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Behrooz Parhami's Blog & Books Page
This page was created in March 2009 as an outgrowth of the section entitled "Books Read or Heard" in my personal page. The rapid expansion of the list of books warranted devoting a separate page to it. Given that the book introductions and reviews constituted a form of personal blog, I decided to title this page "Blog & Books," to also allow discussion of interesting topics unrelated to books from time to time. Lately, non-book items (such as political news, tech news, puzzles, oddities, trivia, humor, art, and music) have formed the vast majority of the entries.
Entries in each section appear in reverse chronological order.
Blog entries for 2012
Archived blogs up to 2011
Blog Entries for 2012
2012/02/05 (Sun.): Here are four items of potential interest.
(1) An acoustic-guitar duo from Japan: Depapepe plays some very upbeat, soothing, and melodic tunes. Here are some examples from YouTube. ["Start"] ["Morning Smile"] ["Wedding March"]
(2) Oldest paintings by humans: The Chauvet Cave in southern France, where the oldest human paintings were discovered in 1994, is a significant prehistoric art site. Since its discovery, the cave has been scrupulously protected by the French government, which allows only scientists and archeologist to visit the site. So, my watching a few days ago of the 2010 documentary film "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" was a real treat. Much of the cave's artwork was produced 30,000 years ago, although subsequent occupants added to the work some 5000 years later. A main reason that the artwork remains in such a good condition is the complete blockage of the cave's main entrance by a landslide that occurred about 25,000 years ago.
(3) Social robotics: A while ago, I had posted something about the field of "social robotics" and Heather Knight, the young doctoral researcher who has become its ambassador. This CNN story reveals some new aspects of the field, such as robots telling jokes. Fascinating!
(4) A conservative take on the US income gap: "Since the advent of Occupy Wall Street, there has been a tendency to assume that only the left worries about inequality in America. ... Regrettably, the Republican candidates ... have scarcely mentioned inequality in their recent debates. ... Charles Murray of the [conservative] American Enterprise Institute, whose new book, Coming Apart, offers by far the best available analysis of modern American inequality ... sees two nations where there used to be just one: a new upper class or 'cognitive elite' ... and a new 'lower class' ... As a consequence of these trends, the traditional bonds of civil society have entirely atrophied in lower-class America. There is less neighborliness, less trust, less political awareness, less of that vibrant civil engagement that used to impress European visitors ... Man is a social animal who can only really be happy in four social domains: family, work, local community, and faith. In poor America, all four are in a state of collapse." Niall Ferguson, writing in Newsweek magazine, issue of January 23, 2012.
2012/02/04 (Sat.): Various authors, Short Stories: The Vintage Collection, unabridged audiobook (6 CDs) read by several performers, CSA Word, 2009.
This fifth volume in the CSA Word Short Stories Series features a number of authors, such as Louisa May Alcott, Alphonse Daudet, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Hardy, Jerome K. Jerome, and Saki. Readers include Robin Bailey, Stephen Fry, Martin Jarvis, Hugh Laurie, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, and Kerry Shale. The most enjoyable story for me was "A Tale of Negative Gravity," an enchanting fantasy by Frank R. Stockton, in which the invention of a device to counteract gravity allows an older man to become a spry walker and mountain climber. However, he and his wife also face inconveniences and danger, leading to the story's dramatic conclusion. [Read the story on-line]
2012/02/03 (Fri.): Here are five items of potential interest.
(1) The Bechdel test of women in movies: This video statement is so eye-opening! Even movies that feature women in what appear to be important roles do not necessarily depict the women in a way that gives them the same weight as the male characters.
(2) Generators and holders of the US national debt: Yet another representation for dispelling the myth that Republicans are fiscally conservative and democrats are tax-and-spend. Bear in mind that the situation is even worse than depicted here, given that much of what President Obama has added to the national debt was necessitated by his predecessor's misguided policies that led to the economic collapse of 2008.
(3) One more poem from Mr. Haloo: In this satirical poem, entitled "As for Me, I Won't Vote," Mohammad Reza Ali Payam (aka Mr. Haloo) maintains that even if all social and political restrictions, which he enumerates, are lifted by the Islamic regime, he still wouldn't vote in the next Iranian election.
(4) The cardboard Imam faux pas: A cardboard replica of Khomeini, meant to honor him by reenacting his 1979 return to Iran, has led to an avalanche of posts in cyberspace. The "cardboard imam," as people have been calling him over the past day, is the butt of numerous jokes. Some Iranian authorities have reprimanded the individuals responsible for this (in retrospect) thoughtless act. One Facebook poster claims that the word "cardboard" is being blocked within electronic communications in Iran.
(5) Quote of the day: "Under Obama's budgets, both past and projected, he would have added $1.4 trillion in two terms. Under Bush and the GOP, nondefense discretionary spending grew by twice as much ... It takes work to increase the debt in times of growth, as Bush did. It takes much more work to constrain the debt in the deep recession Bush bequeathed Obama." Andrew Sullivan, writing in Newsweek magazine, issue of January 23, 2012.
2012/02/02 (Thu.): Here are four items of potential interest.
(1) Soccer brawl leads to 74 deaths, 1000 injuries: An Egyptian soccer match between longtime rival teams turns deadly when hooligans supporting the winning team attack the opposing players and fans. If one can't find tolerance in sports, what hope is there for resolving nationalistic and religious differences?
(2) Alien particles in the solar system: The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), a satellite orbiting the Earth some 200,000 miles away, has snagged samples of hydrogen, oxygen, and neon coming from interstellar space. Interesting question for the next Republican presidential candidates' debate: should we build a fence to prevent these alien particles from entering our Solar System and what kind of documentation should they be required to present? Seriously though, the fact that matter is exchanged between stars (solar systems) makes one wonder if similar exchanges occur between galaxies.
(3) Quote of the day: "The voters who will decide the 2012 election do not live on a left-right spectrum ... Instead, the world of moderate, independent swing voters lives on an up-down spectrum, moving between deference to elites and expressions of populist anger. And this is an angry moment, which is why smart politicians are moving not from left to right but from elitist to populist." Paul Begala, writing in Newsweek magazine, issue of January 23, 2012, on why Mitt Romney's move to the right may be misguided.
