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Just Me and the Captain
Apr. 1st, 2012
01:21 pm - A Dollar and a Dream
Well, I've spoken to my lawyer, accountant, financial planner, and broker, so I feel it is safe to finally announce that I am one of the three winners for the Mega Millions jackpot. This means that I split around $640 million (pre-taxes), but my lump sum should come out to around $130 million or so. This may seem like a lot, but remember it's less than 5% of Bill Gates' wealth, but with some wise investments I think I can crank it up to about $1 billion or so in time. And if I use the extremely conservative pulling of 1% of the principle per annum, that still gives me over a million dollars in annual income which should keep me comfortable.
So I guess the first order of business is to ask: where does one buy a solid gold tuxedo?
Mar. 15th, 2012
11:35 am - Survivor: One World
I'm not sure if anyone who reads this even watches Survivor any more, but this current season has made me frustrated and this seemed to be as good a place to vent as any.
In case you don't know this season's premise and you feel like reading my rant anyway, here it is: the tribes are divided along gender lines with the twist being that they make camp at the same place. All I can say is, if I were among the castaways, the dynamic would be very different. The early episodes featured some low-level squabbles between the tribes, which makes me think that no one is really willing to commit. In my mind, either there should full peace and cooperation between the two or all-out war. Now, granted would I be there, I would strongly prefer the former to the latter, but if the rest of my tribe deemed it so, there would never be a fire, shelter, food, and everyone would be quite miserable as destruction and its retaliation would be necessary to level the playing field. On the other hand, if cooler heads prevailed, the Reward Challenges would be nearly meaningless as whichever tribe won should share the spoils of victory ensuring a less interesting competition until the Immunity Challenges. If I were a producer, I probably would have avoided the whole premise to begin with.
As it turns out, the tribes were randomly switched up in last night's episode with one tribe forced to relocate sort of invalidating everything that came before. So part of my beef is with the producers for not having the sense of creating an interesting game and negating the subtitle so early. But a larger part of my frustration is reserved for the contestants themselves. As Television Without Pity called last week's episode and the official title of last night's episode, they are all "A Bunch of Idiots." They're either hateful people or non-entities. There's a decent chance that I'll run into these people someday and I simply won't have anything to say to them. Few people are more aware than I am that what I see on television can give a very different sense than what actually happens out there, but the camera isn't so powerful that it actually makes the bad decisions. I'm beginning to understand why people prefer to watch professional sports than the amateur variety: professionals are less prone to really mind-boggingly stupid mistakes (probably also why bringing back the "all-stars" hold appeal).
If I were to see a silver-lining in all this, it's that I'm getting some insight into human behavior instead of strategic mastery. Take last week's episode, for example, where the men voluntarily gave up immunity to vote out one of their own. Keep in mind for this to happen, absolutely everyone has to be on board. Tribes have thrown challenges before (with usually a couple dissenters), but never has a tribe that was completely safe unanimously decided it was preferable to evict a tribemate than maintain the status quo. Who in their right mind would put themselves in danger to gain only the slightest bit of an edge? No one seemed to step back and do a cost-benefit analysis and if any did, it was over-ridden by the desire to go along to get along and just fit in. It was fascinating to see how peer pressure totally vanquished anything resembling common sense as nobody (including those who knew they were most likely to voted out) wanted to be the tall blade of grass to get cut down. It was a psychological experiment at its finest.
And sure enough, this idiotic behavior continued in last night's episode, even after the tribal swap. One team was noticeably stronger than the other (which is why tribal swaps shouldn't be random, but that's another discussion) and Team Misfit predictably lost the Immunity Challenge. And for some reason, the two most spiteful people of the misfits controlled the show. It wasn't due to any real cleverness on their part (granted one of them did have a hidden immunity idol, which helps, but isn't omnipotent), but mostly because the other five forgot the simple arithmetical fact that 5>2. When any one of them could have realized they were being dictated to, instead of turning things around and voting one of them off (3 flush the idol; if it's played the 2 vs. 2 votes hit a run-off where the majority are easily victorious), they play along, with one of them outright saying he'd prefer to be their "bitch" as long as he's not the one voted out. Way to take control of the game there, buddy.
Yes, I know it's easier to play the game from my couch than from the beach, and a lot more happens which clouds the simple solution to the problem, but still. Nevertheless, I've been put into a situation where I'm rooting for all of them to lose and it's difficult to be excited to watch the show as a viewer.
