Pandu Nayak's ruminations

California Special Election

2009-05-17T22:50:00.000-07:00

California is holding a Special Election on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009. This election is meant to help resolve a $40 billion budget shortfall in fiscal years 2008-09 and 2009-10. The California legislature and Governor fought long and hard to resolve the $40 billion deficit. This resulted in $15 billion of spending reductions, $12.5 billion of tax increases, and $8 in federal funds from the stimulas package. The final $5 billion is to be met by borrowing from the state lottery (see proposition 1C below). As part of this negotiation, six propositions (1A through 1F) were placed on this Special Election ballot. The claim is that if we don't pass these propositions, we could face billions of dollars of spending cuts and/or tax increases.

So how should you vote (assuming you haven't already sent in your absentee ballot)? First, a summary of my recommendations:

Vote YES on 1A, 1B, and 1F. Vote NO on 1C, 1D, and 1E.

Next, here's a brief description of each proposition and why I have a particular recommendation.

Proposition 1A: "Rainy day" reserve fund and extension of some tax increases for up to two more years. Vote YES on 1A.
This proposition changes the budget process by increasing the "rainy day" reserve fund so that above average revenues can be deposited into it for use during economic downturns. This seems like a good idea to me. I believe the Republicans put this in place to control spending in good times---extra revenue gets saved rather than spent on new programs. In exchange, the Democrats were allowed to continue some tax increases (sales tax, vehicle license fee, and income tax) for up to two extra years to increase revenues. Given the difficult budget situation, this seems like a reasonable thing to do. So I believe this is a good compromise that we should support.
Proposition 1B: Supplemental payments for education. Vote YES on 1B.
Proposition 98 requires that a minimum amount of the budget be spent on education, where the "minimum" amount can be determined by various tests and can be temporarily overridden by a 2/3rds vote in each house and the approval of the Governor. When less money is allocated to education than this "minimum", it sets up a future funding obligation to make up the difference. This proposition postpones these future funding obligations in the near term (next 2 years), and instead sets up a supplemental payment of $9.3 billion over future years. But all this can only happen if 1A is passed.

I can't say I completely understand the pros and cons here. It appears to me that 1B allows the state to decrease education funding in the near term and paying it back in future years. But this appears to be allowed by proposition 98. So I'm not sure what this is buying. Given this neutralish feel to it, and that no argument against it was provided in the voter information guide, I'm fine with voting yes.
Proposition 1C: Borrowing from the lottery. Vote NO on 1C.
The idea here is allow the lottery to increase its payout so that more people will want to play the lottery and thus increase revenues. Furthermore, it would borrow $5 billion from the lottery this year by selling a piece of future revenues to private investors. This is a crucial piece in the budget agreement to close the $40 billion deficit.

I really don't like this. Where do you think the increased lottery revenue comes from? Lower income folk, of course. So we're closing the budget deficit by making lower income folk effectively pay an implicit "tax". And the bit about private investors getting a piece of the action also seems like a bad idea to me. The lottery was sold as a way to raise money for education. And now it's going to be used to generate profit for private investors? That seems wrong to me.
Proposition 1D: Redirect funds from early childhood development. Vote NO on 1D.
Back in 1998 proposition 10 established a program to expand early development programs for children up to age five. These programs were funded by tobacco taxes. 1D wants to redirect proposition 10 funds to the state's General Fund, to protect health and human services for children.

I find this redirection of funds to be wrong. Voters originally approved proposition 10 for a specific purpose. They didn't approve extra taxes to be simply diverted into the General Fund. To simply divert those funds seems like an act of bait and switch.
Proposition 1E: Redirect funds from mental health. Vote NO on 1E.
This is similar to 1D, except that the funds are redirected from revenues raised by proposition 63 in 2004. Proposition 63 funds mental health programs with a 1 percent income tax increase for income over $1 million. Once again, the legislature wants to redirect these funds to the General Fund to pay for various mental health programs. Once again, the voters approved the tax increases in proposition 63 for a specific reason, rather than to allow the legislature to use it as they please. Seems wrong to me.
Proposition 1F: Prevents pay increases for elected officials during budget deficits. Vote YES on 1F.
This seems quite reasonable to me.

Doing nothing...

2009-03-04T14:45:00.001-08:00

I can do nothing in all these ways...

ETF portfolio 2008 returns

2009-02-22T18:15:00.000-08:00

2008 was an absolutely terrible year for all sorts of investments: the US stock market as measured by VTI returned -36.68%; developed foreign markets as measured by EFA returned -41.04%; and emerging markets as measured by VWO returned -52.47%. Bonds did much better: US investment grade bonds as measured by AGG returned 7.91%.

So how did you do last year? It's worth taking the effort to track your actual annual returns over time, and to compare those returns with standard indices. That gives you valuable insight into whether or not your investment strategy is any good. Perhaps you manage your own money by investing in individual stocks. Such tracking will then tell you whether your stock picking skills are up to the mark (I hope they are!). Or perhaps you're using a money manager. In that case, such tracking will tell you whether your money manager is worth the fees he or she is charging.

For my part, I've decided that my stock picking skills are not up to the mark, and that I'm not sure how to pick a money manager that's worth the fees. So I've been using a diversified portfolio of index ETFs (the actual portfolios are here). The only decision to be made in this strategy is how much risk you want to take on.

So how did these portfolios perform in 2008? Quite poorly, as one might expect. But the diversification between stocks and bonds did help---the more conservative portfolios lost less than the more aggressive ones. Here's a table summarizing the returns over the last 3 years:

	Conservative	Moderately conservative	Moderately aggressive	Aggressive
2008	-15.5%	-24.8%	-32.0%	-39.1%
2007	3.2%	5.2%	7.8%	10.6%
2006	13.3%	15.1%	16.8%	18.6%

You can see more details on the returns in the various years here (including how the various components performed): 2008, 2007, 2006.

