Galápagos

The economics and financial crisis reminds me of Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_(novel)

And my own post back in Feb 08 is here.

One more thing about the movies...

Last post for the day about movies.

So I was thinking the movie sequels are very similar to fiction (especially sci-fi) book sequels. They don't stand up to the first one. But there are few exceptions:

1. Bourne Ultimatum
2. Return of the King
3. Batman begins

There is one more which I can't remember now.

Recently watched movies

Here is some more of the recently watched movies. No reviews. Instead I am going to star them (1 to 5, with 5=best, and I am going to buy the DVD)

Into the wild (dvd) *** - Stays true to the book and the cinematography is awesome. One of the better made film from a book. I enjoyed the book immensely. I would suggest reading the book first and watch the movie.

No country for old man (in theatre as well on dvd) ****. Well it got Oscar. One of tough movies to watch and keeps at the edge. I was still expecting something to happen after the credits are rolled in.

28 weeks later (dvd) ***. Another apocalpse/Zombie movie but set in England. Good.

Rescue dawn (dvd) *** Real story about a pilot who was captured during Vietnam war and how he escapes.

Now I pronounce you Chuck and Larry (dvd) **. It's okay...but Jessica Biel is good.

10000 bc (in theatre)**...it's not exactly 10000 years ago story.

2001 Space Odyssey (dvd) *****. One of my favorite movies

Blade Runner (dvd) **** another one of my favorite.

Eyes Wide Shut (dvd)*** good.

Dr. Strangelove (dvd)*****. One of my favorite movies

For a few dollars more (dvd)****. very good western. Clint Eastwood.

Recently Watched

I have seen so many movies since I last blogged (when was it?...long long ago). Here is the recent two...both deals with destruction and evaculation of NY city.

1. I Am Legend: Will Smith. Very good. And a box office hit.

2. Cloverfield: The story of monster who wreaks havoc in NY City told from a cam-wielding friends. Nicely done. There will be a sequel.

Both would have been much better in theater.

Also, one more:

3. The Mist: Based on Stephen Kings Novel. I see of lot of parallel with this and Cloverfield. The end is little horrifying and surprising. It wasn't as big of hit as the other two...but definitely enjoyable.

Recently read

1. Jailbird - By Kurt Vonnegut
Another well written by KV. This one is about Walter F Startbuck who is sent to prison for watergate and the novel is mostly about the labor movement.
2. Hominids - By Robert J. Sawyer
First book of "The Neanderthal Parallax". It's very easy to read and very interesting as well. A Neanderthal (Ponter Boddit) from our parallel universe visits us in an accident. Hugo winner.
3. Humans - By Robert J. Sawyer
Second book of "The Neanderthal Parallax". Continues from were it left off in Hominids. But it's less of a sci-fi and more of drama. And romance between a neanderthal man and human woman (it's started on the first book)
4. The art of war - By Sun Tzu
Another classic book about war and it's been thought on business schools as well for a long time.. This is my first book on the Dailylit via RSS feed. Dailylit provides a daily email/RSS of a book of our choice for free (most classics are free) or for some $.
5. Spin - By Robert Charles Wilson
Another Hugo winner. This is one of the very interesting sci-fi book I've read. In some places author is threading between sci-fi and fantasy but overall it's very enjoyable.
Twins Jason and Diane Lawton and their friend Tyler Dupree (narrator of the story) are witnessing the "spin" event and how their lives change. The spin is a membrane which encapsulates the earth to mask the time (time dilation) and the space. what that means is that the outside the spin the time is moving much faster (or normal). 1 Sec on earth is about 3.17 years out the spin. That means you can do a lot of cool stuff. Highly recommended.

Food crisis?

Costco and SAM's club are limiting the rice per household.

Recently I've read Hominids and Humans by Robert J Sawer and now I am half-way through Spin by Robert Charles Wilson.

