^zhurnal - v.0.10

- Sunday, October 01, 2000 at 15:20:56 (EDT)

The acorn falls close to the tree. In 1970-71, ^z stayed at home for his first year of higher education and attended the University of Texas in Austin ... a safe, cost-effective choice. Good test results placed him out of introductory courses in English, German, and Spanish. This came back to haunt him a few years later, when apparently-excess credit-hours made it seem as though he should have graduated in three years instead of four. He had to defeat a minor bureaucratic attempt to cut off his financial aid.

UT Austin was a mammoth state school, with tens of thousands of students. ^z was quite shy and could easily have become lost in the crowds. Fortunately he got into the habit of sitting in on physics department seminars, especially relativity and astrophysics talks, even though he understood little of the material under discussion. This brought him to the attention of some friendly faculty members. ^z also did well in his freshman classes, including classical mechanics taught by Professor Lawrence Shepley. Larry was an energetic, charismatic, approachable young lecturer who awarded science-fiction books to those who aced his exams.

In a brush with future greatness ^z met another Larry --- a grad student named Larry Smarr. Smarr went on to considerable fame in computational general relativity (numerical models of colliding black holes) and then rose to head a major National Science Foundation supercomputing center. In the early '70s Larry was (or seemed to be) an Ayn Rand fan, an Objectivist. This was a political philosophy which ^z empathized with, to a degree, during that youthful phase of his life. He was moving from conservatism through libertarianism to something less easily categorized. Along the way, he read many anarcho-capitalistic tomes by such authors as Benjamin Tucker and Albert Jay Nock.

But UT/Austin was too big and impersonal for ^z, dedicated introvert, to feel comfortable at --- although living with Mother was a cozy nest to retreat to. He gathered his courage and applied to Rice University in Houston Texas, and transferred there in the autumn of 1971. ^z had visited Rice only once before, ca. 1969. He made the 200-mile trek with a high school friend, private pilot Jim Howard, to hear John W. Campbell speak. Campbell, science-fiction author and editor, was aged and gravel-voiced but impressive. He advocated a healthy skepticism and played a tape of striking aural illusions: ever-ascending and descending tones which never really got any higher or lower. It was a sonic equivalent of the Penrose staircase (made famous in M. C. Escher art). Neat and memorable.

Moving away from home was a quick introduction to real life, in more ways than one. In his first year at Rice ^z lived in a rented apartment with another high school chum, Joe Walling, plus a couple of other students; call them "M" and "F". Both were eminently nice guys. They were also dopers, into recreational chemistry and the drug import business. This situation penetrated ^z's consciousness only gradually, however, as he was singularly naïve about worldly matters and spent most of his time at his studies. But eventually he figured out what was going on. Certain all-night parties were a clue; "M" and "F" were popular fellows. They are rumored to have gone on to military service and a career in medicine, respectively.

^z's classes as a sophomore physics major went splendidly. A part-time job shelving books in Rice University's mammoth Fondren Library was pleasant and paid the rent. In another coincidental close encounter with future fame, his faculty advisor was young Prof. Neal Lane, years later to become the President's Science Advisor.

Rice was small, roughly two thousand undergrads. No room to hide in the back of the room for a shy ^z! --- there were only a dozen or so physics students in each annual cadre. Every teacher got to know every student. Rice's Space Science depasrtment was strong and offered many good courses, which ^z took advantage of. A professor there, F. Curtis Michel, derived some measure of notoriety as a scientist-astronaut who left the NASA program when he (correctly) became persuaded that it was focused not on science but on spectacle. Curt Michel came to Rice from Caltech. The two schools had a rather close though informal connection, via bidirectional flows of both students and faculty. ^z was to become a part of that linkage a couple of years later.

( ... to be continued ... )

- Friday, September 29, 2000 at 22:14:21 (EDT)

• "There are very few places where progress is people-limited and not idea-limited." (BD)
• "When we read a good long story like The Snow Queen, we enjoy it and think we should like to remember it. If it is really good we ought to remember it, not only because of its excellence, but, in the case of an old story, because we so often find allusions to it in our other reading. The best way to fix a story in mind is to make an outline of the incidents, or plot. Then we can see the whole thing almost at a glance, and so remembrance is made easy." (Charles H. Sylvester, Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 2)
• "Better analytic thinking comes from considering all alternatives --- separately, systematically, and sufficiently." (Morgan Jones + BF + BB, The Thinker's Toolkit)
• "Culture is what is left after you have forgotten all you have definitely set out to learn." (quoted by Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence, Prologue)
• "The real problem is that we send far too high a percentage of our youth to Higher Education. ... We need to look harder at what people should do between 18 and 22 years of age." (BD)
• "Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius." (Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. L)

- Thursday, September 28, 2000 at 05:46:17 (EDT)

- Tuesday, September 26, 2000 at 06:04:11 (EDT)

• William Fowler --- high-energy glow in his eye, fringe of gray beard, spotlight glaring off his polished dome ... at 8:00 a.m., bouncing across the stage at the front of a lecture hall, teaching "Introductory Nuclear Astrophysics" to a somnolent audience of grad students and advanced undergrads --- who wish only that the course were offered at a civilized hour. A muscle twitch as one student falls asleep knocks an empty coke bottle off his desk. It ricochets down the stairs; everyone startles into wakefulness. Willy doesn't miss a beat.
• Richard Feynman --- folding himself into a front-row seat at the physics department seminar, poised to leap. Whenever a visiting scholar covers a vugraph transparency with a sheet of paper and prepares to slide it down, revealing one line at a time, Dick snatches the paper away. "I didn't come here to see a strip-tease!" he growls, in a heavy Brooklyn accent.
• S. Chandrasekhar --- sharp eyes, dark skin, short gray hair, coat and tie ... attentive as a vanfull of relativity grad students take turns at the blackboard, each stumbling through an explanation of his research project. Chandra is at the Santa Barbara Center for Theoretical Physics, and Kip Thorne has brought some protégés to meet the great astrophysicist and to practice their presentational skills. Chandra has a polite, perfect question for every student, no matter how confused the talk. A gentleman and a scholar. (See also "Redundancy", the ^zhurnal entry of 23 April 1999, for the apt Chandraism, "It doesn't make one stupid to hear again what one already knows!" And see http://www.his.com/~z/chandra.html for other Chandra parables.)

