approval rating now under 50%, only 50% of the U.S. population says they prefer him to George W. Bush. 44% say they'd rather have 'ol GW back in the driver's seat. How quickly we forget.

2. In February, two Pennsylvania judges plead guilty to receiving millions of dollars in kickbacks from two privately run youth detention centers for convicting teenagers and sending them there. More than 500 juveniles may have been wrongly convicted or sentenced, without representation, by one of these judges.

3. The DC Catholic Church has threatened to end its social service contracts if the District passes pending legislation to legalize same-sex marriage. The church currently manages one third of DC's homeless shelters. While this is a complex issue and I understand the church's concerns about the bill, this is the most horrendous way to express them I can imagine. It reminds me of that time Jesus said, "Sell your possessions and give to the poor - unless of course your city is going to let gay people marry."

4. President Obama, the man who revolutionized the use of technology in political campaigning and is the fourth most-popular user on Twitter with 2.8 million followers, has never tweeted. Hilarious.

5. The remarkable, tenacious bravery of my two sisters: Anna and Jessica, the artist and the heroine.

A Couple Blogger Tips

2009-12-12T14:55:00.005-05:00

1. Judging from how many people have commented on my weird post times (I like to post early in the day, say 7am), it seems not many Blogger users know you can schedule posts. Just insert a future time/date and Blogger will automatically publish your post for you. Here are simple instructions for how to make it happen.

2. I recently found a widget for posting a link to a random post from my blog. Check it out under the "Search" heading to your left. If you would like this on your blog, you can find it here.

Up a Creek

2009-12-11T12:09:00.017-05:00

A Little Christmas Irony

2009-12-10T12:30:00.013-05:00

1. Dude watches A Charlie Brown Christmas every year.
2. This year ABC cuts scenes from the cartoon so they can have more time for commercials and make more money - the very thing Charlie Brown hates about the Christmas season.
3. Dude writes open letter to ABC on his LiveJournal.
4. Letter goes viral.
5. Dude adds popup video ad (which looks a lot like, well, a commercial) to his open letter so he can make money off of it. Good grief!

I know this just slathers on more irony, but I own the DVD and the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas. Erin and I cozy up on the couch every year to see Charlie Brown direct the Christmas play with no commercials to complain to Lucy about. It just isn't Christmas until you've heard Linus recite Luke 2. Or for that matter, until you've heard George Bailey scream "Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls!"

America Loves Prison

2009-12-08T22:02:00.030-05:00

This is one of the biggest issues America faces and yet I feel it's also one of the least discussed. The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prison population. China is in second with 14% of the world's prison population. No other country in the world has more of its citizens in prison than the U.S.; one in every 31 American adults are in prison, on parole, or on probation. A black man born in the U.S. today has a one in three chance of going to prison. Thirteen percent of the American black male population cannot vote because of a felony conviction. The average prison sentence is five years. It costs Americans roughly $24,000 a year to keep one inmate in prison.

All this data and more are presented in the following well-crafted infographic. (Call me what you will, I'm sucker for good infographics.)

Solutions to this problem vary widely, but to a degree the most simple answer is good one: we need to send less people to jail. I am not a member of the "end all drug laws" fringe by any means, but there is no question that the War On Drugs has contributed more than its fair share to our astronomical incarceration rate; 57% of the U.S. prison population in 1999 were drug offenders. In my view, there is little justification for sending people to jail for possession of a non-addictive substance like marijuana, the medicinal benefits of which have been scientifically proven. Laws that require prison terms for offenses like these need to be relaxed.

Despite the popularity of appearing tough on crime, there is evidence that all this jail time isn't working. Compared to Canada our incarceration rate is massive and our sentences are extremely long, and yet our crime rate isn't any better. It is obvious that there is something deeply amiss in American culture.

I would encourage you to consider what you think and believe about this issue. The social aspects of the over-representation of minorities in prison populations are staggering. The political implications of being a nation founded on freedom and liberty which takes them away from so many of its citizens are huge. The global characterization of being the world leader in prisoners is something we Americans must decide if we want.

References:
Online Education: Incarceration in the USA
The New York Times: Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’
Wikipedia: Incarceration in the United States
About.com: 1 Out Of 32 Americans Under Correctional Supervision
UNODC: Global Incarceration and Prison Trends [pdf]
Ira Glasser's bicentennial speech to the ACUL, 1999 [pdf]
50 Facts That Should Change the World, Jessica Williams

Quotes: Senators, Stupid People, and a Little Common Sense

2009-12-08T07:09:00.001-05:00

"When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'" Theodore Roosevelt

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it." John Stuart Mill

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer." Thomas Paine, Common Sense

An Open Letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham

2009-12-06T21:30:00.075-05:00

I've never been a big fan of Al Franken - former SNL writer, author of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right (among others), and the recently-confirmed junior Senator from Minnesota. Though I have a soft place in my heart for the state of Minnesota due to its insane politics (they once elected a pro wrestler to the governorship) and awesome natives such as Garrison Keillor, Amy Sawyer, and Juli Kalbaugh, my exposure to Franken through his Air-America radio show was enough to convince me he was nothing more than a foil for the Sean Hannity crowd - a brash pundit adding noise to the national political conversation rather than insight.

