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Behrooz Parhami's Blog & Books Page
Page last updated on 2023 March 25
This page was created in 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 2023
Blog entries for 2022
Blog entries for 2021
Blog entries for 2020
Blog entries for 2019
Blog entries for 2018
Blog entries for 2017
Blog entries for 2016
Archived blogs for 2015
Archived blogs for 2014
Archived blogs for 2012-13
Archived blogs up to 2011
Blog Entries for 2023
2023/03/25 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Tondo Footbridge, Brussels, Belgium. [Top center] Marvels of engineering: Kolli Hills Road in Tamil Nadu, India. [Top right] Former grain silo converted to student housing in Oslo, Norway (several other remarkable conversion projects). [Bottom left] Flight instruments have certainly changed! [Bottom center] Math puzzle: In this diagram with a rectangle and circle, find the length of the dashed line. [Bottom right] Judith Butler's The Force of Nonviolence (see the last item below).
(2) The Byzantine Generals Problem revisited at 40: Introduced in 1982 by L. Lamport, R. Shostak, and M. Pease, the problem models failures and intrusions that affect computer systems in the worst possible way from the standpoint of making consistent decisions. Whereas with benign failures (f generals who may not act correctly, but do not try to mislead, as a traitor would do), f + 1 properly-acting generals are capable of reaching consistent decisions. On the other hand, having f traitor (Byzantine) generals requires 2f + 1 non-traitor generals to overcome their plots. In other words, correct functioning of a majority of nodes in a network of computers is sufficient under benign failures, but a 2/3+ supermajority is needed when failures are of the Byzantine kind, with bad nodes deliberately or accidentally acting to mislead the good ones.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Powerful tornado devastates Mississippi, killing at least 24 and injuring dozens more.
- Ellwood Beach in Goleta has lost a lot of sand from recent storms, exposing the bedrock underneath.
- Fearless Iranian woman dances on roller-blades along the shore of Lake Chitgar, Tehran.
- Borowitz Report (humor): Trump claims failure to arrest him is conspiracy to keep him from getting donations.
- Florida labels Michelangelo's "David" as pornography, 500+ years after it was publicly displayed in Florence.
- British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) ends its Persian radio service after airing for 82 years.
(4) Book review: Butler, Judith, The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Coleen Marlo, Tantor Audio, 2020.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The first difficulty in discussing violence and nonviolence is coming up with precise definitions of the words. For example, we have physical violence, which is recognized by most everyone. Ditto for sexual violence. But not everyone agrees that we also have verbal violence, emotional violence, psychological violence, cultural violence, legal violence, and institutional violence. Neglect and financial abuse are also occasionally classified as acts of violence.
Likewise, whether violence can ever be justified is in dispute. For example, should one be allowed to commit violence in self-defense or in defense of loved ones (family, tribe)? If so, where do we draw the line, given that it is possible that both sides in a violent confrontation think they are acting in self-defense? The 2022 Russia-Ukraine war is a good example, as Russia brazenly asserted that it acted in self-defense and Ukraine justifiably made the same claim.
So, in discussing violence and nonviolence, we are faced with a complex ethical and philosophical problem. The path out of the difficulties we face is to view violence as a collective problem instead of an individualistic one. Thinking of the society as a whole, prevents us from harming others in an effort to push harm away from us. An individualistic view makes violence inevitable, as we fight over limited resources or territory, categorizing some lives as less important than others in the process. A collective view pushes us in the direction of eradicating the social conditions that might lead to violence.
In the book's postscript, Butler asserts that defining vulnerable groups to be protected isn't the answer to violence prevention, as "the discourse of 'vulnerable groups' reproduces paternalistic power and gives authority to regulatory agencies with interests and constraints of their own. ... The task, I would suggest, is not to rally as vulnerable creatures or to create a class of persons who identify primarily with vulnerability."
Iran Academia's Persian edition of this book (translated by Mahsa Assadollahnejad) is available on-line for free.
2023/03/24 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Ternary Tower in Shanghai, China. [Top center] A sure sign of spring and one of its many gifts. [Top right] Fort Bard in the Aosta Valley region of Italy. [Bottom left] Portrait of astronomer Christiaan Huygens at a science museum in Leiden, seen through original lenses he designed for his telescopes. [Bottom center] The puzzle of climate change. [Bottom right] Sumela Monastery in Turkey's Trabzon Province.
(2) Pioneering computer scientist William A. Wulf dead at 83: From the days when the field barely existed, Wulf made a career in computing, first in academic research, next as an entrepreneur, then as a policymaker. He later led efforts to reshape and inspire thinking about the conduct, progress, and ethics of engineering.
(3) Lock her up: Republicans saw nothing wrong with this message, repeated endlessly at Trump's campaign rallies. But now that Trump himself faces the prospects of being locked up, we are suddenly a banana republic!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Iran claims to have discovered 8.5 million tons of lithium, the world's 2nd-largest deposit.
- I am a proud liberal, progressive, and woke voter: Positive attributes twisted by the far right into illnesses!
- Oxymoronic observation of the day: The Flat Earth Society has members all around the globe.
- Irish blessing: May you never forget what is worth remembering, nor ever remember what is best forgotten.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 24, 2018: Santa Barbara's March for Our Lives. [2-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Mar. 24, 2016: Statements on women by Presidents Obama & Trump, side by side.
(5) Prostate cancer is minimally responsive to most immunotherapy approaches, because of the poor tumor infiltration of lymphocytes: A just-published article in Science Immunology suggests ways of mediating these suppressive effects. [From a report in Science magazine]
(6) Relations between Iran & Azerbaijan are rocky: One point of contention is each nation claiming the 12th-century romantic epic poet Nizami Ganjavi [ca. 1141-1209] as its own. Nizami wrote his poetry predominantly in Persian, but his birthplace, Ganja, is now part of Azerbaijan. In Nizami's days, Ganja was densely populated with Iranians and a small minority of Christians, according to the Armenian historian Kirakos Gandzaketsi [ca. 1200-1271]. Wikipedia characterizes Nizami as a "Persian Sunni Muslim" poet.
(7) Sex-trafficking in the digital age: Back in the old days, parents taught their children not to accept candy from strangers. Today, a stranger need not get close to our children to offer "digital candy," gifts & favors which aren't even detectable by parents. An electronic bus ticket, for example, can enter your home and go directly to your child, without the visible snail-mail envelope that used to serve as a warning. For some data and tips about on-line dangers and countermeasures, see McAfee's "The Secret Online Lives of Teens."
(8) Tasteless joke: In Persian, the same word ("guereftand") can mean "arrested" or "married," depending on the context. On Iran's state TV, two men are talking. One says "khaharam ro guereftand." The other one shows concern for the man's sister having been arrested, before discovering that the other man meant someone married his sister. Not at all funny for hundreds of Iranian women killed, blinded, kidnapped, beaten up, or arrested during recent street protests! [Tweet, in Persian]
2023/03/23 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] I have updated the Web pages for courses I'll be teaching over spring 2023: ECE 252B (grad course on computer arithmetic) and ECE 1B (freshman seminar for computer engineering). [Bottom left] Photo by Stefano Perego: See-through church, aka "Reading between the lines," by architects Pieterjan Gijs & Arnout Van Vaerenbergh, 2011, Borgloon, Belgium. [Bottom center] US temperature/elevation sign (see the next item below). [Bottom right] Digital art, on a massive scale: Mahanakhon Tower, Bangkok.
(2) Maintaining US's weird system of measurements is costly: The world communicates in meters, kilograms, and degrees Celsius. We have to use two numbers, one for local communication and another for global compatibility. This sign in California's Death Valley provides a good example. [Image credit: New York Times]
(3) Math's 2023 Abel Prize: The highly prestigious honor has been bestowed on UT Austin Argentinian mathematician Luis Caffarelli "for his seminal contributions to regularity theory for nonlinear partial differential equations, including free-boundary problems and the Monge-Ampere equation."
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Drones equipped with metal-detectors can find landmines autonomously and safely.
- Colleges are in a full-blown rebellion against ranking systems, after decades of concerns not being heard.
- Women majoring in STEM fields experience higher rates of sexual violence than their non-STEM peers.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 23, 2016: A surprising laundry-detergent commercial from Pakistan!
- Facebook memory from Mar. 23, 2015: Right to own guns vs. right to be safe from gun violence.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 23, 2012: Wonderful depiction of Washington gridlock, a la M. C. Escher!
(5) A black man steals a pair of sunglasses from a mall in Virginia: He is pursued and shot to death. A white man is still walking free after many years of swindling, fomenting violence, and other illegal acts.
(6) Same old murderous regime in the new Persian calendar year: Islamic Republic of Iran's Revolutionary Guards kill 19-year-old Kurdish man.
(7) Percentage of women in tech leadership positions has fallen from its 33% peak to 28%: The COVID-19 pandemic and the insular nature of the industry have been cited as the main culprits.
(8) The divider: Stanford professor wants to have math taught in California schools in a more inclusive way, but she is a divisive figure and has her critics. Leading math-education expert Jo Boaler, who is helping draft California's latest non-binding math framework, suggests that math shouldn't be only for "math people" and that real-world problem-solving skills should replace memorizing multiplication tables.
(9) Seeing is not believing: You see your child's face and conclude that s/he is happy. But do you see the face as happy or do you collect information about facial features, from which your brain deduces the mood of your child? The Border Between Seeing and Thinking (title of a new book by Philosopher Ned Block) is murky!
2023/03/22 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] ACM announces the winner of its 2022 Turing Award (see the next item below). [Center] The transformational slogan #WomanLifeFreedom is showing up everywhere, including on fruits! [Right] Jacqueline Saper's memoir, From Miniskirt to Hijab (see the last item below).
(2) Association for Computing Machinery's 2022 Alan M. Turing Award: The highest honor in computing for 2022, along with its $1 million cash prize, has gone to Robert M. (Bob) Metcalf, Emeritus Professor of ECE at University of Texas, Austin, for the invention, standardization, and commercialization of Ethernet, a dominant local-networking technology.
Not long ago, Turing Awards used to go predominantly to software and theory people. I am pleased to see engineering/technology contributors also recognized recently. After all, even though the computing discipline is often referred to as "computer science," it is at heart an engineering discipline, which, like all engineering disciplines, does have underlying theories, but, in the end, what matters most is providing the society with functional, reliable, and impactful products & processes.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Math puzzle: See if you can quickly solve x^3 = 303^3 + 404^3 + 505^3.
- Persian-jazz fusion music: Sibarg Ensemble performs "Faryaad." [10-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Mar. 22, 2021: Street music & dancing under very difficult conditions in Tehran.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 22, 2019: On virtues of symmetry in network design and applications.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 22, 2019: "The Linda Problem," a test that exposes our hidden prejudices.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 22, 2014: On trees being tempted out of their winter dormancy.
(4) Book review: Saper, Jacqueline, From Miniskirt to Hijab: A Girl in Revolutionary Iran, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by Vaneh Assadourian, Blackstone Audio, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Jacqueline (Jaleh) Lavi Saper was born to an Iranian Mizrahi father, a chemical-engineering professor, and a British Ashkenazi mother, working for an airline company. Her parents named her after Jacqueline Kennedy. Saper's memoir, published in book form in 2019, tells her life story in five parts, bearing the titles "Hope," "Fear," "Adapt," "Veil," and "Resolve."
By now, dozens of memoirs and historical-fiction books covering how Iran's Islamic Revolution affected men's, women's, and families' lives have been published. They cover more or less the same key events on their timelines: Khomeini's pronouncements from exile in Najaf & Paris, his return to Iran after the Shah had left, the mullahs consolidating their power, mass executions, a yes/no referendum, held in an atmosphere of fear, for establishing an Islamic Republic, subjugation of women and ethnic/religious minorities, the devastating Iran-Iraq war, emergence of a police state, and rampant incompetence & corruption. In between these milestones, which serve to connect the narrative to history, are vastly different details of how each person or family navigated Iran's transformed society and politics.
Saper covers her days as a Jewish schoolgirl in Tehran's Ettefagh School, while spending every summer with her mother's family in England, the pre- and post-Islamic-Revolution turmoil, her marriage, relocation to Shiraz, which the family considered relatively safer, and eventual emigration to the US. Landing in Houston, Texas, and settling in Chicago, Saper earned a business degree, attained the CPA designation, and became an adjunct faculty member, first teaching business courses, but later being asked to teach about Iran's history, culture, people, and government.
Writing her memoir after the death of her father was Saper's way of transferring to her children and grandchildren the family history and information about their ancestral homeland, along with the tragic irony that of the three parts of a popular pre- and post-revolutionary chant, "Independence, Freedom, Islamic Republic," only the first half of the third part materialized. The book has won accolades, earning 4.6 stars on Amazon (based on 123 ratings) and 4.1 stars on GoodReads (376 ratings, 50 reviews).
The audiobook's reader, Vaneh Assadourian, does an excellent job of conveying the narrative's events and moods. As a Persian speaker, she pronounces names and the cultural/political slogans, written in both Persian & English, perfectly. She also reads some passages the way an Iranian would speak English, to show that the statements were either in Persian or were uttered by an Iranian with imperfect English. I recommend the audio version of the book over its print edition.
The author has a Web page and social-media presence on
Facebook,
Twitter, and
Instagram.
2023/03/21 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A statue in Mashhad, Iran: Its message is anyone's guess! [Center] This is why we have to champion the cause of women in STEM: We have made progress since Marie Curie was denied formal college education, but equity isn't at hand yet. [Right] Labor of love: Tricycle built by an Australian man to allow his disabled wife to enjoy bike rides.
(2) Have we learned anything from George Floyd's death? A handcuffed black man is pinned to the floor for 11 minutes at a Virginia psychiatric hospital by 7 deputies and several hospital staff, dying minutes later.
(3) A commentary, in Persian, on how Nowruz traditions have survived attacks by many enemies of the Persian history and culture: It remains a beloved tradition across Southwest Asia and North Africa, despite Stalin denouncing it (later retreating by allowing its celebration as Farmers or Nature Day), Ataturk demolishing Kurdish haft-seen spreads, the Taliban banning it, and Iran's ruling mullahs hijacking it as an Islamic tradition (complete with Arabic prayers), while ignoring or changing its main symbols. [3-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- University of Illinois scientists build an organic computer from ~80,000 repurposed mouse stem cells.
- Wiring diagram of the grain-of-salt-size fruit fly larva brain reveals incredible complexity.
- My Nowruz poem, originally posted on this page on Mar. 19, 2023, as reposted on Instagram. [Image]
- Facebook memory from Mar. 21, 2021: Nowruz greeting card from 102 years ago.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 21, 2020: Mullahs dissing Nowruz makes Iranians adamant to celebrate it.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 21, 2018: A prediction coming true (Khamenei & Trump toppled by women).
- Facebook memory from Mar. 21, 2016: Actress Sally Field, chiming on love in your 60s and 70s.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 21, 2014: Love does not hurt; loneliness hurts, rejection hurts, envy hurts, ...
(5) The colors of North-American movies: University of Waterloo researchers analyzed 29,000 films released from 1960 to 2019 to discover dominant colors usage across different decades and in various genres.
(6) Art Projection at UCSB's Art, Design & Architecture Museum: The program, entitled #WomanLifeFreedom, features 30 digital artworks by anonymous international artists responding to systemic gender inequity and discrimination in Iran, projected on the Museum's facade from 8:00 to 11:00 PM on Tuesday, May 9, 2023.
(7) Sabotaging Jimmy Carter's re-election: New evidence confirms a secret deal between Ronald Reagan and Ayatollah Khomeini, brokered by Arab intermediaries, to delay the release of US hostages until after Reagan took office as president, when the US would offer Iran a better deal. Arms were shipped to Iran shortly after the hostages' release, and this was years before the Iran-Contra affair.
(8) Leaked transcripts of a meeting of Iran's Supreme Leader with IRGC commanders: Most of the 58 top- & mid-level generals and security officials present gave speeches over the course of 4 hours, warning Khamenei that forces under their command are demoralized, many refusing orders to shoot civilian protesters.
2023/03/19 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] Counting down the hours to the start of the year 1402 in Persian Calendar at 2:24:28 PM PDT on Monday, March 20, 2023: Morning and evening views of my haft-seen spread and my Persian poem celebrating Nowruz & the Persian New Year (2-minute video recitation). [Bottom left] Today's Nowruz celebration in front of the historic Santa Barbara County Courthouse, with a haft-seen spread, music, dancing, tea, and sweets (2-minute video). [Bottom center] Iranian women's-rights activist Sepideh Qoliyan re-arrested after removing her headscarf and shouting slogans against Iran's Supreme Leader upon discharge. [Bottom right] Snow-capped mountains to the north of UCSB in mid-March, 2023 (credit: @zee.photogram).
(2) About my poem in celebration of Nowruz, spring, and the Persian New Year: Each year, since 2002, I have composed a traditional Persian poem that celebrates the arrival of spring and its gifts of renewal and hope, challenging myself by having the initial letters of the poem's verses or half-verses spell a cheerful or congratulatory message. This year, the initial letters of the poem's verses spell its Persian title, "Nowruz." You can read my previous Nowruz poems and a few other pieces on my poetry page.
As was the case for the last three springs, bringing myself to be cheerful wasn't easy, given the continued fight by Iranians, women in particular, to claim their rights and the year-long senseless war in Ukraine. A rough English translation follows.
Justice and freedom descend on every borough Thanks to women, we have songs, life, and joy
A spring breeze blows from the cypress grove Bringing with it the story of ultimate affection
The beautiful and fragrant hyacinth has arrived The chirping nightingale is flying all around
Goodwill emanates from blossoms and fruits Hope is in the air, of every township and village
Do play the fiddle, harp, and bugle everywhere Reassure Shirin that a Farhad-like love is here
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Quote of the day: "Our character is more evident by our choices than by our abilities." ~ Rita Schiano
- Prominent Sunni Muslim cleric says Iran can't be ruled by one ethnic group or one religion.
- A grandmother, imprisoned in Iran for her Baha'i faith, starts her second decade in prison.
- Persian poetry: A humorous poem with political barbs against Iran's Islamic regime. [1-minute video]
- Resharing in honor of Nowruz a wonderful piece of Kurdish music from last month. [4-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Mar. 19, 2021: "Nowruz Waltz," a piece of music from the Caspian-Sea region.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 19, 2016: My mom's haft-seen, remembered on this first Nowruz without her.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 19, 2010: Nowruz greetings in verse, from masters of Persian poetry.
(4) On International Women's Day, the police in Georgia (former Soviet Republic) greets women on the streets: Just like the police in Iran, but they are not holding guns or nightsticks! [2-minute video]
(5) South-Korean researchers demonstrate the proof-of-concept for a miniature surgical robot traveling autonomously through an artery to a treatment area and safely getting back.
2023/03/18 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Spring's is in the air: Jasmines. [Center] Socrates Think Tank talk (see the next item below). [Right] Nowruz get-together with a few UCSB colleagues at Santa Barbara's Zaytoon Restaurant.
(2) Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Hesam Abedini (Soka U. of America) talked on Wed., Mar. 15, 2023, under the title "Intercultural Music in Iran." Intercultural music is different from simple fusion music, as it incorporates and transfers to the listener more than mere sounds. I joined the Zoom talk near its end due to an IEEE meeting, but decided to offer this abbreviated post to introduce the speaker and some of his ideas for those who might be interested in pursuing them. [Speaker's home page]
Somewhat surprisingly, jazz and Persian-jazz fusion music thrived in Iran, after many other kinds of music were banned or restricted. Artists in this domain include Hamzeh Yeganeh, Mahan Mirarab, Golnar Shahyar, Hafez Modirzadeh, and the Sibarg Ensemble. One reason is that many jazz tunes do not have lyrics, so the issues of "troublesome" lyrics and singing by women do not arise. Another reason is Islamists viewing jazz as the music of oppressed Blacks in America, so the genre sits well with their anti-American sentiments.
[Sample music from Sibarg Ensemble (10-minute video)]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The Int'l Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin of Russia for war crimes.
- Khamenei's dirty revenge: Restrictions are applied in Iran to defiant anti-regime artists & other celebrities.
- A 6-minute review of Iran's events in the Persian calendar year 1401, which will end on Monday, March 20.
- Special effects with babies! [2-minute video]
- Big orchestra comes to life with a wonderful piece of rhythmic music. [4-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Mar. 18, 2018: The Supreme Leader's race against time (cartoon).
(4) The chickens have come home to roost: Economic and fiscal policies do not have immediate impacts, but may take years to affect the society. Trump-era deregulation and rollback of oversights are now showing their effects. Safety regulations for trains were rolled back and small-to-midsize banks were exempted from certain stress tests. The Biden administration is burdened with cleaning up the mess.
(5) The Nowruz anthem: This simple song is widely recognized by Iranians, because it is played every year, moments before the spring equinox, to welcome the Persian New Year. But few people know the song's history or its composer, Ali Akbar Mehdipour Dehkordi. He's seen in this 2-minute video playing the sorna instrument.
(6) For last-minute Nowruz shoppers: Sadaf Foods has teamed up with Ralphs stores to display haft-seen spreads and offer Nowruz-related supplies. [Announcement]
(7) Rainstorms cause UCSB's telephone system to "pocket-dial": In the early morning hours of March 16, 2023, I received six phone calls from UCSB numbers, beginning at 2:15 AM, which I did not answer. Upon getting out of bed, I inquired from our campus's Communications Services about possible hacking of the phone system. It turned out that water intrusion from heavy rains had damaged the phone system, causing spurious phone calls in some cases. In two of the six calls, long voice messages were left which consisted of white noise!
2023/03/16 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday (the Beatles): Knocked out by Muhammad Ali in 1964. [Top center] Throwback Thursday (the personal computer that was way ahead of its time): In 1975, Xerox's Alto was already using a graphical user interface, overlapping windows, menus, networking, and what-you-see-is-what-you-get displays, just like modern PCs (from IEEE Spectrum, March 2023). [Top right] Throwback Thursday (the secret history of women in coding): Computer programming had a much better gender balance in the 1950s than it does today (credit: The New York Times). [Bottom left & center] IEEE CCS tech talk (see the last item below). [Bottom right] Inflation in Iran: What used to buy you a new car 43 years ago is now barely enough for buying a plastic ewer for your bathroom.
(2) Farhang Foundation & Craft Contemporary have chosen the team of Roshanak Ghezelbash and Hoda Rahbarnik to curate "ART IRAN: Falling into Language" exhibition: It opens on Jan. 27 and will run through May 3, 2024. The artists presented will include Golnar Adili, Parastou Forouhar, Taraneh Hemami, Elnaz Javani, Maryam Palizgir, Hadieh Shafie, Shadi Yousefian, and the team of Neda Moridpour & Pouya Afshar.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Global stock markets tumble due to fear of bank failures: Bank stocks & bonds take a major beating.
- Women across Iran are defying compulsory hijab laws: 5-minute NPR report.
- Homa Sarshar, journalist & author, awarded Stanford University's 13th Bita Prize for Persian Arts. [Image]
- Iran's security forces target protesters' faces with pellet guns, blinding them in many instances.
- Iranian regional music and dance: "Termeh va Atlas" [2-minute video]
- Mickey Mouse explains Nowruz traditions and sends Persian New Year greetings. [2-minute video]
(4) CS Summit at UCSB's Corwin Pavilion: Held all afternoon on Wed., Mar. 15, 2023, the Summit featured capstone-project presentations, awards ceremony, lunch, evening reception, and a lecture by David Hinke (UCSB Class of 1978), entitled "Computer Science Learnings for 45 Years." Hinke had only two slides, which packed a lot of practical wisdom. This 54-minute lecture of his on YouTube covers many of the same points.
(5) IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Dr. Kristen Sneddon, Santa Barbara City College Professor and Member of SB City Council, spoke tonight under the title "Sustainability and Resilience: Pedagogy to Policy." There were ~35 attendees.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, scientific evidence for warming of Earth's climate system is unequivocal. Faced with the evidence of a rapidly-changing world, it is natural to wonder what can we actually do. As a scientist and member of SB City Council, Dr. Sneddon is in a unique position to present both sides of the debate: the science and policies that can be implemented practically within the constraints on a city's budgetary and jurisdictional constraints.
The focus of the talk was on resilience and sustainability. Over the past five years, our region has experienced historic heat, drought, fire, debris flows, floods, and even snow. It was refreshing to hear about how the City of Santa Barbara is planning for a rapidly-changing climate in terms of energy choices, water management, sea-level rise, diversion of organics, carbon neutrality, climate action, resilience planning, and climate justice.
[Speaker's SBCC Web site]
[IEEE CCS event page]
[IEEE CCS Technical Talks page]
2023/03/14 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy Chaharshanbeh Soori (fire-jumping festival, a prelude to Nowruz): Tonight, the eve of the Persian calendar year's final Wednesday, is when Iranians jump over bonfires, while telling the flames, "My yellow be yours, your red be mine." With this "purification rite," one wishes that the fire would take away sickness (yellow face) and other problems and in return provide warmth and redness of face (a sign of health). Here's an old Persian song for the occasion. [Center] Math puzzles: Fifteen geometric area-identities to prove or disprove. [Right] Happy pi day: March 14 (3/14).
(2) Math puzzle: Two 6-sided fair die are rolled until a sum of 7 or 8 appears. Let p/q be the fraction, in lowest terms, that 8 was rolled instead of 7. Find p + q.
(3) The double-whammy of inflation & bank failures: Normally, the feds would respond forcefully to stubborn inflationary pressures (6% annual rate, through February), but recent bank failures may limit their options.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US Justice Department to investigate the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank for possible illegal insider sales.
- Home cooking/heating/cooling & vehicles account for half the total energy consumed in the US. [Chart]
- Oldie Persian song "Yeki Yeh Pool-e Khorous": Javad Badizadeh, composer; Fereshteh Farmand, vocalist.
- Traditional Kurdish dance song, from Farhang Foundation's Persian New Year celebration in 2016.
