East Meets West

Are We Living in a "Golden Age of Classical Music"?

2006-06-01T19:39:00.000-07:00

Esteemed New York Times music critic Allan Kozinn wrote a fairly controversial article this past week examining the overall health of classical music in America today ["Classical Music: This is the Golden Age"]. As you no doubt gathered from the piece’s title, Kozinn argues against the prevailing notion that classical music has become increasingly unpopular in our society by pointing to a host of evidence. Though the article is well worth the read, I’ve outlined his more convincing points below.

-While there has been a drastic decline in the output of major classical labels (old war horses like Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, BMG, et all) since their feverish peak in the years between 1950 to 1975, industry growth and output have flourished in other corners of the market, most notably the internet. Classical music sales accounted for 12 percent of iTunes’ online business last year, “four times its share of the overall CD market.” In another example, now infamous, over 1.4 million people eagerly downloaded one or more of Beethoven’s nine symphonies when the BBC made them freely available online last June. Relatively young labels such as Naxos, Oxingale and Cantaloupe have also experienced great success in CD sales through innovative approaches to the marketing and production of classical music (Naxos’ incredible success in what was once a notoriously closed market is of particular note).

-“The American Symphony Orchestra League puts the number of orchestras in the United States at 1,800 (350 of them professional). The 1,800 ensembles give about 36,000 concerts a year, 30 percent more than in 1994. And in the most recent season for which the league has published figures, 2003-4, orchestras reported an 8 percent increase in operating revenues against a 7 percent increase in expenses, with deficits dropping to 1.1 percent from 2.7 percent of their annual budgets from the previous season.”

-While season subscriptions to major orchestras have dropped considerably in the past ten years (a figure that has been continually referenced by those arguing for recent decline in Classical Music), last-minute sales have greatly increased suggesting more a shift in audience behavior than in taste.

- There are signs of artistic heath and expansion to boot, as early (pre-Bach, really) and new (post-WWII, -Ravel, -Bartok and -Copeland) music is both played and recorded to increasing popularity. “When Lincoln Center presented a 10-concert celebration of the composer Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960!) this season, there wasn’t a spare ticket to be found.” Over the past decade, the Los Angeles Philharmonic (led by the acclaimed Esa-Pekka Salonen) has dug itself out of relative obscurity to be considered one of the world’s great orchestras through its passionate focus on modern and contemporary composers [see “Continental Shift” from the Jan 15th NYTimes]. Such efforts have expanded both the age and race demographic of those interested in classical music.

Of course, Kozinn’s article fails to account for two notable aspects of the “classical music has gone to dogs” argument. For one, he fails to acknowledge that much of what he views as “healthy” has often been interpreted to be just the opposite. The sad reality is that a portion of the old guard (overwhelmingly upper-middle class and white) preferred the classical music culture that flourished during much of the 20th century in America. There was an unspoken prestige in the economic and racial disparity and a certain comfort to be found in hearing Mozart’s 41st symphony season after season after season. Under such criteria, I doubt it these curmudgeons will ever see a reinstatement of said “golden age,” and I must say that the spirit of classical music is all the better for it.

Secondly, Kozinn does not delve into the question of whether or not the popular support and financial strength of the institution of classical music as a whole has likewise ushered in a golden age of heightened artistic quality. What does it matter if seats are selling and young people are downloading Cage via iTunes if professional levels of interpretation and execution are not maintained? To his credit, this largely subjective debate has raged on since at least the inception of professional art critics in 19th century Europe and is far too expansive a topic to adequately cover in the Sunday Arts and Leisure section. Nonetheless, I’ve heard a number of fairly convincing cases against our experiencing a “golden age” in artistic eminence, most notably in a heated exchange of emails with my godfather (an obsessive fan of opera for the past 40 years) this past week. I’ve included his most eloquent closing statement below.

"Golden Age of classical music - my ass!
It is just another in a dreary and boring string of "journalists" who are bereft of ANY sense of history, time in the linear sense, and whose primary experiences with classical music are in clawing for interviews and trying to get laid by the artists...........

there are perhaps two opera singers on the world stage today who might rival the middle shelf of the real Golden Age of singers.........

and as for orchestra conductors: it is all about being noticed, not scholarship or faithfulness to the score - with the notable exception of Sir Colin Davis....... - sooo many drearnaught recordings of the classics have been made that now these "journalists" think freakish and bizarre interpretations are 'insightful'.............bullshit
sort of like saying artist Damien Hurst, who submerges sharks in plexiglass vats of urine is a serious artist.................
we're just doomed with this lack of standards..........
it just makes me tired."

I suppose all you can in fact say is that burgeoning ticket and recording sales must be a good thing as it, sooner or later, creates an environment conducive to superior artistic standards. Though, in the end, I still have yet to see this renewed popularity trickle down below the thick canopy of big name professional symphonies. Just this past weekend I attended a rousing performance by the Broderick Ensemble - a loose chamber collective made up of principal musicians from the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Opera Orchestra - as part of the Old First Concert Endowment Series. There were twelve people in the audience…

The Prodigal Son and Summer Blogging

2006-05-26T18:38:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while...

and by ‘a while’ I mean over two months since my last post. Rest assured, I do not return to the proverbial table empty handed. Over the past eight weeks I’ve traveled East twice, passing through seven states and four major cities in what was, ultimately, a blessedly successful quest for employment. Between marathon-long “official visits” (eight hour ordeals of candidate evaluation that bear striking resemblance to Baka Pygmy manhood rituals) I actually managed to see a great deal of the cities and countryside I thought I knew so well. Much to reflect on, especially with regards to Mid-Atlantic wetlands, African Americans in Washington D.C. and the wanton depravity of the 20-something New York City financial scene.

In any event, our astute readers are no doubt already wondering what my personal “success” means for the future of this thriving forum. Though John and I have yet to discuss the issue at hand, I dare say that my return east actually augments both the spirit and, of course, formal title of East Meets West. Let us also acknowledge reality for a moment: the prolific bedrock of this page (John) remains west in Palo Alto indefinitely. Thus, I am optimistic, and I urge our readers to be as well.

That aside, in the coming weeks I hope to post a gratuitously critical response to John’s First (And Probably Last) Artistic Inspiration (stick to your rocks, shameless imposter!%!), an expose on sidewalk graffiti and latent class contempt in my Western Addition neighborhood as well as bits and pieces on the corporeal experience of instrumental performance, how I found myself dressed as a lobster and entered in their years Bay to Breakers and a few questions to John regarding financial markets and their effect on domestic and global oil prices. Thanks for all of your emails of support while I’ve been gone - it’s good to get back into the fray!

Wanderlust

2006-05-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

The social networking on Facebook + the feedback mechanism on eBay + the adventure of the Lonely Planet guides = one of the coolest social phenomenons (phenomena?) I've ever seen on the web, CouchSurfing.

Basically, CouchSurfing enables you to get in touch with people who will let you crash at their place while you travel if you let others in the network crash at your place when they travel. Coverage around the world is pretty good. The feedback, vouching, and verification mechanisms are designed to assuage people's fears of staying with or accommodating strangers.

A quick Wikipedia search reveals that CouchSurfing is one of several such Hospitality Services, including a few that were paper-based before the advent of the internet.

Travel sites like these give me a wanderlust that I find hard to shake. Is this why I read less travel writing than I'd like? (Or do I just have no time given everything else I'm trying to read?)

To my co-blogger Ned (who will soon be reappearing on this site in a blaze of written glory after his own cross-country travel related absence), might you recommend some of the classics in travel writing so I can begin to delve into the genre?

