Wednesday, May 28, 2008

#73. Go somewhere at night where there isn’t a lot of ambient light and stargaze

Why is it on the list?

I grew up out in the country. One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to lay on the neighbor's trampoline and just look up at the stars. I'd see shooting stars and satellites and what just HAD to be alien spaceships. My Dad was always taking my sister and I outside to look at a lunar eclipse or to point out Venus or something and I think it must have been contagious. I loved looking at the sky (day or night) and my sister even put up constellations in her bedroom (using glow in the dark stars).

Anyways, as time passed, the night sky has grown less dark. As the surrounding towns grew and grew, more and more ambient light filled the night sky wiping out the stars. A guy built a house across the way from my parents and insisted on putting a street light out in the middle of nowhere adding to the problem. When I moved away from home I've had streetlights everywhere I've lived and there just doesn't seem to be as many stars any more... and the ones left are very faint and dull. Nothing like the brightness I used to ride my bike home in. (For more on how we are losing the night sky check out this article that also inspired me to add this item to my list)

So I was determined to find a place where I could once again go stargazing and relive those wonderful moments of my youth.

The Process

Little did I know I was going to be doing this from 9000 ft.

Recently, my wife and I took a trip to Hawaii for our one year anniversary. We visited the Big Island and were amazed at the lava fields and seeing Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. However, one of my favorite parts of the trip was the journey we took to the summit of Mauna Kea.

Mauna Kea is the tallest point in the Hawaiian islands at 13,796 feet high. We decided to book a tour that promised us sunset at the summit and a night of stargazing. Usually we end up adventuring on our own, but lacking a four wheel drive vehicle or proper climbing gear we decided to suck it up and be typical tourists for once.

Looking down on a sunset with clouds thousands of feet below you is quite the experience. It was very beautiful and romantic as my wife and I watched the sunset from the summit of the mountain. After sunset, we headed back to the 9000 ft level where the Visitor Center is. At the Visitor Center they had telescopes set up and had them pointed at Mars, Saturn, and the Moon. Saturn was wild looking through the telescope, you could see the rings but it literally looked like a little sticker you'd find on a grade school project.

Our guide also gave us some binoculars and pointed out many stars and constellations. The only thing that was slightly disappointing was the moon was out and almost full, which added a lot of ambient light. However, the stars were still brighter than they are when the moon isn't out in Knoxville. It was a blast and now I've climbed two mountains (we did have to hike a bit to get to the Summit... nothing spectacular, but it was wild how hard it was to go uphill when you are dealing with the high altitude) and got to stargaze in one of the most beautiful settings I've ever been in.

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Saturday, May 24, 2008

Book Review (6/34) Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead

The first time I encountered Margaret Mead was in a biography about Norbert Wiener. I was very impressed that Mead had written a well received book at the age of 27 in 1928 when at that time science was dominated by men. So, when I came across this book, Coming of Age in Samoa, sitting on the shelf in the local bookstore decided to give it a go.

Coming of Age in Samoa details the lives of adolescent Samoan girls in the early 1920s. Mead spent years observing the girls and provides an interesting look at their lives from birth to old age. Though the descriptions of the Samoan culture circa 1920 is certainly fascinating, the portion of the book that really captured my interest was the last two chapters, where Mead asks the question, “What can we learn about our society from studying the lives of the Samoans”. Mead makes some insights that are just as relevant today as they were in 1928.

Mead set the stage for these latter two chapters in the beginning of the book when she asks the question, “Must adolescence always be a stormy time of rebellion and angst or is that a unique feature of Western culture?”. Throughout the rest of the book the answer become clear. Adolescent girls in Samoa do not have the same turmoil and strife that adolescent girls (and boys) in America have. Mead hypothesizes that this is due to a lack of choice in Samoan culture. In Samoa, everyone believes the same things and the opportunities that a teen girl has for the future are relatively few. In comparison, an American teen is beset with limitless opportunities, and unlimited choices, which her parents, friends, and society constantly pressure her to choose from.

