Smart Voting Website

Last Tuesday, I voted in the midterm elections. I did it by filling out an absentee ballot in front of a computer at the library. I thought many of my votes were well informed, but frankly, my votes for the less prominent positions were not very well informed at all (I briefly consulted a few web pages), and for some votes I didn't feel informed enough to make any decision at all. This state of affairs is just unacceptable for this country in this age.

Today I got an idea from this post by Scott Adams. Scott says he doesn't vote because he doesn't know enough to make an informed decision. In the future, he thinks there will be a website where people can go to get informed to a sufficient degree, and when that time comes, he looks forward to voting.

I would like to develop a website with a very specific goal. For each election ballot item, there should be a single dynamic page that gives people the info they need to make a decision. It should allow people to quickly pinpoint the differences between the candidates that are relevant to their values. I don't know what that will look like yet, and I will appreciate any ideas other people suggest.

The site should be informative, smart, and unbiased the same way that Wikipedia is -- by fairly presenting input from lots of users. Maybe each voter can enter what their values are, and then the page will be modified to point out differences in stances that similar voters thought were important. One idea for ballot proposition issues is to have polls whose results are weighted by voters' scores on a short knowledge test (basic facts about the propositions).

By the way, I made my first web application last year -- a proof of concept for a new type of social networking site. A demo of RelationCraft is currently online. But I hope my politics site, or a future idea, will be a more practical candidate for wide release.

AIM Profile Dump

I didn't want to make this blog into a link blog, but I come across a lot of interesting stuff on the web, and I usually just post it to my AIM profile. So my AIM profile is becoming a link blog with no archive. Here is today's AIM profile dump.

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Grey's Anatomy is a great show. It had to be said.

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"Don't inter-fucking-rupt!"
Expletive infixation

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"By making misogynistic, racist statements in the friendliest way and asking people to high-five over them, [Borat] gets folks to say things they wouldn't if they knew the film was going to be shown in their own country." --Borat Makes Funny Joke On Idiot Americans

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"They all laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. They're not laughing now." --Bob Monkhouse

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Great pickup lines from Weird Al:
You must have fallen from heaven -- that would explain how you messed up your face.
Girl, you'd look like the Venus de Milo if I just cut off your arms.

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HOST: I'm curious, have you ever Googled anybody? Do you use Google?
BUSH: Occasionally. One of the things I've used on the Google is to pull up maps.
Bush Says He Uses The Google

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"If you came from the future, wouldn't you do exactly what Bill Gates did???"

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"The criterion by which we cherry-pick morals from the bible is available to all of us -- religious or not." --Richard Dawkins

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Hey baby,
If I were an endoplasmic reticulum, how would you want me?
Smooth... or ROUGH??

"I wish I were your problem set, because then I'd be really hard and you'd be doing me on the desk."

While arresting a speeding driver, a police man asked this question: "Do you know how fast you were going?!"
The driver replied, "No, because I knew exactly where I was."

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Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain -- and most fools do. --Benjamin Franklin

Me and Richard Dawkins

In the background signing books is renowned scientist Richard Dawkins (I'm in the center foreground). I think Richard Dawkins constitutes the perfect specimen of an intellectual, because he:

1. is brilliant
2. is a gentleman
3. has a great sense of humor
4. has a really crisp British accent

I really admire the guy.

Anchoring

A fascinating psychological phenomenon: Anchoring.

Base

My computer in my dorm is my base. Whenever I'm in my room without having decided exactly what to do next, I get in my computer and see what's up -- email, AIM, Facebook, reddit.com, my Google RSS feed aggregator, and my bittorrent downloads. Even though I'm on the computer more than average, I know most of the people I know have this "base" relationship with their computers.

What I'm wondering is, did people had an analogous base state in their homes before computers became ubiquitous? I guess in the last century it was in front of the TV. Before that, in front of the radio? In the easy chair with a newspaper? At the desk with a pen and paper?

I guess without an incredibly entertaining way to idle, people kind of had to move from one task to another. The "base" thing may be an unprecedented transformation of the American lifestyle.

Queerer Than We Suppose

Here is a video of a brilliant talk by Richard Dawkins entitled "Queerer Than We Suppose: The Strangeness of Science". Very good stuff.

Human Pheromones

I remember my introductory biology textbook said that the existence of human pheromones was still basically a mystery. Now researchers at Penn State claim that fathers emit pheremones that hold off their daughters' sexual maturity!

Read the article - it's pretty fascinating.