(4) Build your own super-PAC: Like the earlier lowly political action committees, the new cash-rich super-PACs are exerting an inordinate amount of influence on the political process in the US and carry similarly content-free or misleading names. For example, a PAC that works on behalf of the worst industrial polluters may have one or more of the words "clean," "fresh," "environment," and the like in its name. Ben Crair, writing in Newsweek magazine, issue of January 23, 2012, humorously suggests that you can build your own super-PAC and give it a three-word name. Word #1 should be an active verb, coming from the list "make, endorse, heal, win, love, restore, fix, massage, rebuild, salve." Word #2, a collective pronoun or possessive noun calling on the American people, is to be chosen from the list "our, us, children's, the people's, the founding fathers', tomorrow's, America's, Uncle Sam's." Word #3, a noun or phrase invoking an American ideal, should be chosen from the list "freedom, liberty, trust, future, destiny, rights, prosperity, promise, greatness, guns."
2012/02/01 (Wed.): Here are four items of potential interest.
(1) Mute button: An interesting experiment by "Improv Everywhere," with support from the Guggenheim Museum. Makes you wish the world came with a mute button!
(2) Leonard Cohen's new album: Yesterday on NPR, I listened to a program that introduced Leonard Cohen's new album "Old Ideas." The following verses from one of the songs, "Crazy to Love You," stuck in my mind: Sometimes I'd head for the highway / I'm old and the mirrors don't lie / But crazy has places to hide in / That are deeper than any goodbye. You can listen to the entire album on-line (this may be a limited-time free access).
(3) Watch your information diet: Many of us mind what we eat, but when it comes to consuming information, we are pretty indiscriminate. We may not even be aware that we are consuming unhealthy amounts or kinds of information. This blog post suggests five ways to remedy this problem. They are, from #5 to #1: diversify you menu; find a better solution to boredom; damn the social network; decentralize your media consumption; burn your TV. Good food for thought, even though I myself may not be willing, or able, to follow all the suggestions!
(4) Bye-bye anonymity: According to Prism, the magazine of ASEE (issue of January 2012), the coming together of facial-recognition software, social media, and profit-driven marketers may deal serious blows to our expectations of privacy. Carnegie Mellon University researchers have used off-the-shelf facial-recognition software and information from social media sites to see what they could learn about strangers. They successfully identified some folks who were using pseudonyms on a popular dating site, and a number of students walking on campus, based on Facebook photos. Similar methods are being applied to digital billboards that use facial detection software to target ads to different people in real time based on gender and other factors. Other high-tech marketers will soon venture beyond this, no doubt: imagine billboards that suggest products because they know if you're feeling sad or happy.
2012/01/31 (Tue.): Here are five items of potential interest.
(1) Honor killings verdict: According to CNN, a Canadian jury Sunday convicted three members of a family of Afghan immigrants (a man, his son, and his second wife) of the "honor" murders of four female relatives (the man's first wife and their three daughters) whose bodies were found in an Ontario canal.
(2) The Screen Actors Guild Awards: SAG has honored "The Help" (best cast), Jean Dujardin (actor), Viola Davis (actress), Christopher Plummer (supporting actor), and Octavia Spencer (supporting actress).
(3) A request from a hugely popular director: Martin Scorsese, whose film "Hugo" is scheduled for screening at Iran's Fadjr Film Festival, has been asked to withdraw from the event, where many jailed Iranian directors and actors will be absent.
(4) Mr. Haloo strikes again: After answering some criticisms of earlier compositions of his, Mohammad Reza Ali Payam (aka Mr. Haloo) dedicates a poem to all the young people who are fighting dictators (in Egypt, of course, ... wink, wink).
(5) Finnair's dancing crew: On a Finnair flight to Delhi, passengers are surprised when a dancing crew celebrates India's Republic Day on January 26, 2012.
2012/01/30 (Mon.): Here are three science/tech items of potential interest.
(1) On Venn diagrams: Everyone knows Venn Diagrams (named after John Venn who first used them), usually seen as a set of 2 or 3 intersecting circles. In the 3-circle version (Venn diagram of order 3), for example, the inside area of each circle represents the presence, and the outside area the absence, of some property. Let's denote the presence of the 3 properties by A, B, and C, and their absence by a, b, and c, respectively. Then, the order-3 Venn diagram partitions the plane into 8 regions corresponding to abc (the outside area where none of the properties is present), abC (where only C is present), aBc, aBC, Abc, AbC, ABc, and finally ABC (the area inside all 3 circles). A good example of an order-3 Venn diagram, showing the Greek, Latin, and Russian alphabets with their shared uppercase letters, appears at the beginning of a Wikipedia article. With 5 properties, we can construct an order-5 Venn diagram that partitions the plane into 32 regions, but this cannot be done by drawing circles (see the accompanying figure). In general, one can use arbitrary closed, smooth curves, not just circles and ovals, to build a Venn diagram. An order-n Venn diagram can be drawn for any n, a fact that is not too difficult to prove.
(2) The second-order effects of Steve Jobs: Much has been written since Steve Jobs' death about his role in the success of Apple Computer and its innovative designs. In an interesting article, published in IEEE Computer, issue of January 2012, pp. 10-11, Charles Severance reveals some key indirect contributions of Steve Jobs. Examples include the first version of the Web, developed at CERN in 1990, having been made possible by a NeXT cube, hardware developed by Jobs' company, and the first Web browser, Mosaic, benefiting immensely from the graphics and 256-color capabilities of Mac II, which made the development of an image library practical.
(3) Babbage's Analytical Engine being built: Charles Babbage, who was more than a century ahead of his time in designing computing equipment in the 1800s, proposed and designed two devices: the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine. Complete plans for the Difference Engine 2, which had survived to modern day, allowed UK's Science Museum in London to build a complete replica in 1991. Now, the Museum has initiated a 10-year project to build Babbage's more advanced Analytical Engine, which like modern computers, executed instructions and had both program and data memories. A key challenge in this project is that the design was never fully developed and only portions from multiple iterations of the design are available today.
2012/01/29 (Sun.): Here are three items of potential interest.