Mead makes a great point at the end of Chapter 13: “In all of these comparisons between Samoan and American culture, many points are useful only in throwing a spotlight upon our own solutions, while in others it is possible to find suggestions for change. Whether or not we envy other peoples one of their solutions, our attitude towards our own solutions must be greatly broadened and deepened by a consideration of the way in which other peoples have met the same problems. Realizing that our own ways are not humanely inevitable nor God-ordained, but are the fruit of a long and turbulent history, we may well examine in turn all of our institution, thrown into strong relief against the history of other civilizations, and weighing them in the balance, be not afraid to find them wanting.”

This is a point I keep harping on, but one I think is vital to how we live and raise our children. The struggles of our youth or our culture in general are due to the details of our culture, not fate or some inevitable part of the human process.

Mead’s words 80 years ago haunt me, because she saw the same problems I see today. “At the present time we live in a period of transition. We have many standards but we still believe that only one standard can be the right one. We present to our children the picture of a battle-field where each group is fully armored in the conviction of the righteousness of its cause. And each of these groups makes forays among the next generation. But it is unthinkable that a final recognition of the great number of ways in which man, during the course of history and at the present time, is solving the problems of life, should not bring with it in turn the downfall of our belief in a single standard."


Unfortunately, it is now eighty years since Mead has written those words and I believe that our society still is filled with these battles between camps of righteousness. Mead stated that:
The children must be taught how to think, not what to think.

And I don’t think we do that.

In Mead’s words, “Education, in the home even more than at school, instead of being a special pleading for on regime, a desperate attempt to form one particular habit of mind which will withstand all outside influences, must be a preparation for those very influences…And even more importantly, this child of the future must have an open mind. The home must cease to plead an ethical cause or a religious belief with smiles or frowns, caresses or threats. The children must be taught how to think, not what to think And because old errors die slowly, they must be taught tolerance, just as today they are taught intolerance. They must be taught that many ways are open to them, no one sanctioned above its alternative, and that upon them alone lies the burden of choice.”

I wish this was how our education system functioned. I long for the day when raising a child to be racist is viewed the same as physically abusing a child. I hope that I can raise my children to be tolerant and to not try and force my beliefs upon them.

Of course, the tricky part is finding where you draw the line. Obviously you need to instill in a child the idea of right and wrong. However, I would argue (and I believe Mead’s writing supports this) that right and wrong are very subjective things and culturally based. So how can I teach a child right and wrong without also inflicting upon them whatever “regime” (as Mead calls it) I subscribe to?

So the questions are:

1.)How can you teach a child to think and to keep an open mind while also teaching them the values that are near and dear to your heart?

2.)Should society as a whole get involved with how you teach your child these things? We as a society already step in where there is evidence of physical or sexual abuse. Should society step in for mental abuse as well? Should we consider it just as neglectful when Dad teaches Little Johnny to hate minorities as when he beats Little Johnny?

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Book Review (5/34) The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared Diamond

This is the third book I've read by Jared Diamond, and though I didn't think it was as groundbreaking as Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse, I still enjoyed the book. In fact, the ideas that were fleshed out in those two books (Why the European Culture came to dominate the world in the 19th century and why societies collapse) are both present in their infancies in this book.

Basically, Diamond makes the case that man is nothing more than another chimpanzee. We share over 98% of our DNA with chimps, and Diamond shows that everything we consider to be uniquely human traits have animal precursors or equivalents (with the possible exception of drug abuse). Sure humans use tools, but so do some animals (such as chimps using sticks to get termites). Well, humans have language another person might say. So does a species of monkey Diamond discusses that have different vocalizations for eagles, leopards, and snakes. Humans lie! Diamond mentions that some of these monkeys will vocalize a leopard warning when their tribe is losing a fight with another tribe to send their rivals scurrying up trees.

The list continues! Diamond showed that bower birds create "art" and that various animals commit "murder" and even genocide. He also speaks of how ants have domesticated aphids and use them as a food source, thus having a kind of agriculture. In fact, the only thing that seems to be uniquely human is drug abuse, and even that seems to have some animal precursors.

Diamond's main point is that humans have clearly evolved from animals and that the dividing line that we tend to draw between ourselves and animals isn't as distinct as we'd like to think. In fact, almost all the behaviors that we consider to be uniquely human appear to have animal equivalents, or at least precursors.

The next section of the book spends time detailing the evolution of man from our separation from a common ancestor with chimps and gorillas 7 million years ago to the arrival of Cro-Magnon Man 40,000 years ago. The speculation about the extinction of the Neanderthals being caused by Cro-Magnon Man is convincing and the discussion of the spread of languages is interesting as well.

