First time in the almost 4 years I've been in CA I've felt an earthquake. It was a 4.3 near San Jose.
Bit of floor shaking and the lights swung back and forth a bit. People on the first floor didn't even feel it. Luckily at home nothing fell or is even out of place.
This was in no way an emergence so I guess it doesn't really count. But I feel like in just about any other type of emergency people have a clue what to do. But all these people who have been living in CA for a while just looked at each other and asked should we do something? I dunno, maybe. Eh, seems to have passed. Let's go online and see how big it was.
Coincidentally this morning on NPR they had a half hour discussion about the recent series of earth quakes in Southern California.
It was also sort of cool to see everyone start twittering about it right away, nothing that amazing, but kinda cool.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Twitter on my Blog
I added a gadget to the bottom of my blog that interfaces with twitter. If you type in a user name then click on following it shows who they are following, if you click on tweets it will show their tweets. So now you can follow my tweets on my blog, I'm so hip... or something... Now if only I had some clever things to say on twitter. Not sure how useful the gadget is (especially buried at the bottom of the page) but thought it would be an interesting thing to try.
More importantly, I had to edit the html of the template to get the gadget to fit how it does. It is a very minor change, but I made it by guess and check so if the blog starts to act weird (not if the content is weird - that's always been true) let me know.
More importantly, I had to edit the html of the template to get the gadget to fit how it does. It is a very minor change, but I made it by guess and check so if the blog starts to act weird (not if the content is weird - that's always been true) let me know.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Anathem
Last night I finished Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Normally by time I finish a book I have a reasonably good idea what I want to say about it on my blog, but for some reason I'm struggling to review this one. It's not that I didn't like it, because I did like the book and as I was reading it I often found myself thinking thank goodness I'm back to reading scifi (or speculative fiction as Stephenson likes to call this one). I think the struggle to summarize comes from two things. One there is just a lot of stuff in the book (which is partially because it is long). The other is that in typical Stephenson style it would take a while just to describe the starting point and from there it just gets crazier and crazier. Well, time to stop making excuses and say something about the book.
The story is set up in such a way that he can have several characters go off on a discussion of science, math, philosophy, or religion at just about any point, which he takes advantage of often. Because so much time is spent on exploring philosophy and science I think some of the other aspects suffer a bit. Normally at the end of a book like that I really care about the characters, but in this one I didn't have the same attachment. There were a couple of huge adventures in the book which were cool, but Stephenson does action/adventure/humor better in his other books. But the technical description of the last adventure is very cool and I think the religion that seeks salvation through recursion is hilarious.
He does pick out some very interesting areas of science and philosophy to discuss and takes them to some very cool conclusions. In addition the structure of society in the book is an interesting take on the interaction between scientists and society. While I didn't know much of the philosophy, I did know pretty much all of the science which on one hand may have made it less interesting since I didn't need his science explanations (I definitely needed the philosophy ones), but on the other hand was nice because it made it easier to separate the fact from fiction and speculation. The book is nothing like the Da Vinci Code, except that it does use a combination of fact, fiction and hypothesis without telling you which is which. But at the end of the book it does give a website where he helps sort it out and gives a bibliography.
One immediately apparent aspect of the book is that it uses a lot of made up words, as Randall mentions. It does have a glossary in the back so he doesn't force you to figure it all out on your own. But I think that it doesn't take too long to get a feel for the words and mostly stop noticing them. I think they get in the way a lot less than the ones in A Clockwork Orange. I sort of see how the made up words fit into the story, but I'm not totally convinced it was necessary. What I did enjoy about them is he renamed all of the science he was talking about so it was fun to identify the correct names.
In most of Neal Stephenson's other books he tells the story from a variety of different perspectives and of course they all come together in some way throughout the book. But this one is told from the perspective of a single character. I really like the effect he can produce by telling the story through the eyes of multiple characters, but given where this story goes I think it is clear that it had to be written from a single point of view.
I guess I came up with some stuff to say. As I think through it I really would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in philosophy and metaphysics. If you already think you might read the book STOP HERE (seriously I think a lot of the fun of the book is seeing him build up and stretch some ideas so it is best not to know where he is going with it). Otherwise here are a few SPOILERS (although if you're not going to read the book not sure why you would care, oh well).
