The Dead Squirrel

New Blog

2009-07-28T21:31:00.001-07:00

I decided to start a new blog, here.

Birthday

2008-09-14T19:36:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, September 15th, is my birthday. What a day! Tomorrow, I'll be able to give my age using a word that doesn't have "-een" at the end. I'll be able to enter it on a number pad by going right down the center, instead of reaching for the 1 and 9 in the far-flung corners of the pad.

Tonight, for only the second time in my life, concludes yet another glorious decade of my life. The last time that happened, I was still in 5th grade, at Plank Road South elementary school. Back then, I wasn't even able to drive, vote, buy lotto tickets and cigarettes, or even solve differential equations.

True, being 20 instead of 19 doesn't give me any new privileges in the US. But it's still a milestone nonetheless. Gavrilo Princip, assassin of the Franz Ferdinand and Sophia, was spared (denied?) the death penalty, because Austrian law prohibited capital punishment for crimes committed under the age of 20. He ended up languishing in Teresienstadt prison for a couple years before dying of TB. The difference between 19 and 20 is the difference between being a teen and being a real adult, between a delinquent teenager and a delinquent 20-something, and between barely-legal pornography and regular pornography.

Apparently, a lot of famous people are/were lucky enough to have the same birthday as me, including, but not limited to:

Marco Polo
Porfirio Diaz, Mexican president
William Howard Taft, fatso US president
Ettore Bugatti, guy whose eponymous car company makes really crazy cars
Agatha Christie, writer
Jean Renoir, film guy
Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel-winning physicist
Tommy Lee Jones
Oliver Stone
Joe Barton, congressman
Hrant Dink
Dan Marino
Lindsay Lohan's mom
Sophie Dahl
Prince Henry

Also, some actress named Chelsea Staub has the same birth day *and* year as me.

That's what she said!

2008-09-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

At the RNC, former Lieutenant Governor and failed Senate candidate Michael Steele (R-MD), when talking about solutions to our energy problems, said "Drill, baby, drill," a line that was very well received by the conservative audience, half of whom apparently had buttons that referenced some sort of drilling. That line was repeated by a number of speakers at the convention, including, if memory serves me correctly, Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin.

My personal opposition to drilling aside, I think "Drill, baby, drill" would be a very good line to use in some sort of niche porn film.

Overheard

2008-09-05T01:09:00.000-07:00

Today, at the airport, I overheard two wealthy couples talking to each other. Mostly, they were talking about one couple's plans to go to Aspen, and their experiences playing golf lately, and how they were eating dinner at a decently expensive restaurant.

But they had to open the conversation by talking about how much they liked Sarah Palin, and how there were so many good candidates that the Republicans had, but who all had skeletons in their closets, and how they were going to get scrutinized like hell by the liberal media, just like Palin is right now.

Jon Stewart has a great piece about the nature of this scrutiny.

The Bumping Game

2008-08-31T19:37:00.000-07:00

I got bumped from my plane Friday night. The flight was very badly oversold, probably because it was the Friday before Labor Day, so they had 9 more people than seats. So, because of the Pauli exclusion principle (and the pigeonhole principle), they had to bump 9 of us off the flight. Or, more accurately, they had to get 9 of us to volunteer to give up our seats and get on a later flight.

It was pretty sweet. First, the standard reward for being bumped is a free round-trip ticket to anywhere in the US. Since I mostly fly between San Francisco (school) and Rochester (home), which costs ~$550, it was a great deal, especially since I only arrived at home 6 hours later than I should have ($100/hour is pretty good).

Second, there wasn't enough enthusiasm for the offer, so to sweeten the deal for the 9th person (me), they gave me a first class seat for my flight home. Domestic first class isn't all that much roomier than economy (slightly wider seats, and only slightly more pitch than Economy Plus), but they were very generous with the beverages, and they even had free food. Also, the flight attendants were unusually nice.

Because I flew first class, I also got a bunch of bonus miles. That means that I'll be able to get Premier frequent flier status. Which means I get to check luggage for free and get Economy Plus seats. Yay.

