Undercover Indecision

A question about motivation

Mon, 30 May 2011 20:35:25 -0400

My answer on Quora to: “What proven ways do you recommend for enhancing your intrinsic motivation at work? How does it work?”

Modern decision making

Mon, 23 May 2011 19:46:00 -0400

— Tell us, Dedalus, do you kiss your mother before you go to bed?
Stephen answered:
— I do.
Wells turned to the other fellows and said:
— O, I say, here’s a fellow says he kisses his mother every night before he goes to bed.
The other fellows stopped their game and turned round, laughing. Stephen blushed under their eyes and said:
— I do not.
Wells said:
— O, I say, here’s a fellow says he doesn’t kiss his mother before he goes to bed.
They all laughed again. Stephen tried to laugh with them. He felt his whole body hot and confused in a moment. What was the right answer to the question?

From A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce, 1922.

I once read an article about Facebook, and how (according to the author) Zuckerberg thinks we should be making decisions based on what our friends think. His bankroller, the burgeoning industry of online advertising, at least agrees.

I’ll pass.

Video

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 00:40:17 -0500

Alright, nobody took me up on my offer of responses to questions, but for once I have a few moments...

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 21:00:28 -0500

Alright, nobody took me up on my offer of responses to questions, but for once I have a few moments of free time so I’ll post a quick update.

I’m back at school (what??!), and I’m taking one more class than last quarter, and the classes I was already in have gotten more intense. Overall, it’s intense. Near the end of first week, I heard someone say, “Wow, this quarter picked up quick.” Then a third or fourth year said, “Yeah, everyone says that every quarter.” That’s how it goes around here.

Second week included the excellent tradition Kuviasungnerk/Kangeiko, which was originally created in 1982 or 83 to show off martial arts to students. It’s been well-supported by the University ever since as one of the many Winter Quarter traditions clearly aimed at reducing depression. It mainly consists of a few hundred students waking up at 5:30 AM every day of second week to do calisthenics followed by trying out a random martial art or dance style.

There are also lectures and other activities throughout the week (the ice carving looked pretty cool), culminating in a walk to the Point (which juts out into Lake Michigan) Friday morning and the nude “Polar Bear Run” later that day. Oh, and anyone who goes to calisthenics every day of the week gets a free shirt on Friday. I only went on Monday. Tuesday morning I woke up and had an epiphany: I really do like sleeping after all. Then I went back to sleep.

Also, I set up this nifty system where every time I open my laptop, it automatically saves a snapshot from the webcam and opens up a text file (new one every day) in which I write down my thoughts or interesting activities. This way I’ll have something to look over for blog posts like this one.

Well, until next time… uhhh… remind me to post here or I won’t! :D

Julian Assange's arrest

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:23:49 -0500

I would like to point everyone to the last paragraph of the introductory part of Assange’s Wikipedia page and if you are really that lazy, I will paste it for you:

On 30 November 2010, Interpol placed Assange on its red notice list of wanted persons;[13] at the same time, a European Arrest Warrant was issued for him.[14] He was wanted for questioning on suspicion of “sex crimes”; it is alleged that while having consensual sex his condom broke and he either did not disclose the breakage to his partner or continued after his partner asked him to stop. He has not been formally charged with any crime.[15] He was arrested by the London Metropolitan Police on 7 December by appointment, after a voluntary meeting with the police.[16]

This is clearly a smear campaign. If you don’t believe me, read the full details on the sex crimes case. Assange has become the victim of a character assassination, and it’s been quite successful. Now as if that isn’t enough, he has been arrested by police outside his country for questioning about an alleged crime for which there are no formal charges. If this sounds like justice to you, just wait until he is imprisoned by the US or another superpower—again, Assange is an Australian national—for something totally unrelated to the “sex crimes” for which he was originally detained.

I can’t imagine the legal basis upon which a law would be established in the US making Wikileaks illegal, but let’s say it succeeds: will the US be powerful enough to enforce this law, clearly violating the 1st Amendment, in other countries, where Wikileaks actually exists?

Now I would like to bring your attention to the nature of the Wikileaks organization. Other members have noted that the only detriment to Wikileaks itself in the event of Assange’s imprisonment or assassination is that their public face is gone. They will have to choose another. Now will this person, who likely had no part in the original creation of Wikileaks, also be held responsible by foreign governments for the existence of a website for which he is merely the public face?

