Tales of the Golem; or, the Modern Epimetheus

There are nine million bicycles in Beijing, it's a fact

2011-06-05T20:29:00.001-07:00

I participated in the World Quizzing Championship on Saturday.

Overall, I finished #18 in the USA and #81 in the world.

But, I was tied for #2 in the USA (and tied for #4 in the world) on the Science section!

It was fun.

Dough is what I got

2011-04-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

To my pleasant surprise, ~~today~~ yesterday I discovered that my TiVo had recorded a TED talk given by my former groupmate and underwater roboticist AnnMarie Thomas.

Who is the man who arrives at the wall?

2010-04-19T19:35:00.001-07:00

TACIT alum David Seal is featured in the New York Times.

You're gonna hit something, but that's the way it goes

2009-11-06T15:48:00.000-08:00

A Korean woman passed her multiple-choice driving exam on the 950th try.

She had to get 30 out of 50 multiple choice questions right.

Clearly she wasn't just guessing randomly. Assuming four answer choices per question, on average it would take 6,089,075 tries to pass by guessing randomly on every question.

If she usually knew about 11 of the 50 answers and guessed randomly on the rest, that would be consistent with passing after about 950 tries.

Cracked through time/space, godless and dry

2009-07-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, of course.

I've been reading Octavia Butler's novel Parable of the Sower. The book opens in 2024, but today, July 20th, 2009, is supposedly the day that the protagonist of the novel, Lauren Olamina, is born.

And since Lauren's father is exactly forty years older than she is, that means he was born on the day of the first moon landing.

This surely isn't a coincidence. The character Lauren starts a religion which looks forward to the human colonization of space as a kind of future heaven. But the birthdate significance isn't explicitly spelled out in the book.

I thought it was an interesting little discovery.

To rouse the Spirit of the Earth

2009-07-16T23:18:00.000-07:00

My former labmate Sharon Laubach got a mention in the Wall Street Journal.

Highway run into the midnight sun

2009-06-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

Langskaill, Orkney, 12:05 am, June 17

If I'd known they'd line up just to see him, I'd've taken all my money and bought me a museum

2009-06-25T10:52:00.001-07:00

We've heard there is a picture of Golem 1 in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Fame!

Season ticket on a one-way ride

2009-05-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to NPR puzzle veteran Dileep Rao, who made his movie debut this weekend to rave reviews.

Sometimes I get tired of the waiting

2009-05-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

Wolfram Alpha is now available for use.

Perhaps I'm being too demanding for the first week of release, but I'm very disappointed.

It fails on just about every question I think of myself (as opposed to things on their list of prepared examples).

It does not understand "air density at 60,000 feet."

It understands "pressure at 60,000 feet." And it understands "air density at 2 mm Hg." But it is not able to combine these things. It does not understand "air density at (pressure at 60,000 feet) and (temperature at 60,000 feet)." That was pretty much my minimum expectation of what it would do.

It does not understand "pressure at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean."

When I ask "distance to Barnard's Star in 10,000 years," it gives the impression that it is parsing the request correctly. It seems to know that I want the distance to Barnard's Star at the time 10,000 years from now. But it gives the wrong answer. It does not know that the distance to Barnard's Star is changing with time.

I find it hard to reconcile this weak performance with the claim that they have encapsulated most of the knowledge in a research library.

Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late

2009-05-14T22:56:00.001-07:00

As expected, California foreclosures have fallen in the last two quarters due to the state-imposed notification requirement. But initial notices of default (not plotted in this graph) are at a record high this quarter, so foreclosures will be spiking again in the near future.

Floating in a tin can

2009-03-19T22:52:00.001-07:00

Played pub trivia this week with Christian Clemenson and Googy. One of the questions was, "On which space mission did humans travel the furthest distance from Earth?"

Jerome pointed out that both Christian and Googy were in Apollo 13.

Like a surgeon

2009-02-18T21:50:00.000-08:00

Celebrity sighting, at O'Brien's: Peter Jacobson, a.k.a. Dr. Taub from House, who appeared to be playing on Patrick's team on Oscar trivia night, but didn't stay the whole time. I was tired and I left early too.

Don't I know you from the cinematographer's party

2009-01-26T18:49:00.000-08:00

Celebrity sighting, walking down Wilshire talking on his cell phone: Liam Neeson, whom I somehow misrecognized as William Hurt.

"That was William Hurt," I remarked to Maribeth. "William Hurt?" quoth she. "What has he been in?"

"Broadcast News," I said. "The Phantom Menace."

After a minute of discussion we worked out that it was Liam Neeson.

Let me please be your catering advisor

2008-12-23T20:44:00.000-08:00

Celebrity sighting in the hardware store: Stefan Richter, current contestant on Top Chef.

Apparently he just bought a 200+ pound chandelier and was looking for a way to support it.

I try to understand because I'm people too

2008-12-01T20:04:00.000-08:00

Um. Is this the same Circuit City that just entered Chapter 11 and plans to lay off 17% of its workforce by the end of the year?

Baby you're all that I want

2008-12-01T13:37:00.000-08:00

Anyone who comes here primarily hoping for baby photos can now bookmark Smart Bohemian Baby instead.

We've a lovable space that needs your face

2008-11-29T12:43:00.000-08:00

Phoebe now has a cousin Zosia in England who is three weeks younger (as well as cousin Theo in Scotland who is five weeks older). I expect at some point they will get into mischief together.

He bought some wild wild life on the way to the stock exchange

2008-11-22T14:25:00.000-08:00

A brief note of self-congratulation: on April 2, 2007, I told my brother-in-law, and also some random stranger on the street, to invest in Anheuser-Busch. At that time BUD stock was about $50/share.

This week the sale of Anheuser-Busch to InBev N.V./S.A. was completed for $70/share. In the intervening time, BUD stock also paid out $2.35/share in dividends (the final 37 cents of which should be received in a few weeks).

So, the investment returned about +44% in 20 months. Hurrah! In the same time period, the Dow Jones Industrials (for example) returned -35% including dividends.