Diamond also takes some time to point out the flaws in the Drake Equation that predicts a universe teeming with intelligent life. The best part is when Diamond makes a compelling case that if we really thought there was intelligent life out there then we should try to avoid it as our history tells us that when two groups of humans meet the technologically superior group wipes out the other. So sending out a radio broadcast telling whoever is out there exactly where we are probably wasn't the best idea ever.

Finally the rest of the book presents some early ideas of Diamond's that were expanded in Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse. If you've read those two books, you'll find some of this repetitive, but the first half of the book more than makes up for it and a little redundancy never hurt anyone.

I guess my only other qualm is that Diamond tends to over exaggerate at times. He has a tendency to make statements like "This evidence is indisputable" or "This theory is unquestionable" which is obviously false. A theory that is not questionable is not a theory. I agree 100% with the majority of Diamond's theories and conclusions, but that does not mean that they should be beyond questioning. We should remember what Norbert Wiener knew at the age of 10 when he wrote of "the impossibility of man being certain of anything".

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Book Review (4/34) Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener the Father of Cybernetics

Now that my qualifying exams are finished I can get back to my education. For the first time in three years I am experiencing guilt free reading and it is a wonderful feeling. Of course I still have my dissertation to worry about and I believe that this book is a nice gentle step in the proper direction.

Norbert Wiener was an American Scientist who found the field of Cybernetics, which is basically the study of complex systems and has a lot in common with control theory. My advisor is a control theory guru and suggested this book as a way to get my feet wet so to speak. I've always admired authors like James Gleick and Richard Feynman who can turn complex subject matter into easily readable material and I'm happy to report Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman do the same with their biography on Wiener.

I think above all else, Conway and Siegelman portray Wiener as a tragic hero, a child prodigy turned into one of the most influential and prominent scientists of his day, who was haunted by self-doubt and had personal and political influences which had negative effects on his career (and in turn the course of scientific history and with that human history). In fact, based on the description of his upbringing by his father and the machinations of his wife to isolate him from his colleagues it's amazing what Wiener was able to accomplish. It is a tragedy that a lie created by his wife led to his ending his collaboration with Warren McCulloch, Walter Pitts, and Jerome Lettvin.

Despite these struggles (and the United States focusing on artificial intelligence concepts more than cybernetics) Wiener contributions to science cannot be overstated. Reading through the book it was amazing how many different fields benefited from his research. He was truly interdisciplinary. And beyond his scientific accomplishments and his estrangement from his daughters, he was a truly ethical and moral man who was more concerned with improving the human condition than chasing the almighty dollar. Wiener constantly spurned the defense industries and corporations after seeing the devastating effects of the atomic bomb and realizing the negative impact automation could cause humanity when motivated by sheer greed.

Wiener also had some great insights, even from an early age. Conway and Siegelman wrote that at ten, he wrote of "the impossibility of man's being certain of anything" and disputed "man's presumption in declaring that his knowledge has no limits". This brilliant insight (which I didn't accept until I was 26 and had to be pointed out to me) came to him at 10 years old. Additionally, the statement that "There is something against the grain in the ... wholesale acceptance of any creed, whether in religion, in science, or in politics. The attitude of the scholar is to reserve the right to change his opinion at any time on the basis of evidence produced" is something that I agree with one hundred percent.

I definitely think that Wiener's scientific approach match nicely with the philosophical views of James and Pirsig, and may indeed be the place I need to stick my shovel in the ground and say, "Here is what I think is happening". This book is an excellent introduction to Wiener and I think that I will start with his books Cybernetics and go from there.

Monday, May 5, 2008

#58. Cook something from a Top Chef recipe

Why it is on the list?

It all started when my wife and I started living together. I wanted to watch ESPN every minute of the day and she wanted to watch an endless parade of Gilmore Girls and 7th Heaven on ABC family. Then one magical day we tuned in to Bravo and found a fat man in a bathtub making a movie and we had something we could both enjoy. We stayed on after Project Greenlight wasn't renewed and we've enjoyed everything from the overly dramatic antics of the Hair Sheriff to the insanity of Showdogs Moms and Dads:



But nothing captured our imagination quite like Top Chef. Sure we love food and this show is all about showcasing the talents and skills of some excellent Chefs. But once you add in a cast of crazy characters (Chunk Le Funk, Stephen (Tool and Douchebag!), Miguel (SSSSSSS), Dave (I'm not your bitch bitch), Marcel (foams!), Hung (Crazy knife skills), and Howie (sweating into the food) and make Tom Colicchio the head judge, you have yourself a winner.