So I was surprised in October when I found myself applauding one of Sen. Franken's first pieces of legislation. It relates to the case of Jamie Leigh Jones, a former employee of KBR, a defense contractor in Iraq which is now owned by Halliburton. While working in Iraq in 2005, Jones was drugged and brutally gang-raped by seven of her male co-workers. When she awoke the next morning and explained what had happened, she was inspected by a physician, told she would lose her job if she left Iraq, and then locked in a shipping container for approximately 24 hours without food, water, or medical treatment. After procuring a cell phone from one of the guards she was able to call her father, who with the help of a Congressman was able to send agents to rescue her. Since the incident, one of the rapists has confessed to Jones, but she is obviously unable to identify the other six. The rape kit used by the physician who inspected Jones disappeared for two years, and then was found with crucial photographs and notes missing, hurting Jones' chances for pursuing a case through criminal courts.

KBR has refused to punish the alleged rapists, the Iraqi government has little power to prosecute U.S. contractors, and so far the US DOJ has not brought charges. With her chances of pursuing a criminal case seriously undermined by the lost photographs, Jones has been trying to sue KBR for failing to protect her. However unbeknownst to Jones, her contract with KBR possessed a clause which effectually gave up her right to sue the company in favor of private, binding, mandatory arbitration.

Enter Sen. Franken's legislation: an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill that would prevent the U.S. from awarding defense contracts to companies who "restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court." The amendment passed the Senate 68-30. Ten Republicans voted for the bill, thirty against.

When I first read the details of this story (and even now as I type them) I felt physically sick and extremely angry - at the rapists, at KBR, at the DOJ, at the Senators who voted against what is in my view a no-brainer piece of legislation. But what really hit me like a ton of bricks was finding the names of these Senators. No less than five of them are men who I have voted for or have represented me in the past - John McCain (AR), Saxby Chambliss (GA), Johnny Isakson (GA), Jim DeMint (SC), and Lindsey Graham (SC).

I could not understand what would possess these men to vote against this bill - particularly those of them like McCain and Graham who have revealed themselves to be somewhat moderate, independent thinkers in the past with their progressive views on immigration, climate change, torture, and others. I have to admit, I was pretty heartbroken that the handful of Republican Senators who I thought were somewhat centrist would do such a thing. I scoured the internet for justifications, but all I came up with were some downright pitiful arguments from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) - a guy I'm not too fond of politically. So I did the only thing I could do; I wrote a letter to my former representative, Sen. Graham.

I ran into some trouble because I live in DC now and Sen. Graham only responds to letters from his home state. So I resubmitted my letter using my SC address, which is still forwarding to my DC one. On October 22nd I received an email from Sen. Graham saying he would reply to my letter as soon as possible. It is now December 6th and I am losing hope; so I decided to publish my letter here, with my thoughts and emotions on this legislation and how bewildered and disheartened I am by my representatives' action on it. Should Sen. Graham choose to respond in the future, I will post his response as well.

Dear Senator Graham,

During my seven years in South Carolina I had the privilege of voting for you, as I have deep respect for your center-right views which I believe can help the Republican party pursue its better nature while benefiting the American people.

Last week I was extremely discouraged when I read your decision, along with twenty-nine other Republican Senators, to vote against Al Franken's amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill to limit government contracts from being given to companies which require disputes involving sexual assault to be resolved through arbitration rather than civil courts. As you know this amendment relates to the case of Jamie Leigh Jones, an employee for KBR/Halliburton who was drugged and gang-raped by her co-workers in 2005, kept in a shipping container for 24 hours, and told that if she left Iraq she would lose her job.

I am at pains to understand why Republicans like you, Senator DeMint, and Senator McCain, who I have voted for in the past and I believe share my vision for American policy, would vote against Senator Franken’s amendment. Though I agree with very few of Senator Franken’s views, I do not understand why bipartisanship should not be exercised in this case. It appears from the details of the case that Ms. Jones was required to sign a contract which signed away her constitutional right to a trial when she took her job at KBR/Halliburton. As a result she has been fighting for a day in court for the last four years. There are reports that many other women have suffered Ms. Jones fate as well.

It is the constitutional responsibility of Congress to designate how military contracts are awarded. Senator Franken’s amendment does not do away with arbitration; it simply limits its use in the case of sexual assault. I understand the need for arbitration and tort reform in some cases. But voting for this amendment would have been a simple, limited, bipartisan way to protect the rights of Americans working for government contractors. As I have always viewed protecting American civil liberties and bipartisanship as pillars of the Republican centrist values that you and many other Republicans such as Senator McCain hold, I do not understand your vote on this amendment.

I have scoured many news outlets as well as your website and the websites of the other Senators who voted against this amendment and I have been unable to find any substantive reason why you and your colleagues decided to vote against this amendment. Some sources have stated that Senator Sessions disagreed with the amendment because it violated the Due Process clause of our Constitution, it overreached into the private sector, and it was a political attack on Halliburton. I find these arguments extremely weak. The Defense Appropriations Bill contains many limits on government contractors. When the government hires a contractor and specifies how its work should be done, this is not placing undo regulation on the private sector, but ensuring that our government gets what the American taxpayers paid for. As Senator Franken pointed out, it is Congress’ constitutional DUTY, rather than a constitutional violation, to limit how funds are spent. Whether or not this amendment is a political attack is an irrelevant red herring. The amendment should be considered objectively according to its merits. I can only assume you and other Republican Senators who voted against this amendment have more logical and legitimate reasons for doing so.

