Tag essay (26)

The second in an occasional series
Idea: Now I'm focusing on improving the time to insert the iTunes data into database. Where we left off last time, our script took 71 seconds to run, ~50 seconds of which was database operations. The idea I had to speed this up was to batch a bunch of queries together and thus make fewer calls to the database. It turns out this actually slowed things down.

So I did a little research and it turns out if you insert data with the same query structure over and over again (but with different bind variables), the database doesn't have to reparse the query which speeds things up a lot. I tried doing this with pyPgSql but couldn't find any documentation how it was supposed to work, so I switched to using psycopg2 and changed the query for inserting the playlist data. Just switching to a psycopg2 sped things up a lot, it seems. I tried switching to a similar sort of query for inserting track data, but that actually slowed things down.

Anyway, the new script runs in 25 seconds, and it looks like only around 9 seconds for database operations. This is a 400% speedup in the database time! Overall, this step improved performance by ~180%, and since we started at 114 seconds we've improved ~350%.

Conclusion: Another big success, and I'm not sure how much more I can squeeze out of the iTunesInfo.py script. Next time I'll focus on the analyzedb.py script, which does the analysis from the database - right now it's taking between 5 and 12 minutes to run on my library of 6400 tracks.

Source files:
- old script
- new script

The first in an occasional series
Intro: A while back I wrote a script to analyze an iTunes library and find your favorite artists, albums, etc. It works pretty well and I regularly use it to update my own analysis. Unfortunately, it generally takes a long time to run, which is sort of OK for me (because I just start it running and go do something else) but less good for people who are running the analysis through the web site.

So I'd like to make it run faster, and I have a number of ideas to do so.

Idea: There are two main parts to the system - parsing the iTunes Music Library.xml file into a database, and running the analysis on the database. First I'm focusing on the parsing part.

The first version of the parsing script uses Python's xml.dom.minidom package to completely parse the library file.

After profiling the first version by running python -m cProfile -o profiledata.oldway iTunesInfo.py "iTunes Music Library.xml", I see that the whole parsing process takes 114 seconds. The major parts of this are 60 seconds for the xml.dom.minidom.parse method and 46 seconds for the database operations. Note that this only leaves ~8 seconds for figuring out the track information - clearly this is not the bottleneck!

So I'd like to improve parsing speed. There are two basic kinds of XML parsers - what we're using now is a DOM or Document Object Model-style parser, which means that the parser reads the entire file in and returns a parsed structure containing all the data. (I remember writing a simple XML parser that did this as a project in COMP 314. Ah, memories...) The advantage to this method is that after the parsing is done, it's easy to traverse the DOM tree and find the data that you're interested in. The downside is that, well, it's slow. Also, the entire document has to be read into memory which means that your memory usage is proportional to the size of the file you're processing, which adds to the slowness and can lead to out of memory problems on huge files (although we weren't seeing that here).

The other basic kind of XML parser is known as SAX, or Simple API for XML. You provide callback functions that are called whenever the parser runs across the start of a tag, end of a tag, character data, and...that's it. Whatever processing you want to do you have to do in those callback functions. So if you're just, say, counting the number of <key> tags in a document this works really well. It's also much faster than the DOM-style parser, since it doesn't have to generate a giant tree structure. But doing the sorts of processing we're doing on the library file seems a bit more tricky.

Anyway, I take a stab at it, and after a bit end up with version 2 of the script. Notice that the logic in the Handler class is a bit twisted - we have to keep track of where we are in the document (so if things get out of order we'll have problems) and use a state-based system which is a bit brittle and unclear.

But how does it perform? The old version of the script ran in 114 seconds, and this version runs in 71 seconds for a ~60% increase in speed. But really, it's better than that, because the database operations still take around 50 seconds - if we subtract that from both we get 64 seconds versus 21 seconds which is a ~200% increase in the speed of the parsing.

Conclusion: This was a big success! Most of the time is now in the database layer, which I have some ideas for speeding up next time.

Source files:
- old script
- new script

better living through science
Mood: geeky
Music: that "Jai Ho" song
Posted on 2009-06-12 15:32:00
Tags: essay links
Words: 218

A while back I wrote a script to analyze our GnuCash account. A few months ago, I added a quick little feature to predict how much money we're going to spend this month - basically just taking the existing values and extrapolating to the end of the month, disregarding stuff that is largely the same like the mortgage payment and bills. So every time I run the script I get an updated projection of how much money we'll spend this month.

For something so simple, it's surprising how it's changed my behavior. I'm very much more conscious about spending money now, and last month we spent the least amount we have in a while. Of course, that's just one data point. It's similar as the idea behind the Google PowerMeter - if you can measure something well you're more likely to think about it more and conserve when you can.

In a similar vein, the Wall Street Journal writes about not getting enough sleep and a device called the Zeo which tells you how well you slept the next morning. Again, the idea is that you can try out different things (cutting out caffeine longer before bedtime, etc.) and see how they affect your sleep patterns. Cool stuff! Yet another study shows that sleep is important and helps you learn.

I recently got called for jury duty and served! My incredibly long story within...

The summons said to be there at 1:30 - parking was terrible to find given I wasn't sure about whether I'd be able to feed the meter (they only go for 2 hours and I was short on change anyway), so I ended up parking 8 blocks away in an expensive garage. That kinda sucked.

As I walked in I had to go through a metal detector/X-ray thingy. The security guard (who looked a lot like Dr. Kelso on Scrubs) told me I should get a man-purse since I had so much crap in my pockets :-)

In the criminal justice center, they had a lot of airport-like screens all over the place listing names, times, and cause numbers. I never did figure out exactly what the deal was - I figured they'd be cases being heard, but for example the court I was in had a list of 10 or so people for that day, and as far as I can tell the court never did anything with them. The cause number included the year - about 80% of them were 08, most of the rest were 07, and there were a few outliers like 94.

26 people had been called for Voir dire - I think all ended up showing up. I was #6, which I figured meant I had a pretty decent chance of getting chosen.

After we lined up and sat down, the judge talked to us for a few minutes about the process, which I was already somewhat familiar with (see previous jury experience). He said the court was misdemeanor court and the case should be done by Friday.