- Sunday, September 24, 2000 at 17:11:21 (EDT)

What's most amazing about Moria (to a non-player) is its engaging nature. All of the action comes via arbitrary symbols on the monitor: "a" = ant, "c" = centipede, "k" = kobold, "r" = reptile (e.g., snake), etc. No pictures, no sound, no vibrating joysticks --- just a few letters. Yet somehow, after a short time the sight of a "D" (= Ancient Dragon) makes the pulse pound, the palms sweat, the knees knock. I've been killed (or rather, my characters have) by too many dragon attacks to take that letter "D" lightly!

But come to think of it, maybe what's really amazing is not Moria but the deep human ability to become engaged ... to imagine that a little blob on the screen is a person ... to develop an emotional attachment to an artificial "character", such that when it gets killed, we feel a genuine sense of loss. It's the same human talent that makes all storytelling work --- that lets a novelist build strings of sound-symbols, mere ink-marks on paper, and turn them into people in our minds: people whom we really care about, whose problems worry us, and whose successes against overwhelming odds give us hope that we too may win through our struggles. Moria is just another medium for that magic to work its wonders. We don't need 3-D graphic coprocessors to render millions of polygons per second. We're dreamers.

- Friday, September 22, 2000 at 20:12:51 (EDT)

- Wednesday, September 20, 2000 at 20:54:37 (EDT)

Fortuitously, however, a minor personal-historic piece of email surfaced last week --- a six-year-old letter with a lesson behind it, printed onto paper and discovered by my wife (the incomparable Paulette Dickerson) in a pile of old scraps. It's a note dated 14 September 1994 from Simcha Kuritzky, then and now Treasurer of the Montgomery County Coin Club, inviting me to come to an MCCC meeting later that month.

What's particularly amusing is the circuitous path by which Simcha "E-met" me. We live only a couple of miles from each other in physical space, but were total strangers until his note arrived at my old Caltech Alumni Association mailbox (hosted in Pasadena, California). Some weeks earlier in 1994 I had posted a naïve numismatic question to the USENET newsgroup rec.collecting.coins ... and that msg literally propagated around the world until it was seen and answered by the helpful Mr. Kuritzky. We exchanged notes and discovered that we lived in the same general area. I was looking for a local coin club to slake my hobbyist thirst for knowledge and camaraderie; Simcha suggested that I try the MCCC.

The rest (groan!) is history. I've been writing the Club Bulletin ("Early Web Edition") for several years now, and thus far have successfully resisted all efforts to push me into higher MCCC office. A lucky E-encounter led me to a dozen new non-E-friends and a monthly fix for my coin jones. Who says that the 'Net is destroying personal interaction and local social groups?

- Tuesday, September 19, 2000 at 06:01:20 (EDT)

What good are mass demonstrations? They may focus attention on an issue, yes. They may reveal depth of feeling in an otherwise-ignored subpopulation. If massive and/or bizarre enough, demonstrations may scare other parts of the society ("Freak the Mundanes!") and provoke action --- though not always action in the direction toward which the marchers are pushing.

Most of the time, however, the net result of a demonstration is hard to discern. It's a lot like mass marketing. Advertising makes corporate executives feel good: they see the firm's name out there, and they fantasize that an ad campaign will be remembered, will increase mindshare, and will result in new customers and growth for the company. But generally, there's no measurable effect. The same holds for politicians and for demonstrations. As Midgley suggests, fundamental issues count far more in the long run. Big crowds and flashy spectacles are ripples on the tide. Ideas matter; good deeds matter; quality matters.

For other Mary Midgley comments see the ^zhurnal entries of 6 July 2000, 1 June 2000, and 10 May 2000.

- Sunday, September 17, 2000 at 20:33:25 (EDT)

• To invoke some serious necromancy with a corpse, try saying Abracadaver!
• "The difference between theory and practice is that in theory they are the same, but in practice they are different." (as quoted by TWH - source?)
• "I was wondering whether it was conspiracy or incompetence. As always, it was the latter." (BD*)
• "The Goddess of Education is always shown holding a whip. Perhaps she should be called the Dominatrix of Education?" (AP*)
• "The future isn't what it used to be." (BD)
• "I'm having a Swiss Moment --- you know, the way a whole congregation in Switzerland will break into laughter in church on Sunday morning, because they finally got the joke they heard the day before." (GdM*)
• "Excellence is excellence no matter what the endeavor." (JC)
• "We're talking cosmic timescales ... that is, some time before Amy retires."
• "Never try to walk up a wall that's leaning toward you, never try to kiss a person who's leaning away from you, and never try to talk to an audience about a subject that they know more about than you." (K, attributed to Winston Churchill)
• "That was normal amoral lawyer behavior. It makes me ashamed to pay taxes." (BD*)
• "Being under the threat of a subpoena tends to concentrate the mind." (TF*)
• "I take very few things seriously, Sir!" (?)

- Saturday, September 16, 2000 at 10:19:45 (EDT)

What's needed is a framework for disciplined argumentation --- something to provide:

• a grammar that links Questions, Ideas, and Arguments (both pro & con) in a logical way;
• a visible interface to the discussion, so that individuals can extend their mental grasps and groups can collaborate effectively; and
• a persistent record of the conversation and the rationale for conclusions to which it led.