Then I started thinking that which one will help us in the near future: parallel universe with an identical earth (but pristine) or a terra formed Mars....from the purely economical perspective it's easier to do business with the parallel universe...we just need to open the "portal" and you walk right into the universe. Terra farming the Mars is economically and technologically (unless of course there is a time dilation) difficult. But it's lot of fun to think about.

Monty Hall Problem

Lately there is a lot of focus on the Monty Hall Problem. According to Wikipedia.org:

The Monty Hall problem is a puzzle involving probability loosely based on the American game show Let's Make a Deal. The name comes from the show's host, Monty Hall. The problem is also called the Monty Hall paradox; it is a veridical paradox in the sense that the solution is counterintuitive.

A widely known statement of the problem appeared in a letter to Marilyn vos Savant's Ask Marilyn column in Parade (vos Savant 1990):

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

Here is a great article on NYtimes by John Tierney. The link also has pointers to the online game
. And do check out the "further reading" section.

Also, Steven Levitt on Freakanamics.
And Scott Adams on Dilbert Blog.

Google Earth

Awesome 3-d map of San Francisco. via kottke.org

Aptera's 3-wheeler

This looks fun...here is the full story on sfgate.com

Freaky

I am reading the "Humans" by Robert J. Sawyer which is the second book of the Neanderthal Parallax. And this wax is a top Photo on the Yahoo photo's...I guess we're going to have a visitor very soon from our parallel world.

Outsourcing

There is an excellent and very interesting look into the outsourcing:

If backward time travel is also somehow possible, maybe firms in the future will choose to outsource some of their operations to the past, locating their manufacturing and other services in lower-wage time periods. This opens the possibility of transtemporal gains from trade... assuming, of course, that governments don’t implement effective trade barriers.

That's from blog Anglophilia via Marginal Revolution

So our ancestors (and may be us too) are going to fight for the work to be outsourced from our the future. We will be seeing billboards on the highways about which era is the best and cost effective for the outsourcing.

Also if we can transport goods from the past...if the earth is warmer can we export ice and rebuild the Arctic?

It would be lots of fun.

Recently read:

Hocus Pocus by Vonnegut.

This one deals with Vietnam war. The main character is Vietnam war veteran and now a professor at college.

Another awesome work.

According to Amazon reviewer: "My hands-down favorite. Vonnegut is in rare form here. Beware: Vonnegut is addictive, like heroin or cocaine..."

Well said.

Quotes from the book:

He told me to cheer up, that 1,000,000,000 Chinese were about to throw off the yoke of Communism. After they did that he said, they would all want automobiles and tires and gasoline and so forth.
....

Can you imagine what 1,000,000,000 Chinese in automobiles would do to each other and what's left of the atmosphere?
[Page 174, Hardcover edition]

And this:

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to to maintenance.

And the worst flaw is that we're just plain dumb. Admit it!
[Page 225, hardcover ed]

Recently read:

God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

Another classic work by Vonnegut.

It's all relative

Worst fiscal year for Sensex?

The Sensex closed at 14,809.49 points at the end of today's trading, which saw an intra-day loss of 1,022 points. This represents a gain of 13.3 per cent over its level at the end of last fiscal ended March, 2007.

And oil tumbles?

Oil fell by $7 a barrel after soaring to a new record of $111.80 on the Nymex exchange in New York. Oil products, such as heating oil and petrol, also lost ground, following the crude price – which lost 6 per cent of its value in only a few hours of trading - lower.

In both cases the prices/points went way up (really way up) in last few years. A tumble from $111.80 to $104 is not really a tumble. Less than $50 is tumble...or even $75.

Things point to another bad day for stocks

International markets opened on Monday with more than 4% points.

And when the US markets open tomorrow it has to worry about: Bear Sterns deal, Oil price at $111+, falling $ value and the panic.

No end in sight…

…for the credit crisis. In the latest of the bad news, JP Morgan to by Bear Sterns for $2 a share which totals to just $236 mil. Friday it closed at $30 which already lost 48% for the day. And it’s 52 week high is $159. That’s a loss of $157 in less than 12 months.