Atheism and Morality Revisited

I wrote some quick thoughts on this once, but here's a post that really nails it.

Piano

I've been playing piano for two years. I don't take lessons, I just practice harder and harder pieces, and I'm reading some of the theory as well. I practice regularly and quite a lot. I've consistently put in four hours a week, so by now I've had over 400 hours of practice.



The main thoughts I have about playing piano are:

• It's fun to play good music. I don't know why I can't get the same enjoyment from a good recording that I can from playing it. It seems a little irrational.
• It's really fun, and I have no trouble practicing consistently. I don't exercise nearly as regularly as I'd want to, or even read music theory that much, but I practice plenty. It's cool to have a random skill that's constantly developing like that.
• A lot of the best music I've heard is still too hard for me. Here are some targets I am shooting for in the next few years:
  • Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue (an advanced piano adaption)
  • Beethoven - Eroica Symphony, 1st movement (piano adaption by Liszt)
  • Chopin - Scherzo in Bb Minor
  • Chopin - Impromptu Fantasie
  • Bach - Well Tempered Clavier Book 2, Prelude #6

Incidentally, I am moving out of my apartment tomorrow, moving out of the bay area on Sept 10, and going back to UCI on Sept 20.

Bush is a Moron

During the 2004 election season, there was this idea that President Bush isn't as dumb as his words, actions and policies. It seemed plausible that Bush's image as an imbecile might be a misleading one.

Today I saw two pieces of evidence that helped me to finally make up my mind:
What a Moronic Presidential Press Conference! (Slate)
Your President, the Visionary Genius (Huffington Post)

I am forced to believe that the man is clearly too stupid to be the president. He is simply unqualified and incompetent. It really is that simple.

Biological Tape Recorder

This bird is an almost perfect biological tape recorder. Amazing.

God Is Imaginary

I must post this link to a new spinoff website by Marshall Brain: God Is Imaginary.

Atheism and Morality

I would like to resolve the seemingly paradoxical phenomenon that atheists are often the most moral people you'll ever meet.

I am an atheist, but I have moral ideals for how society should function. The one I consider most fundamental is the assumption that the same moral ideals should apply to all humans.

Since I want society to function well, I make an effort to embody the same ideals I expect in others. I don't believe there is a "higher" meaning to life, I think we humans create our own. Improving society is a pursuit that I find worthwhile to pursue on this earth, and as a result I feel good about myself when I do my part by being a good person.

One interesting thing to consider is that it's always the religious people who accuse the atheists of not having real morals. But the reality is, when an atheist like me decides to act morally, it is out of pure idealism. When a religious person acts morally, they expect to get a reward from it -- heaven, karma, a better relationship with God, whatever.

So, it is really the atheists who have the upper hand on the morality issue!

Loose grip on reality

If you are not a scientist and you completely disagree with a fundamental theory of modern science, chances are you have what I call a loose grip on reality. I think the epitome of a modern loose-gripper is the young-earth creationist. Let's compare him with his historical analogue.

Yes, it's scary how many parallels you can draw between today's young-earth creationists, and the geocentric nuts of the 1600s. Consider:

1. How do you know the earth revolves around the sun, and not vice versa?


2. How do you know the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and not 6,000?

Which question do you think you can answer better? My guess is that most young-earth creationists have no idea how we know the earth revolves around the sun. And yet, everyone accepts this as fact. Why? Probably because their church gave up on fighting it!

Of course the earth's place in the universe is central to modern astronomy, so to speak. But then again, the earth's age is fundamental to modern geology, paleontology, molecular biology, dendrochronology, genomics, physical anthropology, astronomy, physics and archaeology, amongst other sciences. And that is why I think young-earth creationists have a loose grip on reality.

Visual Basic Self-Replicator

I am reading Introduction to the Theory of Computation. In the chapter about advanced topics in computability theory, it mentioned a technique for building a self-replicating Turing machine (a Turing machine that writes its own description on its tape). I have implemented this basic technique to write a self-replicating program using Visual Basic 6 (a program that outputs its own code). [In the form designer, create one TextBox called Text1 and set its Multiline property to True.]