(1) Preserving big-game species through hunting them: Tonight's "60 Minutes" program on CBS had a segment on wildlife ranches in Texas that breed exotic animals, making money by allowing hunters to hunt a fraction (say, 10%) for anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars per animal. The operators of these ranches claim that their work has brought back several species from the brink of extinction and that the financial incentive works to expand their preservation programs. The program included film depicting robust populations of various rare animals, roaming much as in the African wilderness. Other guests on the program argued that killing these animals is wrong, regardless of the motives and end results. A clear dilemma: preserving a species by breeding a large population and killing a subset to pay for the cost of maintenance.
(2) He said, he said: President Obama's stern written warning, asking Iran to reconsider the threat of closing the Strait of Hormuz and any hostile act against the American naval forces in the region, has been reflected in the Iranian media thus: "Following the warning of the Army's chief commander [regarding the need for American naval forces to leave the Persian Gulf], the Americans wrote a letter of contrition, and we decided to show some flexibility by allowing their vessels to continue sailing in this area." (An unidentified high-level Basiji commander)
(3) Taking stock of your life: In this 17-minute TEDMED talk, swimmer Diana Nyad explains how looking back at her life upon turning 60 gave her an urge to chase an elevated or extreme dream: swimming from Cuba to Florida, without using a shark cage. She was stung by box jellyfish and couldn't finish what she set out to do, but the mere fact that she had the courage to try made her feel good about herself. She's not done yet and will try again soon. She ends by paraphrasing the poet Mary Oliver, "So, what is it you're doing with this one wild and precious life of yours?"
2012/01/27 (Fri.): Here are four items of potential interest.
(1) Quote of the day: "When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty." George Bernard Shaw
(2) After an excellent Persian dinner at Raffi's Place in Glendale, my daughter and I attended Cirque du Soleil's "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour" at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The program was a bit different from the Cirque's trademark gymnastics and aerial dances, mixed with comedy. Michael Jackson's music and dance style were, of course, prominently featured. There were also pyrotechnics and lights of various colors and shapes on the dancers' bodies that made their movements surreal in the dark.
(3) Glitzy concert in Yerevan, Armenia: KOHAR performs with stars of Armenia in a May 2011 concert.
(4) Viewpoint on fixing capitalism: "A key part of fixing capitalism will be reconciling the large and growing imbalances between the public and private sectors. National governments have, over the past several decades, seen the most basic pillars of their power erode. ... Meanwhile, corporations play nation-states against one another as they venue-shop for more-attractive tax or regulatory regimes. ... Corporations have morphed from legal entities designed to ensure that an enterprise could survive the death of its owners to institutions possessing more rights than people. ... The biggest companies—the Walmarts and Exxons of the world—have financial resources and political reach that rival all but a few dozen states." David Rothkopf, writing in Time magazine, issue of January 30, 2012.
2012/01/26 (Thu.): Here are three items of potential interest on language and education.
(1) Word as image: Ari Siletz has offered a video entitled "Word as Image" in a blog post and suggested that perhaps something similar could be done with Persian words. For example, he wrote the word "mosal'las" ("triangle") by replacing the 3 dots of each Persian letter "s" with a small triangle. As another example, he replaced the pair of dots under "sebil" ("mustache") with the shape of a simple mustache.
(2) History of the English language in about 10 minutes: I enjoyed watching these ten 1-minute clips, written by Benjamin Starr, about the development of the English language. They feature humorous narratives and fun animations.
(3) Low-cost on-line college classes on their way: According to Inside Higher Ed, Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford University professor who taught an online artificial intelligence course to more than 160,000 students, has left the institution to found Udacity, a start-up offering low-cost online classes, first in computer science and engineering and perhaps expanding to other fields down the line. Udacity could eventually seek to have its courses certified by third-party auditors, so that other colleges might accept them for transfer credit, and has not ruled out going for institutional accreditation in future.
2012/01/25 (Wed.): Here are three items of potential interest on science and technology.
(1) Science, then and now: "Four hundred years ago, the idea that the Earth goes around the Sun rather than vice versa was not just a scientific breakthrough but also a cultural bombshell. People were asked to reimagine the world they were living in. Not everyone welcomed the opportunity. Books were burned. In the case of Giordano Bruno, an author was burned."
"In the modern world, cosmological revolutions seem to cause hardly a ripple in public consciousness. Inflation, dark matter, dark energy—these ideas also call for a reimagining of the world we live in, but they have provoked very little fuss outside the community of science. It's certainly a relief that no one will be burned at the stake over matters of cosmological doctrine. But are we really more liberal and open-minded, or just not paying attention?"
The final two paragraphs in the article "A Box of Universe" (by Brian Hayes), American Scientist, Vol. 100, No. 1, pp. 11-16, January-February 2012.
(2) A rising tech company: Dropbox, the company that is "building the Internet's file system," aspires to become the next Apple/Google/Facebook, rather than be bought by one of these giants. Dropbox allows people to store files for free in order to collaborate with others or to sync files between multiple devices (phone, camera, tablet, PC). It already has 50M users and is adding a new user every second.
(3) Some rules of engineering (collected by Edward D. Spear):
The moment you design, you know you're going to be wrong. You just don't know when and in which direction.
When presenting a design or analysis, give a number or a date, but never both.
Engineers who specialize learn more and more about less and less, until in the end they know everything about nothing.
Ask five engineers and you'll get five different explanations—six if one of them went to Stanford.
2012/01/24 (Tue.): Here are three items of potential interest.
(1) What we see overrides what we hear: The McGurk Effect is demonstrated in this video clip. One hears the exact same sound differently, depending on lip movements that one sees.
(2) Newt Gingrich fooling Goldilocks: "At first they tried Papa Bear Cain's porridge, but it was a little too strange with that weird pizza-flavored aftertaste. Then they tried Mama Bear Romney's porridge, but it was a little too watered down and had that disturbing, corporate smell. They even tried Uncle Bear Perry's famous Texas porridge, but when they went for a second byte he accidentally knocked his bowl off the table. Oops. Now they have tasted Baby Bear Newt Gingrich's porridge and mmmm, mmmm! A delicious blend of fiscal and social conservatism, a brash personality and public and private sector experience to boot! Maybe Newt Gingrich's porridge will be juuuuuust right. Little do they know that Newt's secret ingredient is rat poison: The man is not electable in any way, shape, or form." Riley Schenck, UCSB Daily Nexus, Jan. 23, 2012.