A lot of the science/philosophy/scifi in the book is about the multiple universes view of quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics things occupy multiple states at once, until they are observed then they settle into a single state. The multiple universes view is that each time an observation is made multiple universes branch off and in each one a different one of the possibilities happens. What you observe just depends on which of the tracks you are now in (hence the need to tell the story from a single perspective). Up to here is a combination of fact and speculation from respected scientists. Where Stephenson takes it is what if someone came up with a way to occupy multiple tracks at once.
Another recurring theme is the idea that certain fundamentals of math are true independent of the human mind, or even our universe (prime numbers were prime long before humans came along) and so maybe they occupy a universe of their own that only contains things like fundamental theorems and proofs. And if that's true is there somehow a way our brain pulls information from that universe? Sounds crazy, but up to here is actually from Godel. Then if that's true could there be a whole hierarchy (or other linked list type structure) of universes goes from the theoretical perfect on down and ideas leak universe to universe down the hierarchy? Then after that is where Stephenson really makes it extra weird - what if you could travel up the hierarchy.
In addition to the philosophy and science the end of the book involves several characters going into space and getting into an alien spaceship. The technology they use to get up there undetected is very cool and partially based on some real research. The alien spaceship also has an interesting design that he describes. And for the more traditional adventure several characters have to make their way across the north pole (partially by foot) to get to the other side of the world.
He also broaches the subject of what's after Diamond Age (nanotechnology) - altering the nucleus of atoms by changing some of the fundamental, but seemly arbitrary, constants of physics. The idea of altering the constants is pretty crazy. But while there are some constants that seem to have a certain value for a reason, there are others that seem like they could just as easily have other values. Lots of those values would cause the universe to just fall apart, but there should be others that make a different, but stable universe.
Well, that's a few paragraphs - as you could imagine with 900 pages there's a lot more he discusses and he has a lot more room for better explanations.
The story is set up in such a way that he can have several characters go off on a discussion of science, math, philosophy, or religion at just about any point, which he takes advantage of often. Because so much time is spent on exploring philosophy and science I think some of the other aspects suffer a bit. Normally at the end of a book like that I really care about the characters, but in this one I didn't have the same attachment. There were a couple of huge adventures in the book which were cool, but Stephenson does action/adventure/humor better in his other books. But the technical description of the last adventure is very cool and I think the religion that seeks salvation through recursion is hilarious.
He does pick out some very interesting areas of science and philosophy to discuss and takes them to some very cool conclusions. In addition the structure of society in the book is an interesting take on the interaction between scientists and society. While I didn't know much of the philosophy, I did know pretty much all of the science which on one hand may have made it less interesting since I didn't need his science explanations (I definitely needed the philosophy ones), but on the other hand was nice because it made it easier to separate the fact from fiction and speculation. The book is nothing like the Da Vinci Code, except that it does use a combination of fact, fiction and hypothesis without telling you which is which. But at the end of the book it does give a website where he helps sort it out and gives a bibliography.
One immediately apparent aspect of the book is that it uses a lot of made up words, as Randall mentions. It does have a glossary in the back so he doesn't force you to figure it all out on your own. But I think that it doesn't take too long to get a feel for the words and mostly stop noticing them. I think they get in the way a lot less than the ones in A Clockwork Orange. I sort of see how the made up words fit into the story, but I'm not totally convinced it was necessary. What I did enjoy about them is he renamed all of the science he was talking about so it was fun to identify the correct names.
In most of Neal Stephenson's other books he tells the story from a variety of different perspectives and of course they all come together in some way throughout the book. But this one is told from the perspective of a single character. I really like the effect he can produce by telling the story through the eyes of multiple characters, but given where this story goes I think it is clear that it had to be written from a single point of view.
I guess I came up with some stuff to say. As I think through it I really would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in philosophy and metaphysics. If you already think you might read the book STOP HERE (seriously I think a lot of the fun of the book is seeing him build up and stretch some ideas so it is best not to know where he is going with it). Otherwise here are a few SPOILERS (although if you're not going to read the book not sure why you would care, oh well).