(5) The Great Green Wall of China: Alarmed by Gobi Desert's southward expansion, which threatens China's relatively small amount of arable land, the country has been building a Great Green Wall, a vast forest of 100 billion trees, which is 2800 miles (4500 km) long and up to 900 miles (1500 km) wide, as a barrier. Assessments of the 7-decade project vary, some sources hailing it as a great success already and others deeming it a colossal failure. [Wikipedia article]
(6) Out-of-control capitalism: After decades of observation and many counter-examples, some people, including many in high political & economic positions, still believe that profit maximization will solve all societal problems, with no need for regulations or oversight. There are way more examples of socioeconomic disasters brought about by greedy businesses (e.g., 2008 US financial crisis and 50,000 deaths in the recent Turkey/Syria earthquakes) than there are success stories (e.g., smartphones and mRNA vaccines). Widespread applications and possible abuses of AI technology have raised the stakes, and we must act now!
(7) On challenges of electrifying homes: A smart, all-electric home uses a lot more electric power, requiring an upgrade of the wire connection to the utility company's distribution network from ~100 A to ~200 A. This is a costly conversion, which, in most cases, must be paid for by the homeowner. Smart electric panels are being designed and marketed which make this upgrade unnecessary. They rely on load management to keep the power drawn within safe limits. In addition, most homeowners need assistance in navigating the various options and analyzing the cost-benefits of electrification for their specific usage profile. Such services are being set up, as exemplified by Cool California's Household Energy Calculator.
2023/03/12 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] World population distribution & trends (see the next item below). [Center] Three-quarters of carbon emissions can be cut with existing technology (see item 3 below). [Right] The 2023 Academy Awards ceremony was held tonight (see the last item below).
(2) World population distribution & trends: In rough numbers, there are 1B people in each of three continents (the Americas, Europe, Africa), with the remaining 4B of the world's 7B people being in Asia. However, given that the Asian part of Russia is sparsely populated and accounting for southwestern Asia, the circle on this map holds a majority of the world's population. Alarmingly, it is projected that by the end of the current century, the circle will have 6B people and Africa will undergo two population doublings to 4B, while Europe and the Americas will remain at around 1B due to very low growth. Taking half of the Americas and half of Europe as constituting Western-style democracies, they will hold about 8% of the world's population by the end of this century, around half of the current fraction.
(3) On the future of clean energy: In very rough terms, about 3/4 of our carbon emissions can be cut through existing technology, that is, producing clean energy and electrifying transportation, homes, & industry, the latter partially, because some of it is a lot harder to do. This 95-minute lecture + Q&A by Dr. Leah Stokes, entitled "Our Clean Energy Future," contains a lot of useful information.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Seattle-based Iranian podcaster & her husband, both software engineers, killed at home by crazed stalker.
- Anatomy of a bank takeover by FDIC: What happens when a bank fails? [12-minute NPR podcast]
- Quotable: "Don't break someone's heart; they have only one. Break their bones; they have 206 of them."
- Facebook memory from Mar 12, 2020: A Western wedding tradition worth reconsidering.
- Facebook memory from Mar 12, 2017: Farhang Foundation's Nowruz celebration at UCLA.
- Facebook memory from Mar 12, 2014: When Sharif U. Tech. students re-created Ellen's Oscars-night selfie.
(5) A country which represses and kills Uyghur Muslims brokers a friendship accord between two Islamic countries, each of which claims to represent all Muslims and to have their best interests at heart!
[Tweet]
(6) Oscars 2023: The 95th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, was held at Dolby Theater in Los Angeles tonight. The film "Everything Everywhere All at Once" won in 7 of the 11 categories in which it was nominated. Here are the honorees in key categories.
- Best actress: Michelle Yeoh for "Everything Everywhere All at Once"
- Best supporting actress: Jamie Lee Curtis for "Everything Everywhere All at Once"
- Best actor: Brendan Fraser for "Whale"
- Best supporting actor: Ke Huy Quan for "Everything Everywhere All at Once"
- Best director: Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert for "Everything Everywhere All at Once"
- Best motion picture: "Everything Everywhere All at Once"
- Best international feature film: "All Quiet on the Western Front" (Germany)
- Best documentary feature film: "Navalny"
- Best original screenplay: "Everything Everywhere All at Once"
- Best adapted screenplay: "Women Talking"
- Best original score: "All Quiet on the Western Front"
- Best original song: "Naatu Naatu" from "RRR"
2023/03/11 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Special #WomensDay program (see the last item below). [Center & right] Tonight, I attended the spring concert of UCSB's Middle East Ensemble at Lotte Lehman Concert Hall. The program had much Iranian content due to the proximity of the Persian New Year (Nowruz), coming up on March 20, 2023. Due to ongoing events in Iran, the music wasn't as lively as in previous years. The following samples come with Persian lyrics and their English translations. [Video 1] [Video 2] [Video 3] [Video 4] [Video 5]
(2) Today, I attended a screening of Stanley Kubrick's 1960 film "Spartacus" at UCSB's Pollock Theater: This event, which featured a 4K digital transfer of the 1991 restoration of the film, was accompanied by a critical and historical introduction by Carsey-Wolf Center Assistant Director Tyler Morgenstern. [Trailer]
(3) "Celebration of International Women's Day & #WomanLifeFreedom Revolution": This was the title of today's event, organized by Voices of Women for Change. There were ~70 Zoom attendees. The event was also livestreamed on YouTube, with the recording available for later viewing.
France-based sociologist Dr. Chahla Chafiq, author of several books, including Islam Politique, Sexe et Genre: A la Lumiere de l'Experience Iranienne (2015) and Le Rendez-Vous Iranien de Simone de Beauvoir (2019), presented an overview of Iran's #WomanLifeFreedom (WLF) Revolution.
Dr. Chafiq began by observing that the WLF revolution has affected and impressed women around the world. French women, in particular, are fully supportive of Iranian women's demands in their fight against patriarchy & misogyny. The WLF revolution is centered on women's demands, but it is not carried out by women alone.
Dr. Chafiq criticized Iranian intellectuals, including a number of women, for seeing women is almost the same way as Islamists do. They also did a disservice by reducing the West to imperialism, closing their eyes on all the cultural and political developments that have brought democracy and human rights to many parts of the world.
The ongoing WLF revolution is unique in that it brings together the fruits of many previous movements and uprisings that were never fully connected together. WLF is all-encompassing. It is carried out primarily by young women, while incorporating the efforts and experiences of all prior generations.
After the talk, five exceptional Iranians-in-diaspora were honored in an awards ceremony for their contributions to women's empowerment: Human/women's-rights activists Ladan Boroumand, Roya Boroumand, & Mahnaz Matine, author/scholar Farzaneh Milani, and singer/songwriter Golazin (Gola). Each honoree spoke briefly about her activities. Videos of Gola's performances of "Haghame" and "Betars az Man" were also shown.
2023/03/10 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The new, improved Lake Tahoe. [Center] Persian poetry: A wonderful couplet from humorist Hadi Khorsandi. [Right] Today's workshop on UCSB's 2035 Initiative (see the last item below).
(2) Court proceedings in a murder case, a la Fox News: The prosecution cherry-picked 2 minutes of security camera footage that showed my client stabbing the victim. I am in possession of hours of video showing my client going to work, attending meetings, having lunch, and playing catch with his son, all peacefully!
(3) Saudi Arabia's statement on 9/11, inspired by Fox News: The American media is biased against Saudi citizens. They repeatedly show planes hitting the Twin Towers and the resulting carnage. They never show footage of the planes taking off, passengers talking to each other & drinking beverages, ...
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- China brokers a deal for Iran and Saudi Arabia to resume diplomatic relations.
- Iran's five most-wanted criminals: Their crime? Dancing on the street on International Women's Day.
- Mar10 is designated as Mario Day, for the video-game character. Get it?
- Iranian regional music: A lively song from Mazandaran Province on the Caspian Coast. [3-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Mar. 10, 2011: The day Japan was devastated by an 8.9 quake & 13-foot tsunami.
(5) US's West and East Coasts besieged by severe storms: California is seeing a significant amount of rain and snow, the latter posing major danger if it melts quickly under heavy rainfall. Thirteen snow-bound residents have died so far in San Bernardino, northeast of Los Angeles.
(6) Persian music from 4000 BCE: An anthropologist who was also a musician spent years to decode the markings on a clay tablet to reconstruct a piece of music that was played in the Ilam region ~6000 years ago.
(7) Today's UCSB ECE Distinguished Lecture: Dr. Urbashi Mitra (USC Gordon S. Marshall Professor in Engineering) spoke under the title "Digital Cousins: Ensemble Learning for Large-Scale Wireless Networks." Unknown or time-varying dynamics make it quite challenging to design optimized policies for large scale wireless networks. Modeling via Markov decision processes induces a large state space, which complicates policy optimization. Dr. Mitra's research deals with strategies exploiting graph signal processing for network optimization, including new representations for wireless network behavior. Her team has proposed a novel on-line/off-line Q-learning methodology based on the new graph representations, which allow for the efficient creation of synthetic Markov decision processes, or digital cousins, that accurately capture network behavior without the need for excessive trajectory sampling of the actual network. [Images]
(8) UCSB IEE Emerging Technologies Review: Launched in 2016, ETR is an annual program of UCSB's Institute for Energy Efficiency. This year's event, which is focused on UCSB's 2035 Initiative, kicked off yesterday with a special lecture by Dr. Jay Hakes outlining the long history of energy conservation efforts in the US.
The three panels, entitled "Beyond Efficiency to Electrification in California," spanned all morning, today.
- From Efficiency to Electrification: Ari Matusiak, David Hochschild, Sonia Aggarwal
- Cutting Edge Electrification Tech: Hannah Bascom, Samantha Ortega, Vince Romanin, D. R. Richardson
- Advancing Electrification Policy in California: Le-Quyen Nguyen, Merrian Borgeson, Leah Stokes
The meaning of "electrification" has changed over time. It used to mean, and still does in some developing regions of the world, providing electric power to villages and towns that don't have it. In the context of today's event, electrification means making home appliances (stoves, heaters), vehicles (trains, buses, private cars), and other energy-intensive systems fully electrical.
The entire event was recorded and the videos will be made available through UCSB IEE Web site.
2023/03/09 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: The first class of Iranian women to graduate from college (Tehran's Daanshsaraa-ye Aali, late 1930s; Wikipedia). [Top center] Math puzzle: In this diagram with a unit-diameter circle and two overlapping squares, find the green area of overlap. [Top right] A Tribute to the Brave Women of Iran: Panel discussion, organized by ALL 4 IRAN, with the following participants: Nazanin Afshin-Jam Mackay, Mehrak Hazaveh (moderator), Azam Jangravi, Jenna Sudds, Najmeh Tansaz, Anita Vandenbeld (126-minute recording). [Bottom left] Farhang Foundation reveals its Nowruz 2023 banner design in support of #WomanLifeFreedom, by illustrator Rashin Kheiriyeh. [Bottom center] Observance of the International Women's Day in front of UCSB Library included a large contingent of Iranians bringing attention to the plight of Iranian women (Video 1) (Video 2). [Bottom right] Special lecture by Dr. Jay Hakes at UCSB's Institute for Eneregy Efficiency (see the last item below).
(2) "Stranger at the Gate": An Oscar-nominate documentary short about a US Marine with PTSD who sets out to mass-murder Muslims at a mosque, but is transformed when he is received with warmth by his targets.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Orwell: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations."
- Pop music: A beautiful solo-guitar rendition of "Hotel California."
- A multilingual rendition of an old song that was known as "Shaneh" in its Persian version. [3-minute video]
- A wonderful street act, with a marionette playing "The Sound of Silence" on cello.
(4) How good is the DBLP bibliographic database of computer science journals? This article, published in the March 2023 issue of IEEE Computer, concludes that, "DBLP provides decent coverage of CS and 'CS-adjacent' journals, at least when considering WOS [Web of Science], with the 'journals left out' presenting lower impact metrics compared to those selected for indexing by DBLP. At the same time, a significant portion of CS and CS-related literature from Scopus is not indexed by DBLP, and a nonnegligible portion of DBLP's indexed journals seem to have a weak relation (if any) to CS."
(5) "Historical Perspectives on Efficiency, Electrification, and Climate Change: What the Past Tells Us About the Future": This was the title of today's special lecture at UCSB's Institute for Energy Efficiency, as a prelude to tomorrow's workshop, featuring three panels, under the title "Emerging Technologies Review: Beyond Efficiency to Electrification in California."
Presidential & Energy Historian Dr. Jay Hakes, author of the 2008 book A Declaration of Energy Independence: How Freedom from Foreign Oil Can Improve National Security, Our Economy, and Our Environment, the 2021 book Energy Crises: Nixon, Ford, Cater, and Tough Choices in the 1970s, and a forthcoming book dealing with the origins of the climate-change debate in America, talked about his experiences as the Director of the US Energy Information Administration and in various posts under Presidents Carter and Obama. He highlighted the 1975 CAFE standards, enacted in response to the oil crisis of the early 1970s, as a big jump in energy efficiency. Hakes observed that California is on the forefront of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability policies. He also chimed in on climate change, asserting that whether or not the damage is reversible won't be known until 2030. Technology will play a key role in curbing emissions and in limiting the extent of warming.
2023/03/08 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy Int'l Women's Day (see the next item below). [Center] On the occasion of #WomensDay, I dedicate this poem of mine to the fearless, adorable women of Iran (2-minute recitation). [Right] Socrates Think Tank lecture in honor of Women's Day (see the last item below).
(2) This 112th edition of #WomensDay, with the theme #EmbraceEquity, must be observed more vigorously, given forces in the East & West that are pushing to reverse much of the gains on gender equality and in view of women assuming an outsize role in social movements worldwide, particularly in Iran (#WomanLifeFreedom).
(3) "#WomanLifeFreedom Is a Universal Message": This was the title of tonight's Socrates Think Tank Zoom lecture in Persian by Dr. Nayereh Tohidi (Cal State Northridge). There were ~120 attendees.
That we lack democracy in Iran's governance structure can be attributed, in no small part, to cultural factors. Democracy in society is linked to democracy in families. As long as women and children have no say within families, it would be misguided to expect democracy at the level of national government.
The #WomanLifeFreedom (WLF) movement is different from Iran's previous sociopolitical movements. The first part of the movement, which was like thunder and lightning, may have passed, but the movement's nurturing rain continues. Iranian women became very active ever since, shortly after the formation of the Islamic Republic, and a few days before the first Women's Day in the new regime, Khomeini declared that hijab would be mandatory for women, turning the celebratory event into an occasion for mourning and protest.
Mahsa Amini's death after she was roughed up and detained for showing some hair from under her headscarf was a spark, an event that awakened Iranians, much like Americans were awakened to racial injustice by the death of George Floyd. Mahsa, a young woman, a Kurd, and a Sunni Muslim, was an apt symbol of opposition to the iron-clad rule of old, patriarchal Shi'i clerics. This may be the first time in history that a major movement is sparked by women and in support of women's rights. Iran's previous uprisings were economic, trade/labor/union-related, or political in nature, but the current one is primarily cultural. It seeks to change social structures that enchain women and prohibit everyone from living a peaceful, happy life.
Islamists believe that they have to control every part of a woman's body and her entire life. According to mullahs, every part of a woman's body has the same arousing effect as her genitals. Whereas a man needs to cover only his midsection, with a swimming trunk, say, a woman should be covered from head to toe. Some more-liberal clerics allow a woman's face and hands to show, but no other parts. Over the years, Iranian women did not take these edicts seriously and gradually adjusted their clothing and headscarves to show more of their features, in rather stylish ways.
The cultural character of the WLF movement led to art and music playing major roles in motivating and guiding the protests. Shervin Hajipour's viral song "Baraa-ye" cleverly and artistically enumerated the people's demands: Freedom to dance, to laugh, to kiss, to display affection, to breathe clean air, to enjoy a healthy environment, and much more. These demands cannot be met within the framework of the oxymoronic Islamic Republic, in which people are viewed as incapable of making their own life decisions and must follow the guidance of a cleric, as if they were minors or mentally incompetent.
Over the years, many groups endeavored to change the situation by advocating for reforms within the framework of Islamic Republic's constitution, but all such efforts were dismissed by the Supreme Leader and his cronies, who imprisoned, exiled, or sidelined many of the reform advocates.
Finally, people had it with the absolute dictatorship of the Supreme Leader in collusion with Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Iran's Generation Z grew up with technology. Gen-Z youth were exposed to satellite TV, the Internet, and social media. They also lived in smaller families with 1-2 children, thus receiving more attention and resources.
Despite the presence of local and field leaders, the lack of visible leadership and organizational structure limits the scope of protests. Today, hierarchical/centralized leadership is frowned upon. People prefer distributed, diversified, inclusive leadership. Even though some people call the current movement a revolution, this view is rather simple-minded. Some cracks and discord have become evident in the regime's leadership, but the brutal security apparatus is still in control and able to quash much of the protests.
The regime has admitted to arresting many thousands of protesters (even more than observers had estimated). Many of those arrested have been "pardoned," even though they had not committed any crimes. But the regime's prisons are still full of activists, journalists, and members of intelligentsia.
Protests have calmed down for now, but there is definitely no going back to Islamic Republic's preferred status quo. People have been emboldened to overtly protest against compulsory hijab and other forms of oppression. Cutting of hairs, which is an ancient form of protest in Iran and other countries, became a highly visible and effective symbol of discontent. We also see many other innovations in the way protests are organized and carried out.
2023/03/07 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Let a beautiful spring-like day begin: The full moon over the western sky of Goleta, California, 5:45 AM, Tuesday, March 7, 2023. [Top center] AI-assisted artistic depiction of Iranian women's fight against tyranny. [Top right] The Romans had very strong concrete: Rome's Colosseum had a part of its outer structure destroyed in a 14th-century earthquake, but much of it has lasted for ~2000 years. Think about it! The expected lifespan of a modern NFL stadium is ~30 years. So, there is no chance that 41st-century tourists in the US will be visiting a 21st-century football stadium! [Bottom left] UCSB's brand-new classroom building: Called the Interactive Learning Pavilion, the new building will become available for use in spring, and I will be teaching a class in ILP 1203. ILP classrooms are supposed to have state-of-the-art facilities, and I can't wait to try them out! [Bottom center] Piet Oudolf's Valley, a 75000 square-meter mixed-use project, is located in Amsterdam's Zuidas business district. [Bottom right] Snow in Southern California!
(2) Math puzzle: In a quadrilateral, two opposite sides are of lengths 5 & 6, a third side is of length 7, and the two diameters are perpendicular to each other. What is the length of the fourth side?
(3) Stand-up comedy: This Finnish guy makes insightful and super-funny observations about the English language. Here are his takes on "ass" meaning more than just "butt" and on several words, including "no."
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Similarities between Russia & Iran in conducting poison-gas attacks against political opponents are striking!
- The Grammar Nazi: Super-funny language humor. [3-minute video]
- A surprising variety of nested Russian dolls. [1-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Mar. 6, 2018: My remote lecture at Razi University of Kermanshah, Iran.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 6, 2017: "In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue."
- Facebook memory from Mar. 6, 2013: The electronics age has made lying a lot more difficult.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 7, 2018: Up-close and personal view of majestic birds in flight.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 7, 2012: How Iran's territory shrank over the 19th and 20th centuries.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 7, 2010: A memorable conference trip to Guadalajara, Mexico.
(5) The growing influence of industry on AI research: After decades of coexistence in academia and industrial research centers, the balance of artificial intelligence activity & innovation is tilting toward industry.
(6) Presentation dos and don'ts: Armando Roca Suarez gives helpful tips on how to prepare presentation slides so that attendees with ADHD can process and understand them. Slides full of text are out. Diagrams and compelling stories are in. IMHO, these suggestions are useful for all attendees, not just those with ADHD.
(7) A breath of fresh air: This senior Shi'i cleric praises Reza Shah for a solidly-founded system of justice and chides Islamic Republic authorities for their nonsensical/inconsistent statements about mass-poisonings of Iranian schoolgirls. [12-minute video, in Persian] [See also my blog item 1 on Monday 2023/03/06]
(8) Getting ready for Nowruz: I am preparing to set up my haft-seen ahead of the arrival of the Persian New Year at 2:24:27 PM PDT on Monday, March 20, 2023. Nowruz traditions include setting up a spread with seven items whose Persian names begin with the sound "S" (the seven S's). US-based Sadaf food company sent me an ad to let me know that they carry all 7 items. I tend to use substitutes for hard-to-find items such as Samanu. Examples of substitutes include Sekkeh (coin), Sonbol (hyacinth), and Saa'at (watch/clock).
2023/03/06 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Conspiracy theories: Iran's mullahs and their official mouthpieces (state TV, newspapers, other media) are promoting different conspiracy theories about the poisoning of schoolgirls across the country. They don't even try to be consistent in their pronouncements, blaming foreign enemies, Great Britain, teachers, and the #WomanLifeFreedom movement for the evil deeds. Some sources claim that there is no poisoning at all, offering the explanation that impressionable young girls have succumbed to mass hysteria! Meanwhile, schoolgirls and their moms are arrested when they gather to protest or demand action. (#Poisonings)
(2) Science at Sundance: This is the title of a 9-page special feature in the March 2, 2023, issue of Science magazine discussing science-themed films at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
- Poacher: Wildlife crime fighters expose the largest ivory ring in Indian history
- Deep Rising: Warns about dangers of mining metallic nodules from the abyssal plains of the Pacific Ocean
- The Longest Goodbye: Plans for, and challenges of, human travel to Mars
- The Pod Generation: Envisions a believable future of AI-mediated comforts
- Fantastic Machine: Sprawling history of camera technology and image-making
- Is There Anybody Out There? Pushes back against the notion that disabilities are problems to be solved
- The Eternal Memory: Poignant & intimate portrait of a couple facing the challenges of Alzheimer's disease
(3) Fights over patents and technical credit: Ever since the "invention" of the stored-program digital computer, people have argued over who deserves credit for which innovation in the world of digital technology. Inventors file for patents to reserve a spot in the "Hall of Credits" and to benefit financially, should an idea move to the industrial stage and appear in actual products. Of course, being issued a patent is no guarantee for either fame or fortune. Patents are routinely challenged in courts and, more often than not, are deemed faulty/invalid, because the inventor or patent filer missed or failed to cite "prior art," knowledge that already existed at the time the patent application was made.
The "invention" of the digital computer itself led to significant fights over who should get credit. I have used "invention" in quotation marks, because ideas from many different people over several decades, refined and combined, led to the stored-program computer, what we mean by "computer" today. However, according to the 2003 book Who Invented the Computer: The Legal Battle that Changed Computing History (by Alice Rowe Burks), a legal battle in the early 1970s established the little-known physics/math professor John Vincent Atanasoff as the "inventor."
A similar battle played out over the notion of RISC (reduced instruction-set computer) in the 1980s. IBM did much work in this area in connection with its 801 system and acquired at least 11 patents, 6 on hardware and 5 on software topics. Later, a computer science professor at UC Berkeley, David Patterson, made formal presentations on the benefits of RISC architectures, in terms of design simplicity & performance benefits, and published many papers on the subject, attaching his name indelibly to the RISC idea. In this 1988 piece, "RISCy Patents," Patterson reviews the fights over RISC patents and claims of credit.
2023/03/05 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The leaning twin towers of Paris: The V-shaped Tours Duo skyscrapers, designed by Jean Nouvel. [Center] Four of the many artistic memes honoring Iran's #WomanLifeFreedom movement. [Right] I love my LED lamp, with multiple lighting modes (candle, blinking, and more) and a remote control.
(2) "The Feminist Test We Keep Failing": A 22-minute podcast in the "Lost Women of Science" series that discusses "the Finkbeiner Test," a checklist of what to avoid in writing the profile of a successful women in the media. It includes not mentioning the husband's job, her childcare arrangements, or how she was the first women to do or be 'X.'
I tend to agree with one of the discussants that we should not over-emphasize a scientist's gender and gender-related issues. However, rather than avoiding certain aspects of a woman scientist's life, we should make an effort to discuss those aspects for male scientists as well. In other words, we should present scientists of both sexes as human beings, whose profiles include scientific expertise & contributions, along with personal interests & relationships. This is already being done in other domains. An athlete's or actor's profile, for example, usually includes not just his/her career, but also personal interests & social connections.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Finland joined NATO to deter a Russian invasion, a repeat of Stalin's annexation of a part of its territory.
- A capsul history of Africa: Of Africa's 55 sovereign states, only Ethiopia and Liberia were never colonized.
- IEEE Buenaventura Section talk: "An Overview of California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)." [57-minute video]
- Ukrainians cope with horrors of war by taking refuge in music, says a conductor who is now a refugee.
- Pop music: Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean": Four players, one guitar.
- Pop music: A cappella performance of "Stand by Me": The Buzztones from London.
- Math puzzle: Show that there are only 3 integer values n that make both 9n + 16 & 16n + 9 perfect squares.
(4) [Iran's Islamic Republic is following in the footsteps of the Soviet Union, Part 1] Eliminating the troublesome middle class: Lenin famously said that the middle class should be squeezed out by the double-pressure of overt taxes and covert taxes (aka inflation), so that it has no opportunity to cause mischief with its learned manners of reading, traveling, learning, and teaching. [Note: That Lenin actually said so has been disputed, but he and other economists & politicians have agreed with its essence.] Once the middle class is gone, the upper class becomes more conservative out of fear, taking refuge behind tradition and religion. In this 2-minute video (in Persian), a Cambridge University professor explains the strategy.
(5) [Iran's Islamic Republic is following in the footsteps of the Soviet Union, Part 2] Poisoning of schoolgirls: Iran was very slow in admitting that many school girls have been poisoned with nerve gas and has yet to arrest anyone or even name the culprits, raising valid suspicions that the regime's security apparatus has carried out these vile attacks to discourage girls from going to school. The Chechnya region of Russia, home to separatist movements, suffered from a similar wave of poisonings in 2005, which affected mainly school children and produced identical symptoms. Russia & Putin are seemingly in love with poisoning their opponents. [Map of Iran, showing the geographic distribution of school poisoning sites]
2023/03/04 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The Paratethys Sea: Once the largest lake on Earth, its remaining fragments form the Black, Caspian, and Aral Seas. Europe looked a lot different 12 million years ago! [Top center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: "It's a nice change of pace from being on fire." [Top right and all of center row] Farhang Foundation lecture about Iran (see the last item below). [Bottom row] UCSB's Art, Design & Architecture Museum (see the next item below).