One final point about these portfolios and last year's terrible investment climate---there was lots of opportunity to do tax loss harvesting! The essential idea is to sell an ETF that is showing a significant loss (and there were plenty of such opportunities last year) and then buy it back after 30 days (to avoid a wash sale). In the interim, to make sure you continue to have the equivalent market exposure, you buy an alternate ETF that tracks a similar, but not the same, index (using an ETF that tracks the same index may fall foul of wash sale rules). When you do your taxes, the capital loss you incur with this sale can be used to offset other capital gains and up to $3,000 per year of ordinary income. The capital loss can be carried over to future years. I did some tax loss harvesting last year, so I think I'm set on capital gains for some time to come...:-)

Science Fair Projects

2009-02-19T22:50:00.000-08:00

It's Science Fair time again at our girls' school. Last weekend the girls did their projects with a little help from me. Here's what they did. Both projects are from the sciencebuddies.org website.

Archimedes screw pump

I suggested about a dozen different projects to our third grader before we found the one she wanted to do---she wanted to build an Archimedes screw pump. Archimedes originally designed this pump to remove water from a leaking ship. The design is still used in many modern day pumps. The version we built involved wrapping a vinyl tube in the form of a helix around a PVC pipe. As you rotate the PVC pipe, the lower end of the vinyl tube scoops up water. As the pipe continues to rotate, the water moves up toward the upper end by moving down inside the helical tube. It's quite a remarkable invention by Archimedes. Here's a video of our version in action:

Extracting strawberry DNA

Our fifth grader wanted to do a project with DNA. We found a simple project to extract strawberry DNA. You start by smashing some strawberries to pulp and adding a concentrated detergent solution. The detergent pops open the strawberry cells (the technical term for this is lyse), releasing strawberry DNA into the solution. You then separate the solution from the strawberry pulp using cheesecloth, and pour the solution into a test tube (instead of a test tube we used an inexpensive rain gauge that we found at the local hardware store). Finally, you pour chilled rubbing alcohol into the test tube. The alcohol forms a layer above the strawberry solution, and remarkably the DNA precipitates out into the alcohol! Here's a picture of the DNA we extracted:

The white stringy stuff is the DNA that has precipitated into the alcohol. (We didn't have any way to verify that this was indeed DNA---we're just assuming that it must be DNA!)

Prince of Ayodhya

2009-01-24T13:25:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since my last post, but there's an easy explanation for this hiatus---I found a most incredible series of books to read! And that's been taking up all my spare time, leaving no time to blog.

So what's this series? The surprising answer is that it's the Ramayana! (For those not familiar with the Ramayana, it is one of the two great epics of Hindu mythology, the other great epic being the Mahabharat.) The answer is surprising because, of course, anyone growing up in India has learnt the Ramayana from innumerable sources---from aunts and grandmas, from the celebration of Diwali, from Ram Leelas (popular enactments of the Ramayana), from Amar Chitra Katha, and perhaps even from the Ramayana TV series. So what could possibly be so exciting about this series of books? And what is this series any way?

The series is a collection of 6 books written by Ashok Banker. The first in the series is Prince of Ayodhya. Mala had heard high praise for this series from her niece, and so she brought back a copy of Prince of Ayodhya when she returned from her recent trip to India. I read the first few pages of the book on the very first day she was back, and was instantly hooked! It is like no Ramayana you've encountered before. It is written like a fast paced thriller. Each chapter ends on a cliff-hanger or a mini-climax, making it near impossible to stop reading---you have to start the next chapter to see what's going to happen next. Like all great epics, it is a grand story of good and evil with powerful, heroic, courageous, despicable, and beautiful characters.

And it is told with loving detail. Most tellings of the Ramayana I've encountered focus mainly on describing a series of events. Of course, the main events are the same here. But Banker adds so much more: he develops the characters beautifully (e.g., I hadn't appreciated how evil Ravana really was!), the inter-personal relationships are fascinating, the social and cultural backdrop is described beautifully, and the introduction of various minor characters enhances the richness of the tale. And, above all, it is exciting! If you're a fan of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, you'll love Banker's Ramayana!

Finally, I have to note that the preface of the book is worth reading. It tells the history of the Ramayana from Valmiki's original, to Ved Vyasa's account as part of the Mahabharat, to Kamban's Tamil retelling, to Sant Tulsidas's Ramcharitramanas, to more recent accounts by Rajagopalachari. The fascinating thing here is that all these accounts purport to tell the same tale and yet they differ even on very basic events. For example, Banker notes:

One instance is the 'seema rekha' believed to have been drawn by Lakshman before leaving Sita in the hut. No mention of this incident exists in the Valmiki Ramayana.

This shocked me---in my mind the 'seema rekha' is a very central plot element in the Ramayana! The point is that for such ancient epics there's no sense in which there's an "official" version. Which means that all you can do is to enjoy each retelling on its own merits. If you take this attitude, rather than constantly wondering if a particular plot element was "really" part of the Ramayana, you'll thoroughly enjoy Banker's version!

Mumbai Terror Attack

2008-11-29T21:51:00.000-08:00

I am still in shock and utterly appalled by the terrible events in Mumbai. I can't imagine how someone can have so much anger, so much hatred, to gun down innocent people in such a pre-meditated and cold blooded manner.

I was first alerted to the unfolding horror late on Wednesday morning (Pacific time) when my sister sent me a short email:

Unprecedented terror in mumbai. Dileep is holed up in Intercontinental hotel but safe. Rest of us are at home.

I immediately switched over to cnn.com to see what this was all about, and was horrified to read about the deadly saga that was unfolding. The areas under attack were exactly the areas I grew up in. We lived between the Taj and the Oberoi, both a short walk from our flat. And my school was close to Cama hospital and Metro cinema. And I've taken umpteen trains from VT station. Worse still, my sister lives right near where we grew up, now very close to this war zone.

My brother-in-law was out for dinner at the Intercontinental, just down the street from the Oberoi. When news of the attacks reached the Intercontinental, the staff immediately closed all entrances to the hotel. Thus no one could enter, but nor could any one leave. So my brother-in-law was stuck in the hotel. He went up to to the terrace of the hotel, and from this vantage point he could see the gun battle unfolding at the Oberoi and the fires burning at the Taj. Fortunately he was able to call my sister and assure her that he was safe. He spent the whole night at the hotel, finally reaching home at 7am.