In conclusion, Senator Graham, I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide me with your reasons for voting against this amendment. I must admit this issue has caused me to lose a good deal of faith in the Senators who voted against it, and it would be very encouraging to regain it. As I stated at the outset of this letter, I have been an admirer and supporter of yours for some time, and I do not believe you would have made this decision without careful consideration and reasoned justification for doing so.

Sincerely,
Justin Scott

Note: In September, a court in New Orleans ruled that Jones' rape is not a "workplace injury," and thus is not related to the arbitration clause in her contract. After years of legal battles it now appears she will be able to take KBR/Halliburton to court.

References:
ABC News: Alleged U.S. Contractor Rape Victim Fights for Day in Court
Wikipedia: Al Franken
Wikipedia: Jamie Leigh Jones
YouTube: The Drugging and Gang Rape of a KBR Employee! Senator Al Franken
Mother Jones: Court Okays Halliburton Rape Trial
Harper's Magazine: What the Jamie Leigh Jones Case Teaches Us
Minn Post: Senate passes Franken amendment aimed at defense contractors
Alas, a Blog: Senator Smalley Delivers Some Justice for Jamie Leigh Jones
Think Progress: Franken Wins Bipartisan Support For Legislation Reining In KBR’s Treatment Of Rape
The Daily Show: Rape-Nuts

Google's Big Play: Replacing Your Computer With the Internet

2009-12-05T23:34:00.004-05:00

I've written here before about Google Chrome OS, Google's big gamble on replacing the traditional operating system with a web-browser and letting users store all their data in the cloud. But with all that geek-speak I've been throwing out there -- "cloud," "operating system," "web-browser," "market-share," "web 2.0," blah blah blah -- I'm sure the ideas haven't been coming across too well. So I was thankful when the confident Harrison B. pointed me to the following video today, which explains Google's OS in a way that's simple, straightforward, coherent, and (for me at least) exciting.

Do I think this is the future of computing? Well yes. Probably. The question to me is not will we one day let internet servers store all our data and crunch all our numbers instead of our home PC's, but when will this happen. Google thinks it's already happening. I'm not so optimistic. I still don't know anyone (well, that I know of) who has replaced Microsoft Office with Google Docs in their day-to-day lives. I know many businessmen who think it will be a cold day in hell before they put their sensitive, proprietary information on an internet server. I know quite a few gamers who aren't satisfied with just online flash games. I think there are a lot of unanswered questions as to how this will play out regarding peripherals. How do you install a printer on a web-browser based OS? Lastly, it looks like I was wrong about the netbook market, which Google is initially targeting with Chrome OS. It just doesn't seem to be going much of anywhere.

So we'll see when this all goes down. But I have a feeling when it does, I'll be first in line.

A Senseless Waste of Liberty: Pfizer Leaves New London

2009-12-04T12:30:00.004-05:00

You'll have to pardon me on this one, I'm mad as hell.

You may remember that four years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is permissible for the government to seize private property from citizens and give it to private commercial developers for the purpose of "economic development." The decision involved the City of New London, Connecticut luring the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to build a complex there, which city officials believed would generate $1.2 million a year in tax revenue and create almost 4,000 jobs. The city government convinced Pfizer by offering them huge tax breaks and seizing privately-owned land in order to build an "urban village" near the complex. The land's owners, most notably Mr. and Mrs. Kelo, did not wish to sell their land to the government or leave their homes. They sued the City for trying to take their property and give it to private, not public, interests in an area that was not blighted or in serious economic trouble. The case made it to the Supreme Court, where the Kelos lost in a 5-4 decision. The City then attempted to charge the residents thousands of dollars in rent, since it maintained that it owned their land during the five years in which the legal proceedings were taking place. This didn't pan out however, and the City ended up compensating the residents and even physically moving the Kelo's house to a new location.

Fast-forward to last month, when poor economic conditions influenced Pfizer to pull out of New London, abandoning their $350 million complex and terminating some 1,500 jobs. Though most of the homes left behind by the disappointed plaintiffs in Kelo v. New London were destroyed, the "urban village" was never built. Thus this infamous decision resulted in the Supreme Court giving the government the right to seize citizen's land for private use, and the government using this power to force people from their homes and turn their land into a vacant lot, all while destroying jobs, generating $0 in revenue, and wasting their tax money.

It is stories like these, in a time when the GOP is running away from its better nature after an infatuation with a befuddled soccer mom and the centrists who it desperately needs are jumping ship, that I remember and esteem the principles of limited government which draw me to the vague shadow of what the party once was. What a senseless waste of our liberty.

There is hope in this story, though. The Kelo v. New London decision influenced no less than 42 states to pass laws (some of them quite powerful) which inhibit government in exercising eminent domain for "economic development." In the long run, this influence may have done more to limit the government's eminent domain powers than the Kelo decision did to expand them. I take comfort in that.