(2) Visiting UCSB's Art, Design & Architecture Museum: On Friday, March 3, 2023, I took advantage of a guided tour of a part of AD&A Museum's architecture & design collection, offered in connection with the UCSB Reads 2023 Program. The Genius Loci exhibit shows 10 single-family home projects, with samples from desert, hillside, and beachfront residences. A common theme in the 10 designs on display is harmony with the environment and surrounding nature.
Many famous architects have built in Southern California, primarily residences, many of them for their personal use. I photographed a few examples: A desert home, a hillside home, and a private bomb shelter, which became the rage immediately after World War II. Ideas about bomb towns for communities were also floated.
UCSB's AD&A museum owns an impressive collection of architectural drawings, scale models, and other documents in its collection, some stored within on-campus archives and others kept externally. The photos show parts of the on-campus archives and a classic guide to SoCal architecture.
(3) "Banning and Belonging: Iranians of the Southern Persian Gulf Coast": This was the title of today's fascinating talk by Dr. Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet (U. Pennsylvania) under the auspices of Farhang Foundation.
We know much about Iran's influence in Southwest Asia and Southeastern Europe, brought about by when the Persian Empires extended far and wide. As far as I know, points to the south of the Persian Gulf were never officially part of the various Persian Empires, yet Iranians have a significant presence there and have influenced that region, sometimes referred to as the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf. Driven by foreign powers pursuing their economic and political interests, the Persian Gulf itself has been called "the Arabian Gulf," "the Islamic Gulf," "the Basra Gulf," or simply "the Gulf," a cop-out and non-descriptive term.
Expanding from India, Britain exerted influence over the Persian-Gulf, considering that area of strategic value to its naval and economic supremacy. British sources referred to the Persian Gulf as "the British Lake." At the time, Iran had no naval presence to speak of, and no strong central government to challenge Britain's domination. British accounts of the region's history are biased toward the Arab countries, because those countries were viewed as weaker and thus more prone to manipulation to preserve Britain's interests. As a result, part of the British policy was to restrict the Iranian presence in the south of the Persian Gulf.
Despite reference to the south Persian Gulf as predominantly Arabian, the real story is different. The region's population has been migratory, with significant presence by South Asians, Africans, and Iranians. Europeans imposed the binary Arab/Persian (or Arab/Ajam, where Ajam, applied primarily to Persians, is a derogatory term) on the region, the way they did in Europe, where they preferred to view countries as mono-ethnic and mono-lingual. This did not fit the reality in the Middle East. For example, there was a significant Iranian minority in Iraq that enjoyed rights under the Ottomans, but not later.
Unfortunately, Iran gradually lost the culture war and the Middle East became identified with Arabs in the 20th century. Iranians themselves contributed to the dichotomy and hateful dialog (e.g., Ferdowsi, Ibn Khaldun). The modern Iranian identity, developed in the 20th century, recognized the diversity of the population, in a way that the Persian identity did not. Racism and violence are inevitable consequences of identity erasure/denial. So, the arbitrary drawing of national boundaries of the Middle East by the British contributed to the permanent state of conflict in the region.
Many of Iran's engagements with world powers entailed loss of territory. Boundaries with Iraq and in the Persian Gulf were redrawn by the British, leaving Iran rather vulnerable in both regions. The current geopolitical reality is that Iran is encircled by hostile or unfriendly states. As a result, Iran cannot secure itself merely by arming. Diplomacy and international relations must play a role. It is imperative that Iran rejoin the family of nations and establish friendly ties, both regionally and worldwide. [84-minute recording of the talk]
2023/03/03 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] IEEE Computer magazine's February cover feature on trustworthy AI (see the next item below). [Center] Special issue on asteroid samples: The February 24, 2023 issue of Science magazine discusses what analyzing more than 70,000 meteorites in existence on Earth can teach us about their origins and our universe. [Right] Persian poetry: A loaded political-protest poem by Iraj Mirza (1874-1926).
(2) Cover feature of IEEE Computer magazine, February 2023: First installment of extensive discussions on trustworthy AI. The theme articles in this issue are as follows. The second part will be published in May.
- Wasabi: A Conceptual Model for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, by A. M. Singh and M. P. Singh
- Trustworthy AI Requirements in the Autonomous Driving Domain, by D. Fernandex-Liorca & E. Gomez
- Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Through Verifiability, by M. R. Mousavi et al.
- AI Maintenance: A Robustness Perspective, by P.-Y. Chen & P. Das
- A Survey on Deep Learning Resilience Assessment Methodologies, by A. Ruospo et al.
- Explaining the Walking Through of a Team of Algorithms, by A. Martinez et al.
- Detecting Systematic Deviations in Data and Models, by S. Speakman et al.
- Three Levels of AI Transparency, by K. Haresamudram, S. Larsson, & F. Heintz
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Turkey's February 6 earthquake created a valley whose depth equals the height of a 13-story building.
- California declares emergencies in counties buried by snow, as the latest storm moves east.
- Anti-Semitism in the US: FBI arrests heavily-armed man who planned to kill Jewish officials in Michigan.
- Conservatives intensify their efforts to remove material from libraries & to defund these "arms of Satan."
- "Coded: Art Enters the Computer Age, 1952-1982": Los Angeles County Museum of Art, till July 2, 2023.
- Inflation: The annual $7 Burger Week in Santa Barbara is now $10 Burger Week! [Tweet, with image]
(4) On conservative US politicians: They like annual tax forgiveness for billionaires but hate one-time student loan forgiveness for struggling college graduates.
(5) Stages of life & the number of bits in the binary representation of age: One bit, 0-1, infant; Two bits, 2-3, toddler; Three bits, 4-7, child; Four bits, 8-15, adolescent; Five bits, 16-31, adult; Six bits, 32-63, middle age; Seven bits, 64-127, senior citizen; The next stage is empty for now, as the record age stands at 122.
(6) Iran's foreign minister sits for a rare interview with Christiane Amanpour: Speaking in Persian (likely due to having been ridiculed for his miserable English language skills), he repeats the mullahs' bald-faced lies about security forces not shooting or mistreating peaceful protesters. He also claims that Iran respects human rights and that Iranian women enjoy a high stature. Amanpour challenges him on several key points, but he seems to be oblivious to fact-checking.
(7) Iran is in the process of acquiring technology for locating Starlink Internet antennas: Specially-equipped drones canvassing the skies can locate radio-frequency transmitters, but the cost is high and countermeasures are available to users. [5-minute video, narrated in Persian]
2023/03/02 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: Kentucky Fried Chicken store in Tehran, Iran, 1976. [Center & Right] Talangor Group talk on women's rights (see the last item below).
(2) Mass-poisoning of schoolgirls in Iran: Despite state-of-the-art lab facilities in Tehran and numerous security cameras in and around girls' schools, the government was slow in releasing information about the kind of poison gas used and is yet to arrest anyone for the crimes. If a group of people had gone to girls' schools and played music for them, the entire group and their families would have been under interrogation or in prison by now! The fingerprints of Khamenei's goons are all over these gas-poisoning incidents. [Tweet, with video]
(3) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: "The #WomanLifeFreedom Movement as a Milestone in the History of Iran's Social Movements" was the topic of a timely and informative presentation, in Persian, by Elahe Amani (UN Commission on Women activist and women's movements researcher). There were ~100 attendees.
The program began with "#WomanLifeFreedom, Seen Through Images," a short presentation by Middle-East Image Foundation, about which I wrote in a previous post. You can donate money to this worthy organization by visiting its Web site.
Amani's talk was occasioned by International Women's Day, coming up on March 8. She indicated that she is hopeful for the future of the ongoing uprising in Iran, although she has some fears as well. In the last few months, 800 schoolgirls have been chemically poisoned to discourage them and their families from engaging in education. A regime that is swift in executing street protesters has so far not arrested a single person in connection with the mass poisoning attacks.
Women have been at the forefront of the fight against the oppressive and misogynistic Islamic regime. Early slogans of 40+ years ago in opposition to compulsory hijab included: "We did not revolt to turn back." Currently, the Iranian society is experiencing a renaissance, whose reach far exceeds regime change in Iran.
Recent social movements in Iran include the "Green Movement" of 2009 and the 2006 campaign to collect one million signatures against gender-discriminatory laws. The murder of Mahsa Amini triggered an all-out revolution. This explosion wasn't unexpected, given the pressure that had been building up for many years. In the Arab Spring, too, the death of a single street vendor in Tunisia led to broad and all-encompassing social movements.
Iranian authorities have known for some time that the youth, with their connections to the world through the Internet, have become widely separated from the older generations and are socially quite active. Iran's Generations Alpha and Z brought about the #WomanLifeFreedom movement, which challenges not just the political power network but also patriarchal social structures. Why is this movement a new milestone in the history of Iran's social movements? The Iranian society is very young: 86% of the population, forming three generations, was born after the 1979 Revolution.
The rise of social media deeply affects modern social movements. Today, information is no longer under the control of power centers, although the powerful can still make mischief through the spread of misinformation and disinformation. One of our aims should be educating the Iranian people about how to separate facts from lies on social media.
A few decades ago, Iranian women were socially active but they were not on the front lines of political movements or in leadership positions. The brutality and misogyny of the Islamic regime has led to women becoming significantly more active, to the extent that today's young Iranian women are leading many movements against oppressive laws, against the death penalty, against environmental abuse & mismanagement, and many other initiatives.
We must bear in mind that regime change is easier than a change in culture. The former can be accomplished in short order, while the latter can take decades. It is unclear that Iranian men truly understand the implications of #WomanLifeFreedom movement. In other words, one wonders whether those who seemingly support the Mahsa movement, will approve of the freedoms sought by this movement for their own daughters and wives. As a case in point, South Africa has one of the most progressive constitutions with respect to women's rights, yet the country is third in the world with regard to violence against women.
Two trends in the world mirror Iran's 4+ decades of marching backward: Religious fundamentalism and political populism. Even the United States has not been immune to these regressive trends. There is some hope that Iran's progressive social movement will not only liberate Iran but will also help spread the message of #WomanLifeFreedom to other countries.
2023/03/01 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] March is Women's History Month: Life-size 3D-printed statues of 120 women in STEMM, created & displayed by the Smithsonian Institution in March 2022. [Top right] Women's History Month subjects on ABC's "Good Morning America." [Bottom left & center] On our musical tastes (see the next to the last item below). [Bottom right] Iranian mullahs have finally found a way to control the alarming rise in the price of US dollar, which has doubled in 6 months, causing a record inflation rate.
(2) UCSB alumni and former staff members establish the Mahsa Amini Graduate Fellowship for Iranian women in non-STEM fields. If you want to support this fellowship, here's the donation site.
(3) The Oscars are here: Yale CS professor Theodore Kim & collaborators at Pixar Studios received a Technical Achievement Academy Award for developing the Fizt2 system that models elastic materials in animation.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Collision of passenger and freight trains in Greece kills at least 36.
- Data science is one of the most popular majors, but the future of the data scientist is still unclear.
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) celebrates 175 years. [Science editorial]
- Facebook memory from Mar. 1, 2015: Don't trust media stories that include the ugliest possible pictures.
(5) Iran's Taliban-like Islamic regime poisons schoolgirls to drive them away from education: Then, its goons rough-up and drag a peacefully protesting mother into an unmarked car. Shame on the nonchalant onlookers and on the international community for continuing to court this murderous regime. #WomanLifeFreedom
(6) "What the Music You Love Says About You": This was the title of a UCLA Semel Institute webinar by Dr. Susan Rogers (Berklee College of Music), a record-producer-turned-brain-scientist who worked with Prince as his staff engineer, in conversation with Dr. Mark Jude Tramo (MD, PhD). The talk and the book on which it is based attempt to answer the question of why you fall in love with some music and not with other music.
Why do your favorite songs move you? Rogers explained that we each possess a unique "listener profile" based on our brain's natural response to the seven key dimensions of a song. Four of these dimensions apply to the music: melody, lyrics, rhythm, and timbre, or the sound itself. The other three dimensions apply to mediums like operas, movies, TV, and novels: authenticity, novelty-vs.-familiarity, and realism.
Are you someone who prefers lyrics or melody? Do you like music "above the neck" (intellectually stimulating), or "below the neck" (instinctual and rhythmic)? Like most of us, Rogers is not a musician, but demonstrates how all of us can be musical simply by being active, passionate listeners.
Here is a 60-minute recording of the same book talk at the Commonwealth Club of California.
(7) A final thought, on this first day of Women's History Month: "At a NASA Earth meeting 10 years ago, a white male post-doc interrupted me to tell me that I didn't understand human drivers of fire, that I def needed to read McCarty et al. Looked him in the eye, pulled my long hair back so he could read my name tag, and said: 'I'm McCarty et al.'" ~ NASA branch chief and scientist Dr. Jessica McCarty, on sexism and mansplaining
2023/02/27 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] With aunt Victoria in LA, Sunday afternoon, 2/26. [Center] Poisoning of schoolgirls in Iran (see the next item below). [Right] Long lines form at foreign exchange dealerships in Iran to buy US dollars at the all-time-high rate of 60,000 tomans.
(2) The usual pattern for Iranian mullahs: First deny the whole thing. Then, admit that it happened, but claim it was no big deal. Next, say that it was serious, but our enemies did it. Then, admit that it was an internal action whose perpetrators will be punished. Finally, do nothing about it.
Schoolgirls in Qom and other Iranian cities were poisoned by Islamists who are against education for girls.
(3) Autonomous drones operated by US Air Force will get face-recognition technology: The AI capabilities are said to be for intelligence gathering, but one cannot discount the possibility of unethical uses in warfare.
(4) "Students and Postdocs Deserve More": This is the title of Science magazine's editorial, issue of February 10, 2023, addressing the low pay, lack of benefits, and sometimes toxic research environments for today's indispensable research and teaching workforce and tomorrow's scientific leaders.
(5) You are free to say what you want, but you have to accept the consequences (people with opposite views also have the right to free speech): In a shocking rant on YouTube, Scott Adams, creator of the "Dilbert" comic strip, called Black Americans a "hate group" and suggested that White people should "get the hell away" from them. The USA Today Network, which operates hundreds of newspapers, has pulled the plug on Adams' long-running comic strip. What makes a successful artist sabotage his profitable production line is beyond me!
(6) Aftermath of the 6-week UAW strike at University of California: Council of UC Faculty Associations objects to UC administration pushing the costs of newly-negotiated contracts with graduate students and other academic workers to faculty investigators and departments, whose budgets are already quite strained.
(7) "Why Are There So Few Women in Computer Systems Research?": This is the title of an article by A. Richter, J. Yamamoto, and E. Frachtenberg, published in the February 2023 issue of IEEE Computer magazine. The authors set out to discover which of the 10 common hypotheses offered for under-representation of women in computer science research apply even more to researchers in computer systems.
(8) The rise of impostor syndrome: Ironically, when you feel that you are faking it, but others don't think so, you tend to agree with your own supposedly incompetent opinion rather than with other people's assessment.
(9) Final thought for the day: "We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects." ~ William Hazlitt
2023/02/26 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] Last night's family gathering to celebrate the latest addition to our clan! [Bottom left] Mercedes-Benz, in partnership with Google, will use a supercomputer in every one of its cars to process data from sensors, navigate & reroute, operate an entertainment center, and feed a cockpit-wide hyper-screen. [Bottom center] A technology-center building in China. [Bottom right] Meme of the day: "One can see the inextinguishable flame that illuminates our hearts, even with closed eyes." ~ Kimia Zand, one of the many Iranian protesters who lost an eye, when security forces sprayed pellets onto their faces
(2) Quote of the day: "Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity." ~ John F. Kennedy
(3) Words of wisdom: "We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done." ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Women scientists who fought sexism at MIT: An inspiring story, told in Kate Zernike's The Exceptions.
- Impact of Technology on Society: CACM talks with Dr. Moshe Vardi about technology & social responsibility.
- Idea for a new TV show: Tonight, live from Washington, it's "America's Funniest Conspiracy Theories"!
- Fibonacci soup: You make it by adding leftovers from soups you made yesterday and two days ago.
- English tip: I before E, unless you leisurely deceive eight overweight heirs to forfeit their sovereign conceits.
- The French spy who brought Khomeini to Iran and was handsomely rewarded. [18-minute video, in Persian]
- Cryptic quote: "TYJ BTTS HFVYB ZLTGH NGMVE, OFJY VH FVHM WTG, WTG UJJX YT DZVY." ~ LTL NZQXJW
- Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman's love letter to his wife: "I love my wife. My wife is dead."
- Facebook memory from Feb. 26, 2015: Polanyi Paradox, and its importance to machine-learning research.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 26, 2013: On the days when receiving an e-mail message was a joyous event!
(5) Engineering faculty members at US universities: Full professors 14,328 (14.2% women); Associate professors 7852 (21.4% women); Assistant professors 7706 (26.5% women); Non-tenure-track 5020; Part-time 4261. [Source: American Society for Engineering Education, based on 2021 data]
(6) US engineering degrees awarded to women: From a low of 15.4% (computer engineering) to the third-highest 39.1% (biological & agricultural engineering), with the top-two percentages being 51.5% (biomedical engineering) and 57.8% (environmental engineering). [Source: ASEE, based on 2021 data]
(7) Engineering enrollments at US universities: Texas A&M and Arizona State had the top and second-highest undergraduate engineering enrollments at 15K+. Mechanical engineering had the highest enrollment of 124K, followed by computer science (within engineering) at 103K. Enrollment in every other engineering field was less than 50K. For MS degrees awarded, computer science (within engineering) led by a wide margin at 13K, with mechanical engineering trailing at 8K. When one adds CS programs outside engineering colleges, computer science is by far the most-popular tech field. [Source: ASEE, based on 2021 data]
2023/02/25 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] CACM's March cover feature (see the next item below). [Center] Mathematician Leonhard Euler was the first to produce a magic square containing squared numbers: As in other magic squares, the rows, columns, and diagonals of his 4-by-4 square have the same sum. Larger magic squares of squared numbers have since been produced, but no one has come up with a 3-by-3 magic square of squared numbers yet, nor has anyone been able to prove that such a square does not exist. [Right] The world's oldest underground station, Baker Street, England: 157 years ago and today.
(2) Communications of the ACM's cover feature for March 2023 discusses "Ethics and Neurotechnology: Learning from AI Ethics to Address an Expanded Ethics Landscape." Here is a list of issues, along with AI capabilities & methodologies that give rise to them.
AI needs data: Data privacy; Data governance
AI is often a black box: Explainability; Transparency
AI can make or recommend decisions: Fairness; Value alignment
AI is based on statistics, thus having inevitable errors: Accountability
AI can profile people and shape preferences: Human & moral agency
AI is pervasive and dynamic: Misuse impacts; Jobs transformation
AI can be used for good or bad: Weapons; Surveillance; Sustainability
(3) On politics and religion: How interesting that any political or religious group, no matter how limited in its world view, eventually subdivides into sects that can't see eye to eye!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- This year, California's draught gave way to heavy rains and, now, to snow. [NYT story]
- Comparing the English-language skills of Iran's Foreign Minister & an Abadani fish seller. [Tweet, with videos]
- Persian poetry recitation: They said things, but the truth was different. [2-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Feb. 24, 2011: "Gorg" ("Wolf"), a Persian poem by Fereidoon Moshiri.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 25, 2022: Different crime scenes, same criminal.
(5) Some silly-sounding federally funded research projects actually produce important results: Listen to this 47-minute Public Radio "Golden Goose" podcast about awards that constitute scientists' response to public ridicule of useful but comically-sounding research projects.
(6) Giving a new meaning to "pro-life": Alaska Republican politician observes that abusing children to death comes with economic benefits, because dead children don't need government services.
(7) Transparency needed in reviewing and punishing ethical violations: Professional societies have codes of conduct and codes of ethics. Unfortunately, after complaints are made, the issue often sinks into a black hole and no one ever hears about the review outcome and actions taken. Association for Computing Machinery is trying to do something about this with a new "ACM Policy on Complaint Process Disclosure."
2023/02/24 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] The Persian day of women, Earth, & love (see the next item below). [Top right] The war in Ukraine is one year old today (see item 3 below). [Bottom left] Random walks (see the next to the last item below). [Bottom center] Talangor Group talk about Iran's Mahsa Revolution (see the last item below). [Bottom right] The seven deadly sins of mathematics, involving zero and infinity.
(2) Happy Sepandarmazgan, the ancient Iranian day of women with Zoroastrian roots, dating back to the Achaemenid Empire: Sepanta Armaiti (Avestan for 'Holy Devotion', Spandarmad in Middle Persian), after whom the day is named, was Earth's guardian angel. She showed kindness to the mountains, to the birds, and to the people. She hated war among men, gave the herds green fields to graze, dug paths for rivers, and took care of the Earth and its inhabitants. In short, Sepandarmazgan is the day of women, Earth, and love.
This Sepandarmazgan weekend, my three children will be at home and the extended family will get together to welcome my middle sister's grandson.
(3) February 24 is the first anniversary of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine: The West expected Russia to overtake Ukraine in short order, because of the large sums it spends on its military. It turns out that due to corruption, much of Russia's "military spending" goes to buying villas and yachts in Europe. The military is poorly equipped and inadequately trained, as evidenced by its large human and war-machinery losses. Sending love to the brave people of Ukraine and to the oppressed people of Russia!
(4) On random walks: Imagine a drunk on a narrow sidewalk (1D space) near a lamp-post. Every second, he takes a random rightward or leftward step. Intuitively, he won't go very far after 15 minutes (900 time-steps). He will likely remain close to the lamp-post, although he can also be 100 or 500 steps away from it, albeit with a diminishingly small probability. I have been fascinated with random walks, ever since I learned about them in a probability theory course.
The example above is 1D random walk. We can also have random walks in 2D, 3D, ... , nD space. Additionally, we can have random walks on graphs, defined in the natural way.
Much work has been done on random walks. MathSciNet shows ~7500 papers with "random walk" in the title. Surprisingly, there are still fairly simple problems in this domain that remain unexplored, as indicated by Prof. David Aldous (UC Berkeley), who gave an introductory talk at UCSB this afternoon.
(5) Talangor Group talk: "The Role of Iran's Cyber-Army in Creating Discord Among Opposition Groups" was discussed by Mojtaba Vahedi (journalist & political analyst) on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023. Vahedi was an ardent supporter of Iran's Islamic Revolution, but later became disillusioned with the Islamic regime, becoming its active critic, most recently as a supporter of Reza Pahlavi. There were ~105 attendees.
The program began with "The Mahsa Revolution, as Seen Through the Camera's Lens," a short presentation by Hossein Fatemi (news photographer & documentary-maker). He pointed out that Iranian photographers' lives are in serious danger. Unlike other countries, where journalists wear special outfits that make them immune, in Iran, they are even more targeted than others on the street. He introduced the Middle East Images Foundation, a US-registered charity that works to present Middle Eastern photography by accomplished local artists. You can donate money to this worthy organization by visiting MEIF's Web site.
Iran is one of the top offenders with regard to cyberattacks against other countries and opposition groups. Iran's cyber-army has a broad presence on social media, spreading lies and sounding sour notes. Of course, not everyone who sows the seeds of discord is a member of Iran's cyber-army. Some engage in baseless criticism and character assassination out of ignorance, unaware that they are helping Iran's Islamic regime and spreading its narratives. We should distinguish between criticism, which is necessary, and malicious behavior, which is destructive.
In the ongoing Mahsa Revolution, Iran's cyber-army remains active, but it hasn't been as effective in its evil plans, even though its trolls try to sow discord by taking the side of one opposition figure or group and bad-mouthing others. Today's Iranian youth are quite alert and sophisticated, so they side-step the cyber-army's schemes. The new revolutionaries realize the difference between regime collapse, which may lead to chaos, and regime change, brought about by deliberate plans. The current Islamic regime voluntarily agreeing to major structural changes or a referendum is quite unlikely.
It is quite unfortunate that some of the most-capable citizens residing in Iran are in prison, making it necessary for those abroad to assume a greater role in bringing about regime change. We have no shortage of leaders for post-Islamic Iran. Tehran's Evin Prison alone holds several capable cabinets. Unity is the key. Despite significant differences, Reza Pahlavi and Mir-Hossein Moussavi agree on broad principles of Iran's future form of government (secular democracy), but they haven't yet begun a direct dialogue. At this point, everyone is waiting for a unifying charter to be issued by opposition forces, before taking further steps.
2023/02/23 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: A scene from "Race for Life 2," a 1913 British short film. [Center] Arthur Cayley introduced the notion of matrix transposition in 1858. [Right] Wednesday's UCSB World Music Series noon concert was moved indoors due to the super-cold weather: The Salt Martians (bluegrass band) performed quite a few tunes, from Bill Monroe to the Byrds (Video 1; Video 2; Video 3; Video 4).
(2) Iranian officials are in denial regarding the annihilation of the country's currency: Ever since one US dollar sold for 1680 tomans about a decade ago, until today's 30-fold rate of 50,000 tomans, they continue to insist that the rate is an unrealistic bubble created by our "enemies."
(3) Yesterday, I heeded the advice of a Panda Express fortune cookie: "Go for a long walk to clear your mind." I really needed the long walk, having worked on and just finished my 2022 taxes!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Start of a wave? Germany expels two Islamic Republic diplomats to protest an execution in Iran.
- US annualized inflation rate since the start of the COVID pandemic. [Tweet, with chart]
- Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 16 years for sex crimes in Los Angeles County. [#MeToo]
- California will see snow blizzards from the coming storm, even in SoCal.
- While Iranian women are rejecting the compulsory hijab law, Swiss Ambassador to Iran does not complain.
- Simone Weil: "A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves."
- Facebook memory from Feb. 22, 2019: Do we write differently on a screen than on paper?
