So Trusting!

Here's something that probably would never happen in China:

I'm browsing around craigslist again and see an FM transmitter for the iPod. My car doesn't have a tape deck (only a CD) so I've always considered this as a solution but always found it expensive ($30+). I have a CD burner so why don't I just burn CDs for those long trips? I've also heard lots of bad reviews about sound quality from these transmitters but I drive a convertible with the top down most of the time so audiophile quality sound is not what I'm looking for. Still, 4GB of music is tempting so when I saw a $15 transmitter on craigslist, I praised craigslist, made the usual sacrifice of the head of a pig wrapped in USB cables, and emailed the seller right away.

30 minutes later. Score! It's mine! Remind myself: "firewire cables next time!"

I reply with a suggested time for the illicit transaction but it seems the seller is busy the next two days. The only time slot he has free is Friday between 4:30 and 5:00. "I'll be busy slaughtering pigs for the sacrifice!" I think to myself so that's out. So the seller suggests (and this is the part that wouldn't happen in China) that he leave the FM transmitter outside his house and that I can come and pick it up. The plan is I go to his house, drop about .0336 ounces of gold (at today's market prices) into an envelope and slip it under his door, kill the cop on the stakeout, dispose of his body, and walk away with the transmitter.

What if somebody else takes it before I get there? What if I take it and claim that somebody else must have taken it? I wouldn't do such a thing and even if I did, the seller would be out $15 until such time as he hires the mafia to go after my knee caps (he does have my number), in which case he'd be out a favor, I'd be out some kneecaps and mobility, and nobody would be happy. Except for the mafia, those bastards.

So the moral of the story? People in America are pretty trusting (yay). People in China can't afford to be (oh well). And never get the mafia to resolve your issues(those irrefusible bastards).

Column A or Column B?

The academic world is very asynchronous and temporally nebulous compared to the corporate world. My personal viewpoint is that of an academic (in music) with two arms typing out code for a computer company every once in a while and it is an interesting one. For example, there is never an end to any projects in academia. Sure, you can get your PhD or you can finish writing an article but where does that take you? A PhD dissertation should be continued, and is often turned into a book. An article becomes nothing more than a local accomplishment in the grand scheme of your academic studies. It's not that there isn't a finish to projects but that there's no finish studying. In contrast, one could imagine a clean break in the corporate world by switching jobs, projects, or just by making one customer happy. The satisfaction is much more immediate and often times, well, satisfying.

Two examples from [my] real life:

1) A coworker needs a tool to help him do some rote tasks. I jump on a projet to write him a little application to help him perform the tasks. In essence a single-minded piece of software that makes one little aspect of my coworker's job easier (and saves him carpal tunnel). Written in a day, debugged and added changes over a period of 2 weeks as we live tested it. Done.

2) I write a paper for a quarter-long seminar. The paper gets turned into an abstract and is sent to both a local and a national conference. I am accepted into the local conference so I give a talk to my colleagues and professors at my university to prepare. Get feedback and suggestions. Then I run off and give the same talk at the local conference. Get feedback and suggestions. Receive news that I've been accepted to present at the national conference as well. Procrastinate. Research some more. Expand the presentation. [From here on it's the future.] Give the paper at the national conference. Get feedback and suggestions. Further expand presentation into an article. Submit article to journals until accepted. Article is published. Feel good. Repeat entire process with another presentation/article but which draws upon similar themes I've explored in this article. Unite both and others into dissertation. Get PhD. Get associate professorship job. Write book exploring further exploring the same theme and satellite articles as well. By now, reference my own articles as a source. Schmooze at conferences. Get tenure. Write articles that meta-explore the themes of my academic career. Get old. Write broad articles (or books) about the history of the themes I've explored. Get older, write historiography of the themes I've explored applied to a broader field. Death. Arrive at the afterlife. Monitor progress of other people continuing my work. See little to none. Discouraged. Stops monitoring progress and goes off to frolick in the heavenly fields with the celestial virgins forever more. Projects finally ends.

Which one do you prefer? Then again, as labored as I make the academic process seem, one is promised fields in which to frolick with virgins. Why else would I be in academia?