I also got a hotel room at the Red Roof Inn for Friday night, between the bumped flight and the replacement flight, which was at 6 in the morning. It was pretty sketchy, but the room was surprisingly nice, and I could sleep, shower, watch the Discovery Channel, and iron my clothes.

The only downside was losing my belt in the hotel room.

Alaskan Pipeline

2008-08-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

Like most people probably were, I was really surprised that McCain chose Alaska governor Sarah Palin as a running mate. Intrade was predicting a 5% chance that he would choose her, and a 60% chance that it would be Romney. Ouch, but good thing I never funded my Intrade account; otherwise I would have shorted her a couple weeks ago. Based on my naïve understanding of politics, I thought Palin would make no sense because McCain's campaign is based mostly (entirely?) on the fact that Obama is too young and inexperienced to be President. Because of that, McCain would have to choose someone who would definitely be "ready" to be President, should something happen to him (which is a real possibility for any President, let alone one who is 72 years old). Of course, Palin is three years younger than Obama, and has served in statewide office for half as long (and in a state a 20th the size). Moreover, she seems to be completely devoid of any gravitas, even compared to similarly-aged-and-experienced people like Jindal or Pawlenty.

But apparently, I was wrong. And really, after looking a little closer, Palin doesn't seem to be that bad a choice, given the context:

1. The alternatives suck. Romney would make sense, but he and McCain hate each other. McCain and Lieberman are really good friends, but the Limbaugh-Hannity-Rove wing of the party, which has slowly and grudgingly united behind McCain, would totally flip out and lose all faith in his conservatism. In spite of his views on Iraq, Lieberman still has a voting record more liberal than half the Democrats in the Senate. Ridge wouldn't be quite as bad, but he's still too pro-choice for the Base. And Pawlenty is almost as inexperienced as Palin, and he lacks a second X chromosome and the ability to win more than 47% of the vote, in his own state, for re-election as incumbent governor.

2. Disgruntled (female) Hillary supporters. People have been throwing this reason around a lot, and I'll include it anyway, even though I'm kind of skeptical. Supposedly, some disgruntled Hillary supporters will vote for the ticket for the simple fact that one of them is female. I'm skeptical about how many Hillary supporters are actually going to vote McCain, especially when the woman opposes not only abortion, but also the use of condoms. But at the same time, I think she'd do a much better job at swaying women voters than Romney et al. would, and even swaying, say the angriest 5% (which might be possible) of Hillary voters would make a big difference.

I think Kay Bailey Hutchison would have been a better choice for the Party Unity My Ass crowd, as she's actually somewhat moderate when it comes to abortion, but not so much that she pisses off the conservative wing of the party. Which brings me to...

3. Change. Basically, every speech at the Democratic National Convention tried to tie McCain to the unpopular Bush administration and push the (understandable) need for change from Bush administration policies. By choosing Palin, McCain can dismiss the idea that the Democrats have a monopoly on "change."

No Republican politician embodies the idea of change as well as Palin does (except possibly Bobby Jindal), while at the same time being a hardcore conservative. Palin's rise started in 2002, when then-senator Frank Murkowski was elected governor. When he took his new office, he appointed his daughter, Lisa Murkowski, to his old job. People were so outraged that they made a new law to strip governors of the right to appoint people to vacant Senate seats. Then, in 2006, Palin defeated the older Murkowski in the Republican primary because of the whole nepotism thing, among other ethical issues. She became a symbol of clean government, in contrast to other Republican politicians in the state, like Ted Stevens and Don Young, both of whom are under investigation for taking bribes. Indeed, Palin endorsed Lt. Governor Sean Parnell when he tried to unseat Young in the primary this year.

4. Propping up Ted Stevens/Don Young. Palin is extremely popular in Alaska, with approval ratings around 80%. It just happens that Stevens and Young are trailing in the polls. If Young ends up losing the primary recount, Parnell would also have a very tough fight. If huge numbers of straight-ticket-voting Republicans turn out for Palin in Alaska, the GOP could be spared the embarrassment of having their most senior senator being defeated for re-election.

A convenient truth

2008-07-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was in San Francisco. I decided to go there, because I realized that I hadn't been there in over a year and a half (with the exception of a couple of brief visits due to The Game), and I wanted something to do during the weekend.