(Came across CouchSurfing via the "Frugal Traveler" at the New York Times, who is embarking on a trip around the world.)

A Depressing Thought

2006-05-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

I will never read more than .02% of the books written in my lifetime.

How do I know this? Approximately 300,000 books are written worldwide every year. I expect I will read, at most, 60 books a year over my lifetime. That's about a book a week (which is the typical college course load), plus a few extra for when I'm on vacation or sick. So if I treat pleasure reading like an extra year round college course (in addition to job, family, housework, exercise, etc.) and focus on the most recent books, I'll only read about 2 out of every 10,000 published books each year.

Does it matter that I will absorb so little of the world's knowledge over my lifetime? Perhaps I should simply focus on the best literature and be satisfied with that. But since I secretly desire to be the first person to know everything since the last person who knew everything (see candidates here and here), it is depressing how little I will ever be able to read.

On the bright side, perhaps this will be overcome by combining the complete digitization of all books ever written with some upgrades to my hardware. But my guess is that if any of this ever comes to pass, Google will likely become self-aware much sooner, making my eventual omniscience much more ordinary.

First they came for the salami...

2006-05-18T00:04:00.000-07:00

On Monday inspectors destroyed all the cured meats at Il Buco restaurant in NoHo. They did so, according to the owner, Donna Lennard, not because of any evidence of contamination but because the temperature in the curing room was six degrees higher than it should have been.

"These are pigs that were raised for us," Ms. Lennard said. "We knew their names. We were trying to do something sustainable and traditional, and this is what happens."

From the New York Times on Wednesday, here.

The New York City Health Department is doing a great job recruiting for the libertarian chef movement.

Trader Joe's Defeats the Tyranny of Mustard

2006-05-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

Continuing my interest in food-blogging (see posts on libertarian chefs, smelly foods, and taquerias) I thought I'd write a bit about Trader Joe's, which I've become positively obsessed with since moving to California.

I came across an essay by Jesse Friedman called "Knowing its Audience: Trader Joe's and the Reenchantment of Food Shopping". Key quote:

"With Trader Joe's, predictability does not mean the bland comfort of identical experiences, but rather the reliable quality of every product offered...To establish the consistent quality of new products, founder Joe Coulombe instituted "a winning conceptborn of necessity": a good, old-fashioned tasting panel composed of store employees. A whimsical hand-painted sign in one store describes the panel's philosophy as, "If we don't lick our plate, we won't sell it," a statement in no uncertain terms of the company's commitment to selling delicious products...If all this quality assurance fails, customers are assured of a no-hassle refund on any product they don't love, encouraging forays into new, yet safely delineated, territories of culinaria...Today's Balsamic-Marinated Portabella Mushroom Strips have replaced the Bagel Pizzas of the previous decade, yet are predictably healthy and, most likely, delicious, and satisfy the clientele's desire for some adventure."

For someone who is adventurous yet budget-conscious when it comes to food, Trader Joe's is perfect. I find myself grabbing food items I never thought I wanted and just trying them for the heck of it. More often than not what I've tried is awesome, and I trust Trader Joe's to sell delicious products at a good price.

So what does this have to do with mustard? Psychologists have pretty much nailed down in recent years that we are lazy, irrational, and easily-scared when it comes to the choices we confront every day. One psychologist, Barry Schwartz, has argued that we'd all be better off if we had fewer choices. We'd be less stressed, less anxious, less paralyzed by the dizzying array of options and choices that confront us everyday, and just generally happier. Radley Balko has facetiously called this argument the Tyranny of Mustard, in reference to the 100+ mustard choices we face at the local mega-mart.

An article in Reason last year by Virginia Postrel reviewed the recent criticisms of choice. She gives good reasons why the arguments may be overblown, but also lists ways that we can successfully reap the benefits of nearly unlimited choice while avoiding the debilitating side effects:

"Yet free individuals voluntarily limit their options all the time. They decide to be vegan, to write strictly metered poetry, to wear natural fibers, to date born-again Christians, to buy Japanese cars. They happily shop at boutiques, use blogs to guide their reading, and hire interior designers. They let expert gatekeepers narrow down their alternatives.

These choices about what and how to choose are not only voluntary but meaningful. They help define who we are. And they preserve the essential value of abundant choice. Most people, most of the time, are less interested in choice per se than they are in the benefits of variety. They want to find what truly suits them.

Hiring an interior designer or wedding consultant is not, as The Washington Post’s Mallaby suggests, a way of “deliberately avoiding choice.” To the contrary, these specialists are valuable because they don’t simply limit the number of options. They limit those options to ones you’re likely to like. They do not hand you a one-size-fits-all solution à la Social Security. Unlike the Schwartz prescription for “less choice” overall, these gatekeepers do not reduce your chance of finding what’s right for you. They increase it."

By "outsourcing" some of my food choices to Trader Joe's, shopping is more fun, more productive, and more successful.

Interestingly, the dijon mustard at Trader Joe's sucks. I guess I can't have everything.

The End of Plagiarism

2006-05-13T23:43:00.000-07:00

Well, not really, but this article in the New York Times gives a good summary of how the digitization, linking, and searching of books might change the production and consumption of knowledge in the future. Key quote:

"Once a book has been integrated into the new expanded library by means of this linking, its text will no longer be separate from the text in other books. For instance, today a serious nonfiction book will usually have a bibliography and some kind of footnotes. When books are deeply linked, you'll be able to click on the title in any bibliography or any footnote and find the actual book referred to in the footnote. The books referenced in that book's bibliography will themselves be available, and so you can hop through the library in the same way we hop through Web links, traveling from footnote to footnote to footnote until you reach the bottom of things."

My thought on this is that plagiarism will be very easy to measure and quantify once all books are linked and searchable. I only hope that every poorly researched paper I ever wrote in high school has been erased from my family's old computers. Could you imagine how easy it would be for the plagiarism bot to figure out whether my paraphrasing was much closer to copying? On the other hand, I could also put my draft paper through a plagiarism detector to determine whether I had unwittingly "internalized" some source.

The one caveat to this future is that perpetually extended copyright protection may stop the digitization of books. If I were concerned solely about my reputation in the eyes of my former high school teachers, I'd say to hell with digitization, there's such a thing as too much transparency. But for the future of knowledge, let's hope the indexing continues apace.

Are chefs more likely to be libertarians?

2006-05-04T23:56:00.000-07:00

In 2004 California passed a law banning the production and sale of foie gras by 2012.

"I hope I'm retired by 2012," said Thomas Keller, owner of the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and Per Se in Manhattan, who believes the government should not tell people what to eat. "If force-feeding a duck is cruel, then packing chickens in a cage is cruel, and then the veal and the beef. We are all going to be vegetarians soon if they have their way. We should probably start converting now."

Mr. Keller might have been joking, but animal activists are not. Their opposition to the force-feeding of ducks and geese is just the beginning of a campaign against what they consider inhumane farm practices.
...
Charlie Trotter, who stopped serving foie gras in his eponymous restaurant five years ago because he did not like what he had seen on several foie gras farms, said he is not an animal rights activist but is opposed to interference from the government.

"When I took foie gras off the menu I was not trying to make a political statement," he said. "I am certainly not gleeful about this. I am very much a libertarian." And he added: "I don't think government should tell people not to smoke in restaurants."

From Wednesday's New York Times.