There are many structured-thinking frameworks, but few of them are widely known and fewer still are much used in real life. One of the nicest (in my limited experience) is VIMS, the "Visual Issue Mapping System" developed and popularized by Dr. Jeff Conklin. (Jeff was formerly at Group Decision Support Systems, and before that at the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Consortium (MCC); I hear that he's his own company now. See http://www.gdss.com/wp/IBIS.htm for an essay on VIMS and its ancestry. A form of VIMS is instantiated in some (rather idiosyncratic) software called "QuestMap".)

The power of idea-mapping comes from a simple syntax that organizes arguments. In a nutshell:

1. Write down a key question ("?"). (Make it brief and open-ended. Seek to begin the question with "Why?" or "How?" or "What?" or "Who?". Avoid multi-clause queries; split them into their fundamental sub-issues. Stay away from questions which can only be answered "yes" or "no". Eschew biased pseudo-questions which imply a single answer or which contain arguments.)
2. Write down candidate ideas ("!") in response to the key question, and link them to the question with arrows: "(?) <--- (!)". (Ideas are potential answers to the question. Express them compactly and objectively. A good idea does not include reasoning or argumentation.)
3. Write down arguments pro and con ("+" & "-") in response to candidate ideas: "(!) <--- (+)" & "(!) <--- (-)". (Capture arguments succinctly. Indicate whether they support or refute the idea to which they are linked. Keep arguments atomic, one to an elementary block.)
4. Repeat! (Formulate more questions and link them onto existing questions, ideas, and arguments. Add new ideas and hook them to questions. Connect additional pro and con arguments to ideas.)

These simple constraints give structure to a dialogue. They unravel tangles and result in a smoother, stronger fabric of analysis.

- Thursday, September 14, 2000 at 21:09:03 (EDT)

"The Romans worshipped their standard, and the Roman standard happened to be an eagle. Our standard is only one-tenth of an eagle --- a dollar --- and we make all even by loving it with tenfold devotion."

- Tuesday, September 12, 2000 at 18:28:51 (EDT)

• systems thinking --- understanding how complex nonlinear behavior arises from feedback loops (positive and negative), sources, sinks, delays, and perturbations ... in other words,developing gut-level intuition about sets of coupled differential equations (!)
• team learning --- understanding how people work together in groups to solve big problems
• mental modeling --- understanding how to build and use thought-experiments, and thereby how to gain knowledge from virtual experience
• shared vision --- understanding how to identify and focus with others on large-scale long-range goals
• personal mastery --- understanding how to think about what's genuinely important in one's own philosophy, and thereby how to live

See also ^zhurnal entries of 11 May 1999 ("Transients"), 29 April 1999 ("Arnold Bennett"), and 30 May 1999 ("My Business").

- Sunday, September 10, 2000 at 20:43:56 (EDT)

- Saturday, September 09, 2000 at 14:55:34 (EDT)

• Where's the dividing line between self-confidence and megalomania?
• To what degree should one's lifestyle "conform" (or appear to conform) to social norms, in order to avoid wasting energy on unimportant conflicts?
• What's the trade-off between helping other people and doing great individual research?
• How much work should one devote to solving specific problems, versus attempting to abstract and generalize so as to solve a whole set of problems in one blow?
• To what degree must one neglect one's family (and/or other responsibilities) in order to do outstanding science?
• How much effort should one spend on communicating (aka "marketing") one's results?
• Is it productive to schedule "Great Thoughts Time" for perhaps half a day a week, and thereby fence off ~10% of one's time to wrestle with big problems? (Is this too little or too much?)
• Does social crisis (e.g, World War II) make for a stronger, more courageous generation than arises in peaceful times?
• Must one change fields every 7-10 years in order to stay fresh and productive?
• Is being a great scientist (i.e., doing great research) an appropriate chief purpose for one's life? (Hamming gives a nod in the direction of doing "significant things" in other fields; the same question applies to that.)

- Thursday, September 07, 2000 at 07:13:23 (EDT)

- Tuesday, September 05, 2000 at 21:43:37 (EDT)

• "We're the greatest employer of philosophers in the country, except for McDonalds." - (JdO)
• "The problem was that they never realized what the real problem was." - (BD)
• "Security is the intersection of risk and functionality." - (LH)
• "Let's take the most salubrious model of the U.S. Government: we're all pulling in the same direction." - (JD)
• "There's a difference between motivation and manipulation --- though some managers may not appreciate it."
• "He admitted to having 2% more ego than he needed to do the job." - (BD)
• "Get me a 'Yes' lawyer! Get me a 'No' lawyer!" - (JD)
• "He's a wonderful rudder --- he's great at steering an organization, but only after somebody else gets it moving." - (BD*)
• "The crucial distinction is between choking and panicking" - (AP*)
• "People need rules to get back to a safe state, the same way satellites do. When things become scary, we need to remember how to hunker down."
• "Did they make you write this piece of crap, or did you come up with it all by yourself?" - (BL)
• "The Messiah for an idea can effectively block everyone else from working on it." - (BD)
• "You can be both perfectly right and perfectlly useless." - (JD*)
• "The Office of Conventional Wisdom is always open for business." - (WMcK*)
• "Their problem is that they assume every other country either has an Anglo Saxon culture, or wishes that it did." - (BD*)
• "We have to empty the barrel of the obvious." - (CD)
• "That thought makes my hair hurt!" - (AD)

- Friday, September 01, 2000 at 10:00:38 (EDT)

But something happened. A band of thugs took over and ran the country as an enterprise for their private gain. The underpinnings of the original system were quickly forgotten, or perverted into an excuse for continued rule by the clique in charge. Eventually, of course, the scheme collapsed. It took down the gang who ran things, but it also destroyed countless innocent lives and wasted the resources of a once-great land.