Then the prosecutor got up and started. (interestingly, or perhaps not, both prosecutors and defense attorneys were women, as were the bailiff and court reporter) Her name was Ms. Trumm, and she said she had taught high school before getting a chance to get to law school for free (she made it sound like it just happened out of the blue, and we never heard anything else about it) and ended up wanting to work in the "women & children" (words mine, not hers) department...but she was just starting out so she was doing this instead :-) She was quite young and she seemed a bit nervous. She had a powerpoint presentation that covered a lot of the same stuff as I had seen the last time - if you don't believe in judging people or in the one-witness rule, etc., this isn't the right case for you.

She also said the crime was a DWI, and although they weren't allowed to discuss the facts of the case, it was pretty clear that there was video evidence but no breathalyzer test.

The defense attorney seemed better organized (she also had a powerpoint presentation) and she asked a series of questions that we had to answer on a scale of 1 to 6 (1 = strongly agree, 6 = strongly disagree). Some of the questions were "Do you trust a police officer more than a citizen just because he/she is a police officer?" (hint: the correct answer is no; under the law, you're allowed to take into account the officer's experience and training, but not the fact that he's a police officer) and "The police never make a mistake." Anyway, her partner was writing down all of our numerical answers which was kinda neat.

It was pretty obvious some people near me were going to be disqualified - the woman whose husband is a firefighter (and so sees lots of DWI crashes), the guy who had been in a house that was raided by the Austin Police and then they realized it was a wrong address, etc. I had a feeling from my answers that I would be picked, and lo and behold I was juror #3. The judge dismissed everyone else and the bailiff showed us to the jury room (which was not as awesome as the judge last time had led us to believe :-) ) - it had a table, some chairs, a fridge and sink and a TV with a VCR/DVD player. The judge told us to report here at 9 AM the next morning and instructed us not to talk to anyone about the case.

The next morning, I dropped David off at NI at 8 to make sure I had plenty of time to get downtown and park. This time, I had a parking pass which made things a lot easier - found a spot two blocks away and walked in. Arrived around 8:30 and had some time to chat with the other jurors (who all ended up being pretty nice) and try to not fall asleep.

Then the bailiff brought us in to the court (one of the jurors showed up late so we didn't enter until around 9:30). The judge swore us in and then the opening arguments began. The prosecutor went first (it was neat when she said "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury" and she was totally talking to me!), and she again seemed somewhat nervous, but explaining that we would see a videotape of the defendant clearly intoxicated. "Intoxicated" according to the law means that they've lost "normal" use of their physical or mental faculties as a result of alcohol or a drug or some combination of alcohol and drugs. (or it means a BAC above .08, but that didn't come into play here since the defendant refused a breathalyzer test) She finished up by saying something like "After seeing all the evidence, I think you'll find the defendant not guilty...I mean guilty." The defense's opening argument was more polished, and outlined their plan: the defendant was tired, and not a bright guy who didn't understand the tests that the officer performed that we would see in the video.

The prosecutor called her first (and only) witness, who was the officer who made the stop. Actually, she called the witness, then left the courtroom for a good 90 seconds before returning with the officer. It was somewhat anticlimactic. Anyway, turns out the defendant had run a stop sign and the cop had to slam on the brakes to avoid him, then he did a traffic stop and did the field sobriety test. Luckily, APD has video cameras on all their cop cars so we could see the defendant doing the tests. As it turned out, the defendant only spoke Spanish - the cop spoke Spanish too but there were some translation issues that came up later...

The first test is to follow a pen with your eyes while keeping your head still. The defendant had a big problem with this - he kept saying that he was tired and wasn't used to doing this sort of thing so he kept moving his head (at least according to the police officer - the video was zoomed out enough we couldn't see very clearly). The second test is to walk nine steps forward heel to toe while watching your feet and keeping your arms at your side. This was somewhat bizarre - he clearly was having trouble understanding and took a few steps asking the officer if he was doing it right. Then he did nine steps pretty good and then took nine steps backwards, without turning around. Apparently in Spanish the phrase for "nine steps back" and "nine steps backwards" are pretty much the same, although the officer demonstrated so I'm not sure what the deal was.

The third test was to stand one one leg with the other leg raised six inches off the ground and hold that for thirty seconds (counting "one thousand one, one thousand two..."). Obviously there was a misunderstanding again, because he lifted his leg, counted "one thousand one", then stepped forward, lifted his other leg, and counted "one thousand two" in a Pink Panther-esque walk.

Anyway, we got to watch this in court, as well as a court-appointed transcription/translation to English. At one point, the prosecutor asked a question, the defense attorney objected but the officer answered anyway, which made the judge kinda peeved.

It was interesting to watch how they had to introduce something into evidence: the process was ask the judge to approach, show the evidence to the court reporter, ask the witness to describe what it was, then bring it to the other attorney to see if she had any objections. At one point she did but didn't want to talk about it with us around, so we got led back to the jury room while they hashed things out.

The whole process was pretty interesting: it felt kind of odd that obviously all the lawyers were very prepared and such and their audience was us: six basically random people off the street. I guess that's how the system's supposed to work, though. It was kind of awkward at times - we saw them outside of court once or twice and they didn't say a word to us - in fact, they'd often look away to ensure nothing improper happened :-)

Wording was clearly important to both of them: the prosecutor always used the term "field sobriety test" while the defense almost always said "coordination exercises" or "government test". In fact, the defense called the prosecutor the "government attorney" a few times, which the prosecutor actually pointed out in her closing argument!

The closing arguments were pretty short - interestingly, the prosecutor went first, then the defense, and then the prosecutor again, which the judge justified by saying the state "had the burden of proof", which is of course true but seemed a bit off to me. Then (right around 5:00) we retired to the jury room - the judge said to let them know in 30 minutes or so if they wanted them to order dinner for us.

At this point I had gone back and forth about the case a lot - the defendant had definitely failed some of the sobriety tests, but it did seem possible that he just didn't understand some parts of them, and on some parts he did do pretty well. Of course, he also ran a stop sign. Upon entering the room, I asked who wanted to be the presiding juror (i.e. the foreman/woman) to which there was 5 seconds of silence and the guy next to me said "the first one who says something". So, yes, I did become the presiding juror, which I was kinda excited about.