Mar. 12th, 2012
01:26 pm - What I'm watching on Youtube
C.G.P. Grey is now my favorite Youtube Channel. He elucidates on topics I'm already familiar with, but he does in it a very entertaining, though incredibly fast, way. Seriously, if I didn't already know about these subjects, I'd be forced to pause and backtrack periodically to allow time for it all to sink in. Just thought I'd share if you wanted to take a break from forays into random Wikipedia articles.
Feb. 28th, 2012
11:08 am - Professional Jurors
So I realize that the only reason I'm writing about this is because I have jury duty later this week, but now that the thought has occurred to me, I might as well write about it. So my question upon receiving the summons was: why don't we have professional jurors? Don't worry; I have no intention of shirking my duty as a citizen. In fact, I'm actually quite curious about the process. Nevertheless, I'm not being rhetorical in my question, but sincerely want to know. Perhaps it's a failure of our education system that I don't automatically know the answer, but I have a lot of smart friends who read this, many of whom have even been to law school so I hope to be enlightened.
The way I see it, a jury of peers may have once made sense. If a cleric committed an ecclesiastical crime, there is a logic to having fellow clergymen determine the seriousness of the infraction since they would know best what circumstances the cleric faces. But something got lost in the egalitarianism of America where suddenly everyone was your peer. The purpose of a court of law is to render justice and the jury is simply considered an instrument to do that effectively, but I'm not sure I trace the logic. Why should twelve randomly selected people be able to dispense justice better than twelve people who have dedicated their lives to the same? Juror training could simply be a matter of attending the same law schools as judges and lawyers do. Obviously, the legal process would become slightly more expensive, but don't we want the best system we can afford, especially if life and livelihood are on the line?
Whether I'm the prosecution, the defense, or a neutral observer, I would want the best minds available to evaluate any given case. People who are familiar with the intricacies of the law, both through training and experience, should be a reliable group to consistently mete out justice. The judge can refrain from lengthy explanations and there's less of a chance individual jurors would misunderstand instructions. Even assuming a jury has the top-notch brains from a given population, random jury duty often forces inconvenience on people, making the populace as a whole resentful for leaving their jobs and creating a distracted jury more interested in getting back to their lives than carefully determining what is right. Dedicated experts would provide more trustworthy and fairer verdicts.
But let's assume I'm wrong, for a moment. Maybe jury duty provides society with other advantages that aren't immediately obvious. Let's say it gives ordinary citizens a chance to participate and prevents a certain coziness between judges, jurors, and attorneys creating a byzantine legal system the common person has no chance to successfully navigate. Then, if random citizens are so highly valued when it comes to matters of law, we clearly don't go far enough. Elections should be disposed of and random citizens should become our politicians. Our legislatures are large enough a random sample would reflect society as a whole, statistically speaking, especially over time. All campaign finance arguments are rendered moot since no one is campaigning which has the additional bonus of allowing politicians to actually work instead of spending their valuable time on re-election efforts. Power bases are weakened since the people in power will be out of power very soon invalidating the professional politicians we currently have. Our system of laws would be vastly simplified so that everyone could understand it.
I'm not saying this hypothetical political framework is preferable to what we have, but it is consistent with our philosophy that random jurors make the best jurors. I would like to think that our legal system is a product of logic and reason, not mere historical accident. Either we should be governed by the elite or the commoner with justice determined by the same. Otherwise our society is schizophrenic.
Feb. 14th, 2012
01:30 pm - A Valentine conundrum
The thing is, I saw this one coming. I thought to myself, I'm just going to shut myself off to OkCupid or any other potential dating opportunities starting in mid-January. Because even assuming I see someone interesting, and assuming I get that someone to respond to me, and assuming I go on a date with them, and then assuming we hit it off to some extent (each step of which drops the probability slightly; sometimes dating feels like hunting for extraterrestrial civilizations using the Drake equation), February 14th will present a moment of awkwardness. If there was time to figure out what the state of the relationship is, that's one thing, but Valentine's Day with its cultural baggage has this nasty habit of collapsing the wave function when I'm not ready. And it's been my experience that less than a month of seeing an individual is not enough time for such determinations to be made. Apparently I'm not alone in this observation as mid-January is the most popular time for break-ups, being in the middle of the Christmas season and Valentine's Day where being too close to either of those holidays is perceived as too cruel.