(3) The evolution of YouTube: This quote and the timeline that follows it are from an article in Time magazine, issue of January 30, 2012, pp. 38-43. "For every minute that passes in real time, 60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. ... It gets 4,000,000,000 page views a day ... It has 800,000,000 users (about the same as Facebook) who watch 3,000,000,000 hours of video a month. ... YouTube gets a billion search queries a day; if they were tallied separately from Google's, YouTube would be the second largest search engine on the Internet."
YouTube's 7-year timeline:
01/2005: YouTube is born. Domain name is registered a month later.
04/2005: First posted video, "Me at the Zoo," gets 6.6M views.
06/2005: First YouTube-created viral hit, "Chinese Backstreet Boys," gets 13.9M views.
09/2005: First video to reach 1M views ("Touch of Gold").
12/2005: YouTube is officially launched.
07/2006: 100M page views.
10/2006: Google acquires YouTube for $1.65B.
05/2007: The video "Charlie Bit My Finger" gets 410M views.
07/2007: First CNN/YouTube debate.
12/2008: YouTube HD is launched, followed by YouTube 3D 7 months later.
10/2009: 1 billion page views per day, then 2B per day by 05/2010.
03/2011: Rebecca Black's "Friday" gets 190M views.
01/2012: More than 4B page views per day and 800M users.
2012/01/23 (Mon.): Here are six items of potential interest from the worlds of film and music.
(1) Quote of the day: "Those who, amidst the ongoing struggle between democratic forces and dictatorial elements, have chosen to focus exclusively on Golshifteh and her rights, should remember that while this story was unfolding, executions have gone on and several other women have joined Nasrin Sotoudeh in jail." [Morteza Kazemian; free translation from Persian by B. Parhami.]
(2) Beautiful music and dance: Celtic Woman performs "You Raise Me Up" on "Dancing with the Stars."
(3) New-age Persian music: Mohsen Namjoo & Golshifteh Farahani perform "Hamash Delam Miguireh" ("My Heart Is Always Heavy") in a Milan concert.
(4) Ballet combined with gymnastics: The Great China State Circus performs "Swan Lake."
(5) Modern Persian music: Siamak Abbasi performs "Khoshbakhtit Arezoome" ("Your Happiness Is My Desire"). The melody seems to be a variation of Aref's "Koochooloo" ("Little One"), which was in turn based on an Israeli song whose name escapes me.
(6) Classical Persian music: The Mastan Group plays a percussion piece in concert.
2012/01/22 (Sun.): Burke, James, The Day the Universe Changed: Pivotal Moments in Time that Radically Altered the Course of Human History, abridged audiobook read by the author, Audio Renaissance, 1990.
Our frame of reference affects the way we view the world we live in. At one point in time, we thought that the world is flat and located at the center of the universe. Everything in the way we perceived the world revolved around, and was adapted to, this "truth." So, our understanding of science as objective and composed of a collection of indisputable and experimentally validated facts is misguided. Instead, science must be viewed as subjective and very much a function of the time and place in which it is created. The invention of the telescope by Galileo changed not just our scientific knowledge but the entire course of human history. There aren't very many such fundamental shifts, and this book examines the most important ones among them.
2012/01/21 (Sat.): Here are four tech news items of potential interest.
(1) Apple plans push into digital textbooks: Apple is renewing its drive to capture the lucrative education market by revolutionizing the textbook industry and getting more iPads into classrooms. A soon-to-be-announced set of tools will make it easier to publish interactive textbooks and other digital educational content.
(2) Smartphone screens with solar cells: Researchers at the London Centre for Nanotechnology at University College London think they have a viable plan for handsets that go a week or more without charging. Eventually, they believe, we might see a phone that never needs to be plugged in. To extend the time between charges, the London group used thin-film hydrogenated amorphous silicon to build a prototype device that converts ambient light into electricity using an array of solar cells underneath the phone's screen. The energy harnessing system also recaptures much of the light from a typical organic LED display that, instead of being projected out of the front of the screen, escapes at the edges, where it is useless.
(3) Using math to predict serial-killers' behavior: According to Live Science, researchers have discovered that the seemingly erratic behavior of the "Rostov Ripper" (aka Andrei Chikatilo), a prolific serial killer who took the lives of 53 people in Rostov, Russia, between 1978 and 1990, conformed to the same mathematical pattern obeyed by earthquakes, avalanches, stock market crashes, and many other sporadic events. Mikhail Simkin and Vwani Roychowdhury, UCLA electrical engineers, modeled the serial killer's behavior and discovered that even though he sometimes went nearly 3 years without committing murder, on other occasions, he went just 3 days. They theorize that the reason killings stick to a mathematical function known as "the devil's staircase" is that serial killers work to a rhythm driven by neurons in their brains.
(4) Software could identity criminals, even after plastic surgery: According to UK's New Scientist, criminals who undergo plastic surgery to evade capture will be disappointed to learn about a new technique for matching faces before and after plastic surgery. The inventor of the method, Gaurav Aggarwal (University of Maryland), was inspired by a facial-recognition technique called sparse representation, which matches an image of a face by comparing it with combinations of individual features from faces stored in a database. If the closest matching combination turns out to be made up of features mostly drawn from one person in the database, the target image is also of that person with high probability.
2012/01/20 (Fri.): Here are four items of potential interest.
(1) Before you speak THINK: Is it True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, Kind?
(2) Self-healing paint, from cars to iPhones: Japanese automotive giant Nissan is borrowing the self-healing paint used in its 4x4 vehicles and applying it to the iPhone. The Scratch Shield iPhone case, being developed by Nissan, University of Tokyo, and Advanced Softmaterials Inc., uses an outer coating of flexible polyrotaxane to cover up blemishes. The chemical structure of the paint can detect fine scratches, then elastically bounce back to its original shape, filling gaps and healing damage.