Private Sub Form_Load(): Text1.Text = "Private Sub X(): Text1.Text = ""Private Sub Form_Load(): Text1.Text = """""" + Replace(Text1.Text, """""""", """""""""""") + """""": X: End Sub"" + vbCrLf + vbCrLf + Text1.Text: End Sub": X: End Sub

Private Sub X(): Text1.Text = "Private Sub Form_Load(): Text1.Text = """ + Replace(Text1.Text, """", """""") + """: X: End Sub" + vbCrLf + vbCrLf + Text1.Text: End Sub

Here is a rough overview of how it works. X() is just a subroutine to take the contents of Text1, and output the code for a Form_Load function that would write those contents to Text1, followed by a blank line, followed by the previous contents of Text1. Form_Load() is the block that executes first. It simply transcribes the code of X() into Text1, then calls X(). I have a hard time keeping this all in my head at once.

This took me an hour to write, and had many more complications than I expected. It was difficult to accurately reproduce the double-quote character (") as it is used in the code. The syntax for escaping the double-quote in a string literal is to write two consecutive double quotes (""). Notice that at one point, I have written twelve consecutive double-quote characters. That was probably the highlight.

Whistling

Here is another dorm observation: a lot of people in my dorm whistle a lot. They whistle loudly and for a long time. But there is no tune! They are whistling musical gibberish. And it's pretty annoying. What the hell?

Quadratic Formula

ax^2 + bx + c = 0
Solve for x.

Obviously, x is equal to the quadratic formula. Can you derive it? Hint: the most important technique is completing the square.

The quadratic formula is fundamental for even the most basic algebra, and it only takes five or ten steps to derive. I think it should be on any high school algebra final exam.

Hair Dryers

I hate hair dryers so much! They make a terribly loud and annoying noise for about two minutes straight, and piss off dorm-mates like me. The point of all that is drying your hair? Are you kidding me? You can dry your hair with a towel. It's fine, really. Why do these things sell? A hair dryer is basically a rube goldberg for drying your hair.

Some asshole in my hall has been drying his or her hair since before I started writing this post. Fucking unbelievable.

Learning can be fun

Look at these fascinating facts about the 1500s.

Two ears and one mouth

"Listening is more important than talking. That is why God has given us two ears and only one mouth."

So what's the alternative, one ear and two mouths? It makes sense that two ears were naturally selected because they allow our brain to triangulate the location of a sound source. There is no significant advantage a second mouth would offer that would compensate for the complexity of maintaining it.

I don't think it should be socially acceptable to spout those stupid cliches about how your anatomy supposedly corresponds to God's will. What kind of a sick joke would that be?

Argument from Design

Does anyone else think it's ridiculous that creationists are still using the argument from design? I believe the person who first invalidated that argument was... Charles Darwin!

I'm guessing the conversation must have gone something like this:

Creationist: Look at all this complex life around us. It was clearly designed by an intelligent designer. There is simply no other conceivable way!
Darwin: Actually, I've thought of one, because I am brilliant. I submit that complexity can emerge from the passive process of random mutation and natural selection, given sufficient time.
Creationist: Uh huh, I see... interesting.
Creationist: Soooooooooo, how do you explain the fact that the organisms we see around us are so complex that they could only have come about as the result of an intelligent designer's design?

How can anyone claim that the central argument of ID is a modern development in science!?

Reading off a Screen

I have to read some tedious stuff for Humanities class, both online and off, and I noticed something odd: it's a lot easier for me to read (boring) text from the web than from a physical book. I read so much online, that I'm used to the physical experience of sitting in that position. It's harder for me to stay comfortable and focused reading a book. Case in point: I stopped to write this blog post.

Also, I like scrolling the page up with the mouse more than turning pages. It's all part of my assimilation into the 21st century.

Pretty Famous

Right now I am the thirteenth most popular Liron on the internet. This blog comes up thirteenth when you search for the string on Google. Not bad, eh?

And I am pleased to say that I am the most popular Liron Shapira on the net. That guy from the "Department o Biology" put up a good fight, but I just wanted it more.

How to Invalidate a Christian's Prayers

Anyone with common sense knows that prayer doesn't actually work in any meaningful way. Here is a good experiment from Why Does God Hate Amputees by Marshall Brain:

Now I want you to try the [coin-flipping] experiment again, but this time I want you to pray to Jesus Christ instead of Ra. Pray sincerely to Jesus like this:

"Dear Jesus, I know that you exist and I know that you hear and answer prayers as you promise in the Bible. I am going to flip this ordinary coin 50 times, and I am asking you to cause it to land heads-side-up all 50 times. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen."

Now flip the coin. Once again, after the fifth or sixth flip, the coin will land tails.

Of course this example has a common justification, which is that we are testing the lord. So here is a mean trick you can use to screw over any Christian who thinks their normal prayers get answered, but not their "test prayers".