I spent Wednesday constantly checking various news sources for updates. At about 6pm I was reading the update from the Times of India online edition when I happened upon this chilling line:

The chairman of Hindustan Unilever Harish Manwani and CEO of the company Nitin Paranjpe were among the guests trapped at the Oberoi.

Nitin and I are childhood buddies who grew up together in that very area. In fact, we were scheduled to meet next weekend. And now he was trapped in the Oberoi. I emailed some friends about his situation, but didn't get an update until later that night when my mother confirmed that he had been freed around 4:30am (India time). Apparently once the gunfire started, the staff quickly locked the doors to the room in which they were dining. And by God's grace the terrorists didn't try to enter.

My sister's close friend and mentor was visiting India from Singapore and he was staying at the Oberoi. When the attack started, he barricaded himself into his room and stayed there for the next 36 hours. My sister was constantly in touch with him via his Blackberry. Once again, by God's grace, the terrorists didn't get to him, and he was freed by the commandos once all the terrorists were killed.

I can't imagine the fear that Nitin and my sister's friend and all the others trapped in the hotels must have felt in those terrible hours. And what of the fear and anxiety felt by those close to the trapped people.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, there are more questions than answers. How many terrorists were there? 10 of them have been accounted for, but were there more and what are they up to now? Who really is behind these attacks? Is it the terrorist group Laskhkar-e-Taiba based in Pakistan? Certainly the sophisticated attack suggests significant military training. Was the Pakistani government complicit? Or, at least, did senior members of the Pakistani military or intelligence service unilaterally provide training and support to these terrorists?

And the most important question of all: what now? What should India do in response to these attacks? Certainly beefed up security is important---after all needing to fly in commandos from Delhi suggests a certain laxness that flies in the face of the risks. But does this mean that India, or at least the big cities, need to become police states with military personnel toting semi-automatic weapons visible everywhere you look? That would be a very sad outcome. But what's the right balance?

And what of Pakistan? Outright war with Pakistan would be very unfortunate as it would retard all the great economic progress that India has made. But going after the terrorist training camps in Pakistan seems essential. The best outcome would be if the Pakistan government, perhaps with appropriate pressure from the US government, sees that it is in Pakistan's best interest to help India in putting a stop to these terrorist training camps in Pakistan. Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times has a nice post on this.

I hope that the Indian government shows great strength and resolve in crafting a very effective response to this tragedy of 9/11 proportions.

Significance of the Election

2008-11-09T11:40:00.000-08:00

Much has been written over the last few days about the enormous significance of last Tuesday's election. Of all the pieces I've read, the one I enjoyed the most was a post by Judith Warner in her NY Times blog. In this she notes that despite the enormity of what just happened, it is difficult for our young children to truly appreciate what has been accomplished. She points to this wonderful photograph that ran in the Times that illustrates this beautifully:

In it, a black mother and daughter sit on the floor of a church in Harlem. The mother, Latrice Barnes, having heard of Obama’s victory, is doubled up in tears; her daughter, Jasmine, is reaching a tentative hand up to soothe her. To me, she looks like the future, reaching out to heal the past.
...
For me, this will be the enduring memory of election night 2008: One generation released its grief. The next looked up confusedly, eager to please and yet unable to comprehend just what the tears were about.

California Propositions

2008-10-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

You are all no doubt following the presidential race with avid interest and have already made up your minds as to who you're going to vote for! But you may not have focused yet on the rest of the ballot. If you vote in California, I am referring the bewildering array of propositions that we're going to have to weigh in on---a full dozen state-wide propositions and various local propositions. If you're wondering what to do with these state-wide propositions, this post is here to help. I've looked at the propositions and the recommendations of the LA Times and the SJ Mercury News to put together this post (complete with my recommendations). I'd love to hear your opinion on these recommendations. Also please do vote on Nov 4th---even if you think your vote won't matter in the presidential election, it could well matter for many of these important propositions.

Let's start with a summary of my recommendations:

Vote Yes on propositions 2, 3, 11, and 12. Vote No on all the rest.

(You may want to research proposition 1A a bit more, since that's the vote I'm least confident about. Also, the above are recommendations for the state-wide propositions. For the county and city propositions, I'm leaning toward voting Yes on Santa Clara County propositions A, B, C, and D and a definite Yes on Palo Alto proposition N.)

Now to the details of the propositions and the basis for these recommendations. A couple of guiding principles I used were the following. First, say No to unfunded mandates. It makes absolutely no sense to say that $X billion dollars must be spent on some cause (however wonderful) without saying where the money is going to come from. Second, say No to constitutional amendments unless you truly believe there's a constitutional principle at stake. As Patt Morrison notes in the LA Times, California makes it way too easy to add to its constitution: a simple majority of the voters who show up at the polls suffices. As a result there are almost 500 constitutional amendments, compared to only 27 amendments to the US Constitution. Don't add to this mess. Finally, if you're interested in the back story for each proposition, check out this article.

Here then are my recommendations and recommendations from the LA Times (LAT) and the SJ Mercury (SJM).

Proposition 1A: High-speed passenger train. Vote No on 1A.
LAT: Yes on 1A. SJM: No recommendation yet.
This is a difficult one. The goal is to build a bullet train connecting SF with LA and later expanding to Sacramento and San Diego. The basic SF-LA line is expected to cost $33 billion, with 75% of it raised from federal and private sources. This bond is to raise almost $10 billion. LAT articulates the promise of this high-tech bullet train: "A high-speed rail line would not only provide a cleaner and faster alternative to automobiles, it would encourage transit-friendly development." On the down side, LAT notes: "If voters approve Proposition 1a, it seems close to a lead-pipe cinch that the California High-Speed Rail Authority will ask for many billions more in the coming decades, and the Legislature will have to scrape up many millions of dollars in operating subsidies."