I wanted to take a straw poll at the beginning, but other people wanted to talk for a bit first, so we went over the evidence and quickly decided we wanted to watch the tape again, so I submitted a request for that to the bailiff. We watched it and talked again and realized we were going to be there for a while so we had them order pizza and soda for us (thanks, Austin taxpayers!) At some point we took a straw poll and the results were: 3 not guilty, 2 (including me) guilty, and 1 undecided.

Pizza came and we ate and chatted some more. The discussion got a little heated at times - the guy next to me, who was the other "guilty" vote, was prone to making inflammatory statements which pissed others off, and the guy next to him had a flair for the dramatic and brought up totally irrelevant points. ("What if he's an illegal immigrant?" Well, we don't know that, and if he is or isn't, so what?)

Eventually I came around and decided that, while he was probably drunk and definitely shouldn't have been driving, there was enough doubt that met the burden of "reasonable", so I switched to "not guilty", and at 7:20 PM the last holdout also changed his mind. (turns out he used to work crazy night shifts and often drove tired) I signed the "not guilty" line of the charge, we filed back into the court, and the judge asked me if we had reached a verdict, to which I replied "we have, your honor" which was awesome :-) He then read the verdict (without asking me if it was correct!) and then thanked us for our service.

He then said that we were free to talk about the case (or not if we didn't want to) and that the lawyers were usually interested in talking to the jury. So I hung around and talked to them, which was pretty cool. They said they usually tried to pick who they thought the presiding juror would be but guessed the guy next to me, although they did say that I seemed to be enjoying the experience (guilty as charged!). We talked about what we discussed in the jury room and why we eventually voted not guilty, although it was a close case. On the way out I chatted with another lawyer who explained that in voir dire, they only get 3 peremptory strikes of potential jurors - all the other strikes have to be "for cause" (i.e. if both sides or at least the judge agrees there's a possible bias).

Anyway, the whole thing was a fun experience, even though I had a ton of work to do, and I definitely hope to do it again some time, even though there were long stretches of boredom and I was tired most of the day. I felt proud to be part of the legal system :-)

(spoilers abound if you haven't seen the most recent episode of either!)
Lost is awesome.

Season 4 was pretty good - we learned a lot of interesting things about the island and the Oceanic 6's life after they left. The whole flash-forward structure was pretty neat at first, but eventually it seemed to rob the show of its stakes. We know Jack isn't going to die on the island because we can see him in the future! And there were certainly unanswered questions, like what happened to all the people who weren't in the Oceanic 6, but that wasn't enough for me to stay fully engaged. I thought the season finale in particular tied together some loose ends, but just wasn't that compelling. Interesting, sure, but I wasn't on the edge of my seat. And the whole dramatic tension of having to lie is something that is probably stronger in real life than it is to watch. After all, we're used to watching people lie on TV...

I had the same sort of problem with the beginning of Season 5 - we had a pretty good idea the Oceanic 6 were going to end up back on the island, so just showing why they arrived at that conclusion wasn't really that interesting to me. But the last two episodes of Season 5 have really kicked it up a notch. I feel like we're back in the heyday of Seasons 1 and 2 (which I watched on DVD and so didn't have the delayed gratification of waiting weeks between episodes) where we have no idea what's going to happen. Yeah, "Namaste" (the episode that aired last night) was kinda about resolving a bunch of loose ends about the Oceanic 6 arriving back on the island, but it did it in a very compelling way. I was on the edge of my seat watching LaFleur come up with a plan for Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid to integrate them into the Dharma Initiative. Even though the Purge is coming at some point we don't know what's going to happen to our folks.

And now a quick Battlestar Galactica rant, which you may have heard if you've been around me since last Friday:

I cannot believe they're at literally the second to last episode (bolding makes me sound angry!) and doing flashbacks back to before the series began...and these flashbacks kinda suck. So Roslin was happy go lucky! And had sisters! And then they and her father were randomly killed in a car crash, but she's stoic, see! Nevermind the fact that they would have all probably died when the Cylons attacked anyway...what is this supposed to tell us about her? We already know she's a tough person. I suppose the whole car crash was supposed to be shocking but I couldn't help but think the writers were just using a cheap device to make me feel sorry for her. Also, so help me if the person she's about to see on this blind date is the person who was driving the other car I'm going to jump up and down and scream "I don't care!" because I really really don't.

In other news, Baltar is still a jerk in the past. Two problems:
- I get that he's a jerk and I'm supposed to hate him. This has been emphasized basically any time he opens his mouth. Not news!
- There are three (now two) hours left to show the fate of humanity and I really really really don't care about Baltar compared to that.

TL;DR version: Lost good, BSG bad.

I think I miss singing. Last week I couldn't get the Durufle Requiem out of my head (beautiful piece of music), and today I have the same problem with the Mozart Requiem, probably due to this 30 Rock episode. Maybe after the whole wedding thing I'll look into rejoining Austin Civic Chorus.

Another bit of self-reflection: The last few weeks I've been waaaay too moody. Insignificant things will bring me down, but then I'll feel better for no reason. I'm not sure how to work on that exactly.

We're seeing Watchmen at midnight Thursday and I'm quite excited!

Also, my weight sure bounces around a lot.

obama's speech and an embarrassing memory from my past
Mood: embarrassed
Posted on 2009-02-25 13:23:00
Tags: essay politics
Words: 241

Obama gave a sort of State of the Union last night - here it is in full and it was pretty good I thought. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal (who some hope will run for president in 2012) gave the Republican rebuttal. As TPM points out he does a very good impression of Kenneth the Page! (Nate Silver covers why complaining about spending money on volcano monitoring isn't a great idea since it has saved lives in the past)

Unrelated memory that was randomly triggered at lunch: In 9th or 10th grade I was in the Houston Masterworks Chorus with my mom. For one rehearsal she couldn't make it, and so she arranged for me to catch a ride with someone (me not being able to drive) who was going to pick me up from home. Well, I'm a pretty shy person so I hadn't actually met this woman, but I sat outside on the curb reading a book waiting to be picked up. A car pulled up and scene missing and somehow I thought this was my ride and got so far as reaching in the window and unlocking the door before she asked "What are you doing?" I quickly apologized and went back to sitting on the curb. It was mortifying! Hopefully she didn't think I was a carjacker but I have a feeling she did. Later my actual ride came and I was careful to ask before entering the car :-)

At some point during this whole wedding process, it struck me (more poignantly than usual) we've come a long long way.