Crane Collapse and the Southwest Airlines

Crane collapse and Southwest Airlines are in the news.

So what’s common between the two?

Both will prompt for additional security measures from government. Adding complexity to the future developments. The companies could have avoided this disaster but when you start penny pinch that’s exactly what happens.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Even after 40 years this movie is still the best sci-fi ever made and can easily compete with any new movies.

This is an interesting:

Clarke noted that, contrary to popular rumor, it was a complete coincidence that each of the letters of HAL’s name immediately preceded those of IBM.

War and Oil

There is a nice article on Washington Post:

In the absence of Iraqi supplies, prices have soared three-and-a-half-fold since the U.S. invasion on March 20, 2003. (Last week, they shattered all previous records, even after adjusting for inflation.) The profits of the five biggest Western oil companies have jumped from $40 billion to $121 billion over the same period. While the United States has rid itself of Saddam Hussein and whatever threat he might have posed, oil revenues have filled the treasuries of petro-autocrats in Iran, Venezuela and Russia, emboldening those regimes and complicating U.S. diplomacy in new ways.

American consumers are paying for this turmoil at the pump. If the overthrow of Hussein was supposed to be a silver bullet for the American consumer, it turned out to be one that ricocheted and tore a hole through his wallet.

…….

In a sense, though, all Americans are part of that conspiracy. We have built a society that is profligate with its energy and relies on petroleum that happens to be pooled under some unstable or unfriendly regimes. We have frittered away energy resources with little regard for the strategic consequences. And now it's hard and expensive to change our ways.

Recently read:

Slaughterhouse-five or The Children’s Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut.

Another classic. Highly recommended.

The time-traveling protagonist is a WWII nobody, witness the horrible destruction on Dresden. Aliens and of course Kilgore Trout is there, who is writing away his sci-fis which no one seems to read.

Vonnegut calls the Bombing of the Dresden is the worst and had the casualties more than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. He also compares the fire bombing of Tokyo

From Wikipedia:

Kurt Vonnegut was a combat infantryman in the US 106th Infantry Division. He was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and sent to an underground POW camp in Dresden, where he witnessed the bombing and cleanup efforts first-hand. His novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) is based on his experiences.

Daylight Saving Time

DST (Daylight saving time ) falls on this weekend in US. Since the so called “Energy Policy Act of 2005”

But “Does Daylight Saving Time Save Energy?” The research says no. HT: Marginal Revolution.

And in Time out of Mind:

Studies have shown the alarming extent of the problem: office workers are
no longer able to stay focused on one specific task for more than about three
minutes, which means a great loss of productivity. The misguided notion that
time is money actually costs us money.

And it costs us time. People in industrial nations lose more years from
disability and premature death due to stress-related illnesses like heart
disease and depression than from other ailments. In scrambling to use time to
the hilt, we wind up with less of it.

Get drunk without alcohol?

In a series of studies in the 1970s and ’80s, psychologists at the University of Washington put more than 300 students into a study room outfitted like a bar with mirrors, music and a stretch of polished pine. The researchers served alcoholic drinks, most often icy vodka tonics, to some of the students and nonalcoholic ones, usually icy tonic water, to others. The drinks looked and tasted the same, and the students typically drank five in an hour or two.
The studies found that people who thought they were drinking alcohol behaved exactly as aggressively, or as affectionately, or as merrily as they expected to when
drunk. “No significant difference between those who got alcohol and those who
didn’t,” Alan Marlatt, the senior author, said. “Their behavior was totally
determined by their expectations of how they would behave.”

More here.

Quote

The Texas primary results were much closer. The white male vote, which keeps shifting, was split. I’m beginning to suspect that the white males have realized that they’re either going to be accused of racism or sexism and have therefore made a secret pact to take turns.

Here is the full article

Recently Read

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.

Another classic. It's my third Vonnegut. Like in Galapagos the humanity is in the verge of extinction. Lots of wit, smart and very easy to read.

Recently Read

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut.