I should be excited about the prospect of a bullet train in California. But I fear this is going to be just a sink of money that, at best, will result in a bullet train that won't be used effectively to make a difference. Nothing I've seen of public transportation in California gives me confidence that the government knows how to get it done effectively. I think of San Jose's Light Rail as an example of a pretty ineffective form of public transportation. And so while I would love to be proven wrong, I have to recommend a No vote here. Read the LAT Yes case and make up your own mind.
Proposition 2: Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty. Vote Yes on 2.
LAT: No on 2. SJM: Yes on 2.
This proposition is all about the treatment of egg laying hens (pig and veal farming is small in California). Egg laying hens are treated quite inhumanely, being confined to cages the size of a sheet of letter paper. While LAT agrees that this is inhumane, the No argument is that this proposition won't have the intended effect---it will only serve to make California eggs expensive thus driving the industry out of California. The inhumane treatment would then be meted out in neighboring states on in Mexico. SJM responds that the extra cost isn't expected to be that high, that there's plenty of time for farmers to adapt, and that the growing demand for cage-free eggs will give California a competitive advantage in the future. My own feeling is that treating these hens more humanely is the right thing to do, so this proposition deserves your support.
Proposition 3: Children's Hospital Bond Act. Vote Yes on 3.
LAT: Yes on 3. SJM: Yes on 3.
Authorizes nearly $1 billion dollars in bonds to expand and upgrade California's 8 regional and 5 UC children's hospitals (including Lucille Packard, UCSF, and Oakland Children's here in the Bay Area). This seems like a critical need. As SJM notes: "Children's hospitals throughout the state are overflowing with the seriously ill and injured. ... At Stanford, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital is forced to turn away more than 400 children every year." And LAT notes that Medi-Cal rates are so low that these hospitals can barely pay for operating expenses with nothing left over for capital expenses. This is money well spent.
Proposition 4: Waiting period and parental notification before termination of minor's pregnancy. Vote No on 4.
LAT: No on 4. SJM: No on 4.
Both LAT and SJM give compelling opinions on why this constitutional amendment is deceptive. For example, SJM says: "From top to bottom, Proposition 4 is the most deceptive measure on the California ballot this fall. It might look like yet another well-meaning but misguided effort - the third in four years - to force minors to notify their parents before seeking an abortion. But this year's version is more insidious. Voters should run to the polls in November to reject it." Read both opinions before you even consider voting yes. Also check out this piece by Francesca Ratner.
Proposition 5: Non-violent offender rehabilitation act. Vote No on 5.
LAT: No on 5. SJM: No on 5.
On the surface this looks like a proposition worth supporting: non-violent drug addicts using crime to feed their additiction would get rehab instead of jail, thus saving money for jails. But in fact, it's full of loop holes and would unleash complete chaos. The Con case in the voter guide says that "Loophole allows defendants accused of child abuse, domestic violence, vehicular manslaughter and other crimes to effectively escape prosecution" (presumably by saying that "drugs made me do it"). LAT strongly agrees with this: "If it passes, Californians would soon learn that they had swept away the state's few successful diversion programs, inflicted chaos on the parole system, layered on a staggering new bureaucracy and set back the cause of modernizing drug treatment."
Proposition 6: Save neighborhoods act. Vote No on 6.
LAT: No on 6. SJM: No on 6.
This is one of those unfunded mandates: requires almost $1 billion extra for law enforcement without identifying a source of funds. It also mandates 30 revisions to California's criminal laws (not clear these are needed), adds new bureaucracy, and builds in a provision that amending it requires 75% of the legislature (the recent budget battle only required 2/3rds of the legislature, and we saw how that went). As SJM notes: "Initiatives like this have distorted state priorities and tied up the budget in knots."
Proposition 7: Solar and clean energy act. Vote No on 7.
LAT: No on 7. SJM: No on 7.
Requires utilities to increase electricity generation from renewable sources. Sounds good, doesn't it? But turns out everyone opposes it: major environmental groups, major utilities, renewable energy providers, consumer groups, taxpayers association, unions, both political parties---they all oppose it! Read the op-eds to see all the things wrong with this proposition. And don't feel that a no vote means less renewable energy. LAT notes: "Under a law passed two years ago, the state is on a path to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. There's broad agreement among policy-makers, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, that in order to reach this goal, the state must get 33% of its power from renewable sources by 2020." So it's going to happen without this proposition.
Proposition 8: California marriage protection act. Vote No on 8.
LAT: No on 8. SJM: No on 8.
This is a constitutional amendment that eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry. Do you really want your constitution eliminating rights rather than granting rights? LAT, in its strongly argued piece, says: "We fervently hope that voters, whatever their personal or religious convictions, will shudder at such a step and vote no on Proposition 8." Proposition 22, passed in 2000, also eliminated same-sex marriage, but it was overturned by the California Supreme Court as being unconstitutional (thus the constitutional amendment here). LAT notes that: "Californians have accused the state Supreme Court of obstructing the people's will on marriage before -- in 1948, when it struck down a ban on interracial marriages."
Proposition 9: Victims bill of rights act. Vote No on 9.
LAT: No on 9. SJM: No on 9.
This is one more of the constitutional amendments that duplicates many rights that victims already have in the law and adds many others. It is a naive attempt to protect victims, but only serves to provide them new and inappropriate roles in prosecution. LAT notes: "The level of punishment a criminal receives should not depend on how persistent a particular family is in pleading for punishment or blocking parole. Civilized justice rejects vendetta and instead places retribution in the hands of the entire society. It may seem depersonalizing, but that's a goal, not a defect, of our system."
Proposition 10: Renewable energy and clean alternative fuel act. Vote No on 10.
LAT: No on 10. SJM: No on 10.
Authorizes bonds worth $5 billion to fund various clean energy initiatives. But a bulk of this money, some $2.875 billion worth, is reserved for alternative fuel vehicles with most of it going to vehicles using natural gas rather than for things like plug-in hybrids. That's not surprising since this proposition is sponsored by Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens who co-founded Clean Energy Fuels Corp. that operates natural gas filling stations. There are lots of other problems with this proposition (see LAT and SJM for details). A much better way to get to the goal of more clean energy is to mandate vehicle pollution limits (which the Bush adminstration prevented California from enacting).
Proposition 11: Redistricting constitutional amendment and statute. Vote Yes on 11.
LAT: Yes on 11. SJM: Yes on 11.
Here's a constitutional amendment that is worth supporting, and it does feel like a constitutional issue. It puts the power of redistricting for state elections (though not Congress) in the hands of a 14 member commission rather than in the hands of the State Legislature. In the current situation, LAT observes that: "Voters are supposed to choose their representatives, but in California, political parties select their voters." SJM notes that: "Proposition 11 would deny incumbents the ability to use redistricting to their advantage. ... Legislators put self-interest first when they control redistricting. Minorities and everyone else will benefit from taking that power out of their hands."