When I first started dating in 2000, I was heavily closeted, out to very very few people. My nightly phone calls to djedi I wandered around the Will Rice quad (because I didn't want roommates overhearing), and when people asked who I was talking to I would have to be awkwardly mysterious. Anti-sodomy laws were still on the books in Texas and some other states (way to go Legislature!)

Since then, anti-sodomy laws were struck down by the Supreme Court. Gays can now marry in two states, have a civil union in five others, and be domestic partners in four others (source). I am now fully out (non-protected post FTW!) to my family, friends, coworkers, and anyone I meet on the street. And we're planning our holy union.

This is why I'm not nostalgic for the "good old days". We've made progress and it only gets better from here!

I was pretty grumpy last night, and while I'm somewhat less so, I also had to get into work 2 hours earlier than I usually do. So, behold:

- The pope promoted an ultra-conservative Austrian bishop who said things like Hurricane Katrina was "God's punishment" for New Orleans' relaxed attitude towards sexual promiscuity and homosexuality. He's also your more standard fundamentalist with regards to Harry Potter books being evil, and apparently blamed the 2004 Asian tsunami on "rich western tourists" who had "fled to poor Thailand". Good to know where the Catholic church stands on such things. *sigh*

- This article about the new Battlestar Galactica by the guy who played Starbuck in the old one is really pretty amazing. I will excerpt, but you should read it all to appreciate teh crazy.

I am overweight. This displeases me.

I weighed myself every week through 2006 and 2007, and then my record started getting spotty in 2008 (to be fair, we bought a house and stuff). Keeping a log as to how well I was doing seems necessary to actually losing weight, but in the past it would just depress me because the fluctuations seemed random, independent of how "good" I thought I was that week. When I was in Weight Watchers in college I did lose weight, but counting points for every single meal and budgeting them and stuff made me pretty miserable.

So! New plan. Back to weekly weighings. At most one soda a day, and not at lunch. Exercise more, somehow, even though it's difficult when we don't get home until 7. Stop mindless snacking.

Unrelated: I'm no fan of Rice's tuition increases, but I'm glad they're at least raising the no-loan threshold and lowering the cap on loans in aid packages.

Recap:

That was a lot of fun! We got to the game early and walked to the stadium (avoiding the $20 parking), got some food and sat in our seats. We were literally four rows away from the field, at the 35 yard line. Visibility would have been better had we been a bit higher up, but being that close to the field was pretty fun. Reliant Stadium is huge!

I haven't watched a Rice football game since I graduated, as far as I can remember, so the team was very different. When I was there it was a lot of running, and a pass play almost qualified as a trick play because they happened so rarely. Rice ended up running a decent amount, but their passing game was stellar. Chase Clement (their senior QB) is quite good - he ran for Rice's first touchdown and threw for a few as well. He was good at avoiding the pass rush too - on one particularly nice touchdown throw he did a neat little turn to throw off the rusher and had plenty of time to step and throw.

Jarrett Dillard (Rice's All-American WR) was pretty amazing too - he made some nice catches (my dad says he has a 42" vertical leap!). James Casey sometimes lined up at tight end, sometimes at fullback, and he returned punts and was the holder for the field goal kicker :-)

Rice tried a few trick plays including a flea flicker (QB hands off to the fullback who takes a few steps, tosses it back to the QB who then throws a long pass) which didn't work, and a reverse followed by an attempted pass which would have worked but it was a bad throw. One that did work was with four wide receivers lined up on the left, Clement quickly threw to Dillard and then took off to the right. Dillard took a few steps, stopped and threw it to Clement who waltzed in to the end zone. It was awesome :-)

Here's the game recap - it was never close at all (Rice won 38-14 but went up 38-0 and then started taking out first-string players). The downside was that it wasn't that exciting per se, but it was nice the coach got to take out Clement and Dillard to a standing ovation.

The stadium was reasonably full and there were unsurprisingly a lot of Rice fans, including NI's former VP of R&D who I ran into. We got some good cheers going and stuff :-) I went with my dad and sister (not wonderjess, the other one who refuses to get a LJ account...) and had a lot of fun! Got to use my new camera for the first time and it performed well - took a lot of good pictures that I'll post when I figure out how to download them...

Edit: pictures now up!

"I wish I had done this!" is my highest praise for a website. The last time I can remember using it was for wowjutsu, which tracks raid progression in WoW by looking up what gear people are wearing in the Armory and matching that with where that gear came from. Simple idea, useful, interesting, but the technology behind it is something I totally could have done.

My newest "I wish I had done this!" is StateStats. You enter a search term, it finds which states in the US search for that term more per capita, then gives you a nice heat map of the US. But then it correlates that with a host of other state rankings: obesity, income, high school graduation rates, voted for bush, percent youth, etc., etc., etc. So you can see that searches for "prius" are correlated with income and negatively correlated with energy consumption. Or searches for "gay" are correlated with density (i.e. more urban states) and negatively correlated with voted for bush. Or searches for "lsu" are highly correlated with, well, being Louisiana. Or searches for "coke" are highly correlated with obesity, while searches for "soda" are highly negatively correlated with obesity. (huh?) Or searches for "tea" are correlated with income and negatively correlated with voted for bush.

Anyway, it's a ton of fun to play with, and the example queries ("garth brooks" is highly correlated with voted for bush!) are interesting, but it's even more fun to think of a common search term and see what pops up.

The correlation metric it's using is just based on rank and not intensity - i.e. it's just the order of the 50 states that matter, not how much the first place one is bigger than the second place one. This probably leads to some false positives when the numbers are very close together. Also, I'd imagine there's a natural inaccuracy determining which state a particular query is coming from, and since you're looking at things only on a state by state level (as opposed to county by county or something) it's not as precise as it theoretically could be.

And don't forget correlation is not causation - searching for "hockey" does not make it colder outside, or make you richer.