References:
New York Times: Pfizer to Leave City That Won Land-Use Case
Guesswork Theory: A Very Bad Decision
Wikipedia: Kelo v. City of New London
Wikipedia: Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution -- Eminent Domain

Anna and I Make Faces

2009-11-30T23:59:00.013-05:00

Here are two things you may not know about me: One, I have a lovely, wise, and thoughtful younger sister named Anna, to whom I bear a very strong resemblance. Two, I have what I consider to be a rubber face. I can make some pretty crazy faces, if I do say so myself. It stands to reason that Anna can too. So since my talented wife Erin is a professional photographer it seemed only natural for her to take some pictures of Anna and me trying to make the same funny faces last weekend when Anna and Jessica came to visit us in DC. For your enjoyment, here are the hilarious results.

Click "Read more" for more faces!

The Dark Side of Citizen Journalism

2009-11-27T19:03:00.001-05:00

Following my post on the future of mobile broadcasting last month, my friend the entrepreneurial Rob Johnson sent me this article from TechCrunch, which is hands-down the most insightful, relevant stuff I've read on the subject. It discusses the dark side of a future where everyone has their own personal audience who they broadcast to, to whom they are constantly tempted to brag "look at me looking at this!" It discusses how the established media has to some degree prevented incorrect, sensitive, and private information from reaching the public in the past, and how the rise of citizen journalism is shortcutting this to our detriment. Finally, it discusses the psychology of personal broadcasting, and how it encourages people to disconnect with reality and morality for the sake of their audience, as presented in the following clip from This American Life:

If you use Facebook, Twitter, a cell phone, or the internet -- essentially, if you live in the 21st century -- I encourage you to give this article a read.

Correlation Implies Causation

2009-11-24T07:00:00.008-05:00

I've been thinking about the age-old caution that "correlation does not imply causation." A classic example is the ice cream, shark attack correlation. Whenever ice cream sales rise, so do shark attacks. Not realizing that correlation does not imply causation, one might conclude that ice cream sales cause shark attacks.

What has been bugging me about this is you can't really prove causation. You can do an experiment over and over a million times and get the same predictable result, but all you have really proved is that there is a strong correlation between your experiment's conditions and its results -- there is always a chance that one day you might get a different result. One day, an apple might fall from a tree and stop, suspended in mid-air. Extremely unlikely, given everything we have observed about the universe, but still possible.

This is what Einstein meant when he said, "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." It would take an infinite number of predictable experiments (or correlations) to prove that one thing causes another, but it only takes one counterexample to disprove a causal relationship.

Therefore I'm a bit confused when someone says "correlation does not imply causation," because I'd like to know what does. Nothing can prove causation. You can only disprove causation. And when you want to gather support for causation, correlations are all you've got.

The trouble is with the word "imply." To a mathematician, statistician, or logician, to "imply" means "to be a sufficient circumstance." The phrase therefore really means "correlation does not always lead to causation." In the colloquial sense, "imply" simply means to "suggest." In this sense, correlation very much does imply causation. They are linked. Indeed, you can't have a causation without correlation.

So the next time someone mentions two correlated phenomena to you ("I get sleepy when I eat turkey!"), I would encourage you to think of a counter-example instead of pulling out the old, worn-out correlation/causation warning. Because if you do, the person pointing out the correlation will be offering a lot more support for causation than you will be detracting from it with a somewhat misleading statement about the rules of logic.

A lot of the ideas in this post came from these two articles:
Wikipedia: Correlation does not imply causation
Daily Meh: Correlation implies causation

You Will Control the Future With Your Mind

2009-11-20T17:57:00.006-05:00

As we approach the close of the first decade of the 21st century, here's a solid prediction for the next:

In the coming ten years you and I will communicate with computers using only our minds. (That's telekinesis, Kyle.)

In the last few years, brain research has exploded. Scientists, researchers, and engineers are making huge strides in understanding how our brains work and what they care capable of. As a shining example, here is a fascinating demonstration of a device capable of allowing you to manipulate an object on screen using only your brainwaves:

Expect some really sweet video games in the near future.

It doesn't stop there. Students at the University of Wisconsin have actually tweeted just by thinking using a technology which may prove extremely useful for victims of paralysis. Scientists at Intel's research lab are working on the same thing, only their research includes actually implanting microchips into the brain -- a practice I find a little frightening, and hopefully avoidable. Nevertheless, the group says the technology will be here by 2020.

Further away than the next decade, but still very much on the horizon, is technology allowing you not only to communicate with your computer through brainwaves, but have it communicate with you. This article from Wired Magazine describes a new field dubbed Optogenetics (using genetic engineering and optical stimulation to manipulate the brain) which may lead to cures for brain disease and two-way brain communication between a person and say, his/her prosthetic limb. To take it even further, a researcher at MIT has been able to cause her study participants to make specific physical movements, and even affect their moral judgments, by stimulating different parts of their brains with magnetic impulses. Obviously the implications of this are enormous.

I know this post will inevitably sound like a bunch of sci-fi movie fantasy, but as the videos included show, it's very real. It's happening right now in labs all over the world, and it will be in your living room sooner than you think.