I can think of two reasons why chefs are more likely to be libertarians:

1. Chefs, and in particular the best ones like Trotter and Keller, are basically in the hedonism business. With many on the right and the left calling for greater regulation of personal choice, a chef might feel that his livelihood is threatened and identify with those that defend personal freedom. Libertarians are on the forefront of that battle.

2. Chefs and restaurateurs must deal with government regulations that are often ineffective and arbitrarily enforced. See for example, this article on New York City's crackdown on sous-vide, a technique where food is cooked very slowly under vacuum to create incredibly tender and flavorful results. The chef's think they're doing it safely, but since the local authority has no specific rules for the procedure, chefs like David Chang have had to destroy thousands of dollars worth of food at the order of the city inspectors. (David Chang is a friend of my cousin's, and I've eaten at his restaurant, Momofuku Noodle Bar, in New York City. It's really damn good.)

Does the best cuisine develop in areas with the least regulation? A large grant to do some field research to answer that question would be nice.

Update: The blog (Marginal Revolution) and blogger (Tyler Cowen) I seem to reference more than any other has had two posts that go some way towards answering my last question. See here for reasons why lax regulations help the barbecue in Lockhart, Texas be arguably the best in the country. See here for the effects that labor market regulations and taxes are having on French cuisine.

The Next Big Thing

2006-05-04T22:54:00.000-07:00

Seth Roberts' book, The Shangri-La Diet, is #3 on Amazon. If his crazy theory (eat ~300 calories a day of flavorless oil or sugar water-->lower body's "set point"-->feel less hunger-->eat less-->lose weight) actually works for a significant number of people, this book is going to be huge.

My favorite passage, from pages 136-137:

"Food connoisseurs avoid ditto foods -- exactly the foods my theory says you should avoid. They search out, purchase, eat, and even glorify foods with unusual and subtle flavors -- exactly the foods my theory says you should eat. Inevitably these foods are made in small batches and cannot become very familiar. A culture of food connoisseurship may be the very reason the French are less obese than Americans."

I learned about Roberts over a year ago on Marginal Revolution, but haven't yet had the courage to try his method. The science behind his diet seems sound, but with a sample size of pretty much Seth Roberts, some of his friends, and a few dozen people in the blogosphere, it's fair to say that the theory is as of yet unproven.

But on the off-chance it does work, I'm thinking of buying some stock in Filippo Berio.

The $100 Billion Earthquake

2006-04-27T00:13:00.000-07:00

"Holy shit. The enormity of the risk in the Bay Area hadn't really hit me until reading that scenario in the Chronicle. And that's coming from someone who studies earthquakes and seismology daily...I think I'm officially over my instinct as an earth scientist (and recent New Jersey transplant) to think it's really cool to live in an active earthquake region. 'Create earthquake preparedness kit' has just moved up from its long lingering position at the bottom of my to do list."

That's me, in a comment on Kevin Vranes' blog. The article that prompted my realization is here. It's a narrative of what will happen in the Bay Area when the next 1906-size earthquake occurs. Read it.

Awesome USGS simulation of the 1906 earthquake here.

Report on the ~$100 billion damage estimate for a repeat of 1906 event here (pdf). Note, this is likely a serious underestimate of the actual damage when "The Big One" happens. Key quote:

"Despite improvements in building codes and construction practices, the growth of the region over the past hundred years causes the range of estimated fatalities, approximately 800 to 3,400 depending on time of day and other variables, to be comparable to what it was in 1906. The forecast property loss to buildings for a repeat of the 1906 earthquake is in the range of approximately $90 to $120 billion; 7,000 to 10,000 commercial buildings in the region are estimated to be closed due to serious damage; and about 160,000 to 250,000 households calculated to be displaced from damaged residences. Losses due to fire following earthquake, as well as losses to utility and transportation systems, would be in addition to these estimates."

Emphasis mine. Check out my previous post on East Coast hazards here.

Coming Soon...

2006-04-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

I've blogged previously on free will, determinism, and physics. I'm sitting in this quarter on a course called "Philisophy of Quantum Mechanics". Hopefully I'll be able to address questions of randomness and probability brought up in the comments by Fez.

I'm also taking a course called "Issues in K-12 Science Education for Science Graduate Students". Hopefully our resident education expert will respond (ahem...) once I have something substantive to write about.

Until then...

A Libertarian President?

2006-04-13T02:03:00.000-07:00

This is not a politics blog. For both pragmatic and personal reasons, I don't intend to make East Meets West my own personal sounding box on political issues. I'm not a political partisan, and I work hard to remain intellectually honest. I identify strongly with what Robin Hanson says: "My core politics is 'I don't know'; most people seem far too confident in their political opinions."

Despite these qualifications, I still stand by what I said in my first post, where I described myself as "a politically disillusioned libertarian skeptic". I'm definitely not a "large-L" libertarian of the Libertarian Party, but I do have real sympathy for classical liberal ideas.

On to my point. I read some very interesting stuff this week that got me thinking about whether someone with libertarian principles could ever become President. The first was a column by Joe Klein about how overreliance on consultants hurt the campaigns of Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. His main point on Gore: "Gore might have been a warmer, more credible and inspiring candidate if he'd talked about the things he really wanted to talk about, like the environment". His main point on Kerry: In hindsight, Kerry's campaign manager said they focused on jobs, education, and health care because that's what people answered when pollsters asked what they were most interested in, but in truth voters "thought the President should be interested in national security." Bush won because his character seemed more Presidential than Kerry's.

Responding to Klein's column, Matthew Yglesias pointed me towards a post by Mark Schmitt of the New America Foundation on the qualities of a presidential candidate. His main point: "It's not what you say about the issues, it's what the issues say about you." For example, John McCain's stance on campaign finance reform makes him seem independent, persistent, and somewhat populist, all very presidential qualities that help in elections.

There's nothing a die-hard libertarian loves more than talking about the issues. Most of them are so damn sure they're right! But what do the issues say about libertarians?

Let's just take a few from the Libertarian Party website:

Principle: "We should eliminate the entire social welfare system."
Translation: "I hate poor people!"

Principle: "End drug prohibition."
Translation: "I don't care about children, and I'm high right now too!"

Principle: "I oppose censorship of online communication."
Translation: "I love my More Black Dirty Debutantes DVD!"

In all seriousness, are there "libertarian" issues that would play well in a presidential election? I think one is school choice, being sure to avoid the "privatization" dirty word. The public would see a candidate that care's about children and the poor, but also isn't afraid to go against the powers that be.

The real trick would be framing a "libertarian" international and security policy that doesn't make the candidate look like a wimpy isolationist.

Do I think it's possible for a candidate with libertarian principles to be successful? I think I'll give my default answer, "I don't know", and get back to work on my stump speech.

Road Trip

2006-04-12T01:32:00.000-07:00

No longer do I doubt the size of California after taking a road trip to Southern California and Joshua Tree National Park at the end of March.

Two funny observations from the trip:

1. People in Southern California love to put large stickers on the rear windows of their cars or trucks. This is not nearly so popular in Northern California or New Jersey; is it catching on in other places around the country? My favorite decals are those that completely block out the rear window. The driver of the oversized pickup truck with low visibility, bad cornering, and propensity to roll must have decided that regular driving wasn't challenging enough, and opted to block out direct rear vision with a giant sticker that says "SoCal". The grandmother with opposing silhouettes of a "nice" angel and a "naughty" devil on the rear of her pickup is also classic.