This is a case where I've changed my mind! In a past election I recommended voting against a similar proposition. This was at the height of the Bush era when Texas was using redistricting to cement Republican control, and I didn't want the Democratic party to be at an unfair disadvantage in California. This view was perhaps short-sighted, and LAT addresses it squarely: "By the same token, it would be foolish for Democrats to oppose the measure out of a belief that it would cost their party its majority in Sacramento. It won't. For every district it puts in play that currently elects Democrats, it is just as likely to put in play a district that currently elects Republicans. It would simply ensure that legislative Democrats (and Republicans) would heed voters and not just party bosses."
Proposition 12: California veterans bond. Vote Yes on 12.
LAT: Yes on 12. SJM: Yes on 12.
This is the most straightforward Yes vote. It provides a $900 million bond for farm and home aid for California veterans. The aid is in the form of loans to veterans, so historically it has not cost the state anything. Californians have approved this 26 times before, and there's no reason why we shouldn't support our veterans again this time. And what ever you may think about the war in Iraq, supporting veterans is a no-brainer.

Vipassana Meditation

2008-09-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

Vipassana is a meditation technique originally taught by the Buddha. It is meant to promote peace and harmony in ones life and eliminate the agitation, irritation, and disharmony one often experiences. The link above provides a summary of the principles underlying the technique. These principles are discussed at greater length in the book The Art of Living (note: this is unrelated to the Art of Living courses one hears about). The technique itself is taught in a completely free 10 day course held at various locations around the world (see the Vipassana site for details of a course near you).

I was introduced to Vipassana by my father. He has been practicing Vipassana for over 15 years now. My father is the most spiritual person I know---not religious in a traditional sense, but rather someone who was always searching for the higher truth. He says that of all the things he's learnt, Vipassana has been by far the most beneficial. This is high praise indeed.

I've read The Art of Living and have heard a series of lectures by S. N. Goenka, the person who has been instrumental in spreading Vipassana in India and around the world. From everything I've read and heard, the technique sounds very compelling. There's no hocus-pocus. It's a very concrete technique, with very concrete reasons for why it works. I'm not going to try to distill the essence of the technique here; for that I refer you to the above sources for an authoritative and comprehensive treatment (but I'm happy to talk to you about my understanding if you're interested).

An important point, emphasized by Goenka, is that reading books or listening to lectures is no substitute for actually practicing Vipassana. A good friend of mine, Raj, recently had the good fortune of actually attending a Vipassana course. Here's what he writes about his experience:

Just got back from Vipassana. 11 days of living like a monk in silent meditation. It is wilderness survival training for your mind. Training your mind to survive on its own and manage your anxieties, fears and other strong emotions without the support of conversation, reading, television or any contact with the outside world. You learn how to control your subconscious mind to recognize and control your cravings, desires and attachments. It is frightening to realize the depth and strength of the roots of your cravings. As you try to teach your subconscious mind to be equanimous to cravings, these deep rooted desires literally surface in waves that get amplified as they bounce around in your head without any of the usual distractions to dampen their intensity. Your mind feels like it is going to snap, much like the suspension bridge bearing the army garrison that did not break file. The first few nights I literally woke up sweating in my eight by eight cell surrounded by the ghosts of physical manifestations of my cravings swimming around me in the darkness. It starts getting better after about the fourth day.

That sounds like a pretty intense experience! (And, yes, he's a rather good writer!) I've been wanting to do the course for some time now. I almost attended a course back in 2004, but a minor emergency at the last minute intervened and I chose not to attend. Now, almost 4 years later, I'm finally getting around to fixing this omission : I'll be attending a course starting next week (assuming, of course, there are no emergencies this time!).

Google's Search UI

2008-09-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

I wanted to make a note of a couple more Google blog posts that point at some more cool technology. No, I'm not talking about Chrome or the Chrome comic book. Rather, I'm referring to two recent posts by Ben Gomes. In the first post, Ben talks about the principles that guide the design and evolution of the Google search user interface. Of course, any talk of the evolution of the search interface raises a natural question:

A common reaction from friends when I say that I now work on Google's search user interface is "What do you do? It never changes." Then they look at me suspiciously and tell me not to mess with a good thing. Google is fine just the way it is -- a plain, fast, simple web page. That's great, but how hard can that be?"

Turns out it's not as easy as it may seem. Ben discusses a number of principles that guide UI development and provides several examples of the principles in action. One of the most interesting points he makes is related to the goal of search:

...to get you to the web pages you want as quickly as possible. ... This goal may seem obvious, but it makes a search engine radically different from most other sites on the web, which measure their success by how long their users stay. We measure our web search success partly by how quickly you leave (happily, we hope!).

A key part of UI development is experimentation on live traffic. In his second post, Ben describes a series of UI experiments ranging from big, prominent changes to tiny, subtle ones.

... we test almost everything, even things that you would think are so small that we could not possibly care (nor could they possibly matter). In fact, small changes do matter, and we do care.

Check out these posts for a glimpse of the care with which the Google search UI is designed.

Olympic Track

2008-08-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

So after a wonderful week of Olympic swimming, we had a very fun week of Olympic track! The star of the week was, of course, Usain "Lightning" Bolt of Jamaica---3 gold medals with 3 world records. How do you start celebrating with 15 meters to go in the 100 meters and yet break the world? And how do you break Michael Johnson's seemingly unbreakable 200 meter world record while running into a stiff 0.9 m/s headwind? And how do you do all this while clowning around before every race? A completely remarkable young man!

There were lots of other great events. One of my favorites was the the mens 10000 meter. Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele was the star coming into the event. Two Eritreans and two Kenyans wanted to take Bekele out of the race, and so they tried to break away from the pack at various points in the race. But Bekele just hung in there right behind the leaders, usually in third place, sometimes falling back to fourth place. And then, with one lap to go, Bekele decided that he'd had enough---he went into overdrive with his famous finishing kick and left the field in the dust. He ran the final lap in something like 54 or 56 seconds---and that's at the end of 10k race! Quite a remarkable effort.