In any case, it should be obvious that the real reasons for Assange’s arrest have little to do with condom breakage. Humanity will be lucky if Assange gets out of this situation alive. As soon as it is okay—and indeed, many members of the general public have expressed their support for this “solution”—to label a “terrorist”, imprison, or assassinate a foreign national who has embarrassed our country (a country fully deserving of embarrassment) then we are in for a great deal of strife. Wikileaks itself is mirrored on hundreds of hosts distributed across the globe. There are surely hundreds, if not thousands or hundreds of thousands, of anonymous members of Wikileaks who will carry on the organization if an ill fate befalls Asssange. If Assange is imprisoned or assassinated, the ONLY affect will be that it has become acceptable, in the public mind and the political sphere, to imprison or assassinate foreign nationals who do things that a government doesn’t like, and that this judgement can be based on unrelated allegations, or legally untenable charges.

Sounds fair and just to me.

Here is the team (less one member, Max) yesterday looking at...

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 14:19:00 -0500

Here is the team (less one member, Max) yesterday looking at Chris’s diagrams during the planning process. Source

Right now, we are waiting around until our presentation, followed by judging.

I’ve noticed that traffic to this site is roughly...

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 11:18:14 -0500

I’ve noticed that traffic to this site is roughly correlated with my average amount of free time.

Random Hacks of Kindness 2.0 - Chicago

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 23:36:09 -0500

Honestly, this is by far the most exciting experience I’ve had since my plane landed in Chicago.

Last night, I went to the kick-off/meet-up reception for Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK), hosted by the Museum of Science and Industry in their U-505 exhibit. RHoK is a hackathon focusing on software that can be of use to disaster releif and crisis response organizations (and other such humanitarian stuff). It started today at 9 AM and ends tomorrow evening. It is a worldwide event, with this event in Chicago being only one of 22.

I have been enjoying myself immensely, I’ve met several interesting and talented people (sadly I haven’t met everyone here, or I would say many interesting and talented people).

I’m working on the “Landslide risk reduction in developing countries” project with, coincidentally, part of the team that won first place at a RHoK event last year. We are also collaborating with the other former team members and a postdoc from the University of Bristol who are at RHoK in Saint Lucia. Working on the project has been intense to say the least. I have had little time for anything else, so I’m lucky I wrote 96% of this post before the work actually started.

are you going to come back to yakima for winter berak?

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 18:11:43 -0500

Yes! Flying back into Seattle next weekend, then I’ll find my way over to Yakima when I get bored.

Christmas

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 22:30:23 -0500

Verily, the holiday season has begun. While I consider myself an atheist, I attended the InterVarsity Christmas Service last night. InterVarsity is the only Christian youth organization I’m aware of on campus.

Last night’s event was their anual Christmas carol sing-along (with instrumental accompaniment, arranged by a first year from my house, for most of the songs), including a sermon by a local pastor, from Hyde Park Trinity Church as I recall.

It was heartwarming to hear the carols filling Bond Chapel, one of the chapels which is smaller and less renowned than the Rockefeller Chapel. And afterward, I made cookies in my RH’s apartment, which was almost as heartwarming—they even had a Christmas tree and stockings.

In any case, Christmas is coming, and I’m very excited.

The apology-for-being-dead post, followed by a cop out

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:10:41 -0500

I’ve been busy. I haven’t forgotten about Yakima, or this blog.

But quite frankly, I have more glorious and interesting things going on.

I’m exploring a new city, I’m learning plenty, I’m helping start a new environmental movement on campus, I’m making new friends, I’m writing parodies of articles in peer-reviewed journals, I’m carving pumpkins, I’m making video games, I’m buying new shoes, and plenty more.

I don’t know if I ever made this clear enough or not, but I’m rather indecisive. I have a limited amount of time, and a lot of things I need or want to be doing with it. On the rare occasions I have both felt inclined to update this blog and had free time, I’ve either been coaxed into recreational activities by friends or I’ve been unable to decide on a topic. I really can’t give you every detail, after all.

I hope you will understand; but still, I am quite sorry. On the other hand, I really don’t feel any obligation to you :P

Now for the cop out: if indeed you want to see this updated, you’ll have to use the “Ask me anything” button to the right to let me know what you want to know and I’ll do my best to fill you in. If you find this compromise unsatisfactory, you can tell me that too.