Apparently, there is still a ridiculous amount of demand for the iPhone, even a couple weeks after it came out. I know this because a number of people were lining up outside the Apple store near Union Square:

I'm quite impressed by the quality of the pictures I'm taking with my new phone, which is not an iPhone. Of course, when quality actually matters, I'll bring my real camera, but the phone does quite nicely for random everyday things I see.

Anyway, I don't think these people are just loitering in front of the store, because I saw the same thing earlier in the day, when I was driving past the Apple store in Palo Alto. It's kind of ridiculous. But why am I complaining? I have Apple stock.

Also near Union Square, a very ironic-looking ad for Fiji Water caught my eye:

Fiji Water is paradise in a bottle. The water is, ostensibly, crisp, fresh, and "untouched by man," having supposedly originated from rain borne by trade winds hundreds of years ago, then slowly filtered through silica-rich rocks into pristine aquifers. The unique square bottle depicts some beautiful tropical plants, presumably found in the lush rain forests of the titular third world island nation.

I probably saw 10 more of these ads throughout the city. It was very odd for me to see these ads, because Fiji Water has a terrible reputation for being environmentally unfriendly, because bringing a bottle of the stuff to market involves, literally, shipping a whole bottle of water all the way from Fiji, a great-circle distance of over 8,000 km. It's pretty heavy, bulky stuff, too. Before the water finds its way into the bottle, it goes through a bottling plant powered by a diesel generator. The bottle itself has to be made, too, a process that contaminates several liters of water.

It looks like Fiji Water plans to reduce its CO2 emissions by reducing packaging material and using wind energy, and then offsetting the rest of the emissions through reforestation programs. To boot, they plan to offset not just all of their emissions, but 120% of it, and made a fancy website and some posters to make the public aware.

Personally, I think it's brilliant marketing strategy. At a time when Fiji Water (and bottled water in general) faces a bit of an environmental backlash from the same affluent consumers that they market to, the company completely assuages the consumer's fears of increasing his/her carbon footprint; in fact, buying Fiji Water is actually carbon negative.

It's also not a very expensive thing to do. According to Wikipedia, producing and transporting a 1-liter bottle of the heavenly liquid results in 0.25kg of CO2, or 1/4000th of a tonne. That's about the amount of CO2 produced by driving a car 2/3 of a mile. Of course, anyone can buy carbon offsets online for $5-$20 per tonne, or a seventh of a cent for the 1L bottle at the lower end of the range. Considering that said bottle of water costs around $1.50, they're sacrificing less than a thousandth of the revenue on carbon offsets. Of course, that's a conservative estimate because they're not buying marked-up offsets. Assuming their annual revenue is on the order of about $150 million, or 1 bottle for every three Americans, they're spending less than $100,000 on carbon mitigation, which is much less than what they're spending on their Fiji Green advertising campaign.

Of course, I won't dismiss this as complete greenwashing; I do believe that the company is actually going to follow through with its plan, and I think it's good that the bottled water industry is addressing these environmental concerns.

Me? I'll drink tap water for free and save the $1.50.

iClone

2008-07-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

A week or two ago, I went with Frank (Lin), Evan, and John to the Cheesecake Factory to have dinner, using the gift card we won during The Game. The cheesecake was delicious and unhealthy, the entrées were decently tasty, if unimpressive, and the ambiance was grandiose in the typical Cheesecake Factory style. But this post isn't about the meal, nor is it about my vendetta against chain restaurants (not really).

It happens that the Palo Alto Apple store is a block or two from the Cheesecake Factory, and it also happened that Evan and I walked by the Apple store on our way to the Factory.

There was a long line in the store, for people who wanted iPhones. It stretched out the door, and around the corner. I didn't participate. I already have a very capable 3G telecommunications device with a 2MP camera. I believe that the new iPhone was released on Friday, I took the pictures Saturday evening, and the line was still there Sunday morning.

I understand that the iPhone is an excellent piece of mobile electronic equipment, and that it's user friendly and fun and does your laundry, so I can see why some people might want to wait in line for that kind of stuff. But I'm thoroughly perplexed by the fact that about half the people in the line (based on a highly unscientific, verbal survey with n < 30) already had iPhones.