Another of Kurt's classic. It's very easy to read. I've enjoyed so much. Maybe because that I believe in evolution.

He was unmarried and never have reproduced, and so was insignificant from an evolutionary point of view.

and:

We love you, you are not alone, everything is going to be all right

Awesome!. highly recommended.

I am going to read all Vonnegut now. I've already started Cat's Cradle!!!!!

DVD Rentals

I've been using the Redbox service at Longs Drugs store near my home. The daily rental is about $1 + local taxes.

Most movies I like to see them on the big screen at theaters. But for some movies I usually decide to wait to come into my local Library. Now I can rent those movies from Redbox when I can't wait to get them in my library. It doesn't have exhaustive collections like Netflix, but it does carry the most new releases.

Movie Info Graphic

This info graphic is awesome.

4. For some exceptions to the normal pattern, check out My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Juno, Dances With Wolves, Platoon, and Million Dollar Baby

HT: kottke.org.

Recently Watched Movies

Here is the recently watched movies:

1. No Country for Old Men: It's been about 3 weeks since I watched this movie. I am still not sure what to make of this movie. It's great and as well very disturbing!. And it's won 4 Oscar's.

2. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: Another of Oscar nominated movie. The photography and landscape were awesome. Watched on DVD.

3. Eastern Promises: Viggo Mortensen has been nominated for Best Actor for this one. He didn't win, obviously!...The Sauna fight which very intense also very creepy. Naomi Watts is awesome. Watched on DVD.

Timequake

by Kurt Vonnegut. I am half way through...and it's whole lot of fun.

It's my first Vonnegut book. And I can see myself reading whole lot of more in the near future.

Update: This is one of the great books I've read!.

You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do!.

How true!

Ads

Ok...so I was thinking (?) about this stuff for some time.

TV: what the people at the network/cable decide or choose what you suppose to see

News paper: Very similar to TV. But you have the choice to skip a particular story. Also there is feed back (not a great one but it's something).

Internet: What you want...when you want...how you want it. User controls the whole end-to-end communication. There is a lot of noice (junks, ads, etc...) but they can skip it.

Firefly/Serenity

Firefly: Arguably one of best TV series. Hopefully I will have a chance to write more about the series.

Serenity: The movie version of the series. Another awesome piece of work.

Now there is a novel based on the whole series written by Steven Brust. The novel is called My Kind of Freedom and it's free online.

If you have seen the TV serial or the movie you can quickly read the novel. It's whole lot of fun.

why?

On some news program on the TV, saw that the border security personnel go thru a daily drill in which the steps are deliberately exaggerated. Seems to be very painful for those who do it every day. I must be missing something, but why? What's the point?

Good news for Indian Students

The Hindu says:

Bank of Baroda has launched online educational loans.

.....

Students can log-in and post their educational loan application online and eligible applicants will receive an in-principle sanction letter through e-mail within 48 hours, says a release.

More of these needed. Hopefully the Banks will see mutual benefits of the education loans.

LiveMocha

The site says:

Livemocha blends self-paced lessons, a vibrant community, and interactive tools to help you talk to the world.

HT: NYT

And one of the HBR paper says that learning new languages make your brain more cognitive fitness.

Recently Read

1. Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist - By Tyler Cowen

How to apply economic principles to your everyday life. Good read.

2. My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley - By Ben Casnocha

At age 13, the author starts an internet company. The book discusses how it all got started. Surprisingly a good read.

3. When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth - By Cory Doctorow

The link will take you to the free online version of the book (creative commons licensed). Very good.

US Universities expanding internationally

Great article on NYTimes:

Discusses about US Universities expanding internationally.

“A lot of these educators are trying to present themselves as benevolent and altruistic, when in reality, their programs are aimed at making money,” said Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who has criticized the rush overseas.

