Blogging about blog
Everybody seems to be into blogging these days that it practically lost its novelty already. Here's something to note for my American blogging friends. For the rest of us, we can basically sleepwalk into blogging.

Watch this clip of an interview showing what has to be one of the most mind-blowing distinction from a blonde [www.videoplink.com]. Not that I have anything against blondes, but see for yourself if this woman has helped at all.

An honest wage for a day's honest work
In saying this adage, people may only be agreeing verbally. Reality can't possibly be that easy. Take any computation of *real* wage. You'd expect it to be as straighforward as your pay slip. Not so fast, if we look at this calculator of real wage. Indeed, real wage is function of many things, and your wage, brother, is not even real, much less honest.

Writing your mom a paycheck?
O, well, mother's day, and society is abuzz with mushy adverts on the *idea* of momhood. Momhood, however, may represent opportunity cost. Isn't it better if someone actually compensates your mom?

Bike to work
Sometime ago we did a class report on campus biking. I bike to school and to work 99.99% of the time. Elsewhere the idea is getting more hip everyday, and the Americans are riding along. "Maki-bike ka! Wag matakot!"

Americans are sicker than Brits
so says this story. How do Americans and Brits differ with respect to health? Well, one: vacations! Government mandated time-off is much greater in UK than in America. There could be other more nuanced factors, of course. Skim through a /. discussion on this.

Be able to kill your students
Oops, that's just a quote from the Ninja master Masaaki Hatsumi. How I wish I can truly appropriate that for certain students. :) But before you really get too serious about this killing stuff, go ask a Ninja yourself!

Structured Procrastination
Not all procrastination is bad. One can efficiently structure it to be productive. It may in fact be key to great work.

Elements of Style Now Online

I've always depended on Elements of Style as a grammar book. It's now online.

'Nerds make better lovers'
- so claims this article.

Free Mac mini Desktop
Recently I've been making this pitch to my friends and their friends:

Hi friends and friends of friends! We're close to getting a free Mac mini Desktop, and we're sure we'll get it with a little help from you.

Yep, we're kuripot, they say. Recently we got free DVD rentals. So my partner Helen and I have been watching a lot of movies these days. If you want to know how, email us and we'll share the info with you. Good things are meant to be shared. :)

So here's the 'title belt' I'm going for this time: Free Mac mini Desktop! Of course it's a promotional stuff, but you don't have to eat their marketing bull$%17 nor spend a dime. How? Just choose the trial subscription of eFax, for instance, and cancel it before it expires if you think you don't need it. There are other offers, like the Blockbuster DVD rental that I got. But you decide for yourself.

So the promo is for FREE Mini Macs! No kidding! we've joined and we think you should as well... even if you don't need a Mac. :) Get it here:

http://www.FreeMiniMacs.com/?r=14202315

Thanks for your help in advance!

peter


PS
If you're still skeptical, my middle name is 'skeptical' myself. :) Isn't the deal too good to be true, I asked. Doesn't Economics tell me 'There's no such thing as free lunch'? Isn't it just another pyramiding scam? So I did research on this. Well, it turned out that the deal, IN FACT, is real. It's coming from a marketing company that's been handing out free iPods. See, for instance, the accounts from Wired Magazine and New York Times:

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,64614,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0A13F63A540C758EDDAB0994DC404482

After reading those accounts, please tell me if the deal still doesn't make any economic or marketing sense. Ok?

Reductio ad absurdum in computing
This Kerneltrap interview with Richard Stallman notes of a technique (called 'dependency-directed backtracking') in programming that basically deploys reductio ad adsurdum:

'You make some assumptions, and with those together with some given facts you draw a conclusion. You may reach a contradiction; if so, at least one of your assumptions that led to that contradiction must be wrong. You also record which combination of assumptions actually related to the contradiction, so you can deduce that that combination of assumptions cannot all be true. Then you backtrack by changing assumptions, but you never try a set of assumptions that includes the combination that you know are contradictory.'

Barnyard Economics
Some people just toss this term around without much thouhght about its meaning. A friend of mine, who took an exam where this term appeared, tried to google it without much success. So I thought I'd do the googling myself and see what would come up.

Barnyard economics

Sense 1:'practical economics' as opposed to one influenced by inclinations and desired. Relevant article: "Barnyard Economics" by Denise Eby Konan, Associate Professor of Economics at University of Hawaii. URL (accessed 16 Dec 2004): http://www.colorado.edu/Economics/newsletter/summer01-konan.htm . Relevant book: Everything I Needed to Know About Business I Learned in the Barnyard by Don Aslett.

Sense 2: 'real world' economics as opposed to textbook economics. Textbook economics, for instance, says markets equilibrate; 'barnyard economics' denies it. Sample passage: "The real basis of economics was detailed in George Orwell's Animal Farm which made the astute observation that equality is variable. Nowhere is the application of such barnyard economics more obvious than in the stock market. Though laws have been passed to keep the large predators at bay, there is still enough size difference between the inhabitants of the barnyard to illustrate the fundamental Orwellian principle that some animals are more equal than others" (Dallas Brozik, Sharks and Lemmings: How the Stock Market REALLY Works. URL (accessed 16 Dec 2004): http://webpages.marshall.edu/~brozik/sharklem%20web.pdf

Sense 3: 'fundamental economics' taught through engaging methods other textbooks or classroom lectures. Relevant project: 'Barnyard Economics'. URL (accessed 16 Dec 2004): http://www.oup.org/pubs/curentp_2/vol.html . Sample passage: "Bill began a talk 'Barnyard Economics' as a hobby became popular with church groups, lodges, school, civic service and foreman's clubs. This talk was made throughout the Eastern half of the United States. "Barnyard Economics" took the mystery out of the principles of economics by reducing them to the shopman's language." URL (accessed 16 Dec 2004): http://www.communities.ninemsn.com.au/MorganCountyKentuckyGeneology/johnston.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=137

Math and Sex
What a /. read! An interesting juxtaposition here. :)

"People who boast about their I.Q. are losers." - Stephen Hawking (quoted in NYT, The Science of Second-Guessing, 12 Dec 2004)

Amish experience
Here's a NYT account of a family's experience with an Amish community. O, well, close. They were there as tourist. I wanted to experience Amish living myself, not for its religion but for the way they appropriate technology.

Links to touristy Amish experience:

Rocky Acre Farm: www.rockyacre.com
Green Acres Farm Bed and Breakfast: www.thegreenacresfarm.com
Country Gardens Farm Bed and Breakfast: www.thecountrygardensfarm.com
Lancaster County Farm Stay: www.afarmstay.com

Coffee addictive?
A study in the journal Psychopharmacology shows that coffee is addictive. Hmm... addicts anyone?

The Barbie stereotype and lust
Here's a piece on how men's preference for shapely women may actually have a biological basis.

Still in the area of sexuality, this article thematizes the notion of lust. Actually, it's a plug for Simon Blackburn's book Lust (Oxford).

School ranking
Another ranking that's causing a stir is Academic Ranking of World Universities 2004 where Harvard tops. The Economist picks it up, and all hell breaks loose.

Death by overwork
A word that came into general use in Japan in the late 1980s, "karoshi" means death brought on by overwork or job-related exhaustion.

It's probably heart attack, stroke, asthma, suicide due to to psychological stress. As a possible counterpoint to this phenomenon, a French writer recently urged workers to be "radical" in the workplace by doing as little as possible. Changing the system is futile, and going against the system will only strengthen it. So why work hard? :)