Reflections from a Weekend Trip to NYC

2009-11-19T00:57:00.010-05:00

1. I had solid, painful lumps forming in my throat all throughout a performance of West Side Story on Broadway -- not during the sad scenes, but during the scenes with numbers that I felt were performed extraordinarily well. In my humdrum, day-to-day life I forget just how passionate I am about theatre, how quickly and deeply it affects me, like it's hardwired to my gut, to who I am.

2. I was very amused by the confused look on a New Yorker's face when I held the door open for her.

3. It's really true, there is so much anger in the city. Once on the subway, a woman started screaming and cursing at Erin for allegedly bumping into her. At Erin -- a woman so gentle she practically weeps every single night when I lock our disappointed cat out of our bedroom so it won't wake us up at 4am.

4. I have recently been trying to step out and try new foods, and it has made all the difference. The bagel with creme cheese and smoked salmon I had at Carnegie Deli was amazingly delicious. My deepest apologies to my brother Jared Ray for decrying the dish.

5. My last time in NYC was my senior year in high school, when my parents gave me a trip to NYC with a drama buddy of mine as a graduation present. That was November of 2001. At the time I was emotionally dealing with the 9/11 tragedy by completely avoiding it, so we didn't visit Ground Zero, and ever since it's been one of my worst regrets. Finally visiting it this weekend was harrowing, surreal, darkly moving. I've never experienced a larger, more poignant, more tangible metaphor come to life than that site -- a deep, massive hole. A hole that's in every New Yorker, in every American, in the spirit of this country. Looking out over the site from a bridge the events before and after that day played in my mind in way that made them seem unavoidable, even fateful in the way they fit together. Maybe it was the dark and the fog and the rain but the seemingly unstoppable evil of men who believe that almighty god hates with them just hung about the place. I wish I could say I felt some hope there. I didn't.

6. This may reflect negatively on me, but the most exciting thing about a trip to the New York Public Library was getting to see the stuffed animals which inspired A. A. Milne. Wonderful. I know I was supposed to be more awed by the Gutenberg Bible, but I wasn't. (In case you're wondering -- yes, Eeyore's tail is precariously pinned on!)

7. I have heard drummers with kits that wouldn't fit into a U-Haul play with much less diversity than the drummer we heard in Central Park playing in a jazz quartet with just two rides and a snare. The sticks, boys! It's all about the sticks. I think if I ever have a kid who wants to play drums I'll give him (or her) a snare and some brushes and tell him to come back in a couple years. Erin and I sat together on a bench for an hour in the crisp Fall air, the Autumn colors all around us, and drank in Cole Porter and Sir Duke. There is little in this world more beautiful than a walking double bass line, especially when enjoyed with a pretty girl on your arm.

8. Times Square is really just a whiz-bang tourist trap, isn't it? Like Myrtle Beach or Fisherman's Wharf on steroids.

9. After a weekend in mammoth NYC, DC feels like Mayberry by comparison. Come to think of it, Obama and Biden sortof fit the Andy/Barney archetypes...

A Quick Note on Shared Items

2009-11-16T12:48:00.001-05:00

Per the results of my reader's survey, my shared items (or "discoveries," as I used to call them) are headed back to the sidebar. You can see them there on your left. I will not be posting weekly lists of links anymore.

However, you can always get them delivered through the RSS feed or by diving into Google Reader, where you can join in the lively discussion they sometimes inspire. You will need to have my email address in your Gmail contacts to comment on my shared items in Google Reader though, so let me know if you need it by leaving a comment here.

Getting Better All the Time Part II

2009-11-12T20:53:00.013-05:00

One of the many lessons I've learned the hard way is that online debate is generally fruitless and pointless unless you're debating someone you know. So when I debate online, it's usually with my good friend the confident Harrison Brookie. Harrison is a libertarian with a masters degree in economics (a deadly combination), and he writes almost daily about seeing the world through a libertarian/economic lens on his blog, Bottlenecked.

As a center-right, "what have they done to Conservatism!" Republican, I disagree with Harrison a lot -- our arguments in the past have ranged from the abolishing the minimum wage to legalizing trade of human organs to allowing people to farm and sell endangered species. I admit, sometimes we argue so much that I feel like Harrison and I don't agree on anything.

But we do agree on many things which actually matter -- like the Gospel. So I wanted to take a moment here to outline an idea Harrison mentions regularly on his blog which I always find interesting, insightful, hopeful, and welcomely counter-culture -- an idea with which I whole-heartedly agree:

For most people, things are much better now than they ever were.

The fact is the world is less violent now than it ever was. Trade and economic growth has meant less people live in poverty now than ever. We have better healthcare, education, sanitation, living and working conditions than our grandparents did. We have more time to spend with our families. We are better at fighting disease, malnutrition, and hunger than we ever have been. We are even smarter than we were just a few generations ago.

Human progress should not be idolized, but it should not be ignored either.

Here are some excellent posts by Harrison which touch on this topic:

Ten Positives of the Recession

Historically, Unemployment Is Down and Earnings Are Up!

The Industrial Revolution's Impact on Baby-Making

It Takes Less Work to Pay for a Fridge than it Ever Did

(Ok Harrison didn't write that last article -- but one of Harrison's favorite bloggers, who he constantly points me to, is interviewed in it.)