My new public investment pick is Nam Tai Electronics (NTE).

Sun in the sky, you know how I feel

2008-10-31T18:31:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy week, with the advent of Phoebe Jane Mason.

Celebrity sighting in the hospital elevator: Robert Sean Leonard. He said something about getting his wife a hamburger. I infer that he also may have become a dad this week.

Check ignition and may God's love be with you

2008-10-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

It's time for an update on foreclosures in California.

Here's the original "foreclosures are up sharply" LA Times graph again.

Here's the update.

A new California law took effect in September that requires lenders to make due efforts to contact borrowers 30 days before initiating foreclosure proceedings. That law produced a temporary slowdown in the number of foreclosures initiated this quarter. However, these graphs show foreclosures which have reached the final stage and thus do not reflect any effect of the notification law yet.

Where everybody knows your name

2008-10-20T23:17:00.001-07:00

We returned to the AAJA Trivia Bowl, but we lost. Crap.

Bidding at the accompanying charity auction seemed subdued. Typical auction item in previous year: two round-trip tickets on Cathay Pacific. Typical auction item this year: two round-trip tickets on Southwest Airlines. A lunch date with Sharon Tay was auctioned off as in previous years, but Sharon Tay was not there to sell it in person, leaving the auctioneers to implore, "Come on, Sharon Tay! Have you seen a picture?!"

Jonathan was in town on Sunday. We went to Jerome's parents' place for a sukkah party.

Celebrity sighting in the sukkah: Paul Willson. (Okay, I did not know Paul Willson's name without being told, but I knew he was on Cheers and et cetera.)

Dropped off Jonathan at Long Beach Airport, came home and slept for twelve hours straight. Was still tired when I got up.

Must I paint you a picture

2008-10-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

Another month of what I've been reading.

My homies be down, so don't arouse my anger

2008-09-26T01:22:00.000-07:00

New York Times:
Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, has received nearly 17,000 e-mail messages, nearly all opposed to the bailout, her office said. More than 2,000 constituents called Ms. Boxer’s California office on Tuesday alone; just 40 favored the bailout. Her Washington office received 918 calls. Just one supported the rescue plan.

Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said he had been getting 2,000 e-mail messages and telephone calls a day, roughly 95 percent opposed. When Senator Bernard Sanders, the Vermont independent who votes with Democrats, posted a petition on his Web site asking Mr. Paulson to require that taxpayers receive an equity stake in the bailed-out companies, more than 20,000 people signed.

“We certainly have never brought in 20,000 names in a day and a half,” Mr. Sanders said, sounding astonished. “For us, that’s off the wall.”

That's awesome.

With money you squeeze from the peasants, to your nephew you can give it as a present

2008-09-23T12:30:00.001-07:00

You've been in the pipeline

2008-09-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

Most water users in the U.S. pay a price for water that reflects the cost of delivery. The price of water is actually zero. Although the fixed costs of dams, pipes, etc. and the variable costs of pumping (20 percent of California’s energy is used for “moving water”) are large in aggregate, those costs are spread across many units of water. In southern California, for example, urban water customers pay about $3 for 750 gallons of tap water, most of which is imported from hundreds of miles away.
-- David Zetland

If we can transport 750 gallons of water (over 6000 pounds) for hundreds of miles for $3, why can't we transport other things (e.g. people) equally cheaply?

I'm not trying to impress you with my lines, they don't mean nothing at all

2008-08-31T10:43:00.001-07:00

For better or worse, I actually made it through a whole month of quotidian quotes.

Man it looked just like the Batmobile

2008-08-26T19:33:00.000-07:00

At first glance I assumed this bus ad was for a new TV show. In Los Angeles, it would have been a TV show. But that's the difference between Los Angeles and Washington D.C., it seems: here the bus ads are for military vehicle programs.

I don't really understand why defense contractors do this. Everyone who sees a bus ad for a TV show might possibly watch that show, but how many "customers" are there who actually decide whether a military program gets funded, and who gets the contract? Can this really be an effective way of reaching them?

Now, this particular bus does go near the Pentagon, so perhaps it's not that poorly targeted.

But I also see Lockheed Martin, et al., put ads in general-interest magazines. I don't really get it.

Speaking of the Batmobile, the Wikipedia article for Alfred Lee Loomis claims that "he is considered the model for Bruce Wayne." That would be interesting if true, but I don't see any evidence that anybody apart from that Wikipedia editor seriously believes it to be true.

Will you still feed me when I'm sixty

2008-08-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

We wondered yesterday why the clothing store Miss Sixty appears to cater to young women rather than to sextagenarians as you might expect from the name.

It's not so easy to determine what the name is supposed to mean. Miss Sixty's name derives from the Italian parent company Sixty Group. I found a Times article that claims the Sixty Group (founded in 1989) is named after the decade of the sixties, although Miss Sixty variously claims inspiration from the '50s, '70s, and '80s.

These alternative brands from the Miss Sixty website are perhaps circumstantial evidence that Italians don't know the difference between sixty and sexy.

In the garbage bin, looks like he's found something neat

2008-08-16T20:39:00.000-07:00

Another picture from Poland. I was very impressed with this trashcan I saw. The lid to keep out rain is fixed in place. The can beneath it rotates. You could cant the can slightly to throw some trash in, or rotate it more for more access or to empty it. I think that is a good design. Compare that to an open can (that would let in the rain) or a slot (that wouldn't offer as much access to the can) or a door (kind of a dirty thing that you would have to touch with your hands).

On the other hand, back in the USA, I think the design of this KCRW public radio envelope is terrible. It's an appeal for money that says, "Please throw me in the trash!"

Can't start a fire without a spark

2008-08-12T23:48:00.001-07:00

I just got back from Utah. The white stuff in the picture is salt.

I went on a very educational tour of a rocket propellant manufacturer. No matches or lighters are allowed on the grounds of this facility. However there is still a little bunker where employees can go for cigarette breaks and light their cigarettes with a non-portable electric lighter.

