| Market Correction |
[Sep. 30th, 2009|12:41 pm] |
Sometimes, socialism simply fails: http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/29/news/economy/neighborhood_stabilization_program/index.htm?section=money_realestate The Neighborhood Stabilization Program, passed by Congress last year, gives states and localities money to acquire and rehabilitate abandoned properties. The big problem: officials are having trouble getting their hands on those houses, which are being scooped up instead by private investors and homebuyers at rock-bottom prices.
Analysis: Saavy investors have been doing this for a long time. Many of the ones I know have been investing in the real estate through several housing bubbles. Using Kiyosaki's framework, the government employees who administers the Neighborhood Stabilization Program are "E"s, W-2 employees with zero investing experience. This is the kind of stuff that one needs training and education in.
Addendum: Short-sales can get problematic when the mortgagee (the bank) are contacted to settle on the debt. Many, again, are middle-class 'E's that don't have much experience with this.
Solution: instead of direct investment, the government program channels the money through rehab grants and loans, partnering with investors (and saavy homebuyers). We're not going to "save" the housing prices going into freefall right now: this is a massive market correction that is still going on. A loan program that offers better rate and terms than hard money will increase the liquidity so that the correction accelerates.
Namaste |
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| Warrior gene, eh? |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|10:22 pm] |
"Boys who carry a particular variation of the gene Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), sometimes called the "warrior gene," are more likely not only to join gangs but also to be among the most violent members and to use weapons, according to a new study from The Florida State University that is the first to confirm an MAOA link specifically to gangs and guns. (Credit: iStockphoto/S.P. Rayner)"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090605123237.htm
Namaste |
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| Double Take |
[Jun. 10th, 2009|12:05 pm] |
Yesterday, I was walking to my martial arts class when I decided to detour through a part of the neighborhood I had just discovered the day before. In this past week, I had been looking for inspirations for a new Mage: the Awakening campaign I am putting together, and I had been gathering setting for it and related stories for a while now.
I had discovered this alternate route while walking home after paying an electric bill and getting my hair cut. I had felt that I wanted to explore in the more urban area, yet decided this wasn't the place. When I had walked about a mile from the central urban area close by to a light rail station, I happened to glance down a side street. Having no real urgency to go home, I felt the urge to explore down that way.
The side street had a diverse set of houses that look like the kind of urban occult/high weirdness fantasy I enjoy reading and would like to write. None of the houses had the cookie-cutter look of surburban houses. Each of them had their own character and personality. There were several houses with overgrown lots. Some had were manicured, yet had the these weird statuette/fountains. There was one house that stood out with sidings made from cedar. The whole house looked more like a cabin, like giant cedar grove towering above the other houses.
The side street dead-ended to another street. Down the left was a dead-end. I walked down to the right and found more interesting houses. There was one house with a for-rent sign, yet you could barely see the house from the sidewalk. It was mostly obscured by peices of raw-land swamp trees, though there was a large, intervening lawn -- unusual for this part of town. I could easily imagine a Mage Cabal living there, hidden. Another house at the corner was built high, where the lawn was about four feet off the sidewalk level. A family was sitting out there, with the father making sure the kids didn't get into too much trouble.
That street also dead-ended to another street, again, another dead-end. Towards the right were more weird houses. Some had stone walk ways, some had wooden walkways. The whole place was well-maintained.
When I decided to detour through this neighborhood again, yesterday, I came in from the opposite direction. My head was filled with, "what if this were a neighborhood mostly controlled by Mages? Where would they live? Would they put weird wards that bend space so it was difficult to get in? Or maybe wards where, you had to have astral senses to navigate through, otherwise you naturally get led out back to the main streets?"
As I was walking, thinking of these possibilities, I saw two kids playing at that corner house.
I didn't think much of it until I got close, and one of the kids addressed me.
"xxxx..xxx..xxx.xxx"
It didn't register with me at first.
"xxxx...xx x..xxx. .xxxx"
I still didn't comprehend what the kid said, being lost in thought. Out on a whim, I played a bit of peekaboo. The kid had been smiling and having a good time. I don't think he was as amused with the peekaboo, so I stopped.
Then he said it again.
"Don't take us away."
What?
"What did you say?"
"Don't take us away." The kid had stopped smiling by now. He must have been 20ft away, sitting on the outside of the fence on the elevated lawn.
Granted, I was an unusual person walking in the neighborhood. My gait is generally different from most people. I had a wooden practice sword stuck on my back (and it is kids who generally notice it, not adults). I was looking right at the kid when he was saying this.