What went wrong? Maybe the cancer was already there at the start --- when the final goals and how to reach them were defined. Maybe it's impossible to draw a picture of the ideal end-state, as impossible as it is to draw perfection itself. One can only show examples --- partial and flawed --- and then leave the door open for individuals to work things out for themselves ... to define their own goals, purposes, meanings ... and to seek them in their own ways, within a framework that minimizes their destructive tendencies and maximizes their opportunities to work together peacefully. No utopia, just us chickens, doing our best.

- Tuesday, August 29, 2000 at 21:20:27 (EDT)

• Concerning Pax (6 March 2000), a mock-irate correspondent who signs herself "Air Force Wife" writes, "Wow! Where have you been living? The Naval Test Pilot School is not the ONLY one in the country. Does Edwards AFB ring a bell?" She goes on to point out the existence of the National Test Pilot School, also in California, plus additional ones in other nations. Sorry, Kelli! I was just quoting the USN aviator who guided our Boy Scout troop through the Patuxent River Naval Air Station facility. Wouldn't want to insult the wife of a USAF test pilot. (Pure coincidence: Kelli's husband is working with my brother-in-law ... small world, eh?)
• Re Spinning Sources of Gravitational Waves (Thesis - 2) (11 April 2000), Margaret Szedenits spotted an entry mentioning Eugene Szedenits, Jr., her husband. Gene writes to gently advise me: "I was not born in Hungary but in Austria to a Hungarian father and a Slovak mother." Oops! ... the old memory plays tricks, alas ... glad I wasn't further off.

- Sunday, August 27, 2000 at 16:11:40 (EDT)

- Saturday, August 26, 2000 at 07:04:04 (EDT)

• Russia: Alexander Petrov (Moscow) wrote from the University of Bergen in Norway where he pursued a Ph.D. in parliamentary history; he experimented with FreeText for that research.
• Japan: Yuji Kadowaki (Tokyo) of International Consultants Corp. found FreeText useful for his writing work.
• Norway: Herdis Kolle (Bergen) ran FreeText with A. Petrov at the University of Bergen (see above).
• Denmark: Niels Damgaard (who moved to Svaneke in 1991; he was acknowledged earlier at his Netherlands address) wrote with information about his user group, "Mactivity Scandinavia", and described how it used FreeText.
• Canada: Peter H. Wood (St. Albert) aimed my generic indexer/browser IR code at the "Macintosh Holmes Companion" for his Sherlock Holmes analyses. Peter Long (Whitehorse, Yukon) applied FreeText to database publishing and library maintenance.
• USA: Ron Zacharski (University of Minnesota, Computer Information Services) asked about applying FreeText to Linear B. He underscored the need to treat hyphenated strings as single words. Glenn Kissinger (Colorado) sent a fine encouraging note.

- Friday, August 25, 2000 at 05:39:18 (EDT)

- Wednesday, August 23, 2000 at 06:12:18 (EDT)

A living cell is a standing wave in a sea of chemicals. Molecules come in through the cell membrane. They're seized and rearranged by nano-scale manipulators. The cell builds structures, repairs damage, fights invaders, corrects mistakes, and expels wastes. It powers itself by controlled transfers of electrons from one atom to another. It copies itself. If conditions move too far from its realm of stability, the cell dies. But while it lives, the cell persists as a recognizable pattern --- even when most or all of the specific atoms that make it have been replaced.

A person is a standing wave in a sea of cells. She breathes and drinks, eats and excretes, grows and matures, works and plays, learns and teaches. She recovers from illness and injury. She undergoes radical change over the years, both physical and mental. Yet she persists as a recognizable pattern --- even when most or all of the specific cells that form her body have been replaced.

An organization is a standing wave in a sea of people. Whatever it may be --- club, corporation, charitable society, or governmental agency --- it recruits individuals, helps them learn their jobs, supervises their work, and pays their wages. It transfers employees from post to post, retraining them as conditions shift. It takes in revenue, sells (or gives away) products, and accumulates capital. The mission may change; the name may change. Yet the organization persists as a recognizable pattern --- even when most or all of the specific people who work there have been replaced.

A civilization is a standing wave in a sea of organizations. Nations rise and fall ... languages mutate ... industries prosper or wither ... populations thrive, shrink, migrate ... science & technology, literature & art, religions & laws, plus a host of other social structures all co-evolve. Yet the civilization persists as a recognizable pattern --- even when most or all of the organizations which comprise it have been replaced.

- Monday, August 21, 2000 at 20:27:17 (EDT)

• Seeing --- the language of painting & style
• Principles --- design, pattern, type, & emotion
• Materials --- color, line, mass, & volume
• Procedure --- planning, painting, & editing

Without using illustrations it's hard to convey the beauty and clarity of Conversations. Faint shadows, from among the aphorisms that Dunn cites:

"One ought, every day, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." --- Goethe

"Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have." --- Samuel Butler

"I am going on with my researches ... I am continually making observations from nature, and I feel I am making some slight progress." --- Paul Cézanne (at age 67, a month before his death)

- Friday, August 18, 2000 at 05:44:02 (EDT)