A weekend and a Monday

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 00:59:16 -0400

Realizing, regretfully, that I have not satisfactorily upheld my promise to give everyone a peek into my new life at college, I have decided to document for you the last three or so days of my life. Well, it will only be the interesting bits. Parental advisory: disagreeable content follows; may contain alcohol, mathematics, sex, and/or environmental activism. Times are approximated estimates.

Saturday, 11:00—I wake up, struggle out of bed, and shower in the small and sometimes scary yellow-tiled bathroom shared with the 7 other guys on my floor. To my knowledge, none of them have STIs or other easily transmissible diseases, though this may change tonight. Nonetheless, I wear shower sandals. After showering and dressing, I read my email and news feeds.

13:00—I eat three medium sized pancakes with peanut butter, less syrup than normal, and a helping of scrambled eggs. If I had taste buds, I’m sure it would be unpleasant. Bartlett, the dining hall, is crowded with a few lunchers and many breakfasters. After my meal, I head to the Regenstein library (a.k.a. “the Reg”) to do some reading for my humanities class, Greek Thought and Literature. We are discussing the first six books of the Iliad on Monday.

15:00—I return to my room and do some calculus homework.

17:00—I go to Section II to hang out with some friends. After about half an hour, I am struck by genius. I go back to room and grab my laptop, then return. I spend the rest of the evening splitting my attention between socializing and crafting a word search containing the names of all the officials elected in Thursday’s Hitchcock House governmental elections. We also go to dinner at Bartlett at some point.

23:00—I and my friends head up to the BRO party (Beta Rho Omicron, Snell-Hitchcock’s mock-fraternity). It’s their first party of the year. Unlike the real fraternities which own their own houses, BRO can’t throw parties before the residence halls open. The other fraternities held, in sum, at least one party every night of orientation week. To wit, BRO’s objective with their first party is, “to get a bunch of first years drunk and convince them to stay in the dorms.” They are competing with AEΠ’s 80s Dance Party at the same time tonight, but only ask for donations rather than AEΠ’s $5 entrance fee.

Sunday, sometime between 24:00 and 1:00—I am about to go grab my first beer when I find out they are all out; only vodka and coconut rum remain. As I pause to reflect, I notice a Rubik’s cube on the bookshelf above the booze. I pick it up and resolve to figure it out. (I have never solved a Rubik’s cube.) Soon, Jay-Z notices the cube, with which he is proficient, and asks to have a go at it. I scramble it for him, and he solves it in about 80 seconds—not bad for being drunk and in bad lighting. He asks if I want to learn how to do it, to which I respond with a hearty affirmative.

2:30—I realize I’ve spent most of the party learning how to solve a Rubik’s cube. At one point, an upper-year had noted, in reference to Jay-Z and I in the main hallway with a Rubik’s cube, that this was exactly how he thought parties at Snell-Hitchcock should be. I decide to call it quits and get some sleep.

11:00—For hilariously nefarious reasons involving neither myself nor my roommate, I wake up on the carpet in a room on the female floor in Section II.

12:00—After showering, brushing my teeth, deciding not to shave, dressing, and catching up with the internet, I head back to Bartlett for much the same meal as yesterday’s breakfast.

14:00—I send the finished house elections word search (producing some acclaim throughout the following days) to the residents of Hitchcock, in the form of a satirical/parodical 8th grade homework assignment about the history and society of the People’s Republic of Hitchcock, a nation rampant with corruption.

15:00—I head to the Reg to finish my calculus and computer science homework.

18:00—I successfully write my first rigorous mathematical proof, showing the following by induction:

I leave to meet someone at Bartlett after dinner.

19:00—Kai, a fellow member of SJSF and GCI, and I leave for the SJSF President’s apartment, where we will be phone canvassing for Greenpeace (don’t worry, only calling registered Greenpeace members). We invite some 200 Chicagoans to a rally on 10.10.10.

22:00—I go to a study break hosted by the coolest RA ever (tied with the other Hitchcock RA), eat some raisin-walnut-banana bread, and socialize.

24:00—I go to Hitchcock’s public lounge area, the Green Room, to study. In particular, I’m finishing my Iliad reading.

Monday, 2:00—Though my reading was slowed by the appearance of several friends, I finish my reading and go to bed.

8:15 (the only accurate time in this post)—I wake up, get ready for the day, and head to Bartlett.