I don't know why so many people would want to buy new iPhones to replace the non-3G ones they bought less than a year ago. Is the new one so much better than the old one that it would be worth it to drop $200 and sign up for an $80/month data plan for 2 years to upgrade? I realize that the 3G version is a bit faster, but was the old one really that unacceptably slow?

Perhaps this is a reflection of the decadence and wastefulness of our society, wasting so many resources on such trivialities.

Maybe I should have gotten a CECT P168.

2008-07-21T01:12:00.000-07:00

I was on Facebook, when an ad really caught my attention. It was for a site called ucrime.com, where they have campus maps that show the exact locations of various crimes that have occurred. Obviously, Facebook isn't very good at targeting the ads to appropriate audiences, because they don't have a map for Stanford. Maybe it's because Stanford is awesome and doesn't have very much crime. Or maybe the site just sucks. But whatever the reason may be, USC sure has a lot of crime:

And that's just for May 21 through July 21, *after* school is over. Yikes.

What really aroused my attention were the cartoon-type symbols they use to mark the appropriate locations on the Google map. Big bag of money for theft, guy in trench coat for burglary, Hamburglar-looking guy for robbery. The levity of the symbols seems quite inappropriate, given the serious nature of the site (crimes). I'd hate to think about the kind of cartoon they would use to denote sexual assault, which they will surely have eventually, as they occur far more often than arson or shootings.

In(sider)trading

2008-07-19T12:50:00.000-07:00

Intrade is an interesting site that offers so-called "prediction markets," where people basically bet on various events, most notably the outcomes of elections, by buying and selling "contracts" priced between 0 and 100 points, where each point is worth 10 cents. If the event ends up happening, holders of the contract get $10. Otherwise, they get nothing. The price of the contract is dictated by what people are willing to buy/sell it for on the market, kind of like with stocks or options.

For example, the contract for Barack Obama to win the Presidential election is priced at 65.3 points. If you think Obama will win, you can pay $6.53 for the contract, and if he wins, you get $10, for a profit of $3.47. If McCain (or anyone else) wins, you get nothing, for a loss of $6.53. Basically, that means the consensus is that there's a 65.3% chance that Obama will win the election. Generally, the market is considered pretty efficient and a pretty good predictor of things (people are, after all, betting real money on this stuff).

Now that the primaries are over, the next exciting thing this cycle is running mate selection. Whom will Obama choose?

Bob Graham (4.0%): Bob Graham is a former governor and senator from Florida. He was also Kerry's second choice in 2004. He could probably win Florida, but besides that, he doesn't make a whole lot of sense this time around. Most importantly, he would clash rather awkwardly with the theme of "change" that Obama keeps talking about (he's only 2 months younger than McCain, and he was in politics for almost 40 years). He also has a weird habit of taking detailed notes on everything he does in color-coded notebooks. If Obama desperately needed Florida, Bill Nelson would probably be a better choice (younger, less creepy). Although I don't really think either of them is that interested.

Bill Richardson (4.4): I don't see why he isn't ranked higher. He's a VERY popular governor of a swing state, and he would appeal to Hispanic voters. He also has a significant amount of foreign policy experience and was the energy (important topic these days) secretary, but he doesn't really seem like an establishment politician. The only problem is that he tends to say awkward things on the campaign trail, like about how homosexuality was "a choice."

John Edwards (4.5): He did a pretty bad job last time around, and I don't think he's interested in trying again. Also, he's way too angry.

Dick Gephardt (5.0): Gephardt disappeared from the news after his failed campaign in 2004 and subsequent retirement as House minority leader. Might help in Missouri, but certainly doesn't help with the "change" message (he now works as a lobbyist, most notably for the Turkish government, when he helped block a resolution to recognize the Armenian genocide).

Sam Nunn (5.0): Might make Obama competitive in Georgia (but probably won't), and has excellent foreign policy credentials. But, he's almost as old as McCain is, and progressives distrust him because of his perceived homophobia.

Wesley Clark (5.6): Great military credentials and not a career politician, but kind of awkward.

Claire McCaskill (6.9): Would make the ticket way too easy to attack on the "experience" front. Hillary attacked Obama as being inexperienced, but even Obama has served in the Senate for more than twice as long as McCaskill.