I award StateStats the official "I wish I had done this!" seal of approval.

I've been reading a lot about politics this year, although my sources range from relatively neutral to "in the tank" for Obama. But even so, I've noticed that the attacks on Obama seem to be far crazier than the attacks on McCain. It's hard to say whether this is true since the sort of sites I read tend to highlight the crazy attacks being made Obama, and I guess I don't entirely know where the crazy attacks on McCain are coming from. (I read dailykos.com which definitely had some questionable things, but still not as bad as what's being flung at Obama)

So I watched a segment of the Daily Show last night with interest, a segment where John Oliver went to Obama and McCain rallies and found people saying crazy things. Here it is:
As I was watching, it struck me that indeed the attacks on Obama were crazier. Let's break down each one by true/reasonable, grain of truth, and not true:
on Obama: If he is elected, we will have terrorists in our country. Didn't say he was a terrorist, so she could be saying he won't defend our borders, which is a reasonable concern. grain of truth
on Obama: He'll put a turban on, go in the White House and "we'll all be shot". not true
on Obama: He's a Muslim, we don't know enough about him. He is not a Muslim! not true
on Obama: It would be a takeover of our country, he doesn't understand the radical Islam perspective. Close to saying he's a terrorist, but this is a valid concern. grain of truth
on McCain: Idea of McCain becoming president is terrifying. This is pretty vague... grain of truth
on McCain: The conservative turn the country would take is scary. "Scary" is subjective, obviously, but McCain is obviously a conservative. true/reasonable
on McCain: The pick of Palin scares the living daylights out of me. Again, too vague to be true grain of truth
on McCain: Palin has proven to be most ineffectual and unintellectual woman out there. Hyperbole but there's a valid concern in there grain of truth
on McCain: McCain's out of touch, doesn't know about Twitter, Flickr, Youtube. Probably true but not a totally valid concern grain of truth
on Obama: Been tied up with a lot of "groups like that" like ACORN. Technically true, although I have a feeling if they hadn't suddenly cut the interview this would have gotten crazier true/reasonable
on McCain: Pals around with Keating Five people. "Pals around" is a bit iffy but he was one of the Keating Five... true/reasonable
(skipping two incomplete thoughts, one on both sides)
on Obama: Scared to death of him, have thirteen grandchildren, there will be no America left. Um, OK. not true
on McCain: Have a ten year old daughter who's grown up with war, would like her to have four years of peace. Borderline but McCain is definitely more hawkish than Obama, and he supported the war in Iraq where Obama didn't true/reasonable
on McCain: Roe v Wade would definitely be "under threat". Seeing as McCain now supports overturning it... true/reasonable
on Obama: We have to realize killing babies is out of line. Inflammatory language, but at least there's an issue behind it true/reasonable
(skipping McCain should have left the party when he's still having fun, because I don't understand)
(skipping Obama: "show me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are" because it's not specific enough)
on Obama: isn't living in a realistic world when it comes to his Islamic views again, didn't say he's a Muslim, and a valid concern true/reasonable
on Obama: if he becomes president, America as we know it is gone. not true

So, to summarize in table form:

	Attacks on Obama	Attacks on McCain
true/reasonable	3	4
grain of truth	2	4
not true	4	0

While watching "Heroes" at the Drafthouse last night, two things pissed me off entirely unrelated to the show.

1. KXAN (our NBC affiliate) kept shrinking the screen to warn us that, after October 2 Time Warner customers won't be able to see their station because they won't pay the reasonable price of less than one cent per customer per day (this happened like 10 times over the two hours). Here's KXAN's side of the story. They also (playing hardball) say you can sign up with Dish TV or AT&T U-Verse to ensure that you can still see everything, etc.

One cent per customer per day doesn't sound like much, but if every channel charged that much...let's see, there are around 150-200 channels in the basic Digital package, and that would be $45-$60 a month when the package itself only costs $65. (obviously Time Warner has a lot of infrastructure to pay for, plus they have to make a profit somewhere in there) So that's a little high. Not to mention the fact that KXAN is available for free over-the-air! I can understand a nominal fee to Time Warner, I guess, but asking for more money for something that anyone in the Austin area can get for free seems a little cheeky.

Time Warner's side of the story (yes, they bought thetruthhurtskxan.com on September 17th!) points this out, although that's mostly their only argument other than KXAN is trying to negotiate through the public, etc.

I would imagine that KXAN has more power here - while switching from cable to Dish or something else is a pain and not always possible, there are no substitutes for watching NBC shows (except for viewing them online or illegally downloading them or something) - Time Warner has better substitutes than KXAN does.

In the end, they had better figure this crap out and I better not miss my Heroes and Chuck and 30 Rock.

2. What is it with stupidly-titled shows? Last night we saw a preview for Yes Man which is about a Man who decides to say Yes to everything. There was also Sex Drive which is about a guy who Drives to California to have Sex. It makes me think they started with the title and came up with the lamest, most straightforward interpretation of it and then made a movie. Cut it out! (yeah, yeah, Yes Man is based on a book, but the book has the same stupid and literal title)

things that, upon further reflection, really piss me off and have come up recently
Mood: annoyed
Posted on 2008-09-03 15:19:00
Tags: rant essay
Words: 364

Abstinence-only education
This is in the news because Sarah Palin supports it, but it really didn't make me angry until I thought about it for a while. I understand teenagers having sex is bad (in a relative sense) and abstinence is a good thing and all that, but the fact is that around 60% of high school seniors will have had sex at least once before they graduate. (saw this recently, although I can't find a reliable citation at the moment)

If you think condoms are immoral (looking at you, Catholic Church) then I can at least understand the objection here (not that I agree), but imagining that not telling kids anything else except "don't have sex, it's horrible, etc." will make them (teenagers! the most rebellious age group?) just decide not to have sex, despite the fact that hormones are raging.

Not telling these kids about how to protect themselves is irresponsible. Only 15 percent of Americans support only teaching abstinence.

"Traditional" gender roles
This weekend, there were some books and movies and stuff in the beach house we rented, one of which was "Husbands Who Won't Lead and Wives Who Won't Follow". This really grinds my gears (I read like half a page over breakfast and couldn't continue). Firstly, the existence of gay couples is brushed aside with no explanation or anything, which almost makes me more upset than if one were arguing against us directly.