A lot of the science/philosophy/scifi in the book is about the multiple universes view of quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics things occupy multiple states at once, until they are observed then they settle into a single state. The multiple universes view is that each time an observation is made multiple universes branch off and in each one a different one of the possibilities happens. What you observe just depends on which of the tracks you are now in (hence the need to tell the story from a single perspective). Up to here is a combination of fact and speculation from respected scientists. Where Stephenson takes it is what if someone came up with a way to occupy multiple tracks at once.
Another recurring theme is the idea that certain fundamentals of math are true independent of the human mind, or even our universe (prime numbers were prime long before humans came along) and so maybe they occupy a universe of their own that only contains things like fundamental theorems and proofs. And if that's true is there somehow a way our brain pulls information from that universe? Sounds crazy, but up to here is actually from Godel. Then if that's true could there be a whole hierarchy (or other linked list type structure) of universes goes from the theoretical perfect on down and ideas leak universe to universe down the hierarchy? Then after that is where Stephenson really makes it extra weird - what if you could travel up the hierarchy.
In addition to the philosophy and science the end of the book involves several characters going into space and getting into an alien spaceship. The technology they use to get up there undetected is very cool and partially based on some real research. The alien spaceship also has an interesting design that he describes. And for the more traditional adventure several characters have to make their way across the north pole (partially by foot) to get to the other side of the world.
He also broaches the subject of what's after Diamond Age (nanotechnology) - altering the nucleus of atoms by changing some of the fundamental, but seemly arbitrary, constants of physics. The idea of altering the constants is pretty crazy. But while there are some constants that seem to have a certain value for a reason, there are others that seem like they could just as easily have other values. Lots of those values would cause the universe to just fall apart, but there should be others that make a different, but stable universe.
Well, that's a few paragraphs - as you could imagine with 900 pages there's a lot more he discusses and he has a lot more room for better explanations.
Monday, March 23, 2009
BSG
BSG alert - both that there are spoilers and that it will be boring for non-BSG fans.
I've been a bit slow to post about the final episode of BSG partially because I was actually social this weekend, and partially because my thoughts about it haven't quite settled yet. It's kind of funny I was glad to hear it was 2 hours since I think the first hour was awesome and wasn't such a fan of the second hour, although I'm glad it didn't just abruptly end after the the first hour.
One of, if the not the, best moments was when Baltar and 6 see angel Baltar and 6. Especially since just before that Julie had said she was hoping for almost exactly that scene. I think the biggest downer is Starbuck just disappearing - they could have given us a little more than that. Either I thought of this before and forgot, or it only now occurred to me that Starbuck is Jesus, hm.
Doesn't it seem like the whole story line with Loeben just got dropped? I know he realized something when he saw Starbuck's dead body, but it's like he just disappeared after that. Seems like he could have done something.
And what's with calling Starbuck the harbinger of death all those times?
While I've liked how they incorporated All Along the Watchtower, it's a little weird it turned out to be the coordinates of "new Earth". it's fits with Starbuck's story (well given the lack of explanation, anything could fit with her story), but what did it have to do with the final five? Oh, I just read Moore's answer - eh, I guess it can be something that lives on through human/cylon consciousness, but still doesn't quite seem to fit.
I think the last half of season 4 in someway actually returned to the original BSG. Near the end of the original BSG they find a planet that seems an awful lot like earth and the two super powers on the planet are about to launch nukes at each other and somehow the BSG crew helps stop them. But something about it turns out not to be Earth. Also the original BSG had angels that were obviously angels that helped out a couple times, at one point they even fought the devil. And the last scene of the last episode was them picking up an image of a rover on the moon, but no one on the ship sees it. So not a strong relation, but seems like something.
What the heck was with the whole God's not what he likes to be called? The silly part of me says it's Jimmy Hendrix which was playing when that was said (kind of funny they picked to play Hendrix's version instead of Bob Dylan's version). The cynical part of me thinks they meant Ronald Moore since they had just shown him, although I don't believe that either. I guess they are really just trying to claim some eternal force without specifying it as God. Between the God stuff and the be worried about technology stuff it felt a bit preachy near the end.
Well, I'll probably watch the series again at some point, although more to see season 1 and the start of season 3 than because I think I'll view things terribly differently now that I've seen the end.
Did anyone else see some racism (or at least some racial awkwardness) when they landed on the planet? The group of whites plus a few asians land on the planet with technology and civilization and look out at the tribal black people. Seems like they could have at least made the groups of people landing a little more diverse to water down the image. And while it's nice and all that modern people descended from Hera, it says something a little weird about what happened to the tribes that were already there.