I should have said, "What makes you think I'm going to take you away?" I've forgotten what I said, maybe something along the lines of, "I'm not going to take you away."
It still weirds me out. I'm not entire sure I heard the kid right.
I did think up of some story plots relating to that, though.
Namaste |
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| FriendFeed |
[May. 21st, 2009|05:07 pm] |
I may have found something better than twitter that acts as a complement to Livejournal. FriendFeed lets you aggregate feeds from LiveJournal, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Though I'm still experimenting with it, it means I don't have to directly participate in certain social network (in particular, Facebook) and I get enhancements on what I normally do with Twitter (I use the web client; people have told me it is better to use a client).
One neat-but-scary feature is the "imaginary friend" feature. As far as I can tell, it let you create a proxy (and probably a private) account of your friends even if they are not directly on FriendFeed. As far as I can tell, it works only on public data. I do feel weird about creating profiles for other people (and so to appease the guilt, I usually add a '_' in front of the profile name). I have not figured out how to make proxy accounts to access my livejournal to see protected entries on my friends list ... and I don't really want to.
So I'm going to give this a try. I have already found out that due to the all-private-or-nothing nature of the FriendFeed, I won't be able to separate out posts like I do on LiveJournal. (Meaning that I will still have to do a business-friendly and a not-so-business-friendly version). Twitter works much better filtered through FriendFeed simply because I can categorize who each of the followers are. Then I can just check back on LiveJournal occasionally and very rarely log directly into Twitter. Heh, it also means I can sign up on Facebook without qualms (one of my baguazhang teacher is there !?!??).
Namaste |
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| Blackboards |
[May. 4th, 2009|06:45 pm] |
Notes:
- Blackboard Systems / Blackboard Pattern
- I bet this is how Wolfram Alpha is implemented
- Drop-in processors (because they pattern-match tuples in the tuplespace). (Because of this ad-hoc nature, with proper versioning, multiple implementations can run simultenously and GA-like stuff can be applied).
- "Good enough", like word processing and typographers (eventually programmers becoming skilled craftsmen in an industrialized society: minorities, unfortunate rise of unions, etc.; Jerry Pournelle had speculated this in Falkenberg's Legion but I didn't believe it at the time)
- Ad-hoc dataflow -> ad-hoc workflows -> ad-hoc business processes -> customer development
- Visi-calc / Lotus 123 / Excel were the killer apps of PCs; maybe this will be the killer-app of cloud computing
- Federated blackboards, using JSON
- 25-year old paper describing the Linda programming language
- Maybe (1) Proliferation of cloud computing or (2) Personal supercomputers to run organizational / household AIs (3) Both?
- Federated blackboards -> driver for semantic web: when queries are done as tuplespace queries, it is easier to do this off of semantic web technologies. (Is there a market for federated blackboards? That is when Web 3.0 will take off, I think. There is already a market for blackboards as everyone is now racing to implement cloud services).
There is a project, Erlinda built on top of Erlang/OTP and RabbitMQ; JavaSpaces is already implemented ... but it is Java *sigh*.
Namaste |
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| Use what you have |
[Apr. 23rd, 2009|09:13 pm] |
Kyle Maynard, with no forearms/hands and shins/feet (congenital amputation below elbows and knees) is debuting an MMA fight in Auburn, AL
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=mmajunkie-Maynard_road_to_MMA_debut&prov=mmajunkie&type=lgns
What is interesting to me are the reactions:
- Some people say it is unfair to Maynard because he might get hurt in the ring.
- Some people say it is unfair to any of Maynard's opponent because if the opponent wins, he has beaten someone with no forearms/shins; if he lost, well, he lost to a guy with no hands/feet
- People are concerned Maynard is not able to block strikes.
- People are concerned Maynard is not able strike back.
I call bullshit.
I think this highlights a lot of problems I have with the MMA sub-culture and venue in general. I would be lying if I said I would be put off-guard about Maynard's stack of cards ... yet if Maynard is a true bushi, he can use that against me. Budo: the path of the relentlessly resourceful. MMA being about adopting what works and dropping what doesn't, it necessarily mean use what you have.
Assume the person is fighting is a warrior too. Is that so hard? All those above objections sound much like attachment to delusions.
Namaste |
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| My poetry sounds better when I'm tired |
[Apr. 23rd, 2009|02:58 am] |
Early-morning sprint-coding sometimes mean crashing at the foot of the bed with sticky bits of digital debris sliding noisily down the wall.
Namaste |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 17th, 2009|10:59 pm] |
Just heard from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) frameshot there is a Jordan Con in Alpheretta (metro Atlanta) this weekend. It is the first-ever convention of its kind, and it looks like it is staffed by a number of DragonCon WoT track staffers.