- Facebook memory from Feb. 23, 2015: On Beverly Sills wanting to put her voice to bed with quiet & dignity.
(5) Accusations of scientific misconduct against Stanford U. President: Marc Tessier-Lavigne denies that a 2009 Nature paper on which he was lead author contained falsified data. The fact that he kept the results of an internal investigation of the matter from becoming public indicates otherwise. The paper was published when he was an executive at Genentech, a biotechnology company.
(6) Retractions are necessary for science to work: Encouragements, positive reviews, and awards do wonders for scientific advances, but so do retractions, which occur for both malicious scientific misconduct and honest mistakes. In this essay, Dr. Jaivime Evaristo writes about the hard lessons he learned from his retracted Nature paper due to errors in the data sets he used and the possibility of recovering from the blow to one's academic reputation caused by a retraction.
(7) Parents of one of the 149 victims of the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks are suing tech companies: At issue is Google's algorithmic recommendations to YouTube users, and similar actions by other tech companies, which include pushing violent & radicalizing ISIS videos. The "Section 230" case is now at the US Supreme Court.
2023/02/21 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Most- & least-educated states in the US: DC tops the list; WV is at the bottom. [Center & Right] The historic Shemshak Boutique Hotel in Iran (see the last item below).
(2) Fox News has been caught lying and will likely pay over $1 billion to Dominion (voting-machines company) in damages & fines: Where's the federal government in all of this? If an advertiser claims false features or benefits for a product, the feds will go knocking. Why is lying in an even more-critical domain not pursued?
(3) SCOTUS is hearing a case with potentially significant effect on the trillion-dollar tech industry: So far, big-tech has been shielded from liability for harmful content by a law known as Section 230. That can change!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Putin suspends participation in New START nuclear-arms control treaty: Let the nuclear-arms race resume!
- Harrowing scenes of buildings collapsing like houses of cards in Turkey's Feb. 6 quakes. [1-minute video]
- I just finished reading a book that is typeset in Trump Medieval: It's such a satisfying name for a font!
- Bridges and other structures or sites that test your fear of heights! [4-minute video]
- Dynamic art: Created with colored liquids and falling objects. [1-minute video]
- Quotable: "Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf." ~ Native American proverb
- Best-friendship, the expectation that a human needs one closest friend, is a surprisingly recent notion.
(5) Sha'ban Ja'fari: This is the title of a book in Persian by Homa Sarshar, about a widely-hated character, often referred to as "Shaban Bi-Mokh" ("Shaban the Brainless"), who played a key role in reinstating the late Shah to power in the CIA-directed coup of 1953. [Read on-line for free]
(6) How relevant is academic research to innovations in computer architecture? Analysis of citations in patent applications to papers in top computer architecture venues (ISCA, MICRO, HPCA, ASPLOS) shows that the impact is insignificant. Fewer than 2% of computer architecture patents cite papers presented in these top architecture conferences, which were used in the study as proxies for academic research.
(7) The historic Shemshak Boutique Hotel: Shemshak is a popular Iranian ski resort located about 25 miles north of Tehran. Despite the fairly short straight-line distance from Tajrish (north Tehran), the driving distance is somewhat longer. When I lived in Iran (until the mid-1980s), we traveled to Shemshak by first driving to the city of Karaj, then taking the Chaloos Road, which connected Karaj to the Caspian shore, by way of the Karaj Dam reservoir, a popular resort area in itself. Now, there is a shorter route (see map). Shemshak Boutique Hotel, the first of its kind in Iran, was built by Germans as a dormitory mansion and power-generation station for German workers operating the local coal mines. With changes in technology, the coal mines and thus the mansion & its power plant were soon shut down, until the Germans returned in the 1960s and built a 3-story hotel on top of it. The hotel was closed after the Islamic Revolution. In the late 2010s, a private company restored the hotel to its current state, using the original material, furniture, and decorations. [Tourism ad]
2023/02/20 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy US Presidents' Day: Yes, we have had a few presidents of whom we are not proud, but, by and large, they are embodiments of the following quote from our 6th president, John Quincy Adams: "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader." [Top center] Meme of the day: Sometimes, the best thing you can do is to keep your mouth shut. [Top right] Iranians protesting against the brutal Islamic regime on February 20, 2023, in Dusseldorf display a statue showing a mullah entrapped in a woman's hair. [Bottom left] Before and after the heavy January 2023 rains (see the next item below). [Bottom center] Asian countries are aging rapidly: Around 40-45% of the populations of Japan, China, and South Korea will be 65 or older by the year 2100, vs. ~30% for the US and ~25% for the world as a whole. [Bottom right] The Great Wall of India: The world's 2nd-longest continuous wall, with a length of 38 km and width of 15 m, surrounds the fort of Kumbhalgarh containing 360 temples.
(2) During and after the drought: A couple of years ago, I posted before-and-after photos showing the impact of an extended drought on California's water reservoirs. This post goes in reverse, showing that Lake Orville is now at 115% of its historical level, compared with 61% in February 2021 and 77% in 2022. You can move the bar in the middle of the side-by-side photos to compare.
(3) Please consider asking your representative to support the MAHSA Act: Introduced by Rep. Jim Banks with 33 co-sponsors, H.R.9203 "requires the President to impose property- and visa-blocking sanctions on certain persons (individuals and entities) affiliated with Iran." [Read more] [One-click sending of a letter]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- On the occasion of US President's Day, here are Dan Szymborski's AI-generated cartoon US presidents.
- US investigation confirms that Russia committed numerous war crimes in Ukraine.
- Magnitude-6.3 hits Turkey, scaring the survivors of stronger quakes of February 6, which killed 46,000.
- Iran International closes its London offices due to escalation of terror threats from Iran's operatives.
- Iranian currency sinks to record low: One US dollar now sells for 50,000 tomans on the open market.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 20, 2018: Female graduates of Iran's Sharif U. Tech. rule.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 20, 2015: When a mullah argued against and a woman for mandatory hijab!
(5) The Syrian government is impeding assistance to quake victims: Bashar Assad's regime insists that all aid go to Damascus, and not directly to victims via the Turkish border, but the victims, who are mostly anti-Assad, have not received much assistance from Damascus thus far.
(6) The wrong-way driver who thought everyone else is driving the wrong way: Iran's government-run daily Kayhan claims that by not inviting Iran to the Munich Security Conference, Europe has isolated itself!
(7) Mr. Haloo flees to Europe: Iranian poet/activist Mohammad Reza Ali-Payam (aka Mr. Haloo) talks about fleeing Iran because of a 16-year prison sentence, which was confirmed on appeal. Before going to London, he covertly lived in Turkey for more than a year, changing his residence and cell phone many times in order to elude Iranian agents, who were looking for him and had offered rewards for information about his whereabouts.
2023/02/18 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] A few of the hundreds of Iranians murdered by Iran's brutal Islamic regime during the recent uprising: Live but don't forget. [Top center & right] Misogyny, the royal and Islamist forms: The late Shah divorced his second wife, Soraya, for not giving birth to a child; his first wife, Fawzia, had given birth to a girl, Shahnaz. The Shah reportedly loved Soraya, who fell out of favor when she suggested that he abdicate in favor of his half-brother. The Shah countered with the suggestion of taking a second wife, which Soraya rejected. His third wife, Farah, always boasted that her first-born was a boy. And the Islamist form? We see numerous examples every day! [Bottom left] Postage stamps from various countries honoring women scientists. [Bottom center] We once honored scientists, instead of demonizing and threatening to kill them! (See also item 2 below) [Bottom right] Get ready for the new US reality show "Parliament Fights": Many Third-World countries and the United Kingdom have them on a regular basis, often taking the form of fistfights, throwing chairs or other objects, and, occasionally, gunfights. Judging from how things are going in the US Congress, we should get ready for our version of parliament fights, shown on A&E! (Image credit: Bill Mahr)
(2) Explainer extraordinaire Richard Feynman: He was a Nobel-Prize-winning physicist known for his extreme curiosity, ability to explain difficult topics in simple terms, and a broad range of interests in science & art.
(3) The battle of Constitutional rights: The Proud Boys are asking that Trump be subpoenaed to appear as a witness in their Jan. 6 trial. They have a Constitutional right to do so, according to the 6th Amendment. Trump, on the other hand, has a constitutional right to plead the 5th Amendment and not testify. Let the match begin!
(4) Celebration of Int'l Women's Day & #WomanLifeFreedom Revolution: A Zoom program by Voices of Women for Change, on Sat., Mar. 11, 2023, 11:00 AM PST. Sociologist/author Chahla Chafiq will speak & protest-singer GOLA will provide musical entertainment. Four other women, Ladan Boroumand, Roya Boroumand, Mahnaz Matine, and Farzaneh Milani will be honored for their activism on behalf of women's rights. [Register]
(5) Fox Network's public and private faces: E-mails and text messages disclosed in the Dominion (voting-machines company) $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News reveal that its management and top anchors all knew that Trump's voting-fraud claim was a lie and said so in private, yet on their programs, they vociferously promoted the lies and invited guests who would repeat the lie, because they feared that telling the truth would lead to loss of viewers and revenues. One anchor even asked that an employee who fact-checked Trump's claims be fired immediately!
(6) Amnesia in politics: GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley has completely removed from her speeches the stories she used to tell about the discrimination & racism she faced as a little girl, because these stories would not endear her to "the base." She says it is because she hates identity politics, but she is quick to point out that she is a woman and daughter of an immigrant whenever these identities are to her benefit.
(6) Final thought for the day: Golshifteh Farahani's speech at the Berlin Film Festival contains an indirect jab at the insulting comments by Islamist Abdolkarim Soroush (she quotes from Mowlavi/Rumi).
2023/02/17 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A new book by my former Sharif University of Technology (Iran) colleague, Dr. Mohammad Ghodsi: He kindly sent me a copy of the new 343-page textbook, Foundations of Design and Analysis of Algorithms (ISBN: 978-964-208-282-7), published in 2022. [Center] Every two years, the Grand Palace Square in Brussels is covered with flowers, arranged into a carpet design. [Right] Math puzzles: Try these four problems, the last one of which asks you to determine the ratio of the blue area to the red area.
(2) Women's rights: Iranian woman engineer protests being disqualified from becoming an officer of a professional organization because of not wearing a headscarf. Only one man on stage applauds her protest, but the audience is more supportive. [Tweet, with video]
(3) Ali Ghamsari plays the tar in a refreshingly new way, with skill & passion: His YouTube channel is filled with musical gems. In this 102-minute Sound of Peace Concert, Ghamsari plays with a group of incredible musicians in Arbil, Iraq. I particularly liked his rendition of a Kurdish song beginning at the 1:08:10 mark.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Death toll in Turkey's twin quakes and their aftershocks has surpassed 43,000 and may continue to rise.
- Black man, wrongfully convicted of murder, is released from prison after 28 years.
- Will AI have a bigger impact on warfare than nuclear weapons? Former Google CEO thinks so.
- Increasingly, college applicants are being denied admission for their social-media posts.
(5) UCSB ECE Department Distinguished Lecture: Dr. John Martinis (UCSB Physics Department) spoke this afternoon under the title "My Trek from Fundamental to Industrial Research: Quantum Systems Engineering." The theme of his talk was that when one transitions from academia to industry, one's mindset much change dramatically. He learned much in this area when he worked at Google during 2014-2020 to build a useful quantum computer. He recommended two books as good references to use for understanding the system engineering mindset in contrast to the academic research mindset:
- Peter Theil's Zero to One (see my review on GoodReads)
- Charles Wasson's System Engineering Analysis, Design, and Development
Martinis discussed the academia-to-industry transition problem in general and for the specific area of quantum computing, which he considers to have entered the systems era. Theoretical discoveries are still being made and papers continue to be published in quantum computing, but the main challenge is converting the ideas to actual working systems, which would require us to consider the entire system stack and the interactions between its layers. One key challenge is building practical quantum computers is overcoming the reliability problems for qubits, without an excessive level of redundancy. Another key consideration for researchers is to overcome the temptation to tweak things to make minor improvements after the start of the development process. In other words, as engineers, we have to learn to live with the good-enough in order to make progress toward a system or product. [Tweet, with photo]
Here is a 77-minute video of a similar lecture, delivered last year at Cornell University.
2023/02/16 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
x (1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Throwback Thursday: Family photo from the 1970s, minus my oldest sister, plus cousin Eli, and a couple of group photos from mid-1967, showing many members of the class of 1968, College of Engineering's Electromechanical Division, University of Tehran. [Right] The 8-story Bugshan Palace in Yemen, covering 800 square meters of land, was built of mud in 1798 CE.
(2) Electrochemical RAM (ECRAM): Drawing inspiration from batteries, ECRAM is quickly moving ahead of traditional transistor-based circuits in developing the perfect artificial synapse.
[Article]
(3) Math puzzle: A square pizza box can hold five round pies of diameter d, without the pies overlapping. What is the smallest possible size for the box?
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Math puzzle: Evaluate the expression (1 + i)^(1 + i).
- Robotic falcon acts as the scarecrow of the skies: It helps keep birds away from flight paths near airports.
- An Iranian member of the LGBTQ+ community, who has been sentenced to death, tells her story.
- Elon Musk's strange sense of humor! [Tweet, with image]
(5) The mullahs are scared: Apologists for Iran's Islamic regime, including Abdolkarim Soroush who was responsible for the 3-year closure of Iranian universities under the banner of "Cultural Revolution," are running scared from the emerging cooperation among opposition groups, fiercely attacking the recent show of unity at Georgetown University, while at the same time dismissing it as an insignificant event. [25-minute video]
(6) Old-time Iranian actor Behrouz Vossoughi tells the story of being interrogated by Parviz Sabeti: Sabeti, a high-ranking official in the late Shah's secret police (SAVAK), has recently emerged from 40+ years of hiding and was photographed attending an anti-Islamic-regime rally in the United States.
(7) The Transparent Society: This is the title of a 1998 book by David Brin, who argues that despite the risks of surveillance technologies, the very existence of such technologies is in itself a safeguard against abuse, because everyone has the ability to keep an eye on individual and institutional behavior. Digital-rights activists are thus enabled to watch those who are watching us. Of course, there is, and there will always be, a trade-off between security and privacy, and we need laws & oversight mechanisms to create the appropriate balance between the two concerns. [38-minute video]
(8) Nikki Haley is running for US presidency: As a feminist and immigrant, I am conflicted about her effort. I know misogynists & xenophobes, including the former Misogynist-in-Chief & Xenophobe-in-Chief, will launch vicious attacks against her, which is regrettable. But I also see plenty of legit criticisms of this opportunist and flip-flopper. She has been an ardent supporter of Trump, but has also said that Trump is everything we teach our kindergarteners not to be. She appeased Trump by saying she won't run if he does. Yet, here we are, with her as the first person to challenge Trump. Ironically, Haley's candidacy is good for Democrats. She will help expose GOP's misogyny and xenophobia, while exposing herself for the fraud that she is.
2023/02/15 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Tonight's IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Dr. Sriram Krishnamoorthy (UCSB, Materials) spoke on "Gallium Oxide: Emerging Semiconductor Material for Power Electronics." There were 17 attendees.
Beta-Gallium Oxide is an emerging ultra-wide band gap semiconductor with a predicted critical breakdown field much higher than the commercial wide band gap semiconductors such as Gallium Nitride and Silicon Carbide. The key attractive feature is the availability of single crystal large area bulk substrates. Dr. Krishnamoorthy's talk began with the motivation for pursuing research on ultra-wide band gap semiconductors for applications in power electronics. Key results in epitaxial growth and device performance were highlighted. The main theme of the talk was to highlight and discuss the interrelationship between material properties, material processing, and device performance. The future outlook for Gallium Oxide in achieving its theoretical potential, as well as the key challenges & limitations, were also discussed.
[Speaker's Web site]
(2) Today is the 34th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini's death sentence for author Salman Rushdie: Iran's current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, later indicated that the fatwa was just and must be carried out.
(3) Syrian village submerged after collapse of quake-damaged dam: In the Turkey-Syria border region where two earthquakes hit recently, there are dozens of dams, including Turkey's largest, the Ataturk Dam, which is reportedly cracked. Further devastation from broken dams is a real possibility.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Worrisome details emerge from the derailment of a train carrying highly-toxic cargo in East Palestine, Ohio.
- Is Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, sending money abroad in preparation for fleeing Iran?
- President Raisi receives honorary professorship from Beijing U. for safeguarding China's interests in Iran.
- Persian music: An all-women ensemble performs one of Shajarian's songs to honor his memory.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 15, 2020: Long ago, there was a noble word, liberal.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 15, 2012: Before talking, connect tongue to brain (from life's users' manual).
(5) Reza Khandan, Iranian civic-rights activist and husband of Nasrin Sotoudeh (whose book, Prison Letters, I recently reviewed), has been summoned to begin serving a 6-year prison term, handed down 3 years ago.
(6) To those who are trying to whitewash the past actions of hardline-Islamist Abdolkarim Soroush: Please note his misogynistic comments about Golshifteh Farahani, one of the eight participants in Georgetown U.'s panel discussion on a democratic Iran. He once did irreparable damage to Iranian universities under the banner of Islamicizing their curricula. Don't let him betray the #WomanLifeFreedom movement by insulting women!
(7) Dozens of school girls in Qom, a city in Iran, have been hospitalized due to poisoning: Signs of Taliban-like discouragement of girls from attending school? Iranian officials are saying that the problem is overblown.
(8) Iran's officials are liars or delusional: One had said that women are better off in Iran than in Western countries. This one says Iran will attract many international students over the next few years, becoming a prime destination for higher education. Yes, particularly for women students!
(9) Jazz under blue skies at UCSB's Music Bowl:The Webb Tarafella Nathan Jazz Trio, composed of tenor saxophonist Doug Webb, bassist Santino Tarafella, and UCSB Jazz Ensembles director Jon Nathan playing drumset, performed a number of jazz standards at noon today. [3-minute video]
2023/02/14 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy Valentine's Day: I hope that your day, week, month, year, and life are filled with love! [Center] Park Central 9 is a high-rise residential complex in Chengdu, the capital city of China's Sichuan Province. [Right] New Yorker cartoon of the day: Little Free Library, Florida style!
(2) The artificial-intelligence arms race: In this 57-minute Times podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott discuss AI plans by their companies and other competitors.
(3) Yet another mass-shooting: Three people are dead and several are injured, some critically, in a mass shooting at Michigan State University. The suspect got away, but he later took his own life.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Nerdy Valentine's Day message for those in academia: I accept you with minor revisions.
- Valentine's Day Persian song for singles! [1-minute video]
- Dear chocolate lovers: Tomorrow is your day. Enjoy the discounts!
- Of the 100 most-watched TV programs in 2022, 82 were NFL games. NFL had 28 out of the top 30.
- The hottest new programming language is English, opines computer scientist Andrej Karpathy. [Tweet]
- Quotable: "All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own." ~ Goethe
- Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson explains the golden age of Islam, and why it ended. [8-minute video]
- Colombian teen fixes three Rubik's Cubes in 4.5 minutes while juggling them. [5-minute video]
- A sampling of Iranian mullahs' views on women: From Khomeini to his followers. [2-minute video]
- Architecture: Some of the most-impressive skyscrapers around the world.
- Thank you, Panda Express, for the kind and encouraging fortune-cookie message! [Photo]
- A beautiful song and its performance on SNL: Brandi Carlile sings "The Story." [5-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Feb. 14, 2019: My mom's Valentine's Day message to her grandkids.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 14, 2012: Clever ad of saloon/eatery, calling itself "Husband Day Care Center."
(5) Turkey is investigating construction companies tied to numerous collapsed buildings in the recent quakes: The government is probably trying to shift the blame from its officials, who approved the building permits and are thus directly responsible for the immense loss of life, to private contractors.
(6) Sculptor Paula B. Slater has created busts of Neda Agha Soltan and Mahsa Amini, who were killed by Iran's Islamic regime. She hopes to someday donate her work for display in a free Iran. [3-minute video]
(7) Robotic chef in a Croatian restaurant offers a selection of seventy 1-pot dishes: Fresh ingredients are loaded into storage bins by humans. The robotic chef then chooses the appropriate amount of each ingredient, adds oil & seasoning, and cooks the dish to perfection.
(8) Behind the scenes of the special effects for a war movie: This 3-minute video shows some of artful and ingenious ways the film "All Quiet on the Western Front" was shot for maximum impact. This is a new film shot in German, the novel's original language. Hollywood made an Oscar-winning English version of the film in 1930.
(9) There are speculations that the great tech layoffs are motivated by a reset in salaries and other perks: Tech companies not only over-hired in the wake of the "Great Resignation," but they also paid too much compared to the market rates, leading to bloated payrolls that they can no longer afford.
2023/02/12 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Super Bowl 57 is finally over: In an exciting game, Kansas City Chiefs prevailed over Philadelphia Eagles 38-35. [Center] Invasion of flying objects: US shoots down a fourth flying object in eight days, this one over Lake Huron. [Right] Nasrin Sotoudeh's Prison Letters (see the last item below).
(2) Football is still a unifying force in the US: Americans, of both major parties, love the NFL; 29 out of 30 most-watched tv programs of all time were Super Bowl games. The other one was the finale of "M*A*S*H," a comedy-drama TV series (1972-1983) about the Korean War.
(3) Quote of the day, on Fox's Super Bowl coverage: "It's so much more fun to watch Fox when it's someone else being blitzed & sacked!" ~ Hillary Clinton, 2014 tweet
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Humor: Super Bowl is played in Arizona this year, so don't be surprised if Arizonans don't accept the result.
- Let's not forget the plight of Afghan women amid bad news from many other regions of the world.
- The US lags behind scientifically: Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson makes his case in this 10-minute talk.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 12, 2021: When to use "setup," "set up," and "set-up."
- Facebook memory from Feb. 12, 2021: Misogyny in Iran has deep roots. Women are beaten on the streets.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 12, 2016: Heart-shaped mini-pizzas for Valentine's Day.
(5) Book review: Sotoudeh, Nasrin, Prison Letters (in Persian), Aasoo Books, 2023.
[Available on-line for free, to read or download: Link]
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Nasrin Sotoudeh is an attorney and human rights activist who was imprisoned twice in her home country of Iran for doing her job of defending clients: The first time, she was sentenced to 11 years in prison (reduced to 6 years on appeal), serving 3 years before being released; the second conviction led to a 38.5-year sentence (reduced to 27 years, with no appeal on the part of Sotoudeh, who is now on medical leave, having served 3.5 years of her long sentence). This book is based on letters she wrote from prison to family members and, occasionally, to government officials, human-rights supporters, and others. It also includes many letters written to her while she was in prison.
Iran's Islamic regime oppresses not only women but also religious minorities (even Sunni Muslims), ethnic minorities, gender-nonconforming individuals, musicians, communists, and any other group that does not fit in its extremely narrow world view. Sotoudeh's sins include defending clients from some of these groups. Writing the letters was Sotoudeh's way of avoiding indifference and being drained of love, for her children, her supportive husband, and humanity.
Some of the letters were written on napkins and smuggled out of the prison. Others were written on available pieces of paper and sent out through official channels, after inspection, occasionally being returned as unacceptable. The latter kind tend to be repetitive and dull, given restrictions on the topics that could be addressed. Sotoudeh writes that she has tried to reconstruct, to the extent that her memory permitted, a few letters that were lost during an inter-prison transfer.
In letters addressed to her children, Sotoudeh expresses appreciation for their understanding and writes of the fear that they would think she did something to deserve her imprisonment, which would make her an inconsiderate mother for separating herself from her children and affecting how their classmates viewed them. She indicates that her defense of abused children in court was motivated by her love for her own son & daughter and that she hopes all children would benefit from her efforts.
In letters addressed to her husband Reza Khandan, Sotoudeh expresses much love and affection, sentiments that are reciprocated in his letters. Some of the letters contain lists of items that she needs. Others discuss strategies for releasing information (timing, tone of communication). For example, there is some back-and-forth about how to accept an international honor and whether or not she should dedicate the award to a person or group she cared about. The possibility of Reza being arrested and their children having neither parent around to take care of them weighs heavily on the couple's decisions to keep silent, rather than speak up in some cases, although Khandan did get arrested, and he served time.
As I write this review, I am trying to imagine a mother's mindset, while she sits in a prison cell, trying to remain emotionally connected to her loved ones, occupied with what she can make for her child's upcoming birthday, and determined to avoid being consumed with hate for her tormenters.
I end my review with this short passage in a letter from Sotoudeh to her husband Reza, written on Friday, November 9, 2018: "I miss our family's Fridays together. We would wake up late and have fried eggs, tea, and bread & cheese for breakfast. Do you remember there were four kinds of cheese on the table and we each had a different kind? Do you still eat the 'Laughing Cow' cheese? How are your games? I miss you, your cheeses, and your games, a lot ..."
2023/02/11 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Tonight's family gathering at my sister's, with a colleague's family. [Top right] Aftermath of the Turkey quakes (see the last item below). [Bottom left] The bridges of Wisdom, Hope, Love, Help, Faith, & Friendship in Venice, Italy. [Bottom center] Two systems of laws: You'll be harassed by Iran's morality police, enforcing hijab laws, only if you're an opposition member. But if you march with regime's supporters, they won't bother you. [Bottom right] World's longest train route, and a math joke!
(2) In honor of the Black History Month (February): Overlooked black inventors who shaped our lives.
- Norbert Rillieux [1806-1894]: Revolutionized sugar processing by using steam and thermodynamics.
- Sarah (Marshall) Boone [1832-1904]: Patented a new ironing board similar to the ones we use today.
- James West [1931- ]: Invented a miniaturized microphone that needed no battery for its operation.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The downed Chinese balloon had equipment for spying, including collection of communication signals.
- ChatGPT scores C+ on University of Minnesota Law School exam: Get ready for Dr. ChatGPT!
- Composer Burt Bacharach dead at 94: Here's one of his hit songs, "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head."