(3) The billionaire revolutionary: The January 23, 2012, issue of Time magazine contains an article on Warren Buffett's economic and political views (pp. 32-38). He is described as a down-to-earth person who enjoys dining in family-owned restaurants and still lives in a 5-bedroom house he purchased for $31,500 in 1958. He believes that the super-rich and corporations should be taxed at higher rates than they are now and that it is crazy for earned wages to be taxed at a higher rate than capital gains. Here is his response to Mitch McConnell, who had suggested that Buffett should simply mail a check to the government, if he thinks he should be paying more in taxes: "I have thought about that. But what I've thought more about, because Mitch McConnell put it out there, is offering to match the total amount of voluntary contributions by all Republican members of Congress. And I will. I'll go 1 for 1 with any Republican. And I'll go 3 for 1 with McConnell. And I'm not worried."
(4) The furor over Golshifteh's cover photo: Cyberspace has been abuzz with numerous posts about Golshifteh Farahani's partially nude magazine cover. According to The Telegraph, Iranian authorities have banned the actress from her homeland, where she enjoys immense popularity. Iranians in diaspora, meanwhile, are showing varied reactions. Some are praising her bold move, which they see as a protest against the treatment of women in Iran, while others criticize her for doing damage to Iranian cinema at a time when it is under serious domestic pressure, arguing that she has provided ammunition to those who closed the House of Cinema in Tehran and have attacked the Iranian film industry in general. A third group suggests that Ms. Farahani should be left alone to make her personal and professional choices, calling the second group hypocrites for not extending the same liberties they enjoy in the free world to others.
2012/01/19 (Thu.): Here are five items of potential interest.
(1) President Obama participates in honoring Betty White on her 90th birthday.
(2) Five-member band, one guitar: I had seen two different people playing the same instrument, but this one must be a world record. Walk off the Earth performs "Somebody that I Used to Know." It seems like budget cuts are affecting the band's ability to buy enough instruments.
(3) Persian music: Shahabadin and Farnaz cover an old Persian song, "Del beh to Daadam" ("I Gave My Heart to You"), made famous by Delkash.
(4) Joan Baez sings for the people of Iran: This rendition of "We Shall Overcome" begins in English and then switches to Persian ("Maa Pirooz Mishim").
(5) A challenging logical puzzle: There are three incandescent light bulbs in a room and three switches at a distance from the room, each switch controlling one of the light bulbs, but we don't know which one. We cannot see the room or its door from the location of the switches. In the beginning, all three light bulbs are off and the room door is closed. You are allowed to toggle the switches a total of 3 times (that is, each one once, or one twice and another one once, or one switch three times) and enter the room only once to check on the status of the three light bulbs (on or off). Under these conditions, how would you go about finding out which switch controls which light bulb?
2012/01/18 (Wed.): Here are four items of potential interest.
(1) Ode to a spelling checker: "I have a spelling checker / It came with my PC. / It plainly marks four my revue / Mistakes I cannot sea. / I've run this poem threw it / I'm sure your pleased too no. / It's letter perfect in it's weigh / My checker tolled me sew." Penny Harper
(2) Why oil prices will not crash: According to Farid Zakria in last Sunday's GPS program on CNN, hopes for oil prices to crash and for the recent increases turning out to be temporary are unrealistic. Oil-producing countries need high prices to balance their budgets, in part because they are mostly dictatorships that keep their populations in check by giving them more and more perks. Today, Saudi Arabia needs to sell oil at $80 per barrel just to balance its budget; a few years ago, it could do this with $25 per barrel. Russia now needs $110 per barrel to make ends meet. So these countries will do what they can, including controlling supplies, to keep oil prices high.
(3) Iranian student activist shot dead: Gelareh Bagherzadeh, Texas Medical Center student and Iranian activist, shot dead in her car.
(4) Watch for these new computer viruses (adapted from High Tech Joke Book).
AT&T virus: Every 3 minutes it tells you what great service you are getting.
Dan Quayle virus: There is sumthing rong with yor compuetyer, ewe just can't figyour watt.
Right-to-life virus: Asks you to see a counselor about possible alternatives before you can delete a file.
Oprah Winfrey virus: It expands the size of your hard drive, then shrinks it, then expands again, and so on.
2012/01/17 (Tue.): Alda, Alan, Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, unabridged audiobook (5 CDs) read by the author, Random House Audio, 2007.
This book is a follow-up to the author's best-selling memoir, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: and Other Things I Have Learned. Very early in the book, we learn two things about Alan Alda: that he is an excellent speech writer and that a near-death experience forever altered his outlook on life. Besides being a successful TV and film actor, Alda was apparently in high demand for delivering commencement addresses, eulogies, and keynote talks, given his unique ability to construct compelling stories from his life experiences, keen observations, and current events. In the book under review, he draws heavily from these speeches, which he reinterprets and embellishes in view of his privilege of living the "bonus" days he was given after, by sheer luck, his life was saved because an intestinal blockage specialist happened to be on duty at a small hospital in a remote part of Chile. Alda's writing style is sincere and engaging. He is quite successful in making the readers/listeners think about their own lives and how they might spend any bonus days. I highly recommend this short, enjoyable book. [Alan Alda's Web site]
2012/01/16 (Mon.): Here are four items of potential interest.
(1) Quote of the day: "An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity." Martin Luther King, Jr.
(2) Golden Globe Awards 2012: There were no big surprises in the movie categories that I had been following and knew something about.
Drama: Movie, "The Descendants"; Actor, George Clooney; Actress, Meryl Streep
Comedy or muscial: Movie, "The Artist"; Actor, Jean Dujardin; Actress, Michelle Williams
Director: Martin Scorcese, for "Hugo"
Supporting role: Actor, Christopher Plummer; Actress, Octavia Spencer
Foreign-language film: "A Separation" (Iran). Asghar Farhadi, the film's director, dedicated his award to his peace-loving people. According to the Washington Post, the award show was a big hit in Iran, with many staying up through the night to watch it.
(3) The Golden Globe Awards, music: Madonna's song, "Masterpiece," which won a Golden Globe in the best original-song category and, in the process, raised some eyebrows.