2. "People come here to die." That was our waiter at the restaurant Zin in Palm Springs on why we should leave town as fast as possible. All my previous knowledge of Palm Springs came from episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210. (Did my parents really let me watch 90210 when I was 9 years old?) On leaving the restaurant, we almost got run over by a horde of the elderly. They really do drive them in the busful. It was like being in Atlantic City, but with more leathery skin and fewer Jersey accents.

San Fran Speak

2006-03-23T20:02:00.000-08:00

Being a teacher in San Francisco, I spend the vast majority of my day around the city's teenagers. For many of you, this may sound like a scenario taken from the 6th concentric circle of Hell. But I love it, as the old adage is indeed true: you inevitably end up learning as much from your kids as you're able to teach them. This can often be as inspiring as it is unsettling, but, every once and a while, it's also hilarious. For instance, consider the 'urban Cali slang' my kids have been throwing around as of late. Growing up back east, we had terms like "dirty" (impressive), "sweet" (awesome) and "hooking up," (any sort of promiscuous behavior beyond kissing but short of sex (sometimes)) that left my own parents clueless. But these seem to stretch their relation to codified English even further. But see for yourself, I've listed a few recent favorites:

Hella - (adv) very much, increasingly so - "That burrito was hella good."
A California standard for a number of years, though worth mentioning due to its continuing relevance within the dialect.

Devastating - (trans verb) overwhelming, dominant - "That guy lit the place up with his devastating moves on the court."
An intentional expansion of the standard definition.

Sav - (adj) revolutionary, wild, attractive, stylish - "Oh my god, those pumps that J-Lo keeps wearing are totally sav."
Short for 'savage,' it expands the term's definition to connote strong primal and sexual undertones. I was recently made aware that "'sav' is in 2006 what 'fetch' was in 2004."

Cutty- (adj) dubious, shady, suspicious - "Cutty bounce, cutty bounce!"
Both obtuse in meaning and abstract in application, 'cutty' is a modification of the word 'cut,' meaning 'ghetto' or 'hood'. In the applied example above, such a phrase would be employed as a call to flight after being caught by an authoritarian figure in the act of something illicit or illegal.

Succa Free- (unknown) unknown - "Succa Free is betta than D.C."
Though employed regularly, no one seems to actually known what this term really means. One student explained to me that it was vaguely synonymous with the city of San Francisco as a whole, as "the first letter in each word spells it out clear." Can a 'succa' really be 'free' in San Francisco? All attempts at grasping deeper social commentary have proved futile.

Please feel free to post your own contributions. Urban Dictionary is always a great place to check out, as well.

The $35 Billion Storm

2006-03-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

"Just when we are about to get 'ocean front' property you want us to sell?!"

That's my father, responding to an e-mail I sent him today suggesting he sell his house on a barrier beach in Eastern Long Island. (We're on the canal side of the barrier island, thus the dark humor.) The story that prompted my e-mail suggests that 2006 may hold a greater than normal chance of a major hurricane making landfall in the Northeast.

I'm a solid-earth geoscientist, so I don't have too much perspective on how reliable the prediction is for increased probability of a 1938-like hurricane. I can say that Long Island's congressman, Rep. Tim Bishop, was more concerned about everyday beach erosion than full-scale hurricane disaster when I met with him this summer. Perhaps hurricanes are more on the minds of Long Island politicians (and residents) since Katrina?

Judging by the damages in Eastern Long Island from the 1938 hurricane, I hope people are paying attention. Total damages in Long Island and New England from the 1938 hurricane were $6 billion in today's dollars. If the same hurricane were to pass through the area today, damages would be about $35 billion. That's a big number.

The Inevitable Conflict? Civil War in Reconstruction-era Iraq.

2006-03-15T23:25:00.000-08:00

After another horrific day of sectarian violence in and around Baghdad (see Reprisal Killings Leave 87 Dead Throughout Baghdad and Scores of Bodies Found in Baghdad), one's thoughts cannot help but turn to the imminent possibility of Civil War in Reconstruction-era Iraq. Seeing as how I currently live thousands of miles from this developing issue (not to mention the fact that I've never even set foot in the Middle East), I am reduced to piecing together what semi-impartial information I can, setting it out on the table in front of me and pondering the scenario as a cold, sterile grouping of facts. I'll spare you my hopelessly shortsighted conclusions in favor of a few general remarks...

I find it infinitely depressing that the current tensions in Iraq aren't even remotely founded in the major issues of ideological conflict throughout the greater Islamic word. I'm referring to the crisis of identity that Islam is experiencing as it struggles to acclimate to pressures exerted by both cultural change over time and the encroaching modern world. At the risk of gross over-simplification, it is that age-old debate taken up by all established doctrines at one point or another: to follow the word, or spirit of its founders.

Sitting here at the computer, it is both horrible and fascinating to "watch this struggle from the sidelines," so to speak. One can't help but marvel at how essential burgeoning media forms are in Islam's current debate as they were in the age of Johann Guttenberg and the Protestant Reformation. As Middle Eastern media giant Al-Jazeera spins for both sides in an effort to play to the center, websites such as Islaam: Pure and Clear (be sure to poke around the "Monthly Focus" section), Annaqed ("The Critic") and Salafi Publications disseminate wildly disparate views on the past, present and future of Islam. A comparison between the hard-line, fundamentalist views of Shaikh Abu Usaamah Saleem's The Current State of the Muslim World and the liberal, bordering on reactionary, stance of Dr. Wafa Sultan in a recent Al-Jazeera TV debate says it all.

And yet the current violence is not a physical manifestation of this debate, so vital to the growth and continued relevance of Islam, but the product of deep-seated sectarian/denominational hatred (I would even argue that the term "ethnic hatred" could apply in most cases, as the lines between religion and cultural heritage are often so tenuous within Islamic cultures). Yes, Iraq is an "artificial state" drawn up (literally) in the aftermath of World War One, and its diverse makeup is, and will always be, a dominant factor in its success as a social and political entity. But is Civil War a foregone conclusion? History offers instances of both peaceful and violent resolutions of internal division within artificial (or expansionist) states. While the people of Poland and South Africa found common ground through largely non-violent means, considerably more blood was spilt as countries like the United Kingdom and Rwanda fought for their identities.

Can we draw lessons from such historical precedent? Certainly, both Poland and South Africa were ultimately able to find common ground against a shared entity from without (Communist Russia; the imperial remnants of Apartheid). It has recently been the feeling among many historians that an external threat is not only favorable to Nationalistic unity, but utterly essential (see Linda Colley's Britons: Forging the Nation, for one). With this in mind, perhaps the only thing now holding Iraq together is a shared hatred amongst both Sunni and Shiite of the American-led "occupation." Nonetheless, the idea of a democratic Iraq still gives me hope (God help me, I'm beginning to sound like Bush). Hope that the multi-ethnic, multi-denominational "Iraqi" hodgepodge will come to understand that a modern democracy, when run correctly, provides the fairest possible platform for such a multi-ethnic, multi-denominational body. Hope that from this common foundation, and within these established social and political structures, the Iraqi people can begin to "lawfully" distill the essence of Islam in the 21st century, and perhaps even lead their implacable Middle Eastern neighbors along the way.

"Can Network Theory Thwart Terrorists?"

2006-03-15T11:23:00.000-08:00

Did you catch this John: NY Times Idea Lab, 3.12.06?
Really interesting stuff...

Was this blog post written 13.7 billion years ago?