- Religion vs. Science: An informative & entertaining 20-minute talk by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
(4) Junk fees: President Biden devoted a section of his State-of-the-Union speech to sneaky fees charged by hotels, banks, airlines, ticket agencies, and others. Hotels that no one consider to be resorts charge resort fees on top of their advertised rates. Ticket agencies get you started with a concert ticket's list price, but by the time you check out, you have paid 50% more due to various add-on fees. Some airlines charge you extra to assign adjacent seats to you and your spouse. And don't get me started on banks and credit-card companies. Consumer protection is an important part of a government's job, and I am glad the Biden administration is paying attention to practices that can't be considered anything but fraud.
(5) Tens of thousands of people dead in Turkey's earthquakes is just the beginning of a sad story: Rebuilding the infrastructure so that the survivors can lead normal lives will take many years. Roads and bridges were damaged, but not in the large numbers we see for residential high-rises. The lopsided damage points to construction defects and lack, or circumvention, of building codes. NYT reports that 100 people have been arrested in the wake of the earthquakes for shoddy construction. Perhaps safer buildings will be erected during the reconstruction, but this means even higher costs and longer delays.
2023/02/10 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] February 11 is designated by the United Nations as International Day of Women and Girls in Science (Info). [Top center & right] Women in Science and Engineering: A Tale of Two Countries (see the next item below). [Bottom row] Panel on the future of Iran (see the last item below).
(2) Talangor Group talk: I spoke on Thursday night, in Persian, under the title "Women in Science and Engineering: A Tale of Two Countries" (Persian title below). There were ~90 attendees.
Here is a synopsis of the talk. Despite poor retention and advancement prospects, as well as female-unfriendly workplaces and corporate policies, women continue to flock to and excel in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields. Based on data and narratives from the United States and Iran, I identified roadblocks to the engagement of women in STEM careers. Using the two countries, different as they are in many respects, as examples is instructive, because this side-by-side comparison shows that undesirable outcomes in the domain of women in STEM fields can and do occur for vastly different reasons. The talk concluded by discussing what each country can learn from the other one in removing roadblocks to women in science and engineering. [Link to PDF slides] [Link to the talk's recording]
(3) Georgetown University event on "The Future of Iran's Democracy Movement": Eight Iranian activists/leaders participated in this discussion, held in-person for the most part and broadcast on Facebook Livestream (Recording). The panel discussion was moderated by Karim Sadjadpour (Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University).
Before summarizing the panelists' views, in the order they were presented (four on video clips and four in-person), I want to indicate my disappointment with comments made on the Facebook Livestream page. Many of the comments were aggressive, uncivil, and misogynistic. Royalist followers of Reza Pahlavi were particularly loud and disrespectful of others.
- Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Laureate, Lawyer, and Author (via video)
The question isn't what will happen if this regime falls. The question is what will happen if it remains in place. We have allowed this brutal regime to oppress us by not being united. Please put aside your differences and arguments for when we vote later. Our present focus should be on how to get rid of this oppressive regime.
- Abdullah Mohtadi, Secretary-General of Komala Party, Iranian Kurdistan (via video)
For decades, the Islamic regime had built a fictitious story about Kurdistan, killing Kurds on various pretenses. The current uprising exposed those lies. Kurdistan is with the rest of Iran and won't be silenced. Our common enemy is the Islamic Republic. We all want friendship, equality, and freedom. Our arrows must all point toward the Islamic Republic.
- Golshifteh Farahani, Actress, Human Rights Activist (via video, also representing Ali Karimi, Former Captain of Iran's National Soccer Team, Bayern Munich, Human Rights Activist, 2004 Asian Footballer of the Year)
Today belongs to the Iranian people, who have been held hostage for 44 years. We must all act to overthrow the brutal Islamic regime, by focusing on our common goals and not on our personal beliefs. The Islamic regime has tried to sow the seeds of discord among us. The keywords for our actions should be unity, self-sacrifice, and democracy. We are your voice, not your leaders. In a democratic Iran, we won't fight over our differences, but will celebrate them.
- Masih Alinejad, Author, Journalist, Women's Rights Activist, Founder of "My Stealthy Freedom" Movement
The murder of Mahsa Amini united Iranians, regardless of traits such as religion or ethnicity, against the brutal Islamic regime. The revolution aims to establish a society that is united, diverse, and respectful of differences of opinion. We must build a new structure, based on a charter that will be published by the end of February. The fall of Islamic regime not only means the rise of a secular democracy in Iran, but will also bring peace and stability to the region. A democratic Iran will have a pro-women government and will send the message of peace to the world.
- Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion, President and Spokesman of the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims
Key elements for the future of Iran are freedom, equity, social justice, and environmental justice. In its 44 years, the brutal Islamic regime has hurt many individuals and groups, filling the country's landscape with grieving victims. These victims have not given up hope but are in fact full of life. They sing & dance, get together, and love all the joys the world has to offer. In a democratic Iran, we won't be consumed by vengeance, but will insist that all crimes of the Islamic regime be investigated, allowing our decades-long wounds to heal.
- Nazanin Boniadi, Human Rights Activist, Actress, and Amnesty International UK Ambassador
We are sitting here as friends, setting aside our differences and working toward a common goal. The common charter we are working on will form the basis of sustainable and substantive changes in our homeland. The essence of the ongoing movement is inside Iran, but we do seek support from Western democracies and endeavor to educate governments and politicians about Iranian people's demands, while addressing their fears about possible instability in the region should the Islamic regime fall.
- Reza Pahlavi, Advocate for Secular Democratic Iran
Differences of opinion should not mean enmity. Rather than focus on our differences, we should think about the essence of our goal, which is to free our homeland. In the new system we build, everyone should be treated equally and according to law. Institutions are important, but for democracy to survive, we need to build a culture of diversity and tolerance. The same culture should encourage citizens to be watchful participants in gaining and protecting their rights. Rights will not be handed to us; we should claim them. Let's set aside slogans, roll up our sleeves, and begin our work.
*After the introductory presentations outlined above, the moderator began with some questions for the four present panelists and then opened up the floor to the journalists who were in the room.
2023/02/08 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] World Music Series noon concert at UCSB's Music Bowl: Mariachi Las Olas De Santa Barbara performed at noon today under the beautiful blue skies of a 70-degree day
(Video 1;
Video 2). [Center] Math puzzle: Given the areas of the small triangular regions, find the area of the outer rectangle. [Right] Peanut butter selection in Tehran: Prices range from 100,000 to 250,000 tomans ($2.50-$6.00) per jar.
(2) Turkey's twin earthquakes: Before & after images show the extent of destruction. Search & rescue teams from many countries have converged on the affected region near the Turkey-Syria border. The death toll of this natural disaster stands at 15,000 and is still rising. Please help!
(3) Odds of finding additional quake survivors in Turkey and Syria rapidly diminishing: Passage of time, many multi-story buildings completely collapsing, and freezing temperatures reduce the chances of survival.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Quotable: "We adore chaos because we love to produce order." ~ M. C. Escher
- Do you know what happens after your funeral? This 2-minute video should affect how you live your life.
- Kurdish music: An instrumental piece, performed by students of a music academy. [4-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Feb. 7, 2016: Kayaking with my daughter in LA's Marina del Rey.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 8, 2011: Is advanced technology taking us back to Stone Age?
(5) US National Basketball Association has a new scoring champion: LeBron James surpasses the previous record of 38,387; and he is still far from done! He will continue to establish a new record with every point.
(6) Christiane Amanpour shares Iranian human-rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh's first TV interview: Sotoudeh's book 'Prison Letters' is out. I will post my review of the book soon. [17-minute video]
(7) An implant that turns brain waves into words: It deciphers commands intended for the vocal tract, helping a man who has not spoken for more than 15 years (due to a stroke) speak.
(8) The most earthquake-prone countries over the past 3+ decades (1990-2022): China tops the list with 182 quakes. Indonesia and Iran come next, with 161 and 108 quakes, respectively. Turkey is sixth with 58 quakes.
2023/02/06 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Author Salman Rushdie today: A living monument to the utter stupidity of religious rule. Never again! [Center] A page from US junior-high world history text (see the next item below). [Right] US State Department retires Times New Roman in favor of Calibri to improve document readability.
(2) Iran's Maragheh Observatory in US textbooks: "Science, Technology, and Society" is one of the 10 modules in US junior-high-school textbooks on world history, which includes a page on the ancient observatory. This is more than what Iranian high-school students learn about the UNESCO World Heritage site in the northeastern city of Maragheh, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran. [Credit: Dr. Tofigh Heidarzadeh]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Our loss is their gain: Germany is happily hiring Silicon Valley's fired tech workers.
- Colleges are having doubts about accuracy & usefulness of national rankings of educational institutions.
- A couple of memes celebrating Shervin Hajipour's Grammy Award win last night. [Tweet, with images]
- Our loss is their gain: Germany is happily hiring Silicon Valley's fired tech workers.
- Two male-chauvinist Islamic Republic throw sexual insults at women on Iran's state TV.
- Women face sexual harassment everywhere: So, is it really a surprise that it happens at the gym too?
- Quotable: "What is love? Love is the absence of judgment." ~ Dalai Lama
- Facebook memory from Feb. 6, 2019: Don't equate digital with modern and analog with old-fashioned.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 6, 2017: The soldier mindset vs. the scout mindset. [12-minute TEDx talk]
- Facebook memory from Feb. 6, 2014: Cartoon illustrating the electrical units volt, ohm, and ampere.
(4) Swimming in the air: This floater, mimicking the motion of a stingray in water, can fly in the air, thanks to its super-lightweight construction and use of helium gas. [Tweet, with video]
(5) Republicans: Of course we believe in Social Security, Medicare, affordable healthcare, work for the unemployed, and more. Just turn these over to us and we'll do a much better job of managing and protecting them, in a way that you won't have to pay a dime! FDR warned us about this scam in 1936!
2023/02/05 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The main Armenian religious center in Tehran, the Saint Sarkis Cathedral, was completed in 1970. [Top center] Math puzzle: Find the length x in this diagram featuring a circle and two chords. [Top right] History keeps repeating itself: When dictators are accused of brutality and heartlessness, they try to project a kind/gentle image by appearing next to children.
(2) Shervin Hajipour's Persian protest anthem "Bara-ye" wins a Grammy Award in the new category of "Best Song for Social Change": The inaugural award was presented by US First Lady Dr. Jill Biden.
(3) Former supporters are abandoning the ship of Iran's Islamic regime one by one: Ex-PM Mir Hossein Mousavi has said that reforms within the current constitution no longer make sense, so we have to start from scratch with a referendum. Ex-President Mohammad Khatami is more equivocal, still wanting to reform the regime in the framework of the existing constitution, which gives unlimited powers to the cleric who is appointed Supreme Leader for life. Meanwhile, polls indicate that the regime's approval rating is a dismal 15%, with 81% favoring a different form of government. [Tweet, with images]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US lowest-temperature record: Minus-108 F wind-chill recorded at the summit of Mt. Washington, NH.
- Pervez Musharraf, former military ruler of Pakistan and a crucial US ally after the 9/11 attacks, dead at 79.
- An Iranian soldier gets 5+ years in prison by refusing to shoot his fellow countrymen. [Tweet]
- People's motion on this spiral walkway of a soccer stadium in Milan, Italy, creates the illusion of rotation.
- American cyclist rides a path tracing the name of Iranian political prisoner Farhad Meysami in San Francisco.
- Beyonce now has the most Grammy wins in history: On Sunday, she added 4 awards to her previous 28.
- Khalil Gibran: "A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle."
(5) More than 300 deaths already reported from a strong 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Turkey: The death toll is expected to rise due to many buildings collapsing in Turkey and Syria.
(6) Book review: Apt, Krzysztof R. and Tony Hoare (eds.), Edsger Wybe Dijkstra: His Life, Work, and Legacy, ACM Press, 2022. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra [1930-2002] made fundamental contributions to the theory and practice of computing. In this book, computer scientists, including Dijkstra himself, friends, mentors, and colleagues, provide both biographical and technical narratives on the influential computer scientist (the book's table of contents).
Dijkstra won the Turing Award in 1972 "for fundamental contributions to programming as a high, intellectual challenge; for eloquent insistence and practical demonstration that programs should be composed correctly, not just debugged into correctness; for illuminating perception of problems at the foundations of program design."
He advocated for the development of programs in concert with their correctness proofs. He also developed important ideas in fault-tolerant computing and in the domain of developing and presenting mathematical proofs of computer programs. Dijkstra remains one of the most quotable and most-quoted computer scientists. Here are three of his statements that are my favorites:
- "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
- "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
- "Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!"
He viewed programming as a mathematical activity, recommending that second-rate mathematicians had better limit themselves to pure math, because programming is one of the most-difficult branches of applied math.
2023/02/04 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Paul McCartney, flanked by Iranian pop singer Viguen (left) and his brother, Tehran, March 1968. [Top center] Egg prices are way up in the US: Blame a combination of feed prices and avian flu (NYT chart). [Top right] A late birthday celebration with my daughter, Friday night 2/03 in San Diego. [Bottom left] Today, on Coronado Island in San Diego, where my daughter and I went for kayaking and lunch. [Bottom center] My daughter's fesenjoon stew (Persian dish, with walnuts, pomegranate molasses, onions, chicken) and rice with potato tah-dig. [Bottom right] Sunset at San Diego's Torrey Pines State Park, where my daughter and I hiked today. And here's the nearly-full Moon, shot over my daughter's apartment complex.
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US shoots down Chinese spy balloon after it moves over the Atlantic, alleviating debris danger.
- Iran hacked the site of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo and stole subscribers' information.
- The Islamic Republic is doomed: Poll shows 81% of respondents rejecting the Islamic form of government.
- Important recall info: EzriCare Artificial Tears eye drops can cause blindness. [Tweet, with image]
- Any similarity in these two photos of Ali Khamenei and Kim Jong-un is accidental. [Tweet, with photos]
- Iranian couple sentenced to 10.5 years each for posting a video of themselves dancing in Azadi Square.
- Persian music: Hooniak Band's beautiful rendition of the old popular song "For You." [4-minute video]
(3) Book review: Thurber, James, Collected Fables, Harper Prennial, 2019.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This remarkable book of humorist James Thurber [1894-1961] begins with three introductory sections:
- A foreword by American commentator Keith Olbermann
- "A Fabulist of Our Time," by American writer Michael J. Rosen
- A preface by Thurber himself, dated March 30, 1956
Thurber's 85 fables are hilarious parodies of Aesop. The book brings together Thurber's Fables for Our Time (28), Further Fables for Our Time (47), and 10 previously uncollected fables. Each fable is illustrated with one or more cartoons. Many of the fables end with a "moral." For example, the moral of "The Foolhardy Mouse and the Cautious Cat" is: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and the angels are all in Heaven, but few of the fools are dead."
In his preface, Thurber writes: "The human family, of which I am a sometimes reluctant, but often proud, member has always invited a story, resented a lecture, and yawned at a sermon ... The definition of a fable shouldn't be cramped. It can embrace any pointed and recognizable aspect of human behavior, turned out in a concentrated narrative, with birds and beasts, or people or chimney posts, or anything else, including parts of the human body, talking away at a great rate."
Let me end my review with two example fables. The parody version of "Little Red Riding Hood" has the little girl taking an automatic out of her basket and shooting the wolf dead, right after she enters her grandmother's house. The moral of the story is: "It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be." In another fable, a smart fly avoids a spider web, answering the spider's invitation with, "I never light where I don't see other flies," before leaving. Later, the fly settles down on a flypaper, becoming stuck with all the other flies. The moral? "There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else."
2023/02/03 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The loneliness epidemic (see the next item below). [Center] Iran ranked #154 in democracy index, that is, near the bottom of the list of 167 countries. [Right] Australia is removing the British monarchy from its bank notes, beginning with the new 5-dollar bill.
(2) Loneliness is on the rise in the United States: Part of this problem can be blamed on a couple of years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Another factor is people drinking less and thus not benefiting from the resultant shedding of inhibitions. (By the way, the latest verdict on alcohol is that it is bad for you, even in moderate amounts, but that's a topic for a post at some other time). Adverse health effects of loneliness have been well-publicized. Lonely individuals become susceptible to all sorts of diseases.
A byproduct of the loneliness epidemic is a substantial rise in "romance scams," which take various forms, including both in-person (at social gatherings & in bars, say) and on-line (dating apps, social media, & messaging platforms). Scammers typically target older people or recently-widowed men & women of any age. Some scams are obvious and easily foiled (like a hot young girl messaging me to show "interest" based on my "profile"). Others are more subtle and need careful attention to avoid falling into the trap. Lonely people suck at being deliberate and careful. Loneliness kills in more than one way!
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Former Afghan president & other officials received millions of dollars in cash to not fight the Taliban. [Tweet]
- Pentagon is tracking a suspected Chinese spy balloon floating high above the US Northwest.
- France intercepts a ship smuggling Iranian arms to Yemen: The cargo included machine guns & missiles.
- Close encounter of the whale kind: Paddle-boarder's unique experience. [Tweet, with video]
(4) Explaining the new buzz-term "digital twin": We hear/read the term everywhere these days. A digital twin is simply a digital model of a physical object, person, process, or organization. As such, digital twin is nothing new. It's just a new buzz-term for an age-old activity, that is, modeling. Before digital computers, we used to do physical or mathematical modeling. Beginning with the 1950s, we added digital models to our toolbox. Today, these digital models can be more detailed and, thus, more accurate, thanks to ample & cheap computing power we have at our disposal.
(5) Anti-Semitic incidents on & around UCSB campus: Both Chancellor Yang and Engineering Dean Pollock have issued statements condemning hate speech of any kind and pointed to campus resources for support.
(6) "American Pain": This is the title of a 106-minute CNN documentary film to be aired on Sun., Feb. 5, 2023, 6:00 & 9:00 PM PST. The film "tells a grotesque tale of bodybuilding Florida brothers, lethal opioid exploitation, sky-high profits and absurdly slack state oversight."
(7) Personalized ad on LinkedIn, from Walden University: "Hi Behrooz, We thought you'd be a great fit for our online bachelor's degree programs. With a wide variety of offerings, classes start throughout the year. Do you already have a Bachelor's degree?"
(8) Final thought for the day: Nowruz 1402 is coming in 45 days. Spring equinox (saal tahveel) will be on Monday, March 20, 2023, 2:24:27 PM PDT; Tuesday, March 21 (Farvardin 1), 00:54:27 AM Iran time.
2023/02/01 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Art for Freedom: An abstract rendering of Tehran's Freedom Tower (credit: Liberty Communities). [Right] Today's UCSB talk on Iran (see the last item below).
(2) Quote of the day: "We live on an island of knowledge surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance." ~ John A. Wheeler, Scientific American, 1992
(3) Full-speed backward: A new law in Iran requires any woman to get her guardian's permission before leaving the country. Previously, divorced & unmarried women over the age of 18 needed no such permission.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Study finds the world has ample supply of rare-earth material to cover switch to clean energy.
- Member of Iran's parliament, which supports blocking foreign Internet sites, uses anti-filtering software!
- An MP in Iran strongly criticizes President Raisi and his utter failure to deliver on his campaign promises.
- Located above the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland, the Sphinx Observatory sits 3571 m above sea level.
- New Yorker cartoon caption of the day (father reading a story to his child): "Stop fact-checking my story!"
- Math: Euler showed that 2^4 = 4^2 is the only solution to the equation a^b = b^a for distinct a and b.
- Illustrating the notion of reinforcement learning, a type of machine (chicken) learning. [1-minute video]
- Persian music: This oldie entitled "Moosem-e Gol" ("Season for Flowers") is based on a Kurdish folk song.
(5) Tech layoffs aren't necessarily bad: When experienced employees are laid off, a wave of new start-ups begins. Established tech companies, existing start-ups, and the new start-ups compete for absorbing the laid-off workers and fresh talent. Yes, some individuals will experience hardships, but the economy as a whole might benefit. One problem, though, must be addressed. There are reports (both WaPo and NYT) that women and Hispanics are disproportionately affected by the ongoing layoffs. This is quite troubling, as it amplifies tech's already serious lack-of-diversity problem.
(6) This afternoon's UCSB talk about Iran: Dr. Kathryn Babayan (U. Michigan) spoke under the title "Anthologizing the City of Isfahan: Family Archives and Urban Knowledge." Dr. Babayan has written several books about Iran's sociocultural history, including Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran and The City as Anthology: Eroticism and Urbanity in Early Modern Isfahan.
Much has been written about the city of Isfahan. It is an old, pre-Islamic city at the intersection of several trade routes. Historically, it has had sizable Jewish and Armenian populations, the latter group having been forcibly moved there from the northwestern city of Julfa, creating Isfahan's Julfa neighborhood.
Much of official city archives have disappeared over time, so standard history books do not tell us much about how people lived and how the population interacted with and was impacted by the city's architectural grandeur. Anthologies that have survived come in a variety of formats/sizes, which are indicative of the diversity of sources. They typically include essays, wills, marriage documents, poems, artwork, and letters, providing rich supplements to standard histories.
Such anthologies, which are essentially handwritten books, are found in museums and libraries around the world. A few are relatively easy to digest, because they are well-organized and even have tables of contents. Most, however, are like tough puzzles whose decoding takes much time, effort, and expertise. Several institutions and centers in Iran own rich collections of these anthologies, many of them digitized and readily available to researchers.
2023/01/30 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: How many triangles are there in this figure? [Center] Scatterplots can be misleading, because we often interpret them as implying causality: Rotating scatterplots by 45 degrees and turning them into diamond plots helps alleviate the false inference. [Right] Math puzzle: Shown are five squares, the smallest of which has area 1. What is h?
(2) Six Ivy-League colleges will have female presidents this fall: Harvard will welcome its first black president. Columbia will be led by a woman for the first time, as will the 250-year-old Dartmouth College.
(3) Quote of the day: "Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing." ~ Author/poet William Butler Yeats
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Three Eastern-European criminals with ties to Iran had plans to assassinate journalist Masih Alinejad.
- A mosque completely collapses in Pakistan due to suicide bombing, killing 60+ and injuring scores more.
- Super Bowl 2023 is set: One mom, sure to be a winner, has a son on both teams (Eagles & Chiefs).
- An amazing mountain road in Norway. [1-minute video]
- G. B. Shaw: "When a stupid man is doing something he's ashamed of, he always declares that it's his duty."
- Dancing in the rain: The Persian version! [3-minute video]
- Marvel at this order-5 Venn diagram dividing the plane into 2^5 = 32 regions! [Image]
- Sony Pictures' visualization of a mother's physical & emotional sacrifices in giving birth to children.
(5) Fajr Film Festival this year has second-rate talent competing in front of B-list judges: Iran's prominent filmmakers & other artists are staying away from the festival's 41st edition, being run by an actor/producer who was a member of the pro-Khamenei mob that stormed the British Embassy in Tehran a decade ago.
(6) Panel recommends $2.6 billion for a US Federal AI Research Organization: The final report from the government's National AI Research Resource recommends a new, multibillion-dollar research organization to improve the capabilities and accessibility of the field to US scientists.
(7) The dictator's dilemma: Countries like Iran, that shut down or severely limit access to the Internet shoot themselves in the foot. As noted by former US Secretary of State George P. Schultz in 1985: "Totalitarian societies face a dilemma: either they try to stifle these technologies and thereby fall further behind in the new industrial revolution, or else they permit these technologies and see their totalitarian control inevitably eroded."
(8) The high cost and low effectiveness of user-privacy agreements: Privacy laws are certainly needed, but putting a 10-page document in front of a user and asking him/her to sign is not the solution. These are documents written by lawyers for the benefit of service providers, not to inform the users. At today's UCSB seminar "Modeling Privacy Policies and Informed Consent," given by Dr. Maryam Majedi (USC), I learned that it takes the average person 180-300 hours (productivity loss of ~ $5000) to read every privacy policy s/he encounters while using the Web over the period of one year.
2023/01/29 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Flowers on sale at Costco: For a mere $140, you can buy a gift pack of roses that are said to last for over one year. So, you're covered for Valentine's Day 2023 & 2024! Well, artificial flowers last forever, so why pay this much? [Top center] Facebook memories from Jan. 29 of years past: My daughter's tah-dig creation, a German castle, Mt. Damavand, and a majestic tree. [Top right] These were once the latest technology: They are now my family's e-waste! [Bottom left] Cover feature of IEEE Computer magazine, issue of Jan. 2023 (see the next item below). [Bottom center] US women: Voting rights came more than a century ago (1920). Reproductive rights were taken away in 2022. Is there still hope for equal rights? [Bottom right] Cover feature of Science magazine, issue of Jan. 27, 2023 (see the last item below).
(2) January 2023 issue of IEEE Computer magazine: Emerging computing trends and technologies in 2023 and beyond. A list of the cover-feature articles follows.
- Quantum Computing: Progress and Innovation (beyond experimentation and on to real systems)
- Surprise-Inspired Networking (new info entering the cloud is often more valuable than old info at the core)
- Making Digital Twins Work (potential for interoperability and automation across computing applications)
- Future of the Workforce (the pandemic caused us to rethink how we work)
- Regulatory Technology and Supervisory Technology: Current Status, Facilitators, and Barriers
- Facial Recognition Technology: Navigating the Ethical Challenges
- Revisiting the Spaceborne Illuminators of Opportunity for Airborne Object Tracking
(3) Math puzzle: The numbers 0 through 9 are placed in a row in random order. What is the probability of the first three numbers on the left side being in ascending order, as in the following example?
2 3 6 0 5 7 9 4 1 8
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 29, 2017: Persian music, featuring Mahsa Vahdat and a Norwegian choir.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 29, 2016: When my late mom got a Facebook account & we became "friends."
- Facebook memory from Jan. 29, 2014: Two women who thrived after being shot in the head by morons.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 29, 2011: Hope that an autocracy will give way to a better one is delusional.
(5) Gender inequity in STEM: Women constitute 26% of the scientists at UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, but they hold only 17% of the space; even less, if only lab space is considered.