9:30—I arrive at my computer science class and turn in my homework, the proof mentioned above. I am very proud of it. On Wednesday I will probably get it back with scathing comments and glaring errors circled in red ink. I sit through a 1.3 hour lecture about Haskell’s type system. It makes me giddy. (No sarcasm.)

10:30—I head to the biology building where my calculus class is located and work on the homework, which isn’t due until Friday.

11:30—I head to the class and evidently black out until 12:20 when I leave the class not sure if I learned anything. Some time during the class, I received an email saying that a package had arrived for me, so I head back to the dorm before lunch and find my new Timbuk2 Swig Mavericks backpack waiting for me. It came not in a bag but a plastic bike map of San Francisco, Timbuk2’s headquarters. I transfer my stuff from my overstuffed satchel to my new roomy waterproof backpack and head to lunch.

13:30—I arrive at my Greek Thought and Literature class and try very hard to pay attention for 1.5 hours and leave quite sure that I learned nothing. We have yet to touch on one subject, theme, or idea in either of the two prompts for the essay due next week. And the essay is supposed to be based on the text we aren’t discussing any more.

15:30—I go to the College Networking Services and Information Technology’s Human Resources Department to submit my employment paperwork. On my way back to the dorm, I get an email from my employer saying that she found an office for me and my workmate, whom I have yet to meet. She requests that we both show up at 14:00 tomorrow to discuss projects and get started.

16:30—I go to my computer science lab and do some awesome geometrical reasoning and Haskell coding.

18:30—I finally leave the lab and head to dinner.

19:00—I walk to the Secular Student Association introductory meeting. It is entertaining.

20:00—I walk to the computer science building, which happens to be the home of the Ryerson Astronomical Society, for their introductory meeting. We talk about rectified moon maps, sextants, and telescope lenses, then go to the roof of Ryerson to observe Jupiter. It’s a beautiful night out.

21:00—Back in my room, I spend an hour finishing the computer science lab and submit it. I spend another hour swapping stories and telling crude jokes with my floormates.

23:00—I begin writing this post.

23:59—Without any review or editing, I publish this post.

What are you using to draw up your schedule?

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 14:04:08 -0400

Apple’s iCal. It synchronizes with Google Calendar, which synchronizes with my phone.

Activities

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 21:20:39 -0400

The problem with college is that homework, classes, labs, and tutorial sessions can only waste so much of my time.

Here are some activities, organizations, and clubs that I may be wasting the rest of it with:

JELLY (Jugglers Enriching Lives Like Yours): If I could become ultra-proficient with my diabolo, I would feel very accomplished. There happens to be a very good diaboloist in JELLY, so I should have someone to learn from (at least to a point) and a community with which to practice.
ACM/ICPC (Association for Computing Machinery and their International Collegiate Programming Competition): The ACM is basically the computer science club, so I’ll be hanging with them for sure. I’m already in communication with the ICPC coach and trying to start a team. UChicago has had a team go to the world finals the last two years.
The Programming Club: This is a newer club not associated with the international ACM organization. There’s also a Game Dev Club which sounds interesting but I don’t really know anything about.
GCI & SJSF (Green Campus Initiative and Students for a Just and Sustainable Future): These are two environmentalist groups with which I plan to involve myself. I’m going to help with a phone bank for SJSF on Sunday, in fact. Both organizations are also attending a 10/10/10 Coal Day of Action event organized by the Chicago Clean Power Coalition.
SSA (Secular Student Alliance): Supporting, defending, and discussing faithlessness on campus and elsewhere.
NSP or CYP (Neighborhood Schools Program or Chicago Youth Program): Honestly, I doubt I’ll have time for this. If I do, however, these are both organizations providing opportunities for tutoring and mentoring children in Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Kenwood, and surrounding neighborhoods.
Aikido: I definitely want to learn aikido, it looks awesome. Again, I doubt I’ll have time for this. If not, I’ll probably take the Conflict Theory and Aikido Lab course from the PhysEd department Winter quarter.
My new position as Secretary of Hitchcock House: House government elections were held last night. The venerable Ben Brubaker left his position as Secretary to become the President. Later, I was elected as Secretary—the position charged with recording events during house meetings EXACTLY as they occur, in painstaking detail, or risking death by hanging—with this speech: “I get uncomfortable talking about myself, so I’m going to talk about someone we all know: Vladimir Putin. Fun fact: he was the captain of his high school curling team. (Dramatic pause.) I made that up. I plan to make up many more interesting tidbits for your enjoyment. Thank you.” Well, something like that, I’m not sure about the details.
A job: I’ve accepted a position on a programming team under the Networking Services and Information Technology umbrella.
The Gaming Guild: I’ll probably play a few games. Board games, card games, video games, roleplaying games—I will have more people to play these with than I ever could have asked for in Yakima.