Invalidate a Christian's Prayer's
All you have to do is periodically ask them what they are praying for, and follow up by asking whether it works. You are doing this for the purpose of comparing their results with the normal statistics about these kinds of things. Now all their normal prayers are test prayers!

The whole "testing the lord" line reminds me of when you're playing a game of Horse and you miss a basket, so you call it a practice shot. But if you sink a nice shot, you sure as hell are not going to give up the credit for that sucker on a technicality. A Christian who defends prayer is just like a cheap Horse player, clinging tightly to anecdotes about effective prayers, while shrugging off any meaningful studies of the phenomenon.

If you are a good Christian who believes in prayer, I bet you'd still feel a little uncomfortable openly praying for God to strike you dead. But what's the biggie? It's obviously a test, so he won't do anything, right? I would certainly have no problem shouting any self-destructive prayer you like, because I have real confidence in my knowledge that they are useless.

The truth is that people who believe prayer works don't know the conditions under which it does. It's easy to make up rationalizations for individual incidents after they happen, but that's exactly what they are -- rationalizations. Do your Christian acquaintances a favor and invalidate their prayers with this handy technique so they stop wasting time on them.

Paper is Ridiculous

Today in Humanities class I wrote an in-class essay. I was thinking how ridiculous it is to compose essays on paper. The main problem with paper is:

It's hard to go back and edit.

No one naturally writes in one long, organized flow. I think usually the best way to write something is to quickly belt out a first draft, then revise it afterward. It's also useful to be able to make little changes along the way -- it puts you at ease, since you don't have to hesitate and make sure you are getting everything right the first time.

On a computer, revising is the easiest thing in the world. It is as easy as typing. Did you know that if you hold down the control key and then press backspace, delete, or an arrow key, it lets you operate on an entire word of text in one keystroke? Over the course of writing this blog post, I have watched myself take a false start and then instantly backtrack on almost every sentence. That's actually my strategy -- I put down my first idea of how to start the sentence, see how it looks, then go from there.

This computer's powerful editing interface has been around for decades. Why do professors think that paper is still useful as a medium for composing essays in class?

Postal Experiments

Postal Experiments
The idea of trying to mail a brick is utterly hilarious.

The Town Intellectual

This is an interesting blog post: Dumb towns getting dumber; smart towns getting smarter?

These costs [of moving] discouraged enough folks from moving that every town had its intellectuals. They dreamed of moving to Manhattan, but they never did. You'd find them at the library, in the local theater company, running a Great Books club, etc.

One question to ask is, why do the dumber people congregate into towns? I think it's because smarter people get more added value from being around other smart people, so they take the initiative to move, while the rest are left behind to form dumber towns.

Conversations with God

The new book in the "Conversations with God" series just came out. It's called Home with God : In a Life that Never Ends. I don't know whether this is common knowledge, so I'll just put it out there:

"Conversations with God" is a hoax!

The books read like a dialogue with God. Here is some witty banter between author Neale Donald Walsch, and God:

God: How deep do you wish to go in your higher understandings? Should you choose to continue with this conversation, I will present you with 100 more words -- a 100 Word Formula for All of Life.

NDW: Well, there's a tease.

God: That's exactly what it was meant to be.

NDW: And it worked. I'm not about to cut the conversation short now. So here I am having a conversation with God about living and dying. Again.

God: Yes, but looking at many things that we have never discussed before.

NDW: Who would believe this . . .

God: It doesn't matter. You're not having the conversation for anyone else, you're having it for yourself.

NDW: I have to keep reminding myself of that.

God: So often people see themselves as doing something for someone else when they're really doing it for themselves.
Everybody is doing everything for themselves. When you awaken to this awareness, you will have reached Breakthrough. And when you understand that this is true even about dying, you will never fear dying again. And when you no longer fear dying, you will no longer fear living. You will live your life fully, right up until the very last moment.

NDW: Hold it. Wait a minute. You're saying that when I'm dying, I am doing it for myself?

God: Of course. Who else would you be doing it for?

Unbelievable. I like how the author pretends like he is outside the system, like when he says to God, "So here I am having a conversation with God about living and dying. Again. ... Who would believe this". No one in their right mind would believe this! And God replies that it doesn't matter. But contrary to God, it does matter, because this is currently the #1 selling book on Amazon.com.

I am really disappointed that so many people are into this series. Here are some choice quotes I've seen from a few people who aren't (with my emphasis):

Maddox:

My book is currently ranked #2 on the best seller's list on Amazon.com, push that son of a bitch to #1! I'm currently being beat by a book called "Home with God." Are you shitting me? Pre-order my book for $9.57 now.