Chuck Hagel (9.4): Hagel is a conservative Republican who disagrees with Obama on everything except the war in Iraq, which he vehemently opposes. That wouldn't work well. This seems like an excellent thing to short.

Jack Reed (9.5): I think the main reason he shows up is because of his military service (he was an Army Ranger). He's also probably the most liberal member of the Senate, and they would be easy to attack as the two most liberal senators. Where have we seen this before?

Joe Biden (10.1): Angry old guy who's been in the Senate since he was 30. Not really the right kind of image for Obama. A shame, because he's an expert on foreign policy, and he says hilarious things

Tim Kaine (11.0): The governor of Virginia, which will be a pretty competitive state this year, for the first time in about 4 decades. Kaine is actually quite popular in his home state, in a way that John Edwards never was. He is also a very religious guy, which might help dispel the notion that Democrats don't care about Jesus and make it hard to call the ticket "liberal." The only problem is that he, like Obama, has almost no foreign policy experience. It probably won't matter a whole lot, as the economy is the issue that's dominating the minds of voters right now, but it's nice to have someone with some experience, in case McCain tries to pull off a 3 o' clock copycat.

Evan Bayh (11.5): A pretty inoffensive centrist senator who happens to be very popular in a red state (Indiana) that might be competitive this year. Previously, he had a highly successful stint as governor, which would certainly help with the economic issues that most voters are worrying about. Also, as a senator, he has more foreign policy experience than Kaine.

Kathleen Sebelius (14.8): Sebelius is certainly a very capable politician, somehow getting elected and re-elected in *Kansas*, the home of the intelligent design movement. She has also been very good about working across party lines to get things done. The problem is that like Kaine, she doesn't have much international experience.

Hillary Clinton (16.9): A lot of people are skeptical about an Obama/Clinton ticket, but I don't think it would be that bad of an idea. Her name wouldn't do much to help with the whole "change" message, but then again that would probably appeal to a lot of people and remind them of a time when life didn't suck for them. Some people think that she'd be unite the Republicans, who think she's a symbol of tax-and-spend liberalism gone awry, but I don't really think that's true. She's actually polled surprisingly well against McCain, even though all the negativity is already priced into the polling. The problem is, although I don't think Hillary would be a bad choice, I think there are probably better choices, like Bayh, Kaine, or Richardson.

I think it's interesting that Intrade thinks there's a 40% chance that the vice presidential nominee will be a woman (between Clinton, Sebelius, and McCaskill).

And that's what happens when I stay on the Intrade site for too long.

The Crips, and the war on drugs

2008-07-19T01:47:00.000-07:00

Last night, Evan and I decided to run around campus and climb on random shit, in lieu of going to the gym. It would also be an opportunity to learn some parkour skills. I was off to a pretty bad start, when I first tried to climb onto a wall, about 8' high, near Schwab. I managed to get my fingertips over the top of the wall, but I wasn't able to get a good grip, and I heard a horrible scraping noise as my fingers slowly slid off the top of the (very rough) wall. That hurt, but fortunately nothing actually penetrated the skin. Discouraged, I tried the patio outside the Toyon computer cluster. This was about 7' high, something that Addison and I had done numerous times without problem. I figured that it could restore confidence in my climbing abilities.

We we both completely successful in scaling the thing, but we had to get back down from the place so that we could continue our adventure. So we kind of hung onto the top of the wall, and let ourselves fall the ~3' to the ground. Fortunately, this was a very quick and efficient way to get back to the ground. Unfortunately, there was a large hole underneath me, which my ankle managed to land in, and get twisted rather unnaturally.

So that's why I'm limping a lot, and sometimes using crutches.

Also, I drove three drunk, high kids to the local Jack in the Box, about 2 hours ago. Jack in the Box is a popular place for stoners late at night, because its drive-through is "open late, and [the employees] won't ask why you're hungry." One of the kids, "Justin," approached me when I was in the laundry room, folding my stuff. Originally, there were 9 people who wanted to go, but obviously I couldn't take 9 passengers in Justin's car. So I took 3 of them instead. This was made more interesting by the fact that a package of pudding had been left in Justin's passenger seat for probably several weeks and had gone rancid.