The high hurdles were exciting in both the mens and the womens events. Dayron Robles of Cuba won the mens 110 meter hurdles in convincing style, with exquisitely beautiful hurdling! (On a side note, it was a little confusing to see some who looked so nerdy hurdle so beautifully...:-) In the women's 100 meters Lolo Jones, the favorite, took control of the race and was all set to win in style, when tragedy struck---she hit the 9th hurdle causing her to slow down and helplessly watch as most of the rest of the field swept by her. Her loss was reminiscent of Gail Devers's fall at the end of the 100 meter hurdles in Barcelona.

Another favorite to lose was Sanya Richards in the women's 400 meters. She entered the home straight leading comfortably, looking like she had the race all sewn up. But suddenly things started going wrong and she couldn't find the extra gear necessary to finish, and so had to watch helplessly as Britain's Christine Ohuruogu and Jamaica's Shericka Williams powered past her.

And another highlight (or, more appropriately, a lowlight) was the butterfingers displayed by both the US mens and womens 4x100 meter relay teams. In the semi-finals, both teams were leading as they entered the final exchange, only to drop the baton in truly tragic style. It's unclear whether either team would have challenged the powerful Jamaican teams in the finals, but now we'll never know. (The Jamaican women had their own butterfingers in the finals.)

Finally, Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia turned in a typically dominating performance in the women's pole vault to win gold and break the world record. This is the 15th time she's broken the world record, reminiscent of her countryman Sergey Bubka who broke the pole vault record 17 times!

All in all, a very fun week of track (though I think I enjoyed the week of swimming more).

Olympic Swimming

2008-08-17T17:11:00.001-07:00

That was an incredibly fun week of Olympics competition! For us it was mostly about the exciting swimming events (and a little about gymnastics). Naturally, the biggest news in swimming (and of the Olympics thus far) was Michael Phelps's eight gold medals. But the most dramatic and exciting moment of the week belonged to Jason Lezak in the anchor leg of the 4x100 meter freestyle relay: how do you spot the world champion (France's Alain Bernard) almost a body length lead and then find some hidden strength to close the gap in the last 25 meters and out-touch Bernard by eight one-hundredth of a second?! Of course, Phelps's victory in the 100 fly was even closer---by powering to the finish with a half stroke he out-touched Serbia's Cavic (who was gliding to the finish) by the smallest possible margin (one one-hundredth of a second)!

There were plenty of other exciting races. In the womens 400 meter individual medley Katie Hoff, the reigning world record holder, led much of way and appeared to have a stranglehold on the race. But Stephanie Rice of Australia tracked her down and passed her toward the end to win gold. In the 200 meter breast stroke, Rebecca Soni caught up with and passed Australia's powerful Liesel Jones. Soni looked strong and smooth at the finish, while Jones had started faltering on the final 50. And, best of all, Dara Torres won a silver for all us middle-aged geezers! Unfortunately, she wasn't as lucky as Phelps---she lost the gold by one one-hundredth of a second.

All in all, a great week of swimming!

Truth or Fiction?

2008-07-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

As you know, we are big fans of Jack Bauer and the show 24. This in spite of the fact that Bauer and his cohorts regularly use torture as a standard interrogation procedure. (Not only is it terrible, we also know torture doesn't work well as an interrogation technique.) But we take this in stride and ignore it---it is after all fiction. And escapist fiction at that. Right?

Apparently not...

A recent NY Times op-ed by Bob Herbert talks about a new book called The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer of The New Yorker. It spends a lot of time on David Addington, a key member of Cheney's staff:

In the view of Mr. Addington and his acolytes, anything and everything that the president authorized in the fight against terror — regardless of what the Constitution or Congress or the Geneva Conventions might say — was all right. That included torture, rendition, warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, you name it.

Okay, fine---this isn't particularly surprising. But here's what really got me:

To get a sense of the heights of madness scaled in this anything-goes atmosphere, consider a brainstorming meeting held by military officials at Guantánamo. Ms. Mayer said the meeting was called to come up with ways to crack through the resistance of detainees.

“One source of ideas,” she wrote, “was the popular television show ‘24.’ On that show as Ms. Mayer noted, “torture always worked. It saved America on a weekly basis.”

What??? They were really looking to 24 for ideas on what to do to the detainees?

Ranking Technology at Google

2008-07-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I mentioned that Amit Singhal had promised to have a follow-up post focusing on the technology underlying Google's search algorithms. Earlier this week Amit delivered on his promise with a fine post entitled Technologies behind Google ranking. He says that the driving force underlying ranking is to give users what they want:

Search in the last decade has moved from give me what I said to give me what I want. User expectations from search have rightly increased. We work hard to fulfill the expectations of each and every user, and to do that we need to better understand the pages, the queries, and our users.

Check out the post for more detail.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2008-07-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it---I have a sweet tooth. I love desserts of all sorts, ranging from western desserts like Prolific Oven's divine Swedish Princess Cake to Ben and Jerry's ice-cream to Indian desserts like rasmalai and gulab jamun. But above them all is the humble chocolate chip cookie, served warm with soft melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chips! It's a dessert I have a very hard time resisting.

So you can imagine that I was quite thrilled to read this recent article in the NY Times entitled Perfection? Hint: It's Warm and Has a Secret. It's all about baking the perfect chocolate chip cookie, complete with a recipe. The author talks to a number of bakers to get the recipe. But why talk to bakers when:

... almost everybody say[s] they prefer homemade to bakery bought?

Mr. Rubin smiled, having already figured out the answer. “It’s the Warm Rule,” he said. “Even a bad cookie straight from the oven has its appeal.”

I certainly subscribe to this view. But there's more to it than serving it warm. Mr. Rubin provides two secrets to baking the perfect chocolate chip cookie:

First, he said, he lets the dough rest for 36 hours before baking.

It seems this allows

... the dough and other ingredients to fully soak up the liquid ... which bakes to a better consistency.