Nick Hriciga (Amazon.com reviewer):

To say I expected much from this book would be a lie; I cannot expect much thought in a book so inherently devout in topic. I did, however, expect more than some self-riotous sack conversing with god and assuring me of a heaven. We don't need these books. All they succeeds in doing is agreeing with the bible in every way possible. Way to use faith to blind your consumers. Neale Walsch is a manipulative hack, go out of your way to avoid this garbage.

"Person" (Amazon.com reviewer):

How can you copyright words from God, have all rights reserved for it, and require permission to show it elsewhere?

And here is one ecstatic Amazon review by "Barbara Rose, Ph.D" that is so downright nutty I originally thought it was sarcastic:

It is my deepest belief that anyone who has ever been afraid to die will receive great relief after reading this book.

There is the most love filled tone throughout, of course that unconditionally loving tone and feel comes from GOD.

There is so much reassurance, beauty and truth. Can we "prove" any of this information? Not with scientific data, however, we CAN ask anyone who HAS "died", went to the other side, and came back.

. . .

Thank you, Neale, for your extraordinary contribution to humanity!
This book deserves at minimum 10 stars!

I think the elephant in the room is that you can't have a conversation with God when there is no god. So look at this crap the God character is spouting to get around the dilemma:

God: It is impossible to live or to die without God, but it is not impossible to think that you are.

If you think that you are living or dying without God, you will experience that you are.

You may have this experience as long as you wish. You may end this experience whenever you choose.

OK, God, if that is your real name. I choose to end the experience... NOW. [I pause from typing, waiting for the experience of living without God to end.]

Nope, the experience is still going on. This experience is called sanity, and for most people it is not as simple to end as making a choice. But a lot of people have the handicap of a lifelong indoctrination that began in childhood. And as one reviewer pointed out, Mr. Walsch is taking advantage of their faith to sell bullshit books.

Blogroll

I haven't posted much recently, mostly because my thoughts aren't very original. In a typical day, how many of your thoughts are worth sharing with strangers online?

So today here is a link to my blogroll, the stuff I like to read online. You can visit these sites while you wait for new content on Logic and Reason.

Zug - Funny articles. I like John Hargrave's sense of humor.

Marshall Brain's Blog - My favorite author's blog

Dilbert Blog - Scott Adams' blog. Unique take on life.

Critical Section - Ole Eichorn's blog. Interesting in general.

Homestar Runner - A funny website. HomestarRunner is classic.

IWillTeachYouToBeRich - Learning how to be rich.

Maddox's site - He's funny too.

Reddit - A site that aggregates the top coolest things to read online each day. A lot of posts I make on this blog are inspired by articles I read on Reddit.

By the way, I am currently on Spring break, working on RelationCraft and reading Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Wow, look at those awesome reviews for DDI. How can I not read it?

Laughing at them, not with them

Japanese TV is ridiculous.

Marriage is Unnatural

This Economist article explains that women have a natural tendency to enter into a long-term relationship with a "reliable" man, and then cheat on him with a "dominant" man during the part of the menstrual cycle when she is ovulating.

Funny

This recording by John Hargrave of Zug.com is hilarious.

RelationCraft

I haven't blogged for a week because I've been working hard on RelationCraft, my website.

RelationCraft is a new type of social networking site for college students that is focused on relationships. The name can mean that you go on the site to craft your relationships, and it is also a bit of a pun (RelationCraft instead of Relationship -- a ship is a type of craft).

Here is a timeline of the site's progress:

October-November: Brainstorming. The general idea occurred to me in October, and for a month and a half I was compiling a big Word document of ideas.

December: Designing. I consolidated the brainstorm down to a list of ideas to implement in the initial release of the site, then I filled up about a dozen sheets of paper with sketches of the site layout.

January: Learning. I started off with a good general knowledge about HTML and HTTP, but I had never done any web programming before. I decided to use ASP.NET for the site because I already have experience with Microsoft .NET and I think it is an awesome development environment. The IDE of Visual Studio 2005 is the smartest in human history.

     The experience was frustrating at first. It is a fascinating paradigm shift to be using the same kind of high-level programming language for a web application as for a Windows application. But because this web application is so complex, there were a lot of minor details about the way ASP.NET works that I had to get used to. I wasted many hours on relatively trivial problems because I only had one friend who knew more about this than I did.