2006-03-13T20:17:00.000-08:00

"Take free will. Everything I know about physics and neuroscience tells me it's a myth. But I need that illusion to get out of bed in the morning. Of all the durable and necessary creations of atoms, the evolution of the illusion of the self and of free will are perhaps the most miraculous. That belief is necessary to my survival."

From Tuesday's Science Times, see here.

I had a real existential crisis the summer after my junior year in high school. I was attending New Jersey's Governor's School in Science and taking a course on the philosophy of science. I realized that if the universe was a deterministic physical system, then my next action was dependent only on the precise arrangement of the atoms (and subatomic particles) in my body and the system with which I was interacting. Tracing this back to the Big Bang, I reasoned that I had no free will, and all of my actions were predetermined 13.7 billion years ago.

Since it is difficult to function as a human being while thinking about these kind of things on a daily basis, I have mostly chosen to ignore the subject and act as if I had free will. Moreover, many scientists, philosophers, and the like I've talked to over the past few years also seem to have avoided confronting this question.

Obviously I'm not an expert on the philosophy of physics, free will, or consciousness, but I wonder whether it even matters (for our daily lives, at least) if the universe is a deterministic system. Is all that matters that we perceive the existence of free will? I need to read more on these subjects, although I fear extreme disillusionment if I pursue the questions to the end.

UPDATE: Tyler Cowen's alter ego Tyrone writes today about free will. Is the influence of East Meets West spreading? Sadly our Sitemeter stats indicate that Ned and I are pretty much the only visitors to this blog, with a few friends, family, and Facebook profile viewers trickling in. Perhaps this is some sort of synchronicity, which astute readers of my rambling oeuvre will recall I've discussed before.

Thoughts on Scientology and California

2006-03-12T14:33:00.000-08:00

A few Fridays ago I was up in the city with my girlfriend. We had a little time to kill before dinner, and noticed a branch of the Church of Scientology across the street from the restaurant. Out in front was a well-dressed twenty-something man trying to get passers-by to come in for an open house that night. We gazed at each other and both had the same devilish look on our faces, "Why not?"

I know very little about Scientology, so this post isn't going to be some major criticism of the organization; you can find plenty of that here and as (almost) always a good overview is at Wikipedia.

Inside the building were at least a dozen men and women dressed in matching clean black suits and white shirts. The main floor looked like a nicely designed corporate office; I wouldn't consider it spiritually evocative by any means. We were greeted and then encouraged to read a museum-quality display about the life and times of L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology.

After a good ten minutes of reading quietly about Hubbard, we ventured over to areas which described the main programs of Scientology: Dianetics, Auditing, Purification, etc. None of the descriptions told us how these programs actually worked; vague platitudes reigned. There was a video running that had testimonials of New York police officers and firefighters describing how a Scientology seminar had helped them recover from emotional trauma after 9/11.

Eventually a middle-aged woman began talk to me after I started investigating a tabletop device covered in dials and numbers. She explained that this was an E-Meter, and asked if I would like a demonstration. Always up for interesting experiences, I jumped at the opportunity. Holding two hollow metal cylinders in my hands, the woman prompted me to start thinking about people in my life while she played with the dials. When the needle on the E-Meter jumped wildly every so often, she explained that I must be thinking about people who were causing stress in my life. I nodded, and chose not to explain back to her that I was thinking about nothing of the sort, and was mostly wondering whether this machine was going to shock me and how I'd get out of there before they forced me to buy something. Upon further investigation, the needle on the E-Meter seemed to jump whenever I squeezed it hard; perhaps the theory is that you squeeze harder when you're thinking about something stressful? The machine looked liked it cost about $3.72 to have a small child build in some dark electronics factory in China; the fact that they sell it for almost $5000 blows my mind.

After my encounter with the E-Meter I filled out a survey about my time at the open house. I wrote with all earnestness that I was impressed with how professional and nice everyone seemed. Later, my girlfriend admonished me for including our real address on the form. I have heard nothing from them yet; perhaps the fact that I simply left mid-conservation while they were trying to sell me a copy of Dianetics indicated to them I wasn't serious? I left by myself however, puzzled to find that I was not followed out by said girlfriend. Calling her on her cellphone a minute later apparently interrupted the attempt to sell her a $100 book/CD/DVD set for a special $50 value, and we whisked away to a pleasant dinner across the street.

Reflecting later upon the experience, I was really quite saddened by the whole thing. All the people we met were very kind (albeit a few were a little off), and probably became involved in the organization looking for answers to their questions or help with their problems. Scientology takes advantage of this neediness by selling them products and offering dubious spiritual services. Yes, some criticize all religions for being cults, but if you've every actually talked to a priest, minister, rabbi, or whoever of a mainstream religion or been involved in their services it's not hard to distinguish regular religion from a cult.

Back to the title of this post, is California a hotbed of Scientology and other cult-like organizations? I haven't done extensive research, but California stereotypes (e.g. needy and rich Hollywood people, see Scientology's Celebrity Centers) and a few examples (Heaven's Gate in Rancho Santa Fe, the People's Temple in SF and LA, Charles Manson in the Haight) may give some credence to the claim. The mayor of San Francisco has even been cavorting recently with a celebrity Scientology practitioner.

So I don't think I'll be converting to Scientology anytime soon, but if anyone ever sees me offerring "Free Stress Tests" or selling copies of Dianetics at the local mall, feel free to throw a cold bucket of water on me. I'll need it.

UPDATE: Watch the controversial South Park Scientology episode here.

Eleven Ways to Say Snow

2006-03-11T15:30:00.000-08:00

Hark back, if you will dear reader, to those glorious days spent in the Spartan one-room school house of our now-distant youth. Troll long enough, and you will no doubt stumble across a profound remembrance set in or around a 2nd grade Social Studies class. Yes, I am referring to that piece of ubiquitous jnana bestowed upon each of us so early in life: "Eskimos have eleven different words for snow." I recently checked back on the veracity of this claim and, after a bit of research, dug up the eleven words - or more accurately their "lexeme" roots - translated from the Inuit syllabary into our Roman characters. They are as follows:

quanuk - 'snowflake'

kaneq - 'frost'

kanevvluk - 'fine snow/rain particles'

natquik - 'drifting particles'

nevluk - 'clinging particles'

aniu - 'fallen snow on the ground'

muruaneq - 'soft, deep fallen snow on the ground' (skier's powder)

qetrar - 'crust on fallen snow'

qanisqineq - 'fallen snow floating on water'

qengaruk - 'snow bank'

navcaq - 'snow cornice, snow (formation) about to collapse'

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"The eyes see only what the mind is prepared to comprehend." - Henri Bergson

My first (and probably last) artistic inspiration

2006-03-09T19:58:00.000-08:00

The idea:

Create an important painting (preferably beautiful) in a traditional, realistic style. Make it as non-abstract as possible. Cover the canvas in monochrome, thus completely obscuring what's been done. Display in gallery. Have others praise brilliance.

Thoughts:

Has no one done this? My blog partner as art history expert shall let me know. I'm obviously aware of others who've worked in monochrome, but has anyone used monochrome in this way before? Perhaps performance art has included destruction of art itself?

Existential questions I think my painting adresses:

Does the work that I've covered up no longer exist? Can art that is not seen still be beautiful? What is the relation between the viewer and the work of art? Do I even need to paint the original realistic scene? Is it enough to just say I've done it, and let those looking at my blank canvas imagine how beautiful it is? Are there any patrons out there who would give me a large cash advance to bring this idea to fruition?

The Introverts

2006-03-08T02:11:00.000-08:00

"Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?"