The second secret is apparently to bake large cookies. The reasons for this are more complex and worth reading, at least for a laugh; not unlike the description of a fine wine (that claims to have hints of things that I can never sense), it involves phrases such as "flavor similar to penuche fudge" (what the hell is penuche fudge any way?!).

Nonetheless, it all sounds very exciting. I'm going to try the recipe one of these days and I'll report back on whether it lived up to the billing. (And maybe I'll figure out what penuche fudge is like!)

Technology at Google

2008-07-10T22:55:00.000-07:00

There's been a recent flurry of interesting blog posts describing different pieces of technology at Google. Udi Manber introduced the work of the Search Quality group at Google (I work in this group). His post is the first in a series of more in-depth posts. Here's my favorite bit in Udi's post:

...but the goal is always the same: improve the user experience. This is not the main goal, it is the only goal.

Amit Singhal followed up on Udi's post with a discussion of the philosophy underlying Google's ranking algorithm (Amit has promised a follow-up focused on technology). Here's how Amit describes our philosophy:

1) Best locally relevant results served globally.
2) Keep it simple.
3) No manual intervention.

In a separate series of posts on how data is used within Search Quality, Paul Haahr and Steve Baker write about using data to build language models. They observe that:

By analyzing how people use language, we build models that enable us to interpret searches better, offer spelling corrections, understand when alternative forms of words are needed, offer language translation, and even suggest when searching in another language is appropriate.

Matt Cutts follows up with a post on using data to fight web spam. He says:

Our logs data helps ensure that Google detects and has a chance to counteract new spam trends before it lowers the quality of your search experience.

Outside of Search Quality, I'm particularly pleased about the recent announcement to open source protocol buffers---our data interchange format. Protocol buffers are pervasive inside Google and are a very effective way of encoding "...almost any sort of structured information which needs to be passed across the network or stored on disk. "

Two other announcements are also worth highlighting: Google's C++ testing framework and Google's C++ style guide have both been open sourced.

Finally, here's a video of the Google Factory Tour of Search held back in May.

I have a short segment in there (at about the 65 minute mark) describing some of the work our group has done on query understanding. Earlier in the video (at about the 56 minute mark) Trystan Upstill talks about our group's work on International Search Quality (which is Amit's first point---best locally relevant results served globally). And earlier still (at about the 46 minute mark) Johanna Wright talks about Universal Search.

Vegetable Harvest

2008-07-09T21:50:00.000-07:00

I wrote earlier about growing vegetables in EarthBoxes. After I had finished the planting, Mala made the comment that she hoped we'd have at least one meal to show for the effort and expense... I'm happy to report we've hard our first harvest! Our kids were very excited to harvest beans and basil for a dinner we were preparing for some guests. Here's what they got:

On the left is some basil to serve as a garnish on a pasta dish, and on the right some beans which we steamed as a side dish. Within a week we had a second harvest:

Lots more basil---this time to make some delicious pesto---and more beans. (The kids brought in some oranges from our orange tree, but the tree hasn't really been taken care of and the oranges aren't very good.)

And today, less than a week later, we got another round of beans. The tomatoes are also beginning to show up---there are already more than a half dozen small green tomatoes and lots of flowers. The bell peppers are only just starting out---they're really tiny at this point---and the serrano pepper is still holding out and only now seems to have started flowering. All in all things appear to be going quite well. While we're not exactly "self sufficient", I think we've crossed the rather low bar Mala set!

Identity theft protection

2008-06-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

You have no doubt heard LifeLock's ad on the radio. It's where the CEO of LifeLock says: "My name is Todd Davis. My social security number is xxx-xx-xxxx" (he actually provides his real social security number in this ad, and you can also find it on LifeLock's home page). The point of the ad is that LifeLock protects you from identify theft, and Mr. Davis is so confident of their service that he is quite comfortable publicly sharing his social security number. When I first heard the ad, it definitely piqued my curiousity.

So how does this service work and, more importantly, is it effective? Not surprisingly, there's been a lot of controversy in the news about whether or not it works. Bruce Schneier has a great post on the controversy and how LifeLock works. The controversy really stems from the core of what LifeLock does: they put fraud alerts on your credit reports from the three major credit reporting agencies, forcing lenders to verify your identity before they can issue credit cards in your name. Lenders and the credit reporting agencies hate this (it makes it harder to give credit), and so they've started a smear campaign against LifeLock (thus the controversy). In addition to the fraud alerts, LifeLock apparently does a bunch of other clever things to limit your exposure to identify theft.

So is this a service you should run out and sign up for? Probably note. Schneier notes: "At $120 a year, it's just not worth it." It's unlikely you'll be a victim of identity theft. And even if you are, it has become relatively easy to clean up the mess. Furthermore: "... it's hard to get any data on how effective LifeLock really is."

And the best part is: "...you can do most of what these companies do yourself." The second link (from the blog at savingadvice.com) is particularly useful. They provide a series of relatively easy steps you can take to protect yourself from identity theft. One key step is to regularly monitor your credit reports. And here's what they say about doing that for free:

You are entitled to one free credit report per year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. You get these reports through AnnualCreditReport.com. Only use this site. Others that sound similar require you to pay.

The important point here is that you should go to AnnualCreditReport.com for your free credit reports---don't sign up for any other service that's going to charge you for this free service.

Unbelievable!

2008-06-15T17:55:00.001-07:00

I just saw Tiger Woods birdie the 72nd hole at the US Open to force an 18 hole playoff tomorrow with Rocco Mediate! And this after his tee shot went in the bunker, his bunker shot landed in the rough, and the shot from the rough landed on the green but required a long putt. And he made it! Amazing! The man has nerves of steel!

Bristlebot

2008-06-09T18:30:00.000-07:00

Ever since we saw the Bristlebot created by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, the kids and I have been wanting to build our own! It's taken us a few months to get to it, but last weekend we finally did it! Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

We basically followed the instructions provided in the original. A few things of note:

You can get the pager motor out of an old cell phone. I tried doing that, but I didn't have the right kind of small screw driver, and I found it hard to open up the cell phone. So instead I went to pagermotors.com and bought a few 7mm Namiki pager motors.
The pager motors I bought come with leads attached, so there was no need for any soldering. You simply place one lead under the battery, with the lead and the battery stuck to the foam tape. We attached a piece of tape to the other lead and stuck it to the top of the battery to start the motor running. The tape at the top worked nicely as a switch: simply pull off the tape to stop the motor.
Make sure that the back of your toothbrush is smooth. Some of the newer Crest toothbrushes have raised patterns on the back, and the foam tape doesn't stick properly to it.