February: Programming. After a slow start, I finally got the hang of ASP.NET, and I was amazed that some of the more complex implementation ideas I was dreaming of (asynchronous server interaction through HTML frames) were realistic. ASP.NET is a truly powerful rapid development solution. So I registered the domain name RelationCraft.com and signed up for hosting with GoDaddy. (Unfortunately, because the site is for college students only, it enforces the registration requirement that you must have an email address from an approved college. I'll post information about demoing the site in the future.)

March: Well, I'm still programming, but I am a few days away from having a polished demo site with a few initial features. I realize I haven't actually described any innovative ideas from the site yet, and I don't really feel like typing them up right now, so just check out some preliminary screenshots.

Not Reading Books

Remember when I posted that Marshall Brain is my favorite author? So I realized I've never read a single Marshall Brain work on paper. I've probably read the equivalent of over a thousand book pages, all online.

I haven't read an actual book for leisure in a while. I went to the library the other day and got one. I'll post when I read it.

It's Just in Your Mind

Technically this funny page is safe for work, but it's certainly awkward. It's just in your mind.

Too Lazy to Help Darfur

Man, can you believe in Darfur there is an actual genocide? This is Holocaust-grade stuff.

Click here.

So far I haven't done anything to help out. Have you? Probably not. We haven't been acting very morally, you and I. Those kids who are suffering are human beings just like us. I think it really is the duty of the American people to get the government to take action.

Here is one thing I could do to help people in Darfur that I am probably not going to do:

1. Get a random job on campus for two weeks and donate all the money I earn toward helping humanitarian organizations defend their aid delivery lines against Janjaweed ambush.

There should be something that people like me can do in a matter of minutes, because otherwise we won't do anything at all, and a few minutes is better than nothing, especially if a lot of people do it.

Freakonomics Fruit

I read Freakonomics last year. It's a good book. This is what the cover looks like:


I always thought fruit on the cover must be pretty tasty. It has all the delicious sour juiciness of an orange in a Granny Smith apple's skin. Yes, it looked so tasty I thought I'd eat one myself:


To hell with genetic engineering. This is the kind of hybrid cross I want to see at the grocery store.

Ordinary Video in 3D

Normally when you watch a video, you perceive the flatness of the screen because your brain compares the image it sees from each eye and realizes that the objects on the screen are not solid. But try this:

1. Position yourself so that the video screen fills most of your field of vision and watch a segment where the camera angle is moving around.
   
2. Close one eye.

The illusion is very convincing because you eliminate almost all the cues that your eye is looking at a flat surface. Note that following these procedures will also make you one-eye high.

Inspirational

You know how over a billion people don't have electricity or even clean water? Obviously this is not an easy problem to solve because it takes a lot of engineering infrastructure, and the political infrastructure doesn't exist to make that possible.

But this article makes it sound like Dean Kamen, the Segway guy, might really revolutionize things. From the article:

Instead of putting up a 500-megawatt power plant in a developing country, he argues, it would be much better to place 500,000 one-kilowatt power plants in villages all over the place, because then you would create 500,000 entrepreneurs.

Good stuff. It's an inspiration to Mr. Kamen turn his entrepeneurial efforts toward making the world a better place.

Super Saver Shipping

When you go to Amazon.com and make a purchase that totals $25 or more, you get free shipping. This is a pretty brilliant scheme. I know that whenever I shop on Amazon, I always feel like I'm missing out on savings if I buy something under $25.

But another, more subtle aspect is that Amazon sell a bunch of stuff for just a few bucks under $25. So since shipping normally costs almost $6, you're going to want to get your order up to $25. But then all the products that sell for only a few bucks don't qualify for Super Saver Shipping! So it's an incentive to spend significantly more than you otherwise would.

Recently I had an order that came to $23.99. So I searched for a while around Amazon for the cheapest item that qualified for Super Saver Shipping. I finally found it: FastCap Glu-Bot Yorker Tips, 5 pack. They had it marked down from $1.50 to $0.99, so I actually had to buy two. But with the savings on shipping, it was still a logical decision.

Think about what a ridiculous effect of consumerism it is that I'm receiving two packages of Glu-Bot Yorker Tips, whatever the hell those are, because I took advantage of the system. Not only that, but Amazon has actually ended up putting these in a separate shipment! A carrier service is being paid to carry a package with two sets of five useless Glu-widgets to my address, a package which I will promptly throw away without opening. Instead of me paying Amazon for one shipment, Amazon is eating the cost of two shipments. And there is also the environmental cost of all the steps in the process of getting a useless product from the factory to my trash can.