Despite all my reservations, there is an optimism intrinsic in free-market fundamentalism that I gravitate towards. An optimism that says "Don't listen to the doomsday prophets, you are much better off now than your ancestors ever were -- and there is good reason to believe things will be even better in the future." I think once in a while, especially as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, we could all use a little more of that.

Guesswork Theory Turns Five

2009-11-06T09:27:00.017-05:00

Five years ago today I saddled up to my beloved R31 Thinkpad and fired up Guesswork Theory for the first time. I won't get nostalgic about it, blogs are silly things after all, but it has been incredibly fun and I have to admit I feel a small sense of accomplishment about coming this far. I have learned quite a lot about life, love, and why here.

One lesson I have learned over the years is that for me, writing for someone else is much more fun than writing for myself. I'm not a journal or diary fellow. In Fall of 2007 several of my closest friends took the plunge and started blogging, and you can see having them around sent my post counts through the roof -- I wrote more entries in 2008 than in the previous four years combined. Community is a powerful thing.

So I mean this deeply and sincerely when I say: thank you for reading. And thank you for commenting. I will go ahead and admit that for me, the most fun thing about writing here is getting comments in my inbox. If you enjoy reading one of my posts, I would like to encourage you to comment on it, even if it's just to say you liked it. It means a lot to me. It makes my day, every time, no kidding.

In light of all this, I've decided to take this occasion to perform a reader survey. I originally envisioned this space as a "journal of ideas," but in the last two years I've wandered quite a bit, and I keep wondering what the folks who read what I write here actually enjoy. So if you read this blog, I would really appreciate it if you could let me know what interests you in the following questionnaire. I would love to write more of what you like to read.

Thank you, thank you, thank you again for reading, commenting, and for taking the time to fill out this survey if you can. You make this place fun.

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Top 5 Gmail Tips

2009-11-05T07:00:00.009-05:00

Gmail, Google's online email service, is my favorite online app bar none. Before Gmail, email took up a huge chunk of my hard drive, I had to delete old messages to save space, I could only access my old email from one computer, I was deluged with spam, and finding old emails was incredibly difficult. Not anymore. If you're still using Yahoo, Hotmail, or some locally-stored email program like Outlook, I promise you are making life harder than it has to be. If you need convincing, email me. I'd be happy to serve as a Gmail evangelist.

Over the years I've collected quite a few tricks to help make Gmail work even better for me. I thought I'd share them here.

1. Stop using labels and start using search.

For the first year or so after switching to Gmail I meticulously labeled my email just like I had organized it in folders in Outlook Express. Then one day I realized the only reason I label/file email is to help me find it later, and Gmail's search function is a much more powerful way of finding email than searching through labels. Using the "to:" and "from:" search operators I can find anything. If I need to know the details about the Halloween party my friend Adam sent me, I just search "to:me from:adam halloween" and it pops right up. Here is a full list of Gmail search operators for even more advanced searching.

Since my realization I have trashed all my labels except for a few I use for very specific purposes. For instance, it's pretty common these days for folks to email out their new mailing address when they move. I've made a label called "address-book" just for these emails. Now when I need someone's mailing address, I just go to Gmail and search for their name plus "label:address-book." I also have a label called "to-consider" for emails I want to read in-depth later. Whenever I have some free time and I feel like doing some reading, I do a quick "label:to-consider" search and I'm ready to go.

2. Create some creative filters.

Here's some instructions on creating filters. Filters can help you organize email automatically as well as keep unwanted email out of your inbox. It seems everyone has at least one distant family member (we'll call her "Aunt Glenda") who loves to forward annoying chain emails. A great way to avoid these without confrontation is to create a filter that automatically archives email from Aunt Glenda with the subject "FWD:", skipping the inbox. This way you still get Glenda's personal emails to you, but you miss the chains.

A lot of people use Gmail for quick-and-easy online storage by attaching something they want online to an email and sending it to themselves. I do this too, so I have a filter which automatically archives and "marks as read" all email that is from me, to me. When I need it again, I just do a "from:me to:me" search.

3. Create some new email addresses for yourself using the + sign!

Little-known Gmail fact: you can insert "+anything" before the @ symbol in your Gmail address and email sent to this address will go to you. In other words, if your Gmail address is john@gmail.com, then email sent to john+doe@gmail.com, john+table@gmail.com, and john+monkey@gmail.com will all come to you.

What's more, you can create filters that redirect email coming to these addresses. So let's say you're signing up for a newsletter for people who like cars. You give them the email address yourname+cars@gmail.com, then set up a filter in Gmail so that all email sent to yourname+cars@gmail.com is labeled "Cars Newsletter." If one day you decide you don't want this newsletter anymore, or they sell your email address to a spammer, you can just change your filter to delete all email coming to this address.

Oh and by the way, Gmail completely ignores periods in your email address. Email sent to yourname@gmail.com and y.o.u.r.n.a.m.e@gmail.com all goes to you.

4. Use Gmail labs!

Gmail Labs is set of experimental features for Gmail, most of which are just awesome. Go to Settings>Labs in Gmail to enable them. Here are a few of my favorites:

Forgotten Attachment Detector -- This feature automatically detects when you might have forgotten to attach something to an email and lets you know when you click "Send." It's saved me a significant amount of embarrassment.