But even beyond that, this is flat out sexism. And what is the justification for this? I know that's the way it was in the past, because men were slightly stronger so they could go kill the mammoths while the women cared for the children, but I don't see anything fundamentally good or bad about that. Why is sex supposed to determine our role, and not personality and the particular relationship we're in or whatever? This is a conservative point of view ("conservative" in the this-is-how-things-were-done-in-the-past-so-we-better-keep-doing-them-because-the-past-was-awesome-compared-to-now) but why is it pushed by religions as well? I know there are a few small examples of this in the Bible ("Wives, be submissive to your husbands") but I just don't get how this fits in with anything else.

panhandling
Mood: thoughtful
Music: Death Cab For Cutie - "I Will Possess Your Heart"
Posted on 2008-08-26 12:59:00
Tags: essay poll links
Words: 260

I read this article on panhandling and it brought some things to mind.

I've never been quite sure what to do about panhandlers - they're somewhat common in Austin (and Houston) and so it's not infrequent that I'll be stopped at a light and one or two will be on the median. Back when I first started driving, I leaned towards giving them a dollar and feeling good about myself. "After all", I'd tell myself, "even if they are just going to spend it on alcohol or whatever, it's not my place to judge them, and I have the right to spend my money on stuff that isn't great for me, so why shouldn't they?" I thought it was the Christian thing to do.

After a while of that, I got a little jaded, and thought about the fact that economically I was encouraging more panhandling by "rewarding" those who were. (cold-hearted economics strikes again!) My mom tended to have a bag of non-perishable food (cereal and the like) that she would give instead of money, which is actually a pretty good solution.

Now I'm generally torn on the issue. Since we moved further away from downtown I don't see panhandlers as much so it hasn't come up, but reading the article sure makes me less likely to give. I like Denver's solution of converted parking meters where you can drop money and the city will give it to homeless shelters, etc. - that way you can give at the time you're being asked while ensuring it goes to a good cause.

[ Fill out Poll ] [ View Poll Results ] [ Discuss Results ] [ Close Poll ]

Poll #1248617 panhandling
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 22

View Answers

Most of the time
0 (0.0%)

Occasionally
4 (18.2%)

Never
17 (77.3%)

Depends on my mood
0 (0.0%)

Depends on their message/approach
1 (4.5%)

View Answers

Most of the time
1 (4.5%)

Occasionally
1 (4.5%)

Never
18 (81.8%)

Depends on my mood
0 (0.0%)

Depends on their message/approach
2 (9.1%)

Today the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of habeas corpus for detainees/enemy combatants, which means that people held at Guantanamo have the right to challenge their detention in a civilian court (as opposed to a military tribunal where defendants can't have a lawyer or see all of the evidence against them). This, to me, seems like a huge step towards rolling back all the Orwellian things that have taken place in the US recently. Here are some excerpts from the decision.

The 5-4ness of the decision is a little more frightening - unsurprisingly Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito were the dissenters. And, from the article:

Lately I've been feeling a lack of...something. A desire to build something great, some awesome website or something. I don't know where it's coming from and maybe it'll just fade away. Drive isn't bad, but it's kinda inconvenient. I just don't have a whole lot of time to devote to stuff like that.

Although, keep your eyes open for whereslunch.org after I finish my current project!

Speaking of which, last night in bed I finally figured out how to use inclusion-exclusion to calculate the number of 3 card straights, etc. The key is to make your sets "hands that don't include a green 0", "hands that don't include a green 1", etc., figure out the number of hands in the union of those sets and then take the complement. I guess it's been a while since I've done this combinatorics stuff. I also filled out some more entries in the table with explanations.

xkcd story in the NY Times!

the weekend, non-summarizingly
Mood: pensive
Posted on 2008-04-28 13:46:00
Tags: essay
Words: 625

I'm trying to move away from the "here's what I did this weekend" style of post because it's usually pretty boring to write so I'd imagine it's even more boring to read.

Instead, some interesting stories from this weekend! (note: stories may or may not be interesting, and are superseded (yes, it's spelled correctly even though it doesn't look right) by local laws)

- We were visiting my folks in Houston to celebrate my birthday, and hung out at the International Festival for a while. We saw the Mario Kart Wii promotional tour and I got a Mario Kart drivers license! (picture to come) We also saw more Bob Marley paraphernalia than you would believe.

- Saturday night we went out to the Rice Philharmonics CD release concert. I didn't make the connection before we got there that it was also their last concert of the year, which made it kind of sad (as with high school, the thing I miss most from college is the group I was singing with). It also drove home the point that I know no one in the Phils anymore, which isn't a surprise but still feels weird.

It also reminded me that I enjoy singing in concerts much much more than I enjoy going to them as a spectator. This seems vaguely hypocritical to me but I'm not sure that it is. Singing is much more fun than...listening, I guess.

- Speaking of singing, I sang in church Sunday and although my "stamina" wasn't back, at least my voice sounded normal and it didn't hurt. Finally my week-long throat thing is gone, whatever it was, and I'll be OK to audition for ASMC in two weeks. Although I need to pick a song first. Ack.

- On the way back we wanted to get some more of that delicious St. Arnold's root beer. The hours on the website were kind of unclear, so we stopped by and there were lots of cars in the parking lot. We walked in and the doors were unlocked but no one was at the front desk, so we kept on walking. Before we got to the brewery area (where they usually sell the root beer) we could hear a guy talking on a microphone, and it sounded like some sort of company meeting.

This was a little intimidating, but dammit if we don't make it out there much and we wanted root beer so I opened the door and stuck my head in. The guy with the microphone was standing just to my left and acknowledged me, saying "Come in!". I was really close to doing so before realizing this would be a big mistake - I'd be sort of awkwardly trapped there with a bunch of employees. So instead I said jovially, "Oh, no, I just wanted to buy some beer". The guy said back that unfortunately they legally couldn't sell beer (stupid blue laws) and I said, stupidly, "oh, I meant root beer". Just then a woman came over to help me and we walked back towards the front desk to pay and stuff. I heard the guy on the microphone say "well, we're not going to turn down a sale!" and everyone laugh.