It's obvious that the most of the universities are in this for money. But in the end most of the developing countries will benefit from this:

1. competition - will make the better, up-to-date course offerings
2. makes the faculty better - the competition will provide more opportunity for those whose in the fence about making academia a career choice. Pay scale will measure up to most other industries
   
3. More and better availability of students - for research, technology, innovation, business
   
4. Cultural awareness - more interaction between the US and rest of the world. That will result in more peace?

This is just the globalization of the education.

And on the related note: MIT's OCW has the potential to change the world.

Super Bowl

NY Giants played the spoiler to the NE Patriots supposed to be the best and undefeated season and won the 42nd super bowl. Of course I lost the bet but still was rooting for the underdog Giants. Final minutes were really entertaining.

As for the Ads goes:

Two of the bud light ads stands out on otherwise the average 2008 super bowl ad class:
1. Will Farrell/Bud light - I can't believe they let this one play.
2. Fire Breather/Bud light - another funny ad.

Videos

1. Steven Pinker at Google. This is a great presentation.
2. Tim Harford at Google. Talks about Logic of life.

Links

1. Books that make you dumb?. This is cool.

2. NYT Primary Choices: Hillary Clinton and John McCain

3. China and India combined to produce nearly half the world's economic output in 1820 compared to just 1.8% for the U.S. Looks interesting.

So just say it

If you're writing online, forget everything you were tortured by in high school English class. You're not trying to win any awards or get an A. You're just trying to be real, to make a point, to write something worth reading.

So just say it.

That's from my favorite blogger Seth Godin. Thanks Seth. I am trying.

There Will Be Blood

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

I saw one of the best acting by Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview in this movie. In the opening scenes we see him as a lone silver digger and fells into the mine breaking his leg, but survives. Then he starts digging for oil, moving into California. Where he meets his nemesis, Eli Sunday (another best performance), the young preacher in the local church of the third revelation.

In this versatile, must win Oscar winning role, we see Daniel Day-Lewis as loving father but also who despises his son (adopeted, deaf), a capitalist, and ofcourse his contempt and hatred for Eli, the preacher. The church scene where he gets baptised and last scene at the bowling alley are the best (the whole movie is awesome).

Camera work is awesome as it captures the vast, desert landscape beautifully.

One of the best movies I have seen in a long time.

Update:
1. NYT Review
2. SF Chron Review
3. Slate.com Review

WEP

Norbert Weiner award for Bruce Schneier

Bruce keeps his wireless open so his neighbours can connect. He did a recent blog about his open wireless.

On related notes, How strong is WEP?

Not looking good...

Are we already in recession?:

The Philadelphia Fed reported Tuesday that the economy shrank in 23 states last month, including Ohio, Missouri and Arizona, and was stagnant in seven others. California and Florida, with their plunging home values, may soon join the recession list.

And the Real Estate:

For prices to return to the old norm, they would still need to fall 30 percent across much of Florida, California and the Southwest and about 20 percent in the Northeast. This could happen quickly, or prices could remain stagnant for years while incomes and rents caught up.

And the bottom line is:

As is already happening, banks will become less willing to lend money, households will become less willing to spend money they don’t have and investors will become more alert to risk.

Here is the full article.

Stock Market Recap

International Stocks fell for the second day. I was expecting a huge sell off in US stocks. Stocks open with huge losses. DOW was down 465 points at market open.

India's Sensex was down again with huge losses and the trading stopped twice. See the graph. All the 10 big losses are since 2006 and most of them are in 2007 when the market rallied to more than 22,000 points.

I was kind of expecting this reaction from the US stock market given the two days of huge losses in the overseas markets.

Most surprising news for today?: Fed cuts interest rate to 3.5% from 4.25%. That's .75 basis points. That's huge. That made the difference to calm the nerves of the investors and the DOW closed with just 128 point loss.

What a day!

Stocks Fall

Stocks fell all over the world due to the US recession fears: India's Sensex fall's 7.4% on Monday. Since Jan 1st it lost close to 4000 points.

And it's just not in India, the markets fell all over the world. As today is MLK holiday for US markets, let's see what happens on Tuesday.