Oh and take that Baltar - go back to farming - ha! That was a good punishment, although he does get to live with Caprica 6 which I guess balances things out.
Hm, they never really covered what happens when a cylon (other than the final 5) gets old. Will they live until some accident finally kills them?
And as usual - Helo is awesome and always right. Oh, if only there was a scene of him confronting Roslin and calling her out on all the crap she's done to him.
I've been a bit slow to post about the final episode of BSG partially because I was actually social this weekend, and partially because my thoughts about it haven't quite settled yet. It's kind of funny I was glad to hear it was 2 hours since I think the first hour was awesome and wasn't such a fan of the second hour, although I'm glad it didn't just abruptly end after the the first hour.
One of, if the not the, best moments was when Baltar and 6 see angel Baltar and 6. Especially since just before that Julie had said she was hoping for almost exactly that scene. I think the biggest downer is Starbuck just disappearing - they could have given us a little more than that. Either I thought of this before and forgot, or it only now occurred to me that Starbuck is Jesus, hm.
Doesn't it seem like the whole story line with Loeben just got dropped? I know he realized something when he saw Starbuck's dead body, but it's like he just disappeared after that. Seems like he could have done something.
And what's with calling Starbuck the harbinger of death all those times?
While I've liked how they incorporated All Along the Watchtower, it's a little weird it turned out to be the coordinates of "new Earth". it's fits with Starbuck's story (well given the lack of explanation, anything could fit with her story), but what did it have to do with the final five? Oh, I just read Moore's answer - eh, I guess it can be something that lives on through human/cylon consciousness, but still doesn't quite seem to fit.
I think the last half of season 4 in someway actually returned to the original BSG. Near the end of the original BSG they find a planet that seems an awful lot like earth and the two super powers on the planet are about to launch nukes at each other and somehow the BSG crew helps stop them. But something about it turns out not to be Earth. Also the original BSG had angels that were obviously angels that helped out a couple times, at one point they even fought the devil. And the last scene of the last episode was them picking up an image of a rover on the moon, but no one on the ship sees it. So not a strong relation, but seems like something.
What the heck was with the whole God's not what he likes to be called? The silly part of me says it's Jimmy Hendrix which was playing when that was said (kind of funny they picked to play Hendrix's version instead of Bob Dylan's version). The cynical part of me thinks they meant Ronald Moore since they had just shown him, although I don't believe that either. I guess they are really just trying to claim some eternal force without specifying it as God. Between the God stuff and the be worried about technology stuff it felt a bit preachy near the end.
Well, I'll probably watch the series again at some point, although more to see season 1 and the start of season 3 than because I think I'll view things terribly differently now that I've seen the end.
Did anyone else see some racism (or at least some racial awkwardness) when they landed on the planet? The group of whites plus a few asians land on the planet with technology and civilization and look out at the tribal black people. Seems like they could have at least made the groups of people landing a little more diverse to water down the image. And while it's nice and all that modern people descended from Hera, it says something a little weird about what happened to the tribes that were already there.
Oh and take that Baltar - go back to farming - ha! That was a good punishment, although he does get to live with Caprica 6 which I guess balances things out.
Hm, they never really covered what happens when a cylon (other than the final 5) gets old. Will they live until some accident finally kills them?
And as usual - Helo is awesome and always right. Oh, if only there was a scene of him confronting Roslin and calling her out on all the crap she's done to him.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
TV
Unless Michael is looking to get got, he needs to start being a lot nicer to Stringer Bell.
The final episode of BSG has already happened, but I'm watching it in about 12 hours. I'm excited and nervous. I am very glad to hear it is two hours long since they have a ton of stuff to explain and there better be some good action in there too. I'll spare you my increasingly drawn out worst case ending for the show, which basically boils down to not answering any of the questions and something really good happening to Baltar.
I like how Scrubs season 8 episode 11 dealt with JD and Eliot.
I sort of get why SciFi wants to change their name to SyFy. But it seems to depend on no one ever saying it out loud. And I think that as a station that mostly plays science fiction they should be a little more careful when stereotyping science fiction fans.