Best part: on our way out she said "Let me just lock this front door..." :-)

- Last week I was going to praise our new Lady Americana mattress and how it's so ridiculously comfortable and awesome. Unfortunately it means that sleeping on my old mattress at home apparently does some bad things to my back because it's been pretty painful the last few days. Hopefully a few more nights on our super-bed will cure it, but I'm not thrilled with my back turning into a mattress snob after only a few weeks.

At our precinct convention, I signed up to be an Obama delegate at the county convention, which took place on Saturday.

Our precinct group had a strategy meeting on Thursday that I was unable to attend. Since we were ahead 36-17 in delegates and our precinct sent 4 delegates to the state convention, we selected among ourselves who we wanted to go and then allocated our votes to make sure we got 3 delegates (3 people got 10 votes, and the leftovers voted for alternates). The math is kinda interesting - I'm sure there's a formula/procedure to determine the optimal strategy.

Anyway, I had gotten calls before to make sure I'd be attending, and an organizer even stopped by the house so I could sign a form designating an alternate in case something happened and I couldn't make it. And after I woke up bright and early at 7:30 I got a call making sure I was on my way :-)

Stopped to get breakfast and pick up wildrice13, who was also an Obama delegate (in a different precinct) and headed down to the Travis County Expo Center which turned out to be not particularly close to here (it's near the airport). At around 9:00 we turned on to Decker Lane and quickly got in a very long line of cars.

Twenty minutes go by and we haven't moved a whole lot, and we can't even see the Expo Center (it's a hilly road), but some cars are parking in an elementary school parking lot and walking, which seems like a good idea so we follow suit. The walk wasn't too bad, maybe .75 of a mile.

When we finally arrive at the hall there are two really long lines and lots of people with signs with precinct numbers. We find our right line (it's 9:30 by this point) and wait. And wait. And wait. The line is moving really slowly and someone in front of us says it's a gigantic mess at the front, which is pretty easy to believe. Someone comes by to assure us that even though sign in ends at 10, they're extending it to count us all, which is good.

Make it to the front after an hour and there are different windows for different groups of precincts but there's little space to form lines so it is all in fact a mess. wildrice13 finds his window and I find mine and we eventually get in.

The place is packed and I find my seat. They're just getting started, luckily, so they do the pledge of allegiance and national anthem and it opens with Lloyd Doggett talking about unity (a major theme of the day), that no matter who our nominee is we need to support him/her over McCain. Shortly after that, the convention chair told us that the speeches were basically killing time for the credentials committee to process all the challenges to delegates, and that after that was done we could do the voting for the state delegates.

Lots of other people spoke throughout the day - Larry Joe Doherty (candidate for the 10th congressional district) pointed out that more people voted in the Democratic primary in district 10 than did for Michael McCaul (current representative) in 2004, which is pretty neat. And although everyone talked about unity, the ones who had endorsed (mostly for Obama) would say "Now, while I do support Obama" followed by lots of loud cheering by the Obama people, then a call for unity followed by more muted cheering by everyone. Sometimes they'd talk about George W. Bush or less commonly Tom Craddick and Tom DeLay. Then we got to boo!

During the speeches, I paid attention some, read some, chatted some with people around me, got food from the concessions stand. (overpriced, of course) Eventually Terry McAuliffe (!) came out to speak for Hillary and Ron Kirk spoke for Obama. That was neat.

Finally the credentials committee and rules committee reported for both districts (most challenges of delegates were rejected, with the notable exception of a Republican precinct chair!) and then people had to vote for district officers. In the other district (25) only one person ran for chairman and secretary, but in ours we had 4 run for chairman and around 6 for secretary. I was worried we would have to all vote somehow, but the guy was clever. For chairman we voted by voice vote and it was clear who the winner was. For secretary two candidates got about the same, but the chairman made a motion to make them co-secretaries. Genius!

Shortly thereafter, we voted. As planned, we voted 10-10-10-6-1 ish. The Clinton people voted 9-8 so they only got one alternate; if they had voted 9-5-3-1 or something they could have had two, I think. There was more business after that (resolutions and stuff) but wildrice13 and I left since it was already 4:30. The people who stayed said the convention was adjourned at 11:15, so I'm really glad we didn't stay until the end!

I have some pictures up, as does one of the other delegates. Burnt Orange Report shows Obama up by 11% or so throughout Texas, and Travis County went for Obama 383-184. Here's the CNN story.

Then I drove to San Antonio and got back at 12:30. Then I hottubbed. It was a long day.

The decline of US culture - The Moment of Truth
Mood: disgusted
Posted on 2008-02-27 13:21:00
Tags: essay
Words: 255

This shit makes me angry.

So there's this show called The Moment of Truth where people are asked personal questions, and if they answer truthfully (as determined by polygraph done before the show) they collect money. They can stop at any point in time before the question is asked and leave with the money, but once a question is asked if they refuse to answer or "lie" (polygraphs aren't 100%), they lose it all.

You can imagine that the questions asked would be very personal and embarrassing to make the show more interesting, and you would be right. Here's a list of shows they've done so far, including such beauties as "Do you believe your father has used money to control you?" and "Are you still in love with your ex-fiancé?"

But the worst situation was that in the latest episode, where a wife admitted she thought she should be married to an ex-boyfriend and that she had cheated on her husband. (apparently the husband already knew about it, but was still mondo embarrassed for it to be revealed on national TV) You can watch the video of the last few questions if you'd like but I wouldn't really recommend it.

The show is paying people to humiliate themselves for the amusement of others. I can't find anything redeeming about it. It just feels so sleazy.

Anyway, to wash the bad taste out of my mouth (and soul) I watched Jonathan Coulton and friends play "Still Alive" on Rock Band. That made me feel better.

The short version: Obama wins, Edwards just barely beats Clinton for second. Huckabee wins on the Republican side.

Back in 2003, I was a huge Dean supporter. I got to shake his hand (this was back in April when he was pretty unknown), went to Meetups for him and wrote letters to voters in Iowa, sent him lots of money, went down to San Antonio for a rally wearing my Dean shirt and hat, etc., etc. When he lost in Iowa and then the whole Dean Scream nonsense, it broke my heart. I did get behind Kerry, not terribly enthusiastically, but what's the alternative, right? His loss broke my heart too, but in a smaller way.