(6) Degradation & destruction of the Amazon Forest: This is the theme Science magazine's cover feature, issue of Jan. 27, 2023. The Amazon is a critical component of the Earth climate system whose fate is embedded within our larger planetary emergency. "The Amazon ... is home to more than 10% of all named plant and vertebrate species, concentrated into just 0.5% of Earth's surface area. The Amazon rain-forest is also a critical component of the Earth climate system, contributing about 16% of all terrestrial photosynthetic productivity and strongly regulating global carbon and water cycles. Amazonian ecosystems are being rapidly degraded by human industrial activities. A cumulative total of 17% of the original forest has already been cleared, and 14% replaced, by agricultural land use. After millions of years serving as an immense global carbon pool, under further warming the Amazon rainforest is predicted to become a net carbon source to the atmosphere. Some regions have already made the transition, with forest respiration and burning outpacing forest photosynthesis."
2023/01/28 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Architecture: Hard Rock Hotel in Miami. [Center] Architecture: Types of arches. [Right] Nature: The Pyrenees at the border of France and Spain.
(2) Benefits you get in Heaven: This Islamic cleric claims that the first thing you get in Heaven is fish liver. The second benefit is many virgin nymphs ready to serve you. Third in line are gold and emerald carpets under your feet. Fourth, singing birds will broil themselves upon your slightest whim to provide you with tasty kabob.
(3) Internet access in Iran: Service is spotty and video chat is out of the question due to government blocking and deliberate slow-down. Yet ISPs continue to charge exorbitant fees for the non-service!
[Tweet]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The "Cryptoqueen" who scammed investors out of $4 billion, boarded a plane, and disappeared.
- The classroom as a political tool in Nazi Germany and Islamic Republic of Iran. [7-minute read]
- Santa Barbara's historic Lobero Theater [1873-2023] turns 150. [Tweet, with images]
- No worries, no regrets, lots of positivity, and staying away from toxic people (115-year-old's advice).
- Congressional testimony by Dr. Steven Greer on UFOs & secret government programs. [9-minute video]
(5) Who are all these Iranian talking-heads on TV channels and social media? I've never seen or heard from most of these people. They all have prescriptions for how to overthrow Iran's brutal Islamic regime. Almost all of them praise one opposition figure and oppose others. Many of them scream and use foul language. Why are they speaking up now, after 40+ years of silence?
(6) Iranian protester to security guard: When you shot at me from 6 feet away while smiling, could you imagine that I would survive and smile back at you? #WomanLifeFreedom [Tweet, with photo]
(7) Afghan Minister of Disaster Management sees no need for women aid workers: We provide the aid to men, who are responsible for households. There is no sense in dealing with women directly. [Tweet, with video]
(8) SoCal good food at bargain prices: Santa Barbara's Shalhoob's Patio in the Funk Zone is featured in the Spring 2023 issue of AAA Magazine. Also listed are Tasty China Restaurant in Ventura and La Fuente in Ojai.
(9) Do expiry dates on medications matter? The short answer is "no"! The expiry date, mandated in the US since 1979, represents the date that the drug's manufacturer guarantees full potency. Drugs remain safe and highly effective even a decade or more after the specified date. There is little incentive for manufacturers to specify a realistic expiry date, because they make more money when drugs are discarded by users.
2023/01/27 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Enemies of the state, according to Iranian mullahs. [Top center] My latest #WomanLifeFreedom T-shirt. [Top right] Danger of old patriarchy taking over Iran's feminist/youth revolution (see the next item below). [Bottom left] Panel discussion on Iranian art today (see the last item below). [Bottom center & right] Anthroterra (Human Earth): This is a title of an exhibit at UCSB Library, highlighting the relationship of humanity to the natural world. It is one of the components of the UCSB Reads 2023 Program.
(2) Hijacking of the #WomanLifeFreedom feminist/youth grassroots uprising by a 60-something "prince": The 1979 Iranian revolution against tyranny was hijacked by a 70-something religious dictator, so Iranians are understandably edgy about another possible hijacking. Meanwhile, the mullahs in Iran, who were scared for the Islamic regime's survival and their own safety, are all smiles because of this dictatorial takeover attempt and the resulting discord among opposition figures, both inside and outside Iran. Reza Pahlavi insists that he doesn't want to become king and is merely acting as a facilitator to speed up a smooth transition from theocracy to democracy. But this isn't what we hear from his most-vocal supporters, who spew misinformation and insults at opposition figures who doubt Reza Pahlavi's sincerity. How does he feel about his supporters calling him "Prince" or, worse, "Reza Shah II"? [Persian version]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Today, we remember the Holocaust amid a marked increase in Holocaust denial & anti-Semitic violence.
- Iranian-American scientist/engineer Nader Engheta (U. Penn) wins a 2023 Benjamin Franklin Medal.
- On how Iran's Islamic regime is sowing discord among opposition groups as a survival strategy. [Tweet]
- On separatist movements in Iran not having valid linguistic, cultural, religious, or ethnic justifications.
- Joke-like stat: The most-productive Iranian researcher wrote one paper every 1.5 days during 2022!
(4) Report from France 24 news agency: In Iran, most households rely on natural gas for their heating and hot water. But amid a cold snap and gas shortages, the population has been paralyzed by sub-zero temperatures in many regions around the country. These gas shortages have not only led to widespread power outages, but also severe air pollution from burning low-grade heavy fuel oil, known as mazut, to make up the difference. Despite denials from authorities, France 24 observers team found evidence that this fuel oil is partially responsible for unbreathable air in some Iranian cities.
(5) "Voices of Resistance: Iranian Art Today": This was the title of a Georgetown U. panel discussion in the framework of Jalinous Lecture series. The moderator Dr. Pamela Karimi (U. Mass Dartmouth; architect) began the discussion by providing an introduction to the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising and the diversity of artwork it has inspired. What follows includes some key points made by the three panelists.
Jinoos Taghizadeh (Artist, Germany) began by noting that art has always been influenced by, and helped direct, political developments. Art connected with resistance movements isn't necessarily produced by "artists." Can art be produced without financial support? To survive, artists need the basic necessities of life, yet many people do not consider "artist" a job title. If artists put their names out with their art, are they taking improper credit for the resistance movement?
Sepideh Mehraban (Artist, South Africa) began by providing her personal history, being born and educated in Iran and later moving to South Africa. She then showed some photographs depicting restrictions (clothing and otherwise) on Iranian women and resistance movements against those restrictions. She ended by showing examples of her art and a couple of installations she has done, including the group exhibition "Eye on Iran," in New York's Four Freedoms Park.
Sheida Soleimani (Brandeis U. faculty member; artist) began by indicating that she was born in the US to political-refugee parents. She learned about conditions in Iran and life under a dictatorship from her parents. She related some of the challenges faced by US-resident Iranians in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. When General Qasem Soleimani was killed, she feared similar adverse reactions, particularly in view of her last name being the source of much confusion.
2023/01/26 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] UCSB Library's panel discussion on urban place making (see item 2 below). [Center] Socrates Think Tank talk on Islamic seminary schools vs. European universities (see item 3 below). [Right] Talangor Group's talk on Iran's Islamic regime and martyrdom (see item 4 below).
(2) "Urban Place Making Over the Next 30 Years": This was the title of Wednesday's panel discussion at the UCSB Library, in connection with the UCSB Reads 2023 Program, which has selected Colin Montgomery's 2014 book, Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design.
The panel was moderated by Prof. Andrew Plantinga of UCSB's Bren School and featured two city officials (Elias Isaacson, representing the City of Santa Barbara, and James Kyriaco, City of Goleta Councilmember), a city planner (Laurel Fisher Perez), and an artist (Prof. Kim Yasuda of UCSB). An estimated 50 people were in attendance. [UCSB Reads events & other info]
Change is difficult. Stakeholders may have conflicting demands: Walkability; Fast commute; Easy parking; Safe bike paths; and so on. Ironically, the COVID-19 pandemic helped us make once-in-a-generation changes, exemplified by closing of sections of State Street in downtown Santa Barbara to cars. City of Goleta is working on changes to reduce traffic speed and improve bike paths on Hollister Avenue. The State-Street experience showed us that providing bike paths alone may not be enough. A current problem is bikes moving too fast adjacent to pedestrian walkways, and the prevalence of e-bikes may worsen the situation.
In addition to public transportation and safe bike & walking paths, a key requirement for a happy city is affordable housing. It goes without saying that living on the streets, under bridges, or in substandard slums does not contribute to happiness. Implementing experimental development programs in participating communities may help sell some of the proposed ideas. UCSB has begun bringing students to the adjacent community of Isla Vista, which has suffered for many years from ad hoc and substandard development, in order to contribute to the beautification and planning programs.
Contrary to some opinions, cell phones and social media actually amplify, rather than degrade, the importance of public spaces, such as parks and community centers. City planners are bound by codes and guidelines that city leaders put in place. The policies that get in the way of mixed-use projects and low-income housing (such as requirements for ample parking) are changing, although the pace of change is fairly slow. The importance of privately-owned public spaces, such as green spaces inside buildings, was pointed out by an audience member.
(3) "Education in Islamic Seminaries and European Universities in Pre-Modern Era": This was the title of Wednesday evening's Socrates Think Tank talk, in Persian, by Dr. Tofigh Heidarzadeh (History of Science & Technology, UC Riverside). There were 110 attendees. [Selected slides]
Heidarzadeh systematically reviewed the differences between curricula and education systems in Islamic seminaries and European centers of higher learning. The latter centers were initially private institutions with high tuition costs that were independent of governments. The notion of city universities (such as University of Paris) with standardized curricula was developed much later. Islamic seminaries, on the other hand were numerous (Baghdad alone had ~25) and followed diverse curricula.
Islamic seminaries either did not have any science content or just covered the basics needed for daily activities. For example, math was for keeping accounts. Philosophy was frowned upon, as was any scientific endeavor that could potentially lead to results contradicting holy texts. There is much talk about Islamic scientists, but those scientists weren't the product of the education system of the day, which had very little scientific content. Prominent scientists in Islam's Golden Age mostly studied on their own or via private tutoring.
Iran's Islamic clerics resisted the modernization of curricula at every turn. Even in today's seminaries, sources studied are typically 8-10 centuries old. When Europe went through Enlightenment, Iran was sill prisoner to antiquated religious dogma. It wasn't until Reza Shah took away the clerics' privileges in dictating what should or should not be thought that modern scientific notions found their way into universities, beginning with University of Tehran.
(4) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Amin Sophiamehr (Indiana U.) spoke under the title "Islamic Republic: The Regime of Martyrdom." There were 90 attendees.
Martyr (from the Greek word "martur," meaning "witness") in Christian tradition is someone who dies to protect an important ideal. A martyr by definition cannot be a fighter. In Islam, an armed fighter who dies for an ideal is also considered a martyr. Imam Hussein was the last Shi'i imam to be martyred. None of the subsequent 9 imams died for a cause. Imam Zaman, whose existence is questioned by historians, is said to be planning a bloody revenge for Hussein's death. Shi'i religious dogma maintains that every Shi'i Muslim is charged with this revenge ("every day is Ashoura, every land is Karbala").
Shi'i clerics and many Shi'i thinkers, such as Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, had a low opinion of socially active women. The late Shah's efforts to grant rights to women was one of the sources of his being detested by clerics and intellectuals alike. Many stories by male intellectuals were set in villages, because they viewed village life as pure, while city life was suspect because of the roles played by women. What we view today as women's rights and freedom was not described in those terms. Rather, it was viewed as spreading recklessness & prostitution.
The concept of martyrdom that emerged during the Iran-Iraq war was influenced by the Shi'i propagandists' view of an ideal human being. From the Shi'i viewpoint, as preached by Ali Shariati, for example, the ideal human being seeks martyrdom. When a government gains power, not just over how you live but also how you die, it becomes omnipotent.
A city is a stage for civic and commercial interactions, which are life's necessities. When martyrdom takes center stage, the city becomes just a platform for death. Joy and laughter are intimately tied to life, whereas martyrdom is tied to gloom and weeping. This is why many city streets in Iran are named after martyrs: To serve as constant reminders of mourning.
Shi'i martyrdom is gendered. Young men die. Women's role is to protect the blood of martyrs with their black chadors ("sar rafteh ta roosari nareh"). During the Iran-Iraq war, a powerful propaganda technique was used by the Islamic regime: Reading the wills of martyrs on TV, invariably asking that people obey the Supreme Leader and maintain their hijabs ("siahi-ye chador-e to koobandeh-tar az sorkhi-ye khoon-e man ast"). Interestingly, the slogan "Woman-Life-Freedom" is the exact opposite of "Man-Martyrdom-Submission."
Midway through the presentation, the speaker stopped for some questions, stating that the questions might direct his discussion in the second part. Unfortunately, questions (many of them actually mini-lectures) took up the rest of the time. When I left the session due to other commitments, Q&A was still in progress. I assume that a future session will be devoted to the unfinished presentation.
2023/01/24 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] A tweet about Iran's misogynistic justice system (see the next item below). [Top center] Iran's IRGC to EU: "Did you call me a terrorist?" [Top right] Iran's Islamic regime claims it puts women on a pedestal, giving them higher stature than Western women: Yet, this is the gravestone of the wife of a prominent cleric in Mashhad. The text identifies her only as the wife of Ayatollah Alamolhoda. Her own name is nowhere to be seen! [Bottom left] With this song, French women express their support for the women of Iran and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: A farmer owned three square fields, as shown. He later bought the four triangular fields in order to get a fence around the property. What is the total area of his estate? [Bottom right] Impressive architectures: Apartment building in Singapore.
(2) From a tweet by Aida Ahadiany: When a woman takes off her headscarf, she goes to jail for 10 years. If she supports the #MeToo movement, she gets 6 years. A man who killed his sister got 3 years. Another man who beheaded his daughter was sentenced to 9 years. Middle finger to the Islamic Republic and its apologists!
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Mass-shooting in Half Moon Bay, California (30 miles south of SF), leaves 7 dead and 1 critically injured.
- Retired FBI official has been charged with money-laundering for taking payments from a Russian oligarch.
- Oscar nominations announced for 2023: A multiverse epic film earned 11 nominations. Here's the full list.
- Still more evidence that Iran's security forces assault innocent passersby on the street without any reason.
- University of California plans expanded outreach at half of the state's community colleges.
- New multi-billion-dollar investment in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI signals Microsoft's intensified AI efforts.
- Misuse of statistics led to a nurse being convicted of serial murders and its proper use exonerated her.
- Hackers can make computers self-destruct by forcing excessive electrical current through the CPU.
- Wi-Fi routers can locate human positions and poses within a room based on signal interference patterns.
- Engineer Godfrey Hounsfield invented the CT Scanner to image the human brain & won a Nobel Prize for it.
- Graphical Facebook memories from Jan. 23 of years past. [Part 1] [Part 2]
(4) Chatbots and the Turing Test: The new generation of chatbots, such as ChatGPT, leave people with the impression that they're chatting with another person. They can also write just about anything, including terms papers. There are news reports that Google believes its highly-profitable search business is threatened by the new chatbots and is considering how to respond to the threat.
(5) The Internet is extremely complex if you look at all the details: To understand it, we should note that it is based on a small set of design choices, viz., a service model, a 4-layer architecture, and the three crucial mechanisms of routing, reliability, and resolution.
(6) Safety risks of QR codes: Writing in Communications of the ACM (Feb. 2023), Google VP Vinton G. Cerf warns that a QR code can take you anywhere, including risky Web sites, given that it contains no human-readable information. This problem amplifies risks already present in URLs. In the latter case, humans may be able to glean info about the site, although the use of look-alike symbols can disguise a Web site's identity.
2023/01/22 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy Chinese/lunar new year! A warm welcome to the year of the rabbit. Unfortunately, what was to be a celebration in Los Angeles on the eve of the new year turned deadly by a gunman killing 10 and injuring 10 Asian-Americans at a dance club. This time, politicians aren't even sending thoughts and prayers. Shame on those who build their political careers on contributions from NRA and are thus scared to speak up on gun control! [Top center] Satellite images show that the snow pack in western Iran is quite significant: This is good news for the most-important rivers in the country, which originate on Zagros mountains. [Top right & bottom row] Women's March Santa Barbara (see the next item below).
(2) Women's March Santa Barbara: Today's rally/march was held on the 50th anniversary of the Roe-v.-Wade decision. What would have been an occasion to celebrate turned into a protest event, due to US Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn the historic precedent. Many groups (including Iranians, Afghans, and Ukrainians) were represented at this year's Women's March Santa Barbara, although the crowd was smaller than in prior years' marches. [Video 1] [Video 2] World Dance for Humanity performed several dances at today's event, including one to the Persian song "Shekar-e Ahoo" and one to the English version of the Persian song "Bara-ye" ("For Woman, Life, Liberty").
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Ten dead, 10 injured, some critically, in mass-shooting at a dance studio, close to downtown Los Angeles.
- A film on sexual-assault allegations against SCOTUS Justice Brett Kavanaugh premiers at Sundance.
- To prevent Afghan women from studying abroad, the Taliban are denying them graduation certificates.
- Stand-up comedy: Let this foreign comic teach you about the complexities of the English language. [Video]
(4) To infinity and beyond: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, 93, marries Dr. Anca Faur. Aldrin, the second person to walk on the Moon, is getting married for the fourth time. Faur, 63, has a PhD in chemical engineering.
(5) Those believing in #WomanLifeFreedom should not follow Reza Pahlavi until he explicitly denounces his dad's superstitious religiosity and extreme misogyny, the latter evident in this interview with Barbara Walters, in the presence of his wife, who can only offer an awkward smile.
(6) I believe President Biden when he says he was unaware of the presence of classified documents in his various homes and offices: But, for goodness' sake, how can such sloppy people rise to high positions of power? I won't be surprised if Russian and Chinese spies start targeting high-level US officials' homes to get at US government secrets (if they haven't already).
2023/01/20 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Beautiful sunny day in Santa Barbara allowed me to take a long walk on Stearns Wharf & East Beach. City crews and volunteers are busy clearing the debris at Santa Barbara beaches. The extended rainstorms did much damage to the area beaches, especially in Carpinteria, where debris flows in creeks extended all the way to the ocean. [Right] The wishing well is full (see the next item below).
(2) Like writing letters to Santa Claus: The well in the city of Qom, where Imam Zaman is allegedly hiding, is brimming with prayers and wish lists that some Muslim believers address to their missing Imam. There are also other wishing wells in mosques across Iran. This banner informs believers that a mosque's wishing well is full and needs dredging. While the well is closed for maintenance, people can throw their prayers and letters into any well, stream, or river, and it will definitely reach the intended target!
(3) Remember floppy disks and VHS tapes? Fax will soon be going the same way. UK communications regulator Ofcom proposes ending the requirement for providers to support fax services.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Tensions at the US Supreme Court: The justices are showing impatience & frustration with one another.
- A sleep-deprived Masih Alinejad, who collapsed on stage after a panel discussion, is reportedly okay.
- Dorothy Hodgkin, discoverer of vitamin B12's structure, was the 3rd women to win a Chemistry Nobel Prize.
- Anonymous: "Having empty pockets is no fun, but even worse is having an empty brain or an empty heart."
- Persian music: A wonderful instrumental rendition of "Bahar-e Delneshin" by a very young boy.
(5) The golden age of Hollywood: If you talk to long-time Santa Barbara residents, they'd tell you about their fond memories when they encountered film crews and film sets everywhere they went. During the golden age of Hollywood (up to the early 1960s), Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties provided popular filming locations, due to their natural beauty, geographic diversity, and proximity to Hollywood. Filmmakers and actors liked the idea of going on location, while also sleeping in their own beds! Then it became too expensive to film in California and filming locations moved to other states and, more recently, to Canada. Now, some locals are working hard to bring filmmaking back to our area. A fascinating story, with photos.
(6) Historical memory: In this age of Internet & social media, one cannot sweep his/her past actions and statements under the rug, although many do switch positions, thinking that their past is well-hidden and undiscoverable under tons of content. It is certainly okay to express regrets for misguided positions before taking new ones, but it is not acceptable to switch positions without any acknowledgment of past mistakes.
Two years ago, Narges Bajogli claimed that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is anti-war and is working to fix misogynistic laws. Oh, really. So, how did your peace-loving, pro-women IRGC turn into an international terrorist group that also fights women's-rights protesters inside the country?
2023/01/19 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Meme of the day: The plight of Afghan girls & women is inseparable from Iranian women's struggle for their rights. [Center] Cachuma Lake isn't the only reservoir to fill up from the recent severe rainstorms in California: The little fountain in my courtyard also runneth over! [Right] Buddies: Is anyone else disgusted with the seemingly close friendship between Marjorie Taylor Green (of QAnon & "Jewish Space Lasers" fame) and Kevin McCarthy, the new US House Speaker?
(2) EU's mandate to use USB-C chargers for all portable electronic devices takes hold in 2024 (in 2026, for laptop computers): Several US Senators have pushed for similar legislation, so far to no avail.
(3) Today's Univ. of California briefing on the impact of the CHIPS and Science Act: US universities and industrial firms are positioning themselves to take advantage of $52 billion R&D funds from the recently-enacted legislation dubbed "Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act." The bulk of the funds will target microelectronics manufacturing and related infrastructure, but research-funding entities will also get a share. [Table: Funding highlights]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- European Parliament asks EU to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist group.
- Microsoft and Amazon are cutting thousands of jobs each: Tough times for workers in the Seattle area!
- Man charged with murdering his wife Google-searched "Ten ways to dispose of a dead body."
- Goleta police arrests two suspects (having Iranian-sounding names) with 20 stolen catalytic converters.
- New York City, home to 23 million people and host to millions of tourists, to be opened up to gambling.
- DeepMind AI enhances a matrix-multiplication algorithm that hadn't been improved in more than 50 years.
- Mars meteorite that crashed to Earth in 2011 is found to contain diverse organic compounds.
- Solar-cell efficiency reaches 30%: Egg-crate-shaped nanostructure boosts photon-to-electron conversion.
- Mr. Haloo speaks to Reza Pahlavi about despicable acts of some of his followers, the "Shahollahis."
- Persian piano: The song "Eshgh" ("Love"), played in 2019 by the recently deceased Saeed Deihimi. RIP.
(5) David Crosby dead at 81: The legendary singer/guitarist/songwriter helped found two highly-successful bands, The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash (& Young). [29-minute BBC concert]
(6) Problems of legal liability and ownership in AI: Who should be held responsible if an AI program's actions hurt or financially damage someone? This question, asked for decades, has become urgent with the widespread deployment of AI technology. The complexity of modern AI programs and, at times, lack of transparency in their designs, are parts of the problem, as is the fact that most AI systems are composed of layer-upon-layer of code produced by different entities.
The question of ownership of artifacts created by AI is a more-recent one. In a January 2023 IEEE Spectrum article, Rina Diane Caballar asks the question, "Do you own the code AI helps you create?" A class-action lawsuit brought against GitHub for the way its Copilot tool helps one create new software by automatically suggesting source code from publicly-available sources is likely to set a legal precedent in code-ownership cases. Of course, the ownership question is more general and also applies to art and other artifacts produced by, or with help from, AI.
2023/01/18 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Statue of Liberty, Liberty Island, New York City, USA. [Top center] Marvel at the equality involving an infinite sum of Fibonacci numbers and evaluate the square root without using a calculator. [Top right] IEEE Central Coast Section technical talk (see the last item below). [Bottom left] Iran-related memes (see item 2 below). [Bottom center] With a friend like this, Iranian women need no enemies: President Raisi's VP for Women's Affairs says she rejects gender equality, because it would be a loss for women! [Bottom right] More Iran-related memes (see item 3 below).
(2) Memes of the day on Iran: Violence against protesters endorsed by newspaper affiliated with IRGC; Dissidents will annihilate the Islamic Republic with their courage; European Parliament Chief favors designating the entirety of IRGC a terrorist organization; Iranian prosecutor maintains that Western women are held back.
(3) More memes of the day on Iran: Protests for shortage of heating fuel are met with deployment of security forces; Khamenei is the main target of insults by protesters; calls for designating IRGC a terrorist organization intensify; South Korean President sides with UAE in calling Iran its biggest enemy.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- This winter, we have a COVID bump, not a surge (so far): That's good news, but we aren't in the clear yet.
- Tehran has been shut down for several days amid a cold spell, due to a shortage of natural gas. [Meme]
- Kylie Moore-Gilbert reveals that Iran's operatives have been threatening journalists in Australia. [Meme]
- Part of Penthouse magazine's August 1979 interview with Ayatollah Khomeini. [Tweet, with image]
- Stand-up comedy by Sindhu Vee: Indian and Western parenting techniques have zero overlap. [Video]
(5) Iranian women and girls have been suffocating for decades: Twelve years ago, a female student brought tears to the eyes of those present by gathering strength to tell Ayatollah Rafsanjani how she is treated as a woman and how she has lost trust in the government for its lies and deceptions. [Video]
(6) Another nutty election-denier: Republican candidate, who lost an election in New Mexico by a wide margin and claimed election fraud, hired four gunmen to shoot into the homes of four elected officials, all Democrats.
(7) "Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends": This was the title of yesterday's UCLA Semel Institute webinar featuring Dr. Marisa G. Franco (U. Maryland), in conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson (UCLA).
In her best-selling book, Platonic, Dr. Franco discusses psychology research on how sustaining friendship is a process, not just of behaviors, but of fundamentally reconciling with how we view ourselves. Dr. Franco does not provide a recipe for successful friendships but tackles how people's underlying psychological architecture sabotages or harmonizes with their ability to attract and keep friends. I am reading Dr. Franco's book and will provide more details in a forthcoming book review. [Images]
(8) IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Dr. Behrooz Parhami (UCSB, ECE) spoke tonight under the title "Women in Science and Engineering: A Tale of Two Countries." There were ~25 attendees for the in-person talk at Goleta Rusty's Pizza on Calle Real.
Despite poor retention and advancement prospects, as well as female-unfriendly workplaces and corporate policies, women continue to flock to and excel in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields. Based on data and narratives from the United States and Iran, the speaker identified roadblocks to the engagement of women in STEM careers. Using the two countries, different as they are in many respects, as examples is instructive, because this side-by-side comparison shows that undesirable outcomes in the domain of women in STEM fields can and do occur for vastly different reasons. The talk concluded by discussing what each country can learn from the other one in removing roadblocks to women in science and engineering.