(4) The Golden Globe Awards and Iran: I hope my Iranian friends do not make the Golden Globe Award given to "A Separation" into a matter of national honor. Already a media circus has been created, with diverse groups, from the Royalists to the Greens, seemingly taking credit for this success! It is nice that some worthy artists, and an excellent film, won the honor, but this win does not give us bragging rights as a nation or culture. Much more remains to be done, and any time wasted gloating over a matter that is but a single step in bridging the divide between the Iranian and American people reduces our ability to engage in even more lasting initiatives.
2012/01/15 (Sun.): Here are three items of potential interest.
(1) One bit can be stored on 12 atoms: According to Technology Review, IBM researchers have stored and retrieved 1s and 0s from an array of just 12 iron atoms. The findings, published in the journal Science, could lead to much denser and more energy-efficient main and mass memory devices.
(2) A story of survival and forgiveness: Intrigued by a local newspaper announcement of a "conversation" at Santa Barbara's Lobero Theater with Kim Phuc (pronounced "Fook"), the 9-year-old girl in the iconic 1972 photograph that etched the horrors of the Vietnam War in our minds and by doing so, perhaps helped end it, I looked up some information on the amazing 4-decade journey of this remarkable woman. She was not expected to survive serious napalm burns on her back, but she more than just survived: she set up the Kim Foundation and became an ambassador of good will and forgiveness. Listen to Phuc read her "This I Believe" essay in this 5-minute YouTube video.
(3) Women who dare to make war films: Angelina Jolie is in the news these days with her directorial debut in a film about the Bosnian War, "In the Land of Blood and Honey." Now get ready for the firestorm expected about Kathryn Bigelow's plans to tell the story of Osama Bin Laden (scheduled for release in December 2012). Bigelow is no newcomer to war movies: her 2008 "The Hurt Locker" earned critical acclaim and a best-director Oscar (plus 5 other Oscars).
2012/01/14 (Sat.): Here are five items of potential interest.
(1) Dictionary: Elephant (n.)—a mouse built to navy specification.
(2) Bob Dylan sings the blues: See his performance of "Blind Willie McTell" at the 2012 Critics' Choice Movie Awards show.
(3) Best-actress 2012 Critics' Choice Award: Viola Davis won for her role in "The Help" and delivered a very touching and powerful acceptance speech. ["The Artist" won the award for best film, George Clooney for best actor, and "A Separation" for best foreign film.]
(4) Classical Persian music: A composition by Parviz Meshkatian, entitled "Khazaan" ("Autumn"), featuring piano, kamancheh, daf, and tombak.
(5) Homeless teen is semifinalist for Intel science prize: Seventeen-year-old Samantha Garvey was chosen as one of 300 nationwide semifinalists in the prestigious Intel Science Competition, with a shot at the $100,000 prize. Samantha's grandmother recently died, and her parents lost their home after a car accident prevented them from working.
2012/01/13 (Fri.): Here are three items of potential interest.
(1) Maybe I'm not as smart as I thought, LOL: Granted, the title question of this article ("Are Smart People Ugly?") is just a misperception, and looks have little to do with intelligence. However, the mere fact that the question is asked frequently makes me wonder. Do our kids need yet another reason for dumbing themselves down?
(2) Patent on ink-jet printing: If you consider yourself tech-savvy, try to find the answer to the following question: In what year and to whom was the first patent on ink-jet printing issued? Obviously, the mere asking of this question suggests that the answer is rather surprising: either it was way before or long after what most people might think. You can find the answer in a fascinating article on the promise of 3D printing that appeared in IEEE Spectrum, January 2012 issue (Vol. 49, No. 1, pp. 63-64).
(3) Electronic cotton: The cellulose that makes up cotton is naturally insulating, but the fiber can be made conducting by coating each strand with gold nanoparticles and adding a thin layer of conducting polymer. The resulting conductor keeps much of the flexibility and other mechanical properties of cotton fiber. Using such fibers, researchers have been able to build two different types of transistor. Applications of such transistors, that can be embedded in textiles, aren't very exciting at present: they include mostly various types of sensing for human body or the environment. However, remember that many other technologies that began with nonexistent or lame applications ended up being life-changing. "Still, don't expect to see underpants doubling as MP3 players anytime soon." [From IEEE Spectrum, January 2012 issue, pp. 16-18.]
2012/01/12 (Thu.): Here are four items of potential interest.
(1) Quote of the day: "After threatening the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, they [the clerical rulers of Iran] had to close something to save face; so they closed the House of Cinema." Ali Reza Khamseh, Iranian actor
(2) Some songs never get old: The Seekers, in their 1968 farewell concert in London, sing "I'll Never Find Another You." Then, 42 years later, a gracefully aged version of the group sings it in 2010.
(3) Draper Prize goes to the developers of LCDs: The US National Academy of Engineering awarded its annual Draper Prize to George H. Heilmeier, Wolfgang Helfrich, Martin Schadt, and T. Peter Brody for their seminal role in the development of liquid crystal displays (LCDs). "Liquid crystals, which at certain temperatures are in a state somewhere between solid and liquid, were discovered in the 1880s. But it was not until the 1960s that RCA engineers explored them as a way to manipulate light."
(4) Added to my to-read list: Based on this very positive review of Daniel Yergin's The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World (Penguin, 2011), I have put the book on my to-read list.
2012/01/11 (Wed.): Here are three items of potential interest.
(1) Settling a dispute, country style: Buddy Hackett tells a joke on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, as only he can.
(2) How to get smarter in 2012: An article with a catchy title in Newsweek magazine, issue of January 9 & 16, 2012, includes a few standard steps, some surprising methods, and a number of dubious claims about how to make your brain work more efficiently. The suggestions include eating/drinking (turmeric, dark chocolate, yogurt, coffee, lots of water), playing (word games, videogames, a musical instrument), staying active (take tae kwon do, get out of town, write on-line reviews), learning (take classes, listen to lectures, go to a festival, visit a museum), and reflecting (toss your smartphone, go off-line, zone out, sleep a lot). The dubious recommendations include "wipe the smile off your face" and "get news from Al Jazeera."