The building where the rocket propellant is mixed has tubular slides sprouting Willy-Wonka-fashion from every floor of the building. These are escape chutes so that, if one were filled with an intense desire to get out of the building as quickly as possible, one could jump into a chute and slide to the ground.

About twenty years ago, there was an incident when static electricity caused some sparks inside the building. Of the four or five people inside the building, one actually made it into the tube and slid all the way to the ground. However, instead of then moving off to one side as he had been clearly instructed by the safety procedures, he just kept running in a straight line. The flames raced down the tube and shot out after him like a jet setting him on fire. He lived for twenty-four hours during which he was able to give some account of the accident.

I am thinking this escape chute could possibly be better designed, maybe with some kind of flame arrester curtain at the bottom and vents to redirect the blast.

I don't know where my soul is

2008-08-07T18:30:00.000-07:00

Now that I have a phone with a camera, at last I can take pictures of hummingbirds when the opportunity arises.

It don't matter if you're black or white

2008-08-06T23:15:00.000-07:00

I lost my cell phone a while back. (Now you know why I haven't been returning your calls.) Today I bought an iPhone. I have a new phone number: available upon request.

The 16GB iPhone comes in black or white. (The cheaper 8GB iPhone only comes in black. The store didn't have any of those in stock anyway.)

I decided to get white because it seemed more distinctive, more Apple-like, and perhaps more visible on a typical cluttered desk.

I was standing in line outside the Apple store to buy this phone. The girl behind me was standing in line for her boyfriend while he roamed around inside the store. He comes out and says, "They say that the black shows scratches but the white doesn't show scratches as much!" He was excited about getting white. But the girlfriend says, "Why would you get white... if you were a guy? If I were a guy, I would get black." Somebody asks, "If a guy got white, what would you think of him?" She says, "He's my boyfriend, so I have to accept him either way. But I think he has to get black."

By the time the guy gets to the end of the line, he scrunches up his face sadly and says, "I guess I have to get black." In order to maintain his Batman image, I guess.

I got my distinctive white iPhone anyway. I'm happy with it so far.

I love this hive employee

2008-07-24T22:57:00.000-07:00

I think some of my first attempts at entomophotography came out pretty well. Presenting Bees of Poland:

I also tried some of the mead produced by those Polish bees. It was okay.

I'm riding high upon a deep depression

2008-07-23T17:36:00.000-07:00

The idea for this graph comes from Bubble Markets Inventory Tracking, but I drew my own copy of it.

"Home foreclosures are up sharply in California" -- LA Times, April 17, 2007

That's not up sharply.

This is up sharply.

Read the letters that the children write to the standard white Santa Claus

2008-07-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's my imagination and I'm perceiving a regional correlation where none exists, but it seems to me that Jesus in Poland is unusually despondent.

These are all from Zakopane and Krakow. I saw a really good one in Gdansk, but I think I accidentally deleted that picture.

Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash

2008-07-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

Dear NPR,

Perhaps "correction" is too strong a word, but I wanted to point out that the Zimbabwean exchange rates cited this morning on Weekend Edition are not consistent. The story begins by saying that a Zimbabwean 50-billion dollar note is worth 33 cents. In that case 1.2 quadrillion Zimbawean dollars are worth about 8000 U.S. dollars, not 4000 as is said at the end of the story.

Horrific as Zimbabwean inflation is, the money should not lose half of its value over the course of a 1:28 news story...

Update: NPR issued a correction on their website. Do I get a tote bag or something? Apparently not.

Update: Okay, Scott Simon acknowledged my letter on the air.

Sixth Street, we love it

2008-07-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

At Regina's invitation, we went to the SF/LA production of The Taming of the Shrew at the Cathedral of the Lady of the Angels. I thought the acting was of a pretty high standard. This was also the first time I've been to the Cathedral and it seemed nice enough, but I won't be buying any bottles of the Cathedral wine that was served at the reception. Afterwards: Full House Seafood in Chinatown with Brad, sinophonic Jerome, and Mark Dawson, who is moving back to Atlanta.

Ten til twelve is wine and dancing

2008-07-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

When the housemaids scrub the floors, they get the spaces in between

2008-07-13T22:54:00.000-07:00

I had a short conversation with Paul Mazursky who sat next to me in the Munich airport today:

PM: Is someone [sitting] there? RM: No.

To be honest I would not necessarily have identified (director, actor, and Oscar-nominated screenwriter and producer) Paul Mazursky as himself, but I later overheard him talking to an Iranian woman about Moon Over Parador.

The night before leaving for Europe, I saw Kevin Nealon in the lobby of the Groundlings Theater. At the same time we spoke briefly with Phil LaMarr who had been performing at the theater that night.

These would be celebrity sightings respectively of the third kind (serendipitous interaction), of the second kind (serendipitous sighting), and of the first kind (predictable encounter where the celebrity is appearing professionally).

Celebrity Sighting Type	Defining Characteristic
First Kind	Predictable encounter in a venue where the celebrity is appearing professionally
Second Kind	Serendipitous sighting
Third Kind	Serendipitous interaction
Fourth Kind	Trapped in an ATM vestibule

We've all got time enough to cry

2008-06-26T15:12:00.000-07:00

Neighborhood restaurant Warszawa, which is one of about two Polish restaurants in all of Greater Los Angeles, used to advertise its "Is Anybody Really Happy Hour?"

At least that's a funny name, although the one time we went to Is Anybody Really Happy Hour, it didn't excite me enough for me to want to drown my sorrows there on a regular basis. (However, Warszawa is not bad for a nice dinner: to celebrate Easter, for example.)

Now they have changed the sign to "Is Everybody Really Happy Hour?"! That barely even makes sense... or maybe it carries a tinge of Brave New World dystopia.

Every Hottentot and every Eskimo

2008-06-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

Everyone I know gets on NPR sooner or later. O'Briens regular Dileep Rao was randomly selected from 1600 applicants to play the Sunday puzzle with Will Shortz!