Brandon Sanderson is going to be there, along with Jordan's widow and a cousin. And I can't make it there.
Pre-registration started last August. I got to put my ear to the ground more often.
-Qaexl |
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| Hacking and Slashing |
[Apr. 13th, 2009|11:24 am] |
How stress makes programmers dumber: http://the-programmers-stone.com/about/
The first post is about the neuroscience behind this. The article states that the pre-frontal cortex can function in one of two ways. The first way has a low level of background excitation and localized areas of high excitation during focused-attention. The second way has medium level of backgorund excitation all over, and it is good for tasks involving "cognitive flexibility" and memory. http://the-programmers-stone.com/about/neuroscience/ Stress -- that is, the presence of norepinephrine -- switches the PFC from the second mode out into the first mode. As a fight-or-flight response, this is useful for focusing you on "what do I do next". If the training is good, the next step is obvious.
While the article talks about this within the context of programming, I've found this useful in other contexts. Strategy games certainly require "cognitive flexibility" and memory. Weiqi practioners are advised to keep their composure during the game, and that's definitely a game that exercises "cognitive flexibility".
This also explains to me a curious thing I've found while learning martial arts. Learning new forms and applications, particularly bagua is incredibly difficult. I feel like I'm moving through molassas, and I'm expending a lot of energy just to understand a new set of movement and how they are used. The Gao Mother Palms have always been consistently and significantly harder than the Gao Linears for me. However, once learned to a reasonble degree, practicing them becomes increasingly easier and easier. In a lot of cases, there are advanced forms that are composed or recombined from earlier, more basic forms, and they typically feel easier.
Learning requires a lot of associations and synthesis, both physically and mentally. However, it is usually under conditions of physical stress and to no small degree, mental stress. You're not just trying to grasp something that you never encountered before, you're dealing with trying to figure out how all the body parts and movements go together. Most people don't exercise their non-dominant hand, let along coordinating that with the same-side legs and opposite-side legs. Sometimes, emotional baggage such as embarrassment adds to the stress. Finally, if you have a good teacher, he is going to demonstrate the technique on you, adding physical stress into the bag.
Once the pieces becomes practiced enough that they become automatic, e.g. they can be performed smoothly and without gaps during focused-attention, that tends to free up the mind to be more creative. I've had that state pop up a couple times in the past, where it feels as if the creative or strategic side detaches from the stress of the moment. That part starts planning movements, yet it is not the kind of next-step-task-oriented planning you can see a mile away.
Fun stuff. I'll be looking into this more.
Namaste |
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| Valkyria Chronicles |
[Apr. 6th, 2009|09:12 pm] |
A month ago, I was hanging out at the Marietta MicroCenter when I saw a Sony PS3 game demo called Valkyria Chronicles. The graphics were stunning: the 3D rendering system drew all the characters and scenary like animated water-color. It was like watching an in-game version of Star Ocean 2.
The game plays like a tactical RPG. However, when you could manually move each unit as if you were playing a first person shooter. If you were good enough, you could shoot opposing forces in the head for head shots during the movement turn. In the demo, the tech level was at about WWI-era tanks and RPG-like "lances" so I suppose you could use WWI-era tactics. Units on the move had to navigate through suppressing fire that may randomly hit you. Units can and probably should take advantage of cover every chance they could get. Units die permantly unless you had another closeby unit that could call a medic.
The game mechanics also allows for interpersonal relationships among each of the individual characters, much like the Fire Emblem series.
I only got a chance to try the first map for a short time. The controls, including the ability to take advantage of cover was unfamiliar. Funny thing was, the first time I played, I charged the tank down the center so that my infantry could use it as cover and the sales person watching suppressed his contempt, "OK, move your tank first" ;-) Due to lack of practice, I killed off my scouts too quickly ("Hey, couldn't I use that tree as cover?" Sales guy: "Uh, no, you have to actually use cover..."). The two units with submachine guns were gunned down pretty quickly; I had not figured out how to use the sniper effectively to pick off people. I did manage to use the tank and the lancer to destroy the center tank and take the center ... but I overextended myself by charging the rest of the guys in and most of the units were taken out of combat. Before I dropped the controls since we had to hurry home, I had just managed to squish one of the enemy units with the tank since most of my infantry were gone. It was a good thing that barrier was taken down by the tank.
I think the freakiest thing though, was watching the first episode of the anime based on the game that had just been broadcast. And seeing how all those units I had killed off in the reckless charge are actually main characters in the anime ...
Oops.