[PDF slides]
[IEEE CCS event page]
[Speaker's personal Web page]
[IEEE CCS Technical Talks page]
2023/01/17 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Math puzzle: Given the lengths specified in this diagram, find the length x. [Top center] Math puzzle: Given the value of x at the top, evaluate the bottom expression. [Top right] What is the shaded area inside the 40-by-40 square? [Bottom left] Monday's meal-prep night output: Spaghetti, salad, and pita-bread pepperoni pizzas. [Bottom center] Tim Bayne's Philosophy of Religion (see the last item below). [Bottom right] Memes of the day on Iran: A beaten-up school protester who is in coma and unlikely to recover; ambassadors of England, France, and Germany inspecting the defacing of embassy walls in Tehran; Khamenei's criticism of foreign-language textbook leading to a large-scale content revisions; Iranian official telling people they're on their own in the face of severe fuel shortages, as an extreme cold spell covers the entire country.
(2) Book review: Bayne, Tim, Philosophy of Religion: A Very Short Introduction, unabridged 3-hour audiobook, read by Charles Constant, Tantor Audio, 2018.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This volume in Oxford's valuable "Very Short Introduction" series, currently spanning hundreds of titles and providing excellent entry points into many diverse topics, is quite comprehensive, despite its small size.
Philosophy of religion isn't concerned with religion as a social, cultural, or political phenomenon but with philosophical questions that arise from religion and belief or disbelief in God. There is a great deal of overlap between philosophy of religion and theology, the latter being confined to a particular religious tradition in contrast to the former's generality. Religions are different in their attitudes toward philosophy, some embracing philosophical reflection; several being hostile or ambivalent; others considering themselves philosophical systems rather than religions.
Philosophers who have contributed to discussions on philosophy of religion include:
Christian philosophers: St. Augustine of Hippo [354-430], St. Thomas Aquinas [1225-1274], John Duns Scotus [1266-1308], William of Ockham [1287-1347], Rene Descartes [1596-1650], John Locke [1632-1704], Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz [1646-1716]
Jewish philosophers: Maimonides [1135-1204], Gersonides [1288-1344], Spinoza [1632-1677]
Muslim philosophers: Al-Kindi [~800-870], Al-Farabi [~870-~950], Al-Ghazali [~1056-1111], Ibn Rushd or Averroes [1126-1198], Ibn Sina or Avicenna [~970-1037]
Some think that religion and philosophy should be kept apart, given that the question of God's existence cannot be settled by philosophical arguments. Bayne considers this view, held, among others, by Immanuel Kant, as counterproductive. "The philosophy of religion may not be able to provide definitive answers to the questions that it asks, but it would not be unreasonable to hope that it can at least illuminate them" [p. 4].
The definition of God as omnipotent and benevolent raises many questions and contradictions. For example, how does one explain evil? Was God not able to eliminate evil? Then, how is He omnipotent? Or, did He not want to eliminate it? The latter option casts doubt on His benevolence. The oft-offered explanation that God created evil as a test for us, so that we can reject it on our own free will, does not resolve the problem. Humans can exercise free will in choosing between multiple good options, so evil isn't really needed for free will to exist and be properly exercised. Additionally, if we need God to explain the universe and its creation, who created God? Considering God an infinite and ever-present being creates its own questions and contradictions.
A related question concerns the nature of faith and its relationship to reason. Faith has been equated with belief, trust, and confidence. Why we believe or trust something or someone may not be based on reason. Faith and reason can coexist harmoniously, especially if faith is viewed as malleable in the face of empirical evidence. When faith and reason lead to contradictory propositions, real conflict of the kind that has afflicted human societies for many centuries begins.
The value of this volume as a gateway into the philosophy of religion is enhanced by Bayne providing references for each chapter as well as an extensive "For Further Reading" section at the end.
2023/01/16 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! MLK championed not only social justice but basic human decency as well. Here are a few quotes to honor his birthday. [Top center] World's tallest buildings: Existing and planned. [Top right] Memes of the day on Iran: Former human-rights chief is all smiles, as he defends death by stoning; a student who was killed by a bullet during protests; abject poverty in Sistan & Baluchestan; and FM promising oil/gas shipments to Lebanon & Syria, as Iranians shiver from a serious natural-gas shortage. [Bottom left] The Eiffel Tower displays #FemmeVieLiberte (French for #WomanLifeFreedom). [Bottom right] French and German ambassadors in Tehran join the British ambassador in solidarity, as they inspect the defacing of the British Embassy walls: Those who read Persian, please pay attention to the illiterate and vile language used by Khamenei's foot-soldiers.
(2) Quote of the day: "Students don't need a perfect teacher. Students need a happy teacher, who's gonna make them excited to come to school and grow a love for learning." ~ Physicist Richard P. Feynman
(3) Light at the end of the tunnel: Hope everyone is staying warm and dry in California, where some 26 million people are under flood advisories. There is some good news, though. Cachuma Lake in my area is full and has begun to spill for the first time in 12 years. Drought-stricken California is getting some much-needed relief. But I, for one, am looking forward to a string of sunny days coming to us after this rainstorm! [1/14-23 forecast]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Global terrorist activities of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps: Timeline & event descriptions.
- How apologists for Iran's Islamic regime have voiced opposition to designating IRGC a terrorist group.
- Missouri House of Representatives lawmakers adopt stricter women's dress code in their rules package.
- A serial-scammer's web of lies: Tina Duong hired a fake father and 300 guests to fool the groom.
(5) Outdated software on safety-critical systems in the United States: The glitch that led to hundreds of flight cancellations and thousands of flight delays in early January 2023 was due to defective software introduced into the FAA system by outside contractors. The outdated system was already a cause of much frustration for airline pilots, even before the software failure that took it out.
(6) Math puzzle: Consider the linear recurrence relation T(1) = a, T(2) = b, and T(n) = cT(n – 1) + dT(n – 2), with a, b, c, d real constants. Find a general solution to the recurrence. Note that the Fibonacci sequence F(n) is a special case of T(n) with a = b = c = d = 1, so you can use F(n) to spot-check your answer for T(n).
(7) "Expert" on Iran's state TV: It is justified to kill 10,000 protesters to maintain security. In fact, the Quran tells us that they should be tortured to death, not simply shot.
(8) Message to older men, who still hesitate to support the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising: "You should remember that when this movement triumphs, the winner won't be women, but life." ~ Actor Mohammad Omrani, who advises us to fight not just the external dictator but also the internal one, that is, antiquated patriarchal beliefs that religions have instilled in us
2023/01/14 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] "Catch Me If You Can" (see the next item below). [Top center] Malcolm Gladwell's The Bomber Mafia (see the last item below). [Top right] Visual puzzle: Which of the four cubes can result from folding the top pattern? [Bottom left] A few memes about Iran, the Islamic regime's brutality, spirited resistance by women, and stone-age thinking by mullahs, including blaming women with improper hijabs for dearth of rain and appeal to "maddah"s instead of specialists to solve socioeconomic problems. [Bottom center] NYT chart: US population distribution (see item 3 below). [Bottom right] 3D street art.
(2) "Catch Me If You Can": This was the title of a 2002 Steven Spielberg movie, with Leonardo Dicaprio in the title role, Frank, a skilled forger who passed himself as a doctor, lawyer, and pilot, reveling in being pursued by an obsessed FBI agent (played by Tom Hanks) and evading him at every turn. Well, that was semi-fiction. Now, Congressman George Santos gives us a real-life version that puts Frank to shame. He constructed a fictional biography for himself and had a private company & a fundraising PAC, both of which used the same Florida address. He will definitely go down for violating campaign-finance laws.
(3) US population distribution by age: The boomers were in their 50s and early 60s when the economy began to emerge from the Great Recession. Today, nearly all of them are in their 60s and 70s, and well over half are past the traditional retirement age of 65. Some plan to keep working into their 70s or beyond.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Five days left to a showdown in Congress: The US will reach its debt limit on January 19!
- For the first time in 12 years, Santa Barbara County's Cachuma Lake is full: It is expected to spill today.
- Utah's Great Salt Lake could be gone by 2028 if water inflows aren't restored, according to Science journal.
- Iranians are taking down names of judges who sign street protesters' execution orders for future prosecution.
(5) Yesterday was Friday the 13th, triggering this Facebook memory from Jan. 13, 2017: This year, the scariest day isn't Friday the 13th, but Friday the 20th (Trump's inauguration day).
(6) Book review: Gladwell, Malcolm, The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by the author, Pushkin Industries, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Malcolm Gladwell is known for his best-selling books on social psychology. This book is different, although, like most modern tales, it does intersect with social psychology. It tells the story of how air-combat technology developed following World War I, which saw fighter planes and bombers used toward its end. From the first deployment of airplanes by the US Army (there was no Air Force at the time), air combat was seen as the future of modern warfare.
The book title's "Bomber Mafia" refers to a group of about a dozen well-meaning veteran pilots from World War I, who considered strategic/precision air warfare a more humane way of fighting wars, in comparison with bloody trench combat, which was dominant in World War I. Targeting an enemy's critical military and associated ammunitions and supplies factories would curtail its ability to fight, thus winning the war with a fairly small number of casualties, their thinking went.
Things didn't quite go according to this prediction, but air combat did play an outsize role in World War II and all the wars since. As we look to modern wars, including the one now raging in Ukraine, we see that bombing campaigns, both via conventional aircraft and through the use of missiles & armed drones, inflict major civilian casualties. And, of course, there was nothing strategic or precise about dropping two atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki or carpet bombings with napalm in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam! Gladwell's description of how napalm was first tested on Harvard University's soccer field and later by demolishing mock-ups of Japanese villages on military installations is particularly gripping.
During early stages of World War II, fighter planes and bombers were used quite successfully by allied forces, given the compactness of the conflict zone in Europe. Later, when the war expanded to the Pacific theater against the Japanese, the US had a major problem. Bomber planes at the time had a maximum range of 2000 miles, which meant they could reach targets 1000 miles away. Japan was significantly further from the US or allied countries in South Asia. In short order, a super-fortress bomber with a range of 3000 miles was under development, which, combined with the offensive to take over the Japan-controlled Mariana Islands, provided the means of attacking Japan from the air.
Gladwell discusses at length the capabilities of Norden Bomb Sight, an analog control system developed single-handedly by Carl L. Norden. The device made adjustments for speed, altitude, wind, and rotation of the Earth, allowing precise bombardment of critical targets from high above. When applied to bombing campaigns against Japan, however, the Norden Bomb Sight proved less successful, forcing the US back to the strategy of indiscriminate bombing of Tokyo. In the most-destructive bombing raid in history, 279 Boeing B-29 super-fortress bombers flattened much of eastern Tokyo, killing over 100,000 civilians by some estimates.
Modern digital computers added significant capabilities for precise targeting from the air. Additional leaps forward are being provided with advanced sensing and navigation technologies, driven by AI. In the end, it seems, the Bomber Mafia have been proven right in their predictions. But, needless to say, these advances have not eased our worries about improper use of deadly force in conducting wars. Technology has provided many answers, but humans may not be asking the right questions.
2023/01/13 (Friday): Today's blog entries are my reviews of two alternative-history books.
(1) Book review: Zinn, Howard, A People's History of the United States: 1492—Present, unabridged 34-hour audiobook, read by Jeff Zinn, Harper Audio, 2009 (original first-edition hard-cover published in 1980).
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I first read this important book more than a decade ago. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the exact dates of reading the book or the notes I usually take as I read, so I decided to re-examine the book for the sole purpose of writing a brief review. I was motivated in my re-examination in part by coming across Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (2014), one of the many alternative histories inspired by Zinn's work.
My diary notes indicate that on December 19, 2010, I watched "The People Speak," a documentary film based on Zinn's book, in which top performers (Benjamin Bratt, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, Danny Glover, Sandra Oh, Sean Penn, David Strathairn, Marisa Tomei, and others) recreate the voices of American history's most eloquent dissenters who are by and large excluded from the traditional history books.
Zinn's book has been criticized for reading more like sociology than history. Well, this is precisely Zinn's intention! He is essentially redefining history to include ordinary people and social structures, not just what the elites (kings, generals, politicians, business tycoons) thought and did. For Zinn, people's movements are more important than governments and national glorification, manifested in the willingness to go to war.
As an example of how history can be viewed differently, the arrival of Columbus in America and the events that ensued are usually described from the viewpoint of European settlers, with almost no attention paid to what the Native Americans felt or experienced. Stories of slavery can similarly be augmented by including the perspectives of ordinary people and slaves, rather than focusing only on politicians and other powerful people, many of whom owned slaves.
Howard Zinn discussed his magnum opus in this 58-minute "Booknotes" program on CSPAN in Jan. 2000.
(2) Book review: Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by Laural Merlington, Tantor Audio, 2014.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
History, they say, is written by the victors, so it ignores or demonizes the "losers." It's even worse. The powerful dictate how historical narratives are constructed. Much of historical records focus on kings, generals, and politicians, telling us little about how ordinary people lived or what occupied them in various eras. More than a decade ago, I read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Since my original notes were lost, I went back to this important book, for the sole purpose of writing a GoodReads review.
Despite very-positive reviews received, in my opinion, Dunbar-Ortiz's book isn't as compelling as Zinn's. It presents an important viewpoint for sure, but it goes too far in ignoring all but the indigenous peoples' experiences of how the United States came about and prospered. Repeated use of the words "genocide" and "extermination" makes the book a hard sell to white North Americans, who would benefit most from learning about how our nation's prosperity was built on the backs of the continent's original inhabitants, much like it was built through the exploitation of African-Americans.
European settlers of North America adopted the old continent's traditions and laws, among them the "doctrine of discovery," under which when a nation discovers land, it acquires rights on that land. The doctrine was used to legitimize the colonization of lands outside Europe, ignoring the fact that many such lands were already settled and had sizable populations. In the case of the United States, ancestors of Native Americans settled here tens of thousands of years ago, as they moved eastward and then southward from Asia. The land was truly uninhabited at the time, so, it is obvious that they had rights according to the same doctrine of discovery used by European settlers to colonize their lands.
My view that Dunbar-Ortiz might have gone too far should not be interpreted as indifference to the suffering inflicted on Native-Americans by white settlers. White settlers were given not only free reign to drive out the land's original inhabitants, who were called "savages," but were encouraged and rewarded for torching villages and killing men, women, and children. At worst, authorities instituted programs to buy skulls and other body parts of Native-Americans from settlers and, at best, they simply looked the other way, occupying themselves with the affairs of the East Coast, as atrocities took place to their west.
Over time, the viewpoint that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" (a statement attributed to President Andrew Jackson) was replaced by a desire to return some land to Native-Americans, allowing them to live independently and by their own time-honored traditions. Accordingly, the 1851 Indian Appropriations Act was passed to create a collection of Native-American reservations. Unfortunately, over the past half-century, the management of these reservations fell prey to corporate greed, which nullified much of the original intent. Gambling casinos mushroomed to generate income, little of which was kept and spent on the reservations, and traditions fell by the wayside.
2023/01/12 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The young Iranian woman who lost one eye when security forces shot her in the face, thinks that she will see the day she has been dreaming of. [Top center] An Iranian woman's thoughts on Mothers' Day and Women's Day (see the last item below). [Top right] Furor over Charlie Hebdo cartoons (see the next item below). [Bottom left] Multicolored leaves, photographed during this afternoon's walk. [Bottom center] Flooded neighborhood in Merced, California: Seventeen have died so far, including a 5-year-old who was swept out of his mother's arms and is presumed dead. [Bottom right] Sunset over Goleta's Devereux Slough, photographed near the end of my walk this afternoon.
(2) Iran's Commander-in-Chief of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has publicly threatened the French weekly Charlie Hebdo with revenge over the publication of Khamenei cartoons: He was clearly signaling terrorist attacks, because he said "you can arrest the revenge-takers, but the dead will not come back." What more do Western countries need to declare the entire IRGC, and not just its Quds Force, a terrorist entity?
(3)Immigrants and the US tech industry: A study covering the period 1990-2016 finds:
- Immigrants account for a quarter of STEM workers.
- Immigrants constitute 16% of inventors, producing a quarter of all patents.
- Immigrants are responsible for 36% of innovations.
(4) Canada bans Iranian regime officials & their family members: Those already in Canada will be expelled.
(5) SoCalGas customers have been warned about potential doubling or tripling of January bills: The cold snap has delivered a double-whammy. First, the high demand has affected market prices. Second, high usage will push many customers to the upper usage tiers, with significantly higher per-unit prices. A natural question is why the price of an essential commodity such as natural gas should be controlled by market speculators. We in California are minimally affected by this greed, but those living to our east already have huge heating bills, even without the market shenanigans. Americans deserve answers! [Image of SoCalGas message]
(6) Iran's Minister of Oil, August 2022: Europeans will face a tough winter. Iran has plenty of oil & gas production and can help bridge the supply gap. Iran's Minister of Oil, January 2023: I ask all Iranians to save on gas consumption, wear extra clothing, & use thick curtains. [Tweet, with video]
(7) Final thought for the day (from an Iranian woman): The birthday of Fatima, Prophet Muhammad's daughter, isn't my Mothers' Day or Women's Day! Fatima was married at 9 and died at 18, doing nothing other than bearing children during her short life. I can think of no contribution she made to the well-being of women. Women's Day for me is Zhina/Mahsa Amini's birthday, Gohar Eshghi's birthday, Nasrin Sotoudeh's birthday. With so many role models among Iranian women, every day is Women's Day! Every day is Mothers' Day!
2023/01/11 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Giant sequoia nicknamed "Mark Twain": This 1341-year-old tree was cut in 1892 by two men who spent 13 days sawing it. [Center] Believe it or not: This house was not toppled by a storm; it was built upside-down! [Right] Glacial mass loss scales linearly with air temperature increase, according to research published in Science journal.
(2) Can we be in a drought and drown in floodwater? In Santa Barbara, the last rainstorm elevated Lake Cachuma's water level by 36 feet, changing it from 31% to 75% full. The water level is still rising, and another 4-day rain event is on its way! However, even if Cachuma fills up and spills, as expected, it does not mean the end of our decade-long drought. Drought is a long-term phenomenon. Just as a couple of snowstorms and deep freezes don't mean that global warming is a hoax, you can have one or two years of above-average rainfall and still be well below-average on the scale of decades. We should continue our water saving practices even after Cachuma Lake fills up.
(3) New Yorker cartoon caption of the day: "We've trained the AI art generator so well that it now feels too insecure about its work to make any art."
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Failure of FAA computer system grounds all US domestic flights for several hours today.
- The #WomanLifeFreedom uprising is Iran's first-ever political movement with no religious undertones.
- Panel of 2022 science Nobel Laureates engages in a conversation with Zeinab Badawi. [47-minute video]
- Trump Org. CFO gets 5 months in jail: A black man would get a longer sentence for stealing a loaf of bread!
- Nasrin Sotoudeh's 2023 book, Prison Letters, is available on-line for free, to read or download.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 11, 2015: Why "you can't compare apples to oranges" is misleading!
(5) Free PDF book: Iran Academia's Persian edition of Judith Butler's The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (2020; translated by Mahsa Assadollahnejad) is available on-line, free of charge.
(6) On Iran's regime insiders jumping ship: Increasingly, high-level officials of Iran's Islamic regime and their family members are fleeing the country and seeking asylum in the West. I have a hard time believing that these people have not already filled their pockets from their special insider status or that they have suddenly grown a conscience, nearly 44 years after usurping power. I wish there were a body that could screen such people to verify their stories and force them to reveal some actionable info about the regime and its inner workings, in order to save future lives. It's just too easy to claim personal hardship and be rewarded with a comfortable life in a free country, something that isn't available to most Iranians! [Persian version]
(7) Alternative facts from President Raisi's VP for women's affairs: "We will publish data on Iranian women's better conditions compared with American women!" [Meme]
(8) The idea of blocking the sun to combat climate change returns: A 2-person start-up company, Make Sunsets, has launched weather balloons filled with reflective sulfur particles into the sky over the coast of Baja California, a first-of-its-kind field test of a climate intervention method known as geoengineering.
2023/01/10 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Cartoon of the day: Khamenei serves the tasty Iran cake to Russia and China. [Top center] Dalian Castle Hotel, China. [Top right] Snow sculpture of #MahsaAmini in Fuladshahr, Isfahan, Iran. [Bottom left] Math puzzle: How full is the bottle? [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Find the circle's radius R. [Bottom right] Jonathan Weisman's (((Semitism))) (see the last item below).
(2) Islamic government is all about brutality and violence: Admission by Iran's Supreme Leader in a speech 22 years ago, when he cited Prophet Mohammad entering Mecca, naming a number of individuals, and ordering that they be killed on sight (no due process, no trial, nothing). [Tweet, with video]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Iran's IRGC Commander threatens revenge against Charlie Hebdo for publishing cartoons of Khamenei.
- Daughter of German journalist Jamshid Sharmahd, on trial in Iran for "Corruption on Earth," asks for help.
- Iranian satirist/poet known as Mr. Haloo is interviewed in London, during a #WomanLifeFreedom rally.
- Classified documents found in former Biden office complicate DOJ's pursuit of Trump's documents case.
- The Golden Globe Awards ceremony was held tonight. Here's a complete list of nominees and winners.
- Heavy rains have stopped for now (until Friday): Paddle-boarding on the streets of Goleta! [Video]
- Creeks in Montecito, to the south of Santa Barbara, are raging at near-overflow levels but holding on.
(4) People think of Elon Musk as the force behind Tesla and Space-X: However, there are other businesses associated with him, including NeuroLink, which is potentially even more impactful than Tesla and Space-X. Musk's neurofactory is vertically integrated, designing and building all the required parts and even planning to do surgical operations for installing brain implants they produce on site. [7-minute video]
(5) Book review: Weisman, Jonathan, (((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump, St. Martin's Press, 2018. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Jonathan Weisman is an editor with NYT and author of the novel No. 4 Imperial Lane. The triple-parentheses notation has been used by on-line trolls to flag Jews or Jewish-sounding names on social media for additional harassment by other anti-Semites, a sort of anti-Semitic hashtag for crowds who see Jews behind every social, economic, and politica ill.
After decades of the Jewish identity fading into the background, it suddenly became front-and-center, making Jews self-conscious and defensive about their political views, including the strength of their support for Israel. They also had to get a quick education on dealing with on-line trolls, hate e-mails, and defacing of their houses and other belongings. Many went out and bought guns. Jewish journalists were targets of particularly vicious attacks, which were invariably mixed with messages of sexual violence in the case of women. Even though Jews were frequent targets, other non-Christian and non-White groups were also trolled and harassed, both verbally and physically.
This fascinating and informative book, by an author who admits to not having had a Jewish self-identity before the Trump years, consists of the following chapters, sandwiched between an introduction and back-matter, including notes.
1. Complacency: For decades, anti-Semitism existed below the surface in the US, with many Jews living fairly comfortable lives either unaware of it or choosing to ignore it. Incidents rarely made national news, to the extent that people in other countries thought anti-Semitism doesn't exist here.
2. The Israel Deception: The state of Israel and its policies (building settlements on Palestinian lands, in particular) provide a popular refrain among anti-Semites and have also caused divisions among American Jews, with one group calling others fostering lukewarm support for Israel "self-hating Jews."
3. The Unheard Thunder: Anti-Semitism, along with other hate ideologies, bubbled up to the surface, in part as a result of Barack Obama's election to US presidency triggering the alt-right movement and, later, with the rise of Trumpism. The "Jews will not replace us" mantra went ignored by most Jews.
4. Stand Up or Ignore: Jews faced a dilemma in the era of Trump. Some ignored the bullies, in the hopes that they would return to their caves. Others engaged in legal and other actions in response to actual harm, not just to protest. Tribalism gradually dominated liberal, internationalist views.
5. Toward a Collective Response: In this final chapter, the author proposes the unification of American Judaism around the defense of self and other groups who are even more vulnerable. Jews should remember Timothy Snyder's advice that "Life is political, not because the world cares about how you feel, but because the world reacts to what you do."
Whereas all Americans, indeed most world citizens, have been aware of the rise of anti-Semitism and other hate ideologies under Trump, this book provides much-needed details and context for understanding how the ghoul of hatred was unleashed by Trump and Trumpism. It will take decades to put the genie back in the bottle and return to the pre-Trump status-quo, which wasn't an ideal state of affairs by any measure.
One shortcoming of the book is that it fails to mention the anti-Semitism of the left, fueled by its pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli stance.
2023/01/09 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The new era of McCarthyism has begun in the US. [Top center] Math puzzle: The nested radical involving all natural numbers, in order, has a value less than 1.76. If we use only prime numbers, the value of the nested radical obviously increases. Show that the latter value is finite and find an upper bound for it. [Top right] Gobekli Tepe in Turkey: The oldest known megalith in the world, at around 11,000 years. [Bottom left] UCLA Bilingual Lectures on Iran (Sunday, Jan. 22, 2023, 11:30 AM PST, in Persian):
Nadereh Chamlou, "What Drives Iran's Population Rejuvenation Policy?"
Mansoureh Shojaee, "One Century and Two Uprisings Toward the Women's Liberation Movement" (Zoom registration). [Bottom center] Egg-carton patent diagrams from 1969. [Bottom right] IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk for January: I will speak on Jan. 18, 2023, under the title "Women in Science and Engineering: A Tale of Two Countries" (6:30 PM, Rusty's Pizza, 5934 Calle Real, Goleta; Registration; PDF slides). Other offerings of this talk are being scheduled.
(2) Ninety-percent of Californians are under flood watches: More than a dozen deaths have already been reported. High winds and heavy rainfall flooded roads and brought down giant trees in Santa Barbara and Goleta. This morning, the road I usually take to drive into campus was flooded and alternate roads were congested as a result. This entire week will be rainy, except possibly for Wednesday & Thursday. UCSB has cancelled classes for tomorrow and the rest of today.
