Colorado is a specialist state and that's why I'm justified to think it sucks

I realized one thing when I got back from Brazil: I'm just not a Colorado kind of a person. I know some may say I am judging prematurely. After all I have lived only in Fort Collins, for just a year. It's not like I'm an expert in all things Colorado. But all views or "expertise" on any state is just an abstraction of that person's impressions, and so accuracy of the views is really not an issue. Can anyone accurately know a sate? How much information do you have to have in order for anyone to be an expert of a state? How can you know the characteristics of a state accurately anyways? And how do you judge the accuracy of your views on a state? In another words, why would my negative thoughts about Colorado be wrong? Because they differ from some "accurate" views?

Anyways, I think Colorado sucks. It makes my soul wither. Now, I hated it when non-Californians talked about how California sucked while still living in California. And I understand that what I am doing sounds like the same thing. But I'm going to argue otherwise.

Colorado attracts much more narrower variety of people compared to California. If you value mountains and outdoors highly, then Colorado is your place. If you don't, then you probably would move out of Colorado when you have a chance. California, on the other hand, offers more variety. You can live near the coast if you like the ocean (and can afford it). If you value liberal culture then there is San Francisco. If you want to be a celebrity, LA is your place. You don't have to move out of California because you don't like the main characteristics of whichever place you happen to be in.

Because Colorado is less varied than California, generalizations of Colorado are more accurate than of California. The imaginary distribution curve of state characteristics is narrower for Colorado, and so describing the mean with a fixed standard deviation will encompass more proportion of the total area under the curve than for California. Also, the number of observation necessary is smaller for Colorado. Narrow variance makes the likely hood of an observation being the mean higher. This makes it more accurate to generalize about Colorado than California.

Since the generalization is more accurate and it is harder to escape it, you are more justified to think Colorado sucks than to think California sucks. I admit that this argument doesn't counter the real reason I hated "California sucks" talk. My response was "get out of California if you don't like it." If anything the argument above makes the response more pertinent. It really aims at the action of actually saying "Colorado sucks" instead of thinking it. The response highlights the fact that there are alternatives, like moving out of the state. So, I am more justified in thinking "Colorado sucks". But actual act of saying "Colorado sucks" is less justified, if this makes any sense. And yes, I am planning my escape.

10 Resons Why NBA Rules

10) The Dunk Contest. I know I might be the only one who gets excited about this, but it's kind of like going to the thrift store. You might find gems amidst a bunch of junk.





9) Defensive strategies. They Play defense in the NBA. It's just harder to play a good defense than in college games because the area to defend is bigger with the 3 point line further away, the 3 second rule that forbids big guys from standing around the rim, the no-hand check rule, and the offense is much better. This is where teamwork counts in the NBA.



8) The triangle offense. People hate the Lakers, but they play one of the prettiest offenses around. I doubt you can dislike the triangle offense they play if you are a true basketball fan. It requires the players to make decisions and play smart while presenting multiple options. It's a thinking man's offense based on what the defense is doing. It's like water conforming to the container. Really.



7) Blocks. The players in NBA can block the crap out of the ball. The video below is not a typical block for a few reasons. The blocker is actually the defender defending the ball. This is much more difficult than the typical block where the blocker is not the one defending the ball (he has more time and space to jump). And the blocker in the video is a guard who usually doesn't block at all, let alone block a jump shot by a guy he was defending. And this happened at the end of hotly contested playoff game.



6) Behind the back passes. Clark Nova like them. This one is good because it happens during a fast break (less time for the passer to know where everyone is at), and he catches and passes in one single motion. LeBron makes it look easy, but there are probably 10 people on the planet that can make this pass.



5) No look passes. Because when it's pretty, it's pretty.



4) Crossover. This one is not just an ordinary crossover, but the most devastating crossover of all time. Ankle insurance started because of this.



3) Last second shots. Not many things are more exciting. And they can happen twice or more in a game. This is Kobe making one at the end of regulation to tie the game and making another at the end of overtime to win it.



2) Dunks. The players in NBA get creative on this.



1) NBA rules because this happens. In playoffs no less.

