Letters Remain

  • Keith Olbermann on Proposition 8: A Chance at Permanence

    Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on the passage of Proposition 8; eloquent and persuasive using nothing but common sense and good judgement. Some quotes I particularly enjoyed:

    If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want — a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

    Only now you are saying to them — no. You can’t have it on these terms.

    […]

    Uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing — centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children… All because we said a man couldn’t marry another man, or a woman couldn’t marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage. How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the “sanctity” of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

    […]

    You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of… love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don’t have to help it, you don’t have it applaud it, you don’t have to fight for it. Just don’t put it out. Just don’t extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don’t know and you don’t understand and maybe you don’t even want to know… It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person.

    Lloyd Morgan

  • On Being a Young CEO

    Inc. Magazine profiles 18 entrepreneurs/CEOs, all of whom are under 30.

    This generation, at nearly 80 million strong, is poised to be the largest, the most educated, and the most diverse in American history. That gives its members special insight into the largest, the most educated, and the most diverse market in history. They are also fearless about technology. The kids of the ’80s grew up with computers; the kids of the ’90s can’t recall (and shrink from imagining) life before the Internet. And they are idealistic and optimistic — traits that influence their perceptions of business.

    Millennial entrepreneurs are a breed apart from those who came before. The ways in which they start companies — and the companies they start — reflect those distinctions.

    Lloyd Morgan

  • Esoteric Programming Languages

    A few interesting esoteric programming languages:

    As you may be able to guess, LOLCODE is my favourite. Here’s ‘Hello World’:

    HAI
    CAN HAS STDIO?
    VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
    KTHXBYE

    Lloyd Morgan

  • The 23 Toughest Challenges in Mathematics

    According to DARPA, that is.

    The Dynamics of Networks: Develop the high-dimensional mathematics needed to accurately model and predict behavior in large-scale distributed networks that evolve over time occurring in communication, biology and the social sciences.

    via Kottke

    Lloyd Morgan

  • The Origins of Progress

    In order to find out what our world will look like in the not so distant future, Kevin Kelly questions what drives progress?

    What is the origin of our progress?

    There are several factors but chief among them is the invention of what we loosely call science. The ancient world accumulated many fabulous inventions [that] were distributed unevenly throughout the ancient world because each was discovered in a trial and error fashion, and the dissemination of their benefits was haphazard and unlikely. Geographical and cultural boundaries often prevented many innovations from spreading far.

    Science entails not only the canonical process of observation and experiment, but also the systematic accumulation of what worked and why. A large system of peer-review journals, science societies, and reference libraries was more essential to the uplifting influence of science than was the notion of a predictive hypothesis. By systematically recording the evidence for beliefs, and investigating the reasons for why things worked, and then carefully distributing proven innovations, science quickly became the best tool for making new things the world had ever seen. Science was in fact a superior method for a culture to learn. It beat the best trail and error approach of the past.

    via Seed

    Lloyd Morgan

  • All About Self-Control

    The Boston Globe has an interesting article discussing the noted ‘marshmallow experiment’ of delayed gratification and the future of research in this area.

    A 4-year-old is left sitting at a table with a marshmallow or other treat on it and given a challenge: Wait to eat it until a grown-up comes back into the room, and you’ll get two. If you can’t wait that long, you’ll get just one.

    Some children can wait less than a minute, others last the full 20 minutes. The longer the child can hold back, the better the outlook in later life for everything from SAT scores to social skills to academic achievement

    Jonah Lehrer continues with the problem of relying on our prefrontal cortex for issues of self-control.

    […] working memory and self-control are both located in our prefrontal cortex. Having to remember [a large number of items occupies] neurons that would otherwise help us decide what to eat, which causes us to become more reliant on our impulsive emotions. While we tend to think of self-control as being an innate trait, it is actually dependent on a range of extrinsic factors, all of which affect the way our brain responds to a given situation.

    Our decisions really are swayed by the computational limits of our brain.

    Lloyd Morgan

  • The Age Wave: Are Retiring Baby Boomers the Recession Culprits?

    Did the American economist Harry Dent correctly predict the recession, and is it really the fault of retiring baby boomers?

    Dent popularised the ‘age wave’ theory through his research on “the highly predictable nature of consumer spending based on a family formation pattern”.

    Some experts expect the worst consumer recession since 1980 to occur when ageing boomers start retiring, adding to rising unemployment, decline in house values, and declining stock prices. However other experts have suggested that immigration to the US and rise of emerging economies will offset the demographic impact.

    The biggest ‘boom’ in baby boomer retirements started in 2007 and will continue ’til 2009.

    Lloyd Morgan

  • Books of the Left and Right

    The results from Valdis Krebs’ analysis of political books bought from Amazon is fascinating.

    Two groups typically emerge from the data: people who read liberally oriented books and people who read conservatively oriented books with a couple of books that both groups read. He ran his analysis again a few days ago and found not two groups but three — roughly: 1) pro-Obama, 2) anti-Bush, and 3) conservative — and no books that the groups read in common.

    It could also be an important resource for ‘checking’ on our reading habits. Surely, if we find ourselves reading books exclusively from one camp we would be effectively indoctrinating ourselves: reading our way to ignorance?

    via Kottke

    Lloyd Morgan

  • Green Roofs

    Malcolm Gladwell chats with environmentalist Amy Norquist about the real benefits of ‘green roofs’ (what GOOD Magazine calls, “one of the most unsung and low-tech green solutions out there”).

    MG: So you have this technology, and there are three arguments for it: an aesthetic argument, an economic argument, and an environmental arguments. Which of those three do you think is the most powerful with the public?

    AN: I think it comes down to the economics, with aesthetics and the environment tied for second. New York is proposing a tax abatement which would be given to building owners who install green roofs. When and if that is approved by the state legislature, it will have a big impact with consumers.

    via Seed

    Lloyd Morgan

  • 10 Things About Black Holes

    Even though some of these would be well-known to someone with a passing interest in astronomy, the passion Phil Plait writes with makes me love everything he produces. This time, Bad Astronomy on ten things you don’t know about black holes.

    1. It’s not their mass, it’s their size that makes them so strong
    2. They’re not infinitely small
    3. They’re spheres. And they’re definitely not funnel shaped
    4. Black holes spin
    5. Near a black hole, things get weird
    6. Approaching a black hole can kill you in fun ways. And by fun, I mean gruesome, horrifying, and really really ookie
    7. Black holes aren’t always dark
    8. Black holes aren’t always dangerous
    9. Black holes can get big
    10. Black holes can be low density

    via Seed

    Lloyd Morgan