If you do know someone who fits the above, they are likely an introvert, says Jonathan Rauch. See here for the original article and here for a recent interview.

I used to think I was shy, but now I think I have a streak of introversion.

Via Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution.

Just a thought about Hollywood...

2006-03-06T20:14:00.000-08:00

Ever since television stiff-armed its way into the entertainment industry in the 1950's, it has always been the equivalent of a second class citizen. The very same Hollywood that had been shunned by American "society" as unforgivably parvenu, that retreated from the east coast establishment to a no-name town in southern California had finally found a "middling sort". It was a classic case of the 6th grade loser fighting his way up the social ladder by mercilessly picking on the new kid in class, and a fascinating example of the fabricated emergence of a hierarchical society in the 20th century. And so it has remained for the past fifty years: you have the silver screen and you have sitcoms. I won't even mention soaps - scum of the industry caste, wretched troglodytes... you might as well be in pornography.

Yet I couldn't help but notice the wonderful irony of the industry pecking order at this year's Academy Awards. Let us keep in mind, the Oscars are the very pinnacle of the Hollywood year. Put on by one of the oldest trade establishments in the film industry, to win an Oscar is far more than just recognition of superior skill, it is to be knighted as an aristocrat amongst aristocrats. [As an aside, the New York Times recently ran a hilarious article on the absurdities of "Oscar Week Etiquette" that gives a sense of just how socially crucial this yearly ritual really is.]

This said, has anyone else noticed how enslaved the Oscars ceremony has become to television? The evening kicks into gear with the often-obnoxious, but decidedly obligatory, Red Carpet interviews, where the biggest names in Hollywood actually interrupt their hard-won traipsing (which is ENTIRELY different from strolling, I might add) to have a seemingly friendly chat with some of the most vile personalities in the business. Is this a case of magnanimous social charity - the shire's nobility tossing a few oily shillings into the gutter? With 60 millions viewers worldwide, I don't think the actors much care which way you spin it. Once inside, the host takes the stage and delivers his much-anticipated monologue directly to the television camera, making the quivering fear in John Stewart's eyes last night particularly palpable to those of us hundreds of miles away. And finally, as the awards show fulfills its prolonged course, the nail-biting action on and off the stage is periodically halted for commercial breaks! This being the case, last night Hollywood visionary Ang Lee had to wait on an advertisement for Bounty to claim his Oscar for Best Director and ascend the year's throne.

From scenes of Hogarthian Caricature to the Academy Awards...

You Get What You Ask For

2006-03-01T18:18:00.000-08:00

Last night I posted links to my Facebook.com analysis and Ned's reply on my Facebook profile. In a superb example of Coase's Theorem, the number of pictures of me currently on Facebook has almost doubled, and there are actual visitors to this blog other than me and Ned.

(For a geologist, I really am an economics dork: Coase's theorem says that in the absence of transaction costs an externality will be efficiently corrected through bargaining. In this case, the plea I posted on this website was sufficient to convice others to post more photos of me online, thus fixing the original externality. No subsidies, taxes, or regulations needed.)

While Ned has correctly theorized that "windswept hair and a dynamic smile" is the norm for self-posted pictures, regrettably (for me, at least) the same is not true of pictures posted by others. In the two new pictures of me online, not only am I sporting the "freshman 15" that I put on for some reason during my junior year, but I am in fact shirtless and offensively pale. As per the title of the post, I guess I got what I asked for. (I do assure dear readers and friends out there that the active Bay Area lifestyle has returned me at least partially to fighting shape.)

Nevertheless, I will use my embarrassment at this turn of events to comment on an important consideration for all twenty-something hipsters out there: image.

In terms of the Facebook, image creation is actually quite easy. All you have to do is post a cool picture, create a sufficiently ironic profile, and friend the proper number of people such that you are popular but not trying so hard that you have 400 friends.

However, with the advent of photo posting this past fall, an important aspect of image creation is now left in the hands of others in the community. Anyone out there who is so inclined can post a picture of me. An unflattering pose can be instantly viewed by hundreds of judging friends, classmates, and profile browsers. Some thoughts on this:

1. The Facebook wisely includes veto power over posted pictures. I can't get the pictures removed (well, perhaps I could complain if they are egregiously ugly), but I can remove a tag that identifies me as a subject in the picture. How ugly must the picture of me be before I'm willing to remove myself? One obviously needs to balance the offense the friend who posted the photo will feel with the damage to one's image that the ugly picture has caused.

2. The cost-benefit function to one's image from online photos is not symmetric. The gain from a great picture is less than the damage from an ugly picture.

3. Posted photos are likely to be taken in generally flattering situations (parties, formals, vacations, etc.), which is helpful for image creation. It is likely that the inequities from the previous point will be balanced out. Thus, the sum of all pictures posted online are likely to affect one's image in the correct way. If you're a dork, you're going to have more dorky pictures. If you're cool, you're going to have more cool pictures.

4. Are Facebook users by definition unhip? Ned might have a better perspective on this living in San Francisco.

5. One's online image is increasingly important. Among some MMORPG players, their online persona has eclipsed their real one. The virtual John will not play on the scout team.

6. I think I am probably equating a good image too closely with popularity or beauty. "Image" is certainly more than a good facebook or myspace profile, but an online presence is undoubtedly becoming more important overall.

So how to manage one's online photo presence? Ned told me back in high school that confidence was the key to getting girls. Wise advice certainly, not the least for relationships. Thus I remain confident that my image is stronger than a few unflattering photos. But I have hedged my bets with a striking new main photo for my Facebook profile.

On Walking

2006-02-27T00:21:00.000-08:00

I like to walk. I live in San Francisco. Deduce for yourself then, dear reader: I am a happy man. Indeed, San Francisco has to be one of the great walking cities of the world. Concentrated within a 7x7 mile sachet at the edge of the San Francisco Peninsula, its proximity boasts a dynamic hodgepodge of wildly individual and historically significant neighborhoods, hills serving as both subject and vehicle for expansive vistas, lovely parks and a generally temperate climate. I could go on, but I must admit: there is far too much in this subject to condense into a single post. So I’ve decided to “run her through” (not a subtly-sexual pun but in the British sense of the phrase) in a series of periodic installments dedicated both to the art of walking itself and the myriad wonders of doing so in San Francisco. Today, I hope to offer a brief introduction to both.

Humans have been walking for at least five million years, and over this stretch of time we’ve developed a number of clever ways to apply, modify and even circumvent this ability. Today, people walk for the purposes of travel, income, exercise and (quite farcically) competitive sport. Certainly all of these approaches are entirely valid though, in my opinion, only harness a fraction of walking's potential. My manner of walking seems to encompass each of these categories and, because of this, is difficult to define or codify in a way that offers the reader a trim understanding of what I’m getting at.

It may help to note that I am certainly not the first to embrace this approach to walking. The French have their Bourgeoisie “strolling,” the English their free spirited “rambling,” Thoreau wrote an entire treatise on the blessings of “sauntering” in 1862, while Buddhist sects have espoused “mindful walking” for centuries. And though I have an admittedly summary understanding of the role walking played in world cultures throughout history – a fascinating sociological issue that I hope to explore in greater depth with time – the ideals present in each also lie at the heart of my own love for walking. Quite simply, it is the notion that walking forges a connection between person and place, mind and body. It is the only way to truly come to know a city, and it is a remarkable way to come to know oneself.