Things I hate right now, for Clark Nova of course

Scientific articles, especially the ones about trees. I hate them. Here are the things the articles are not: fun, easy to read, easy to understand, exciting, curiosity tickling, entertaining, hart warming, gut wrenching, life affirming, imagination soaring, and, again, fun. Here are the things the articles actually are: work, and crap.

Paper work. It exist only to cover people's asses. It's a double whammy of badness. Increases inefficiency while killing trees, the environment, and what ever they use to make ink (the Earth?). A professor said "it gets easier when you become a professor. The school will hire people to do them for you. Or you can get grad students to do them." What!? The school already hired people to make the paper work in the first place. They will then pay different people to do them? Why can't they hire more graduate students to make a robot to do this?

People who talk in my office. Most of the time, they talk to announce their presence. It's as if their mothers didn't hug them enough when they were babies. Maybe this is the root of why people want to be on TV. I wish they would just hug you or slap your butt or take their clothing off instead. They are much better ways of getting attention. Besides, that's what they really want to do.

Diversity theory of eudcation - Part 3, How bad is US education really?

Diverse populous requires diverse education system, and US has remarkably diverse AND flexible one. A student in US can be home-schooled for K to 6th grade, enter a charter school focused on science for 6 to 8th grade, go to public high school, enter liberal arts college studying history, and then go to business school and succeed. A student in Japan on the other hand has to go to a good kinder garden, go to a good private elementary school, take an exam to get into a good Jr high school to prepare for the entrance exam for high school, pick business concentration in high school to study for entrance exam for college, and then get accepted to an undergrad program at a college with good business school so she has a chance to get into one. Most Japanese graduate students did their undergrad at the same school because that's how you get into a good one. But here in US I was told to go somewhere else so I can diversify my views.

This diversity and flexibility offers opportunities at every level not seen in many other countries. In Hong Kong, students are put on a track, science, arts, or commerce, at high school level and have little chance of switching from then on. In Switzerland, students are separated into 3 levels based on their intellectual abilities at high school level. Where they go for higher education depends on what level they were placed. Same principles do exist in US but at much lesser degree.

Both Hong Kong and Switzerland almost always place high in measures of education, higher than US. But are we more stupid? We are slightly more productive than the two countries (GDP per capita). Given that we spend more money on education than any other country, we certainly are inefficient. But what if that inefficiency comes as a cost of diversity, fairness, and flexibility? For that matter, are we more fair? I think so because our education offers diverse options at every level compared to other countries, but isn't that question just as important as how we score in the tests?

The major flaw of the current state of education in US, and rightfully so the most damaging criticism of US education is it's illiteracy rate. Everyone should be able to read and write. But the debate on education focuses too much on test scores at the expense of combating illiteracy. Yes, US education is bad, but it's not because we score low on the tests. It's bad because we have a lot of illiteracy.

Chickens in Fort collins

This story appeared on NPR (Ed found it);

Chick-fil-A opened a restaurant in Fort Collins, Colo. As a promotion, it promised free chicken sandwiches for a year. That prize would go to the first 100 customers. More than 100 people camped out to get the prize. They remained outside the restaurant even though it was snowing. A blizzard dropped 17 inches. And still people stayed, surviving with propane heaters and hot chocolate provided by the restaurant.

Yes, I know, I should have been one of more than 100 people waiting. It's for free chicken sandwiches for a year after all. I might have had to clime over the frozen bodies of those in front of me, but man, them chicken sandwiches...

In all seriousness, prosperity changes our connection to food. Food is food to anyone who don't have enough of it, but it is organic, local, trans-fat, complex carbohydrate, make my ass get big thing to those who have plenty. I understand that these differences do exist. But they become important only when you are wealthy enough to have plenty of food. To the poor and the hungry, it's not important that the food is organic or local or trans-fat free. They don't have that luxury.

Those who waited in front of Chick-fil-A were dead serious and maybe desperate for free food. I'm sure some of them were only there for the "fun" of it or shortening their lives eating poorly. But anyone who waits for free food - of any kind - in a blizzard has my respect. Shame on NPR for implying that they might be a little nuts. Some of them need help. (shame on me too for making fun of them above, but I'm no National Public Radio).