India's Commercial Space Program

This is good: India's PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) launches Israel's Earth Imaging Satellite into Orbit as the commercial space program expands:

The launch was executed under a commercial contract between the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), to which belongs Tecsar, and the Antrix Corporation, marketing agency of the Department of Space. Antrix has received a handsome amount from the IAI for launching the satellite. Satellite builders from Israel were present at Sriharikota.

This is another example for India's space program which is growing slowly but steadily.

Indo-Chinese economy

The Hindu's Opinion piece on Jan 22'nd:

The value of bilateral trade in 2007 was $38.6 billion. With the target of $20 billion set for 2008 reached two years ahead of schedule and the revised target of $40 billion by 2010 likely to be reached by 2008, an enhanced target of $60 billion by 2010 has been set during the visit. Some concern has been expressed over India recently running up a sizeable trade deficit with China, upwards of $10 billion in 2007.

Compare that to US deficit which runs more than $400 billion a year.

And here is the comparison between Indian and Chinese economy and where India is failing.

Addendum: Here is the congressional research services (CRS) report about "China’s Trade with the United States and the World"

Ten Reasons Why 2008 is Different From 1971

Funny:

3. In the 1970s, Detroit produced big, gas-guzzling vehicles and struggled to adjust in an era of high fuel prices as smaller Japanese imports began to make market share inroads. Now, Detroit produces big, gas-guzzling vehicles and struggles to adjust in an era of high fuel prices as cars from Japanese makers--many of them manufactured in the U.S.--solidify their market-leading positions. See, that's different!

Here is the link.

Links

1. Follow the bible.

2. Want to Learn Investing?

3. Ways to use twitter

Accelerating Foreign Capital

Accelerating Foreign Capital into US:

The weak dollar has made American companies and properties cheaper in global terms, particularly for European and Canadian buyers. Even as Americans confront the prospect of a recession, economic growth remains strong worldwide, endowing oil producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia and export powers like China and Germany with abundant cash.

.....

“The forces sucking in this capital are much bigger than the political forces,” said Mr. Garten, the Yale trade expert. “If there is a big controversy, it will be between Washington on the one hand and corporate America on the other. In that contest, the financiers and the businessmen are going to win, as they always do.”

Not sure how this will turn out in the end. But I do think it's needed the most in the current situation.

Bobby Fischer

The Chess giant Died.

More links:

Fischer vs. the World: A Chess Giant’s Endgame

Wikipedia Entry

Game of the century

Kilimanjaro

Here is an article on NYT about Kili and snow levels.

And here is my Kilimanjaro trip report in 2004.

Links

1. Ten Recurring Economic fallacies
2. Quick Fix to Economic Downturn?. Article says nope.

Myths of energy independence?

In today's WP article about the Myths of Energy Independence, Robert Bryce lists 5 myths. His arguments are as weak as can be, for example, when he is arguing about the big push to alternative fuels he can only think of automobiles and bio-fuels. There is much more alternative fuels are in play: solar, wind, wave, etc... And each one has a different flavor (ex: solar PVs and solar thermal, etc). And with the newer battery technologies that they can charged quicker and lasts longer will change the total automobile industry. I haven't included the automobile industries favorite hydrogen cells technology.

The Moral Instinct

There is great article on NYTimes online by Steven Pinker:

The gap between people’s convictions and their justifications is also on display in the favorite new sandbox for moral psychologists, a thought experiment devised by the philosophers Philippa Foot and Judith Jarvis Thomson called the Trolley Problem. On your morning walk, you see a trolley car hurtling down the track, the conductor slumped over the controls. In the path of the trolley are five men working on the track, oblivious to the danger. You are standing at a fork in the track and can pull a lever that will divert the trolley onto a spur, saving the five men. Unfortunately, the trolley would then run over a single worker who is laboring on the spur. Is it permissible to throw the switch, killing one man to save five? Almost everyone says “yes.”