(3) Washington state cold case linked to Mayflower: Prompted by a story I heard on NPR today, I did a search and found the details of an amazing discovery in connection with a 2-decade-old unsolved murder of a teen-aged girl in Puget Sound. "DNA evidence recovered from the scene was recently sent to Colleen Fitzpatrick of Identifiers International in California. She says the suspect is a descendant of Robert Fuller, who arrived in Salem, Mass., in the 1630s and is related to two Fullers on the Mayflower." In the NPR interview, Fitzpatrick, who processes DNA information in connection with genealogy projects, stated that she does not know whether the information has been helpful to the Seattle police. However, she speculated that, equipped with the person's likely last name along with already available information such as approximate age at the time of the crime and a composite sketch, they should be able to narrow down the number of possible suspects.
2012/01/10 (Tue.): Here are three items of potential interest.
(1) Scrabble's smartphone version catches on: According to IEEE Spectrum magazine, Zynga, the company that took roots with FarmVille on Facebook, is enjoying phenomenal success with another big on-line game, "Words with Friends." The game is loosely based on Scrabble, which has lost its popularity now that families don't have the time to sit around a table to play. Here is an interesting discussion on how the new game was optimized for greater excitement.
(2) Ford to open Silicon Valley Lab: Emulating some of its rivals, Ford Motor Company plans to open a small research lab in Palo Alto to take advantage of the engineering expertise available in Silicon Valley. The lab will work on ways to better integrate phones and other electronic devices into cars.
(3) World's potential trouble spots in 2012: According to two articles in Time magazine, issue of January 9, the world's two potential trouble spots in 2012 are (surprise!) the Middle East (Iran to Libya, east-west, and Turkey to Yemen, north-south) and the Far East (the countries surrounding North Korea).
a. The Middle East (pp. 26-27): With three regime changes imminent (Syria, Iran, and Yemen) and troubles in virtually all other countries of the region, instability lurks. And this assessment was before Iran started its grandstanding with respect to the Strait of Hormuz. Israel has relied in the recent past on friendly regimes in Egypt and Jordan and a Syrian government which, though hostile on the surface, had come to a quiet understanding with its local enemy.
b. The Far East (p. 28): North Korean generals may not take orders from the 20-something Kim Jong Un, who has no military experience despite being a 4-star general on paper. China's tolerance of the North Korean regime is an embarrassment for a rising power that aspires to a greater role on the world stage. South Korea sent a delegation to attend the ceremonies commemorating Kim Jong Il, but it's too early to tell whether the gesture was a one-off or a sign of a thaw.
2012/01/09 (Mon.): Here are four items of potential interest.
(1) Britain launches million-pound prize to celebrate engineering advances: There is already buzz that this award will become the Nobel Prize for engineering.
(2) Zero-waste Olympics: According to the Engineering & Technology magazine, organizers of the 2012 London Olympic Games have set the ambitious goal of creating no waste at all. All sorts of waste, from water flushed in 80,000 toilets (converted to water for irrigation) to waste generated during construction and eventual decommissioning and (partial) demolition will, be reused and recycled.
(3) Islamic Republic's war on cinema: A few days ago, I offered a post entitled "The Iranian regime's cinema problem," in which I wrote that the international success of Iranian cinema does not sit well with the Islamic regime. Well, the conflict between the regime and cinema artists in Iran has escalated into a full-blown war by the government's closure of the House of Cinema, a trade organization of film industry artists. The government has taken control of this entity, which had threatened to boycott the government-sponsored Fajr Film Festival, on the eve of predicted successes of the Iranian film "A Separation" at the Golden Globes and Academy Awards.
(4) US Navy rescues Iranian fishermen: A US Navy destroyer rescued Iranian fishermen 40 days after their boat was commandeered by Somali pirates in the northern Arabian Sea. According to NPR, "The political tensions ... over transit in and around the Persian Gulf gave way Friday to photos of rescued Iranian fisherman happily wearing American Navy ball caps."
2012/01/08 (Sun.): Here are three items of potential interest.
(1) Persian piano duet: Accompanied by tombak player Omran Foroozesh, pianists Saman Ehteshami and Yalda Samadi play a composition by Faramarz Payvar in Chahar Mezrab Esfahani.
(2) Shopping with smartphones: Cellphones are not only displacing cash and credit cards, but they are turning ordinary stores into showrooms for on-line retailers. Applications have been developed that allow shoppers to scan bar codes in any store and immediately see if the same product is available on-line at a lower cost. Brick-and-mortar merchants are infuriated with this new price-discovery tool that shrinks their sales and gives consumers more power. [From Time magazine, issue of January 9, 2012]
(3) Boeing's 787 Dreamliner: With production in full swing at 10 per month, it is becoming more likely that you'll fly on one of these new Boeing planes in 2012. Here are some key features of the new aircraft.
a. The structure is 50% composite materials by weight, making the plane lighter and more fuel-efficient.
b. The cabin features better air quality, higher pressure, and 30% larger overhead bins than other aircraft.
c. The longer 8200-mile range makes many more nonstop routes to faraway cities (up to 450) possible.
d. Innovations, such as wings that adjust to counteract turbulence, make the ride far more comfortable.
e. High-tech features, like finely controllable LED lights and electronically dimmable windows, add comfort.
One thing the new plane cannot promise is more leg room, as the seating plan is controlled by the airlines.
[Info from Time magazine, issue of January 9, 2012]
2012/01/07 (Sat.): Here are five items of potential interest.
(1) Quotes of the day: The following two quotes are from actor Alan Alda's Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, a follow-up volume to his best-selling and highly acclaimed memoir. I am listening to an audiobook version of this work, which I will review shortly, but let me share here a couple of gems from the book.
Alan Alda, in a speech given at his daughter's college graduation: "We're giving you a world that runs like clockwork. And the clock it runs like is a cuckoo clock."
"The lure of the simple solution can lead to handing over your life to people who make the trains run on time—but who take away your freedom to go where you want on those trains."
(2) Around the world in 80 buffets: BIG standup comic, John Pinette, talks about how he scares all-you-can-eat buffet managers, and other food experiences.
(3) Caught cheating, hidden-camera prank: Man trying on a shirt in store gets more than he bargained for.
(4) Art for everyday structures: One of the most successful attempts in turning everyday structures into art objects and tourist attractions is Vienna's Spittelau waste incineration facility [photo, 1.5-minute video].