• 1992 (class tournament 92CA362) --- a pair of wins over Evan Moffic (Milwaukee, WI) and the same against John Andrew McCleerey (Indianapolis, IN), plus a couple of hard-fought draws with my brother Keith Zimmermann (Austin, TX).
• 1992 (class tournament 92CC412, played via Prodigy email) --- two victories over Robert A. Distefano (Linden, MI), and similarly two wins versus Halford H. Fairchild (Los Angeles, CA), but a draw and a loss to Ronald London (Albuquerque, NM). I still remember that loss, due to my foolish hastiness early in the opening. It was a Two Knights Defense, and I thought I could visualize the position and move without consulting the board. I was wrong!
• 1993 (Golden Knights preliminary section 93N107) --- wins against Bronislaw Chrzanowski (Satellite Beach, FL) and Christopher W. Jens (Sergeant Bluff, IA), a draw with Stewart J. Lessel (Utsonomiya-shi, Japan), and losses to Donald E. Beaulieu II (Attleboro, MA), Jeff S. Arnold (Temecula, CA), and Donald Partrick II (Greenville Junction, ME). Donald Beaulieu is blind, but saw the chessboard more clearly than I did. Jeff Arnold was far stronger than the rest of us in this group; he finished with a perfect 6-0 record.
• 1993 (class tourney 93CA217) --- a pair of lucky victories over my brother Keith, a win plus a draw with Jerry Greer (Jacksonville, FL), and a win and a loss to Brian French (Hixson, TN).
• 1993 (match 93P94 with Robert A. Distefano) --- after losing to me twice in an earlier tournament, Robert wanted revenge, and he got it! In our six-game match I won only one, drew two, and lost three. Ugly, from my side of the board. Throughout my ordeal Robert was a gentleman.
• 1994 (class tournament 94CB172) --- six glorious wins, two apiece against Thomas P. Bonnet (Indio, CA), Ralph Walter Fisher (Denver, CO), and Hank Cox (Santa Cruz, CA). (OK, I got lucky!)
• 1996 (match 96P5 with Keith Zimmermann) --- again my brother in Austin played better than I did, but I managed to struggle to an even result, two wins, two losses, and two draws.
• 1996 (class tourney 96CB182) --- another sweep, six wins for ^z, two each over Leo Strull (Montebello, CA), James T. Fenton (West Chester, OH), and Tom Beechey (Mystic, CT).

- Wednesday, August 16, 2000 at 20:15:30 (EDT)

Theresa lives in the office; her bed and refrigerator are visible through a doorway. A bowl of candy bars sits on the counter. A little brown dog and a fluffy white cat lie on the floor nearby. Paulette and I arrived after a 600-mile drive to pick up our daughter Gray from Meadowmount summer music camp. Paulette stayed at the Hilltop a couple of months ago when she dropped Gray off. Then Theresa's husband was there. Now he's dying.

Theresa is philosophical, even cheerful, about her situation. She tells us that they had 50 fine years together, and that next month would have been their 51st anniversary. Now, she says, "It's all in the hands of the Man Upstairs." Her husband is in the Plattsburgh hospital, 40 miles north of the motel, after a blood vessel burst near his heart last week. Theresa spends time with him every day, but he doesn't recognize anybody; he just struggles against the breathing tube and life-support machinery. Their son, a lawyer, is on the phone with the doctors trying to keep them honest.

Theresa tells us that she was impolite with a person checking in earlier that day --- quite excusably, given her situation --- and now she's heading down the line of rooms past ours, going to knock on his door and apologize. She laughs at her hesitation to do so, and says of herself, "We Irish don't bend easily!" Yes, Ma'am. You don't.

- Tuesday, August 15, 2000 at 19:07:32 (EDT)

Just as a swimmer strokes out one last time,
  Not feeling tired yet, nor knowing fear;
Just as a hiker in the forest climbs
  Up one more hill to reach the summit view;
Just as a pilot skirts the edge of storm
  To make the destination's scheduled stop;
Just as an erstwhile lover presses on
  Past hesitant objections, asking more
Than what the other is yet poised to give ....

So step by tiny step I venture out
  From harbor's safety toward the foaming reef.
And all along the way there is no sign,
  No tipping point, no knee, no line to cross.
The gradient is imperceptible,
  Continuous and smooth as down I slide ---
Until the spider's silk clings, cloys, winds, wraps.
  My desperate struggles only tangle more,
And self-selected doom embraces me.

- Sunday, August 13, 2000 at 20:08:41 (EDT)

Epistemology --- the study of knowledge itself --- is the true foundation of powerful information-handling tools. Substantive experts don't need to know the mathematics of uncertainty, but they do need to at least speak some of the language. Then they can guide the toolsmith-methodologist toward useful action. A basic vocabulary of these ideas is also a splendid way to lift a discussion up from the "yes it is" / "no it isn't" level to a higher-dimensional space --- where all sides can see how the uncertainties and alternatives balance out. Moreover, knowing something about the underpinnings of knowledge gives the thinker a new stock of metaphors ... and thereby enhances the ability to formulate and solve tough problems.

There are a host of disciplines that help wrestle down uncertainty, including:

• Probability & Statistics --- discrete & continuous probability distributions, means, standard deviations, dependent & independent variables, conditional probabilities, and error propagation
• Combinatorics --- permutations, combinations, multivariate experiment design, clustering & similarity metrics, and heuristics for scenario generation
• Logic --- deduction, induction, syllogisms, fuzzy logic, logic programming, and idea-mapping techniques to assist in structured argumentation
• Inverse Methods --- reverse-engineering, matrix inversion, back-propagation, etc.; see Bypasses by Z. A. Melzak (enlightening reading on these and related topics at the graduate level ... but anyone should feel free to skip the equations and explore Melzak's ideas of metaphor and transformation in literature and language)
• Curve-Fitting --- data modeling, error estimation, and key variable identification; see Mathematical Methods That [Usually] Work by Forman J. Action (ideas on numerical methods, readable at the advanced undergraduate level, but with many nonmathematical parables of universal relevance)
• Noise & Random Perturbations --- power spectra, correlation functions, and pattern discovery in unclean data
• Game Theory --- from rock-paper-scissors to Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), two-person zero-sum & beyond, prisoners dilemmas, minimax, etc.; see The Compleat Strategyst by John Williams (highly entertaining, with many stories and funny illustrations; needs only high-school math or less)
• Information Theory --- bits of data, entropy, & evidence; see The Recursive Universe by William Poundstone (fascinating popular-level exposition, with chapters on cellular automata, self-reproducing systems, and deep concepts of information)
• Systems Analysis --- sources, sinks, valves, delays, positive & negative feedback loops, attractors & instabilities, critical paths & chokepoints; see The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge (a self-improvement and applied math short-course disguised as a business book ... powerful and important concepts presented in engaging fashion)

(The above snapshot of a work-in-progress is derived from a talk I gave today to a small class. More to come!)