With this as our foundation, a spectrum of approaches to walking becomes clear. Over to the left (or right, if you are so inclined), there is what I might call the “controlled” approach. The path is clearly laid out beforehand, the areas of interest highlighted and, in a sense, one has already begun to construct their experiences, reactions and conclusions well before even stepping foot outside. At the other end of things we have the “wandering” approach, in which one walks without preconceived direction, background (historical or otherwise) or goals beyond perhaps the experience of place and self. The pros and cons of both are immediately apparent, and the trick is to find the perfect balance between the two to suit individual taste, circumstance and mood. Personally, I love to seek out the forgotten roots of an area through history. Resources such as Rand Richards’ accessible “Historic Walks in San Francisco” or the public library’s phenomenal “City Guides” walking tours (free of charge, best on weekdays) are fantastic starting points in this vein. And yet, it is only after fully assimilating this knowledge, training my eye to pick up the faint specters of what once was, that I can return to the balance of my walks and focus again on the greater picture, experiencing reality through place and time.

--------------------

"The best way to know a strange city is to walk everywhere... Like all museums, Rome is hard on the feet, and the hills of Rome, though scarcely apparent to the motorist, are real enough, especially in the evening. On my way back, footsore and weary, I would sometimes think that the hills of Rome had been multiplied by ten or twenty. I would lie in bed at night and remember a day's walk, piazza by piazza, church by church, fountain by fountain, and palace by palace... and so, gradually, the map of Rome took shape in my head, and I realized that a city which had seemed so large at first was, in reality, so small that I could walk across it from the Pincian Gate to the Gate of St Paul in less than an hour." - H.V. Morton, "A Traveller in Rome." (1957)

Things That Taste Better Than They Smell Department, Cherimoyas Edition

2006-02-23T23:58:00.000-08:00

I have a tendency to buy exotic looking food items whenever I see them in a market, especially when I have no idea what they are. This week's purchase was a cherimoya.

As the cherimoya became ripe over the past few days, my apartment was greeted with the powerful smell of rotting vomit, bringing back fond memories of living with five other frat boys sophomore year in college.

The fruit, however, tastes sublime. It is moist, tender, and sweet, with a flavor that resembles pineapple, mango, and peach. I didn't notice any avocado-like notes, although perhaps that association is more about texture.

Would I buy one again? Not at the price I paid. (I really need to stop putting exotic items in my basket at random.) But it was delicious, and is another example of why moving to California has been such an interesting experience.

(I may make this a recurring topic. Stinky cheese and nam pla, i.e. fish sauce, are obvious items to highlight.)

How do I determine which taqueria to try?

2006-02-22T22:18:00.000-08:00

I've just completed my fifth month of living in California. Given the stated purpose of this blog to be about perspectives of young East Coasters just moved to the Bay Area, and given that my largest personal interest right now is food, I thought I'd write down some thoughts on California food that I've gathered over the past five months.

Firstly, the produce is great. I don't have an organic fetish by any means, but I appreciate having so many local farmer's markets for specialty fruits and vegetables. I also frequent the Milk Pail in Mountain View for amazingly cheap basic produce and Trader Joe's for Whole Foods-like products at sub-Safeway prices.

Secondly, Silicon Valley has many ethnic restaurants, and it's been a pleasure trying new ones as often as I can afford.

This brings me to my question: how do I determine which taqueria to try? And, perhaps more importantly, how do I know what to get once I'm there? (This question of course applies to all cheap ethnic restaurants, but I will use taquerias as my example because of their California preeminence.)

There are literally dozens of taquerias within a short drive of where I live. I've tried a few so far, but to be honest I don't have the time or the money to sample the goods at dozens of places to determine my favorite tacos al pastor or carnitas burrito.

One traditional guide for dining advice is the local newspaper food columnist, but the kind of ethnic places I'm seeking are generally ignored by the dining section.

In contrast, the democracy of the internet would seem to be the perfect filter for the kind of information I'm looking for. One website that has become a first stop whenever I'm seeking food advice is Chowhound , a public message board of food reviews that often focuses on local favorites. However, Chowhound is a pain to navigate and it takes a lot of effort to distill advice from the message threads.

Perhaps a trusted expert is the right solution? When I lived in the Washington, D.C. area this past summer, I had great success following the advice of Tyler Cowen and his ethnic dining guide, but I haven't yet found anything so comprehensive or reliable out here.

Essentially, there is an information problem. I am seeking knowledge on local taquerias, but there is really no easy way for me to make the best ex ante decision. I can only rely on advice and intuition, and thus I will inevitably make mistakes in my eating choices.

I have several thoughts:

1. Very basic economic theory assumes that individuals only make purchases when the expected utility exceeds the expected cost. I make purchasing mistakes more often than I want to, and thus if I made better decisions my total utility would be greater. Review sites like epinions help, but it is still too much effort to become fully informed, and thus I remain rationally ignorant.

2. It is fun to discover a great restaurant. I would lose the pleasure of the search if I knew the answer ahead of time.

3. Is it possible to objectively determine the "best" taqueria? Of course not, but I do believe it is possible to categorize certain taquerias as being objectively exceptional. Determining which of these exceptional taquerias is the best is the subjective decision. My goal in the taqueria search is to narrow the local list down from dozens to the handful that are worth exploring. The internet has made this quest easier for me than for previous generations, but it is still too difficult.

I would categorize this taqueria dilemma as a "good problem". My arteries may beg to differ, but I am better off for having so many taqueria choices.

Back At It...

2006-02-20T00:37:00.000-08:00

Welcome back, all. I'd like to thank John for spearheading this renewed effort with an incredibly effective gimmick and a tinge of humor (essential to all good political directives). With just a little momentum, I see a bright future. Secondly, I'd like to offer a public apology. My first post in 4 months will be an elaboration on John's recent post "Suboptimal Usage of Facebook.com". It is neither my intention, nor in the spirit of this endeavor, to mask criticism as creativity, which is to say: I still firmly believe in the reigning power of artistic/intellectual creation. I do have some original pieces in the works and have no intention of wasting my energies eroding the innovation of others.
And so, with God (and the occasional reader) as my witness, onward...

Response: Suboptimal Usage of Facebook.com

2006-02-19T22:27:00.000-08:00

While I applaud my counterpart for his deft fusion of academic disciplines (how post-modern of you, sir) in his analysis of Facebook.com, I must offer some qualification of his eventual conclusions. There is without doubt a dearth of Facebook photograph posting amongst our friends of the graduating class of 2005. However, I would suggest that this is more a result of the ever-progressing role of technology in human social interaction than an intrinsic flaw in Facebook's approach.

As mentioned, I was delighted to see Mr. Vermylen examining modern social issues through the lens of economic theory. Nevertheless, I believe this model ultimately falls short of a full explanation. To extend this analysis, I offer, instead, a far less innovative approach based upon Sociological theory (predictable as it may be it is a decidedly logical step, taken by one of the forefathers of economics, Adam Smith, in the 18th century). I agree that the value of a personal picture - especially one that idealizes physical features (windswept hair and a dynamic smile that tells of the thrill of Scientific research abroad), dramatizes place and circumstance (field study in Morocco) - has inflated the number of personal pictures posted. Facebook is a means of social communication in which individuals constructs an image (in words, pictures and associations) of themselves that is then presented to the community, and, naturally, digital photographs of oneself are an essential element of that construct. It is merely the newest innovation in a long history of self-serving media spin. Yet, in terms of social value, human beings inherently place a comparable value on connections to other members of that community (in what Durkheim might call a manifestation of "Collective Representations"). In the limited means offered by Facebook.com for the self-construction of image, pictures of, or with, others are often just as valuable as self-portraits.