All in all a really fun little project that, once you get all the parts, can be completed in less than 10 minutes!

Ubuntu

2008-06-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

I knew of Ubuntu as a Linux distribution, but I didn't know what the word meant. Then this morning, while I was belting out a 45 minute run at they gym, I heard on TV that the Boston Celtics break their huddle with a shout of "Ubuntu!". It seems Ubuntu roughly means "I am what I am because of who we are".

Wikipedia tells us that it is a Bantu word describing "...an ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other." It is one of the founding principles of the new Republic of South Africa emphasizing "...the need for unity or consensus in decision-making, as well as the need for a suitably humanitarian ethic to inform those decisions".

What a nice meaning for this simple word. I look at much of the professional success I've had over the last 15 odd years, and I can unequivocally say that the main reason for that success has been the amazing people I've worked with---I am what I am truly because of the teams that I've been a part of. Ubuntu!

Remote Agent

2008-05-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

The Phoenix Mars Lander touched down successfully on the surface of Mars on Sunday. It was no mean feat. The landing sequence was considered so risky that the official mission page on the NASA web site describes it as Seven Minutes of Terror! They note that

...in the international history of the space age, only five of 13 attempts to land on Mars have succeeded.

Check out this great picture of the part of the landing sequence where Phoenix descends into the Martian atmosphere with its parachute.

A crucial mission sequence is called a critical sequence. In a critical sequence you get one and only one chance to to execute the sequence right, with a failed sequence implying a failed mission. Critical sequences include landings (like the one that Phoenix executed flawlessly), orbit insertions (such as Cassini inserting itself into Saturn's orbit), and some flybys (such as Stardust's flyby of Comet Wild 2 to collect and return comet dust).

Talk of critical sequences reminds me of our work on the Remote Agent. I was at NASA through much of the 1990s working as a research scientist in an Artificial Intelligence (AI) research lab. Some time in 1995 the NASA Administrator, Dan Goldin, gave an inspiring speech. In it he outlined a vision that would allow NASA to significantly step up space exploration in spite of shrinking budgets. The key, he said, was to develop new technologies in such diverse areas as propulsion, MEMS, and autonomy. And he established the New Millennium Program to carry out his vision.

We (i.e., a group of AI researchers) were energized by this speech and decided to do something about it. Specifically, we thought that we could build a Remote Agent---an on-board autonomous agent to provide high-level control to achieve mission objectives. We pitched our idea to spacecraft engineers at JPL. Naturally, the spacecraft engineers were skeptical---after all, what did a bunch of AI researchers know about spacecraft autonomy? But they were open minded---they said they'd believe us if we could show them how the Remote Agent would handle Cassini's critical sequence (Saturn orbit insertion) in a simulated environment. And to make sure that the simulated environment didn't abstract away the hard parts of the critical sequence, they assigned an accomplished spacecraft engineer to lead the project.

We worked hard for the next 5 months or so, leading up to a demonstration of the system to various senior engineers at JPL. Everything was going smoothly, when suddenly an unexpected bug hit us (unexpected in the sense that it was not part of the demonstration script, though we were aware of this bug in our earlier testing but hadn't had the chance to track it down and fix it). The bug was in the communication between the Remote Agent and the underlying spacecraft simulation, and it manifested itself as a failure of the main rocket engines just as they were being turned on to slow down the spacecraft in preparation for orbit insertion!

The Remote Agent responded beautifully to this unexpected turn of events! It noticed that the main rocket engine had failed, switched to the back up engine, replanned the insertion sequence, and successfully inserted the spacecraft into orbit around Saturn (all in simulation of course---the real Cassini mission didn't use the Remote Agent!).

The success of this demonstration led directly to doing this for real on Deep Space 1, the first of the New Millennium missions. On May 17, 1999, the Remote Agent took control of Deep Space 1 to start the first of two on-board autonomy experiments. Being in mission control during these experiments was one of the most thrilling moments of my professional life!

You can read all about the Remote Agent here and about the actual experiments here. No discussion of a space mission is complete without a photograph of the spacecraft. I wanted to include a photograph of me with Deep Space 1 (in the testing bay at JPL). Unfortunately, I couldn't locate that photograph :-( So instead, you'll have to make do with the following poster. I have a big version of this poster at home---a parting gift from my NASA colleagues when I left NASA.

Phoenix Mars Lander

2008-05-25T23:06:00.001-07:00

Looks like the Phoenix has landed! I am always amazed by how complex space missions succeed when the engineers get essentially only one chance to get it right.

Check out the first images from Mars here.

Growing Vegetables in EarthBoxes

2008-05-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

Some days ago I wrote about the possibility of growing vegetables in EarthBoxes. Last weekend I converted cheap talk into action---I bought 3 EarthBoxes and planted a variety of vegetables! Here's a picture of 2 of the EarthBoxes (I got the third after I took this photograph).

The EarthBox on the right has two varieties of tomatoes, while the EarthBox on the left has basil, serrano peppers, and two varieties of bell peppers (two golden bells and a purple bell). The third EarthBox is full of bush beans. So following Michael Pollan's advice, I've taken the first step toward growing some of our own food (given my expertise in the matter, we'll be happy if we get at least one meal out of this!).

In terms of the the EarthBox promise of "virtually no effort", it's looking pretty good right now. Over the last week, taking care of the plants has involved simply topping off the water reservoir through the fill tube that you can see at the front right of each EarthBox. It takes less than 5 minutes a day. And, except for the basils, the plants are looking well hydrated. (The basils' leaves are slightly curled up, which may mean that they aren't getting quite enough water, though they're clearly getting water; they're not obviously dried up or anything.) So there is a good chance that we might actually land up with something we can eat!

Nerdy dads

2008-05-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

Ha! I'm not the only nerdy dad reading The Number Devil to his kids!

And everyone in our household is thoroughly enjoying it, I may add.