- Thursday, August 10, 2000 at 21:17:01 (EDT)

It's not always that bad. Sometimes committees are valuable --- in building consensus, in bringing disparate organizations together, or in helping to lift distributed knowledge to the surface where it can be used. Sometimes processes are valuable --- in formalizing and organizing what was a chaotic situation, or in adding reliability and responsibility to the delivery of a critical service.

But too often, not. Committees are frequently a waste of time for all involved. Processes are turned into a wall to keep the customer out, to protect a non-responsive bureaucracy. "You can't do that without a permit" ... "You have to send in your request for change to the Review Board" ... "Your application for service will be considered at our next quarterly meeting" ... etc.

Clients complain to no effect. Nothing gets delivered, yet nobody gets fired. Eventually, perhaps, the deck is shuffled, the outfit reorganizes, and things improve --- at least for a while. But without high-level attention (or a catastrophic failure) dysfunctional modules of an organization can survive (and even grow) for an amazingly long time. They've evolved defense mechanisms against doing their real job, and against detection of their failure.

- Wednesday, August 09, 2000 at 06:31:54 (EDT)

Why collect coins?

There are as many reasons as there are collectors. Coins are fun. Coins are historical artifacts, connected at a fundamental level to the lives of people in the past. Coins are miniature works of art. Coins are (rarely!) good investments. Coins are fun.

What's the value of my coin?

"That depends" is the only honest answer. What type of coin is it? What is the date and mintmark and variety? What condition is it in? Is it genuine or counterfeit, a restrike or a copy, a regular issue or a proof or a fantasy piece or an error? Has it been authenticated and graded? Does it have a pedigree? These are some of the questions which have to be answered to estimate the value of a coin.

How can I get an estimate of my coin's value?

There are many ways. You can check out books about coins from your local library (see the 737.4 area of the Dewey Decimal System) or purchase numismatic reference materials from various sources. You can take your coin to a dealer, or a coin show, or a coin club meeting. You can send your coin in to a commercial grading service and have it encapsulated, authenticated, and graded professionally. You can also find numerous online sources of numismatic information --- though to apply them to your particular coin will demand significant expertise on your part.

What is this little "California gold" coin?

It's probably a replica token, of negligible numismatic value. During the California gold rush (which began in earnest in 1849 and reached a peak in 1852) small denomination coins were in short supply in the California territory. Local mints produced tiny tokens made of real gold with values of $1 or fractions thereof. You can read about them in various numismatic reference books. Genuine territorial gold tokens are worth hundreds of dollars --- if they are authentic and in nice condition. Far more commonly seen, however, are modern replicas. These are typically made of brass, perhaps plated with a thin coating of gold. Such tokens are of nominal value only, perhaps a dollar or so. (If a replica is made of solid gold, it is worth roughly the meltdown value of the metal.) Real territorial gold pieces usually have the word "dollar" along with a denomination on one side, and the year of issue with a Liberty head on the other side. (See, for example, http://www.his.com/~z/gallery1852.html for obverse and reverse images of a genuine token.) Replicas generally lack the word "dollar" and often have a bear (or anteater-like creature) on one side. Beware of spending too much for a replica which has been misrepresented as genuine!

What are some good coin books?

There are many. The classic "Redbook" is a fine starting point for US collectors. (Its official title is A Guide Book of United States Coins and new editions are issued every year.) The Redbook includes short historical discussions of each type of coin, information on how to grade specimens, and retail price estimates by year, mint, and condition for major varieties. Beyond the Redbook, you may wish to look at Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopædia of US and Colonial Coins, the Krause & Mishler Standard Catalog of World Coins, or countless other books. (See, for example, http://www.money.org/club_mccclibr.html for a catalog of the books in the Montgomery County Coin Club's library.)

Where should I look for online numismatic information?

An excellent place to start is the American Numismatic Association, http://www.money.org. The ANA web site has pointers to coin dealers and local clubs, as well as historical data about coins, paper money, tokens, and other numismatic materials. The ANA Headquarters is in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where the organization has a major money museum, a research library, and a staff which is extraordinarily helpful.

How can I sell my coins?

There are many ways. Quickest is to find an honest dealer and sell directly to her or him; unfortunately, many less-than-honest dealers are around. (Membership in the Professional Numismatists Guild and/or the American Numismatic Association is a good sign to look for.) Dealers must make a living and will not be able to pay you as much as you might get from other, slower, methods. Auction sales are another possibility: live, via Internet, by telephone, or by mail. But prices realized at auction can fluctuate widely, and there is likely to be several months of delay in addition to significant commissions to be paid. Selling coins by consignment through a dealer is a slow process, but often can yield good prices. (Direct sales via Internet or in person have additional complexities and risks --- good luck!)

What are authentication, grading, and encapsulation services?

The "grade" of a coin is a shorthand way to describe its condition. Standard coin grades range over Good, Very Good, Fine, Very Fine, Extremely Fine, About Uncirculated, and Uncirculated --- on a numerical scale from 1 (severely worn) to 70 (perfection). Grading a coin is a complex business and demands great experience; it's not something that an amateur can do reliably. Commercial services take a coin, inspect it, assign a grade, seal it in a tamper-evident plastic "slab", and guarantee the authenticity and condition of the coin. This typically costs $10-$30 or more, so it is only worthwhile for relatively valuable specimens. Widely-recognized major grading services include PCGS, NGC, and ANACS. A coin encapsulated by one of them can be trusted to be genuine and in the condition specified on the slab, so it is likely to be easier to sell quickly and for a good price.