No one bites back as hard on their anger

2008-06-08T17:23:00.000-07:00

It's a nice day to start again

2008-05-31T14:00:00.000-07:00

You really know me, that's all I need to know

2008-05-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

I'm always pleased to see people I know celebrated in the mass media, in however major or minor a fashion, so I got a kick out of hearing Jason Ennis of Dallas interviewed on NPR this morning, in his capacity as a tourist at the current "For Your Eyes Only" Ian Fleming exhibit at the Imperial War Museum, London.

The radio piece created a little point-counterpoint on whether new James Bond books by people other than Ian Fleming were a Good Thing or Not. Jason expressed the Good Thing point of view.

Terror of Colorado Boulevard

2008-05-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

ICRA was in exotic Pasadena this year. I went and gave a fifteen-minute talk on Golem 3. I knew I only had fifteen minutes, but I was still shocked when the moderator flashed the "five minutes left" sign and I had barely got around to saying anything. Then I had to rush through my actual points. I was very annoyed... at myself, I guess. Maybe at the moderator, if he didn't give me the proper amount of time.

Norm Whitaker said there won't be a fourth robot race... not under this DARPA director. Under a new administration, who knows.

Friday night we went out to celebrate Luke's successful Ph.D. defense. The Caltech rugby guys are pretty funny. Luke is off to work at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach. Apparently there are poker players at Northrop Grumman so we might be able to restart the poker game. Casa Mason might become Poker Central since Santa Monica is roughly in between Pasadena and Redondo Beach

Sunday night Oz threw a party to

observe the landing of the Phoenix mission on Mars (successful)
observe the third game of the NBA Western Conference Finals (unsuccessful, from the Lakers' point of view)
play poker (unsuccessful, but not disastrous, from my point of view).

Papa would have shot him if he knew what he'd done

2008-05-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country and he mentions that "impersonating an Egyptian" was one of two hundred capital offenses in eighteenth-century Britain, for which one could be transported to Australia as an alternative to hanging.

Correlatedly, there are a handful of websites, including the National Museum of Australia, repeating that impersonating an Egyptian (i.e. gypsy) was a transportable offense. However they don't explain why this should have been the case.

In Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester in fact did impersonate a gypsy woman to tell fortunes. However he was not hanged or transported for it.

Everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around

2008-05-16T23:09:00.000-07:00

We went to Jacob Mallory's dol. He seemed a very good-natured and well-behaved baby.

He was presented with a bowl of rice, some money, a pencil, a book, a microphone, and some string. Whichever thing he picked up would symbolize something about his life; for example if he went for the microphone he would turn out to be musical. He just sat there and laughed at the concept for a while, but finally he picked up the string.

This means he will have a long life, but hopefully one not devoid of food, money, writing, scholarship, or music.

I think I need a sunrise, I'm tired of the sunset

2008-05-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

I've been traveling a lot lately. Last week I went to Boston for a workshop. I saw Jeanhee (first time in two years) and Geneve (first time in sixteen years).

While driving around, I heard them say on NPR that Boston drivers were no longer driving because of high gas prices and everyone was riding the T. Well, I would hate to be around for low gas prices because traffic in Boston is horrible.

Boston is well supplied with pub quizzes and I had a plan to tour several of them, but it turned out that I only made it to one, P.J. Ryan's, which is apparently located near Tufts.

The bouncer at the door carded me--and was a little skeptical of my California driver's license. The irony of this became apparent when I got inside and found the pub was packed full of tiny children! I guess I'm used to a more mature pub quiz crowd. There was one beefy white-haired guy, and then a few more people did show up who looked like they were old enough to drink. But by and large, most everybody in the pub looked like David Archuleta. The quiz was heavily attended; I only counted about eight tables in the whole place, but there were fifteen teams.

I had been planning to foist myself on some team, but I lost my nerve. I decided to just play by myself under the name Jason Castro's Not Even Trying. Playing by yourself isn't the most fun approach to pub quiz (sob) but at least I could watch the election results on the muted television. I wasn't crazy about the beers I tried. They didn't have any of my favorites on tap.

I thought it was a good quiz. Balanced mix of topics. There is a point-betting system, and some escalating opportunities to bet a lot of points, so there's potential to come from way behind late in the game. (Imagine what Final Jeopardy would be like if there were fifteen players.) That may be a bit "random" but it does keep things interesting.

I got off to a weak start but made up ground in the middle rounds. I came in second place with 197 points. Congrats to the tiny players of I Just Started Using Laser Cats Again who came first with 205 points. If only I had a teammate I could have told, "It's Bill Somebody who played for the Celtics"... no, that wouldn't have closed the gap. I feel good about it. I made fifty bucks!

Having returned from Boston, I only remembered about midnight Sunday that I was getting on a plane again to go to Phoenix about 6 am Monday. And I not only had to pack, but had to go to work to get some stuff done prior to going to the airport...

In the past couple of weeks I have received the following useful things:

Lockheed Martin fuzzy blanket
Raytheon "gunpowder" (dried jalapeno seasoning)
Microcosm travel mug
Microcosm ceramic coffee mug with starry sky scene that appears when you put hot liquid in the mug
SpaceX USB flash drive
SpaceX mints
Orbital foam slingshot rockets to shoot at people
Orbital tie pin (ok not that useful)

General Dynamics did not give us anything and did not even buy us lunch. But we do not hold that against them.

Except for the names and a few other changes

2008-04-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

Watched American Idol at Joe's place last night.

Brooke was worried about forgetting the lyrics to "I Am... I Said," so she wrote them on her hand.

~~Joe~~ Maribeth suggested that if you're going to be playing the piano, you might want to write the lyrics on the back of your hand.

Neil Diamond told Brooke that since she's from Arizona, she should change the line "New York City born and raised," to "Arizona born and raised." Good one Neil. Except you don't contrast Los Angeles with Arizona by saying that "palm trees grow and the rents are low" in Los Angeles. Also, Los Angeles and Arizona do not make up "two shores." Otherwise brilliant.

Remember why the good Lord made your eyes

2008-04-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers are suing RDR Books over the unauthorized Harry Potter Lexicon. I went through some of the plaintiff's exhibits and I thought they were mostly pretty weak, until I came to this one.