Diversity theory of education - Part 2, diversify!

I would like to think that I'm more informed than average Americans. But even I have not nearly enough information on many of the most pressing political decisions. Like the recession, the health care, and the war, and I imagine that I'm not the only one. Take health care for example. I don't even know what's on the current version of the proposed legislation, let alone the implications of it. I am not informed enough to make any sort of decision on it. On top of this, I don't have the time or the inclination to learn about this.

My strategy to get to an informed decision relies on other people to simply the matter. Newspapers, magazines, radios, the internet, have many experts summarizing health care reform. I can then make my decision accordingly. The key here is to remember that most (if not all) secondary information like the newspaper comes with intent. It might be to sell the paper (most of the time the intent is to profit, which is not bad) or to influence your opinion. As long I understand that, I can judge which resources to trust. This is much easier than to gather all the information my self.

This method fails when restrictions decrease the diversity of information. Just as more genetically diverse population (of say condors) can withstand variety of perturbations, the diversity of information increases the chances of the right and useful one existing. This is one of the reasons we guarantee the freedom of political speech.

The most fundamental way to have diversity of secondary information is to have diversity of people. We need people who understands health care. We need people who understands economics. We need people who understands governance. If the amount of information is overwhelming, then what we need is diversity of people.

Early work in cybernetics, a theory of systems as information processors, solidified under two essential presumptions:

1. that thinking is computation
2. physical laws exist that explain how nature appears to possess a form of finality, or teleonomy. The presumption is essentially that things do not just happen randomly, but tend towards certain regular states despite the fact that it cannot be said that they necessarily had to.

NB: The problem of imputing necessity to nature (natural world of empirical laws) defined Kant's critical philosophy. Hume famously reputed the argument that nature operated according to necessity (that things could not be otherwise) and demonstrated that all we can safely say is that human beings give the idea of necessity to nature by habit of association. We see the sun rise everyday which leads us to believe that it MUST rise tomorrow. Hume believed that anything not encountered in our experience, could not be said to have necessary validity, or be used as part of an argument that claimed to be beyond dispute. Kant argued that because we cannot derive the idea of necessity from our experience (we never experience necessity, so why do we have the idea of it in the first place?), even by association, that it must be a category of thought. It must be natural to the mind, occuring before experience takes place, if not to nature itself. Moreover, Kant held that the idea of necessity actively structures our perception of nature.

Back to cybernetics. Cyberneticians were not mind-body dualists. For them, mind or thinking is mechanical: minds basically are computing machines--minds are not just IN human bodies, and they don't define what it means to be human. The claim is more general. As Jean-Pierre Dupuy put it,

“[t]he computation involved is not the mental operation of a human being who manipulates symbols in applying rules, such as those of addition or multiplication; instead it is what a particular class of machines do—machines technically referred to as ‘algorithms.’”

Cybernetic systems were thought of as machines that precisely pilot, control or direct _their own activities_. Why? To reduce the complexity or noise in their environments and make possible dynamic properties and behaviors in their responses to this complexity. How can dynamic properties result from operations of self-control and self-direction, from a reduction of environmental complexity? Are such systems geared toward stasis? How do dynamic properties and behaviors result from systemic reductions of complexity?

Cybernetic systems draw a distinction between themselves and their environments and, once the distinction is drawn, consist in control mechanisms internal to the boundaries of a system. The environments of these systems thus act as mere triggers or perturbing devices. They thus build up their own, internal complexity as part of their historical responses to change in the environment. Control mechanisms operate to reproduce the system homeostatically, that is, control mechanisms represent the systems auto-poietic character: the fact that it produces itself by reproducing its elements or operations (without making recourse to the environment through an exchnage of information. Think of a thermostat. Or a heat-seeking missile.

Cybernetics thus addresses the following problems:
1. The self-organization of complex systems and
2. Their self-regulation through operations such as feedback;
3. The passage between the differing levels of integration of a system;
4. The modalities of openness and closure of a system;
5. The question of teleology and finality.
6. The concept of code or information.