What is a "proof"?

Proofs are special coins, often struck more than once at the mint (to bring up design details), often made from highly polished dies, and often carefully handled after their production. This gives proofs an unusual surface finish and can make them lovely coins. Proofs, however, are not necessarily valuable; in fact, in recent years various mints have issued huge numbers of proofs and have sold them to the public at excessively high prices --- which have since fallen sharply.

What's the most important thing to remember about coins?

Don't clean them! More precisely, unless you have a lot of experience any attempt you make to clean a coin will likely scratch it and reduce its value. Don't rub a coin's surfaces, don't polish it, don't brush it, don't dip it in chemicals, don't run electricity through it, and don't store it in an environment that will cause its surfaces to deteriorate. Ask a professional for advice before doing anything to "improve" a coin's appearance.

What's the second most important thing to remember about coins?

Take your time! Don't let yourself be rushed into buying coins, especially not over the phone, at an auction, or from a person whom you don't know well. Don't sell try to your coins hastily either. Don't expect to make money on your coins on timescales of less than decades. Find some good books about coins and read them; visit a coin club and talk with the people there; go to a coin show or a store and browse. Buy a few inexpensive coins and enjoy them, then expand your collection in whatever directions interest you most. Go slow.

My own idiosyncratic case: I got back into numismatics in the early 1990s, after ignoring it for some decades ... began by filling in the gaps in a set of Mercury dimes, Roosevelt dimes, Washington quarters, and Franklin halves ... started acquiring nice coins of 1852 (a century older than I am) and slowly built up a type set for that year ... and recently have been accumulating Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver commemorative half dollars (from the 1946-1954 era; they seem extraordinarily cheap nowadays). Numismatics gives me something relaxing and intellectually stimulating to do in my spare time, and has inspired a few web pages with images and commentary (see for instance http://www.his.com/~z/1852.html). I wrote a tiny article for The Numismatist about the idea of building a single-year type set (which I call "Annual Collecting"). And via the Montgomery County Coin Club I have met a host of wonderful people. Numismatics is a splendid lifelong hobby. I've already received quite a (nonmonetary) return on my tiny investment!

- Monday, August 07, 2000 at 05:51:50 (EDT)

• "I have only one goal: to suffice." (JD)
• "This is a dumbed-down version of Windows NT --- even dumber than regular NT." (RC)
• "You're saying that it's more important to participate than to be right?" (^z)
• "Be attentive to those who seek the truth; be wary of those who claim to have found it." (JC, quoting another)
• "Far be it from me to be paranoid!" (BW)
• "There's no good cop in this case --- just a bad cop and a badder cop." (TF)
• "We're pumping out the septic tank of knowledge." (BW)
• "You never know the weight of inertia." (JD)
• "A proof is that which convinces a reasonable man; a rigorous proof is that which convinces an unreasonable man." (JC, quoting another re mathematics)
• "He's a weapon of mass destruction all by himself!" (TF)
• "I rest your case." (JH)
• "I come from [that outfit] and I can tell you, Earth is really quite different." (BB)
• "Listening to you all talk is like having good sex in the mind." (LJR)

- Saturday, August 05, 2000 at 19:32:48 (EDT)

The Traditionalists won the battle for control of the YAF; they threw out the Libertarians. I saw this conflict through the wrong end of a telescope, while in a central Texas high school, via the pages of the YAF news 'zines. It was like a fight between two fleas, over a square millimeter of prime dog.

- Thursday, August 03, 2000 at 21:06:32 (EDT)