And the 5 moral spheres:

harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty), authority and purity

This about the community:

Community, the very different emotion that prompts people to share and sacrifice without an expectation of payback, may be rooted in nepotistic altruism, the empathy and solidarity we feel toward our relatives (and which evolved because any gene that pushed an organism to aid a relative would have helped copies of itself sitting inside that relative)

And this:

The ranking and placement of moral spheres also divides the cultures of liberals and conservatives in the United States. Many bones of contention, like homosexuality, atheism and one-parent families from the right, or racial imbalances, sweatshops and executive pay from the left, reflect different weightings of the spheres. In a large Web survey, Haidt found that liberals put a lopsided moral weight on harm and fairness while playing down group loyalty, authority and purity. Conservatives instead place a moderately high weight on all five. It’s not surprising that each side thinks it is driven by lofty ethical values and that the other side is base and unprincipled.

...........

When a mother stays up all night comforting a sick child, the genes that endowed her with that tenderness were “selfish” in a metaphorical sense, but by no stretch of the imagination is she being selfish.

Read the whole thing.

Link

1. Malcolm Galdwell's New Yorker Articles.
I haven't read all of them...but as always looking forward to read them all.
2. More Gladwell
And his upcoming 3rd book.

Recently Read

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town - By Cory Doctorow. *****

His father is mountain, his mother is washing machine. His brother are: a fortune teller, 3 of his brothers are Russian nestling dolls, a brother as an Island and the brother who he has killed a while ago come back to revenge and terrorize him and his brothers.

Very difficult, very eccentric and very imaginative. Highly recommended.

5-stars.

Mormonisim

To put it bluntly, the combination of secret mysteries and resistance in the face of oppression has made it increasingly difficult for Mormons to talk openly and successfully with outsiders about their religious beliefs.

That's by Noah Feldman on NYTimes.

Also I recommend the Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven".

Recently Read

1. Speaker for the Dead: Orson Scott Card. ****
Second of the Ender series. Ender Wiggin arrives to Lusitania and ends up saving it. This is more of a look into moral issues than sci-fi. Ender has been asked to come up to the planet as a Speaker for the Dead for xenologist named Pipo who was brutally murdered by the alien species Piggies. Ender makes the pact with the piggies not to kill anymore humans. Also he sets up the Hive Queen in Lusitania.

4 stars.

2. Xenocide: Orson Scott Card. **
Third of the Ender Series. This is kind of let down from the previous two books. Again Card dwells into the moral responsibility of the humans. Ender and his gang (actually his family) has to come with a solution to save
- Lusitania - Starways congress has already send a fleet to destroy it
- find a cure for descolada virus which is deadly for humans but the piggies depend on them
- find a cure for the god spoken of the planet Path
- save Jane who lives in ansible networks and the starways congress is about to shutdown the ansible networks.

How does Ender and his family getting things done? It's simple.
I still like Card's writing style but only 2-stars.

3. True Names: Vernor Vinge ****
Collection of 5 stories.
- Bookworm, Run! - A highly intelligent Norman the Ape escapes from the NSA's experiment with lots of secrets. NSAs agents and Russian agents are in his heels.
- True Names - Keep your identity secret or you dead on the cyberspace. Very interesting.
- The Peddlers Apprentice - Jagit the peddler comes out of the cave after ten thousand years. He was expecting the world to go through the cycles of ups and down. But finds that the worlds affairs are mostly controlled by the government. And he meddles with it.
- The Ungoverned. When there is no government how would the people defend themselves when an aggressor comes marching. Another very interesting.
- Long Shot - Humans sends a space shuttle with a highly intelligent program(Ilse) on board to find another livable plant. On it's way to the new planet she observes the huge explosion on the sol sys. But her voyage continues and lands in the planet to her disappointment she forgets the task that supposed to done on the planet. Or does she?

4. Eastern Standard Tribe - Cory Doctorow. ****

Very interesting. Art Berry is User Experience designer works and lives in London. Even though he is in GMT, he is a hard core EST. Accused of being mentally ill, he founds himself in the Boston asylum. Now he has to untangle the web that he is in.