Numismatics

In a post somewhere on d4 'n3t, I read this:

"The Red Cross states that if half of those Americans living within 2 miles of a Coinstar machine donated just $1 in spare change to the Red Cross, it would raise more than $65 million to support American Red Cross lifesaving services in communities nationwide!"

I am not eloquent enough to make general comments about Katrina and the chaos it has caused, save for expressing my sympathy to those who have suffered in its wake. I am, however, enough of a nerd to look at the above statement and wonder about those figures. So let's take a look at the numbers.

At $1 per American, it would take 65,000,000 people to generate $65,000,000. Since half of all Americans living within 2 miles of a Coinstar machine can generate $65,000,000, all Americans living within 2 miles of a Coinstar machine could generate twice that, $130,000,000, which then translates into 130,000,000 Americans. The population of the United States of America is approximately 295,734,134 and so roughly 40% of all Americans live within 2 miles of a Coinstar machine.

Can that possibly be true? I never realized Coinstar had such an empire...within 2 miles of which I, at least, am not. Either that or someone is exaggerating a wee bit.

The Glass Is Broken

I remember reading somewhere about a teacher railing against negatives, how we're teaching our kids to see the bad things in life rather than the good. For an example, she recounted the following: she wrote down a set of six arithmetic problems with answers on a large sheet of paper and showed it to her elementary school class. For example:

3 + 5 = 8
5 + 7 = 12
2+ 6 = 7
9 + 2 = 11
1 + 5 = 6
4+ 5 = 9

When asked to say something meaningful about this set of problems, all of her students pointed out that 2 + 6 = 7 is wrong. The teacher then went on to complain about how not a single student said that the other five equations are correct. This, she thinks, shows the negativity we teach our kids.

What a load of shit, in my opinion.

There is seeing the good in situations and then there is complacency. In a classroom situation, in which even the kids understand that the purpose is to learn, any good student will try to improve. Seeing the 5 correct equations and then just leaving them as is, that kind of an answer would worry me far more than the supposedly "negative" one. An adult interpretation would be: "Oh look, there are five gas mains that work! I'm being positive! Screw all you naysayers going on about the one that's ruptured a leak the size of me bum in downtown manhattan. You're all negative." [Petulance added for empahsis.]

Picking out what's wrong with a situation and leaving it at that is as short sighted as this teacher's interpretation of her students' responses. Picking out what's wrong and fixing, resolving, or improving the situation is what we should be teaching kids. As far as I can see, the real problem in this story is not that the kids are seeing the negative side of things, but that the teachers is.

Crispy Memes

To take the place of your normally scheduled Monday post.

A lifetime:
should be chock full of fun experiences.

5 years ago:
I had just come back from a summer in Shanghai teaching English. Had already performed my earth shaking switch to music but had yet to decide whether conducting or music theory was for me. Either way, onwards to my junior year!

1 year ago:
In Shanghai again, eating. "The Car" had been acquired. Also resolved the earlier issue of what to study. Music theory it was, and is!

Yesterday:
Woke up late. Conversed with friends. Went downtown by the scenic route and picked up some sunglasses on the way there. Browsed the shops downtown and saw a $41 set of 3 stainless steel mixing bowls by Rosle. Gorrrrrrrrgeous and called up two friends to get them to talk me into or out of buying the set. Decided to keep walking and sit at a coffee shop first. Read a bit of A History of God, conversed with friends online, and organize some pictures. Got peckish around 6pm so swung by Sur La Table and picked up that set of mixing bowls because I am so weak! Reparked the car and came back to the main drag to Palazzio to get some dinner. The same book, some great dinner rolls smothered with butter and garlic, a 4 pound bowl (tub?) of Fusili "Ooga Ooga", and a glass of Toasted Head cabernet sauvignon took up an hour and then some. Got some more rolls and a bit more than 3 pounds of the Fusili to go. Back home to admire my mixing bowls and then back out to a local bar for some drinks with friends. Back home around 1AM and more conversation online. Fell asleep to Couping Season 3 episode 1.

Tomorrow:
I will not labor. Most likely I will think and obsess about the new apartment and get very little done. A day of rest. A day of worrying.