• July 1999:
  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey) book and courses seem to include many elements of classic Stoicism ... how do they relate?
  • Some jobs are tough and unrewarding: "I wouldn't want to be a good hospital administrator --- if there are any!" But what is a "tough job"? What makes it so?
  • Are some key governmental institutions (e.g., the military) beginning to break down? ... people are leaving in droves ... good new folks aren't coming in, and those who come in aren't staying for a career ... is this a crisis, or will it soon become one?
  • What if a wealthy relative offered you 10 years of salary, in cash, to quit your current job --- would you? What's the real point of the work you're doing right now?
  • Is there a largely-unrecognized need to be more "proactive" --- to take the initiative, to develop a greater propensity to act rather than just react to circumstances?
  • Paradox, or cognitive dissonance: an "ethics" course is offered which all employees must take; an audit indicates that somebody hasn't taken it; they are asked to lie, "make up a date and say you attended then," Huh?
  • How will we look to people 200 years from now? Edward Gibbon, for instance, reveals serious racism in some passages he wrote, but perhaps he was nevertheless far ahead of his contemporaries. So should we cut him some slack, or should we criticize him? What commonplace positions which we hold today will be viewed as abhorrent in a few centuries?
  • Can we really change anything? Or is it all determined --- either rigidly, or via huge forces which an individual can't possibly deflect?
  • Rewards & Recognition: must good behavior be applauded (and paid for)? Is it better to do good anonymously, in secret? (Or would one get much less total goodness if most of it went unacknowledged?)
  • Wu Wei --- "not doing" --- the Zen ideal of balance, centering, active inaction....
• August:
  • "Marcus Aurelius was an orthodox Roman pagan."
  • What's the relationship between mysticism and intelligence?
  • What can neuroscience contribute to AI [artificial intelligence]? "There's a library of algorithms that we know are good algorithms --- because they work --- that we need to decipher."
  • Machiavelli and lying: was Machiavelli appreciated in his time? ... how did his stature change over the centuries? ... Machiavelli advises "... sincere obsequity to those above him, sincere contempt to those below you ..." and "... wars don't go away --- they are just postponed to your disadvantage..." ... (see also the recent book The Princessa --- a feminist retelling of The Prince --- weak and flawed in many places, but including a fascinating section on Stoicism towards the end)
  • When should children learn about terrifyingly inhumane things (e.g., the Holocaust, tortures, nuclear weapons, chemical and biological warfare, etc.)? What should be hidden from them as they grow up, and when should they be told?
  • Should schools implement "The Social Curriculum" of training children to think and act in certain ways? Should we "envy the Amish for having the courage to screen their children from horrors"?
  • Translator as "traitor" --- the impossibility of perfect translation between languages ... and the impossibility of perfect mapping between any two human minds ... Douglas Hofstadter Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language ... "Poetry is what gets lost in translation" ... machine translation accuracy rates ... improvement of MT over time
  • Managing evil: A good (moral, ethical) person as a boss can recognize and reward good subordinates --- but can also hire "sharks" and use them, within limits, knowing that they can't be trusted ...
  • The "defining-down of deviance" over time (and classic press criterion of [male] political scandal: "... found in bed with a live man or a dead woman ...")
  • Mercenaries and war: did the Kuwaitis effectively hire the US to throw the Iraqis out? ("... we were just mercenaries...")
  • Alexander was the first to think about the legitimacy of government ... he reappointed satraps to run countries he had conquered ... "No one was serious about war until the last century" ... Civil War era, failure to pursue enemy after winning a battle ... leisurely pace of events ...
• September:
  • Peter Singer as profiled in New Yorker ... animal rights ... quip: "First, we kill all the philosophers!" ...
  • Bureaucratic applications of Machiavellian rules ... new boss should live with the conquered group ... replace former leaders with one's own people ... do harsh measures all at once, but spread out good news over time ...
  • "The government never wants to solve a problem --- it just wants to manage it!" ... you need to keep difficulties around, since if a problem is completely solved, you aren't needed any more
  • A brave manager said, "I always surround myself with people who are smarter than me." Such courage is rare.
  • "Secular religion" as taught commonly in public schools: juvenile environmentalism, diversity worship, political correctness ... "Thou shalt judge no one about anything" ... exception: zero tolerance for guns, alcohol, drugs ...
  • "If it seems that everything is going your way, reconsider!"
  • Stock market mania ... everyone thinks that s/he's a genius ... dangers of early success ... worst thing that can happen to a gambler is to win at the start of a session ...
  • Is it better for a leader to be feared than loved? ... Need one possess admirable qualities, or just seem to possess them?
  • Should one care more about people who are physically nearer? ... classic rabbinical rule: first responsibility is to one's family, then kin, then town ... which worked psychologically to generate huge amounts of charity
  • "Knowledge work is all preparation and no production!"
  • What's the incentive for knowledge-sharing by smart employees? "Knowledge management technology is the big buzz in business --- but why should people give a company their crown jewels when the company has no loyalty to them?"
  • "A worse problem than malice: indifference, ignorance, and incompetence." --- describing our current political situation, with government dominated by people who have aimed their lives at acquiring power since the age of 8 or 9.
  • Europeans view Americans as hopelessly naïve about politics; Americans view Europeans as hopelessly cynical.

- Wednesday, August 02, 2000 at 21:15:57 (EDT)

• October:
  • The Internet is like a library where somebody has taken all the books off the shelves, torn all their covers off, and then thrown them randomly on the floor. (from Steve Cisler)
  • Reading Machiavelli, "... it's hard to tell if he's genuinely despicable, or just posing" ... sometimes in managing a real-world project, "... a little manipulativeness seems to be necessary..." --- a leader needs to keep a secret engineering reserve of untapped resources ... or to play schedule games and hide progress in order not to see impossible goals imposed after early success. Are these "white lies"? Are they ethically wrong to do?
  • "Lying is stealing control from someone."
  • "All the really interesting problems don't have a 'right' answer." --- "That's why socialism sucks!"
  • The Ethical Culture Society --- tongue-in-cheek definition: "Judaism without God, Israel, or Jewish peoplehood."
  • Can one learn about consciousness by studying nerves? Where does consciousness reside?
• November:
  • Is consciousness a computational phenomenon? (What else is there?) Are there unknown fundamental phenomena associated with mind? Could these be "emergent phenomena" --- or is that just bogus obfuscation? Is consciousness substrate-independent? Must one mimic human inputs and neural systems, or is that just the "Wetware Fallacy"?
  • "The whole game of science is figuring out what to leave out." --- that is, identifying the critical factors and isolating them, in order to build comprehensible explanations of messy situations.
  • The big problem of Artificial Intelligence: early success that doesn't scale ... promising solutions to "toy problems" that don't work for larger and more complex challenges.
  • "Every problem that you can solve, in the right representation, has low dimensionality."
  • When tying somebody up, "The more rope you use, the easier it is to escape!"
• December 1999:
  • Is it OK to hurt oneself? Commit suicide? How about neighborhood effects --- the impact on one's dependents, friends, colleagues? What about someone who is temporarily mentally deranged --- can one legitimately stop them from self-damage, knowing that they will thank you when they recover?
  • The "slippery slope" argument versus the danger of blurring distinctions between radically different situations.
  • Freedom of the Press is not a simple concept ... in Colonial times, for instance, the Press was incredibly "free" --- and there were huge amounts of libel and scandal-mongering.
  • Would Socrates be comfortable today?
  • What will our attitude toward animals (and "animal rights") be 1,000 years from now?
  • "The quality of life is, to first order, determined by energy consumption." True? Why?
  • We have a lot of nostalgia for the past ... for farm life ... for small towns ... etc. Is this realistic?
  • John Stuart Mill's On Liberty ... critical need to seek out objections and difficulties, to test one's ideas against the toughest opposition
  • Is there a perfect form of organization (or government)? Or does it count far more simply to have really good people?
  • "I'm really ignorant." --- profound insight of the millennium?!

- Tuesday, August 01, 2000 at 06:41:17 (EDT)