(5) FIRST things first: "Imagine, if you will, a 70,000-seat arena packed with screaming fans. Cheerleaders and mascots roam through the crowd. On the field, the spectacle of competition is on full display. And at halftime, the Black Eyed Peas take the stage and perform. Now imagine that this is not the Super Bowl, nor any professional sporting event. These are high schoolers, and the athletes on the field are robots." Dean Kamen, writing in the Huffington Post, about his starting the robotics competition known by the acronym FIRST, in order to encourage US youth to pursue careers in STEM fields.
2012/01/06 (Fri.): Here are four items of potential interest.
(1) At'taar on free speech: The following is the opening verse of a poem by the Persian poet At'taar of Neishapur, erroneously attributed to Rumi in some sources. A rough English translation follows the verse.
Gar naboodi dar jahaan emkaan-e goft / Kei tavaanesti gol-e ma'naa shekoft?
If there were no possibility of talking in this world / How could the flower of meaning ever blossom?
(2) Billion-dollar weather disasters in the US: The year 2011 had 12 such disasters, the largest number on record (more, in fact, than the entire 1980s decade, after adjusting for inflation). Of these, 6 were caused by tornados, 2 by flooding, and one each by hurricane, wildfire, blizzard, and draught. [From Time magazine, issue of January 9, 2012]
(3) The wonders of medicine: Dr. Mehmet Oz, writing in Time magazine (issue of January 9, 2012) reports on a new procedure for treating high blood pressure. The procedure, made available in Europe in 2012 and currently undergoing a pivotal US trial, consists of using radio-frequency energy to zap and disable a few select nerves in the kidneys. The said nerves help regulate the hormones behind the fight-or-flight response and in the process regulate blood pressure too. The role played by these nerves has been known since the 1930s, but until now, the required surgery was invasive and risky. An average reduction by 32/12 (e.g., from 150/90 to 118/78) can be expected from this procedure.
(4) A baby girl born in 2012: Hello. My name is Sophia [currently the most common baby girl name in the US]. I will be born in 2012, and I already know a few things about myself.
I can expect to live 81.3 years. If I were a boy, I would have a life expectancy of 76.2 years.
My parents can expect to pay $150K on my in-state tuition at a public college, or $500K at a private college.
If I finish college, I can expect to get married at about age 30 (26, if I don't earn a college degree).
I'll likely have 2 babies (the average is 2.09, to be precise, compared with 4.82 for a Nigerian girl).
I've got a 23% chance that my marriage will end in divorce, and a 41% chance I'll never marry at all.
[From Time magazine, issue of January 9, 2012]
2012/01/05 (Thu.): The Dorothy Parker Audio Collection, unabridged audiobook (6 CDs) read by Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Alfre Woodard, and Shirley Booth, Caedmon, 2004.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was a celebrated member of New York's literary scene. She published short stories in The New Yorker for 30 years. Featuring keen observations on the human condition, her work is characterized by humor, anger, love, and pity. This collection of short stories begins with her O. Henry Award winner, "Big Blonde," and includes her very first, "Such a Pretty Little Picture."
2012/01/04 (Wed.): Here are three items of potential interest.
(1) Zurkhaneh music: Zurkhaneh is a gymnasium where men gather to perform traditional (ritual) exercises dating back to pre-Islamic Iran. A male signer/drummer often provides the music, which is based on Shahnameh poems and characters. So, it was a big surprise for me to see a woman, Maryam Akhondy, performing the same kind of music.
(2) Flying robots build a small tower: According to NPR, a 20-foot tower was built using only flying robots, with no human involvement. The four robots swooped through the air, somehow avoiding each other, plucked one brick at a time using small plungers, carried each to the appropriate location, and laid the brick down to slowly build a wall.
(3) Virtual sky for indoor offices: According to the Los Angeles Times, researchers at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering have designed a luminous ceiling that recreates the fluctuating lighting conditions occurring naturally outdoors on a cloudy day. The luminous ceiling is made of square tiles, each containing 288 light-emitting diodes. A combination of red, blue, green, and white LEDs is used to produce the full light spectrum.
2012/01/03 (Tue.): Here are two items of potential interest.
(1) Persian reed flute music: Rare film clip from the 1960s, showing a live performance by Hassan Kassa'i, the great Iranian ney master. [Kassa'i's Web site]
(2) Word Play Masters Invitational: WPM Invitational will run its annual contest, beginning on January 8, 2012. Interested people can vote for a period of 3 weeks on words submitted throughout 2011. Submissions are ordinary words, in original form or with a one-letter substitution, addition, or deletion, along with a humorous definition. Here are some examples, ending with my own entry in the contest. If you like my word, please consider voting.
Infantile = Flooring for a nursery
Manxiety = Condition resulting from prolonged contact with self-absorbed men
Occupi = 3.14 protesters
Rectilinear = Moving in a direction straight toward the backside
Washington = A city with so much dirty politics that it requires a lot of washing
2012/01/01 (Sun.): Old blog entries for 2005-2011 have been archived and a new Blog & Books page begins today with three items of potential interest.
(1) Pictures of the year for 2011: Time magazine's photo editors have chosen 365 stirring and diverse photos, one per day, to capture the events of last year.
(2) The history of life: This video clip, entitled "The Unbroken Thread," is part of the "Symphony of Science" series. It focuses on the wondrous chain of evolutionary changes that led from the first complex molecules to today's humans. Can you imagine that, if there is still life on earth in a million years, some species might look at us the way we look at apes?
(3) The Iranian rial hits a new low: One US dollar has risen in value from 15,200 rials to 16,800 rials over the past two days, a 10% increase, as a result of new sanctions against the country's central bank, signed into law by President Obama. Unfortunately, the Iranian regime benefits from this exchange-rate hike, as nearly all of its oil income is in dollars and salaries and many of its other obligations are in rials. Oil prices are expected to rise, which generates an even greater benefit to the clerical regime. Sanctions can at best create temporary hardship for the Iranian regime, because they will find a way to circumvent them. There are too many eager buyers and sellers of commodities that will pick up the slack. Iran may have to pay more to buy things indirectly or charge less than the market rate for oil, but the increase in the market price of oil, resulting from restrictions, will more than make up for the added costs.