Send & Archive -- Most of the time, when I reply to an email, the next thing I do is archive the conversation to clean out my inbox. This feature adds a button to do this all in one click!

Undo Send -- This feature gives you 5 seconds to click "Undo" after you click "Send." Another real face-saver.

5. Stop using the delete button.

Remember that with Gmail's huge, ever-increasing storage space (I started with 1 GB and I currently have 7.4) there's really no need to ever use the delete button. Just archive everything! You never know when you might need a message later, and Gmail's powerful search is always there to help you find it. Email messages take up very little space and digital storage is only going to get cheaper in the future.

Here are a couple extra tips you may enjoy:

How to add a custom 'From' address
How to import old email into Gmail
(This is a tough one but oh so cool - my Gmail messages go back to 2001!)

Y O U - "How to Say Goodbye"

2009-11-04T07:00:00.005-05:00

I'm sad to announce today that one of my favorite unsigned bands (and Strongbad's backup band), Y O U, has broken up. Here is a post I wrote about them last year with some samples of their tunes. It's a sad day for Erin and I; a lot of our dates in college involved catching their shows in Atlanta, and once in Clemson. It's heartbreaking that we couldn't even make it to their last show at our old haunt Smith's Olde Bar a couple weeks ago.

If you would like to support these guys and grab some great melodic pop rock, here are some links to their albums on iTunes:

Y O U
Everything is Shifting
Flashlights
The Long-Playing EP

My Shared Items: Week of October 27th, 2009

2009-11-03T08:57:00.000-05:00

These are links from my Google Reader Shared Items to interesting webpages I discovered during the week of October 27th, 2009:

White House, senators agree on media shield law – washingtonpost.com – Yay for freedom of the press! Wish they'd go further.
The $10,000 suit – interesting perspective on buying local.
Illegal downloaders 'spend the most on music', says poll – The Independent
Marginal Revolution: Florida's Public Option – The story of public option home insurance in Fl.
Friday Funnies – on the GOP
State's high court dismisses juvenile convictions – HOLY CRAP!
I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea – Ars Technica – That's better.
A History of Family Hoaxes | Newsweek
Flickr Photo Download: Swine Flu Mortality – Everybody just CALM DOWN.
Web Boosts Grandpa's Brain : Scientific American Podcast – Justification.
Pearl and the Beard – Will Smith Medley on Vimeo
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: The Borg's freaky new ad for Bing – WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!
The Vitamin C Myth : NPR – I'm beginning to think everything I know about my health is wrong.
Grammar Girl :: May Versus Might – I love style tips.
Obama's Declaration Of Swine Flu Emergency Prompts Pro-Swine-Flu Republican Response | The Onion – Bwahahaha.
BBC NEWS | Size zero girls 'less attractive'
Goat rentals for clearing brush – Boing Boing – I love solutions that use animals doing what they do best.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's coded F-bomb in veto – Boing Boing – This was no accident, and it's awesome.
Official Google Blog: Making search more musical – Cooool
Creepy Cap-and-Trade Claims are Illusions | FactCheck.org
tumblr_kolo40SQZq1qzy3cwo1_r1_500.jpg – "Hey Jude" flowchart.
091102_warer18964.gif – This is what the subway looks like everyday.
FORTUNE: Trapped in cubicles
The White House’s war with Fox News : The New Yorker
Couple alive after car pins them to bed for almost an hour – CNN.com
Want 50Mbps Internet in your town? Threaten to roll out your own – Ars Technica – Now that's an econ story.
Op-Ed Columnist – The Fatal Conceit – NYTimes.com – DAMN STRAIGHT. I like David Brooks more every day.
Acoustic Kitty – Wikipedia – The CIA is insane. Don't tell them I said that.
The Associated Press: New movie takes aim at celebrity journalism
Cap-and-trade: “Green Jobs” or Job Killer? | FactCheck.org
The Raw Feed: Microsoft pulls out of Family Guy special – Hahaha
Google Voice now (kinda) works with your number | CNET News – This looks promising.
CNN Drops to Last Place Among Cable News Networks – NYTimes.com – Ugh, not looking good for news.
Scozzafava Is G.O.P. Candidate, but the Right Likes Hoffman – NYTimes.com – Grrrrrr
YouTube – Year one Leeroy jenkins skit
Man Dies After Secret 4-Year Battle With Gorilla | The Onion

For more of my shared items, grab the feed or join Google Reader.

How to Post Your Facebook Status on Your Blogger Blog

2009-10-31T10:53:00.011-04:00

You might have noticed that I have my Facebook status posted in the top left-hand corner of this blog. It's updated automatically. I thought I would post instructions on how to do this for the benefit of any Blogger users who might like this on their blog as well.

1. Log on to Facebook and go to your Notifications page.

2. On the right-hand side you’ll see "Subscribe to Notifications." Click the "Your Notifications" link.

3. Go up to the URL in your browser and replace the word "notifications" with "status".

4. Highlight the entire URL and copy it (ctrl+c). This is an RSS feed of your FB status.

5. Login to Blogger.com and go to the Layout page for your blog.

6. Click on the "Add a Gadget" link in your sidebar.

7. A popup will appear. In the popup window, scroll down and click on "Feed."

8. Paste (ctrl+v) your URL from step 4 into the Feed URL box. Click "Continue."

9. Change the Title to "My Facebook Status" or whatever you prefer. Set the Show drop-down menu to the number of recent statuses you want to display (I selected "1" so I only display my most recent status). Check the Item dates checkbox if you want to display the date along with your status. Check the Item sources/authors checkbox if you want to display your name along with your status.