And yet, I did it anyway. I sent a message and it was met with a response. A few more messages and a few more responses. A lunch date met with a postponement so we didn't meet until two days ago, the worst possible timing for such a thing. And so my Valentine's Day plans went from hiding under the sheets figuring out the 6th generation great-grandparents for my D&D character hoping the day would pass quickly, to trying to figure out what to do (if anything) with this girl. The way I see it, either she's hoping that I do something (even if it's as small as a quick message acknowledging the existence of the day) or she's going to be weird-ed out by it. There isn't much in between and, according to Murphy's Law, I'm going to choose wrongly.
So I turn to the wisdom of the interwebz for advice. Should I do something or nothing? And if the former, then what exactly should I do? We even followed up with an e-mail exchange yesterday using that narrow window to set-up a second date, but communication has been silent so far today. And so I'm left wondering, is she putting as much effort into unraveling 21st century societal expectations as I am or just pissed that I haven't called yet?
Dec. 30th, 2011
10:23 pm - Black-cubed
It isn't much of a secret that when voting on whether to invite a newcomer into their ranks, Freemasons use a simple device called the "blackball" in order to reject an applicant. In fact, the term has entered the popular lexicon as a shorthand for being ostracized. The reality is actually a little different: white balls do approve a candidate, but it's technically black cubes that reject, the reason being that one can simply use touch to distinguish between the options instead of drawing out the item to look at it exposing the secrecy of the ballot. But whether a sphere or a polyhedron, it's the blackness that counts and a single one has veto power crushing the spirit of many a hopeful aspirant.
( Read more... )
lonelyDec. 7th, 2011
11:25 pm - On Meta-ethics
A little while ago my cousin (who is prone to more than the occasional philosophical musing) sent me a lengthy Youtube Video from this past spring about a debate that took place between Sam Harris and William Lane Craig. It's long enough that I don't even want to summarize the discussion, but the question they were debating was "Are the foundations of moral values natural or supernatural?"
Before either academic spoke, I leaned towards Harris' stance of a natural origin, but that was before I had given the question much thought. My initial reaction to hearing them speak was that they were both awful, using terrible arguments to justify their positions. While they were on opposite sides of this debate, they were both fundamentally moral universalists...and so was I. After listening to them, however, they completely turned me around where I am now utterly convinced that any rigorous definition of "moral goodness" is a meaningless tautology and I am now, strictly speaking, a moral relativist, at least from a substantial theoretical standpoint as I now reject the debate question itself as it presupposes "moral values."*
I just find it deeply ironic that two brilliant** men who shared a philosophical stance I already agreed with managed to persuade me otherwise without even trying.
*This isn't to say that I don't have moral values, it's just that I now feel they are ultimately existential in nature.
**At least Notre Dame thinks so.
Dec. 1st, 2011
09:37 am - Dr. Nick quotes found only in my dreams
So in my dream last night, I had a hot date at the museum on White House hill in Washington D.C. (which apparently didn't stop me from attempting to make out with another girl beforehand; I guess my dream self is a cad). Well, it turns out a temp job came through: being the personal assistant of Brian Williams. I was actually going to turn it down in favor of the date, when I realized I could probably do both things sitcom style as he was called down to the D.C. affiliate for an emergency broadcast and as everyone knows, the NBC station there is a long building directly adjacent to White House hill. Well, it was a trial by fire sort of job, so after taking a tour the facility, Brian Williams introduced me as his personal assistant and for some reason I decided to do a Dr. Nick impression:
"Hi everybody!"
"Hi Dr. Nick!"
Someone called out if I loved it here and I responded in the Dr. Nick voice:
"Love it? I bought tens!" which sounds like something he'd say, but I certainly can't think of which Simpsons episode it's from.
After the newscast, I still had time before my date, so I accepted the job of party clown for a 5-year old's birthday next door. But I decided that 5-year olds prefer ghostbusters instead of clowns, so I dressed up as one of them instead, especially since I never got the hang of making balloon animals. Around this time, I woke up.
Nov. 30th, 2011
11:37 am - You may spend too much of your life online when...
...you learn your cousin got married via Facebook and a friend got divorced via OkCupid...within a week!
Nov. 14th, 2011
03:12 pm - Seen today while riding the T
Imagine, if you will, an advertisement with a photograph of a baby wearing a miniature business suit situated next to a business-looking bar graph. Now picture the following title and caption next this photograph
Breastfeeding Works!
Supporting
Breastfeeding
Employees Helps
the Bottom Line
Now, if you dare, imagine the subway bar obstructing the word "Supporting" from most vantage points and you will understand why I did a double-take upon seeing this ad.
My failure in this was not taking a picture of it, and thus relying on mere words to convey the same effect.
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