The final episode of BSG has already happened, but I'm watching it in about 12 hours. I'm excited and nervous. I am very glad to hear it is two hours long since they have a ton of stuff to explain and there better be some good action in there too. I'll spare you my increasingly drawn out worst case ending for the show, which basically boils down to not answering any of the questions and something really good happening to Baltar.
I like how Scrubs season 8 episode 11 dealt with JD and Eliot.
I sort of get why SciFi wants to change their name to SyFy. But it seems to depend on no one ever saying it out loud. And I think that as a station that mostly plays science fiction they should be a little more careful when stereotyping science fiction fans.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Masking Frustration
I think that in general dealing with language barriers isn't a big deal. However, when I am frustrated and there is a language barrier between the person I am working with and me, it can definitely add to the frustration. But since the language barrier is blocking communication, it is also blocking my expression of frustration (if I'm already not saying much and speaking in short simple statements then there's not much change). So while I get more unhappy, I think I may actually come out of the situation better off. Since I'll calm down after awhile, but pissing someone else off could have a lasting impact.
Hm, if it is blocking me from expressing my thoughts, I guess it goes the other way too. I wonder what the other person would have been saying to me. Maybe I would have actually been even more frustrated if on top of everything else I knew what the other person was thinking about me.
On a semi-related note, I seriously regret learning the Chinese word for yes. Now instead of hearing coworkers say: blah blah blah blah, I hear: blah blah YES blah. Way more distracting. Thank goodness I haven't put in enough effort to learn more than one word. I just hope I never learn the Farsi word for yes or the distractions will come at me from all sides (by the way, happy Iranian New Years!).
I have started to enjoy walking in and out of a near by cube where coworkers sometimes gather and watching them go from Chinese to English as I step in the area and then back to Chinese as I leave. It's like the silly power rush when standing in a really long line at an amusement park and not moving for awhile after the people in front of you, knowing you have control over when all the people behind you step forward.
Quick Note: A lot of this post is sarcastic and all of it is silly, but at no point do I mean to be criticizing or complaining about the people who have learned another language so they can communicate in the one language I know.
Hm, if it is blocking me from expressing my thoughts, I guess it goes the other way too. I wonder what the other person would have been saying to me. Maybe I would have actually been even more frustrated if on top of everything else I knew what the other person was thinking about me.
On a semi-related note, I seriously regret learning the Chinese word for yes. Now instead of hearing coworkers say: blah blah blah blah, I hear: blah blah YES blah. Way more distracting. Thank goodness I haven't put in enough effort to learn more than one word. I just hope I never learn the Farsi word for yes or the distractions will come at me from all sides (by the way, happy Iranian New Years!).
I have started to enjoy walking in and out of a near by cube where coworkers sometimes gather and watching them go from Chinese to English as I step in the area and then back to Chinese as I leave. It's like the silly power rush when standing in a really long line at an amusement park and not moving for awhile after the people in front of you, knowing you have control over when all the people behind you step forward.
Quick Note: A lot of this post is sarcastic and all of it is silly, but at no point do I mean to be criticizing or complaining about the people who have learned another language so they can communicate in the one language I know.
Monday, March 09, 2009
My heater
The heater in my apartment has always struck me as a bit odd. It is a gas flame in my living room with a big metal thing over it that acts as a radiator. Recently I noticed the same heater in two TV shows that are set in California. It made me feel better to see that my apartment building isn't the only one with that heating system. Except then I realized that in one show it is the heater in the dingy basement everyone in the show makes fun of. And in My Name is Earl it is the heater in Joy's mobile home. Well so much for that bit of comfort.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
The 5 Books of Moses
I finally finished the 5 Books of Moses in The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version.
First of all - I'm commenting on what I read. Not on modern Judaism or any other religion based on these books or the books that follow these.
Obviously I went into reading this with a reasonably strong bias. But even accounting for that as much as I can, I was quite surprised by what's actually in the Torah. First of all, I was expecting it to be somewhat boring, but just in an old stories are boring kind of way. I had no idea how many long lists of details there would be. I can sort of understand the detailed instructions for making an arc or how to diagnose and deal with leprosy, but long lists of names and ages of people who don't show up anywhere else or exactly what animal to sacrifice for a given event made reading the Torah very boring. Deuteronomy was also a bit odd since it was largely a recap of the previous books (as if it wasn't boring enough the first time), but some places it was consistent with the previous books and some places it wasn't.