If there is equal value (be it in social or economic terms) to the publishing of self- and group photographs, the noted discrepancy amongst the class of 2005 must lie elsewhere. I point to the emerging role of web-based technologies in social interaction. While programs like America Online Instant Messanger and Hot or Not.com (which, coincidentally, was the subject of a hilarious newspaper expose by Mr. Vermylen years ago) are relatively old and have been well-integrated into the social lives of many "modern" teens and twenty-somethings, the Facebook is quite new to the scene. Created only in February of 2004, there was hardly the time for the class of 2005 to adjust to the service let alone place it at the foundation of essential social structures and networks. If one looks to subsequent classes, this becomes less and less the case. My own brother, Connecticut College class of 2009, gives and receives "friendships," personal and public messages and, most importantly, boasts almost one-hundred pictures of himself and his friends [for the sake of journalistic integrity as well as comedic value I've included a link to his Facebook page (Peter Courtemanche Everyone), though most will be denied access]. With each entering class, for better or for worse, Facebook becomes an ever-more acceptable, if not essential, social tool. No need for subsidies, dear John, for it seems that Facebook resembles the modern world economy far more than we may like to think: for in the end all value is created by social bonds, interaction and struggle.

On Suboptimal Usage of Facebook.com by College Alumni

2006-02-16T00:55:00.000-08:00

A testable hypothesis: college graduates underuse facebook.com.

Why do I think this is true?

This past fall, Facebook initiated a new photo album feature. It's a really well designed addition to the site, with the ability to easily upload pictures and tag individual photos with the names of the people who are in them.

So, in November of 2005, I posted an album of some great pictures that I took in Morocco the previous March while on a geology field trip. We were a tight bunch in the Geo department at Princeton, and I expected many others to post their trip photos right away. But as I write this in February of 2006, no Morocco photos have been posted by others on the trip, and in fact the only photos of me on all of Facebook are the ones I posted myself.

What gives? Although I'm not a student in economics, I do have a good background in the subject, so I will postulate a bit on this situation using some simple economic principles. When someone posts photos on Facebook, value is created not just for the individual who does the posting but also for all individuals who are in the photos, and to a certain extent for the community as a whole. However, the others in a photo don't compensate the individual who does the posting. This leads to underinvestment in photo posting, and thus a suboptimal level of Facebook usage. In economic terms, there is a positive externality associated with posting photos. Since I as a photo poster don't gain much value by putting online more photos of my friends, I don't make an extra effort to post that many photos, and thus my friends don't have as many photos online as they'd probably like. In the same way, there aren't as many photos of me from Morocco as I'd like.

What would I expect to see on Facebook then? An individual mostly posting photos of him- or herself. I haven't done a systematic study, but from my limited Facebook photo browsing this seems to be true.

Other thoughts: The positive externality is more likely to lead to Facebook underinvestment for college alums. For those still in college, there are greater networking and social benefits to being active on Facebook. Thus, underinvestment is likely to be smaller for those in college and is likely to increase the longer one is out of college.

Is there a solution to this suboptimal photo posting problem? The classic solutions to positive externalities are to either privatize all the benefits or provide subsidies as encouragement, but in this case I don't see photo posting markets developing (and in general I don't think subsidies are a good idea). So maybe I should I simply pay my geology friends to put all their pictures online, or else just socially shame them until more shots of my handsome visage are posted. Some market failures simply can not stand.

Try, Try Again

2006-02-15T23:40:00.000-08:00

Ned and I have decided to give this blogging thing a go again. As I wrote to him earlier this month, "If you're in, I really do think we can create something interesting with major added-value for people who come across our site."

Even more importantly than enriching the lives of would-be readers, I hope we create some value for ourselves and have some fun with this thing. We're going to try for about a month and evaluate our progress then. I stand by my first post back in November, and look forward to writing more.

Let the fun begin...

Why We Blog

2005-11-09T21:39:00.000-08:00

Blogging is an inherently egotistical endeavor.

While it is true that this singular reality comes in a spectrum of shades and degrees, its validity has never been more apparent than in today's digital culture. Certainly, since its "activist awakening" following the political fall of former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott in late 2001 and its widespread acceptance by popular culture often attributed to the 2004 U.S. Presidential Elections, the weblog has largely become a media for self-glorifying boilerplate (Fig. 1)(Fig. 2) (Fig. 3). A recent study of web log content conducted by Digital Marketing Services, Inc. for AOL Time-Warner found that over half of all published blogs contained journal-like personal accounts created for the purposes of self-therapy. In stark contrast, only "....16 percent of bloggers do so to pursue journalistic aims, 12 percent blog to break news or advance news and gossip, and eight percent blog to 'expose political information.'" Without discrediting these 'personal' blogs in sweeping puritanical condemnation - for some certainly demonstrate striking application of both prose and wit - it is my hope that this page will be of an altogether different sort.

For the web log holds so much more potential than is utilized by the vast majority of 'personal' bloggers. Ab ovo, the concept of a blog had a simplistic brilliance to it that was as refreshing as it was inspirational. Years of homogeneous stimuli manufactured by overblown media conglomerates had corroded not only the breadth and color of our imaginations, but the very integrity of factual truth. The blog promised a much-needed tonic through a re-empowerment of the individual; the pathways were opened wide to the free exchange of ideas - as brazen as they were diverse - in a scenario that bore striking resemblance to those definitive moments of history in which the suffocating monolith of ignorance and superstition was deconstructed through the ebb and flow of manumitted thought: the grove of Academus in 5th century B.C.E. Athens, Cosimo de' Medici's Accademia in 15th century C.E. Florence or even (what sort!) the Merry Pranksters in their journeys on Further during the 1960's. The noble efforts of innovative blogs further this indispensable historical tradition.

With all of this in mind, our blog strikes a balance between these dichotomies. Its premise - two dear friends in the act of maintaining old, and often absurd, ligatures - is inherently insular, but I can assure you that both its focus and approach are universal. This is a forum in which an exploration of the personal is undertaken through a critical examination of the environments, cultures and ideas of the external world. In any event, I do hope you enjoy...

And now, onto the bookish melee!

Why I'm Blogging

2005-11-08T14:02:00.000-08:00

How does one stand out from 20.9 million? I don't expect this blog to be read by millions (or even tens...), but it will serve as a place to organize thoughts, ask interesting questions (maybe even answer a few sometimes), and serve as a clearing house for all the babble I come up with but never talk to anyone about.

It will also be a place to engage with a good friend who has moved across the country at the same time as me. A blog certainly can't replace late nights cruising around the suburban slums of Morris County, New Jersey while musing on things big and small and pretending we know more than we actually do. But those moments are thousands of miles away and several years in the past, so a new medium will have to do.

So who am I? And, perhaps more importantly, what will I write about? To both questions, I can honestly answer 'I don't know'. Nominally I'm a PhD student studying geophysics at a major Bay Area university. But I'd also describe myself as a politically disillusioned libertarian skeptic who perhaps should be studying economics rather than earth science. That description is subject to refinement or change, and this blog should help in that process.

When you're a grad student in a science department, most of your written output is in equations rather than prose. This blog will force me to write more, and that can only be a good thing.

I searched for a quote to finish this first post, and found the following from Joan Didion:

"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear."

Oh, San Francisco...

2005-09-28T22:04:00.000-07:00

"San Francisco is a city where people are never more abroad than when they are at home."
-Benjamin F. Taylor