For 4 seasons my wife and I have tuned in every Wednesday night at 10PM to drool over the amazing dishes the chefs created, longing for the opportunity to taste them. Well we decided it was time to take matters into our own hands!

The Process

As previously mentioned, I recently purchased the Top Chef Cookbook.

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The first order of business was to pick a recipe, and as my wife and I had wanted to cook Elia's breakfast dish from Season Two since we saw it we knew exactly what we wanted to try first. Luckily, the recipe was in the book and looked relatively simple to make.

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We gathered the ingredients (doubling everything since we were making two) and made a few substitutions (Pam instead of butter for frying the eggs, regular ole ham for coppa ham).

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My wife was the Chef and I started on my Sous Chef duties. I mixed the olive oil with the refried beans

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toasted the waffles and then covered em with the refried beans while the Chef was frying the eggs. My wife drizzled the maple syrup over the waffles

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and then tossed em in the broiler for a few minutes

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All that was left was to toss on the ham and egg, sprinkle with parsley, and serve

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It was delicious and a great way to start off the day! It was fun to make and I had a great time cooking with the wife and finally making something we saw on Top Chef.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

#40. Run a Half Marathon

Why is it on the list?

Well, if I want to do an Ironman, I needed to start somewhere. The challenge for endurance races for me is much more mental than it is physical. I have a tendency to give up if I think I won't meet my goals. I decided I needed to change that and I thought that if I could do a Half Marathon, then maybe I could do a Full Marathon, and if I could do a Marathon then maybe.... just maybe... I could start thinking about an Ironman.

The Process

Well, today the wife and I and some friends completed the Flying Pig Half Marathon. An in-depth race report can be found from my MySpace Page. However, I did accomplish my goals of 1.)Finishing in under 2 hours 2.)Finishing without needing to walk and 3.)Finishing before any marathoners finished. Today was the longest I've ever ran both in terms of time and distance.

Now I just need to get my nerve up to sign up for the Air Force Marathon in September...

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Random Sports Musings

Don't Blame the Diesel

Sure he might have missed a boatload of free throws in Game 5, but Shaq isn't to blame for the loss against the Spurs. Two-time MVP Steve Nash was absolutely horrible down the stretch, with 3 or 4 costly turnovers in the game's closing minutes. Tony Parker embarrassed Nash all series long. I sure can't wait to see the Parker-Paul match-up in Round 2.

Long Live Sir Charles (and the TNT crew)

I'm sure many of you have seen this video of Kobe Bryant jumping an Aston Martin



Kenny the Jet Smith decided to give it a go with Bryant looking on:



Man. Every night I'm cracking my ass up at these guys. I can't wait for the Dwade appearance tonight.

The Big Eleven are a bunch of pansies

Once again a potential playoff for College Football has been derailed by the commissioners of the Big Ten and the Pac 10, who know the best way for their schools to get a crack at the National Title is to avoid playing anyone decent until the Championship Game. No way Ohio State wants any SEC team until they absolutely have to. This system continues to punish teams in strong conferences and mid majors, while the Buckeyes can continue to roll up the likes of Akron and Toledo in the non conference season, pound Indiana and Northwestern in their weak conference, make it to the BCS title game undefeated, only to get blown out by a battle tested school from the SEC. A 3 loss Tennessee or a 2 loss Florida will beat an 11-0 OSU or Michigan every time.

Shaun Alexander's Homecoming

I have no idea where Shaun Alexander would fit on the Bengals roster, with Rudi, Kenny Watson, Chris Perry, Dorsey, and Irons all taking up spots. But I would love for Mr. Boone County Kentucky to come home and play for the Who-Dey.

God must hate UK

Jason Parker fools around in the locker room.... torn ACL. Derek Anderson is running down the court against Auburn... torn ACL. Tyler Hansbrough jumps off a frat house into an above ground pool.... perfectly healthy. There's no justice in the world.