My personal impression from the exhibits is that when the Lexicon is presenting material drawn from the seven novels, the reorganization and paraphrasing falls within what should be allowed (with possible isolated exceptions, such as the entire quotation of the various songs).

However, the Lexicon evidently also includes closely-paraphrased material from Rowling's Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I think that could be a serious problem.

Note that while the novels are novels, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them purport to be reference works about the Harry Potter universe. Fantastic Beasts evidently has entries in alphabetical order. If the Lexicon closely paraphrases Fantastic Beasts entry for entry, then where's the transformative value?

The Lexicon is not a perfect substitute for the Harry Potter novels. Probably not many readers will buy the Lexicon for the plot summary and then not buy the novels. But if the Lexicon effectively contains much of the content of Fantastic Beasts, I think there's a serious likelihood that you might buy the Lexicon and figure you don't need to buy Fantastic Beasts. I think Rowling could win on those grounds.

Everybody knows the deal is rotten

2008-04-27T17:48:00.001-07:00

The Honorable Henry Waxman
8436 West Third Street, Suite 600
Los Angeles, CA 90048.
(310) 652-3095.

Dear Mr. Waxman,

I am writing as one of your constituents to register my total opposition to Barney Frank’s mortgage bailout plan, and any other plan to use tax dollars to rescue housing lenders and borrowers from financial difficulty of their own making.

Unsustainable mortgages of the type addressed by the Frank plan could never have occurred without willful negligence and a degree of deception on both sides of the table. Such reckless borrowers and lenders deserve each other perfectly. What they do not deserve is one thin dime of taxpayer money once they find they have double-crossed each other.

Although the Frank plan is represented as aiding borrowers, in reality it would enable lenders to offload bad mortgages for 85% of the home’s supposed value. Of course, lenders will only accept this deal because in their estimation the mortgages are worth even less than that. So when the Financial Services committee supposes that only 1-2% of the new FHA mortgages will default, they are displaying much the same willful financial obtuseness as the original lenders did.

I have heard Barney Frank acknowledge that his plan will rescue the imprudent and undeserving, but he justifies this on the grounds that “the economy” will suffer without a bailout. As you know, Los Angeles has a high percentage of renters, and also many homeowners who did not gamble recklessly and dishonestly in the housing market. We too are part of “the economy.” For us to see our taxes go up or our government’s deficit increased, while the federal government blithely underwrites the worst loans made by the most imprudent lenders to the least responsible borrowers, would be the most perverse policy I can imagine.

Please safeguard the public purse from Barney Frank’s costly, immoral bailout plan.

Regards,

He waited his whole damn life to take that flight

2008-04-05T15:15:00.000-07:00

Maribeth says she saw a bumper sticker saying, "Irony is Andrew Jackson's face on a central bank note."

In other news, a hundred or so economists are petitioning the Edinburgh City Council not to sell Adam Smith's house to the highest bidder.

Sticks and umbrellas in their mitts

2008-03-31T20:05:00.000-07:00

I like the Ritz-Carlton. Say what you will about RAND, but siting its Washington office immediately next door to the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City was a stroke of genius.

I was disturbed to discover yesterday that Marriott owns 99% of Ritz-Carlton, and has for years! Does this undermine my simple world view that "Ritz-Carlton good, Marriott evil"?

(I think at one time Microsoft owned a certain percentage of the stock of Apple. But not 99%.)

Well, I've decided to retain Ritz-Carlton as one of my Defining Lifestyle Brands for now, and call off my fatwa against Marriott.

A couple of weeks ago I was at a Marriott Residence Inn in Albuquerque and it was okay, although the room had a really noisy refrigerator.

Earth below us, drifting, falling

2008-03-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

Radio woke me up this morning with the news that former Thomas Building resident Bob Behnken was doing a spacewalk to complete assembly of the Dextre robot outside the International Space Station.

I thought it was nice that someone I knew had slipped the surly bonds of Earth. Then ten seconds later the radio mentioned that other former Thomas Building resident Garrett Reisman was assisting in the assembly. Hey, it's a grad school reunion up there.

For some reason I find it funny that Garrett's Wikipedia entry has a warning at the top: "This article documents a person who is currently in space."

That sugar cane that tasted good

2008-02-03T23:32:00.001-08:00

I think our Burns Night party this year was the most successful yet, and the most culinarily interesting. In past years it's been a struggle to get the guests to partake of the haggis, but this year we had a few people who were, as they say, into it. And many more who were interested in the scientifically-correct blind Scotch tastings.

Lessons learned: Scapa (Charlie) appeared to be the winner of the evening. Also popular were Oban (Bravo), which I think was the most expensive bottle, and The Famous Grouse (Echo), which was the cheapest, and the only blended whisky in the experiment. Talisker (Alpha) had of course a distinctive taste which I like to describe as a "glass full of dirt." The loser and least well received: Glenfiddich (Delta), the world's best-selling single malt.

Brad brought by some salmon with capers, dill, and rye bread, which he claimed was the authentically Scottish way to eat salmon. Later some cast doubt on whether this is really Scottish or not, but more importantly, it was really damn good. I don't even like rye bread but this was good.

Eugene brought some absinthe "straight from Europe." It was okay. We didn't have any sugar cubes so we had to use spoonfuls of granulated sugar.

Tried a ramekin of Haggis Jacobean, which is haggis heated with whiskey and topped with cream. Meh. Not particularly good.

We battered and deep-fried some Milky Way bars. Sixty seconds at 350 degrees seems about right. Fewer takers for these than I expected, but some who claimed not to like Milky Way bars under normal circumstances admitted that they were good.

This is a two weeks late blog post about a party that itself happened about a week later than it was supposed to. So sue me! I am kidding. You should not sue me. You have not suffered any economic damages.

I mean definitely an E ticket

2008-01-29T19:49:00.000-08:00

I stepped out this afternoon-- I was going to walk down Wilshire to the Staples-- and there were one, two, three, four helicopters directly overhead like a squadron of Valkyries.