(3) A primary reason for inflation is outrageously-high corporate profits: Corporations took advantage of people having a bit more money to spend during the pandemic (e.g., due to reduced driving and getting relief checks) to raise the prices of essential goods.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- NYT publishes list of Iranians executed or sentenced to death in Islamic regime's protest crackdown.
- Intruders stole e-mail addresses of 200+ million Twitter users and posted them on a hacking forum.
- Columbia U. hires Hillary Clinton as global affairs professor at its School of International and Public Affairs.
- The story of Iran's ongoing revolution, told effectively in a multimedia presentation. [65-minute video]
(5) Five US universities produce 1/8 of tenure-track professors: UC Berkeley, Harvard, Michigan (Ann Arbor), Wisconsin (Madison), Stanford. Eighty-percent of professors earned their PhDs at 20% of universities.
(6) How I spent my winter break: Edward Tian, 22, spent his winter break at a local coffee shop creating GPTZero, an app for quickly and efficiently telling if an essay was written by a human or by AI.
(7) Final thought for the day: Iran's Islamic regime is smearing Western women to cover up its own misogynistic policies. Supreme Leader Khamenei has opined that Iranian women are placed on pedestals, while Western women are suffering! Multiple state-TV programs have featured "experts" who claim Western women cannot advance in their careers unless they submit to sexual demands. These are desperate reactions of a brutal, patriarchal regime to the growing strength of Iran's #MeToo movement and intensifying feminist-led street protests against the mullahs. #WomanLifeFreedom
2023/01/08 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Technology allows us to build ever-taller buildings with relatively small footprints: But is this a wise move? [Top center] Abraj Kudai (hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia): Seven years in the making, with construction halted multiple times due to financial problems, world's largest hotel features twelve 30-48-story towers, 10,000 rooms, and 70 restaurants. [Top right] Man, Country, Development (see the next item below). [Bottom left] New Yorker cartoon of the day: "Do we have a speaker yet? Do we have a speaker yet? Do we have a speaker yet?" [Bottom center] IranWire cartoon of the day: Instagram rewards Raisi's murderous record and his blocking of Instagram & other social media for Iranian people with a blue tick mark! [Bottom right] Math puzzle: Clearly, if you increase the radius of a circle by r, its perimeter increases by 2πr. Show that, under certain conditions, if you "fatten" any smooth curve by r, its perimeter increases by 2πr.
(2) Man, Country, Development: While contributions of men in the ongoing uprising in Iran cannot be denied, this slogan is promoted by Iran's brutal Islamic regime and its allies to dilute the focus on women and freedom in #WomanLifeFreedom. It is sort of like White Supremacists in the US chanting "All Lives Matter," which, even though true, is designed to divert attention from the maltreatment of Black Americans. [Persian version]
(3) Brazil has its version of Jan. 6, on Jan. 8: Supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who fled to Florida after losing a run-off election, storm the parliament and supreme court buildings.
(4) Iranian singer/songwriter Parvaz Homay apologizes for performing in a concert honoring Qasem Soleimani: He claims that he and his bandmates were tricked by being told that their performance would be recorded for archiving in a closed session, not in front of an audience. [Tweet, with video]
(5) Marking the 3rd anniversary: Remembering the 176 innocent victims of Ukrainian Airlines Flight PS752 downing on January 8, 2020, by Iran's Islamic regime.
(6) The holiday break is finally over and UCSB classes begin tomorrow amid expected heavy downpours. I will be teaching a graduate course on parallel processing, whose Web site has been updated and is ready to go. Research topics have already been specified for this homework/research-based course, with flipped classes.
(7) UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran (virtual event): Dr. Saeed Paivandi (U. Lorraine) spoke in Persian today under the title "The Results of Four Decades of Authoritarian Islamization of Education in Iran."
Islamic Republic of Iran has proceeded to Islamicize K-12 education in multiple rounds, since taking over in 1979. Religious education isn't limited to courses labeled as such. In history, in social science, in literature, even in math, Islamic content has been added. As an example, a word problem in math might involve computing the number of attendees at Friday prayers.
Besides adding Islamic content, gender inequity is built into the curricula. Much effort is devoted to justifying inequality between the sexes. Women are rarely depicted in pictures and, when they are, they are shown engaging in what Islamists view as appropriate activities for women: cooking, cleaning, sewing, or taking care of children. When men and women appear in the same picture, they are either segregated or are involved in private/home/family activities. Men & women are not shown together in public or professional settings.
Islamic education tries to crush individuality: Notions of beauty, love, affection, joy, and music are totally missing from textbooks. Children are indoctrinated to suspect or hate "others." The word "enemy" is used liberally to refer to non-Muslims. Until very recently, social media were not mentioned in textbooks. Now, social media and satellite TV channels are mentioned, but in a negative way, warning students of their dangers.
When virtual education became prevalent due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on-line activities increased significantly, providing students with many educational and information resources, from both domestic and international providers. Iran's youth, including school children, have been exposed to alternative lifestyles through the Internet and wonder why they can't live as they like. Iran's Islamic regime views cyberspace as an existential threat and is bent on controlling access to on-line content from abroad.
Ironically, despite Islamists having full control of the Ministry of Education, which dictates curricula and textbooks nationwide, from time to time, regime officials complain about insufficient Islamic content at schools. Clerical opposition to modern schools has a long history. A century ago, conservative clerics and owners of traditional "maktabs" physically attacked modern schools and in many cases burned them to the ground. For example, the trailblazing Roshdieh School in Tabriz was destroyed multiple times.
While Dr. Paivandi's focus was on K-12 education, Islamization in higher education has been discussed and attempted in various forms, but due the relative independence of universities and faculty members, such efforts have been even less successful.
[Selected slides]
2023/01/06 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Historic Wikipedia photo depicting Jews of Iran (see the next item below). [Top center] New Yorker cartoon of the day (re Kevin McCarthy): "You've made some headway with the undead, but the creepy-doll caucus still has more demands." [Top right] The city of Derinkuyu once housed 20,000 people in underground tunnels spanning 18 levels. [Bottom left] Amazon's HQ2 in Virginia will feature a walkable ramp, resembling a mountain hike, wrapping around the building. [Bottom center] Passenger trains: The United States vs. Europe. [Bottom right] The double-decker Brent Spence Bridge (see item 3 below).
(2) History of the Jews of Iran: This topic has been on my mind for at least a decade. From time to time, I return to sources that I have studied in the past to see if I can make headway along the path of discovering where my ancestors came from and how they ended up in Iran's Kurdistan region. Here are two key sources.
- A History of Ancient Israel: From the Patriarchs Through the Romans
[My 4-star review]
- Comprehensive History of the Jews of Iran: The Outset of the Diaspora
[My 4-star review]
(3) US infrastructure: The double-decker Brent Spence Bridge, which connects Kentucky to Ohio, has been deteriorating for decades. Some 180,000 vehicles cross it daily and it is responsible for 3% of the national GDP. Finally, President Biden is providing $1.6 billion in federal funds toward the estimated $3.6 billion cost of building a replacement bridge. Kentucky and Ohio will provide $1 billion each.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Britain to declare the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, not just its Quds Force, a terrorist group.
- The brutal Islamic regime of Iran executed two more young protesters after sham trials. [Image]
- Kevin McCarthy elected speaker of the US House of Representatives after 4 days and 15 rounds of voting.
- Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei, addressing a group of women: "Western women are truly suffering."
- Protractor in the toilet: Mathematical explanation for how to use the toilet if it is installed to face Mecca!
- Math humor: Too much "pi" gives you a large circumference!
(5) Second anniversary of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol: Don't let the clown-show unfolding in the US House of Representatives distract you from remembering & reflecting upon one of the darkest days in US history. Republicans are steadily moving us toward the pre-Civil-War era!
(6) Following Khamenei's lead, who said Western women suffer: "Expert" on Iran's state TV claims that Western women cannot advance to top positions without submitting to sexual demands, even at universities! This is part of the Islamic regime's response to Iran's #MeToo movement. [Tweet, with video]
(7) Some of the opposing views of the late Ayatollah Montazeri which led to his being kicked out from Khomeini's inner circle and confined to house arrest in his final years.
[Video]
(8) Final thought for the day: "Nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist-deep in gasoline, one with 3 matches, the other with 5." ~ Carl Sagan
2023/01/05 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & right] Cover images of some of the 122 books I read in 2022 (from my GoodReads annual report). [Top center] Mario Livio's Why? (see the last item below). [Bottom left] A pictorial on the rich history of designs on mosque walls and domes. [Bottom center] Profile picture I used on AAAS Community Page to introduce myself (see the next item below). [Bottom right] The only complete set of intact Roman walls: You can find them surrounding the entire old town in the city of Lugo, northern Spain.
(2) Here is what I shared to introduce myself on the community page of AAAS: My name is Behrooz Parhami. I am a professor at UC Santa Barbara. In two months, I will celebrate 50 years in academia (12 years in Iran, 38 years in USA/Canada). My training and expertise are in computer engineering, with specific focus on computer architecture. Outside my areas of technical research, I am passionate about gender equity, social justice, and technology ethics. I also devote much time to mathematical/logical puzzles, both as pastimes and as teaching tools. I joined AAAS to better follow general science news. I believe AAAS provides a single trusted source to replace various ad-hoc sources I'd been using for decades, so I hope it'll save me some time as well.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- California braces for more flooding, as severe storm approaches: Governor declares state of emergency.
- Tech news: Meta fined $414 million for personalized-ad practices that violate EU's data-privacy laws.
- At least five young Iranian women face inhumane conditions, torture, and humiliation in prison.
- Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti is greeted by family & friends upon her release from prison on bail.
- To prevent cheating during university entrance exams, Iran plans a nationwide Internet shut-down.
- Paul Simon: An extraordinary songwriter with many hit songs to his credit. [5-minute video]
- The greatest hits of singer/songwriter Paul Simon (96-minute audio file; 20 songs).
- The most-popular song for each month of the 1960s (the Beatles dominated, of course). [26-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Jan. 5, 2021: On engineers chasing dollars instead of important problems.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 5, 2019: Turkish music based on a traditional Iranian folk song.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 5, 2018: When Iran's Supreme Leader characterized feminism as a Zionist plot!
- Facebook memory from Jan. 5, 2016: When a mob torched Saudi Arabia's embassy in Tehran.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 5, 2015: Witty Persian verse by Saa'eb Tabrizi, knocking clerics & their turbans.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 5, 2011: Interpreting what your kid's teacher says about him/her.
(4) Book review: Livio, Mario, Why? What Makes Us Curious, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by Arthur Morey, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2017.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In this wonderful book, astrophysicist Mario Livio, a best-selling author of science texts, probes the question of human curiosity, our "engine of discovery," via the stories of two icons of curiosity and innovation: artist/technologist Leonardo da Vinci [1452-1519] and physicist Richard Feynman [1918-1988]. What made these two icons, separated in time by nearly five centuries, curious? It is only natural to be curious about the nature of curiosity!
I had previously read multiple books about both da Vinci and Feynman, but seeing the two geniuses discussed and compared side-by-side adds some important elements to their stories and to our understanding of what they accomplished. Beginning as an artist, da Vinci, who was rather weak in math, ended up making significant contributions to science and technology. Feynman proceeded the opposite way: He was trained as a physicist but developed a keen interest in art and made significant headway in drawing and painting. So, an important aspect of both geniuses was a synergy between art and science.
The notebooks left behind by da Vinci, 15,000 pages in all, tell us almost all we need to know about him. He began writing in them in his late 30s, so it is estimated that he wrote an average of 1.5 pages per day, non-stop, for nearly 30 years. He was extremely focused when something caught his fancy, but also could get easily distracted, abandoning certain topics and leaving many projects unfinished.
Feynman, too, tackled many problems. He is, of course, famous for being one of three awardees of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics, for fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics. But he also made many other contributions to physics and to popularizing science through his writings. His participation in the development of the atomic bomb and service on the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster are among his other claims to fame.
One commonality between da Vinci and Feynman is that they liked to tackle problems beginning with first principles, instead of relying on earlier work reported in books and other publications. Feynman, though, was by no means a loner. He talked to many ultra-curious people, such as an astrophysicist who was also a superstar rock-guitarist and an astronaut with degrees in computer science, biology, literature, and medicine.
There is no doubt that some degree of curiosity provides an evolutionary advantage, so curiosity must be an innate feature of us humans. But, if we believe the oft-given advice, "curiosity killed the cat," too much of it may be detrimental to our well-being. Livio does not provide adequate answers to why we humans are so curious and which brain mechanisms are responsible for curiosity, but he leaves us much better-informed about the nature of curiosity and how to nurture it in ourselves and others.
2023/01/04 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Did you know that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is empty inside? Its only purpose was to serve as a bell tower. [Center] My conference keynote/opening address (see the next item below). [Right] William Frenkel's Love and Math (see the last item below).
(2) My keynote/opening address at Iran's Fourth National Informatics Conference, January 4-5, 2023: This morning, at 9:00 AM Iran time (9:30 PM Tuesday, PST), I spoke in Persian under the title "A Realistic Assessment of Intelligent Behavior and Machine Learning." [Conference Web site] [Conference program]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A score of Republicans opposed to Kevin McCarthy block his selection as House Speaker in 3 voting rounds.
- A serious injury in football has us concerned: But, in a few days, we'll forget, as we do with mass shootings.
- Economics papers by women authors spend much longer in peer review than papers by male authors.
- Political humor: Islamic Republic of Iran wins the Best Regime Award. [12-minute video] [English] [Persian]
(4) Book review: Frenkel, Edward, Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by Tony Craine, Gildan Media, 2013.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In this book, mathematician Edward Frenkel (UC Berkeley) tells two intertwined stories. One story focuses on the wonders and beauty of mathematics, not the math we are taught at school (which he likens to an art class teaching you only how to paint a fence, never even mentioning the works of van Gogh and Picasso), but math in its full glory. The other story is that of Frenkel himself, who as a young Jewish man endured a discriminatory educational system in the Soviet Union, which severely limited his choice of universities to attend and subjects to study.
Through sheer determination and support of a few mentors, over many years, both inside and outside the Soviet Union, Frenkel became one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century, working on one of the biggest and most-exciting ideas in today's mathematical landscape: The Langlands Program, which allows mathematicians to link and translate ideas between different branches of math; a kind of unified theory of math. This program has already opened up new avenues, allowing previously intractable problems, such as Fermat's Last Theorem, to be solved.
I picked up the book with some skepticism, thinking that it was one of those wishy-washy "love is math, math is love" kinds of books. Soon after getting into the book, I realized that it was a serious math book. In fact, much of the math described by Frenkel went over my head, despite his efforts to simplify and use analogies. The "love" part concerns mostly Frenkel's love affair with math, making the book a kind of love letter.
Frenkel tells us that much of mathematics is abstract and has no obvious connection with reality. There is only one mathematics that exists, independent of us. We do not invent math, but discover bits & pieces of it. If we fail to discover something, someone else will discover it at a later time, which will be exactly the same thing we would have discovered, had we been successful.
Frenkel emphasizes the notion of symmetry as an important mathematical property that simplifies our studies. Symmetries exist in physical objects (a table or a globe) and in abstract constructs. Evariste Galois was a key figure in shaping our understanding of symmetries. In algebra, symmetry may mean that one can interchange two variables without changing the nature of their relationship. A primary example of the latter kind of symmetry exists in electromagnetics, where the roles of electricity and magnetism are interchangeable.
After writing the book, Frenkel decided to turn it into a film, to convey his deep emotions about math in the language of art. The 27-minute film, by Reine Graves & Edward Frenkel, is entitled "Rites of Love and Math."
2023/01/03 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Someone came up with this temporary fix, until Donald Trump is put in a real prison! [Center] Math puzzle: What is the ratio of the circle's area to the square's area in this diagram? [Right] Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole (see the last item below).
(2) A Harshad number is divisible by the sum of its digits: Having more than two consecutive Harshad years is quite rare (separated by more than 1000 years before and after 2022-2025, i.e., 1014-1017 & 3030-3033).
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Iran's mullahs unleash their cyber-army on activists trying to form a coalition against them. [Tweet images]
- Bahar Choir dedicates this song to Iranian parents whose children lost their lives in the quest for freedom.
- The Value of Rethinking Deeply-Held Beliefs: PBS "Firing Line" interview with Adam Grant.
- Why Did We Stop Believing that People Can Change? New York Times guest essay by Rebecca Solnit.
- The older we get, the more we need our friends, and the harder it is to keep them, writes Jennifer Senior.
- Benefits of Not Being a Jerk to Yourself: In this TED talk, Dan Harris advises us to high-five our demons.
(4) Children are being killed in Iran: Physically, by being shot on the streets, and emotionally, by taking their parents away from them. Shame on Iran's brutal Islamic regime! The free world must close IRI embassies and expel their terrorist diplomats. #WomanLifeFreedom [Tweet, with video]
(5) Book review: Toltz, Steve, A Fraction of the Whole, unabridged 25-hour audiobook, read by Colin McPhillamy & Craig Baldwin, Recorded Books, 2008.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This dark novel tells the story of the Dean family in Australia, with three main characters: The narrator Jasper, a boy experiencing a roller-coaster-like journey into manhood with almost no adult supervision, Martin, his father, who relates his failings to his son, and Terry, his sportsman-turned-outlaw uncle, who remained a folk legend even after his death, much to the envy of Martin.
After a suspenseful beginning, the story turns rather slow and sleep-inducing, but I persevered, because the book was recommended to me by a trusted friend. From about a quarter of the way in, the reader becomes engaged when s/he realizes the terrible things that can happen to an intelligent boy who grows up with virtually no support from those around him. The interest builds up further in the final quarter of the story.
Memorable passages include where Jasper realizes that naked women next to poles aren't sexy at all and where he tells us about his father blaming him for having to work, because welfare payments would have sufficed for one person. Then there are interesting philosophical musings, such as:
- "I didn't think anyone who had to demand respect ever got it."
- "Sometimes I think the human animal doesn't really need food or water to survive, only gossip."
- "People carry their secrets in hidden places, not on their faces. They carry suffering on their faces. Also bitterness if there's room."
But there are also dispensable ramblings that reduce the story's appeal. The book could have been made a lot shorter with better editing.
The main strengths of the novel are its intimacy and the dark humor embedded in strikingly unfunny situations. The novel's title is apparently a reference to the fact that each character tells a fraction of the whole story, with those fractions not necessarily fitting together or being consistent with each other or with our view of how the world is supposed to work. The reader has to resolve the ultimate conflict between a father who tries to do the right thing, but is a most-hated man in Australia, and an uncle who robs banks and kills cops, but is broadly admired.
2023/01/02 (Monday): Reviews of two books on artificial intelligence and its promises & pitfalls.
(1) Book review: Russell, Stuart and Peter Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, Pearson, 4th ed., 2021.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I have been following the field of artificial intelligence (AI) as an external observer, ever since I wrote a 1969 term paper entitled "The Computer: Man's New Brain." Recently, I was asked to give a number of talks on AI, along with its technical challenges and social implications, for general audiences, so it was time to refresh/organize my knowledge and bring it up to date by studying a modern reference on the topic, which led me to Russell's & Norvig's book.
This is an authoritative, widely-used book on AI. It contains 28 chapters, structured in seven parts, sandwiched between a preface and two appendices (math background; notes on languages and algorithms). There are also a number of accompanying on-line resources, including the following:
Preface (PDF);
Table of contents (Web page);
Bibliography (PDF);
Index (PDF);
Exercises (Web site);
Figures (PDF);
Code (Web site);
Pseudocode (PDF);
Instructor resources (Web site).
The first author of this comprehensive introduction to AI has also written Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Human Control (Viking, 2019), a book that I highly recommend. The two books collectively cover the technical and social/ethical aspects of AI remarkably well.
(2) Book review: Russell, Stuart, Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Human Control, Viking, 2019. [My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Stuart Russell, a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley, is one of the leading experts in artificial >ntelligence (AI). He has written, with Peter Norvig, a comprehensive and widely used textbook, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (Pearson, 4th ed., 2021), which I will review shortly. He has given numerous invited talks, participated in media interviews, and addressed a UN meeting on autonomous weapons systems. Russell's faculty Web site at UC Berkeley provides descriptions of, and useful links to, his professional activities and technical contributions. Having literally written the book on AI, Russell has become a prominent leader in warning us about its dangers and is helping devise methods for building safer AI systems. He outlines some of his ideas in this domain in an 18-minute TED talk, entitled "Three Principles for Creating Safer AI":
In the preface, Russell informs us that "This [book] matters, not because AI is rapidly becoming a pervasive aspect of the present but because it is the dominant technology of the future." He then proceeds to discuss his ideas in three parts.
Part I (Chs. 1-3): The idea of intelligence in humans and in machines
II (Chs. 4-6): Retaining absolute power over machines that are more powerful than us
Part III (Chs. 7-10): Ensuring that machines remain beneficial to humans, forever
Four appendices explain some of the core concepts underlying modern AI systems. Extensive notes on the 10 chapters and 4 appendices and a comprehensive index follow Appendix D.
In Chapter 1, entitled "If We Succeed," Russell contemplates on the biggest event in the future of humanity, coming up with five candidate scenarios:
- We all die due to climate or some other catastrophe, such as an asteroid impact.
- We all live forever.
- We invent faster-than-light travel and conquer the universe.
- We are visited by a superior alien civilization.
- We invent super-intelligent AI.
He then suggests that the fifth scenario is both more likely to come true and better than the other ones. With super-intelligent AI, we can avoid the first scenario and achieve the second one. We can also ensure the third outcome, if it is indeed possible, and won't need the fourth scenario!
Russell relates that the AI mantra "The more intelligent the better" is a mistake. We should focus not on increasing the machine's intelligence level but on the purpose or goal we put into it, making sure that the purpose is what we really desire. "If we put the wrong objective into a machine that is more intelligent than us, it will achieve the objective, and we lose."
This book is a must-read for everyone, from computer scientists with a basic understanding of AI to members of the general public who are concerned about the future of humanity, as we begin an era of coexistence with super-intelligent machines. Chapter 4, entitled "Misuses of AI," is particularly useful to readers who have not thought about AI's extreme and subtle dangers (both the shooting robot and the persuading/conniving one). It's not too soon to start thinking about the problems arising from all-powerful AI, even if we consider its realization to be decades away.
2023/01/01 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] Let us begin the new year 2023 with hope: For progress, prosperity, accountability, and social justice throughout the world. I have received the accompanying memes from Iran. [Bottom left & center] Today's secret-Santa family gift-exchange, and my gift T-shirt: Most family members joined virtually. [Bottom right] Roland Geyer's The Business of Less (see the last item below).
(2) My New-Year 2023 puzzle: Every year, as a new year number emerges, I try to form the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, ... by putting math symbols (including parentheses) between its digits. For 2023, I have been able to do this for numbers up to 28. The first five appear below as hints and the rest are left to you as challenging puzzles!
0 = 2 * 0 * 23 1 = 2 + 0 + 2 – 3 2 = 2 + 0 * 2 * 3 3 = 2 + 0 – 2 + 3 4 = 2 + 0! – 2 + 3
(3) Properties of the number 2023: At first, the number looks unremarkable, but it has quite a few interesting properties. It is factorized as 7*(17^2). It is represented in hexadecimal as 7e7, which is palindromic. It is a Harshad number, since it is a multiple of the sum of its digits. It is a polite number, because it can be written in 5 ways as a sum of consecutive natural numbers, like 111 + 112 + ... + 127. The 4-by-4 square can be tiled in 2023 ways, using the L-shaped tromino and the monomino (unit square). The next natural number, 2024, is also quite amazing, but that's a topic for next year!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- This is how Ukrainians spent New Year's Eve: With gifts of missiles and bomb-carrying drones from Putin.
- Populists who aren't popular: Former President Bolsonaro flees to Florida as Lula takes over in Brazil.
- Vast US investments in chip-manufacturing capabilities are reminiscent of Cold-War-Era space spending.
- Representation of 2023, using the digits 1-9 in ascending order: 2023 = 12 * 3 * (4 + 5) * 6 + 7 + 8 * 9
- Facebook memory from Jan. 1, 2018: Write your sorrows in the sand and carve your blessings in stone.
(5) Book review: Geyer, Roland, The Business of Less: The Role of Companies and Households on a Planet in Peril, Routledge, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Dr. Roland Geyer, with a graduate degree in physics and a PhD in engineering, is Professor of Industrial Ecology at UCSB's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and a frequent contributor to radio and TV programs covering topics in his areas of expertise. I was lucky to hear the author speak about his book at the December 2022 meeting of IEEE California Central Coast Section in Santa Barbara.
Here is how Geyer describes what motivated him to write this book. Since its inception thirty years ago, environmental sustainability has been based on the concepts of "eco-efficiency" and "win-win." Despite countless eco-efficiency and win-win efforts across the world, the state of the natural environment has further degraded instead of improved. What brought us to the current state of affairs are four key periods or developments.
- The rise of mass production and its attendant economy of scale, as exemplified by Ford Model-T.
- The rise of mass pollution, as city after city in the world became nearly unlivable (London, Los Angeles).
- The rise of mass resistance, as people began to see the scale of environmental disasters (Earth Day).
- The rise of corporate sustainability, or the misguided idea that businesses can be part of the solution.
Geyer explains why our current approach to environmental sustainability was doomed to fail and introduces a new set of principles that together provide a road map, for businesses and for households, to a world in which human prosperity and a healthy environment are no longer at odds.
One reason eco-efficiency hasn't worked is because we tend to use any environmental-impact gains to make/use more of everything. Another problem is measuring impact in relative terms (per pair of sneakers, or per piece of garment, for instance). Such a relative gain is easily wiped out by a significant growth in the market.
There are a few signs of hope, though. For example, technological improvements are making recycling easier and more cost-effective. In my neck of the woods, the Santa-Barbara-County-operated Tajiguas landfill and its state-of-the-art recovery center provide good examples of what is possible if we learn from European efforts and focus on the "net-green" philosophy (business activities that reduce or avoid other activities that have even larger environmental impact, so that overall impact is reduced), along with four pollution-prevention principles described succinctly as "again," "different," "less," and "labor (not materials)."