Another bit of a shock was that prayer is barely mentioned. I sort of knew that prayer had replaced animal sacrifice. But since prayer is one of the biggest aspects of modern Judaism it seems like a bit of a disconnect. Especially since there are so many rules about who, when, where, how to pray. Which as far as I can tell the only aspect of that from the Torah is that it had a completely different very specific set of rules about who, when, where, how to sacrifice animals. It almost seems like the lesson taken from the Torah is that there should be lots of specific rules.
Once you screen out all the lists of details you're left with some stories and some declarations by The Lord. Stories are obviously open to interpretation so I'm willing to grant that even if some are disturbing and some seem to have really bad moral lessons and portray The Lord as jealous, vengeful, petty, short-tempered, and fallible, people can interpret them how they want. But the other big shock is the declarations by The Lord are very direct and while some of them have good morals, I'd claim that at a minimum the majority would be considered very immoral now. And The Lord is "loving" as long as you do exactly what he tells you and never doubt him, but stray a bit and he'll do horrible, horrible things to you. And sure you could claim that having it say a bunch of stuff forces the reader to sort out their own morals, but if that's all the Torah is, it could be replaced by a two page list of actions of varying degrees of good and bad. Although if the method for diagnosing leprosy is valid then you should also include that since up till very recently that could have been very useful (of course curing it by sacrificing animals could get left out).
I'm also a bit surprised by how not timeless it is. As Hitchens pointed out there is a whole lot of human history and the Torah really zeros in on a very specific place and period of time - at this point I'm sick of hearing The Lord go on and on about he delivered the people from Egypt - why not find something else to brag about, like creating the universe (not even to get into who put the people in Egypt to begin with).
I could go on and on, but I'll cut myself off here. Mostly because I know there is a huge amount of scholarship on understanding the Torah and I have made no effort to read any of it (and at this point don't plan to - I'm just so bored from reading the Torah I need to switch to a different topic). But I would encourage people to take a look and see what's really in there. And don't just look at Genesis and Exodus and figure the whole thing is a collection of stories. Get to Numbers and Deuteronomy where the lists of rules get into full swing.
I will say that people have questioned exactly what translation of the Torah is the right one to read. Obviously by reading one that is part of the bible I got different wording than a Jewish Torah would have. But I would claim that even if you picked up perfectly copied scrolls and read it in Hebrew you would be reading an interpretation. Because language changes a lot. Even if you just go back a few hundred years words and phrases have changed significantly, much less going back several thousand years. So I would claim that no one should be expecting to get the exact words or phrasing (or at least claim to know the exact meaning of those words). Although I will admit that it would have made more sense to get a Torah rather than just buy whatever they had at the book store.
First of all - I'm commenting on what I read. Not on modern Judaism or any other religion based on these books or the books that follow these.
Obviously I went into reading this with a reasonably strong bias. But even accounting for that as much as I can, I was quite surprised by what's actually in the Torah. First of all, I was expecting it to be somewhat boring, but just in an old stories are boring kind of way. I had no idea how many long lists of details there would be. I can sort of understand the detailed instructions for making an arc or how to diagnose and deal with leprosy, but long lists of names and ages of people who don't show up anywhere else or exactly what animal to sacrifice for a given event made reading the Torah very boring. Deuteronomy was also a bit odd since it was largely a recap of the previous books (as if it wasn't boring enough the first time), but some places it was consistent with the previous books and some places it wasn't.
Another bit of a shock was that prayer is barely mentioned. I sort of knew that prayer had replaced animal sacrifice. But since prayer is one of the biggest aspects of modern Judaism it seems like a bit of a disconnect. Especially since there are so many rules about who, when, where, how to pray. Which as far as I can tell the only aspect of that from the Torah is that it had a completely different very specific set of rules about who, when, where, how to sacrifice animals. It almost seems like the lesson taken from the Torah is that there should be lots of specific rules.