Anyway, I feel a little bad that I wasn't backing a particular candidate, because I don't want to lose my passion...but in the end it's really hard to tell who would make the best President. They're all pretty good, and I'd be happy if any of them got elected. (even Gravel...think of what an entertaining four years that would make!)

Tomorrow night: movie
Saturday: drive to Houston, do a bachelor party
Sunday: drive back to Austin earlyish, meet djedi's parents and look at houses. Maybe decide to make an offer on the one we like. That would be pretty neat.

A common trap to fall in is to assume that you will be happier and your life significantly better after event X happens. ("If I could just get that promotion...", "If I only had a puppy..", etc.) I've always tried to not do this because it leads to not trying to either make things better or be happy with where you are in life. There's always one more goal over the horizon that will finally make you happier. I've been reading The Happiness Project for a while and in a post today she linked to an article that articulated this point nicely.

At the same time, the truth is that sometimes big events do make you happier. I'm, say, 50% happier now than when we were living in Maryland, both for job and people reasons. I guess the difference is that it was a really big change, and that I didn't just give up on "being happy" while we were up there.

I guess I've been thinking about this some because of our discussions about getting a PlayStation 3. (mostly for Rock Band) Money aside, I was pretty reluctant for a little while because it has a very rich-kid or yuppie vibe around it. (to me anyway) But honestly, it's just a stupid video game system, it's not a reflection of my life or anything similarly out of proportion.

So I was called for jury duty on Monday for the first time, so I was pretty excited about it.
A diagram of the courtroom

My notice said to be there at 8:30, so I left home around 7:45 just to be on the safe side (since it was downtown, which I never go to in the morning). After sitting around outside the courtroom for a little while, they let us in around 8:15. At that point there were around 25 of us sitting in the observer's area (surely there's another name for this, but I can't think of what it is...). There was a guy with gray hair sitting between the witness stand and the judge's bench for a while fiddilng with things - at first I thought he was the judge, but it was not to be. More potential jurors started trickling in, and we saw the woman who was later revealed to be the bailiff setting out styrofoam cups for people, distributing papers and whatnot. She seemed pretty on top of things.

We also saw the attorneys come in and out a little. (I thought the defense table was always closer to the jury, but I was wrong wrong wrong) Around 8:35 the guy with gray hair (who was the court reporter) came up to us and sat us in order. There were 60 people total (although 2 arrived after this). I was seated at the end of the second row, #24. I figured the odds were against my getting on the jury, but it wasn't entirely out of the question. While we were being seated, the attorneys showed up and so did the defendant (who entered by the door right next to the defense table). He was an older guy, maybe in his 50s, and looked fairly composed, talking with his two attorneys some.

Then the judge entered. He talked to us for quite a while (20 minutes or so), and he was a bit...quirky (he said he had been a judge for 30 years and was going to retire soon). He showed us the indictment and asked us why it was pink. Of course, nobody knew, and he said he didn't know either, and they're different colors different places in Texas. Whee! He also extolled the virtues of the jury room, which he said had a microwave and refrigerator, a nice view of downtown and the Capitol building, and a big TV with cable and all the premium channels. He told us not to talk to anyone involved in the case ("casual greetings" were OK), and told us what the charge was: a convicted felon possessing a firearm less than 5 years after the end of the felony sentence (jail, probation, or parole). It didn't seem like a terribly complicated case, and he said it should wrap up on Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest. At this point I reaaally wanted to be chosen - it sounded neat and it would only be a few days anyway :-)

After this the prosecution began their jury selection questioning. The attorney seemed pleasant enough, and she talked a lot about the law and the general process and whatnot. Her style was to basically say something about the law, then call on one or two people by name and ask if they agree. Some things she asked:

thoughts on my birthday (well, about my birthday, since today isn't my birthday)
Mood: pensive
Music: Dexter Freebish - "Leaving Town"
Posted on 2005-04-18 14:11:00
Tags: essay birthday
Words: 539

"Every overhyped lj post has a beginning..."

I've been thinking about birthdays and, more generally (but not much more generally!) age lately. I skipped first grade, so I've always been young for my age, and I usually took math classes that were a few years ahead of my grade. The upshot of this is that I was usually the youngest kid in the class by far.

So I think because of that, that kinda became my identity. It didn't matter that I wasn't the top student in the class (although I sometimes was) - for a while I was a novelty because I was so young, but even after that I could always tell myself that, even though kids did better than I did, I was younger than they were, so it didn't matter. In my mind, when I would consider my ranking in the class (I was pretty competitive academically for a while in middle/high school...), I was kinda in my own category, so I always won.

Another effect was that I started to identify as the young kid. So, even when I came to Rice, I wanted people to know that I was young, because that made me special. In the past, this had provided me with other people who would sorta hang out with me a bit just because I was young. (at Rice, I had the additional "specialness" of being a professor's son) And it did sort of continue at Rice, to a point (hanging out with djedi and blamantin wasn't just because I was young, but it certainly was a not-too-infrequent topic of conversation :-) ).

So now I'm out in the real world, and all of a sudden I'm not the youngest at work. And I felt kinda weird about that, and it took me a while to figure out why, and the preceding is what I came up with.

But now things are different (not that I'm making this change now, just that it happened a year or so ago). I don't feel the need to be "special" in some obvious way. I have good friends, a good job, djedi, and I don't feel like I need a "gimmick" to have people interested in me. This is healthy and a good thing.

And so, I guess I've become a lot more relaxed about age - I know occasionally people get sensitive about getting old and whatnot, and I do have those feelings occasionally as well, but I'm usually able to shake it off pretty well. Maybe it's like my rebelling against the hypersensitivity I used to feel to my age, but I just feel like it's something that happens and there's no point worrying about it. I used to be really bad about trying to change the past (when I was in high school and I would misplace something, I would always beat myself up as I was looking for it, wishing that I had put it in its right place), and now I just try to deal with things in the present as they come up.

The End...?

(Disclaimer: nothing in here is meant to blame djedi or blamantin for my age issues - I definitely had them before coming to math camp/Rice. That is all.)