Namaste |
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| More twits |
[Apr. 6th, 2009|01:54 pm] |
Two friends and I are putting together a Merb-based twitter servelet that lets you manage multiple identities (twits). This will be an open-source project, intended to run localhost though you could do whatever you want with it. The goal is to be able to simulate some of the the things you can do with LiveJournal -- mainly, the friends filter.
As such, I created a secondary twitter account '@qaexl', and anyone here is invited to it.
Namaste |
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| Swords |
[Apr. 4th, 2009|02:26 pm] |
Kris Cutlery has their (willow-leaf) Dao back in stock now, as the DAO-IV.
Awesome. *drool*.
I was going to get the DAO-FS (folded steel) but considering my income situation right now and the pending broadsword forms I'll be learning soon ... and the fact that I wanted to get that design first, I'm ordering this one first.
Namaste |
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| Yet another online Chinese resource |
[Apr. 2nd, 2009|11:58 pm] |
I have always been irritated by the various online Chinese tools I use. People keep telling me about Mandarin Tools, but in truth, that toolset sucks the most when it comes to helping me figure out Old Chinese. ZhongWen.com is awesome ... if the site owner ever got around to updating his site so that his Unihan links actually works. My favorite is ChineseEntymology.org (Dr. Richard Sears' site), it contains a lot of cool stuff ... but no pinyin lookup.
Most of the time, I use Zongwen.com to look up a word based on pinyin (and sometimes based on related radicals). Then I click on "Unihan" which takes me to an invalid url on the official Unihan database. I hand-edit the url by deleting some extraneous characters and I get the code page. Finally I copy-and-paste the utf8 into ChineseEntymology.org to get what I want.
Pain in the ass.
I finally got around to writing a web app to automate all of this. The app is written using Merb 1.0.11 + Datamapper (Because Rails 3 isn't here yet and Merb is still better). I have a toolchain that parses the official Unihan 5.1.0 text file into a sqlite3 database (which I'll make available soon), and from there, generate all the data into JSON objects. What you see there is mostly taken back out from JSON again. (And the reason I'm not using CouchDB is because the Erlang/OTP doesn't comply with current Unicode standards and break on a lot of these Chinese utf8 encodings).
The site is http://guwen.hiddenstorehouse.com ... Since I'm lazy, I only wrote the functionality I needed right now -- pinyin lookup. Look up a character and then I have direct links to Zhongwen.com and ChineseEntymology.org. Awesome.
I do plan on importing CEDICT as well as ShouWen (I screenscrapped this site that contained scans of ShuoWen ...), converting the entymological tree from ZhongWen.com, and seeing if I could write a widget like POPjisyo. It'll be whenever I get irritated enough with the existing toolset to get around it.
Maybe write a flashcard program centered around the most commonly-seen characters ...
Namaste |
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| Factory Warranty |
[Mar. 20th, 2009|09:05 pm] |
For the past two months, I have been receiving phone calls about how the "factory warranty" on my car is expiring.
I finally caught one of the messages and dialed '1'. The person who picked up sounded nervous (and dare I say, geeky). "Would you like to extend the warranty on your car?"
"I don't have a car." (I don't. I wrote that eulogy here, remember?)
I waited for a full twenty seconds to hear his reply... but he had already hung up.
This isn't hard to do given VOIP and Asterick. It is theoretically possible to crack Asterick or Vonage servers and turn them into zombies. Or setup some patsies with Craiglist postings or something.
I'm tempted to social-engineer the next person I get my hands on.
Namaste |
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| Fortune Cookie: Land of the Free |
[Mar. 16th, 2009|09:13 am] |
From Neil Strauss's Emergency"Get ready for martial law," Freddy, the attorney's much younger boyfriend, sighed.
"I read an article recently that said the voting machines in Ohio in 2004 were rigged," the architect continued.
"Yeah, and we go to other countries and preach about how they need to have free elections," Freddy interjected, "but we don't even have that privilege ourselves."
Suddenly, we all went quiet and looked at Tomas. It was his first day as an American citizen, and we were ruining it.
In that silence came my opportunity. I was finally able to ask what I'd been wanting to since he'd first told me about his quest. "In this climate, when America is doing so poorly economically and politically, especially since you already have an European passport, what made you so motivated to become an American citizen?"
Tomas didn't hesitate to respond. He'd probably known the answer long before he ever came to America. ( Read more... ) I think Neil Gaiman nailed this in American Gods -- none of the gods of the Old World thrive in America. There's only the Land.
Namaste |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 14th, 2009|12:29 am] |
The digital prints of the Buddhist tapestry showing the wrathful gods are not bright enough.
Namaste |
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