Once you screen out all the lists of details you're left with some stories and some declarations by The Lord. Stories are obviously open to interpretation so I'm willing to grant that even if some are disturbing and some seem to have really bad moral lessons and portray The Lord as jealous, vengeful, petty, short-tempered, and fallible, people can interpret them how they want. But the other big shock is the declarations by The Lord are very direct and while some of them have good morals, I'd claim that at a minimum the majority would be considered very immoral now. And The Lord is "loving" as long as you do exactly what he tells you and never doubt him, but stray a bit and he'll do horrible, horrible things to you. And sure you could claim that having it say a bunch of stuff forces the reader to sort out their own morals, but if that's all the Torah is, it could be replaced by a two page list of actions of varying degrees of good and bad. Although if the method for diagnosing leprosy is valid then you should also include that since up till very recently that could have been very useful (of course curing it by sacrificing animals could get left out).
I'm also a bit surprised by how not timeless it is. As Hitchens pointed out there is a whole lot of human history and the Torah really zeros in on a very specific place and period of time - at this point I'm sick of hearing The Lord go on and on about he delivered the people from Egypt - why not find something else to brag about, like creating the universe (not even to get into who put the people in Egypt to begin with).
I could go on and on, but I'll cut myself off here. Mostly because I know there is a huge amount of scholarship on understanding the Torah and I have made no effort to read any of it (and at this point don't plan to - I'm just so bored from reading the Torah I need to switch to a different topic). But I would encourage people to take a look and see what's really in there. And don't just look at Genesis and Exodus and figure the whole thing is a collection of stories. Get to Numbers and Deuteronomy where the lists of rules get into full swing.
I will say that people have questioned exactly what translation of the Torah is the right one to read. Obviously by reading one that is part of the bible I got different wording than a Jewish Torah would have. But I would claim that even if you picked up perfectly copied scrolls and read it in Hebrew you would be reading an interpretation. Because language changes a lot. Even if you just go back a few hundred years words and phrases have changed significantly, much less going back several thousand years. So I would claim that no one should be expecting to get the exact words or phrasing (or at least claim to know the exact meaning of those words). Although I will admit that it would have made more sense to get a Torah rather than just buy whatever they had at the book store.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
A little long winded
As Mike's comment points out, my last post was basically a really long way of saying:
Stop thinking and look.
Stop thinking and look.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
This Has All Happened Before And Will All Happen Again
Disclaimers: 1. I'm writing this because I feel like writing it, not because I think you will be interested in reading it (ok, that's most of my posts, but this one has the potential to be extra boring for non-engineers). 2. All comments are based on a combination of experiences at several companies as well as stories from others and should not be taken as a comment on any particular company. 3. Sorry, but the post has nothing to do with BSG.
Ahhh the chip doesn't work at all. What do you think is wrong with the design?
That's what I've heard every time a chip I have worked on has come back (a chip "coming back" means the manufacturer sending you the completed part). You might think I'm leaving out the part in the middle where they say what the problem is, sadly that's typically not the case. While there have been issues with circuits I've designed, that first scare nearly always turns out to be nothing. And I'm always shocked by how few people have picked up on this pattern.
Why do I think chips always get this reaction? It takes a long time to design a chip and it costs a bunch of money to have it made so everyone is very anxious when it shows up. So when a problem occurs, instead of following the normal course of debugging, the person in the lab tells the group of managers looking over their shoulder about the problem that just occurred. With everyone on edge about the chip, the problem is instantly assumed to be a chip problem. So they go to the person who can find a problem in the chip and look to that person to find explanations based on the assumption it is a chip problem.
How should the designer respond? It is tempting to question the chip, partially because an engineer should always be questioning their work (don't trust anyone or anything, including yourself) and because the news/request normally comes from a boss or boss's boss or CEO (seriously). But the designer should take a deep breath, stay calm, and become 100% convinced that the design is perfect. The goal should be to have faith so unwavering a suicide bomber would be jealous. And it is amazing how much progress happens once the designer uses the magic words: "Let's go to the lab." An expert designer would have said the magic words before the frazzled looking manager even had a chance to exclaim how screwed up the chip is (I hope to be that good one day).
Why? Well the designer should stay calm, because someone should stay calm and no one else seems to be doing it. The blind faith has a few reasons. Everyone else is looking to blame the chip so someone needs to question things like: lab equipment (seen it), lab setup (seen it), is it the right chip (seen it), excel equations (seen it), interpretation of data (seen it), random unexplainable set of bad data that can't be repeated (seen it)... Even under normal circumstances people are more motivated to find problems with others' work than their own, so the designer will be very motivated to track down non-design related problems.