So having discovered Glu-Bot Yorker Tips, it changes the game of shopping for small orders on Amazon.com. Now you can expect to grab at least a little overall discount if your main order is as low as $20.

Fractals

Fractals are images that have repeating elements at any scale -- their resolution is infinite. I had an assignment in CS class to make a computer program to generate a fractal by looping through each pixel and determining the color. Here is one of the fractals my program created:


The program renders grayscale pixels whose brightness is determined by a series of mathematical operations. It works like this:

1. Each pixel represents a number in the complex plane. The real component ranges from -1 to 1, and the imaginary component ranges from -i to i. The center of the image is the origin, which represents 0 + 0i, or just 0.
   


2. The program is given the function F(z) = z^4 - 1. The roots of this function are 1, -1, i, and -i, but the program doesn't know this. For each pixel, the program uses Newton's method to calculate one of the roots of the function given an initial guess z0 that corresponds to the pixel's location in the complex plane.
   


3. Newton's method figures out roots of a function by generating a series of guesses, each one dependent on the last, and usually the guesses tend toward one of the function's roots. The program is satisfied that Newton's method has found a root of F(z) when the function of the k'th guess, F(zk), is between -0.00001 and 0.00001.
   


4. The program then looks at the value of k -- the amount of successive guesses it took Newton's method to arrive at one of the function's four roots. The fewer guesses it took, the brighter it renders the current pixel. Thus, a pixel's brightness measures efficiency with which Newton's method finds a root of F with the starting guess being at that pixel's location.
   


5. But if a pixel is located near to one of the four roots, it should be easier for Newton's method to refine a guess starting from that pixel's location. So each pixel is multiplied by a constant that darkens it in proportion to how close it is to any one of the four corners. Notice the dark spots in each of the four compass directions -- those are the locations of the roots.

Now assuming you roughly understand the process by which this fractal was generated, imagine trying to visualize the image in your head without having seen the computer generated image. You couldn't. So as a result, you wouldn't be able to get some insights about, for example, the efficiency of Newton's method at various locations.

Aren't fractals and computers great?

Double Clicks

A lot of inexperienced computer users can't tell when to single click and when to double click, so they just develop a habit of double clicking on everything. Microsoft has compensated for this in many areas of the UI. For example, double clicking on the Start button or any taskbar button only toggles its state once (except in the classic UI).

I was testing my new website (more on that later this week), and I discovered that IE also compensates for double clicks on web form buttons. It only executes the button's JavaScript code as if it were clicked once, even though it graphically shows the button being depressed twice. This may also be to prevent things like double form submits.

Atheist Catchphrase

Tell me your definition of God, and I'll tell you whether it's wrong or meaningless.

Not supporting the troops

Joel Stein writes in an LA Times column, I don't support our troops. Makes sense. Check it out.

Time Experiment

My time survey suggests that most people keep really close tabs on the time. I probably check it dozens of times each day. So I was thinking:

What would it be like to go an entire day without checking the time?

Don't set your alarm clock, wake up whenever you wake up, and go the whole day without looking at a timekeeping device. I think you should be able to look outside, because otherwise it just becomes unrealistic. But what would such a day be like?

If you're like most people, you probably can't make it a school or work day. Precise reminders of the time would be unavoidable. But it would be interesting to try to live like that on a Saturday.

Also, when would you go to sleep? Maybe it would be a lot earlier or later than normal. I will attempt the experiment on this upcoming weekend and post the results, so don't leave your computer.

Time Survey

Do not look at a clock until you answer this question:
What time is it? Try to guess it down to the minute.

Check your answer. How far off were you? It's extremely rare to be off by two hours or more. No doubt the vast majority of American adults can pinpoint it to within an hour.

What do you suppose is the median amount of minutes by which people are off? My guess is 5 to 10 minutes.

I conducted an informal survey by IMing the 19 people from my AIM buddy list who were at their computers during the interval of 9:50pm - 10:05pm PST (mostly teenagers). Here are their responses (number of minutes after (+) or before (-) the actual time when they responded), as well as comments they subsequently IMed.