10. Click "Save" and you're done! Your status will now appear in your blog's sidebar. If you want to change where in the sidebar your status appears, click and drag the "My Facebook Status" box to wherever you prefer on your Layout page.

An alternate method of posting your FB status in your sidebar is to use a FB profile badge.

Special thanks to TechLifeWeb.

Harrison Hudson - "On My Heart"

2009-10-30T13:49:00.012-04:00

Harrison Hudson is a friend of mine from childhood; I grew up with his older brother John. Harrison and I played in worship bands together in high school. He was always one of those kids who really knew how to play, while the rest of us were just "good enough for youth group worship."

After drifting through a number of bands, Harrison settled into his own as a singer/songwriter and released a killer album titled Angels on One Side...And the Other on the Other. His music is a gritty blend of Roy Orbison, Elvis, The Beatles, Buddy Holly, and Johnny Cash: or in other words, 100-proof Americana (well ok, minus The Beatles). This is my favorite track from the record, featuring splendid background vocals by The Bridges.

Buy "On My Heart" by Harrison Hudson on MySpace

You can find Harrison in Nashville, on Facebook, and at HarrisonHudson.net. I encourage you to show him and his band some love if you dig their tunes.

Living the Simple Christian Life is HARD

2009-10-29T07:00:00.005-04:00

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but where, oh where, are those who think of changing themselves?" Richard Foster

Several years ago my faith was revolutionized when I came to know and understand a handful of truths which I outlined in a blog post with the tongue-in-cheek title "Essential Truths of the Christian Faith" -- namely, that I am and will probably always be uncomfortable with some of the Bible's teachings, no one (including me) has a monopoly on precisely what the Bible says and means, being right is not a virtue, and love is the most fundamental characteristic and pursuit of the Christian faith.

This led me come to grips with the fact that the faith I had been living was not a faith that springs from the truth of these ideas. These ideas led me to a simple faith, one that pursues loving God by spending time in relationship with him and one that pursues loving man by serving him/her. They led me away from a faith that concentrates itself primarily on theology, apologetics, and biblical reasoning. They led me away from a faith that focuses on typical Christian church activities rather than actions that serve my fellow man.

But in the years since I have found it incredibly difficult to live out these truths. In fact, I would say I've completely failed. Prayer and time spent with God is still largely vacant from my life. Church activities still take the place of intentional efforts to love my neighbors. Reading (Orthodoxy, The Problem of Pain), writing (Community Church and the Dunbar Number, End All Youth Groups Now), thinking, and conversing about theological ideas still comes so, so easy to me. I run to it. Of course there's nothing wrong with these things, indeed they are considerably positive, but when I am reckless about pursuing them in the absence of what Jesus made possible -- a personal relationship with him -- they are not so good after all.

The disconnect between what I know to be true and the actions I carry out is jarring. My favorite quote of all time (and this is not without some consideration) is G.K. Chesterton's "What is wrong with the world? I am." Or to paraphrase, the trouble with the world is me. It is my relationship with God that needs my action, it is the question of my own faith that needs my consideration, it is my lack of obedience that needs my attention. The salvation of the world can wait. Religious and theological ideas can wait.

The years since my epiphany have made me realize: living the simple Christian life is hard -- at least for me, but probably for most people. Spending time alone with God is awkward, it is difficult, it is messy. Prayer does not come easy. How much easier is it to read C.S. Lewis than Moses or the Apostle Paul? How much easier is it to give my money to the church every week than to cook a meal for a homeless man or pursue a friend who is hurting? Waxing philosophic is easy. Theological pontification is easy. It is simplicity that is hard. Discipline, obedience, devotion: these are the challenges. I must resolve to meet them.

I will leave you with a few passages from Let God: The Transforming Wisdom of François Fénelon by Winn Collier. If you read this blog much, that's a name you've probably heard before.

Be content with leading a simple life, however that fits for you. Be obedient. Bear your daily cross -- you need it. It is a gift given by the pure mercy of God. The essential idea is to despise self from the heart, and to be willing to be despised, if God allows it. Feed upon God alone. Saint Augustine says that his mother lived on Prayer. You do the same, and die to everything else. We can live toward God only as we allow our self to continually die. [...]

You don't need to know more truth. What you do need, however, is to start obeying the truth you already have. We are deeply deceived whenever we think our spirituality is progressing simply because our useless curiosity is being stimulated. [...]

And I have to ask--why are you chasing after all this knowledge anyway? What we need is to recognize how much we don't know, to see how poor and desperate and helpless we truly are. Books and big-time teaching won't help with that. You don't need what they're pushing. You just need to know a few simple things: you need to know Jesus. And you need to know Jesus died on a cross. Pretty simple, huh? Saint Paul knew what he was talking about: "Knowledge puffs up while love builds up."

If this is true, then running after all this knowledge, thinking it will finally make you happy with how you are, is a waste. What you need instead is to learn to be contented with love. Just love.