There's another reason for the temporary blind faith. One reoccurring theme on House is if he thinks the patient has one of two diseases and one is curable and one is not, he will assume it is the curable one. Fixing a chip typically means months of work, hundreds of thousands of dollars to fab (manufacture) the new one, and a month or so wait to get it back. A lab mistake typically takes a few hours to fix. A math mistake can take minutes. So burn a few days assuming it isn't a chip mistake, because if it is anything else everyone can get right back to making progress. If it is a chip mistake there's going to be months of delay anyway so what's a few days wasted going down the wrong path.
But why is such absolute faith needed? Why not think about possible chip problems while checking everything else? Because if people get even a whiff of a possible problem with the chip they will grasp onto it and expect the designer to track it down, distracting from the real task - blaming everyone and everything else.
However, it is important to be like one of those religious people others respect because they aren't forcing their beliefs on everyone else. Because after a few days it is time for a 180 and looking for design screw ups begins. Cause, honestly, there's a reasonable chance it is a chip problem. There are plenty of tiny mistakes that can ruin an entire chip and an incredible number of subtle issues in chip design.
Ahhh the chip doesn't work at all. What do you think is wrong with the design?
That's what I've heard every time a chip I have worked on has come back (a chip "coming back" means the manufacturer sending you the completed part). You might think I'm leaving out the part in the middle where they say what the problem is, sadly that's typically not the case. While there have been issues with circuits I've designed, that first scare nearly always turns out to be nothing. And I'm always shocked by how few people have picked up on this pattern.
Why do I think chips always get this reaction? It takes a long time to design a chip and it costs a bunch of money to have it made so everyone is very anxious when it shows up. So when a problem occurs, instead of following the normal course of debugging, the person in the lab tells the group of managers looking over their shoulder about the problem that just occurred. With everyone on edge about the chip, the problem is instantly assumed to be a chip problem. So they go to the person who can find a problem in the chip and look to that person to find explanations based on the assumption it is a chip problem.
How should the designer respond? It is tempting to question the chip, partially because an engineer should always be questioning their work (don't trust anyone or anything, including yourself) and because the news/request normally comes from a boss or boss's boss or CEO (seriously). But the designer should take a deep breath, stay calm, and become 100% convinced that the design is perfect. The goal should be to have faith so unwavering a suicide bomber would be jealous. And it is amazing how much progress happens once the designer uses the magic words: "Let's go to the lab." An expert designer would have said the magic words before the frazzled looking manager even had a chance to exclaim how screwed up the chip is (I hope to be that good one day).
Why? Well the designer should stay calm, because someone should stay calm and no one else seems to be doing it. The blind faith has a few reasons. Everyone else is looking to blame the chip so someone needs to question things like: lab equipment (seen it), lab setup (seen it), is it the right chip (seen it), excel equations (seen it), interpretation of data (seen it), random unexplainable set of bad data that can't be repeated (seen it)... Even under normal circumstances people are more motivated to find problems with others' work than their own, so the designer will be very motivated to track down non-design related problems.
There's another reason for the temporary blind faith. One reoccurring theme on House is if he thinks the patient has one of two diseases and one is curable and one is not, he will assume it is the curable one. Fixing a chip typically means months of work, hundreds of thousands of dollars to fab (manufacture) the new one, and a month or so wait to get it back. A lab mistake typically takes a few hours to fix. A math mistake can take minutes. So burn a few days assuming it isn't a chip mistake, because if it is anything else everyone can get right back to making progress. If it is a chip mistake there's going to be months of delay anyway so what's a few days wasted going down the wrong path.
But why is such absolute faith needed? Why not think about possible chip problems while checking everything else? Because if people get even a whiff of a possible problem with the chip they will grasp onto it and expect the designer to track it down, distracting from the real task - blaming everyone and everything else.
However, it is important to be like one of those religious people others respect because they aren't forcing their beliefs on everyone else. Because after a few days it is time for a 180 and looking for design screw ups begins. Cause, honestly, there's a reasonable chance it is a chip problem. There are plenty of tiny mistakes that can ruin an entire chip and an incredible number of subtle issues in chip design.
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