I went off on my errand and the side streets were all blocked to vehicles by the police. Is there a manhunt in the neighborhood?

On further inquiry it turns out that the school is on lockdown, perhaps because one of the students brought a knife or gun to school. Um, the middle school or the elementary school? The middle school. (Although for whatever reason, the helicopters were hovering closer to the elementary school.)

At this hour it appears that the four helicopters and countless police cars were called out because of a report of a gun by a juvenile caller, which appears to have been a hoax.

Walking in L.A., walking in L.A.

2008-01-26T14:35:00.000-08:00

I have often read (some of) Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, but it seemed to me that I had never finished it, so I finally read it cover to cover. It was a little different this time since the characters pass through Henley, which I know now from the Football Yogi living there.

Then I decided that I had read the whole book before, but had forgotten about it. The thing is, it's really just a collection of amusing anecdotes with almost no sequential story (you could randomly reorder all the chapters of the book without really harming it in any way) and not much of an ending (it starts raining and they head home). So it's an easy book to pick up, put down, and forget how much of it you read.

Speaking of rain, the monsoon season has started in Los Angeles. I was walking home the other day and a bus went through a deep puddle and sent a wave of water over me. It seemed more like something that would happen in a movie (or, as Maribeth said, to Carrie Bradshaw) rather than in real life. I was more wet than if someone had thrown a bucket of water at me, but slightly less wet than if I had just walked into the Pacific Ocean.

Speaking of Jerome (K. Jerome), Jerome gave the quiz at the pub for the first time. One of his questions was, "Where is the Loop of Henle?" So I joked, "I think it's on the Thames." But then his next question was, "On what river is the Henley Regatta?" I guess he was going for a thematic sequence.

We won the quiz because Patrick was very much in tune with Jerome... or maybe it's just that Patrick is very good. Patrick had written a handout (intended for use the following week) on identifying languages in unfamiliar scripts (did you know that Maltese is a Semitic language written in a Latin alphabet?) and Jerome had written effectively the same thing so Patrick had to start over. I told Patrick that they were like Harry Potter and Voldemort and one of them ought to learn the art of Occlumency to keep the other one out of his mind. Eric said that they were more like Dumbledore and Grindelwald.

You better run all day and run all night

2008-01-19T13:56:00.000-08:00

We watched the Logan's Run DVD that Joe gave Maribeth on her 30th birthday. I read the book long ago but I never watched the movie until now.

I was struck by the many parallels between this 1976 movie and the 1982 movie Blade Runner. There's, um, the "running" title, and special policemen chasing escapees who are unhappy about their abbreviated lifespans and "want more life." There's the ambiguous sympathy between hunter and hunted. Certain lines of dialogue are almost the same. There's some similarity between the Old Man who lives alone with his cats and the "prematurely senescent" J.F. Sebastian who lives alone with animate toys of his own creation. I wonder if this movie wasn't as much of an influence on Blade Runner as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was. In particular, Ridley Scott is said not to have read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but maybe he saw the movie Logan's Run.

In Logan's Run, the Computer does a really abysmal job of motivating Logan for his mission. By refusing to answer or even acknowledge his questions, the Computer effectively says in not so many words: "I've been lying to you all your life, you're going to die in four years time without hope of rebirth, actually I'm taking those four years away from you now, no you won't get them back. Now go forth and do my bidding!" If you believe in Deckard-as-replicant theories, then this parallels (I think unintentionally) the miserable job that Tyrell Corporation has done filling replicant-Deckard with enthusiasm for his work.

I was interested to sort-of recognize bits of Dallas/Fort Worth scenery where the movie was shot, but I'm a bit confused about the exact locales. Some shots were from the Fort Worth Water Gardens. I think some others were from downtown Dallas, but The Internet doesn't confirm this.

I am the name in the writing on the wall

2008-01-09T11:54:00.000-08:00

I got a complaint about the link text being too hard to read, so I will try to fix it...

Reading: I enjoyed the novella The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. A quick read.

Viewing: We finished all 22 episodes of Alien Nation. Maribeth was initially resistant to watching this 1989-1990 science fiction TV series, but soon she was the one pulling out the DVDs to watch more episodes: to get it over with, she said. Also, I notice she has started using Tenctonese words in everyday conversation.

If I were David Byrne, I'd go to galleries and not be too concerned

2008-01-06T13:29:00.000-08:00

We went to the Murakami exhibit at the MOCA. There was a huge line stretching into the parking lot, that only got longer and longer as time went on. One could skip the line and go straight in by buying a MOCA membership for $75... Otherwise it was $16 for two people. Clever marketing by MOCA?

I'm glad that we waited out the line and didn't fork over the $75. The exhibit was just okay. I like a naked woman transforming into a fighter jet as much as the next guy, but the Lovecraftian nightmares of Things With a Million Eyes and Mouths got kind of old after the fourth room. There was an episode of an anime television series that reminded me a lot of a Nintendo game.

There was a short live-action film that (as I understand) was an excerpt from a full Murakami feature film that will be released in Fall 2008. It is nominally about a sexually impotent assassin who specializes in killing Japanese dignitaries. There was a text rollup explaining how this character has flown into Japan. Then the film excerpt begins and there is a long scene of an unintroduced, unexplained girl washing her hair in the sink, then an external shot of a building, then a shot of a monorail train going by. That's it. If what I saw is representative of the movie as released, it will be the Worst Action Movie Ever.

In other news, congratulations to O'Briens regular Alex Boisvert for winning a Gold Medal (for Best Early Week Puzzle) and another honorable mention in the 2007 awards from the American Crossword Critics Association.

What's two down and four across?

2007-12-24T20:17:00.000-08:00

Maribeth wrote a Christmas crossword for all to enjoy. Copies of this were supposed to go out in Christmas cards, but they mostly didn't, because I am lame.

Right click and save the puzzle, then open it with the Across Lite crossword program.

Paper copies available on request.