Well, that’s all for now. Hopefully I’ll actually have enough time for most of this. Let me know if you think any of these are a waste of time so I can act slightly offended and disregard your advice!

This is the first thing I saw when I stepped out of the John...

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 20:26:11 -0400

This is the first thing I saw when I stepped out of the John Hancock Observatory elevator. This is looking south along the shore of Lake Michigan.

Just to prove I’ve been out of Hyde Park, this was taken...

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 14:50:00 -0400

Just to prove I’ve been out of Hyde Park, this was taken in Andersonville, a North Side neighborhood within Edgewater. I’m not sure what to call this. A puppet show bicycle? Mobile puppet show? Whatever, it was awesome. Oh, and yes: my phone’s camera really is that bad.

Here are a few pictures of places around campus at which much of...

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 14:44:13 -0400

Here is the tire swing outside Hitchcock

The empty rec room with Strikers 1945

A bench outside the Reynold's Club

Here are a few pictures of places around campus at which much of my time is spent.

Now for a quick rundown of O-week! I spent a lot of time meeting people and having fun, a lot of...

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:14:29 -0400

Now for a quick rundown of O-week! I spent a lot of time meeting people and having fun, a lot of time going to meetings and stuff like that, and a lot of time eating (believe it or not).

A few of the “big events” were these:

Opening Convocation with speeches by President Zimmer, Dean Boyer, and probably someone else but I was nodding off to be honest with you.
The Aims of Education address on Friday, given in the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel by a nice lady whose name I can’t remember. A transcription of her speech will be available online eventually.
Movie on the Quad, where tons of cold people watched Batman Begins on a huge screen in the Bartlett quadrangle.
Docfilms O-week screening, where I finally saw Run Lola Run with some (new!) friends.
House Activities Night, which consisted of several groups within Snell and Hitchcock halls taking separate public transit routes to Millenium Park, where huge stacks of take-out deep dish pizza were waiting for us. Later, in the same groups, we competed in a miniature scavenger hunt of about 40 items. My team took 3rd with 300-something points, at least 20 of which were won with a picture of me lounging nude, except for a robe, by the 14th story pool of the fabulous InterContinental Chicago.
Class registration. Heck yes.
Engage Chicago Through Service Day (or something). The Snitchcockers who happened to volunteer got to help out at a Chicago Youth Program location near Washington park.
“On Top of the World” reception on the 94th floor of the John Hancock building. It was absolutely amazing.

I’ll post a picture or two later, but my phone’s camera is atrocious and will certainly do no justice to the view from the observatory. I don’t even remember if I have any other pictures, but I’ll post some of them too. That is, after my compsci lab!

Okay, I’m sorry for the silence, but hopefully...

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:59:23 -0400

Okay, I’m sorry for the silence, but hopefully you’ll understand that I’ve been extremely busy. Right now, as you may see from the picture of my schedule for this week, I’m using my free time between my humanities class and my computer science lab to give you this update, and the one that will follow shortly.

The four classes I am taking this quarter, three of which I’ve already been to, are as follows:

MATH 15200—Calculus 2
HUMA 12000—Greek Thought and Literature (For the curious, we’ll be reading Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, and Aeschylus)
CMSC 16100—Honors Introduction to Computer Science
GRMN 10201—Elementary German 2

Also, you might notice that I’m auditioning for Off-Off Campus, the school’s most prestigious improv and sketch group. I should point out that I will not actually be there for three hours both nights, just so it’s clear.

Something showed on your schedule: Sex Signals.
I'm intrigued. A lecture, movie... what is it?

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:43:07 -0400

Actually, it’s a hybrid scripted-improv comedy show including a down to earth and (mostly) mature perspective on sex in college. Hilarious and informative. (For example, I learned that one should in fact not open a conversation with an attractive girl by asking if she wants to go Dutch on a baby.)