5 snacks I enjoy:
1. Pork chops
2. Dim Sum
3. Ferrero Rocher
4. I don't really snack
5. Dinner

5 songs I know the words to:
1. "Christe Eleison" from Mass in B Minor
2. "Et in spiritum sanctum" from Mass in B Minor
3. "Qui tollis peccata mundi" from Mass in B Minor
4. 为什么你背着我爱别人
5. "Rejoice o daughter of Zion" from The Messiah

Though most of those don't exactly take a lot of effort to memorize the words. I mean, once you know one christe eleison, you know them all! Har har har. Shoot me now.

5 things I would do with $100,000,000:
1. Buy a Steinway D 9' Concert grand and a house/concert hall to match.
2. Start a music theory program/support an existing music theory program.
3. Be generous to relatives and friends.
4. Invest and establish funds for benefit of posterity.
5. Cars (racing), Kitchenware, Scotch, Wine, Travel, Dining, and extreme sports.

5 locations I'd like to run away to:
1. The town where any one of my friends lives.
2. The city of Shanghai.
3. The country of Europe.
4. The satellite of Earth.
5. The planet of the Apes.

5 bad habits I have:
1. Laziness
2.
3.
4.
5.

5 things I like doing:
1. Playing the piano
2. Driving a sports car
3. Eating and drinking with my relatives
4. Conversing with friend
5. And I guess studying music theory

5 things I would never wear:
1. Miniskirts - don't have the legs for them
2. Mumus - don't have the baby for them
3. Mohawks - don't have the attitude for them
4. Mobile Phones - don't have the stomach for them
5. Manties - don't have the lack of dignity for them

5 TV shows that I like:
1. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
2. Coupling
3. Freakazoid
4. Family Guy
5. Iron Chef

5 famous people I'd like to meet:
1. Stephen Hawking
2. Frederic Chopin
3. J.S. Bach
4. Francis Bacon
5. Your mom

Nobody said anything about time travel, or not. I want to meet those people.

5 biggest joys at the moment:
1. M Roadster
2. New apartment
3. Friends
4. Stainless Steel Mixing Bowls
5. Knowing what I want my career to be

5 favourite toys:
1. M Roadster
2. Digital Camera
3. Friends
4. Stainless Steel Mixing Bowls (OK, more generally the Kitchen)
5. Music

5 people to tag:
Waht price should I put on the tag?

Life according to craigslist: men seeking men

Craigslist (here we go again) is great. I like craigslist. But for a short cop out post today, I'd just like point out something:

I present you with a list of links from Craiglist SB. There are all from the personals section. Some, as to be expected, may contain content not safe for work. If you work with children, they're doubly not safe. But not all of the links contain warnings. Which ones do contain warnings? No warnings unless otherwise indicated:

strictly platonic
women seek women
women seeking men
men seeking women
men seeking men OVER 18 ONLY!
misc romance
casual encounters OVER 18 ONLY!
missed connections
rants and raves OVER 18 ONLY!

Rants and Raves I can understand. Oh the swearing. Casual Encounters I can also understand. Probably lots of explicit pics and "dirty" language on there. But men seeking men? Is Craig the list making an editorial statement here? [1]

[1]OK, I know he's not. It just happens that there are lots of explicit pics in men seeking men. Not as many as the spam-riddled women seeking men but lots nonetheless. Still...

Spam Any Place That You Are...

Long live Craigslist, for it is useful and mildly amusing when one is bored. I was happy when a Craigslist Santa Barbara started. It's not a panacea for all my wants as Craigslist SF Bay is but the establishment is appreciated nonetheless. Pretty soon, Craigslist had expanded to all corners of the globe including my real Asian hood: Shanghai.

Interested in what would be listed on Craigslist Shanghai, I hopped on a browser and went over to take a look. The apartments listed are expensive and ok, though I've seen much better for cheaper. Personals aren't all that fun (only a few of them). Sales aren't great either (same reason). Services is boring. Oh but wait, I take that back. What do I see screaming at me in all caps?

PENIS

This is advertised as a "therapuetic service." "I suppose one's own can be thought of as such at times," I snicker. But what an odd title. *click*

"Back to the good old days Western therapy to solve the problem. Never be embarassed again.
www.menshealthsolutions.com.hk"

Ah the good old days. No periods back then. No penises either. Western therapy will solve the problem of your having a penis. Lop it right off. No more embarassment!