We built the Wall, we built the pyramids

2007-12-21T07:25:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of crosswords lately, ever since we saw the documentary Wordplay on DVD. Subtitles often annoy me, but with special irony for a movie all about words and spelling, there were an especially large number of mistakes in the subtitles on this DVD. Of the many, the one I remember is Will Shortz talking about all the mail he receives from "sobbers" (i.e. solvers).

Maribeth reminds me that that they were talking about words that have the letter Q without the letter U, for example the country QATAR, and the subtitles said "quitar," oblivious to the point of the conversation.

Also, Bob Dole is identified in the subtitles as "Man." No wonder he didn't win the White House, if someone subtitling a documentary on crosswords doesn't even know who he is. Although I believe he did a Visa commercial with a similar premise.

Yesterday's New York Times puzzle asked for "Actress Jessica" ALBA. Coincidentally we sat next to Jessica Alba when we went to the Omelette Parlor with Daniel on Saturday. Omelette Parlor now has a Monte Cristo sandwich; I tried it; it wasn't good enough to have again. It's hard to find a good Monte Cristo sandwich.

"Jeopardy whiz" and blog linkee KEN Jennings was in the New York Times crossword puzzle on Monday before last.

Recent reading: The Sea Wolf by Jack London. I had not read anything by Jack London before, nor did I know that Jack London was gay, but The Sea Wolf has a gaydar cross-section of 100 dBsm. Fighter jets could potentially dispense canisters of Sea Wolf paperbacks to jam enemy gaydars. Just saying.

Also: The Great God Pan by Arthur Menchen. Premise: Scientific experiments create woman who is part offspring of Pan, the unmentionable horribleness lurking underneath normal reality; hordes of Victorian gentlemen kill themselves one after another as result of associating with her. Mostly pretty terrible. Funny, in that most of the horrible queerness that outrages the conscience seems to consist of respectable people being seen in seedy London neighborhoods. The satanic experiences that might drive one to take one's own life otherwise aren't articulated. People have a mark of startling evil stamped on their visages and that kind of thing. Interesting ripped-from-the-day's-headlines references to the Whitechapel murders, and to wireless telegraphy.

Long ago somebody left with the cup

2007-12-02T10:12:00.000-08:00

As most people have heard by now, we were unsuccessful in this year's DARPA race. We got cut on the last day of qualification trials. Here are some videos of our performance including a crash that burst one of the front tires.

DARPA didn't cut us just for the crash. It was more complicated than that. The crash probably didn't help.

I don't feel like talking about it too much, but I do have to relive it all in order to put together a final report on it this month. It appears that DARPA will pay us $250,000 on receipt of said final report, which is better than a kick in the teeth.

Mondegreen of the Day: I was going to title this post "Keep your dream, just give me the money," but it turns out I was mishearing the song. The real lyric is "Keep your drink, just give me the money!" Not the same thing at all.

There is power in a union

2007-09-20T16:44:00.000-07:00

Half of what you see and none of what you hear

2007-09-19T18:54:00.000-07:00

I know some people who manage to be extremely confident and certain about things, even when they are completely wrong or have no idea what they're talking about. I am not like that (at least I don't think so*). Instead I am usually full of doubt about everything.

Eric McCormack walked past me today. I was only 90% sure it was him and sat there nursing my doubts. However, a minute later I ran into him again at the elevator. A second look, plus hearing his voice, confirmed that it was he.

Not a great story perhaps, but it was interesting to have a less-than-certain celebrity sighting that was then proved correct. Does this mean my maybe-sightings of an unhappy L__ T__ and a shabbily-dressed M__ P__ were genuine also? Alas, they will never be confirmed.

(* This parenthetical remark works on more levels than I originally intended.)

From my heart and from my hand, why don't people understand my intentions

2007-09-14T19:44:00.000-07:00

There are pieces here, I don't know where they go

2007-08-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

She said her visions were a bane in her life

2007-08-27T16:54:00.000-07:00

In the suitcase on the left you'll find my favorite axe

2007-08-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

I knew it complete when I wore a younger man's clothes

2007-08-19T10:18:00.001-07:00

We go on pretending stories like ours have happy endings

2007-08-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

All right all right all right all right all right all right all right all right all right all right all right all right all right, ok now ladies

2007-08-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

Actual tale of the Golem: we survived the latest cut of DARPA Urban Challenge teams to 36 teams and will advance to the semifinals.

We weren't at all sure that we would make it, since our site visit from DARPA did not go well. (We had about four unexpected bugs: one for each of the four test runs that DARPA asked us to do.) As evidence of the stiffness of the competition, it appears that the team from Raytheon Missile Systems and iRobot did not make the semifinals despite receiving million-dollar Track A DARPA funding. Such heavyweights as the team from UC Berkeley and the Australian Centre for Field Robotics did not make the semifinals either. So we consider ourselves lucky.

The DARPA Urban Challenge will be held at the Army's urban operations training facility at the former George Air Force Base in Victorville, California. Our team members, family members, and "representatives" are banned from the area until October 24...

Get up everybody and sing

2007-08-05T22:24:00.000-07:00

True colors are beautiful, like a rainbow

2007-08-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

You found the secret code I use to wash away my lonely blues

2007-08-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

Me and my homies be drinking butterbeer forties

2007-07-31T17:34:00.000-07:00

When rappers exponentiate, as in "B-L-A-C-K-E-Y-E-D-P-to the E, then the A to the S," is that really supposed to be an algebraic expression? What is the origin of that?

"My name's H P to the O to the T to the T to the E to the R you see," seems like it has the potential to be a very large number.

I'm not here for your entertainment

2007-07-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

I'm experimenting here with a high-frequency, short-format blog concept in which I'll try to record some quotable wisdom that I come across each day.

There is no fear in this dojo

2007-05-23T23:06:00.000-07:00

Another trivia night at the pub. We had a couple of empty seats at our table, and halfway through we were unexpectedly joined by Alan Tudyk and his girlfriend Abby. Alan is best known, to me anyway, as the guy who played the pilot Wash on Firefly. Bridget the waitress asked him if he was Steve the Pirate. "My name's Alan, but I played Steve the Pirate." [Apparently in the movie Dodgeball which I haven't seen. --Ed. note.]