When I arrived, I saw a group of about 5 other Stanford stoners standing around, on foot, in the parking lot. The stoner commercial might have been controversial, but JB's stereotype is rooted in hard fact colder than the smoke from the coldest bong. Apparently, they were diddling around because they didn't think they could go through the drive-through on foot. So they hired a cab to drive them through.

I suspect that the workers at JB make a hobby out of fucking with their (mostly stoned) late night customers. They made at least 4 mistakes in Justin's order (omitting his fries, omitting his milkshake, omitting one of his sandwiches, and replacing his cinnamon roll with an egg roll).

At least I got a free milkshake out of it.

What's in a name?

2008-07-10T00:42:00.000-07:00

Apparently the Jaguar car company (along with fellow British luxury car manufacturer Land Rover) is now owned by an Indian company called Tata Motors. Not Ford anymore. They sold it about a month and a half ago. India is a beast. It makes me want to invest in the Indian stock market. It might be a good time*, as the Indian stock index, the Sensex, is down something like 35% from its high.

That's a funny name for an index. Apparently, some employers in India have Internet filters that block pages with the word "Sensex." Maybe they don't want their employees having Sensex all the time, or looking up graphics of Sensex, or talking about their Sensex experiences online, or exchanging money for Sensex-related things, or looking up tips on Sensex techniques. I bet someone feels silly about coming up with a name that ends with "sex." Or maybe some prankster, the Jim Halpert of the BSE chose it. I can imagine a conversation like this:

"It's great that we have an index. But it has to have a name!"
"Hmm... Maybe S&P 501? Or the Dow-Patel Industrial Index?"
"Nah, they'll sue us for that. We need something more orginal. 'How about Sensex?'"
"Great idea! The 'Sens' part could stand for 'sensitive,' or something like that, whatever that means. And the name doesn't have any nasty connotations, or naughty words embedded in it."

I think "Sensex," or perhaps "SenSEX," would be a good name for a brand of condoms. The "sens" part of the name already stands for "sensitive," and it could represent the sensitivity and pleasure that it would afford both partners. The rest of the name would clearly state the application of the product. That's important, too. There might be some people who don't know what the prophylactics are for. I sure didn't, when I saw an empty package by the side of the road for the first time in fourth grade. It had all sorts of vague wording like "protection" and "ultra sensitive." It was very awkward to ask my parents about them two years later. But if I had found a box of SenSEX condoms, I would have unambiguously known (har har) that they were for, umm, yeah.

*Disclaimer: Don't take any financial thing I say seriously.

Monetary Policy

2008-07-07T13:24:00.000-07:00

Zimbabwe has been showing up a lot in the news lately. Mostly, it has been news about the botched presidential election, in which the opposition candidate (Tsvangirai) pulled out after the incumbent made some rather hostile comments about how the bullet was more powerful than the pen used to mark the ballot.

But besides shacks capable of housing 75 registered voters and angry old men (...and one of the world's highest HIV rates... and a land reform fiasco...), Zimbabwe is also known for being the only country in the world suffering from hyperinflation. Specifically, the inflation rate is on the order of 10,000,000% per annum (and increasing quite rapidly). If you take the log base 2 of that, prices double 17 times per year, or once every 20 days or so. Perhaps counterintuitively, the Zimbabwean stock market has yielded some rather spectacular returns, even when adjusted for inflation.

Hyperinflation happens when a government prints a lot of money to pay for stuff. If it prints too much money, prices go up, so it has to print even more money to adjust for the higher prices. It's a positive feedback loop, and pretty soon you start seeing $5 billion notes floating around.

And that's exactly what I found on eBay this morning:

Apparently 14 people managed to bid a Z $5,000,000,000 note up to £46, or over US $90. Of course, on the black market, one portrait of Washington will get you 66 billion Zim dollars. So some loser spent $90 on seven cents worth of currency.

Does anyone see an opportunity for the Zimbabwean government? Instead of printing money and using it to buy hard currency directly, they could sell the banknotes to collectors on eBay for a 100,000% premium. That is, of course, if they could get people to sell them the paper.