Response:	Comments:
-5	lol
-1	well i saw it was 9:59 a when i came back to the computer [6 minutes ago]
-1	i just knew cuz 24 just ended
-2	my nigga
+1	shit, it's 9:52
+6
-6
+2	10 minutes earlier i was looking at my watch.
0	lol i looked at a clock a few mins ago, just woke up from a nap
-1	dude, i actually did it for real, i didnt look
0	i looked moments before reading your message because i have to get my laundry
-7
-3	close
0	holy shit, I swear I didn't look at a clock. i just remember it was around 9:47 a few [9] minutes ago when I called someone
+15	so what are u trying figure out
+2
0	i was right
-25	oops. oh well.
Liron wtf

Absolute deviation from the actual time:
Mean: 4.3 minutes
Median: 2 minutes

Wow, so the average teenager at their computer is going to be off by just a couple minutes -- somewhat more accurate than I expected. Maybe a bit too accurate... see the time experiment.

Signed deviation from the actual time:
Mean: -1.4 minutes
Median: -0.5 minutes

The signed deviation from the actual time is different from the statistic I set out to get -- it detects whether the entire population has a tendency to guess the time early or late. The numbers I got have no statistical significance, but it would be interesting to take a sample of thousands of responses nationwide and compare them to standard time to see if the nation is running early or late at all.

Friendly Close

Pasting in parts of AIM conversations, or "AIM-blogging", should be a whole new genre of blogging. Here is an AIM-blog entry about AIM.

Cute Overload

Wouldn't the web suck without all the great random sites like Cute Overload?

Religion Clash

I just got back from dinner, where I had a long exchange with a very devout Christian student (takes the bible quite literally, doesn't believe in "macroevolution", etc) from my hall.

I've been in college for a few months and I still haven't gotten tired of having heated discussions with my many religious hallmates. I thought this one ended in a rather poetic way:

Me: Look at me. I never pray, never acknowledge god, and openly disrespect the concept. I don't feel any god in my heart. And yet I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I'm satisfied with my life. So what am I missing out on?

Him: You're missing the experience of living for God. It's an essential part of life.

Me: Alright. But I think you're missing out on the truth.

Him: I think you're missing out on the truth.

Exeunt.

Estimating

This post about estimating by Ole Eichorn is great. He says that if someone is refusing to make any estimate about something, you can get the information out of him by guiding him through a binary search. I've used it a few times and it's neat. Even an order of magnitude ballpark figure is better than "I don't know".

Dude, Crazy

Is anyone reading this?

Hey Logic and Reason readership, I notice you are all pretty much silent when it comes to posting comments, and/or you don't exist. Come on, a blog is an open dialogue... except you can't speak until you're spoken to.

Diamonds

If I ever bought a diamond, I would have to kick my own ass. It's as simple as that.

Here is the main reason:

1. You've Been Psychologically Conditioned To Want a Diamond
The diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.

And here are nine more.

Seriously, it is shameful to give or receive a diamond.

Money Management and Hate

Ramit Sethi is smart and funny.

He has a great money management site: http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com

And a hilarious list of things he hates: http://www.bittershirts.com/thingsihate

The money management site is neat, offering tips such as

Keep records [of phone conversations] and watch all [Sprint's] BS evaporate next time they try to hustle you.

And ThingsIHate is an unbelievably long list of witty complaints like

Anybody whose voice mail message on their phone is long and detailed, saying "Please leave your name, number, and the time you called." THIS IS 2005. PEOPLE UNDERSTAND HOW TO USE VOICE MAIL. That would be like me instructing people how to use the doorknob when they get to my house.

It's good stuff.

I can see your phone calls

With all the media attention being given to the executive branch's privacy breaches, I only just learned of this shocking fact:

Anyone can buy a list of your incoming and outgoing phone calls, cell or land-line, for $110 online.

Even though Congress has overlooked this for six months, I'm guessing this service will not be available forever because it is ridiculous.

Spy on your friends while you still can at http://www.locatecell.com.

Apple Keynotes

In last month's post about Microsoft vs. Apple, I mentioned that Steve Jobs was giving a masterful PowerPoint presentation. It turns out I didn't know the half of it.

I always thought Steve Jobs' keynotes were especially fun to watch. They feel simple and passionate, like watching one of Apple's characteristic television commercials. But the preparation process is incredibly elaborate. The Guardian article Behind the magic curtain talks about all the perfectionism that goes into crafting one of those seemingly simple speeches.

See Steve Jobs in action -- watch his most recent presentation, introducing the iPod video, here.

Turtle Flip Phone

This one made me laugh out loud. I just wish the beginning of the animation showed the normal turtle wiggling around for a while before revealing the flip phone functionality.

Still, it is funny as hell. Look how your view of the turtle's head is blocked by the display, but then the phone boots up and uses an image of it as wallpaper. Then after a while the backlight turns off. Brilliant.

Via fark.com's Photoshop contest section.