One of the quiz questions was, "What was the name of the enchanter in Monty Python and the Holy Grail? And what was the name of the character who determined whether people were witches or not?" I quickly wrote down the answers.

Alan and Abby, it turns out, met when they were both in the cast of Spamalot, in which Alan played Tim the Enchanter. They were amused that I'd answered both parts of the question while they were still trying to remember, "What was the name of Steve's character again?" Hey dude, you've got to be faster than that if you want to get the Monty Python questions around here.

In unrelated news, I've had the song Sweep the Leg by No More Kings stuck in my head all day long.

All you other Slim Shadies are just imitating

2007-05-21T10:26:00.000-07:00

Beware the Queen of Diamonds boy

2007-05-19T10:37:00.001-07:00

It's high time to draw the line, put an end to this game

2007-05-12T12:03:00.000-07:00

My initial reaction to this cartoon was that it wasn't plausible, because no one plays tic tac toe that badly.

But maybe that's a little unfair. It appears that the opening move was the second-best possible opening, and it's only the second move that was truly atrocious. None of the other moves matter.

When the hills of Los Angeles are burning

2007-05-11T17:47:00.000-07:00

I got a pretty good view of the Griffith Park fire on Tuesday night, driving from Santa Monica to Pasadena. The blazing hillside was visible from the 10.

Do you derive joy when someone else succeeds?

2007-04-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

I figure I only have about 15 of the 21 things Alanis Morissette wants in a lover. Probably not a very good score.

You know everybody got to have a purpose in this world

2007-04-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

I made the May issue of Popular Science. Page 58!

With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse

2007-04-14T16:26:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Chris, here is photographic evidence of the startling discovery we made a few months ago at the Glasgow Science Centre.

The idea is a demonstration of Pythagoras's theorem that a^2 + b^2 = c^2. The area (a^2 + b^2) in this case is equal to the cross-sectional area of the two smaller tanks filled with fluid.

Then we simply rotate the apparatus and let the "hypotenuse" tank fill with fluid.

The result: the larger tank does not contain all the fluid. a^2 + b^2 > c^2. Convincing experimental disproof of Pythagoras's theorem!

I think it's great that thousands of Scottish schoolchildren are getting to witness first-hand hoary mathematical theories being uprooted by real-world experiments. That is science in action!

By the 1950s they're in everybody's home

2007-04-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

These are the things I like about my Motorola SLVR L2 phone.

1) It is slim and fits easily in a pocket.
2) It has a nice loud speakerphone so I can set it down for a conference call and leave my hands free to type.
3) In theory I could use it abroad although I haven't actually done that.

These are the things I do not like about my Motorola SLVR L2 phone.

1) The phone will tell me that I have voicemail, with the little voicemail envelope symbol or with the voicemail ringtone. I will pick up the phone and listen to my voicemail, then I will put the phone down. But the phone is not done. It also wants to let me know that I missed a call-- the one that left the voicemail that I just listened to. The phone will beep at me loudly until I pick it up and press "View Calls" to see what call I missed, and "Exit" to signal the end of the missed call viewing.

2) When the phone is getting low on charge, it beeps loudly. For example, if the phone gets low on charge at say, 3 am in the morning, it will beep loudly enough to wake me up. It will keep beeping until I get up and plug it in, or more likely turn it off in disgust.

3) It has a mini-USB port to charge with, but only the particular charger it came with actually works to charge the phone. If I put another mini-USB charger in the phone, it makes lights and sounds as if it were about to be charged, but it doesn't actually charge.

4) There are two buttons on each side of the navigation control. The positive/negative polarity of the functions is mixed up. The buttons on the left side are used for "Call" and also "Back" and "Exit." The buttons on the right side are used for "View" and "Select" and "Hang Up." I find it easy to Hang Up when I meant to Select or Select when I meant to Exit.

5) You cannot enter multiple phone numbers for a single person. Every entry just has one number.

6) This phone still hasn't figured out about Daylight Savings Time, yet I can't set the time myself either.

Why do I live this way? Hey, it must be the money

2007-04-02T17:57:00.000-07:00

I entered another stockpicking contest at the Motley Fool. This one has a $4000 prize for the person who finishes first and a $3000 prize for second. The contest goes until June 19, and there are already over 1000 people playing, so what are the chances? However, at least I am off to a good start. So far, I am in third place.

I'll take more than another riverful

2007-03-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

Last night we won the pub quiz at O'Brien's, a victory all the sweeter since we beat out a team with both Brad Rutter and Jerome Vered. (In the Jeopardy Ultimate Tournament of Champions, Brad Rutter came first, Ken Jennings came second, and Jerome Vered came third. Brad Rutter has currently won more money on game shows than anyone else on planet Earth.)

According to O'Brien's rules, the leading team must win by more than one-half point to avoid a tie-breaker question. We won by three-quarters of a point. Brad and Jerome had to use some of their game show millions to pay their own bar tab! This marked the fifth consecutive week that Maribeth had been on the winning team.

Afterwards Maribeth and I went out for coffee with Jerome.

So why don't you kill me

2007-03-09T17:42:00.000-08:00

I heard you on the wireless back in fifty-two

2007-03-01T22:02:00.000-08:00

I got a mention on NPR's Marketplace. They were doing a story on technology prizes.

Do I have to shout it out

2007-02-27T08:17:00.000-08:00

It's a clean machine

2007-02-26T21:01:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning, go for a ride

2007-02-23T07:16:00.000-08:00

You're just like a pill

2007-02-20T21:44:00.000-08:00

Your shadow weighs a ton

2007-02-19T11:27:00.000-08:00

You've yet to have your finest hour, radio

2007-02-02T19:36:00.000-08:00

I was a railwayman between the wars

2007-01-31T09:27:00.000-08:00

A thousand violins fill the air

2007-01-27T13:37:00.000-08:00

They dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard

2007-01-26T23:55:00.000-08:00